Scene #9432: Rewinding The Clock From Midnight

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	The last time Petra built a time machine, it was in a private lab on Hydrochoeria, but this time she instructs Sarracenia to a warehouse in the Grand Dorado. Also last time Petra built a time machine, despite working, it left her stranded one hundred million years in the past for most of a day due to an energy malfunction right at the end. While it would be really funny to purposefully cut corners when designing another time machine and see if she can get away with evaporating Sarracenia into primordial goo through a temporal mishap, her pride as an engineer simply doesn't allow her to. More importantly, she'd probably get in trouble for murdering another Partner. It's not like she hasn't made her motives clear. Petra's workshop in the Grand Dorado is just one warehouse in a building packed full of them, rows and rows of industrially-reinforced storage areas built on the edge of the city. It's a perfectly designed building for a wide variety of Concord-approved activities, such as weapons testing, unethical experimentation, storing radioactive waste, or even simply enough gold to topple a global economy, if you've ran out of anywhere else to put it. Petra's room in particular, though, is much more subdued-- more like someone's kind of messy hobby garage than anything. If Sarracenia's familiar with T-Corp's aesthetics, then it's easy to see their presence here. Grey-brown gears interlock in a clanking orchestra all around the room, dissected and reassembled differently to change the rotational array of their motion, and steampunk pipes conduct water and who knows what else around the large machine. Domed glass faces show pressure gauges as well as more esoteric dials, like measuring the relativity quotient of the current location, a clock with a stuttering second hand, and some sliders for stuff like height and weight that are currently off. The garage also has a cot in it with some blankets thrown over top, and tools and half-finished projects scattered around the room: it looks more lived-in than her castle on Hydrochoeria does, actually. Petra pulls up the warehouse door by a strap, and when it closes behind them, it seals shut with hydraulic pressure against the ground tightly enough that a bomb going off in this room wouldn't be felt outside. Wearing a binder under an old grease-stained t-shirt with jeans, Petra runs her hand through her hair with nonspecific stress and a heavy sigh. "Alright. Well, it's done. Fucking, making a time machine that's meant to affect a person's state is way way harder than making one that knocks people backwards in time. I thought they'd be similar enough, but, like, no. Thankfully TimeTrack's actually, seemingly, kind of specialized in that? It's fucked-- I've definitely broken a million patent laws with this thing, but what else is new. Do you have any idea how hard it is to account for movement relative to the speed of light over the course of an individual person's decades? All for the fucking sake of...." Petra trails off with another sigh. All that work, and she's helping Sarracenia.
Sarracenia	Since Petra is doing Sarra a pretty big favor, Sarra has decided to try and be as un-annoying as possible today. She isn't wearing a big poofy princess gown. Instead, she's wearing rather mundane (by her standards) outfit. Just something business casual that none-the-less covers just about every inch of visible skin below the neck. A white button-up blouse, a black skirt, and a black blazer. Black gloves, leggings, and simple heeled shoes with pointed toes finish off the outfit. The hum of propellers signals Sarra's arrival, and her personal wooden VTOL lands at the closest available space. The princess emerges with Gregory in tow and walks into the warehouse. The princess is only passingly familiar with T-corp. To her, it is more reminiscent of Lilian's adventure castle if less impressive. She looks the place over once they are inside, then her eye lingers for a moment on the cot. It is pretty obvious she wants to comment on it, but she doesn't because...that would be pretty rude right now. 'Alright. Well, it's done....' Sarra listens to the explanation/rant, then nods lightly. "I truly appreciate that you are willing to do this. I have no doubt that it will lower your standing with Lilian once she finds out. So, I will keep it a secret from her and everyone else if you so wish. And, I suppose I will...'owe you' after this." Sarra seems supremely unnerved at the prospect. "...since I am fairly certain that by now you likely consider the promise I made broken." Gregory, ever the polite butler, bows lightly to Petra when they arrive. "Greetings, Miss Petra. Thank you for helping my princess with this. I too will owe you after this." Sarra mmphs lightly, seeming a bit nervous. "Presuming this works, of course. I cannot really appreciate all the trouble that must have gone into this, and know little about any of how it works. I am putting a lot of trust in you, Petra."
Petra Soroka	"I have no doubt that it will lower your standing with Lilian once she finds out. So, I will keep it a secret from her and everyone else if you so wish." Petra's lips twist into a scowl and she looks away. She kicks some tools and scrap metal out of her way to navigate around the time machine, and then hesitates, backtracks, and starts picking them up and placing them more neatly on the workbench. "Well, yes. But, I mean, I wouldn't do this if it was something like, choosing your well-being over Lilian's. Not in a million years." She folds her arms, twirling some strange high tech gun-like tool around her finger. "It's more... that... well, I do want this to be kept secret from Lilian. But there's another thing too." She stops the tool with her thumb and pulls the trigger, causing the tip of the gun to spark with a noise that seems to distort backwards. "You're kind of, like, literally impossible to get off of Lilian's back without murdering you. Which I can't do, since you're a Partner. So, I've done something that no one ever thought was possible until now." She dramatically pauses, taking a deep breath in. "I've decided that I'm going to make Lilian happier by improving your life instead of ruining it." Petra walks around the side of the machine and turns a big wheel crank. A heavy glass dome that looks like a diving bell lifts arduously upwards, big enough for Sarracenia to stand in like she's getting into the device from The Fly. It clicks into the upper position, cables and metal coils attached into the top of the bell with a sort of raygun-esque point aiming downwards inside of it. "I actually don't really want you to owe me. Really, I won't mind if you go right back to insulting me and misunderstanding everything I say, like, the second after this is done." Petra lets go of the crank with a 'oof' of exertion, leaning up against the time machine. "But I'm sure as fucking hell not doing this for free." "If this works-- I mean, it should. There's a-- I can't actually explain the details of how the Singularity works, because I'm already super duper risking getting the Arbiters sicced on me for doing this, and there's just no reason to risk more by telling you-- but I can show you proof." Petra wanders over to nearby the cot, looking through shelving built into the wall, and delicately pulls out a glass terrarium with a pretty black and glittery-gold butterfly perched on a twig inside. "This li'l guy's got no mouth, so he's only supposed to live a few days once he becomes a butterfly. But I've tested the machine a couple times by sending him back a few weeks to be a caterpillar, and then pupate and stuff all over again, and he's survived every time, so he's probably the longest living butterfly of his species literally ever now. So, that's proof, right?" There are, in fact, several burst-open pupae hanging from the top of the enclosure, but only one butterfly inside. That's not really proof, but it'd be strangely elaborate for it to be a lie. "Anyways. When it works. The thing you'll do for me in return is only be nice to Lilian. Like, if she insults you, don't rise to the bait, don't pop out of nowhere just to talk shit about her or disagree with you, nothing like that. Just treat her totally fucking normally and decently, and that's it. In exchange for giving you, like, forty years of your life back." After that, she adds, "Oh, and it's good to see you, Gregory. I won't ask anything from you-- I mean, I'm sure your job's hard enough."
Sarracenia	'I've decided that I'm going to make Lilian happier by improving your life instead of ruining it.' Sarra has to process that a bit. She isn't sure she can follow the logic. Wouldn't Lilian hate it if Sarra had a good life? "I...see..." Sarra says uncertainly while she looks the machine over. She has no idea what time machines are supposed to look like, but it looks sufficiently eccentric in its design, somewhere between looking like real science and like the kind of science you see in cheesy sci-fi. 'I actually don't really want you to owe me. Really, I won't mind if you go right back to insulting me and misunderstanding everything I say, like, the second after this is done. But I'm sure as fucking hell not doing this for free.' Once again Sarra is uncertain. She waits for some condition to be imposed, but instead Petra goes on to talk about a butterfly. Sarra's eye widens as she peers into the Terrarium with the pretty butterfly. "That is...quite impressive." she says, sounding surprised at her own sincerity. "Black and gold." she adds after a moment, with not comment other than that. It is just an interesting coincidence. 'Anyways. When it works....' The condition is imposed, even if it was a bit later than Sarra expected. And, it is quite a steep condition. The swirl of thoughts that go through Sarra's head is visible on her face. Surprise at the condition, followed by why am I surprised, followed by a slight 'mmmph' at being told not to take the bait. As the last part is said, it is clear that Sarra is not happy. Her lips purse, her hands clench. "I treat her completely normally and decently when she is -being- completely normal and decent." she says with a huff. Her arms cross over her chest and she starts to pace. "So...you want me to just -take- her verbal abuse, let her do and say terrible things, let her rub her own successes in my face and generally treat me like dirt, -without- saying anything 'mean' back to her?!" Gregory had nodded lightly when Petra spoke to him, but even he looks a bit tense once Petra gives her condition. He watches Sarra pace, waits for her to say her piece, then starts to say something. He does not quite make it. "She will think she has broken me!!" Sarra exclaims. "That she has finally been victorious in breaking my spirit and my hope! And then, she will think I am even lower than dirt because I have 'given up' after all this time!" Sarra is pacing faster and more angrily. "She will think...that she has won!!" Gregory watches quietly as Sarra paces some more, then she finally growls and comes to a stop, one foot tapping angrily. The foot taps for several moments before it slows. And something Tamamo asked comes to her mind. "...cucumber..." The cucumber paradox. 'Pickle' Sarra yelps, then huffs. "W-what? Ugh! Why is this-" She pulls out her phone and hits a button, then stuffs it back into her purse angrily. Then...her angry expression fades. Is she willing to spite herself just to spite Lilian? Of course, history says yes. That foot starts tapping again, gaining speed until finally Sarra lets out one of her growly 'nnnnng'. "Fine!" She throws up her arms in exasperation, then paces a bit more before she ends up hugging her arms around herself, looking more like a scared little girl than an old princess. She rubs one hand up and down the other arm uncomfortably and looks down at the floor, a melancholy expression forming on her face. "...I suppose regaining those lost years is...worth some sacrifice..." she says, though her eyes grows misty as she imagines how much of a punching bag she will be now. She sniffles, then takes a deep breath and makes her way under the bell quickly. "J-just hurry. If I think about it for too long..." she says, looking down and off to the side, arms still wrapped around herself lightly.
Petra Soroka	"Black and gold." "Black and gold..." Petra murmurs in echo, eyes on the butterfly. The symbolism of the two colors isn't something that's been lost on her either. Especially not her, with how much it's come up. She flips the top of the terrarium open and lowers her finger in for the butterfly to climb onto. Holding it up, she twists her finger back and forth so that the gold on its wings reflects the light. "I guess it's appropriate. I mean, it's kind of the color of 'power' in the City, right? The Arbiters, the Udjat... I mean, even Ayin kind of had it going on." She lifts the butterfly up beside her eye, gold next to gold. "So I'm next, right? That's something to look forwards to." She doesn't return the butterfly back to its cage either, when going back to work on the time machine. As long as she moves the hand it's on carefully, it doesn't seem inclined to fly away, so she's mostly working on fiddling with the controls with one hand and sparingly using the other. "So...you want me to just -take- her verbal abuse, let her do and say terrible things, let her rub her own successes in my face and generally treat me like dirt, -without- saying anything 'mean' back to her?!" "Nah, see-- well, yes, I do, if that's what it comes to, but you don't understand how Lilian operates." Petra shakes her head, murmuring under her breath, 'how old were you before? Forty? Let me get my...' and wandering over to her toolbench to grab some sort of scanner. "You're literally the only person she randomly brings up to insult like that, and that's only because you've proven that there's no other way to talk with you. She doesn't have the energy to sustain one sided arguments-- if you stop, she'll stop." Holding her scanner, she shakes out a drop of morphmetal from her bottle and sharpens it into a needle telekinetically floating over Sarracenia's hand. Petra brings the scanner over to her, says, 'Gimme your finger,' and then pricks it with the morphmetal to smear a drop of the blood on the panel of the scanner. Its screen flashes through some complicated data about Sarra's cell health, apparent age, the temporal magic aftereffects, and so on, which Petra notes down on a pad of paper braced agains her elbow. "Like, I think the first time she insults you and you don't immediately return fire, she'll be kind of confused and upset. I'm not saying, like-- actually really, really don't try to be 'sweet' to her or whatever, or fake-nice, because that would be creepy, just, like, normal and polite. But I think she'll be kind of confused, and she'll try and push harder at first, maybe one or two more times, and then after that she'll... probably lay off? If you don't continue fights with her, then I just think she won't start them." "And then, she will think I am even lower than dirt because I have 'given up' after all this time!" Switching over to input data into the time machine, Petra sighs. "Lilian literally never thinks less of someone for being able to change. God. She doesn't think of you as a person because you've acted the same towards her for-literally-ever. You know how the definition of a living thing has two factors? The ability to reproduce, and the ability to respond to external stimuli. Right now, you've got neither." "W-what? Ugh! Why is this-" Hearing Angela's voice come out of a phone makes Petra automatically slap her hand to her side to check if it's hers. When it's not, Petra gets a little pale and swipes a finger through her hair anxiously to tuck it behind her ear. "I, uh, hope Lilian didn't hear any of that. Probably not, right?" "J-just hurry. If I think about it for too long..." Petra scoffs quietly, but she tries to hold it in to not scare Sarra off. Gesturing towards the glass dome, "Go stand under that. I'll lower it around you, so don't freak out."
Sarracenia	'Black and gold...' Sarra mmphs softly. "I had never made the connection. It was a color combination I had seen Lilian wear on multiple occasions and is included in the colors of Trideag. It does seem quite obvious now that it has been pointed out, though." 'So I'm next, right? That's something to look forward to.' Sarra peers. "...next? Next for what? If what I have heard is true, you have already been through any phases that might be considered akin to where I am right now or where Ayin was. No, you seem to be on course to having an easy and frustratingly wholesome life -despite- all the things you -admit- to having done. And as I have said before, I have no doubt that you will somehow end up living forever. You may even end up one of those multiverse-shaping powers that works mostly behind the scenes in some timeless dimension." Sarra says, then blinks. "...of course, I could just be watching too much of those 'streaming services' in my off time." 'Lilian literally never thinks less of someone for being able to change. God. She doesn't think of you as a person because you've acted the same towards her for-literally-ever. You know how the definition of a living thing has two factors? The ability to reproduce, and the ability to respond to external stimuli. Right now, you've got neither.' Sarra mmmmphs heavily at that last thing, then huffs. "So the time I apologized to her for slapping her and she responded with assurances that I was the most terrible creature to exist and that I should just go die already...that was her thinking -more- of me? When I went to help find out what was happening on Meika's world and she shot me, that was her thinking -more- of me?" Sarra shakes her head. "I see what you say when it is others, but when it is me? She goes out of her way to do and say terrible things to me." Sarra apparently thinks these are examples of change. Sarra pauses, then huffs. "And then does very confusing things, like...allow me into Trideag, and...not kick me out of Trideag, and...send me to work with the Liu ostensibly to help me improve even if I have no doubt she expects and even hopes that I do not." Sarra watches that butterfly as they speak. Why does it not fly away? Sarra is tempted to try and reach out, but she balks quickly. There is no way a butterfly would land on her. She's not that kind of princess, even if she wants to be. The morphmetal needle makes her nervous, and Sarra turns her head away as she is pricked. A small squeak escapes her at the prick, but a soft green light flows over her finger afterword. Her mushrooms at work. "...30." Sarra corrects with a flat expression. "And if you have to skew things one way or the other...do try and skew it toward younger instead of older. I could use more...time. Just, in general." 'I, uh, hope Lilian didn't hear any of that. Probably not, right?' Sarra mmphs in annoyance. "No, I do not think it was open broadcasting the whole time. Lilian would no doubt be here maiming us if it was." Sarra says, followed by a bit of a grim laugh. 'Go stand under that. I'll lower it around you, so don't freak out.' Sarra looks up at the bell, then closes her eye and takes a deep breath. "...do not freak out...do not freak out..." she says quietly, and just keeps saying it a few more times.
Petra Soroka	"No, you seem to be on course to having an easy and frustratingly wholesome life -despite- all the things you -admit- to having done." Sarracenia's huffing complaints are something that Petra can shrug off with basically no effort, but this accusation in particular staggers her into silence. The expression on her face is less that she's been 'surprised' in any way, and more like she's had the emotional air knocked out of her by a heavy shove to her chest, eyes widening slightly and pupils contracting. After a few seconds of winded pause, she quietly sucks down a breath of air and droops a bit. "... Sure, whatever. I guess I do have it too easy. But don't worry, I'm never ending up immortal. I'll kill myself long before even getting to even your old hag age." "I see what you say when it is others, but when it is me? She goes out of her way to do and say terrible things to me." Petra is still in an emotional downturn when Sarra moves on to the next topic, and for the most part while Sarra lists her grievances, Petra stays silent and keeps her eyes locked on the machine in front of her. Once Sarracenia's done, there's a few seconds of silence where it seems like Petra might not have any response for her at all, before she abruptly starts talking again. "You're really bad at understanding people. And you can't seem to tell how your actions actually come across to other people. That's why I'm phrasing this as a rule, not a... suggestion, or whatever. Literally, it is completely in your best interest. I don't really think I've been there for any of those times, but you're always... ridiculously passive aggressive and you demand instant praise and recognition for lowering yourself so far as to say one nice word to someone. You don't 'change' if you're not working for it. Anything that's given to you easily makes you a worse person, not a better one. And that goes for everyone." "And if you have to skew things one way or the other...do try and skew it toward younger instead of older." "I'm gonna make you an infant and then hand you off to a family that'll actually raise you right," Petra mumbles while tapping away and setting the parameters for the machine. Then just a moment later, equally dull-toned without any impression that she was making a joke, "I'm not going to do that. Thirty it is." When Sarracenia is positioned under the glass bell, Petra sends her morphmetal droplet zipping through the air to nudge her feet a little tighter towards the center of the circle. Once she's adequately positioned, Petra puts one hand on the crank, carefully avoiding using the butterfly-laden one even though it visibly makes it much more difficult for her to smoothly lower the dome around Sarra. It hits the ground with a dull clang, weirdly both muffled and echoing from Sarra's perspective because of the thickness of the glass. Outside, Petra pulls on some goggles, and pours out more morphmetal. The clanking of the gears speeds up and slows down erratically, thrumming through the cables that lead to the device hanging above Sarracenia's head like some kind of bizarrely complex torture device. She shields the butterfly in a bubble of Silver, then puts her hand on a heavy lever. "Just so you know, Sarracenia-- I can reverse this too. 'Power bled for is power earned', and all that. As long as you stick to the promise, consistently, not just, like, trying once and giving up-- that's 'bleeding for it'. I won't hold it over your head for anything else." She leans back to put her entire weight into it, and the lever thunks downwards. Steam starts shooting out of the pipes of the time machine as electricity crackles, the lights flicker, and a staticky-grey glow pulses above Sarra's head before zapping down to engulf her and fill the glass dome.
Sarracenia	'I'll kill myself long before even getting to even your old hag age.' Sarra lets out an annoyed 'mmph' at the hag thing, of course. But, Petra seeming to droop at the idea of an easy life leaves Sarra with an eyebrow raised. She might ask about that later. 'You're really bad at understanding people.' It is Sarra's turn to deflate this time. "...I do try but...no, I suppose I do not understand people. Every time I think I do it turns out I was misunderstanding them all along." Sarra pauses, then adds. "...or I did and it made so little sense that I thought I must be misunderstanding. That something else surely had to be going on." Audrey comes to mind, but Sarra doesn't say her name. And Sarra can't really argue the passive aggressive points. She is aggressively passive aggressive as often as she is actively aggressive. She does argue one point though. "I am quite happy to spare nice words for people when those people have not shown a history of throwing my nice words back in my face or twisting them, whether just to spite or to suit a narrative." The mumbling makes the princess narrow her eyes, but the assurance that Petra won't is somehow good enough. It has to be. The dome comes down and the thud makes it clear she is now trapped just as Petra's words make it clear she is now at the mercy of an enemy. Having been positioned by the morphmetal, Sarra looks around nervously. "...I will stick to the promise to the very best of my-..." she starts, then huffs. Qualifiers weaken a promise, which is somewhat unheroic and unprincessly. "...I will stick to the promise." Gregory stands close to Petra to try and reassure Sarra. If he is watching closely, surely Petra wouldn't try anything. Sarra smiles nervously to Gregory, then her eyes end up on the butterfly. Petra is protecting it. Sarra's eyebrow raises lightly. It is true. She is a princess who does not understand people. Petra pulls the lever, and Sarra flinches at the sudden steam and electrical crackling. She bites her lip, holds her arms at her sides with her fists clenched, and closes her eyes. "...do not freak out...do not freak out...do not fre-EEEK!" Her mantra devolves into a shriek as she is engulfed.
Petra Soroka	As the light engulfs Sarracenia, the world outside flickers into nearly unbearably vivid colors. Hypersaturated streaks of electricity, abnormally enhanced from her perspective, jolt forwards and backwards, and every particle of water vapor in the steam filling the room reflects a thousand rainbows through them. Likewise, the monochrome of Sarracenia's hair gradually returns to coppery red, but while the TimeTrack machine is working, even that is impossibly colorful like a fountain of blood coming out of her scalp. It hurts, like everything in the City does, but it's not actually that bad. Petra's reconstruction of what was once Angela's (and her own) greatest tormentor filled in every blank space with Petra's tech rather than the City's, so it's diluted from its original purpose as a human suffering machine. Sarracenia isn't even forced to endure thirty years of subjective time in reverse while trapped in the coffin-like bell of Petra's machine! That's nicer than anyone's been to Petra with time travel! When the light fades away, Sarracenia is actually, as promised, back to normal: thirty years old, or thereabouts. Her clothes, oddly, have been completely leeched of color, drained into monochrome as if put into a filter of an old movie, which isn't something that Petra apparently predicted or calibrated for. It's actually Petra that looks kind of exhausted after the ordeal, raising the glass dome back up so the grey-static steam can flood out away from Sarracenia and let her free. "Yep. There you go, Gregory. The groundhog's out of his den, and we've got thirty more years of... Sarracenia, or whatever." She sighs, running her hand down her face like she's been awake for two days straight. "Don't go to District 20 for... as long as possible, preferably. Their legal system involves their Singularity, and I don't know what the hell kind of interactions might happen with you-- or me, actually, I guess. Avoid getting affected by time magic until you've aged up a year normally, wear sunglasses for a bit if you need to, and... I dunno. I'm not your doctor. I'm just an idiot who feels like she has to keep promises when she makes them."
Sarracenia	If it was not for the pain, Sarra would be marveling the entire time. She has to squint against the bright and vivid colors, and a yelp escapes her as the pain starts. She shudders and groans throughout, with a pained cry every now and then. Sarra has little experience with time manipulation, so she doesn't realize she is getting off easy. But, as the color returns to her hair she lets out a happy (if pained) laugh. Her clothes being leeched of color is odd. Instead of black and white, she's now in light grey and white. After a few moments to let the pain fade, she looks herself over as best she can, then with a delighted laugh she goes to hug Gregory. "Gregory! It worked! Hahaha~" She picks him up and spins around with him, then puts him down. Still high on delight, Sarra moves to hug Petra without thinking about it. "Thank you~" she exclaims, then realizes she is hugging Petra and freezes a moment before letting go quickly. "Er...yes. District 20. I will avoid it." she says, blushing a bit and fiddling with her hair. "Well, this is one time at least that I am glad you are so steadfast in your promises." Gregory bows to Petra. "Thank you, Miss Petra, for 30 more years of Sarracenia."