Scene #9178: Petra Fucks Up A Time Machine

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	So how does Petra Soroka, former apprentice to the Greatest Supervillain The Multiverse Has Ever Known and former B+ math student, go about building a time machine? The tech involved is known to be possible, but it's still one of those pipe dream inventions that even her peer villainous mechanics often fail to realize, so it's not trivial for her to access a completed prototype for reference, nor to ask for other people's experiences. Supervillains are cagey at best, but using her connections, she does eventually manage to source critical parts from other techies who don't need them anymore. <B-anter> Petra Soroka says, "I did some phone calls, Heyalexa made some deals, and after meeting up with this villain guy who talked at me for ever about how sad he was that his plans got foiled, I got my hands on the last major bit I think I need for a time machine." . . . <B-anter> Petra Soroka says to Angela, "Just some single-city scale guy. You probably haven't heard of him, but I got recced to him because he's a good tech guy who builds stuff for pretty cheap as long as you sit there and listen to his newest sob story about getting his ass beat by some guy named 'Metrocity'." She also has another resource at her disposal because of her association with terrible villains, such as Angela. TimeTrack2, the Singularity that enables Lobotomy Corporation's time loop, is right there, inside the facility that Petra spends nearly every day inside, and with Hokma so worked up about his impending Meltdown, will anyone really notice if Petra sneaks in to poke at the machinery herself? Sure, she'll have to put all her notes in shorthand and scurry out the moment she hears someone approaching, but when has that ever hurt anyone? It hasn't hurt Petra enough to prevent her from completing her project, at least! Because building a time machine was a Challenge posed to her by the other Elites in the radio, it's less of a grand scientific unveiling, and more a goofily smug 'hold my beer' type accomplishment, whose success is meant to be shown off to peers. Any peers, really, as long as they're free when Petra excitedly revs up to test the time machine out for the first time. The location she's built it on is her evil floating island, Hydrochoeria, that used to be the city center of Quicknest. Completely unrecognizable from back then, it's been steadily floating in low Earth orbit around the superplanet, suspended by a quartet of rockets, with the old Quicknest castle leveled and replaced with her own techno-medieval lair. The warpgate on it only connects to Lobotomy Corporation's warpgate, but to anyone who'd rather take a more direct route, she offhandedly mentions that she set up a route with the Grand Dorado's airship service too. Once people arrive, she takes them to what appears to be a warehouse laboratory under the shadow of a looming castle tower, with the interior completely devoted to the time machine. Futuristic machinery is interwoven with scribbled paper and excess parts tossed on the metal-panel floor, a macbook pro cramped away in a makeshift desk on a cardboard box surrounded by little bits of evidence of the work Petra did on the project. Overall, it has the exact same vibe as being shown someone's garage packed full of gunpla figurines, except instead of plastic and model paint, there's what looks like a particle accelerator circling the perimeter of the room. After a little bit of babbling ('I had a lot of trouble finding this part here, so I just built it . . .'; '. . . Egg Planet Park got caught by a black hole, so the Doctor hasn't been around to check it out, but he said it was cool, and . . .'; '. . . should just be a quick demo, sightseeing and stuff . . .'), she pulls an appropriately-weighty lever, the whole room flashes with energy, and you all disappear.
Petra Soroka	The time machine works. Technically. You end up in an untouched world of oversized trees and massive ferns, with footsteps quaking the ground from gigantic predators, exactly as planned. A past-Earth, a hundred million years ago. Raptors dart through the underbrush, a massive brontosaurus rears its head up from a lake where it was drinking, and so on. However, the instant after the time machine materializes you all there, it keeps on rattling and making increasingly-worrying noises, until an explosion of blue smoke blasts out of it, and a particularly important looking technological greeble rolls across the dirt, and immediately gets swallowed up by a Tyrannosaurus Rex that saunters off before anyone can follow. It's been about six hours since then. Six hours of prehistoric lack-of-luxury, in the humid and hot forest, with bugs the size of dogs and no McDonalds to speak of. After the terrible introduction, Petra made sure to patch the rest of the machine back together and verify that it'd work to take them back-- as long as that one part the T-Rex ate was recovered. Now she's hacking away at thick ferns with a morphmetal machete, in the vague direction of where it went, stripped down to a tank top and a spare baseball cap she had in her mirror to keep the sun out of her eyes. It might be a little bit of a bad situation. But at least you're all here together, right? "... Okay. I mean. It did work, though. Like, just to be clear, we all know it worked. That counts."
White	White, with strangely little better to do and a persistent curiosity over the subject in question, finds herself on Petra's flying island with some time to spare on sightseeing. Assuming her loaner-spider went with Petra the morning-of, White can simply arrive on the site wherever they are. The so-called 'Charlotte' greets White with a foreleg-to-forehead salute, and White greets Petra with her typical mild sort of bow and a small plastic-wrapped box of snacks. Little store-bought cookies, chocolates and berries, probably things she likes herself really! After the scarves that one time, it seems like she decided to make arriving with a gift a habit. But, pleasantly enough despite White's relative obliviousness to technical details, she isn't disinterested in Petra's story-snippets or the parts she's working on. Every now and then she opens her eyes to peek at something or other that Petra hasn't described, getting the same sort of 'oh neat' satisfaction one might from reading item descriptions in a game. But that only lasts so long. The... Practical demonstration, for lack of a better description, leaves White a tad thrown-off. She'd been expecting some kind of window, or portal to peek through from the safe side. Maybe kidnap a dinosaur for dinner and call it a day, y'know? Ending up on the other side with everyone and ostensibly stuck is another story. She did quickly use her Evil Eye to analyze the gluttonous rex (and the missing part it ate) before it got away, so ideally she can tell it apart from its siblings and find it, but... Well, she'd been sort of hoping the problem would solve itself without the need for a scavenger hunt. Now she's sat nearby with Charlotte in her lap, a bit uncomfortable in the heat but otherwise seeming just peachy in her usual blank-faced way. She does at least nod to Petra's insistence; the fact that they're all here is still pretty cool, really. And White doesn't have to fret very much about the survival dangers; she grew up in worse conditions, and she doesn't have to eat anyway. Not that that stops her from getting out some dubious preserved meat from her spatial pocket to gnaw, more to keep her hands busy than out of any need. But, with the announcement that the missing part is all they need to get back, White finally murmurs, "Scavenger Hunt..." in a way that sounds just a little tired, and just a little amused. Then she looks at Charlotte, the little spider in her lap. "Should have made you follow it..." she airily muses, but Charlotte irritably boxes her little foreleg-tips against White's stomach.
Rufus Shinra	PRESENT DAY Social capital is like actual capital, it's worth nothing unless it's being spent. Except Rufus spent most/all of his and needs to build it back up, especially with certain events looming in the near/far future that'll be prime spending opportunities. Hanging out with Petra and being on his Best Behavior (even if he has to strain a bit to reach it) seems like it'll be easy enough. See her new project, clap politely, offer to buy the prototype for probably much more than its worth, order pizza for everyone, and leave without doing any trolling. "Isn't that last year's model?" Rufus can't help but ask, seeing the laptop Petra has hooked up to it, but doesn't comment further. ONE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS AGO Polite applause. "So if you're looking for a buyer, I might-" Rufus starts to say, cutting off as he notices that the rattling of the time machine is not in fact some cooldown cycle or... something, but in fact it breaking down. NINETY NINE MILLION, NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE YEARS AND 18 HOURS AGO "Yeah it worked," says Rufus, making the casting motion again. Six hours in, he's stopped enthusiastically fingergunning his magic, and is instead just making the generic wave of his hand. ---------- \|MAGIC: Ice\| ---------- The wave of magical frost encases the balled-up heap of clothing, bringing them down to ice-cold temperatures... after which Rufus separates out and redistributes the freshly-chilled garments to their owners. His own jacket has been cut into makeshift headbands and scarves, to better distribute the cold. "Petra, I'm poor," he says. "My bank account doesn't exist right now. My investment account might be in another timeline. My trust fund's being administered by people whose great great great great great grandparents haven't evolved yet. My petty cash is paradoxical. My credit cards are- well, okay, the dinosaurs here are probably on the same level of intelligence and cruelty as the credit bureau executives, but..." "... I'm poor. I've got all of a thousand dollars on me right now. That's pocket change. You need to fix this. "
Angela	This might be the one time Hokma isn't totally kind of a stickler about anybody who wants to poke around the TimeTrack Protocol. Not only is it his domain it is also dangerous to poke around the inner workings of a Singularity for that long because while most Wings are willing to lend out expressions of their Singularity to other Wings... And it is if often neccessary for them to trade uses or effects of their Singularity to one another to make the most use of their own... They decidedly and zealously guard the secrets to their Singularity... But there's still plenty to learn and the benefit of being a horror facility underground that can escape the notice of The Eye... well, you can readily escape notice of the other Wings who certainly don't have that level of surveillance at their disposal. In any event... Cinder's eyes are sparkling with wonder. "Wow... you made a Time Machine too...? Is there anything you can't do?" Past anxieties fade away with the knowledge that apparently Petra, in conjunction with being the most effective Agent at Lobotomy Corp and a badass psychic mecha pilot--is also, like, capable of making Time Machines herself! That's SO MANY THINGS, Cinder thinks, because she is someone who is somewhat decent at swinging a sword made out of fire around. "Is there anywhere in particular I have to stand or...?" She shuffles her feet this way and that until Petra pulls the lever. DINOSAUR TIME Cinder wows quietly. "How far back did we go..?" She wonders aloud. "This is amazing and...!" She jumps as the time machine explodes into blue smoke and she nearly stomps her foot onto a nearby butterfly, stopping herself at the last second. "...Whew... If I stepped on that butterfly it could've been really bad... I remember reading in a book that even stepping on a butterfly can--" Her eyes track towards the important greeble. Then her eyes widen, "Wai...wait!! that looks...shit!!" She rushes forward and-- CRUNCH Cinder looks down at the now deceased butterfly. "P...Petra..." She turns her head towards her girlfriend, eyes wet with tears like her Aether Sticker. "...I didn't mean to... change the entire course of history... I'm sorrrryy..." ''I'm poor. I've got all of a thousand dollars on me right now.'' Cinder knows that's about one and a half million ahn. "...hrhhhhhhh...." She sniffs sadly.
Calvin Nash	"So then, y'know, she took it seriously, figured she was gonna do it." Calvin shares the Grand Dorado elevator with a ghastly figure a good two heads taller than him; a blue death's head leers out from beneath the cap of a gray mushroom. The point of a simple but elegantly menacing silver greatsword rests against the floor, gripped by hands shrouded in the sleeves of an inky gossamer robe. A baleful red sun motif is the sole spot of color present on the billowing garment. "And this concerns you?" "Course it does. It's Petra," Calvin answers over the piped-in muzak. "Somebody responsible's gotta be there. Make sure she don't fuck nothin' up." "So who are the Marshals sending?" asks Chernobog, god of winter, darkness, death, dismay and entropy, with a distinct amused note in his voice. "I'm sendin' me," Calvin unamusedly asserts. "And you're helping. So you better wipe that damn smile off your face." Chernobog stares blankly at Calvin with his skeletal visage. "Don't get smart. You know what I mean." --- "Petra," he says with cordial, clipped professionalism. "This here's Chernobog. Chernobog, Petra." "Hello," the grim figure intones evenly. His voice is deep and dry, like the creaking of a dead tree which in life was massive and venerable. Where Calvin walks, Chernobog seems to glide; both of them listening (Calvin more intently, Chernobog with a kind of amused interest) as they're led through. -One catastrophic failure later- "Very humorous," opines Chernobog. "Well," Calvin begins pointedly ignoring his demon partner, the word serving as a prelude to something that will either be annoying, unhelpful or both. "What we'll do is just track down that big sumbitch and get 'im to cough it up." It did work, though. Like, just to be clear, we all know it worked. That counts. "No. Uh-uh. Round trip," Calvin argues. "If that was a plane, we'd be squashed flatter than hammered shit. Good first step, though."
Petra Soroka	"...I didn't mean to... change the entire course of history... I'm sorrrryy..." Petra pats Cinder's head reassuringly, a little shellshocked in the aftermath of getting stranded a hundred million years in the past. "Well. As long as you don't accidentally step on whatever random little mammal here is the common ancestor for every single human who'll eventually be born, we're probably good there. Or-- are there even monkeys yet? I've got no fucking clue, actually." "Should have made you follow it..." Of course Petra brought Charlotte with her, and-- barring the much less mobile time machine-- the spider's accompanying Twopence is the most advanced tech she has with her. Petra glances at White, and then at the ratbot, considering for the first time that she might want to use her surveillance drone for surveillance. "I should've had you follow it...." Twopence has nothing to say about that, though. The little flying toy-shaped rat isn't imbued with the divine spark of sentience that Heyalexa is, just the divine spark that all toys have by default. A screen slowly slides out of the underside of its belly to flash with a red symbol and remind Petra, X NO SIGNAL X. "Yeah it worked," Petra sweatily huffs, and swipes her machete through another swathe of branches. "It did. I don't see you building a time machine better. You know, TimeTrack got to be a Wing by making time machines that barely even do anything, and now they're a quadrillion-ahn company. I get some credit." "... I'm poor. I've got all of a thousand dollars on me right now. That's pocket change. You need to fix this. " Somehow, the part Petra finds most galling about that is right in the middle. "You carry cash? What, were you expecting to meet up with one of Cadrasteia's maids on the island and buy weed off her?" "Anyways. Obviously I'll get us back. Just, you know. Like. Soon." "If that was a plane, we'd be squashed flatter than hammered shit." "Okay, well, we fuckin' remember Amelia Earhart anyways, don't we?!" Petra scoffs frustratedly and throws her hands up. The noise and movement spooks a raptor that was hiding in the ferns nearby, and it dashes out to run away right past her, causing her to shriek with surprise. Rubbing her face and sighing, she palms her mirror to draw out a thermos for a drink, and then frowns. "Shit. I'm out of tea. God." She looks around, but it's hard to see very far in the dense forest. "Last time I had to fucking boil my own water, I was living out of my mech in the middle of fucking nowhere. Does anyone have literally anything better than doing that?"
White	White hears Petra's last question and sees fit to stand and approach, lifting Charlotte onto one of her shoulders, folding her hands out of habit only to unfold them again and tip the thermos toward herself without taking it from Petra's hand. With the other, a small blue-ringed glyph forms between her fingers and pours out a mild stream of clear water. Perfectly drinkable, though it oddly seems to evaporate somewhat faster than natural water. Then, at a near-whisper White asks, "Do you have a plan?" Petra's ostensibly responsible for the group right now, at any rate. Still, she probably seems oddly hands-off about the situation to the others; she hadn't even reacted to the presence of a lurking animal for one thing, and her disaffected expression makes it seem like she must have some kind of exit strategy of her own. Of course, she doesn't. 'I just need to make sure Petra doesn't bite it out here, and we're fine right? I could prooooobably find that stupid rex myself, but then I'd totally have to leave Petra here right? She's so going to get attacked by dinosaurs and carried off, she just has that aura. So what's the alternative, I carry her around while I search? Noooo way, she's going to make it weird. And look how sweaty she is! Ugh.' So goes her internal monologue. The next best plan seems to be hoping someone else has the means to find the culprit-lizard themselves, but finding that out requires either using her magic peepers or asking them a perfectly reasonable question, and unfortunately both of those things still feel like a reach with strangers. So, she starts looking around expectantly, eyes shut but body language fully implying her sight.
Rufus Shinra	> "You carry cash? What, were you expecting to meet up with one of Cadrasteia's maids on the island and buy weed off her?" "I forgot to empty my spare change out of my pockets," says Rufus. "... Just to clarify, are you making a joke, or are they carrying?" Rufus gives Calvin a once over. "So what's with..." He looks from Calvin to Chernobog and back. "So - which one of you is the monster and which one of you is the trainer? I don't want to assume and end up in another Concord HR class."
Angela	Cinder feels a little weird about Chernabog he's just a little spooky, like, he's Lobotomy Corp spooky and is skeletal and she's used to stuff like that but mostly within the facility. Spookier than the biker guy, actually. Still, it passes quickly. You don't last long at Lobotomy Corp if you get jumpy at every weird thing and she knows what Calvin's about. Sadly, she leans against Petra so Petra can pat her head more easily. "...Y..yeah... I mean butterflies don't last long anyway. It's...fine." Cinder convinces herself before stepping on a squirrel and-- --well no she doesn't do that, but she's considerably worried about that. ''you know, TimeTrack got to be a Wing by making time mahcines that barely even do anything.'' "I don't really know how they work but I heard they can steal time from people, their tax collectors, I mean. I wonder what that even means.." ''Does anyone have literally anything better than doing that?'' "Well, I was allowed to bring Fourth Match Flame so I can at least make sure we don't get cold." Cinder says. "But if we can get that gizmo back you can fix it right?" Cinder gives White a concerned look. "Um are you okay?" Her wiggling around is making Cinder concerned. ''Which one of you is the monster and which one of you is the trainer?'' "Some say that ''man'' is the real monster," Cinder says gravely.
Calvin Nash	Okay, well, we fuckin' remember Amelia Earhart anyways, don't we?! "More than the crabs did, in any case," Chernobog chimes in. "Didn't say it wasn't impressive. Don't know nobody could do it even as good as you did." Does anyone have literally anything better than doing that? Calvin flips open the bulky COMP on his wrist. He irritably taps a key with his index, closing out of several error windows in quick succession. From there, navigating a few menus... Tea x1 "It's your lucky day," says Calvin, tapping a key authoritatively. A purple cloud shot through with a swirl of green 0s, 1s and pixels coalesces into his hand. When it fades away, a mason jar of tea is in his hand, lid screwed on tight. "Here. Got some of my mama's sweet tea right here." He wiggles the jar. Sweet tea--as in Southern US sweet tea, and a fair chance of being completely different than the kind she imagined. After that, he conjures forth his shotgun in the same way. "In the distant future, archaeologists the world over will ponder the presence of buckshot in the bones of these beasts. I commend your dedication to challenging and enriching the minds of the next generation." "It'll be aight," says Calvin, with entirely unearned certainty. If Petra prefers White's help to his own, he'll help himself to the sweet tea he'd offered, and stow away the empty jar in his COMP's storage. So - which one of you is the monster and which one of you is the trainer? I don't want to assume and end up in another Concord HR class. Chernobog tilts his skeletal head backwards; the movement is like an ungainly mushroom swaying in strong winds. His laugh is like a falling tree limb, dry and guttural. "Audacious, aren't you?" Some say that ''man'' is the real monster. Calvin initially gives Cinder a flat look, like he's got some kind of one-liner, but after some thought, cedes a point. "Well, they do come from us. Some even used to be humans. But don't buy into that 'we're the real monsters' shit, you hear? It's all bullshit to scare kids and dipshits at night." "Anyway." The word is spritzed like an air freshener. "He's contracted with me," explains Calvin to Rufus. "We help each other get stronger. I give him the stuff he needs to exist in our world 'n keep 'im happy. He sticks with me and helps with heavy lifting." "Speaking of which, soon as when we find that big sumbitch, I got ways we can hold 'im down that won't hurt nothin'. Time-wise," he clarifies, resting the shotgun on one shoulder to gesture vaguely with one hand.
Petra Soroka	Petra placidly watches as White tugs at the thermos in her hands without saying anything. She naturally acquiesces to let White tilt it towards her, because two of the most important women in her life have told her to respect her, and then she's pleasantly surprised when it's actually to her benefit, instead of being, like, a fountain of poison meant to kill her for the failing of getting them all stranded here. "Oh-- sick, perfect. That's so much easier." Does Petra have a plan...? "Okay. Like... like, we're just not stuck here permanently. That'd be silly. So we, like, find its nest, and..." Petra's expression twists uncomfortably. "Like it'd feel bad to kill it. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, and all that. If I take a trip into the past and then immediately fuck up and have to murder a t-rex, that'd be like, the worst thing-- the second-- third-- fifth-- one of the worst things I've ever done, I feel." She eyes Chernobog dubiously. "Maybe mushroom guy can get it to throw up? I'd hate to kill it. Especially if we find it right in front of its babies, and all." Petra sighs and gives Twopence a pat, sending it off on its way. A hundred million years in the past, it can't give her a live feed of what its camera sees, but it can circle around a direction for half an hour and report back on if it found the nest, at least. "God creates dinosaurs, dinosaurs destroy my fucking time machine. Man creates ratbot, ratbot destroys dinosaurs, or whatever. Go forth and hunt, brave warrior." "... Just to clarify, are you making a joke, or are they carrying?" After Twopence floats off, Petra cuts through another cluster of ferns to reveal a crystal clear riverside, crawling with dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes scampering over the boulders to get a sip from it. Petra pauses a bit at that-- six hours in, and it's still kind of cool to get a sweeping documentary-style vista of real live dinosaurs right in front of her-- and then clambers up a rock herself to get a higher view. "I mean, I don't fucking know. I'm not a narc. Er--" Petra blinks. "I guess it's not even illegal anyways. I think there's not really any laws?"
Petra Soroka	"I don't really know how they work but I heard they can steal time from people, their tax collectors, I mean." Petra mumbles something about 'forcibly aging people up' while laying out on the sun-warm rock a lot like a lizard. "I bet they totally do that to keep their CEO immortal or something. Some real, virgin blood skin cream type shit." "But if we can get that gizmo back you can fix it right?" Petra nods on the ground, getting a little sleepy. "Oh, yeah. It's not like the whole thing went up in flames or anything. Just, y'know-- pop! And suddenly the temporal parallax aligner's gone, and if we try and go back to the present now, we'll end up in some fucked up timeline where you're the CEO of L-Corp, Shinra ran away to join the circus, and I'm a fucking Pokemon again, somehow." "Here. Got some of my mama's sweet tea right here." "Oh, eh?" Petra sits back up to look over to Calvin. "Sweet tea? Nah, no thanks, I lost my taste for that when I was a kid; I'll be fine with the magic water." "In the distant future, archaeologists the world over will ponder the presence of buckshot in the bones of these beasts." Petra snickers and kicks her feet. "Oh, that's such a good point. Hey, does anyone wanna find some, like, really good lime sand or something? Stick our footprints in it and make people in the future lose their minds?" Petra hums, then closes her eyes to contemplate a terrible koan. "... Do you think that's where all ancient alien stuff comes from? Do you think we were, like, temporally predestined to leave some evidence around, and that's why people think aliens came to Earth millions of years pre-unification?"
Angela	''But don't buy into that--'' "Oh I mean I work at Lobotomy Corp I know the real monster is the goo monster that infects us all with goo and makes everybody that comes in contact with it become goo." Cinder explains. "Though I mean now that you mention it, the only reason most of the Agents work at Lobotomy Corp is because the job pays well and they can send the money to their families even if they're not allwoed to leave. I mean some Agents are in it for other reasons, but that's the most common reason I've heard while talking to other Agents about it." Her eyes slant up for a moment. "Also come to think of it, like you said with demons, Abnormalities apparently are spawend from humanity's thoughts and sometimes Angela says they are, all, essentialll human. Even the ones that are goo..." She rubs at her neck with her hand, starting to feel a bit awkward as she awkwardly admits, "And some people really do need the money because the taxes at Nests are crazy compared to the Backstreets and if you can'y pay it you'll get kicked out into the Backstreets or worse... Of course if you're in the Backstreets and you need the money you might need it to keep your organs if you're in a place run by Syndicates..." She trails off awkwardly, slowly glancing back to Calvin. "Oh! But yeah, I mean, like, monsters eat people! ... Though I guess so do the people in District 23 but ..." Her face turns bright red. "W--well we're less gross, usually." She exhales a long sigh, after. ''I think there's not really any laws?'' "Unless there's dinosaur law. But I think dinosaur law is a lot simpler than City law." Cinder says, wondering if dinosaurs count as monsters. ''Some fuckied up timeline where you're the CEO of L-Corp.'' Cinder has heard enough about Ayin. "Okay we definitely can't let that happen." Cinder says. Dear god, if she runs L-Corp, would she have to ignore Angela too? That seems to be in the job description because she can't think of any reasonable smart person reason to do that. Is it, like, part of a plan or just him being a jerk. Or both?? Her gaze goes distant as she thinks all sorts of questions she never had to hear about. ''I bet they totally do that to keep their CEO immortal or something.'' "Yurgggh... I hope not. It's good that CEOs---" Her gaze slants towards Rufus. "...Dddoooon't bath in virgin blood?" She was not planning to say that.
White	White pauses and tilts her head slightly when Cinder asks if she's okay, but doesn't reply aloud. Instead she thinks to herself, her head tilts back with an unspoken 'oh' as she seems to recognize the implication that she's been odd somehow, and settles down from her 'wiggling' as if that was actually what Cinder wanted. Well, she's trying? Calvin, meanwhile, gives her a better idea of what to expect from him and looks closed-eyed between the tea jar, the shotgun, and his wrist console. Her hands raise slightly as if to softly clap, but she thinks better of it and aborts the motion into a lazy drag of fingertips across empty space, drawing her scythe out as if in solidarity with Calvin's gun. Or competition? It's really hard to tell with her. She starts contemplating what kind of beverages she should start keeping in storage to impress others with; homebrewed tea is a pretty good one she thinks, but she doubts she could come up with anything superior to 'mama's sweet tea' half-heartedly. Mothers stake their pride on that sort of thing! Or well, they're supposed to, from what she gathers. When Petra declines the tea, White feels simultaneous pangs of smugness at 'winning', and disappointment at not getting to drink the tea herself. Anyway, hearing a little about Chernobog leaves her almost wishing she had brought something a fungal fellow might enjoy as a snack. She has a steadily growing track record of befriending other people's pets, partners and family at this point anyway... But there's always next time. Calvin's suggestion that he might restrain a dinosaur, and Petra's talk of making it throw up do finally lead to her making a small personal show of effort at least, as she quietly adds "If it isn't moving... I can get the part out." The hassle with teleporting things besides herself is always just the difficulty in targetting something that's still moving, so if someone else makes it hold still she imagines she can just x-ray peek into the critter's belly and teleport the bit of metal to freedom without any fouler fanfare. Probably! Though... "I still wonder if dinosaur tastes like dragon." Then there's talk of fucking with future historians. Footprints... She starts to look strangely thoughtful. 'Well a bootprint would just get written off as a prank. And I don't really want people staring at my bare footprint. That's weird, right? I guess it'd be a little funny if they started thinking there was a prehistoric giant spider, though...' She rouses from contemplation with a soft shake of her head, and looks at Petra again. The blank, overlong stare makes it feel almost judgemental, up until she quietly admits "Maybe." She looks at the dinosaurs again contemplatively, then down at the bottom of her dress. The toe of her right boot raises, then taps down. The dirt and mud around her firmly compresses into a ring of vaguely pointy stones around her like a privacy curtain, with a ragged crunching sound! There's a flicker of light, and about fifteen seconds later the stone barrier drops back into the ground. Her legs are gone! Or multiplied? She's taken on her arachne form, abandoning humanoid feet and footwear entirely for a halfton spider-body, and modified her dress a little to fit better. Her foremost pair of legs end in wide scythe-like blades, and the color-pallette of white, red and purple makes her appear very striking... Also a lot less 'mascot-like' and 'designed to be cute' than Charlotte overall, really.
Rufus Shinra	> "Audacious, aren't you?" Finger-guns. Rufus feels a bit better now. > "Like it'd feel bad to kill it. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, and all that. If I take a trip into the past and then immediately fuck up and have to murder a t-rex, that'd be like, the worst thing-- the second-- third-- fifth-- one of the worst things I've ever done, I feel." Rufus feels conflicted. On the one hand, Petra feels pretty strongly about this and he feels like he shouldn't poke at it. Aside from getting stuck in the past, today is supposed to be about earning back some social capital with everyone. On the other hand: > -=<FLIP>=- Rufus Shinra Rufus Shinra flipped a coin: Tails! "Come on - you can't tell me that taking down a t-rex isn't on your bucket list somewhere," he says. "It's like, the most dangerouser game, right?" "T-rex steaks. T-rex leather jacket. You can probably take some of the teeth and make a killer surfer necklace. You can't tell me at least one of those doesn't appeal to you." > "I guess it's not even illegal anyways. I think there's not really any laws?" "... Good to know." > "...Dddoooon't bath in virgin blood?" "Why do you think I've been cozying up to Sarracenia?" is the first thing that comes to Rufus's mind and he says it automatically. The next few seconds are wondering if he regrets it or not. "Certain rich people do a lot of stupid stuff in pursuit of immortality," he says, to add more substance to it. "Or - to try to assure they stay absolutely safe." "Pursuing immortality is dumb, though. A lot of people don't even fully use the one life they get for free. The rich bastards included. And they spend so much time trying to get more money - you can't take it with you." "... Or, you end up stuck a hundred million years ago and all the money in the world won't make a difference."
Petra Soroka	"Unless there's dinosaur law." "Oh, I meant on Hydrochoeria. Not here. If one of the maids followed us here, then--" Petra stiffens up and goes pale. "Uh, eheh, Lilian really wouldn't like that. No one-- no one saw any faceless girls in maid dresses around ever since we came back here, right? Besides-- I guess I wasn't checking what Qetra was doing, but besides Qetra." "If it isn't moving... I can get the part out." Petra hops off her rock, energized and ready to get going again. "Oh, thank god. That's literally the easiest and most convenient way possible. I was so hoping you'd say that." She checks her phone for an update from Twopence, but of course, can't receive one. "So we'll just zero in on it soon, pin it down somehow-- that'll be easy, really-- and then... twenty minutes and we'll be out. It's... that easy, I guess." "I still wonder if dinosaur tastes like dragon." "Come on - you can't tell me that taking down a t-rex isn't on your bucket list somewhere," ". . ." Petra visibly hesitates. Her machete melts into a fluid coil of morphmetal that absentmindedly circles around her hand, briefly forming a hunting spear and the vague shape of a rope. "But, like... I mean... it's still unfair, right? Sure, maybe we don't have most of our stuff, but... it's not like the t-rex did anything wrong...." "Why do you think I've been cozying up to Sarracenia?" Petra stares at Rufus with the most disappointment she's ever shown him, which is a staggeringly high bar to surpass. "... Dude. I thought even you would have better standards than that." Continuing on a tangent that's been on her mind for a while, Petra walks upstream alongside the river, pressing bootprints into the (not particularly fossil-worthy) mud. "It's crazy though, right? Immortality. If any of us were immortal, we could just wait, and we'd eventually be back where we were. A hundred million years, and that's not even, like, a fraction of a fraction of it.]" Petra holds up her palm with the morphmetal slowly rotating above it in a blobby oval for demonstration. "I was immortal for a bit, and then, like, I chose not to be. So it's especially weird to think about Fae and Lilian and a bunch of other people I know, all being able to live that long." Her legs are gone! "Oh--" Petra wheels around and gapes for a moment, before remembering to be polite. "Shit, are there any prehistoric giant spiders? I actually don't think so, right? If we can get you somewhere that your, uh, leg prints, will stick, then people will have nightmares in a few million years."
Rufus Shinra	> "... Dude. I thought even you would have better standards than that." "..." Rufus glances away. > "I was immortal for a bit, and then, like, I chose not to be. "Yeah. It can't be all it's cracked up to be. Barely enough interesting in this world for one lifetime." > "If we can get you somewhere that your, uh, leg prints, will stick, then people will have nightmares in a few million years." Rufus perks back up. "Okay. That sounds like a good time. If we can't get back to our own time, how many anachronisms do you think we can cause before we die?"
White	White nods slightly at the energy Petra shows for her offer, though looks a little puzzled about the talk of maids. Then she has a thought that seems to strike her like a brick, and mumbles "Maids are scary everywhere, huh?" mostly to herself. Still, she moves on soon enough and when Petra wavers over the temptation to hunt a dino White has nothing to offer as encouragement in either direction, just a small shrug of the shoulders. As long as they aren't wasteful if they do hunt one, she doesn't particularly care about the moralization of hunting... Nevermind the absence of need. Then immortality comes up while she shuffles her middle legs on either side a little once Petra stops along the river, having obviously followed. The narrow ends of each leg under her increased weight stab into the wet earth in a way that would probably be annoying to walk against if not for her strength. "Living that long gets... Boring." she vaguely says, not quite speaking from experience as much as something adjacent to it. "Not that I'd want to die." she adds, then after a longer pause she elaborates "Would probably have weird hobbies by then." It doesn't sound like she's especially fraught over the idea, though. Now, since the group is moving and a little more motivated to solve the problem once and for all, she finally feels motivated enough to open her eyes as well. She's not doing anything dramatic just yet- Petra's ratbot is still on the scouting job for now- but with her vast range of sight she can at least keep an eye out for the hungry rex if it comes within range of the group. Granted, she's not going to remember its appearance quite as much as a couple of stat-numbers she tried to memorize at first glance, so it's not infallible anyway. Really, the sooner they all get back the less of a funny little vacation she gets from her actual work, so maybe that has something to do with her lack of urgency.
Calvin Nash	... Do you think that's where all ancient alien stuff comes from? "What ancient alien stuff? Like they came to Earth and played football with Jesus? Sounds like it comes from too much free time, to me." -A long, well-thought-out examination of the socioeconomic state of the City, the causes, effects and costs of poverty- Calvin reaches up and drags his palm over his face. "Yeah," he says with a harrowed kind of haggardness. "Well," he says after a sigh, "You got good people in your corner with Trideag. Smart people. Could do a hell of a lot worse than Lilian, runnin' an outfit like that." It sounds like he wants to console himself with that as much as Cinder. If it isn't moving... I can get the part out. "Good deal," says Calvin, happy to be talking about anything but large-scale suffering that even teams of qualified, motivated people have to chip gradually away at. "Oughta be easy to set up for you. Name's Calvin, by the way," he says, offering his free hand for a handshake. Why do you think I've been cozying up to Sarracenia? "I wouldn't do nothin' with her blood, if I was you. You don't know if what she's got is the catchin' kind." He stares blankly at White, post-transformation. "Well." He's already said that everyone's presence here would be alright. Acting like it won't be is just admitting that he didn't really know, which is unacceptable. If he's proven wrong later, then no one will be around to call him out for it. It's... that easy, I guess. "Yep." Calvin balances the butt of the shotgun on his inner elbow, tapping away on his COMP with the other. Slug 12B x4 Closing the screen on his COMP, he loads four purple cartridges into the breech of his shotgun, then racks the pump. Living that long gets... Boring. "Wouldn't wanna do it unless it was an everybody thing."
White	White hadn't been looking in Calvin's direction most likely, but notices his gesture to handshake regardless. She turns her head to look at him sidelong, the eerie reddish glint of her eyes inherently making it feel more hostile than it needs to be, only to dispel her own threatening aura with a brief shuffle of arachnid legs to turn towards the man and accept the shake with a gentle grip. Her scythe is propped over her shoulder, haft couched in her elbow. "White. Nice to meet you Mister Calvin." She thinks for a moment. "I might have heard you on the radio once." She hadn't done so enough to recognize his voice immediately, is the unspoken part...
Angela	Cinder sees White stop wiggling and she frowns faintly because she was more concerned about her health than her wiggling, the wiggling was the symptom not the real reason for her worry! Do dinosaurs taste like dragon? ... "I've never eaten dragon..." Cinder says, reluctantly. "Or dinosaur for that matter. I guess you'd have to say, right?" ''Why do you think I've been cozying up to Sarracenia?'' "Because you're kind of a 'Doesn't Matter Who' kinda guy...?" Cinder quips back automatically before adding, "If you need blood I'm sure Lobotomy Corp has plenty of every persuasion on tap." She doesn't even sound bitter about it at this point. She's one of the only Lobotomy Corp agents who can unequivocably say that she's glad she got to work in L-Corp. For all the horrors, it's given her more than she ever expected out of life. Even after that moment with Angela not too long ago, she still feels loyal. Cinders wonders if she saw one of the maids. "Uh... Well we probably can do a look around just to be on the safe side..." ''You got good people in your corner with Trideag'' "Maybe after Angela's free i can join!" Cinder perks up at the idea. "After fighting Abnormalities for like two years, it feels like I can do just about anything normal in The City, haha... Like, mermaids? I probably wouldn't even flinch. Blood fiends..." She trails off. "Well... maybe not Blood Fiends." ''Could do a hell of a lot worse than Lilian, runnin' an outfit like that.'' "Well yeah..." Cinder says. "...Yeah, come to think of it, I wouldn't mind helping Trideag but I'd probably want to see more of the multiverse first. Take a vacation, like Angela and Nonon and everyone." ''You don't know if what she's got is the catchin' kind.'' Cinder's jaw drops open. "Uh what? What---do you mean by that? ... ... Huh??"
Petra Soroka	"Barely enough interesting in this world for one lifetime." "Living that long gets... Boring." "Wouldn't wanna do it unless it was an everybody thing." Petra comes to a stop and squints, turning around after a second to stare at everyone else. "Okay, but like, is that true though? Is that even real? Like-- I mean, sure, you'd be watching basically everyone you love die every few decades, but... not everyone, right? We all know people who'll at least live for hundreds of years; it's not like you'd be alone." "Like, that's what I'm saying. It's crazy to think that by the time Fae's next important birthday comes around, that Lilian's planning on hosting a party for herself, I'll already, like-- be dead from old age. Like, I don't know, maybe your life is boring enough that you don't have enough for one, but...." Petra scrunches up her face in thought for a bit, trailing off. Eventually, she dismisses the thought by waving her hand, like it's a physical cloud she can shoo off, and keeps walking. "Well, who knows. I still think I'll be dead before twenty-five, so it literally doesn't matter either way." "If you need blood I'm sure Lobotomy Corp has plenty of every persuasion on tap." "Do we have any virgin blood...?" Petra wonders out loud, trying to envision the awful blood closet in the Work storage room to remember. "Does Bloodbath count? I mean, no way Carmen was when she was alive, you don't turn out that much of a freak if not. Er-- ugh, now I'm thinking about Ange's parents." "If we can't get back to our own time, how many anachronisms do you think we can cause before we die?" "If we can't get back to our own time, then I'm gonna, like, dig into the center of the world and gather rare metals to rebuild the thing from scratch. I'd find some way to get my ass in cryostasis or something. Use the Beauty of Ash to launch myself into space and see if I can telekinesis myself up to light speed and skip through with relativity type shit. Die if you want; I won't." "I mean, not here." Petra adds afterwards. "If I die without Lilian around, then, like, what was the fucking point, you know?" "Maybe after Angela's free i can join!" "I've been thinking about it too, yeah. I probably will. I mean, it's sort of uncharacteristic of me to do the whole, do-gooding organization stuff, but what else am I doing, right? Just sitting in my apartment in District 12 while Lilian is working right down the street?" Petra chats while walking, checking her time until Twopence returns with info. She might not need to wait, though, because White's scan of all the dinosaurs in the area-- in addition to powerscaling a stegosaurus and triceratops at exactly the same skill ranks; that'll solve a lot of arguments online!-- suggests that one has the unique skill of 'stabilizing unusual temporal motion', a little while further up the river. Either that's the t-rex that ate Petra's gadget, or it's an extremely convenient shortcut to replacing it.
White	White looks away from Calvin and at Petra maybe-curiously as she talks about immortality and boredom derived thereof, but as with many things isn't so motivated by the disagreement that she'd argue over it. She does nod slightly though at the general idea that it's better to do something abnormal than nothing at all, and hearing Petra talk about her Lilian-related priorities gets her staring again like she's hoping to learn something from the topic given Petra's relative lack of filter. With her eyes open it's a little easier to tell when her attention wanders away though; normally the turn of her eyes is a slow sweep that steadily skims information from everything in view, but seeing that odd detail in particular stand out makes her eyes snap onto the source on reflex. So, most likely while still grasping Calvin's hand (she seems to get stuck like this a lot) she lifts her scythe with the other hand to point out upriver like she's brandishing a flagpole. "There." is the only verbal indication she offers, as there is no especial urgency for her now that the target is located. There's functionally no chance she loses track of it now after all, with her attention fixed on it fully.
Angela	Cinder isn't sure how long she'd like to live. Once upon a time she figured it'd be better to go out in a blaze of glory, but lately she's been wondering if she really believes that. She's not miserable every day like before, she's only miserable every so often. Usually she's feeling pretty good about life and her place in it. Would she feel okay in a hundred years or a thousand? She doesn't know. All she knows is she doesn't want ''this'' to end. "Maybe like if you're about to die you can freeze yourself then so you can make the next birthday actually that sounds kinda brutal for Fae..." Cinder frowns thoughtfully, rolling the idea back and forth in her head. ''Do we have any virgin blood...?'' "Well Welfare probably has some, like, they do draw blood in case there's a need for a transfusion. It isn't all healing bullets... Uh but... Carmen ... I mean, it felt like almost all the Sephirah kinda had ..." Cinder's cheeks turn bright red. What Carmen does might be Carmen's business but her face gets redder when Petra mentions she's thinking of Ange's parents. "Y-yeah..." The 'Y-yeah' is a suggestion to drop it apparently. Petra mentions skipping through with relativity. "How long would that take? I don't want to die here either." she's happier to think about the future. "Well Associations aren't always about doing ''good'' though I guess Lilian's would be 'gooder' than the other ones. But it's probably the closest thing we'll get to in The City, like Calvin says."
Rufus Shinra	> "You don't know if what she's got is the catchin' kind." "Hah!" Rufus goes to punch Calvin in the arm. "So what do you got there?" Special equipment and techniques is more stable ground. Rufus peers at the purple cartridges. > "If I die without Lilian around, then, like, what was the fucking point, you know?" "And whatever you have is fascinating, and I wish I understood it." This was supposed to be a social-currency-regeneration day. Rufus tries again. "Being that dedicated to someone sounds nice, at least. Like you have things figured out. All the blank spaces in your life have a name written in them already." "Anyway - Trideag sounds nice, but that sort of thing isn't my thing."
Calvin Nash	Uh what? What---do you mean by that? ... ... Huh?? "I mean that girl ain't right," Calvin says, brows raised as if it were self evident. "Got problems. Ain't got no sense." I might have heard you on the radio once. Calvin's handshake is firm and brisk, but not the kind of firm where he's trying to hurt someone's hand; more like he's very concerned about Not having a limp handshake. "Yep. Likewise. Good to meetcha." We all know people who'll at least live for hundreds of years; it's not like you'd be alone. "Yep. Plenty who won't, too. That's the problem. Lotta people I grew up with are gettin' old," Calvin says. "When I was 'bout six or seven, I heard my first cuss word. Eugene drove a nail through his thumb workin' on that fence of his. Didn't shout, didn't scream, didn't even stamp his feet. Just looked at it 'n said 'shit.'" "I used to figure he was the strongest person in the world. Now, he's got to where his clothes're hangin' off 'im, and he's startin' to forget things. Talk about people that've been gone ten, twenty years, like they're gonna turn up." "Boring's got nothin' to do with it. There's a bear out in the woods that up and kilt somebody," he says, gesturing to the prehistoric wilderness, "You either fix it so he don't come by no more or you get up and kill 'im. I dunno. I know it ain't likely we're gonna kill that bear--but I been thinkin' 'bout it a lot lately." Chernobog makes a thoughtful noise. "Anyway. Whenever I go, it ain't gonna be here. And nobody else is, neither. That sumbitch is only 'bout as big as a house." So what do you got there? "Granddaddy's trench gun. Loaded up with special-made cartridges I cooked up. These one's'll seek out what I'm after 'n put it under, PDQ." It's then that he notices White still has his hand. "Aight." He pauses expectantly, as if she'll pick up the cue. Failing that, "So if I could get my hand back... I got somethin' for 'im." Once his hand is released, he shoulders the gun and aims down the ironsight. "He's a big fella, so.. right there, you said?" After double-checking with White, two triggerpulls for that one. There is the expected sound, and the expected muzzle flash, and even, for the particularly acute of vision, the slug. But the latter two change relatively quickly; the flash separates out into a field of tiny purple stars. The projectiles cook themselves off in purple flame, streamers of fire winding themselves into starry, translucent purple tapirs that run across the sky, homing in on the dino that White indicated. They collide with their target and explode into glittering dust, inducing a magical sleep in the T-rex.
Petra Soroka	"Maybe like if you're about to die you can freeze yourself then so you can make the next birthday actually that sounds kinda brutal for Fae..." Petra puts her fist up to her mouth and gnaws her knuckle in thought. "But like... I'd still only have the same amount of time total.... Maybe putting me in cryostasis all the time and only, like, exhuming me for special events? Oh my god, that sounds horrifying, don't give Lilian any ideas." "How long would that take? I don't want to die here either." "Oh-- w-well, sure, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't just... abandon you to die here, that'd be fucked." Petra taps a fingernail to the elaborate compact mirror secured by a chain around her waist. There's presumably some reason she hasn't pulled out the Beauty of Ash for this yet, but she's got it along with her, just like always. "I've never actually tried to reshape the Beauty of Ash to fit two people in the cockpit. I mean, I'd definitely try, but hopefully it, like-- doesn't come to that at all." "I mean, it felt like almost all the Sephirah kinda had ..." "Are you kidding? All the Sephirah? No, no way. They're some of the most bitchless people I've ever met that aren't Elites." Petra puts up a finger to count off about how all of her bosses are massive virgins. "Malkuth? One of the most likely, but probably not. Kinda girl who'd obsess over how to input a hookup into her weightwatchers app for hours before deciding it's not worth the trouble and ghosting him. Yesod? No way. Netzach? Do you even need me to say it? Hod? Too scared. Chesed? Ehhh... probably, actually, but who cares. It might be a hot take, but Gebura exudes absolutely the most clueless virgin energy if you can get past her being scary. Poor little Benjamin was totally saving his sweet innocence for Ayin before dying. Binah... Binah... anyways." "And whatever you have is fascinating, and I wish I understood it." Petra clicks her tongue. "I don't have anything. I just have-- woah, holy shit, is that a fucking giant ass milipede?!" Distracted mid-sentence, Petra spots something across the river and immediately hops between rocks to get to it, laughing in kind of perverse delight when she finds it. Pointing excitedly with both hands like she's showing off a priceless art piece, she emphatically gestures at a milipede that's the length of an entire adult person. "No fucking way. White, come check this shit out, it's crazy. Wait, or are, like-- you-sized spiders normal at all over there?" "Anyways," Mood-boosted by something completely incidental to the conversation, Petra gets emotionally-associatively gaslit into viewing Rufus's words as more positively than she intended to. "Yes, actually, it is nice, for your information. And I didn't mean anything gross. Just that, like, there's no closure or arc to me disappearing suddenly and dying for no good reason without her ever knowing. Like, I got really nearly assassinated like that once, but the safeguards I put in place to prevent that don't really help here." "Plenty who won't, too. That's the problem. Lotta people I grew up with are gettin' old," Petra preemptively rolls her eyes, like 'oh, of course, with your perfect little irreplaceable backwater shithole', but as Calvin goes on, his tone makes her stop. "... Fix it for everybody, or fix it for the people you care about? That's a pretty big difference, you know. I don't think it's possible to want to do something 'for everybody's sake', and people who say they do are lying." "Don't you think it'd be worth living forever even if just your town could?"
White	White seems to take the cue gracefully at least, almost faintly relieved that she's met the Handshake Duration Quota as she draws back to a more neutral posture with both hands on her weapon, and it upright at a slight angle across her front. She glances between the barrel of Calvin's gun and the dinosaur in question to reconfirm the exact subject, and steps back a little to give him a bit more room to work with. Her gaze follows the slug when it's fired, sees the magical offput take its place, and probably even observes the creature's change in status when it connects. She's about to go do her part, but she's called over by Petra, by name no less. So, the first place she goes instead of to the sleeping T-rex is to Petra and her newfound Big Bug. She bends at the waist for a closer look purely for emotive reasons. The question strikes her a bit oddly, but the headtilt she shows Petra as a result is mild. "... Not normal, but they exist." she eventually replies. "And there's bigger, rarely." She did mention 'Mother' before, after all, so the kaiju-sized spider she talked about back then might be familiar. Well, it was a cool bug at least. Then, she's gone. Almost soundlessly she relocates her larger frame near the conked out rex and shoos off any other critters lingering nearby with her Evil Eye of Panic, some threat-display from her arachnid lower half and some swipes of her scythe in the air. She doesn't expect it to take much after the sound of a gunshot, to be honest. Once she has the space to work with she contentedly approaches the sleeping beast and leans in to penetrate its flesh with her gaze instead of a blade, peering into the stomach until she can visually confirm the grimy gadget's position and align it for teleportation. Not into her hands of course; that's disgusting. No, she'll just deliver it to Petra with a faint little pop of displaced air in front of her face. If she catches it before wiping it off of stomach bile, well, that's her problem not White's.
Calvin Nash	Don't you think it'd be worth living forever even if just your town could? Calvin lowers the gun after racking the pump and sending the second spent cartridge flying. To his credit, he catches and pockets both of them rather than leaving them here. "I'd be damn tempted," he admits, as she enthuses about the millipede. He doesn't seem to be as interested even if he does appreciate it; maybe it's because it doesn't look all that different from some of the less humanoid demons he's encountered. "Big as hell, and more legs than he knows what to do with. Still likes a bite to eat, though, don't he?" It's a rube's observation, to be sure, but it's not hard to get the point he's making--it's interesting how the core behaviors of animals persist even when their bodies are so drastically different as to be alien. He sighs, his mind drifting back to her question. "I dunno. There's more people in the world than there is people I care about, that's for damn sure," he frowns. "And If I thought I could fix everything for everybody on my own, I wouldn'ta joined the Paladins. So I guess you're right. I just think it's important that people don't get too far up their own asses with 'every man for himself.'" Pop! "Damn she works quick."
Rufus Shinra	> "holy shit, is that a fucking giant ass milipede?! "Yeah? For real?" Rufus abandons everything else he was doing, and runs over as well to take a look. "Jeez, that is crazy. What does it eat? Giant... flowers?" > "Don't you think it'd be worth living forever even if just your town could?" "Again - still no." "Even if you could handpick the people you're spending eternity with, unlimited latitude on who gets included and who doesn't get included - there's still a finite amount of... worthwhile in the world." "Even in the multiverse. You can find the most wondrous things, a..." Rufus waves his hands. "Magic unicorn wizard that farts rainbows, and that'll be neat for a while, but you can only have your first encounter with a magical unicorn wizard farting rainbows once. Then the novelty wears off. The fantastical becomes mundane." "Even with people - even with people you like. You can only hear someone's stories once for the first time. You can only see someone's art once for the first time. You can only see someone's epic fail meme compilation once for the first time. After a point, everything's repeats. And at that point, you'd better hope your immortality has some sorta escape clause. Me, I'd rather not risk it." Pop! "Oh - that quick. Huh."
Angela	"Is that a kind of not right you can catch...?" Cinder wonders and thinks about the people who tend to hang around Sarracenia a lot but she can only imagine two people in the moment. She is wholly distracted by that by talk of Gebura's clueless virgin energy. "Really? Gebura...? ... I mean... Wait...." Cinder cannot get past how scary Gebura is, actually. "...Actually maybe like everybody is scared of her so she didn't get experience, maybe...? She doesn't seem like the type to make the first move anyway...." She looks over her shoulder as if expecting Gebura to pop out of a bush and start yelling at her but she does not spawn. And then...Milipede! Cinder glances over as Petra hops between rocks and laughs and shows off the giant bug and Cinder smiles, fondly. It is all terribly endearing. Maybe she'd be ok spending a couple weeks in dinoland if it had moments like this. "I wonder why they ended up a lot tinier...." Cinder says before drawing out a camera and snapping a picture of Petra and the milipede quickly. "Uh sorry! It was just cute and... I figured taking pictures might be nice. For uh. Memories." "I mean it's about life quality right? I actually really admire that Angela after all she's experienced wants to live for real instead of just like die. But you'd kind of expect someone who lived in the facility to be like 'ok i had enough', right? But she wanted to live even before she visited the multiverse. At least, it seems like that." Cinder looks back to Rufus and wonders, "Do you think maybe that might be because you are the type of person with a thousand bucks just in his pocket? Like, I dunno, maybe you've just filled your life with so much stuff, it all got old to you faster or something." She frowns and then looks to Petra, and then smiles down at her hands. "But I think if it was with someone I really cared about, I could just lie in the grass with them forever without needing to say anything and still be happy." She frowns. "But like...wouldn't you get new stories if you kept meeting new people and stuff?"
Petra Soroka	"Giant... flowers?" Petra, transfixed alongside Rufus, nods uncertainly. "Ferns? Maybe it eats those giant dragonflies... or, this thing could eat dogs whole and I wouldn't even be surprised." "Uh sorry!" "Hm? For what?" Petra blinks at Cinder in confusion. "Get one of both of us! My phone's almost dead, and we need it to get back." "So I guess you're right. I just think it's important that people don't get too far up their own asses with 'every man for himself.'" Petra starts to shake her head at Calvin, and then startles when the milipede moves for the first time since she pointed it out. Immediately, Petra relocates herself to a rock in the middle of the small river, where no milipede could possibly intrude on her domain. Then she shakes her head in disagreement. "I think, literally only the worst people ever believe in that. I definitely don't. No, I..." Petra trails off, cross-legged with her jeans getting a little damp from splashing water around the rock. "I have a friend who tried for a long time to be the 'hero of everyone's hearts', until doing that got her hurt badly. And another friend who tried to care about everyone, and didn't notice that the care that 'everyone' wanted directly harmed more important people. So I think you have to choose who's important, and tell everyone else to fuck off. And the fewer people, the more important they get to be." "Even with people - even with people you like. You can only hear someone's stories once for the first time. "Mmm." Petra makes a small noise, of partial-disgreement, but taking it more seriously than she usually takes Rufus. "Sure. Stasis is death whether you're alive or not. And I wouldn't even disagree at all, really, except for one thing." 190,"Your... passive degredation is relative. Like, there's not just a universal way everything runs out of excitement all at the same time. And you can only hear someone's stories for the first time once, but... if someone's growth as a person is faster than your consumption of them, you'll never run out. You'll never be able to know enough about them to be bored, because even when the rest of the multiverse is boring and lifeless, she'll be worth it all on her own. Your unicorn only doesn't measure up because you have no imagination.") "But I think if it was with someone I really cared about, I could just lie in the grass with them forever without needing to say anything and still be happy." Petra smiles back, fondly even though she was definitely talking about Lilian and not Cinder. It's possible for her to want both of them to live, actually. "Yeah. I don't know really, one life or infinite of them; it's really just about... people, I guess." When the Tyrannosaurus falls, all the lesser dinosaurs in the area scatter from the impact too. The little snooze-bubble from its gigantic snout reassuringly inflates and deflates with each snore, proving that it's soundly asleep for White to approach. Petra perks her head up, and then hops across the rocks to follow shortly behind her. Walking forwards, engrossed with the sleeping t-rex (T-rex! Up close! Asleep! Breathing! Real!) Petra isn't in a state of mind to either choose to catch the temporal parallax aligner, or choose to intentionally let it drop. Instead, she automatically does the worst of both worlds. Getting surprised when it pops in front of her and reaching out to catch it, and then shrieking when it's slimy and accidentally bouncing it towards herself so it rolls down the entire front of her tank top and leaves an awful smear before hitting the ground. "Ah-- ah, ueaugh, ahhhhhh, noooooo! Gross! Ack!"
Petra Soroka	Soggily and slimily, Petra whines while the gizmo rolls to a stop in the grass. "Cinderrrrrrr..! Do you have any of that stomach acid neutralizer from Safety? Augh... ew....." Since neither of them do, Petra has to deal with the critical situation of having bile on her shirt immediately even before dealing with the gizmo. She scurries back over to the river and throws up a privacy curtain of morphmetal, hastily shucking off her shirt and rinsing off her hands and chest with the water. Then, hidden behind the curtain, a strangled noise of absolute horror squeaks out of her, for unknown reasons. After another minute, the curtain awkwardly melts back down into a morphmetal bubble, revealing Petra wearing, in place of her stained shirt, inexplicably... a perfectly tailored red shirt and jacket from the uniform of Lilian's school, Nova Heliosanctis. Red faced and stiff, Petra shuffles back over to wipe off the gizmo, mumbling. "It's the only shirt I had."
Rufus Shinra	> "Do you think maybe that might be because you are the type of person with a thousand bucks just in his pocket? Like, I dunno, maybe you've just filled your life with so much stuff, it all got old to you faster or something." "That, or I speedran the truth by starting out with the best of everything, while all the rest of you had to deal with..." Rufus waves his hands vaguely. "Public school lunches and non-valet parking and whatever other horrors you had to grow up with." > "But I think if it was with someone I really cared about, I could just lie in the grass with them forever without needing to say anything and still be happy." "Yeah? I don't feel like that sort of connection really exists, it's just boring people deluding themselves into being boring together and calling it love." > "But like...wouldn't you get new stories if you kept meeting new people and stuff?" "Most people aren't worthwhile. And the ones that are worthwhile, even they have a limited amount to share." "Like... movies. Do you ever hear go 'Oh it's a Quentin Taratino flick' 'Oh it's another Joss Whedon superhero movie' like they're reducing someone's entire creative output to a genre. It's another one of your Aunt Gladys's travel stories. It's another one of your druggie friend's narrow escapes from the cops. Without them even opening their mouths you can start to imagine the major beats, the twists, the rising tension and the ending, and the only things that change are the details. At a certain point, yeah, you've heard everything." > You'll never be able to know enough about them to be bored, because even when the rest of the multiverse is boring and lifeless, she'll be worth it all on her own. "Whatever you've got is fascinating," says Rufus, forgetting once again that he's trying to score points.
White	White probably doesn't catch the commentary on her speed-of-work, looking over the sleepy dino after her job is done. Despite her comments about wanting to eat one, somehow she decides to simply pat it on the end of its snout once and leave it be, dropping her scythe back into storage and reverting to her usual hand-folded posture as she walks away from the big ole critter. It looks a little less naturally demure when her stride is that of an eight-legged creature. Petra's sounds of distress lead her to contemplate whether she should have taken more care... But, well, she did the nastiest part for her already. Clearly White is not in the wrong, she's helping! She doesn't see a reason to judge Petra's replacement clothing either, since she doesn't recognize its origin, so as far as Petra can tell White has all but forgotten she exists for a short time. Instead the arachne spends a moment looking at Chernobog like she's perplexed he didn't seem to be the means of restraint, as opposed to a gun that fires magic sleeping rounds. Maybe she was hoping to see him do something cool? But she moves on, and perhaps infringes on Calvin's sense of personal space by reaching out to pat him on the head. Once, twice, with just a little too much force so it makes a faint thumping sound on his skull, but not enough to be painful at least. She's only barely taller than normal in this form, but not having to reach upward is enough to attempt some human(ish) contact as praise, it seems. Or, well, if he deflects her headpats she at least doesn't seem driven enough to pursue her quarry. It was a fleeting impulse, after all. Either way, she's had time to mull over her own minor contribution to the conversation of immortality, and does so while looking down at one of her own altered legs... Though her voice is quiet, so it might be missed. "I already know someone who's immortal and bored of it. I don't want to be like that, but it seems like it's hard to avoid. I think I have some advantages though."
Angela	"Oh!" Cinder says. "Right!" and snags another picture. She glances to Rufus again, increasingly effortful. "...I guess I didn't care for that kind of life." Rufus says most people aren't worthwhile though Cinder hasn't really had that experience or maybe she just can't think like that, which troubles her. She can certainly order people, prioritize them, but can she just discard their worth? She doesn't think she can do that. "I uh. Do go to movie night sometimes though Tennant gets way too intense about it and sometimes has weird taste..." She frowns. "I dunno. I don't mind hearing the same things. And there's usually...something new. I guess I'm still young but you aren't like in your fifties or anything." She hesitates and then swallows something else she wants to say. She bites at her lip when she's asked for stomach acid neutralizer. "Gosh I didn't...I brought some HP bullets but I didn't think to snag anything that specific...!" Cinder was thinking of Petra, of course, but bobs her head with a mhm mhm mhm at her words. And when Petra changes her shirt. Cinder recognizes the uniform but it takes her a moment to recognize Petra didn't go to that school. "Oh uh. Did you get that from the campus store?" She asks.
Calvin Nash	So I think you have to choose who's important, and tell everyone else to fuck off. And the fewer people, the more important they get to be. "Yeah," says Calvin. "But your... reasons, for who's important are important, too. Which I guess is what I shoulda said to start with. I don't wanna live someplace where it's a Patriot or a Red Dog decidin' who's important. Somewhere where 'who's important' only has to do with whether you're white, or whether you agree poor folks should get beaten with sticks. You know? I just wanna be the kind of person that's got good reasons for who's important to me." It's the only shirt I had. Calvin, who was not around for that entire arc, waves a hand dismissively. "It ain't gonna kill you." I don't feel like that sort of connection really exists, it's just boring people deluding themselves into being boring together and calling it love. Calvin looks over his shoulder at Rufus, away from the milipede. "Did you take a cold shower this mornin' or what?" He shakes his head, then returns his attention to Petra. "Looks like you got the gizmo. Good deal. Pleasure workin' with you," he offers to White. I already know someone who's immortal and bored of it. I don't want to be like that, but it seems like it's hard to avoid. "Those who once starved will eat as if starving even in times of plenty," Chernobog opines. "The reverse is also true. Unused to scarcity, the princes of the Earth burn through what lean times afford them like locusts. This is why mortals paid me tribute, at the height of my reign, but they are still very much the same, centuries later." "What's that s'posed to mean? That you're only bored immortal if you're just plain boring, period?" "Something like that." Calvin utters a thoughtful 'hm.' "Anyway. Ms. White, good job gettin' that gizmo back for Petra. And Petra, it was damn impressive work even with it fartin' out like that. Me 'n Chernobog'll post up and make sure nothin' else bothers you while you fix 'er up. Holler if you need me."
Petra Soroka	"Oh uh. Did you get that from the campus store?" Cinder can tell from a glance, that it's really not the kind of school to have a campus store. Obviously the upper class of the upper class, prim and proper in the way that only old money can pull off, and so visibly dissonant with Petra's whole vibe that the thought that it can't possily be hers is unavoidable even without knowing whose it is. Petra ducks her head and looks away, wrapping the gizmo up in a fern to carry it. "Ah. Eheh. Well, no. It doesn't matter." "What's that s'posed to mean? That you're only bored immortal if you're just plain boring, period?" "I mean... I can see how that applies to my subordinate," Enduring being referred to by that is a tiny upwards tick in Rufus's social capital. "But doesn't that still imply, like... a limit? If you walked the entire diameter of Sector Zero, you'd see a trillion different things and by the time you got to the end, the first worlds you went to would have gone through like, a dozen cycles of empires rising and falling and stuff. They'd be unrecognizable, so you could go back to them. I still wouldn't do it alone, but I don't do anything alone, really...." Like Petra said, it's practically trivial (for her) to reassemble the last bit of the time machine once it's acquired. Since dinosaurs are just, in the end, normal animals, being on guard for them prevents any deeply unfortunate second mishaps, and so it's less than an hour of work before the time machine is whirring back to life and depositing the gang back on Hydrochoeria. Immediately after they drop down, the time machine rattles and starts smoking, before exploding a second time, to Petra's deep chagrin.