Spoiler
Karma:
Arm Places:
Scott/Chwoka/Pharms/Felix: 5

Armed Races:
Pharms/Chwoka/Para: 5

SpoilerWhile the rest of our Bastards were off fighting megacorps, petrolheads, and their own personal demons (both drug-induced and cyberterrestrial), what was everyone's favourite ork up to?

Harvestine's fallen off the grid since Episode 4, when she was left with an exploded apartment, a busted-up moped, and under the questionable worship of an up-and-coming civilisation of mole people.

She's luckily been making productive use of her off-screen time - Harv's gone back to school and picked up a few useful spells from Magus Margery, lives in the old groundskeeper's cottage of the Crones' high school base of operations, and even gets to hang out with her sewer-buddies under the grounds of interspecies ambassadoring.

One of these said molefolk is fanning her with a giant palm frond, when it has a dizzy spell and collapses. Being the third fan-bearer this week to do so, Harvestine realises something is amiss and that her loyal worshippers could use an influx of magical herbs and fungi into their collective diet. It dawns on her that it's been a while since she's caught up with the Bastards, and tries having a chat to Peter.

Peter's commlink fritzes on him, so no dice. TNT (as played by Pharmacy for this session) isn't much more helpful on the manashroom front, but does offer to drive his favourite grenadier to the Bastards' shared apartment. He's only been watching chick flicks and getting in one of his sad ruts that him and Harv have been "off" again for the past month, so it's not like he's got much better to do. He swings by in Pete's TNT's Rad Van and picks up Harv, along with an entourage or Molefolk (Fishermen's Friend, Chicken Tonight, Pocari, and Snickers the Secret Service Moleperson).

Outside the apartment, not much is going on except for what appears to be a possessed blender trying to eat a hobo's arm. Harv reckons this is a great chance to test her new Physical Barrier plus Grenade combination, and blows up the kitchen appliance for an appreciative TNT. Vista (guest starring Chwoka), Guy's Fault Sprite, was the one possessing it and declares himself almost impressed by Harvestine's little stunt. He'll forgive her if the highly destructive trio agree to go wreck some things for the hell of it, but Harv's got responsibilities now. She's got molefolk to look after and by damn she's going to look after them.

The trio (two meatbags and the sprite) are led by the molemen and Ben The Wolf to a quickly-exploded sewer grate, where they trudge through Seattle's finest effluent for a bit before running into a pack of Redheads. They meet the only fate you could expect if you badly startled TNT and Harv, and lead the way to a well-guarded door that has all Ben The Wolf's hackles in the air. TNT tries to talk feelings and relationships with Harvestine, who's more interested in whatever's eating magic and threatening her subjects. Vista thinks metahuman emotions are hilarious and keeps mocking the two for indulging in rubbish like mutual affection. Harvestine makes a note to tell Guy to clear out his cache somewhere down the track.

Way too much plastic explosive later, the door still holds, but the ceiling doesn't. A thoroughly alarmed Carlyle, some old geezer who was on the streets above the duo's demolitions party, asks them what the hell they're doing from the fresh whole in the sewer ceiling. They make a run for it, but Harvestine's clumsy attempts to slow the geriatric down with a bit of sneaky magery just pegs her as (obviously) a mage. Oops.

The team regroup at a molefolk base, where Carlyle introduces himself and reckons that they might have mutually compatible goals.

"Libby," Harvestine introduces herself. Vista raises a cybrow and ducks out the back of the cybershack to go check something else

"Carlyle," says Carlyle.

"Carlos," reaffirms Harvestine, as she's already forgotten his name. Vista's back already with a shit-eating polyharmonic tinkling in his grin as he asks Ms Lydia Ko what exactly she's playing at with the fake names. Harvestine asks Carter for a moment and violently threatens Vista with deletion if he goes snooping through her personal information again. Vista just laughs, because most of Harv's threats bank on narking on Vista to Guy. Harvestine destroys her commlink out of frustration, or because she legitimately thinks this would've killed Vista.

Vista goads TNT again, which somehow works as reverse psychology and makes Harvestine angrily heft up TNT by the head and kiss him. Dayum. Carlsberg just kind of ignores this and tells Harvestine that he's going to need door codes, which means he'll need a distraction for the guards around Renraku's headquarters while he sneaks on in. Harvestine's the distraction queen so she sets off, but TNT's got other plans.

Yes, plans that start with G.

The pair and Vista end up on the Crones' sports field, which has quietly overgrown into a full-blown forest. A bunch of liberated zoo animals wander the grounds, and TNT's looking for the perfect target to maim, kill, and present to Harvestine as a symbol of his undying love and biologically appealing skills as a successful hunter-gatherer.

He tackles a giraffe. With his face. Vista helps by opening and closing the bleachers, braining the giraffe until it goes down with a final grenade to the leg. Harvestine and TNT reckon a giraffe is a perfect distraction, which would be even better if it were packed full of plastic explosive, like a Trojan Giraffe or something. Or! If we turned the neck into a grenade launcher. But! Once rigor mortis sets in, getting it across town on the Rad Van'll be too hard. So let's put it on rollerskates!

The two set to work, giggling inside the giraffe's stomach like a pair of six year olds in a cardboard box fort. Vista is put on driving duty, the two still hidden in the giraffe's midsection, hoping to whatever pixellated deities he worships that the braying noises are the two just pretending to be giraffes.

Our power couple reaches their destination, and Vista goes and finds that Clarence guy because he's probably way more interesting than whatever these dipshits are going to do. As it turns out, they get the giraffe safely to the front steps of the Renraku building, but get no further because STAIRS. A ROLLERSKATING GIRAFFE'S GREATEST FOE.

The natural solution is to detonate grenades under its feet and rocket launch it, so Harv and TNT do just that. They proceed to attract a fuckton of guards with guns, and have trouble retaliating when the grenade-launcher giraffe neck goes out of control and starts spinning around like a helicopter blade.

A distraction of the finest calibre the giraffe does make, though, and Vista and Carmel quickly send word that they've got the coordinates. Only thing left to do is extricate themselves from the giraffe torso, so Harvestine and TNT BLOW IT UP. FROM THE INSIDE. Harvestine's Physical Barrier barely protects them as they fly out the already-damaged upper portion of the giraffe in a spray of quadrupedal gore. They high-five, land on a roof, and regroup in the sewers to crack that sucker open. Harvestine and TNT would like to head home and watch Pacific Rim 4 at this point, but Harvestine remembers that her molepeople still need manashrooms. Charlemagne informs Harvestine of a decent crop of manashrooms a ways out of Seattle, and gives her directions. Harvestine pauses only to grab a fresh bag of grenades off her lover (so romantic) before riding off into the desert.

SpoilerExterior. Windswept wastes. A frightening sky in the throes of a violent manastorm. A lone ork on her freshly-repaired moped, making tracks for a green smudge of life on the horizon.

Harvestine thumbs the accelerator; grins with satisfaction at the gentle creak of the chassis underneath. A nice change from the ominous creak it was giving off whenever she accelerated, and indicative of a solid bit of mechanical repair work. I might actually pay him for this, Harvestine thinks to herself.

Magdalene's strapped to the moped's flank; a duffel bag full of grenades (freshly topped up, thanks TNT) slouches across her back like an old cat, companionable only to her and a hot bag of hurt for anyone else. The moped screams, a territorial cry to whatever beasts dwell in the desert.

A totalled van, a lonely shack, and a tree with a katana mark the spot indicated by Caraway. Harvestine considers calling the Bastards, but realises she's out of a commlink. Fuck.

The van's the first thing she drives into, so Harv gives it a once-over. Pack of molemen, in bad shape. Some other guy who's not as important. Harvestine, the sewerfolk queen, Messiah of the Mire, lets the magic flow. The mole people come to, healed.

Harvestine comes to, a conclusion. The shitstain in the back seat is sentient, albeit currently unconscious. JJ. According to her acolytes, JJ was trying to help them gather manashrooms before Harvestine showed up, only to have some other fuckers claim the stash was theirs.

With zero understanding of whatever political forces may be at play here, Harvestine assures the molemen that these are their mushrooms, and she's going to go beat the fuck out of anyone who claims otherwise. She ties up JJ with loose wires, ganks his commlink, tosses him over the shoulder not carrying the grenades and accessories, and bids her molepeople head back toward the city.

---

Shodan, meanwhile, is Shodan. I was going to suggest she was exasperated or annoyed or even bored with the situation, but Shodan's an emotional state in of herself. She's probably reflecting about how things could've gone better, trying to extrapolate which little twists of life got her stuck in an underground bunker with these particular chucklefucks. Peter may or may not be having some kind of magic-induced super-slowed down shutting down of his vital functions after being fried by manalightning, Lydia would love to help him with that problem but doesn't know how, Damien's still asleep in the trunk, and Guy is just typically contemptible.

Oh well, she thinks, at least JJ's probably dead. Her commlink buzzes. It's JJ!

Harvestine tolerates about twenty seconds of misdirected abuse before explaining that she's just rocked up, what are these guys doing out in this storm, she found JJ's useless sack of flesh in a van out yonder so she thought she'd bring him along. Do you guys know where I could find some manashrooms, or some dudes who stole some manashrooms?

Lydia sees a golden opportunity and joins the conference call, asking Harvestine to pass the commlink over so she can "redistribute" the 70,000 Nuyen JJ's been stealing off various folk. The ork howls a "hell no" and claims that she's got no reason to trust some tartbot she's literally met once, and they can get Guy and his sprite entourage to do it. Lydia's cooperative about this, a rare trait for a Quick Dirty Bastard. They let Harvestine into the shack and the concrete bunker underneath the shack.

Harvestine tries to Heal, then to Mindlink with a comatose Peter, but she's too bad at magic to do that. She hops onto the now-available astral plane instead and finds a very suave, well-groomed, and loquacious astral avatar of Peter, while hers is an inexperienced bratty little plant goddess-in-the-making. The two sense a disturbance down one end of the bunker, and Astral Peter is a knowledgeable smug ass about it.

Shodan finds a quiet corner to lament her life choices and to bake a rhubarb pie. The bunker yields very suspect substitutes for essential pie ingredients, but some Shodan-style "persuasion" fuses them into something edible. Her "coercion" of the lighter-powered hotplate is less successful, making it incapable of more than a pittance of heat and an order up of one really really slow-cooked pie.

Suddenly, a ghost! Lydia has no experience with the paranormal so she just tries to find the contact details of a more experienced group in such matters. (Who's she gonna call?????) The manastorm is wreaking havoc with connections to Seattle, so Lydia only manages (through all the static) to ask a friend to watch out for toast. Harvestine attempts to astral suplex the ghost, which resolves itself into the very sexy form of Envy, the Chick From The Noir Episode. It dissipates and reforms as Magus Margery, much to Harvestine's confusion. Peter's no help, he's busy brooding and writing things down in his handy dandy astral projected notebook. Shodan violences the ghost on the physical plane while Harvestine yells at Peter for an explanation on the astral. Guy is either wrestling raw data or his own demons/sprites in the matrix in an attempt to crack the contents of JJ's commlink.

Peter is still writing some allegory for his life and all its fuckups or something. Fucking lit majors. While Harvestine attempts an amateur astral beatdown on an entity she fails to realise is Shodan, the spectral Magus Margery shifts again, this time into Peter. Harvestine would know for sure this was a doppleganger, if, well, she knew what a doppelganger was. It looks more like the Peter we all know and love from the noir session, the dishevelled uninitiated mess still struggling with mescaline withdrawl and random advances from women way out of his league. Harvestine tackles Doppelpeter and punches him in the face.

Peter, you can fucking stop writing already and start helping oh no wait you're writing in reverse your development into a competent human being over your last couple weeks with the Bastards. Ok. You do that. Harvestine is surrounded by more Peters, then another Peter still on the mescaline, a college kid, a child no older than Harvestine's astral avatar.

Peter (the real one, the noir-protagonist-esque author insert astral badass Peter) pauses his scrawlses. Then begins writing from the top. An astral litany, a systematic retcon of his life's fuckups, resolving them into a powerful not-spell with the power to bring him closure, let him shed his mistakes and emerge perfect and divine-

Harv ain't got time for this shit. "KISS HIM," Harvestine roars to Lydia, apparently loud enough to carry across the astral plane and into the ears of our resident AI. She leaps across the bunker and plants a surprisingly competent kiss (which isn't that surprising considering she's in the chassis of a sexbot).

Peter wakes up. The ghosts dissipate. Somewhere else in the bunker, an egg timer goes "ding!". Shodan's travesty of a rhubarb pie is done, unlike Peter's ritual. Peter makes choked noises and starts scrambling for the door, aiming to get hit with another strike from the manastorm. He's still got a chance!

Lydia collars Peter to prevent him doing anything dangerous, which stops him pretty securely. Dude's a twig, after all. That, and the storm's fading. Peter's too emotionally compromised to cry or, god forbid, rage at this development, and just kind of crumples.

Harv saunters back from the astral plane, feeling pretty pleased with herself because she slayed some ghosts or somesuch. "So, are we all done here?" The answer is no, no we're not, because you're the one that needed manashrooms. Everyone's eventually caught up on the fact that Magus Margery also needed the crop, and that presently nobody has it because when they get out to the field (Harv on her moped, Guy and Shodan in the front, Damien asleep, Lydia tending to Peter in the back, JJ unconscious in the boot), there's nothing but tire tracks.

Somehow, despite nobody having appreciable skills to survive anywhere outside a city, the team manages to track the tracks. Guy's comm-cracking efforts yield very little money and quite a few receipts for high-end van porn, also some audio clips of some minion of Ben Bernanke's? If they were paying real attention they might've noticed their Seattle-wide shenanigans were (completely unintentionally) foiling the Federal Ghost Wolf's plans at every turn.

An Aztech building appears on the horizon, flanked by trucks and peppered with guards. Shodan starts getting a closer look through the scope of a sniper rifle, while Lydia, Guy, and the sprites orchestrate a distraction by hacking the trucks and trying to make them drive off. Some Aztech goons floor the brakes, so Shodan and Harvestine floor them in turn with a sniper bullet through the windscreen and a grenade through what's left of the windscreen. The trucks begin to move, and something big and green and pissed-off crashes out the back of one.

It's a snapdragon. A giant, pissed-off flower with vines and thorns and a fire-spitting attack. The guards immediately open fire on it, so Harv buffs it with Shape Plant and takes out a couple of its aggressors with a well-placed grenade. The snapdragon screams with bloodlust and raw power etc, so Harv attempts to Mindlink with it. Trogdor/Lord Snapdragon/S is for Sucks is pleased at her assistance, but furious that these foolish mortals continue their meddlesome science on it, so thank god Harv didn't go to med school instead. It's also furious that his kinsplants are still trapped in the other trucks, so Harv yells at Guy and Lydia to get on that shit and leaps into the fray, Shodan covering her rash ass with the sniper rifle.

Harvestine, Shodan, and Lord Snapdragon down more guards, and Harv uses Shape Plant on another group of the escapees, who are dancing with joy at their newfound freedom. The Shaped ones dance right on up to an Aztech goon and strangle him with vines. D'awwww. Guy begins to scramble the security in the Aztech building by deleting essential files and causing severe system slowdown by way of COPIOUS GIGABYTES OF FINEST VAN PORN.

Peter, meanwhile, snaps out of something and joins Guy, Lydia, and Shodan. He begins to charge a ridiculously large fireball spell, the first in what seems like an eternity of non-lethal magic, drawing even more power from his fetish and through DREAD MAGYKKS UNKNOWN. At least, that's what we can assume he's doing by writing DISCO INFERNO on his arm. Harvestine is not blind to the fuckoff huge gathering of magic up on the ridge where she ditched those other dudes, and tells Lord Snapdragon to gather his underlings around Harv so she can make cover.

The Physical Barrier barely holds. Peter fires one Fireball. Just one. Everything outside the Barrier is reduced to ash. The words on Peter's arm cut into the flesh, drawing blood as payment for the magical influx. Peter heads back into the boot to think about what he's done, where it turns out JJ's coming to.

Harvestine is DELIGHTED to meet a plant. And like, a sentient one, too! She asks if there's anything else she can do for Lord Snapdragon, who mind-roars that he's looking for soil on magically-charged land to settle with his tribe. Harvestine reckons a murderous garden/sentient plants for next door neighbours sounds awesome, and invites them back to the Crones' high school. She then heads back to the van, plants still dancing around her feet, to the sound of several Bastards arguing what to do with JJ. The consensus is to kill him, especially when he's being his usual dickbag self upon interrogation. Harv lifts him by the throat and has a better offer.

JJ can go live with the mole people! Which was what he was doing already, but Harv doesn't actually realise that. The Bastards can keep him political prisoner down there, which means that his commlink, funds, and general identity are at the Bastards' disposal. Harvestine reckons the mole people can be trusted to take care of him without giving him free reign, and it sure beats rotting in a ditch somewhere choking on his own severed genitalia, right?

The deal is sealed with a Hello Kitty commlink which Guy had on his person for reasons unknown, locked down tight with parental controls. Lydia is about to interrogate him on the audio files they've been extracting from his commlink, but Harvestine punches him a little too quickly into unconsciousness. Oops.

The Bastards ride back towards Seattle, with several sprite-piloted trucks full of manashrooms and Lord Snapdragon's troops. The trip's mostly silent, because Damien's still snoring, Shodan's driving and insociable as ever, Peter's in a funk, Lydia's worried about Peter, and Guy is staring out the window with a very uncharacteristic expression at Harvestine on her moped.

The moped squeals to a halt with the city barely in sight. Shodan frowns, hits the brakes, and sticks her head out the window. JJ's commlink begins to air the final voice memo. He's got to hurry. Got to warn them. He's got to warn Margery that it was Bernanke, it was all Bernanke-

The manastorm passed. Passed the farm, marched straight on to Seattle.

Seattle is burning.

SpoilerTwo points in Leadership (2 to raise to rank 1, 4 to raise to rank 2) (6 karma)
Two points in Spellcasting (4 to raise to rank 2, 6 to raise to rank 3) (10 karma)
New active ability: Astral Combat (4 karma)
Gain spellcasting speciality: Manipulation spells (2 karma)

New spells: Heal, Shape Plant, Physical Barrier, Mindlink (No cost because Granola's awesome and Magus Margery's a total bro)

Spoiler
Life was boring. Lydia was cleaning the sink. Peter was speaking Portuguese for some reason. Harvestine is still...somewhere? I think? Anyway, Moss from the Chromes (the scary robo-gang) sent over an invitation to us. It was a Racing Rally at Greenhill, which he persistently reminded us was totally different from the Robo Rally. Shodan said “you guys need a bit of fresh air anyway.” Yeah, true. We need fresh air. And the EIGHT THOUSAND NUYEN PRIZE WOOO.

So. After waving goodbye to Peter, we scoot our butts into the Omnicomet, which Lydia decided to take control despite the fact OTHER people know the directions but whatever. The trip was fairly uneventful other than the fact that the Beanarnke GPS was a piece of shit and we got stuck on the Space Needle and we freefalled into a homeless shelter and crushed a bunch of hobos. Oops. Regardless. Omnicomet with a Hover function? Kick ass.

We got to the school and as expected, it was full of Chromes (the scary members) and Chrome vehicles (the scary robo-cars). It was kind of obvious we are Clearly Outmatched with this amount of mechanical overcompensation, metal, and B.O. So, we decided to call up our contacts. Shodan called up Agatha Withers (nice old lady). Lydia called up Maxine the Machinist (angry short lady).

I, ah. Didn't had any useful contacts. So I decided to call up TNT (not a lady). Yeah. Not a great decision on my part.

It turned out Agatha was joining the race and she was like “I hope to kick your ass in the race, dearie” in the sweetest tone ever. D'aaaaaawww. I don't really want to meet her face to face. TNT answered my call immediately after and I think he enjoys explosions waaaaaaaaaaay too much. Maxime called up last (but that was because she was making scrap metal with her bare hands hardcore) and we went over to her place at Malware Market. I guess?

Maxine started to spitting and swearing with such simultaneous precision that I have to make up a new word for it. It's called “spwearing.” Maxine was all spwearing because the hobo-blood got over Omicomet and it was “FUCKING SHIT-PISS HARD TO REMOVE IT'S PRACTICALLY GLUE YOU KNOW.” And Lydia was like “can you be my co-pilot in the Robo-Rally.” Maxine did this expression that was between angry and surprise and she was like “oh sure, why not.”

And then Maxine and Lydia went off to their own car-mechanic business. Shodan and me were left behind. Except Bourbon came along. Bourbon is this giant troll shopkeeper. He was also the one who tried to sell me a penis-enhancing cyberarm earlier. To Shodan, he was all like “hey, yo, I gotta deal for you.”

Shodan was like “yeah, like what.”

Bourbon was like “Listen, you know Maxine. She's all like DRONES DA BEST EVEN THOUGH CYBERWARE IS CLEARLY BETTER HARF HARF.”

Shodan sighed. This was the time when she decided on pretending to listen or just grenade the person in the face.

“And she is clearly wrong. And short. So I am recruiting you to run in the race as my guinea pig. Er. Evidence. That Cyberware is clearly the superior technology. Kapish?”

Shodan was like, “I guess.”

“EXCELLENT,” and Bourbon let Shodan into his stand. And I was planning on going home until RCA Studios II was like “sup motherfucker. What's the number on your Lynx.”

I gave him the number. Because I am not great at making decisions.

“Good. Now here's the plan. I'm driving. You's gonna be my face. Not my actual face, mind you because my face is simply too sexy to be replaced. Then we are going to win. Don't worry about drone-upgrades, gotta bunch of offshore bank accounts just for that...”

...it was kind of clear that “nope” was not an answer.

We all bought tons of upgrades because ha ha money, who gives a fuck. I'm too lazy to write it down so our shopping receipts are going to be attached at the bottom. I managed to go back to the race first, but mostly because RCA entered us in via Matrix. Shodan came in...empty-handed? She strutted her self to the sign-up desk, mostly because she punched away those in front.

“So what's your name,” the receptionist (reCYBERtionist) was like.

Shodan signed her name all classy-Shodan style in the 'Rigger' section.

“Mm'kay,” the recybertionist was like. “What's your vehicle?”

Shodan signed the “Vehicle” with her name.

The recybertionist's digi-eyes glanced up. “You sure?”

“I am the vehicle,” she snarled. And suddenly a golden halo glowed around her head. Or maybe it was one of her Bourbon augments overheating again.

The recybertionist stared at Shodan, slack-jawed for like three minutes before going “'Kay, sure. Why not.” And he gave Shodan the techno-stamp of entry.

And just when Shodan finished. A familiar-looking van skidded to a halt, accidentally crushing three prone cyber-punks under its wheel. The back door busted open, accidentally snapping off the navy blue thong that was inexplicably stretched over the back-end of the vehicle. Four molepeople came out of the familiar vehicle. And out of the familiar vehicle came out a familiar person.

“Mm, da da mm-da DA da da,” JJ swaggered over to the sign-up desk. He was air-guitaring pretty hard and did a double pirouette up in the air. “Da-daDA-gonna win this motherfuckin' prize. AW YEAH. DA DA da. Gonna win this shit, yo. Da da-mmm-daaa. Oh, hey Guy. Da da doo daa. Mmm da da da.”

Lydia and Maxime all came back uneventfully and damn, the Omnicomet was hella souped up. We and 100000000000000000 [Edit: Guy, it wasn't that much– Lydia] other people were going to the starting line. There was Shodan just doing those weird stretches Olympic people do at the beginning. Lydia and Maxime were giving each other cyber high-fives (and actual high-fives). JJ was doing that very rude gesture where you stick your tongue between your second and third finger. Agatha (whom the insult was for) just licked her index finger and pressed it on her car (?), making a hissing noise between her teeth and--

“Yo Guy.”

“BWUHHH? TNT???” I was like.

“I managed to rig EVERY GODDAMN THING IN THIS BLOCK to go BOOM-BADDA-BING,” he slapped his stubby little knees. “Don't worry payment's on me, amigo.” He gave a wink that didn't help make things get any better.

“WAIT” I was like. “YOU SAID EVERYTH--”

“WELCOOOOOOOOOMMMMME, RACISTS,” Moss's disembodied face appeared in front of the racers (and my incoming nightmares). “TO THE RACING MAAATTTCH.”

“Uh,” Lydia was like. “Isn't it technically be racers?”

Moss glanced at Lydia and shrugged. “To-mae-to. To-mah-to. Same thing. ANNNNYWAAAY, RACIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTS. ON YOUR MARK. GET SET. GOOOOOOOO.”

Annnnd we went off. By “we,” I mean Shodan. Because woah, she just bumrushed out and just cloaked the entire field in a smokescreen. It kind of came out near her butt, which was unfortunate because Moss was like “I guess she was BREAKING IT.” Meanwhile, everyone just groaned at that really bad pun. Needless to say a good portion of the racers railed to the side and smushed into the walls. This was going to be very intense race.

Team Lydiaxine's Omnicomet voltron-ed to the Omnicomet. But flying. They started to carpet-bomb the area with glorious, glorious missiles. Many cars exploded horribly but it looks kind of augmented, so I suspect part of it was CGI. I had my Steel Lynx (my giant robot cat) drenched in hobo-blood so I decided to ram into a car. Because hey, it seemed like a good tactic at the time. Also hobo-blood is hobo-glue. Unfortunately, it was in a rather...compromising situation.

“OOOOOOH LOOK AT THAT LYNX GO,” Moss bellowed in laughter. “THE FASTLLUS AND PHALLOUS no wait that wasn't such a good pun, huh.”

The guy in my dong-car was furious as hell. I kind of feel bad for him because it was my fault. Some of it was because I was going to a major cause of his loss. Some of it was because no one has the right to be some vehicle's symbolic genitals. So I asked Vista to knock him out.

(On a side note, I really don't get Vista. Windows Vista, that is his name. He's all weird and violent. And he doesn't have a face too. He just popped up one day, and later he claimed he was my Paragon, whatever that means, and let's be honest, I kind of want him to go away. But.)

Anyway, me and RCA dumped the guy off on the sidelines via ejector seat. Everyone zoomed into the Malware Market. Apparently, not a lot of the shopkeepers got the message that the Racing Rally was ooOOOOOOOOOON. There were a lot of alleyways and stuff. And screaming people. A lot of things got ran over. I think I ran over a fruit stall. I can't quite remember.

Meanwhile, Shodan scored a Panther XXL.

“Heh. I always was a bit of a cat person,” Shodan smiled marveled at her edge as she disappeared around the corner. Flames, charred body bits, and a hubcap erupted from the nearby alleyway, indicating her “cat” (as in “gun”) was in working order.

“Oh hey, Lydia,” meanwhile, Maxine was like. “Can we pass by Bourbon's stall while you at it?”

“Sure,” and Lydia did.

Maxine proceeded to take out an incendiary grenade and toss it into her rival's workplace. The workplace proceeded to implode in a flurry of flames and cyberparts. The architectural integrity came and went like Halley's Comet and sputtered like the aftermath of Peter's Fading check.

“Wow,” Lydia was like. “A little much?”

“Naw,” Maxine smugly sat down. “Maybe.”

We moved to the sewers, which was practically a dinky stinky hole in the wall. Maxine to Lydia was like “OH SHIT, PILOT CHECK.” And the weird side-wings just fold in and they went in with the wing tips going screeeeeeeeeeeeee on the sewer walls. They did a backflip and they were driving on the ceiling. Hardcore. And pretty soon more vehicles came in. And the thing bottlenecked like hair in a shower drain. I guess at some point Shodan was like “fuck it” and emptied her explosive arsenal in the front.

BOOM. It was pretty boom, alright. Rubble start falling. Cars collapsed like glorified tin-cans. Shodan managed to gymnastics out of the way, because she was basically in the front anyway. Team Mad Max and Loco Lydia spread wings and made it to the highway to Heaven. Well, as for me. I kind of wiped out on the side. I guess my luck had ran out.

But I wasn't going to let my shit-luck get in my way.

I told RCA to torch the dong-car off. So he did, but because I was a STUPID IDIOT and standing in the line of sight of the flamethrower. I was slightly singed and I think my five-nuyen shirt disintegrated halfway. Oh well, at least I am still alive. I hopped on the Lynx and galloped away like some crazy elf on a robot cat.

We went on the drawbridge. And then we went off the drawbridge. Then I lifted up the drawbridge. Because I had some control over the drawbridge [Edit: See Crimson Mescaline Incident: Session 3; Part 2. – Shodan] so no one behind us can pass the drawbridge. It was very interesting, you see. We went into the suburbs and OH SHIT, HOUSE ROBOTS.

“Well, dearie,” Agatha sighed. “It looks like my very rude neighbors decided to pay a little visit. I guess I'll throw this race.” She turned to Shodan.“Best of luck, Shodarling~”

She galloped off, sburb-sideways. Shodan teared up a little but dammit, she had a race to win. She will WIN THIS RACE. FOR AGATHA. She gymnastics away. Because she was always good at gymnastics. Lydia to the Lyd and Maxine to the Max followed close behind.

Let me tell you. Agatha is terrifying. I saw her kick the head clean off one of the Homeowner's Associations (the baddies that try attacking her apparently?). I will admit I was slightly afraid of her considering how scarily buff she was, but she was nice enough to give me her contact number and a peppermint gum. I wanted to talk to her more but alas, a giant red laser had to split us apart. Perhaps next time, Agatha. Perhaps, next time.

At the end of the sburbs, the Roborally District. And tentacle monsters. Oh God.

Lydia and Maxine flew up higher because hey, they are airborne. And tentacle monsters were not (yet). Shodan was like “I have been preparing for this scenario for ALL my life” and pulls out a...pie launcher, firing delicious rhubarb pies into the sewer abominations's mouths. They were all like “Bwarh?” “Ooo.” “Nom.” “Mmmmmm.” And pretty soon there was a wall of tentacle monsters. All who cannot tell the difference between car and rhubarb pies. This was definitely not “coincidental” because “coincidental” and “Shodan” do not exist on the same wavelength.

I later asked Shodan where she got one of those Pie Launchers. She just winked.

Meanwhile, I was like “AAAAAAAAAAGHHHH” because flashbacks but RCA was like “AWWWWWYEAAHHHHHHH.” And we started kicking, shooting, and murdering all the incoming tentacles. I guess I got a little edge back at that point but I can't say the same for JJ because I kind of (as in “intentionally”) backflipped the Lynx onto his van.

“What the fucking fuuuuuuuuckaloo,” JJ said (I swear, word by word) as I kind of (as in “deliberately”) opened his van with a chainsaw despite the fact there was a perfectly good sun-roof two inches away from me. Molepeople lobbed Molotovs at me. I picked up JJ with my Steel Lynx and of course, he was going to retaliate. So I sent in Vista.

I guess it was a cool idea at that time, like most bad decisions.

Meanwhile at the more advanced pastures, Shodan and LydiaMaxine went into the LoneStar District. You would think it was emptier considering Lonestar contract went away a couple some-time ago, but nope full of direborgs. Because Renraku snapped up the contract. Because profit.

Shodan was comparably tiny as far as Racing Rally entries go. She managed to bypass the Lonestar Renraku District with comparably ease (it probably helps she is technically part of Renraku, employee benefits!). Lyd and Max, however, had to deal with a helicopter (heliCOPter?).

“DEAD OR ALIVE YOU ARE COMING WITH ME,” the pilot said.

“Wow, way to be clever, pal.” Lydia was like.

"I'm gonna open a new hole in his ass," Maxine proceeded to swing over and began to carve a hole right underneath the pilot's seat. Lydia told me Maxine was on a Merrie Melodies binge the night before.

And the two aerial vehicles started to exchange missiles, swear words, and snappy comebacks.

Meanwhile, I don't really remember what happened but Vista told me I was screaming “YOU KNOW WHAT I AM. YOU KNOW WHAT I AM. I AM PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE, MOTHERFUCKER” and kind of smashed a window with a tire iron and oh, he knocked out JJ. I guess I had to take his word for it because I had JJ in the front. And four molepeople on me, piddling on my back. Great.

And another dumb idea came to me. I was mostly ignored mostly because there was a flying convertible soaking up the spotlight, not to mention I had my Chameleon Coat on and I wasn't gaining significant ground. So, I climbed the highest building and and turned the Lynx around. I was like “yeah I totally passed physics, man!” And shot off all my missiles.

Everything blew up (THANKS TNT). The direborgs are like OH SHIT. OH FUCK. DOES NOT COMPUTE. And there was this gigantic tsunami of rubble and robot-parts. It was amazing. Also terrible. I flew across and accidentally decasspitated the heliCOPter with the worse end of the Lynx. JJ and four molepeople tumbled into the Omnicomet. I flew pass. Because.

“AAAAAAAAAA, HOLY CRAP,” the pilot, who wasn't decasspitated, was like, as he fell down the metahuman-sized hole that Maxine had just finished. Which pretty much saved his butt. “AAAA.”

Shodan took a nearby hot-dog stand and rubble-surfed into the Slum Fires [Edit: See Crimson Mescaline Incident: Session 3; Part 7. – Shodan]. Lydia pondered what to do with the unexpected guests until the molepeople decided to piddle all over her seats. Maxine was whooping and taking potshots at the nearby Redheads with her Returning Wrench +5. I kind of meteored down. I survived but my Lynx didn't.

“Nooooope,” Shodan wasn't willing to be Zombie Chow. So she'll have someone else do the job for her. She scattered down some hobo-bait and like a Final Fantasy summon, hobos started to appear out of nowhere and unlike a Final Fantasy summon, proceeded to get eaten.

I didn't want to be Redhead chow either, so I sat my ejector seat and just cannonballed my self out.

NOT A GREAT DECISION ON MY PART. I got stuck to underside of the Omnicomet because there was a bit of hobo-blood-glue on myself. I was never a big fan of heights and my viewpoint wasn't exactly helping assuage my fears. Of course, since my shittytastic luck is shit, I had to overhear a conversation.

“Yeah, you know,” Lydia was like. “We aren't closing the distance from Shodan. We need to NOS.”

“Activate the NOS?” Maxine was like, fiddling with the hologram effigy of a middle finger she made just for this event.

“Activate the NOS.”

“NOS?”

“NOS.”

“AAAAUGUGUUGUGHGHGHHHHHHH,” I proceeded learned the hard way what exactly a “NOS” was as my hair erupted into high performance flames. Naturally, I screamed because holy shit, how else you were supposed to react when you are stuck on a flying car a couple thousand feet from velocity-induced death and your HAIR IS ON GODDAMN FIRE.

“Do you hear screaming,” Lydia was like.

“Naw, that's just birds. Sometimes, those little shitheads get into one of them nitrious oxide thrusters.” Maxine clicked her tongue. “Makes a bit of a godawful ruckus.”

“No, no,” Lydia was like. “It just sounds too...pathetic to be a bird.”

I was still screaming. Obviously.

“I'm going to check.” Lydia said.

The trunk opened and Lydia looked over and found me and my stupid self stuck to the back end of the vehicle. She look slightly amused.

“Get in, Guy.” And she pulled in me. Into the trunk. She was currently wearing a teal trenchcoat with a blue blouse and light orange boots. I know, because that was all I can see. It was hella awkward.

And then uneventfully we went on. It was uneventful because we were the only ones on the road, considering that everyone else was either exploded, shot, crushed, stalled at the bridge, arrested, buried under tons of rubble, joined the Redheads, ad nauseum. Pretty soon, Greenwood started to pull up back again. And a familiar person.

“Doot doot doot first place, motherfucker,” Jimmy Two-Legs (or No-Legs? Whatever) sang on his weird Daliseque vehicle. It was like a really tall scooter with even taller legs. It looked pretty stupid. “Gonna win--”

And his vehicle was immediately obliterated by a collaboration between Shodan and Lydia. A collaboration with EXPLOSIONS.

“Well I guess it's the two of us,” Shodan was like to Lydia. “Only one of us can win.”

“Hold on,” Lydia was like. “Why don't we do a tie?”

“I had a tie once,” Shodan the Competitive said. “It was terrible.”

“Come on, have a little faith,” Lydia said. “You know this can benefit both of--”

“Uh, guys,” Maxime was like. “That JJ-fella is gone.”

Everyone looked out. There was JJ. He had hacked a camera-drone and currently going on it at a fairly breakneck speed. Yeah, he looked like a dork, but hey, anything for eight thousand nuyen, you know?

“LEARN TO LOCK YOUR DOORS, YOU DORKS,” JJ shouted back before mumbling. “Bunch of dinguses...”

And then the Final Race was on. JJ and everyone else. It would be pretty dramatic and stuff but there wasn't anything interesting. There wasn't a lot of distance left. All the entries are either gone or MIA. It was three miles from the finish line. The loneliest three miles ever.

So I decided to climb out of the Omnicomet and just tackle JJ down.

The hobo-blood (and my weight) did a great job at entangling JJ. Shodan and Lydia (and Maxine too) finished. Their edge was razor-perfect because they, as Prophecy told, had tied. A flawless finish. Moss was spazzing out and he was like THIS IS THE BEST THING I EVER HOSTED IN MY LIFE AWWWYEAAHHHHHHHHH.”

I guess so. I just took off my clothes and used what remained to tie up JJ. I wasn't really a fan of JJ but he didn't deserve to just stay there. You know?

Shodan, Lydia, and Maxine shared the first place. I took second place. JJ and his trussed up self took the third. Shodan and Maxine got their cashmonies. I got a silver-foil chocolate, which was nice. The audience (the entrants that somehow inexplicably survived despite everything pointing against that) applauded. It was nice. I guess.

I went down. And I borrowed a shoulder spike. I kind of ineffectually threatened JJ. “Give me information about Evocorp or I'll stab you.” It wasn't really my best impression, but. I guess it was effective because he seemed complacent. I didn't really want to kill JJ but JJ wasn't exactly the most shining example in Seattle. Well, so was I. I just didn't want to pay. But I wasn't because I was cheap. I wanted knowledge. I want to know why Evocorp used me. Why was I chosen. Where do I come from. What. Whys. Wheres. So many questions. So little answers. I give up. I decided to go back to Shodan's Apartment. I am so tired.

But the walk was so long.

Spoilerfor bookkeeping:
Welcome to Tokyo (S02e01)
Kaz: 6
Guy: 5
Harv: 5
Twix: 4
Shodan: 5
Lydia: 4