Scene #9559: Trial By Burger

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Nobody even sees it happen. One moment, Regulus is trailing behind Vertin, Sonetto, and Madam Z while Vertin exhaustedly gives reports and short term directions, and the next, there's a series of mechanical whirring and clunking, and she's gone. The ratcube floats silently where she was, before turning around and sliding away through the air. So, Regulus goes from that terribly loud and overwhelming fight with Flamel, right off of a week of cruel vegetables and survivalism, straight into the bizarre world that Petra has constructed purely to torment her. She is not, thankfully, instantly killed by the ratcube catching up to her, but the reality may not be much better. When the ratcube unfolds to deposit her into the world again, it's on a platform made out of unstable rock, that starts to slowly and steadily crumble underneath her once she touches it. Ahead of her is some bullshit Wipeout-style obstacle course, with spinning platforms, swinging pendulums, walls that slowly close in on her, and monkeybars to climb from. Underneath her, just mere meters away, is a sea of boiling lava that threatens to incinerate her instantly when she fails one of the challenges...! Which she inevitably does, only to find that it's dyed water lit from orange lights underneath. Past that, and the obstacle course seems to be suspended kilometers up in the sky, with only open forest beneath them, and the one landmark she can see on the rest of the floating island being Hydrochoeria's spooky castle. All in all, it takes about an hour for Petra to get there. There's mechanisms to keep Regulus from resting very long-- crumbling platforms included-- which sucks given how tired she already is, but she's not lethally threatened at the moment.
Regulus	Regulus has forgotten entirely about the ratbot and, frankly, hasn't really processed Petra's sudden evaporation. Her body is still aching--especially her hands--from the ...battle?...with Flamel. Well it wasn't like Flamel was actively trying to hurt her so she's not really sure herself if 'fight' is appropriate, but it probably would've been less of a toll on Regulus if it actually had just been them smashing fists into each other. She's had enough 'mental wellness' for a lifetime, that's for sure. But as she's fretting about the agony of the day, as she's thinking of cooling off her hands with nice cold glasses of Dr. Pepper and eating, like, fifteen steaks--that's when she's caught before she can even 'yeep'. She naturally immediately falls asleep in the ratbot and as such is deposited, literally snoozing, right on the Wipeout obstacle course, resulting in her being shoved off by a swinging beam which wakes her up just in time for her to see that she's falling for lava. "Uwaaaaaaaaaaahhh!! Noooooooooo nonononono!" SPLOOSH. ... ... Regulus slowly floats back up to the surface of the lava, looking nonplussed. She takes a moment to look around, the realization of what happened slowly hitting her. "Oh no...Petra set this obstacle course to run by itself... It's one of the last things she did..." Regulus somberly takes off her captain's hat and places it to her chest. "Petra, my friend... I will remember this sight forever..." But her clever little mind tells her she doesn't actually have to do the obstacle course so long as she just hangs out in the lava and sends a call to APPLe to pick her up--but just as she's planning on that....!! A rat-themed grabbycopter floats over above Regulus, lifts her up by the head, and slowly guides her back to the starting line of the obstacle course, dropping her down there like a wet cat. "...Acccck...!" Regulus throws herself up to her feet, then winces. "f...fine...! This is nothing Regulus can't manage!"She dramatically leaps over a spinning platform only to get knocked over back into the lava by the swinging pendulum. Then she's able to get past the swinging pendulum, only to get pushed back into the lava by a moving wall when she pauses to catch her breath. Eventually, Regulus's life becomes a purgatory of being lifted back onto the starting platform and then getting shoved back into the lava. She learns to appreciate the few seconds of rest she gets between each lava dip. This is her life now, Regulus realizes, she will never escape. The sweet cool lava on her hands is its own kind of brief relief, really the worst part is the fall.
Petra Soroka	The first sign of Petra's resurrection is the sound of rattling chains, somewhere off to the side of the small island Regulus is imprisoned on. A minute later, there's a 'hup', and Petra hauls herself up over the top of one of the walls surrounding the obstacle course. She looks completely different from how she did just twelve hours ago, before her sudden and untimely evaporation, wearing a grey hoodie over a gold and black top, rather than that goofy Psychonauts jumpsuit. "Ha! I almost forgot about this! You really got the hang of dodging it for a while, didn't you?" With none of the gravitas of a supervillain, Petra slides down the wall and hops off of it, putting herself in the same obstacle course as Regulus. Unlike the brave pirate captain, though, Petra ducks and weaves through it like second nature, supernaturally light on her feet. Foam pillars shoot up out of the floor and retract in an alternating pattern, and she peers over the edge of the platform bouncing back and forth in the middle of them, holding a conversation with the edge of exertion audible in her voice. "Woah, you look beat to shit. Did my ratcube alarm go off late? Oh my god, have you been stuck in here for days? That'd be so fucking funny." Petra claps her hands twice, like she's summoning a waiter. "Guards! Bring her to me immediately." There aren't any guards. One of the flying ratcopters lowers down to nab Regulus out of the water and bring her up levitating in front of Petra, while she sits down on the edge of the platform. For now, Regulus is hanging by her scruff in the air like a little kitten.
Regulus	''Ha! I almost forgot about this! You really got the hang of dodging it for a while, didn't you?'' "Petra...?" Regulus assks. "Are you a gh-- o o o o o o o o o SPLOOOSH "-st?" Regulus is stirred from her defeated daze as she wades in there for a moment. "Wh--you know what I was up to, you were there weren't you?" Regulus sounds confused. "Wait maybe it was like that Schneider..?" Maybe there's more than one Petra, Regulus thinks distantly, it certainly would explain how she's able to show up in like a hundred different circumstances and with what feels like a hundred different personalities. "I was trapped in the Motherlobe for, I don't know, months? I lost track of time!" The ratcopter lowers down and picks Regulus up who just sort of dangles, very wetly. Petra can no doubt notice that Regulus's hands are actually burned and, well, probably a bit bruised too but there's really no way for her hands to get that burned from obstacle course. "It was the worst, I had nothing to eat by vegetables, and it was freezing I had to wear like five jackets and I had to run all over the place to get materials, it was awful and if I never eat a turnip again it'll be too soon..!"
Petra Soroka	"Wh--you know what I was up to, you were there weren't you?" Petra narrows her eyes at this. Regulus is making the very convincing argument that everything she ever does happens while Petra is watching, because she ceases to exist when Petra stops thinking about her, and yet, Petra can be pretty sure she hasn't seen Regulus in some time. The only other option is that not only does Regulus exist outside of her perception, but she's even gotten up to some horseshit adventure where she had some reason to believe that Petra was watching, and also that she died. "I'm pretty sure I'm not dead. At least if I am, I'd get to invite Lilian to the club." Petra snaps her fingers, and then slaps the wet gymnastics platform she's sitting on in sudden realization. "The Motherlobe? I heard Parsons was up to some shit. Don't fucking tell me, was it-- did you hear my voice coming from someone's head?" The robot dangling Regulus waggles her around and causes her to sway. While Regulus babbles about how hard her life has been, Petra squints at her hands, and takes in the overall state of her fucked up outfit and the obvious signs of mid-term hunger. "Jesus, girl, you look absolutely fucked. Are you serious? Did they torture you?" Petra gets up and starts striding back towards the front of the obstacle course again. Regulus is hauled along in the air, not given the chance to walk beside her. "Come on, I'm not gonna put you in a hamster wheel after you just got out of Guantanamo Bay. What do you want? A burger? What's the British equivalent of a burger? A steak?"
Regulus	Regulus is happy to deliver exposition to Petra and explain everything that happened because torture apparently works. Or maybe she just wants a break from all the running and jumping and general distress and talking to Petra more means less time in the 'lava'. ''I'd get to invite Lilian to the club.'' Regulus doesn't understand. "...Club? What club?" The Petra-dead club? That probably would only contain Petra and why would Petra invite Lilian whom she is the kamen rider of into it? Regulus has run into Petra a lot. It's Petraverse: 1999 for her in the sense that it feels like there's nearly two thousand Petras. ''Did you hear my voice coming from someone's head?'' "Um, no, I saw you--in the flesh. I think. I mean I didn't touch." And she was really hungry. What if it was a Petrahallucination? Regulus doesn't want to imagine that when she's starving she sees Petras so instead she seays, "You were in a Psychonauts uniform and there was a lot of like-- mind people running about though." Regulus does seem like she's seen better days. She's normally someone who is pretty careful with her fashion and actually cares about dressing in a flattering way, at least for someone from the 1960s, and while she has particular outfits she likes she does swap 'em around with some frequency. But it looks like she's been wearing this for days if not weeks. "I only had two outfits with me and one was the auditor disguise..." Regulus moans. "I had to work at a console that felt like putting my hands on a stove." She normally would intentionally push out a few tears right about now but she's too exhausted and worn out for even that and, besides, she's covered in water so it might be touch to pick out anyway. She perks up a little at the offer of food. "Really? Truly?" She asks, then blinks a little slowly as she tries to decipher the British equivalent of a burger. It's been that bad. Eventually she remembers the answer to that question. "The uh. British equivalent of a burger is a burger, love." She hasn't studied the history of burger to know if that was always the case but it is now.
Petra Soroka	"You were in a Psychonauts uniform and there was a lot of like-- mind people running about though." "Oh, okay. Well, that's definitely Psychonautra, then-- wait, wait, she died?! Is she okay?" Whatever questions Regulus must have upon hearing the word 'Psychonautra' so casually leave Petra's lips have to wait, because Petra whirls around with genuine worry on her face. Also, having no further explanation for Regulus being trapped in the Motherlobe, her continued moaning about the trials she was put through just sounds worse and worse to Petra. "Oh my god. They really tortured you. What, did you get caught sneaking in? And no one in the Watch bailed you out, huh?" She waves her hand, coming to a stop balanced on the last remaining pillar of the starting platform after all the rest of it crumbled away. "And obviously I mean, like, the cultural concept of a burger, not the literal food item. The defining sort of... symbol of gluttony and... capitalistic excess, and... er.... So that means burger's good, then?" She trails off, focused on typing something out on her phone. Once finished, she hits a button authoritatively, and then continues her thought. "Okay. You look way too pathetic right now, so it doesn't feel fair to hold you captive here, like, again. But I'd be a terrible supervillain if I just pampered you and sent you on your way." A ratbot flies down towards the obstacle course, levitating a cloche of food underneath it. It doesn't come towards Regulus, but instead... "You can have a nice big meal with all the meat you could want, as long as you finish the course."
Regulus	Regulus opens her mouth to be a little indignant that someone's name is Psychonautra but then she assures herself that it's probably basically a codename. Like Sonetto, Medicine Pocket, or Matilda. She focuses on Psychonautra first because that seems to be the right thing to do. "I...don't know. I mean, if she's a Psychonaut maybe it was just a psychic projection? I didn't see her get hurt, she just sort of...evaporated when the disaster stopped.--Flamel basically flipped out and tried opening up some sort of portal to the collective unconciousness, I think? He seemed mostly to feel guilty and depressed the whole time. He said he was trying to help people that way. With everything that happened I sort of forgot about the uh..." And then she passed out too just from general exhaustion and without adrenaline to help her get through the exxercise gauntlet she really stood no shot. She isn't in a condition to talk about cultural metaphorical burgers. "Y..yeah. Burger's great. Thanks Petra. Uh, since you caught me fair and square..." Well maybe not fair, but it's not her fault. ''You can have nice big meal with all the meat you could want, as long as you finish the course.'' Frankly, Petra was a little hesitant to thank Petra because last time she thanked Petra, Petra seemed upset by it! Maybe she can't trust her thanks or no thanks here. But it feels so wrong not to that she is compelled by her gut to do so. In more ways than one. Her stomach being empty is definitely one of the reasons she is compelled to thank Petra. And frankly, even Regulus--whiner and moaner, can't really justify complaining about the terms. "Yeah... You caught me fair and square so I gotta do the course." Regulus says, not exactly sounding enthused about it, but she's not pouting. This isn't going to stop her from robot 'revenge' of course, but that's because she already made that vow and that's fair too. And honestly, Regulus is kind of happy to not have to deal with emotional and moral conundrums for a while either. "I won't even complain that much while I'm going through it." She promises, though can she keep it??
Petra Soroka	"I...don't know. I mean, if she's a Psychonaut maybe it was just a psychic projection?" Petra frowns, still visibly worried. "Well, yeah. She is. I'll yell at Parsons about it later just to be sure. God, though, Parsons feeling 'guilty' about something? When hell fucking freezes over. He just loves to act like he is, so that people stop being mad at him faster." No one is ever in a condition to talk about metaphorical burgers. Frankly, Petra does feel like she's going too easy on Regulus, but Regulus in this state gives off the vibe of a fish that's small enough to be required as a catch and release. Her chance to do opportunistic cruelty for a thinly veiled positive purpose to lord her power and villainy over someone kind of doesn't materialize when that person like they'll start doing dog tricks for her the moment the burger crosses into her line of sight. Petra has no issues hopping along the obstacle course herself ahead of Regulus-- it's one of the ones that she uses for her morning cardio, after all. Regulus gets dumped by the robot on the first stable platform, and Petra hops and runs up the spoke of one of the swinging pendulums to sit at the anchor on top, swinging her legs down. The Burger is 200 meters away! "You can complain. You're not the nobly suffering type, bud. I know you want to." After a minute of Regulus trying and failing, she abruptly says, "Guilty how?"
Regulus	200 meters away? It's practically already in Regulus's mouth. The promise of burger has more or less given Regulus a sort of second wind but it's actually more like her sixth or seventh wind at this point so it's not really a big change. Second winds get progressively less eftective. ''When hell fucking freezes over.'' "It ''was'' very cold there. Until it got real hot." Could Flamel be faking? Regulus doesn't want to contradict Petra with the promise of burger so close by. "He may've been, but I don't think I could really tell if he was. I don't really know the bloke. But he seemed that way to me. He was saying how he ''needed'' to try and bring the 'Truth in us' into the world even if he couldn't understand it--everything was so chaotic and everything was so chaotic I was doing a lot of guessing." She frowns. She takes some time, after being set down, to just sort of breathe and not have to move around for a bit. She's been taking a lot of those, but she does--yeah--seem like she might start doing tricks for food. Or at least moaning and pawing at the door and meowing incessantly. She really isn't the nobly suffering type. If you're suffering you should complain about it! But she doesn't want to be a dick. Once she feels like her legs won't just give out from under her once she stands, she pushes herself up. "If he was just faking it, that'd be pretty awful of him." She frowns. THe idea makes her more inclined to move so she moves. Rest has been good for her, it's not exactly clean but she starts--as they say--running and jumping. All she has to do is do this once and then she'll be in burger heaven. She can do this, she can do this-- SPLOOSH! "Doing all that while not really feeling anything--that'd be messed up!"
Petra Soroka	"He's a pretty awful guy." Petra's tone takes a turn for the worse, and her swinging feet hit the pendulum below her more aggressively. "Don't worry, though. I bet he believes he wasn't faking it. But it's always like that with him." "He doesn't really feel anything. His emotions are, like, colors of light. He flips a switch in his brain, goes 'wow, I feel so guilty right now! This is terrible!' and then does exactly what he would've done anyways. I doubt he'll see a single fucking consequence from doing all of that." Petra spits off to the side, sailing past the platform Regulus is on beneath her and into the lava lake below. "He's always 'guilty' until it's time for him to do his next bullshit. That's how it was with Lilian, then Cinder, then me." The next time Regulus slips, a tendril of morphmetal snakes through the air and coils around her ankle to catch her. It roughly tosses her aside, towards the final platforms of the obstacle course where the burger rests. She can scramble to catch herself before slipping again, and when she opens the cloche, it has a piping hot burger and pile of fries on it, freshly made in the castle kitchens. "So, sorry you got fucked around by him, actually."
Regulus	Regulus wasn't around to hear of Flamel being modified or anything like that because she was in a Rat! And asleep! But the idea that Flamel might just get away with it all--it feels distressingly ... plausible? In fact, to her, it feels more like the Psychonauts might suffer as an organization more than Flamel himself might. "The Psychonauts were practically warring against one another over it. Some were like 'we gotta do this for the greater good' and some were like 'come on this is crazy'..." Her opinion of Flamel was pretty bad going into this, then she felt bad for the guy, and now she's wondering if maybe she was too nice about it all the first time! But even if he's totally faking it, if he's faking it that well--would she really be comfortable treating it like it was all just crocodile tears? ... Heck, if it's some version of him that really believes he's honest even if he can just turn it off... She's starting to feel like she's a dummy so she decides to stop thinking about it. "It's hard to believe someone can be like that. But it felt like he was totally believing two totally contradictory things to me before too, so..." Of course, while she's saying all this stuff, she's hobbling and panting for breath between words. She's not really sure if she's making any sense right now because honestly that situation was so crazy she operated largely on vibes, but even despite that. God, that burger is so close. She's gotta get to burger. She leaps and--shit, not far enough--she gets bonked off the platform and she wildly swings her arms around to try to catch the edge--but the morphmetal snags her leg before she hits the lava once more-- She breathes a sigh of relief. Pity! She isn't too prideful to rely on someone pitying her-- "Offfphh!" Regulus grimaces, slow to get up from that toss. Nothing's broken but it WAS a rough toss. Okay, maybe she shouldn't rely on pity TOO much with Petra. She smacks herself in the face with both hands like she's trying to emulate a shonen protagonist but really she's just trying to artificially inject some adrenaline into her body. Swearing helps, so she does a lot of that as she scrambles, leaping away from a breakaway platform at the last possible moment, hand lashing out to grab the final platform with her hand... And maybe it's because she hasn't drunk a soda pop for over a week nor had candy in that long, but she's able to catch it, pull herself up, and flop onto the ground, too exhausted to even immediately start shoving burger in mouth. She flops onto her back and focuses on breathing and coughing for a while. "Oh rock ... gods let this ... be the end of it..." Crawling on the floor she pulls herself up to the table and uses the littly tiny almost cartoon table the burger and fries are on to steady herself. "hahh...hahh..." She looks to Petra. "...Thanks, love... Sorry uh... if he did something like that to you." She is kind of getting an IMPRESSION, at least. But if nothing stops her, she's gonna go at those burger and fries. At first slowly because she's having trouble breathing but soon it's going to be like a person dying from dehydration finding an oasis after days of wandering.