/* AN: I chose drinking over writing over the weekend. Mea culpa. And, I guess I forgot to post the last chapter on Friday, as I'd intended to do. Again, mea culpa. Hopefully I'll be able to just rip off a string of chapters really quick. But we'll see. Anyways, here's a new chapter for y'all!
*/

The motley trio appeared into being in the next stop on their world-wide tour of debauchery, Sin City itself, Las Vegas. Remus had already booked a trio of rooms in the Mirage, so they quickly made their way there and checked into their rooms. Since they had a whole day to fuck around in the city, the three agreed to meet on the casino floor that night.

Sirius and Remus were off like shots, almost certainly heading for the nearest strip club. Meanwhile, Harry decided to just wander the strip and wind whatever interested him. He eventually found it just smack dab in the middle of the Vegas strip on a large empty parcel of land: he found something called American Ninja Warrior sectionals.

Apparently based on a popular Japanese game show, there was a large obstacle course the contestants would have to negotiate, with a certain number of people making it going to the national-level finals late in the summer. Shrugging his shoulders and deciding he had nothing better to do with his day than wait in line and possibly get a shot at the course, he signed up and queued up.

As he waited in line, he found out that some of the people in line around him were invited to the course, like the short brunette bombshell behind him named Kacy, who was a former NCAA gymnast and perennial contestant on the show. Others around him were walk-ons like he was, and still others had actually been on Sasuke, the original Japanese show.

By the time it was Harry's turn, he was starting to get psyched up. Thankfully, when he'd entered the line, he was wearing his running shoes, athletic shorts, and a tight muscle tee. He shed the tee at the starting line and bounced around a little before the buzzer rang and he was off, vowing to himself to do the course without magically augmenting his muscles.

First was the series of five slanted steps at a fair distance, causing him to bounce from one step to the other. He easily passed the obstacle. Next was a rolling cylinder he had to wedge himself into using hand- and foot-holds. He wedged himself in neatly and easily passed this obstacle too.

Next was another seemingly easy obstacle, a slack-line ladder with four steps. Harry decided to go with the faster route of simply running over the four steps instead of shuffling along the sides of the ladder, which was safer, but slower. He easily passed the first three, almost fell on the fourth, and took a flying leap to reach the platform

He easily passed the jumping bars to cargo net, in which he jumped on a mini trampoline, grabbed a bar, swung and jump to the next bar, then did the same to grab a cargo net. A quick climb to the bottom of the rope, avoiding the water under him which would disqualify him if touched, and he was through.

The monkey peg was next; a series of holes suspended over the water and two pegs to pull in and out of holes to move along. He slowly but surely worked his way along the dozen or so feet of pegs and dropped onto the next platform. After running up the warped wall, a 12-foot high wall with a gentle inwards bend, he was onto the hardest part of the course.

The last four obstacles were the toughest ones on the course: the salmon ladder, cannonball alley, the body prop, and the spider wall. The salmon ladder consisted of hanging from a bar propped up on two pegs, then bodily lifting oneself to the next set up pegs above and repeating, all suspended above the freezing, disqualifying water. Harry slowly but carefully made his way up the ladder

Cannonball alley was a new obstacle that had tripped up countless competitors before him, but a man named Kevin had been the first to complete it a few people ahead of Harry. It consisted of three consecutive cannonballs, getting larger the farther one went, from which the competitor had to hang and swing to the next. While Kevin had decided to hang by his knees from the third cannonball, Harry chose to go the conventional method and swung his way through the alley.

Next for Harry was the body prop, a vicious obstacle designed to test the entire body. He had to wedge himself between two long planks, completely parallel to the ground, and slowly walk himself down the few dozen feet to the end, skipping over a large gap on one side of the planks. Harry again slowly but surely worked his way through the obstacle, thanking all the fighting and running for his life he'd done throughout his years for the massive amount of stamina he had.

The final obstacle finally came, and the crowd was going berserk. He was the first person to make it to the spider climb that day. He wedged himself between the two walls and slowly worked his way up the few dozen feet to the top and the buzzer to officially end his run with a victory and assure his spot in the finals a few months down the line.

By the time he hit the buzzer, he was completely wiped out. He Tebowed triumphantly at the top of the spider climb, flashed the letters at the camera with his hands as a symbol towards his brothers in Miami, tapped the Mr. Funktastic tattoo on his chest, and then collapsed, panting heavily. He made his way down, and was accosted by the extremely attractive woman the studio had doing interviews.

He gave a quick interview, did some flirting, and got her number for him to look up later. He gave her a wink and a quick albeit soft slap on the ass when nobody was looking, then gave his attention to Kacy's run. When she made it to the top of spider climb to become the second automatic bid for the finals, he was as pumped as the rest of the audience. When she went to give her interview, he gave her a brief hug in congratulations, got her number, then wandered off, no longer interested in the competition now he and his friend had been guaranteed made the finals.

Since Harry still had a few hours until he had to meet Sirius and Remus back at the Mirage, he wandered into the Mohegan Sun, just for the lols and to see what was what. He was slightly surprised to see a cowboy competition inside. They were hosting the world championships of cowboying, a sort of Cowboy Olympics, with competitions in everything from bull-riding to cattle-roping, and even odder competitions like bean-eating and tobacco-spitting. All in all, a robust competition to test the everyday skills of the best cowboys.

To fit in better, Harry ducked into a bathroom and transfigured his outfit: chaps over jeans with a massive golden buckle in the shape of the state of Texas, boots, spurs, a button-down shirt, bolo tie, and most importantly, a gigantic ten-gallon hat.

He passed on the bull-riding and steer wrestling and wandered over to the quick draw challenge, where two cowboys faced off with paintball six-shooters, then tried to outdraw the other. Harry did that for a little while, but his reflexes and hand-eye coordination easily outmatched every other cowboy trying. After easily winning that competition, he grew bored and wandered on.

He eventually made his way to the 100-meter mosey competition, which he was extremely excited about. He threw his name down for the competition starting soon and drew into the first heat of around a dozen or so. The top three positions in the race would move onto the next heats, and so on and so on until a single winner was left over.

Harry lined up at the starting line with seven other cowboys, and assumed the proper moseying position: chest thrown forward, legs slightly bowed, and thumbs tucked into the belt. When the gun went off, he went off like a very slow-moving shot. He won that heat easily, and consequently every other heat, eventually winning the whole thing.

After winning the 100-meter mosey, he graduated himself to the mosey marathon, which as opposed to regular marathons, was only two miles. Let's be real, if you had to mosey a 23+ mile course, you'd be at it for-fucking-ever. But anyways. The mosey marathon, unlike the sprint mosey, was all done in one heat, it was an all-or-nothing single-shot competition. Harry surprised himself by winning that as well.

Tired of moseying, Harry wandered for a while. He stopped at the cow-punching event, where competitors actually literally punched cows, and he managed to knock his cow out with a punch and even dislocated its jaw, whereas the even heartiest of cowboys just managed to make the cow wobble and very rarely fall, even if they got back up after.

Finally, Harry was running out of time to meet up with Sirius and Remus, so he stopped at one last competition before calling it a day. He decided that cigarette-rolling was similar enough to rolling a joint that he went for that competition. Each contestant got a bag of baccy and would roll as many cigs as they could in a ten-minute period, with the bags being replaced when emptied.

Harry worked like a blur, his hand-eye coordination and practice gotten in with the Pi Sigs and the Broncos players coming in handy, and he easily dominated the competition again. Luckily, he got to keep the cigarettes he rolled, and even got a sweet cigarette holder for winning the event. He had to enchant it under the table to actually hold all the cigarettes he made, but that was easily done, and soon it was packed with hand-rolled cigarettes.

Eventually, he had to leave, but was crowned king of the cowboys before he left, his five events won easily putting him ahead of the next-best cowboy and securing him the prize, a massive golden trophy in the shape of Texas and a ranch in that state with a herd of a few thousand cows.

Making a mental note to pass the details of his newest business to the goblins, he got an odd flicker of a memory of writing to the gobbos when he was still blasted on peyote. Resolving to put that to the back of his mind and find out what that was about later on, he made his way back to the Mirage to meet Sirius and Remus.

When he walked into the hotel, he realized that he'd forgotten to transfigure his outfit back from his cowboy getup, so Sirius and Remus broke into stitches as they caught sight of him and his Texas-sized and –shaped trophy. He ignored them with as much dignity as he could muster and went up to his room to change into clothing more suitable for the casinos they planned on going to that night.

Once into his slacks and emerald silk button-down, he went back down to the lobby, where he was surprised to see Tonks, who looked like a million bucks and change in a pink cocktail dress that perfectly matched her hair and looked to be painted on her wonderful curves. He was even more shocked to see Molly Carpenter, who was apparently in Sin City for something called SplatterCon. When she saw Sirius and Remus, she rightly figured Harry would be with them shortly, and waited with them to see him.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of copious amounts of alcohol, gambling, and women. Tonks and Molly stuck by Harry for most of the night, though he did have a chance to slip off and bang the hot reporter from earlier that day in the bathroom. Life for Harry was good.

/* AN: Yeah, chapter done! This is only the first of two days for Harry's Vegas rampage, look for day two coming out shortly. In theory. I know that American Ninja Warrior qualifiers aren't done if Vegas, only the final is, plus the fact that (according to the 2015 taping schedule) qualifiers start in March and the finals are in June, but just go with it, okay? The course I used is from the Season 6 Venice qualifier.

The Kevin mentioned in the ANW section is based on Kevin Bull, who was an actual competitor, and was the first competitor to beat cannonball alley in whatever season it debuted. Kacy is a reference to Kacy Catanzaro, who is another real-life Ninja, and one of my favorite Ninjas at that, ever since she became the first woman to qualify for an ANW finals event. Plus she's goddamn gorgeous. Anyways.

The Cowboy Olympics was started my brainchild that spawned from the 100-meter mosey, which was originally a Far Side comic that I wanted to have Harry compete in. Then I was like, whoa, I can make this a whole 'nother thing! Then it kinda mutated to what you see above. I chose for Harry to compete in the most outrageous cowboy-related things I could think of, just for the lols. For a great cowboy movie, see Blazing Saddles with Mel Brooks. That shit's a classic.

And Molly Carpenter makes another appearance! She always was one of my favorite characters from the Dresden-verse, so she's back! Yes, I know there were quite a few adventures between the whole Darkhallow incident (see chapters 4-5), and I know that the book with SplatterCon is the book that Molly actually becomes Dresden's apprentice, but this is fanfiction, and I'm bending the realities of space-time to my whims. Plus I just needed an excuse to get Molly back and in Vegas. Anyways, should have the next chapter out in short order. Peace
*/