Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Rufus Shinra	start: It's a nice day out. On a nice day like this, Rufus Shinra, has invited everyone out on his fishing boat. Part of this is just to enjoy a nice day of fishing with the provided gear, but he also seems to have something he wants to say. After a short trip through some canal-equipped warpgates the boat arrives at its destination, the Delta Delta. The waters are calm and there's a nice southward breeze coming in. Maybe you can grab a rod and start fishing with the #fish command? Rufus: Rufus is physically in good health (nothing looks broken, at least) but emotionally he seems a little distant, and what good cheer he has seems a little forced. "It seems like it'd be a good day for fishing," he says. "So, why not?" Nobody's heard him mention fishing before, right? Is this a new thing? Is there some other reason for this trip? Pretext: This trip can't be *just* about fishing, right? The Shinra scion has something he wants to talk about, clearly. The 'Hey do you want to go fishing' invite is clearly a pretext - there will actually be fishing involved, but the main purpose is to isolate his peers out on a boat where they can't get away from his imminent episode of pathos. He's not bringing it up (yet) though, so there's time to break into the drinks and food, enjoy the beauty of nature, or actually do some fishing
Rufus Shinra	boat: Dropping seven figures on a new fishing boat as an impulse purchase is probably not a sign of responsible wealth management, but here we are. Rufus's boat is closest to a Yellowfin 54 as a real-life visual point of comparison. It's about 55 feet long, with a main deck stretching up and down the full length of the boat, with a center pilot's cockpit and an interior cabin. It's a luxury boat, technically a yacht, but not the sort of ultra-extravagant multi-room luxury yacht one might picture. (Rufus just refers to it as a 'little boat'.) At the front is comfortable cushioned bench seating, enough for either three Rufus'es or six people who don't manspread. The cushions flip up to reveal coolers full of drinks and snacks (there's a generous variety available, although the drink offerings are sodas, beers, or light liquors only). The boat's high walls mean you're less likely to get hit by splashes (but you might still regardless). At the back of the boat seems to be the main (fishing) area. It's standing room only, with equipment racks, rod holders, and baitwells and catch coolers throughout. There's also a quartet of high power outboard motors here, lined up in a row off the stern of the ship, and a food prep area with sink and mini-grill. The covered cockpit and copilot's chair are at the center of the boat, with all of the buttons and levers one might expect, along with three seperate displays and more GPS readouts and radios than are probably needed. Rufus has a bad habit of leaving the keys in the ignition. And then 'downstairs' is the interior cabin. It's cozy, but it's entirely enclosed and air-conditioned, with enough room for a half dozen people to sit around a table, a bathroom, and a small RV-style bedroom tucked away behind the stairwell. fish: The fishing rods on the boat are serious business. They're the sort of sport fishing rods that are kept behind a locked glass case of an already upscale fishing store. There's fly wheels and tension meters and extra levers and buttons and the rods themselves feel like you could beat someone to death with one, while still being flexible enough to not break while landing a literal whale. Curiously, regardless of your level of expertise or fishing experience, picking one up feels extremely familiar to you, and as long as you have at least one hand touching the rod at all times: baiting and rehooking and threading the line all feel as natural as breathing. (Maybe it has something to do with the aftermarket-looking yellow marbles that have been attached to each rod?) Actually casting and fishing something up is still left to individual skill, however. Fortunately the fish are biting pretty eagerly here, so it shouldn't be more than a few minutes after casting (with the #fish command) before you should be able to pull something up. Hopefully you'll pull up something good and not something... unfortunate. Delta Delta: There's no shortage of water features in the Soft Expanse, as worlds arrive in the shifting landscape with their bodies of water intact. The "Delta" Delta is one of those features. It's a relatively stable spot (15 years unified and counting) into which at least a dozen different multiversal rivers and lakes are emptying into at any given time. It's a popular spot for explorers and treasure hunters, being essentially a central hub of dozens of waterways to travel through. It's also a popular fishing spot for the same reason. Today it's relatively empty (maybe something to do with Valentines' day tomorrow) but there's still a few other boats within visual range. There's a partially-submerged warpgate not far from here that leads through a series of canals back to a marina, as well. And across the horizon are the Soft Expanse's many worlds - a discordious harmony of wild jungles, cityscapes, skyways, starw
Petra Soroka	Petra has decided that she likes fishing now. She's still never caught a *fish*, but she went out on a boat once a week ago and had a fishing rod and picked up some worms, so she's basically an expert, and she has a one hundred percent rate of having a good time fishing. And, Angela mentioned-- or at least was talked-at-about-- fishing in the radio earlier, so it's a perfect storm of justifications to get out there on a boat.     Because Petra is excited and in a good mood, she's dressed cute as hell for the day out. Her hair is just barely long enough that she can tie it into two short braids with loose bangs held down by a baseball cap. She's got a green flannel with sleeves rolled up to her elbows, just in case it gets chillier out on the water, over an olive colored shirt flattened out by her binder, with several coils of beaded necklaces and bracelets, and then brown capris and sneakers to finish it off. Among the surfergirl-esque wooden beads around her neck, she's also got the cord of her inlayed compact mirror case hanging loosely that it swings around whenever she moves.     Beside her, Angela is in an evil slimy shrimp onesie.     Whether Petra cares about what Rufus has to say or not depends on whether he can keep her in a good mood up until he says it. For now, Petra is just leaning halfway off the side of the boat, clambered up onto the seats on her knees, and is enjoying getting sprayed in the face with mist off the water like a dog sticking her head out of the passenger window.     "I don't really have any idea how to fish. But, like, how hard can it be! You're just sitting there, really. I think the only way people get 'good' at fishing is if they're just relaxed instead of waiting for a fish."     Petra nabs a fishing rod once the boat comes to a stop. Like she expected, it's just naturally intuitive to do all the 'hard' parts of fishing, and that's probably just because she's culturally absorbed it through TV or whatever. Or maybe it's because she's been fishing with Nika already once so of course she already knows how to do it, which is a fact that Angela is told about at least twice before the boat gets to the Delta.     She casts the rod into the water and waits. Having no proprioreceptive feedback from the hook, like she did when using a Silver fishing rod, she starts to get restless and unhappy when it takes her a while to get any catch at all.
Kukuru	How long has it been since Kukuru last went fishing? Has she ever gone fishing? She remembers trips to the river with her parents long ago, and she remembers hunting for all sorts of things in oceans and lakes, but properly fishing with a rod? It'll probably be fine. If nothing else, she's just eager to spend some time with everyone on a nice, lazy day. Dressed in a light pink hoodie over pale blue overalls and matching pink plastic flip flops, she greets her friends and family with her usual lazy wave and drowsy smile. "Hello, hellooo... Ah, it's been such a long time! You've all been doing okay, right?" She asks, going from person to person with an inquisitive eye and her arms held out to offer her usual dose of physical affection. "Thank you for getting us all here for this, Rufuuus. Ah, you've really got a wonderful boat for this, too.. Oh, and drinks, and snacks? How thoughtful~" She comments with a pleasant little hum, drifting over to the cushions with a beer in one hand and rod in the other. She's holding the rod upside down at first, but the funny little stone helps guide her into learning how to use it properly. She's also already face down on the cushion, dangerously close to dozing off already. Good thing she didn't open her beer yet.
Angela	Angela was told she should try resting and that she should try resting...by fishing! Angela has basically never fished before, frankly she's barely seen fish before if you don't count Abnormalities or Leviathans so she has done the opposite of resting to study fishing techniques and tools and baits. But that's not enough. She needs to be a top tier fisher. And that means she has to use the proper EGO gear. Angela is wearing her Wellcheers EGO. This, essentially, is a pair of overalls with a shrimp-themed hoody complete with button eyes on the top of the hood. She has a a bucket of bait, a fishing rod, and a net that she's carrying along with her and is also wearing a pair of gloves and bright yellow boots. She decently expertly flings her line into the water after sticking a bait to the hook, and then slumps down next to Petra. "Do not worry," Angela says. "This EGO, while not very efficient in terms of combat capability, does feed me information on how to properly fish. A great deal of the work involved is patience. Fish can sense agitation." It's nice that there's basically no odds of them being seperated and causing hacking and coughing due to this just being a fishing situation with no danger so she's pretty pleased with herself. Truth is, while Angela's opinion on Rufus started out pretty harsh, she's mellowed out considerably--in part due to his help during the fall of LobCorp. "...How long has it been?" She asks, after like 12 seconds.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel Parsons is doing his best, lately, to recover his mental health. Fishing, for example, is understood to be a GREAT way of doing that. That's why he's manning a fishing rod, and also, a second fishing rod, with telekinetic hands. He's got a Mulder Sporting light windbreaker instead of his usual jacket, and the rim of a bucket-hat dips over his sunglasses. He seems to be slowly extracting a strange green psionic energy from them.     Oddly, not from the fish directly. A nice bass and a hefty pike, he's willing to gather, but likely to release unless they're taken from him. Instead he's gathering it purely from the rods and the lines and the seat! "Really understanding why they had to build Whispering Rock next to a lake." He rambles. "This fishing stuff does a lot. I think some people in my connectomes did a lot of fishing too!"
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki had been bored enough with the turn of the days recently to have been doing her own research on fresh opportunities while listening to the global broadband to make petty deals and talk casually among what were sort of kind of her peers. Concord social events were peer events, but the banterband? It was like wandering the red light district, except there was a higher chance of embarrasing yourself just for opening your mouth. Which was pretty notable! When Rufus Shinra, Peer, suggested a fishing trip, Natsuki pounced on it with a quick confirm and a speedy kraka-THOOM of appearance as a sudden storm breaks over the boat dock and out of the sky a column of dark misery spills out an Osakan woman with tiger ears and tanuki eye-attitude. Wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and pants with a big snakescale belt with onyx and brass buckle over a black tank top, Natsuki's slightly wet appearance is smoothed over with a rake back of her hands through her hair as a whistle grows louder in the air. Then, holding out her hands after flicking the water away, she catches the loudly falling beat up metal tackle-box out of the air and spins once to catch and spend out the momentum, holding one hand over and behind shoulder to keep tame her hair while her Get Equipped With maneuver finishes. "Heard we were fishing?" The definitely didn't rush to the spot Partner asks with a tone of (very) mild (approving) interest. On the boat, Natsuki sets up, assembling a line out of pieces that screw together and then flick out telescopically for the fine parts, settling quickly into a relaxed posture with her line held casually with one hand and letting the other sprawl across seatback. She's immediately moderately successful, but not the *first*, and as she stands to expertly yank back at the rod at her bites, finds solid success but cannot lure anything like a lunker to herself! Agitated while she sees some big fish come up, she turns towards Rufus and cups loose hand over mouth. "Nice area, Rufus! There's plenty of bites today."
Rufus Shinra	> "I don't really have any idea how to fish. But, like, how hard can it be! You're just sitting there, really." "Yes, exactly," says Rufus. "There's nothing to it, really. You just drop it in the water and wait for it to bite." Not coincidentally, he also looks a little bit impatient when he doesn't get a bite right away. > "...How long has it been?" Rufus misinterprets this. "A couple of months, I think?" "The library looked nice and all, but I'm guessing you're still stuck there. Can we just..." He makes a vague motion with his hands. "Knock over a wall and get you out? Or just airlift the whole building out of the city with enough helicopters?" He says this as though it's a thing he's ready to attempt. Natsuki's arrival had thrown Rufus off, but she does seem genuinely into fishing? He rolls with it. "So there's rods there - oh, you have your own, okay." He seems a little put off that she's using her own equipment, but he doesn't press on this. > "This fishing stuff does a lot. I think some people in my connectomes did a lot of fishing too!" "And good to see you're doing okay too? I mean you seemed like you sort of... crashed out with that whole psychogate thing, right?" Flamel gets most of his attention here, but this is pitched as sort of an open question for anyone who's not taking a nap. "Do you think maybe you just... cared too much?"
Kukuru	The fish are coming in! Kukuru doesn't notice it at first since she's not quite sure what to pay attention to, and she even misses the first few fish that snatch her bait, but the third one is the unlucky one since it happens to come by when she's actually awake enough. "It's not as fast as picking them up normally, but this isn't bad at all. It's almost like waiting for the water to boil, mhm." She comments after Petra, opening her eyes briefly when she spots one nibbling on her hook. Resisting the instinct to just yank the rod up and pull the fish out of the water manually, Kukuru instead follows that guiding force to reel her catch in slowly and steadily. It's certainly a new experience doing things that way, but she giggles softly once it's finally in hand and she holds the thrashing bass next to her. "Oh, does anyone have a camera? We could take pi-" One fish-slap to the face later, and she's moving to drop off her first catch in one of the coolers. She comes back a little while later with a towel to wipe her face off, then settles right back in to throw the hook back out. "Agitation, huh...? Okaaay. I already caught that one before, anyway. This should be fine." She replies to Angela, humming softly before closing her eyes and missing her next bites again. "I dunno how good this is for feeding a bunch of people, but it's really nice. Sitting here, spending time with everyone... Yeah, I'm not toooo surprised your co-workers did this, too." She nods at Flamel lazily, cracking one eye open to glance at her hook before closing it again and trying not to doze off at her seat. Natsuki gets another giggle out of her, reeling her hook back in absent mindedly before tossing it right back out. "It really is a nice spot, mhm. The water looks good enough to dip into, buuut that can wait for a summer day out. Or even late spring, if it's nice and comfy, hmm?" Rufus, however, gets both of Kukuru's eyes open and turned towards Flamel. "Crashed out? Oh dear. You didn't get hurt or anything, did you? Crashing can be reeeal dangerous for your insides even if you don't feel anything on the outside." She warns with open concern, although Rufus' further comment gets a confused look from her as well. "He should care, riiight? About not getting too hurt during... After a crash?"
Rufus Shinra	Well that's an unusual fish on Kukuru's line, it's heavy but it's not fighting back or pulling, more like it's just a bunch of dead weight on the line. And as it comes up to the surface, it's got an unusual silhouette in the water, looking less like a fish and more like some sort of box... *thunk* goes the treasure chest as it lands in the boat. It's not huge - about a foot and a half wide and long, and a foot tall, with a squared lid. It's also very soundly locked, with a large prominent keyhole on the front.
Sarracenia	It is a bit unfortunate that both times Sarra has accepted a social invitation from Rufus for such a relaxation event has been after the worst things in Sarra's life have happened. First, the war in Lob Corp. Then, the loss of Gregory. Both times she wasn't actually feeling particularly sociable, but staying locked up in the castle felt even worse.      She arrives in...an unusual ensemble. Especially for her. Specifically...she is not wearing a dress. She's actually about as far from being in a dress as one can get. Though, perhaps not that far from attire she often wears.      She's in what is quite obviously a Piranha Plant onesie, completely with a hood that is red with white polkadots and triangular 'teeth' around the edge. It isn't even a power-up kind. She also has a fairly large piranha plant plushie that she is hugging against her chest firmly. She still has her crown on her heard beneath the hood, along with her Silver lotus hairpin and her eyepatch over her right eye. Her left has been covered with enough dark eyeshadow and eyeliner to possibly count as an 'emo' look, thought there is a dark tear streak running down both cheeks.      During the boat ride she says nothing unless specifically approached. Once they reach the fishing spot, she moves to somewhere somewhat random although it has a healthy distance between her and Petra/Angela. Kukuru is a welcome sight, but Sarra approach her and only barely offers a greeting of just a simply, "Hi Kukuru". Rufus and Natsuki receive a similar greeting. The princess peers at Angela at seeing she is also in a onesie, takes a seat, keeps her Gregory stand in hugged between her arms as she holds the rod in both hands, and casts her line. Then...she just sits.      She eventually gets a bite. She just watches the line move in the water for a few moments, but finally she sits up a bit straighter and pulls. Then, it becomes quite obvious the princess has never actually fished before. She fumbles with the reel, growls a bit when it doesn't reel in right away, some more when she has to fight the fish, then finally with a frustrated scream pulls as hard as she can and just forcefully lands the fish.      Which then just flops on the deck with Sarra staring at it. "Wh-...what do I do now...?" she says quietly to no one in particular.
Petra Soroka	"You've all been doing okay, right?"     "Been getting tortured about as much as usual; been getting un-tortured more than usual, so I'd say so." Petra is too focused on staring at the end of her fishing rod to consider her response, and then winces a bit when saying *that* to *Kukuru*. Hopefully she just isn't thinking about that last time that came to Petra's mind. "Have a good nap. It's nice and warm, right?" "This EGO, while not very efficient in terms of combat capability, does feed me information on how to properly fish."     "See, that's really good, Ange, but...." It's been such an *image*, seeing the two of them beside each other for the past hour or so since leaving the Library. When Angela came down to the lobby dressed like that, Petra couldn't muster up the ability to form words in protest until it was already too late, but now that they've settled in on the boat, she feels like she has to tentatively approach it.     "I just, um... don't you think, like..." Petra sighs. "Is that what makes you happy?" "...How long has it been?"     "Fifteen seconds," Petra says, atomically precise. "I think some people in my connectomes did a lot of fishing too!"     "I bet. Buncha old white guys." Petra is currently fishing also. "Heard we were fishing?"     Petra tugs down the brim of her hat and shields her exposed skin from the gust of rain that accompanies Natsuki's arrival, and then wiggles her fishing rod in response. "Yup, we sure are. Though nothing's really... eh?"     After wiggling her fishing rod, it keeps wiggling, and it takes her a moment to notice. With it still not being made of Silver, Petra has actually no clue how to reel a fish in, and ends up panicking and grabbing the rod with a few droplets of Silver to lift it high up into the air. While the fish is dangling in the air from the maximum extent of the line, Petra just grabs it with her hands and places it into the bucket, bringing the fishing rod back down after. It's a considerably bigger fish than anything Natsuki's caught.     "Hey, that's a good one, right? Right? I knew I'd be good at this." "Or just airlift the whole building out of the city with enough helicopters?"     "Not unless you can carry the Tree of Light with it." Petra fussily has to wash her hands off and remove all the faint sliminess the fish left, with her rod propped up in an anchor while she does. "Which you can't."     "We're making progress, though. Just one little massacre at a time." "Do you think maybe you just... cared too much?"     At first, Petra's idle response to Rufus mentioning the Psychogate stuff is just a half-interested "Oh, you were there?" After a minute, though, she reruns his words through her memory and tilts her head. "What are you talking about, Shinra?"
Flamel Parsons	"Do you think maybe you just... cared too much?"     "In a technical sense, yes! In the way a bridge can be too overloaded. It can be a matter of balance, or a matter of resonance, or a matter of distribution, or a matter of improper use." Flamel nods a few times... But then, at the end, shakes his head. "But *on volume*... I don't think I did, exactly. 'Caring too much' isn't exactly the right way of seeing it. Everything's always more nuanced." He says, shitliberally.     He fits... a lock on the end of one of his hooks, casts a new line, and eventually, so does his telekinetic pair of hands. Presumably, a lock-fish might come along and seek the keyhole? "Mental strain can always be redistributed more carefully. In a way, maybe I just didn't distribute it right...? But it was a sincere good intention, and I plan on still pursuing it."     "I bet. Buncha old white guys."     "Oh, yeah! A few blue and purple too, but yeah, mostly white. How'd you know?" Flamel asks, tilting his head with sincere obliviousness.
Angela	Angela would very much like to reassure Rufus but she feels like she has said things like 'Look at current progress, maybe one or two years?' for centuries at this point so it is starting to feel like saying these things, even if she's confident in her projections, isn't going to inspire confidence if she keeps at it. Angela is not experienced enough in fishing minigames to know that getting the treasure chest drop is the best thing of all. She smugly pulls up a fish and puts it into a cooler cause she knows Roland will want her to bring one back, though she is considering just throwing the rest in, honestly. How many fishes does she really need? Maybe Kukuru will find the famous Dragon Blade if she opens that chest up? Angela doesn't think about that. Instead she eventually says to Rufus, "I appreciate your concern, Rufus, but it is as Petra says. Circumstances have improved so I have to be patient to the best of my ability. I also appreciate the invitation to fish. Petra said it should help me relax." ''I just, um... don't you think, like... Is that what makes you happy?'' Angela didn't even think about hpapiness. She quirks her head curiously at Petra and asks, "Are you concerned that the assistance of the EGO Gear will cheat myself out of the proper experience?" She prepares another line and toss. "I don't believe it should impede relaxtion and rest."
Rufus Shinra	Sarracenia gets a pat on the back from Rufus on her arrival, once he's gotten a chance to give her a look over, in her onesie and the piranha plant she's clutching and the injuries she's taken and the heavy amounts of makeup. Fortunately for Sarracenia, Rufus is capable of connecting the dots quite well. "Hey. I know things are rough at the start, but it does get better," he tells her. "You just need to take it one day at a time. And keep taking the meds. Have you picked out a new name yet? Or are you waiting to come out to everyone first?" > "Just one little massacre at a time." "Oh good," says Rufus, taking this at face value. > "What are you talking about, Shinra?" > "'Caring too much' isn't exactly the right way of seeing it. Everything's always more nuanced." "I mean nuance or not, it's still the result of caring too much, even if you can deal with the problem it's still going to cause a problem," he says. "You start caring too much about wars and orphans and, and other peoples' problems, and..." He makes an explosion motion with his hands. "Boom. You just sort of, explode. Or implode. Or die inside. Or a dozen other things." "But if you just... don't care, you don't have that problem, right? Doesn't that sound like it'd be a lot easier to live like that?"
Petra Soroka	> She arrives in...an unusual ensemble.     "Fuckin'... pajama party yacht, I guess...." Petra mumbles to herself, not loud enough for anyone else to hear. Between Angela and Sarracenia, she feels increasingly stupid for being as cute as she is. At least there's still Natsuki.     Sarracenia's outfit gets more unsettling the more of it enters Petra's vision. With an eyepatch, a crown, a onesie modeled after her dead butler, a stuffy, a Silver flower, runny mascara... Petra's attempts to merge these concepts into a singluar object in her vision fails. She looks like she's either autoequipping a very unfortunate set of 'best gear' in an MMO, or she looks like someone from the City when the Head somehow magically enforces a celebration of April Fools.     Really, Petra knew that Sarracenia was completely nonfunctional without her butler. She's made fun of her for it on several occasions, and praised slash pitied Gregory for his seemingly endless willingness to go along with her nonsense. She's pampered, spoiled, profoundly incurious and contemptful of the world, with the emotional and intellectual regulation of a toddler, and so it's no wonder that she'd completely fall apart without him holding her hand for everything. But seeing her dressed like *this* shows how far down those depths can go, and it kind of makes Petra genuinely sad to see. "Wh-...what do I do now...?"     Petra tosses a small palmful of Silver in Sarracenia's direction, and it stretches and squishes into a bowl in the air. When she puts her hands on it, it slowly but insistently moves towards the fish, guiding her to scoop it up into the bowl with telekinetic assistance, and then helping her deposit it into a proper bucket for the caught fish.
Kukuru	At some point, Kukuru notices that her line isn't moving at all, but it's not quite so easy to reel. She doesn't want to snap the line, after all, but it'd be rude to just dive in there and pull up whatever it is after Rufus had set this all up for everyone! Eventually, she opts to risk the line in case it's just a really heavy fish, and out comes... Something that doesn't look anything like a fish! Catching it in her hand once it's out of the water and on the boat, she 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' at the strange little box before stroking her chin with her free hand. "Does this need to go in the cooler, too?" "as much as usual . . . more than usual" Even with her eyes closed, Kukuru's still obviously 'facing' Petra with a slight tilt of her head and a smile that eventually forms on her face. "Hmm... Yeeep, we take those. I'm always around if you want help with either one of those, m'kay?  This really is a nice spot for a nap of untorturing, mhm. Letting whatever stress has been getting into our heads melt away a little, or filling it back up with warmer memories like this..." "But it was a sincere good intention, and I plan on still pursuing it." "That's the spirit. You'll get it right next time." Kukuru doesn't know what 'it' is, but she gives Flamel a broad and sleepy smile regardless. She also notices the telekinetic hands he's using for fishing, and it strengthens that temptation to dive right in for any particularly tough catches later. "Circumstances have improved so I have to be patient to the best of my ability." "The fish taking their time meeeans... We get to spend more time together like this, too, right? It's nice, not having to swim around for fish for once." Kukuru giggles again and points at the water to try and direct Angela's attention at a school off fish off in the distance. "It'd be super easy to grab all those and have more than enough to eat in a minute, but... Then it wouldn't be the same if we just grabbed them and left, you know?" She also finally remembers to drink her beer, punching a little hole into it with one of her teeth to drain it through the side. Sarracenia's quieter-than-usual greeting and choice of clothing for the occasion catches Kukuru's attention as well, and that forceful method of pulling that fish up gets a worried little noise out of her. Realizing that there's definitely something happening there, Kukuru leaves her rod and strange box behind to pick up Sarracenia's catch by the head and tail (so she doesn't get smacked again). "There's some coolers over there for aaaall these. Want me to drop this off for you, orrrr... Do you want to take a little walk?"
Petra Soroka	"Petra said it should help me relax."     "Yeah, I mean, it did a lot for me after a few hundred years in space. Fishing can do anything." Petra continues unloading fish into her bucket, once she's figured out how to actually reel in her line in a way that's productive. "Are you concerned that the assistance of the EGO Gear will cheat myself out of the proper experience?"     Petra winces. She feels like she's hanging from the tree of knowledge and contemplating whether to offer Angela a bite of the fruit. 'Shame' is such a fundamental part of the world to Petra that she feels like an alien around Angela a lot, lately.     "... No, I'm not. It's alright, Ange. I hope you're having fun." "Have you picked out a new name yet? Or are you waiting to come out to everyone first?"     When Rufus turns away from Sarracenia, he walks right into a razor thin morphmetal wire hanging in the air at exactly throat-level, nearly invisible. "Hey, dude, what the fuck are you talking about?" "But if you just... don't care, you don't have that problem, right? Doesn't that sound like it'd be a lot easier to live like that?"     Petra rolls her eyes, plucking a reasonably-sized-but-small-compared-to-her-previous fish off of her hook and tossing it back into the water. "Yeah, and life is *so* much less *scary* if you kill yourself instantly. This might literally be your worst take ever, Shinra. I thought you were supposed to be different from *that* at least, no matter how much of a fucking retard you can be about other things."
Natsuki Nuki	> Sarra in the Sadness Onesie Natsuki rolls her attention to the depressed princess and quirks a brow, red eyes narrowing as she looks at the piranha plant kigu and assess for a moment between pulling in fish. Natsuki has an incredible luck and pace, able to pull in fish after fish, but... smaller? Smaller?? Smaller??? Sarracenia is her distraction. "Hey. My condolences on your subordinate's passing. That's difficult, for any boss. Also, I've been hired to 'talk' to you about some issues. When you're ready to listen, let me know. Don't make me wait long - I," Her line tugs, having been left idle in just the right angle and creaking at the line, and so the Osakan casino queen returns to her fishing line and sets back down to reel in another fish. "You wait for some interest, relax your thoughts, maybe talk or drink or smoke, and then you sometimes get to fight! It's useful relaxation time. Not your kind of princess thing, though?" Natsuki looks ahead to not look at Petra and drag in another medium fish. 'Hey, that's a good one, right? Right? I knew I'd be good at this.' Natsuki's near-ear flicks in air-batting annoyance and her thumbs rub the side of her line. "Yeah, it's a good one." She growls out of the side of her mouth, a sick sort of smile playing as she glances and then returns to business, fighting hard. Only for her other ear to flick as Kukuru pulls up a whole treasure chest! "If we don't find the key we can get it opened easy." Natsuki assures, meaning that she'll take off her jacket and peel it open with her arms, but that's a secret tool for later. Only after the chest does Natsuki feel a real lunker on *her* line, standing up and really getting into things, only to pull up and spot weigh. . .     . . . a pound short. Natsuki sits back down in a huff, jacket being peeled off to leave bare arms and shoulders out in the sunlight and allow a little more relaxation. It's around that time Rufus delivers a real winner of an assurance and petra goes for the throat. "Angela," Natsuki begins, patient-toned and waiting for a bite. "This isn't quite what I imagined. This is pretty lively, but it can be recharging too."
Sarracenia	'You've all been doing okay, right?'      "..." Sarra can't bring herself to answer. She doesn't want Kukuru to be brought down by her. Eventually she just nods lightly in Kukuru's direction.      'Hey. I know things are rough at the start, but it does get better, You just need to take it one day at a time. And keep taking the meds. Have you picked out a new name yet? Or are you waiting to come out to everyone first?'      Even in her current state, Sarra blinks a few times at Rufus like he is completely insane. After a few moments she just mirrors what Petra said. "What are you talking about, Shinra?" before continuing on to her fishing spot.      'Petra tosses a small palmful of Silver in Sarracenia's direction...'      Sarra stares at the Silver for a few moments. It is Petra so she is hesitant to touch it. But, eventually she reaches out and is guided through at least where to put the fish. Taking the hook out is beyond her though, and so she just leaves the rod and goes to get another one before moving back to start again. Of course, she's unlikely to get lucky again because...she isn't even baiting the hook. She does at least offer a quiet 'thank you' to Petra when she gets close enough.      Flamel using a lock makes her curious. Do keyfish exist? She watches him for a bit while the whole psychogate thing is being talked about. And she is able to watch and listen for quite a while before another fish graces her line. The reeling in goes only marginally better.      Kukuru arrives just in time to help with the second fish. Sarra gives Kukuru a bit of a confused look, but more in the 'I'm in a haze and someone talked to me' look than anything. "...I..." is all she says, but then starts walking with Kukuru. Kukuru reeled in a treasure chest, which is enough to spark something for Sarra. Treasure means shiny things or fun adventures! ...not that she is feeling adventurous right now. But, she still looks at it. "...what do you think is inside?"
Angela	Angela slowly looks over to Sarracenia as Petra indirectly calls her attention to the princess. She quirks her head at the crown being ''underneath'' the hood but notices Sarracenia peering at her too and then turns around just as she notices. ''It'd be super easy to grab all those--'' "As long as I perform in a satisfactory manner in fishing, I am not particularly concerned about number of fish. My purpose here is to rest and that is why I have removed one of the potential stress points of fishing." ''I hope you're having fun.'' Angela says, "...Of course. It has felt like it has been a while since we could just enjoy ourselves with an activity." She looks over to Petra and adds, "The braids look good with the hat." ''Have you picked out a new name yet?'' Angela is wondering what the fuck Rufus is talking about too but has a sneaking suspicion this is a trap to get in the way of her objectives so she keeps quiet. Fortunately, Petra asks the question herslef. "I think caring actually approves ease of activity and efficiency and boosts productivity and lessens fatalities."
Sarracenia	'Hey. My condolences on your subordinate's passing. That's difficult, for any boss. Also, I've been hired to 'talk' to you about some issues. When you're ready to listen, let me know. Don't make me wait long - I,'      Sarra's head turns to Natsuki. She doesn't quite smile, but she seems appreciative of the thought. "He was much more than a subordinate. He had been taking care of me since I was a baby. I...do not know what I am going to do without him..." Moisture builds on the edges of Sarra's eyes again.      'She quirks her head at the crown being ''underneath'' the hood but notices Sarracenia peering at her too and then turns around just as she notices.'      The turn draws a soft huff from Sarra, but she doesn't comment on Angela's outfit. Despite having SO many thoughts about it, especially after the tanuki suit incident and all the ridicule for Sarra's use of suit type power-ups.
Petra Soroka	"Does this need to go in the cooler, too?"     "Eh?" Petra turns to look at whatever Kukuru's found, and immediately leaves her fishing rod behind to scamper over when she sees the *treasure chest*. "Ah??"     Petra nabs it and wiggles it around a bit, shaking it to hear if anything rattles inside, and poking at the hinges and lock to see if they're still intact. "What??? This is so cool! You, Shinra, is this what you were actually looking for? Treasure chests? Maybe I can try opening it. Can I?" "Yeah, it's a good one."     "I thought so. It looks like it's the biggest one so far, right?" Petra has not learned to be competitive about fishing yet, because her only other fishing experience was a co-op game. She ambles around back to her rod, wiggling it, picking out another moderately-sized fish and re-baiting it before wandering off again to grab a bottle of beer. "The braids look good with the hat."     "Mm! I've kind of been happy with, uh, leaving it a bit grown-out like this. Can do a lot more interesting things styling it." Petra dissolves the bottlecap in a blob of Silver, with just crumbles of dye and adhesive blowing away in the wind after the morphmetal unfurls. She rolls her eyes a bit, taking a sip. "My parents would be sooo proud."
Flamel Parsons	"That's the spirit. You'll get it right next time."     Flamel turns a perch over in his telekinetic hands. "That's the plan! Iterate and don't give up on something important." He says, nodding firmly.     "Doesn't that sound like it'd be a lot easier to live like that?"     "Not exactly." Flamel says, wagging a finger vaguely while he tends to his line. "Think of living as something you do at a variable rate. The more you care about things, the more life you're living per second of being alive. Like how you might take more fuel to keep a higher speed in a vehicle. Sure, you need to consider your logistics, but at the end of the day, if you want to go somewhere-- That is, if you want to live a lot, you have to do a lot of caring about something. Even if that's just yourself, caring about something gets a higher life-per-living rate. Could run out of fuel, mess up your engine, all that stuff, sure. But you definitely shouldn't stop!"     "That's *depression*, you know. Any chance you want me to hop in there and fistfight some of that? It tends to be a bit slimey but I've got a decent pyrokinetic beam for helping burn it off." He says, briefly reminding everyone here that psychonautry is somewhat fucking stupid.
Angela	''This isn't quite what I imagined.'' "With fishing?" Angela asks. She thiks it over. "What did you expect?" Angela watches Sarracenia tear up for a moment before looking away again. It's not really her causing those tears so it doesn't really feel good at all, actually. "It is good to experiment, and if you are happy with it--then I'm happy to hear it." She bites slightly on the inside of her cheek as she sees the treasure chest, carefully keeping her expression neutral so nobody knows she wants to know what's inside the chest too. "None of my training prepared me for fishing up treasure chests." Angela frowns, as if she's trying to justify why she's only caught fish so far.
Rufus Shinra	> "Hey, dude, what the fuck are you talking about?" "Absolutely nothing and I apologize," says Rufus automatically. See, he can be trained! > "What??? This is so cool! You, Shinra, is this what you were actually looking for? Treasure chests? Maybe I can try opening it. Can I?" "Uh, sure," says Rufus. "I wasn't looking for anything in particular besides fish, though?" "I mean it's just fishing, it's not like we're about to pull up a dead body or a giant squid or anything like that. > "This might literally be your worst take ever, Shinra. I thought you were supposed to be different from *that* at least, no matter how much of a fucking retard you can be about other things." > "Think of living as something you do at a variable rate." "I mean I *could* go and just... live at that variable rate. Get my kicks by normal vacations like normal people. Spend the vast wealth I already have instead of worrying about getting any more, and not worry about other people." "Because caring *at all* is what got me in that situation at Lobotomy Corporation, remember? I'm glad we could save Angela and all but that was still the worst situation I've ever been in in my life, including that time I was in house arrest for a year." He crosses his arms. "So that's like, if I start caring, that's going to happen again, isn't it? I feel like I shouldn't be going on adventures on more than a surface level. More than worrying about what I alone should be getting out of it, if that." > "Any chance you want me to hop in there and fistfight some of that?" Rufus starts to say no. Then: "Maybe?"
Rufus Shinra	GIANT SQUID ANGRY GIANT SQUID IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOAT EIGHT ARMS FLAILING AROUND INK FLYING EVERYWHERE OH NO GIANT SQUID deal with it
Flamel Parsons	"So that's like, if I start caring, that's going to happen again, isn't it?"     Flamel shakes his head a little. "The rate is how much you manifest your caring into the world." He explains. "How often thinking about something turns into that thing changing. That's what being alive is, in the psychic definition of it. Thought becoming any form of change, whether it goes through the muscles or psychokinetics." He leans back a little. "You're not wrong, though. It *will* happen again. I mean, that sort of thing already happened twice! The pattern will hold."     He wags a finger informatively though. "The thing is, the rate you live is how many times you can absorb that. Because there's a number of times you can absorb it, a per-year rate. And that's how much life you live per year alive. How many horrible situations you can go through for the stuff you care for. Some people can't handle any, some people can handle a lot, some people are specialized. Some vehicles go faster in different routes and contexts and surfaces, right? But it's all about finding what you can do, what your brain can handle the consequences of caring for, and caring about it as much as possible."     "Anyway," He stands up, grin wide, posture excited. "If you're feeling a little psychically under the weather, I've got some great invasive psychic machines that can HUUURRRK--" A giant squid's arm slams into his midsection, knocks the breath out of him, and he falls into the water with a soft, "Hhhhh...!"
Angela	GIANT SQUID. Angela summons her EGO Weapon associated with Whellcheers. This EGO Weapon is a giant can of soda which she pops open and sprays the giant squid with purple flavored soda. "...This is rapidly becoming less restful." Angela says as a squid's tentacles start smacking into her face. It doesn't hurt a lot, but it isn't very cool to go through either. ''Because caring *at all* is what got me in that situation at Lobotomy Corporation, remember?'' "I feel that Lobotomy Corporation was likely an outlier in terms of the cost of caring about something." Angela says. "I am sorry that caring about me put you in that position and that you suffered from it. I am still willing to return the favor should you ever desire it." Frankly, the giant squid slapping her around while in the midst of a conversation like this is really ridiculous and Angela eventually just turns and says, "Would you quit it?" as if she expects the squid to just listen to her after she sploshed it with a ton of soda.
Petra Soroka	"Absolutely nothing and I apologize,"     "Attaboy." The razor garotte dissolves back into droplets, rolling across the ground to reconvene with Petra. "So that's like, if I start caring, that's going to happen again, isn't it? I feel like I shouldn't be going on adventures on more than a surface level."     "Oh, huh. Guess everyone was right about you."     Petra takes another drink from her bottle, leaning against the railing of the boat. As casual as her voice and posture is, her eyes are inerringly locked onto Rufus's. "So you're not really an Elite at all. That's fine. I mean, there's a reason why most of the other hollowed out husks of the corporate world stay in their offices and rot and die in their miserable little bubbles. It's not really *reasonable* to do all of this, and maybe you're more of a *reasonable* guy than you thought, right?"     She spits. Not off of the boat, but right on the deck. "That's fine. Anyone who has the choice of going back to a 'normal' life shouldn't be doing this anyways. Pussy."     Where Petra was when Angela fished up the giant squid, she suddenly isn't. As if animated in low frame rate, there's flickers and glimpses of her turning away, jumping on the rail, and then climbing on top of the cabin, but in a fraction of a second, there she is, sitting with her thighs crossed on the roof of the yacht. In the contemptuous flow-state she can only ever access when having monologues like this, Petra flicks out a rod of Silver, with fine interlocking chains of 'fishing line' on the end. She rears back and casts it over the flailing squid, landing the hook in the water on the far end of the boat.     "Awww, it's so *scary* to *care*, isn't it? It's so much easier to just crawl under your nice four poster bed and hide, huh? Do you regret it?"
Kukuru	"If we don't find the key we can get it opened easy." "...what do you think is inside?" "Suuuper easily." Kukuru affirms with another lighthearted chuckle in return to Natsuki, glancing around briefly with aglint in her eyes. "We sure do have a looot of strong people here, right? A box like this owuld be really easy to pop it riiight open the way we usually would. I dunno what we'll find inside it, but... I'm sure we'll be able to get it open. I just wonder iiiif..." "You, Shinra, is this what you were actually looking for?" "I wasn't looking for anything in particular besides fish, though?" A beat, and then another giggle as she watches Petra's reaction to the chest. "Of course, dear. But I wonder if it'll do something special if we got it open with a key instead of usual ways. Maybe it'll be an even bigger surprise?" She suggests with a thoughtful hum, peering towards the water again while she fishes up an actual fish! Not a key, sadly. "Still, if there's chests in here, then there must be aaaall kinds of other neat things to find here. Little prize boxes like these, maybe even ones filled with tasty snacks..." Kukuru daydreams a little there, then fights that thoguht off. She couldn't bear to break the treasure chest on her own, after all, but she does look around a little to see if the mood is right for some kind of forced opening. "None of my training prepared me for fishing up treasure chests." "Treasure chests usually aren't fish, that's true. But if we were lucky enough to find that, maaaybe... We'll be lucky enough that one of our hooks might snag that, too." She suggests, propping the rod and hooked fish over her shoulder while looking up at the fish itself. "Although I'm preeetty sure keys don't bite like fish do. Unless... Oh! Oh!" She claps her hands together excitedly. "Do you think a fish maybe might've swallowed the key? Then we'll just have to start cooking them up for eating to find it if there is..." She's totally angling for an excuse to start cooking and eating already, even with the snacks on board. "My condolences on your subordinate's passing." "He was much more than a subordinate." So that's what happened. Even though she's got two fish tucked under her arms so as to not get slapped in the face by both of them, Kukuru still makes sure to approach Sarracenia with a nudge of her head. "Oh, no, Sarra... I'm sorry. That... That's terrible. Mmn. If you need or want anything, let me know. If you want to talk, or just sit around, or eat something..." As she finally gets their catches into the cooler, Kukuru finally offers her a proper hug that's probably going to be a fair bit tighter than usual considering what she's just heard and despite the fact that she smells like fresh fish and ocean water now. "Or a place to break things where you won't get in trouble... Mhm, mhm, I know a couple of good places for that, too." "I feel like I shouldn't be going on adventures on more than a surface level." "That's a safer way to live, mhm. There's a loooot of stuff we do that's pretty dangerous and super risky, and..." Kukuru start, sighs quietly, then hums to herself while pulling up another fish and finally cheating with a quick teleport-based dropoff in a cooler so as to not break her train of thought. "If you have the choice, not doing all that's probably the responsible thing to do." And then a giant squid appears! "If, buuuut... This isn't an if, is it?" She chimes in, then squeaks upon getting splashed right in the face with all that ink. Whining briefly, she starts heading in the direction she last remembered seeing it in, but a few unsuccessful blind grabs forces her to resort to standing her ground and grabbing for flailing tentacles once she feels one hitting her across the side.
Kukuru	That, in turn, gets her tossed right overboard. Against all odds, though, that leads her right to another big catch! And if nobody looks too closely, maybe she can sneak this one aboard during the squid chaos...
Sarracenia	'What??? This is so cool! You, Shinra, is this what you were actually looking for? Treasure chests? Maybe I can try opening it. Can I?'      Sarra mmphs softly in annoyance as Petra rushes to the treasure chest as well, but the princess doesn't feel like fighting over it. Just finding out what is inside would be good enough today.      'So that's like, if I start caring, that's going to happen again, isn't it? I feel like I shouldn't be going on adventures on more than a surface level. More than worrying about what I alone should be getting out of it, if that.'      Sarra looks at Rufus. "What even is the point of adventures if you do not share them with anyone? One may as well sit at home alone reading or-" She suddenly stops as she realizes...if she didn't go on adventures...perhaps Gregory would still be around.      'Oh, no, Sarra... I'm sorry. That... That's terrible. Mmn. If you need or want anything, let me know. If you want to talk, or just sit around, or eat something...'      Kukuru hugs Sarra, and Sarra...hugs so very tightly to Kukuru. Sarra can't go around asking for hugs, but she really really needed one. She doesn't care that Kukuru is fishy right now. She sniffles against Kukuru. "Th-thank you, Miss Kukuru."      'Absolutely nothing and I apologize,'      'Attaboy.'      Sarra still has no idea what Rufus was even talking about. She looks as confused about the apology and attaboy as what was said before.      Then, there's a GIANT SQUID to distract Sarra! "Mmph. Treasure chests and giant squid. There is always a risk of catching such things when fishing, from what I have heard." Sarra reaches into her purse...wait, she doesn't have her purse. She blinks in surprise. Did she actually forget it? As she is getting a bit frantic over that, she gets knocked overboard as well. When she makes it back onboard...she is of course soaked from head to toe. She's now cold, grumpy, sad...and that makes her angry. "Most any other time, I would be quite happy to fight you, Mister or Miss squid. But today...please go away." she says in a cold tone. She touches her Silver lotus, the Silver covers her hands in short silver gloves, then she starts shooting Silver spikes at the squid.      That does not last long though as Sarra lets out a squeak and her teeth clench in surprise before she starts flailing frantically. "AAAH! H-how did you get in there?!" she exclaims while a fish-shaped something flops about visibly inside her drenched onesie. She starts to reach to unzip and get the fish free, but the first few inches of unzipping reveal...she didn't even wear proper clothes beneath. She freezes up as she realizes that herself, then yelps and flails again as she tries to figure out how to get the fish out of her outfit without hurting it, herself, or her pride (any more).
Natsuki Nuki	"Sure!" Natsuki agrees with Kukuru idly, remaining standing as she gets into stance and just starts Pulling In Fish. Like a machine, like they're compelled, she keeps getting bites and keeps reeling fish in! Tossing back the small fish as she gets them because wiping out a good lake like this with overnight overfishing would be terrible. She lived in a fish conscious place! And also she was deeply competitive. "We've got plenty of strong contenders, but I'm proud of my fishing heritage." --- Seeing Petra snap a fish out of the water just with her Silver rod, Natsuki decides to go full competition mode, rolling shoulders and changing out lures to a narrower curve and with a double action tip. With this, she actively tries to manually hook fish in the water with a technique that involves a hard flick cast and an unreasonable handle on the line to draw back in a fish just like that. She gets several in a row, even, ones right after the other, but there's always a catch. . . . 20 pounds. She can't break twenty pounds! Seeing what she thinks is a lunker in the water, Natsuki swaps lures back for a bigger, higher draw hook and jig, and casts out in a long arc around into the water. Then, a bigger, darker, meaner shape is in the water. And -- Natsuki feels the tug and flyingly draws in a medium fish out into the water as Kukuru somehow draws out an entire giant squid. Incensed - furious for a moment, grey stormclouds darken and thicken over their boat, and Natsuki catches her sixteen pounder in hand and for a moment her head is a different head, snouted and wicked-toothed and orange-striped and pantherine, and the fish down to the tailfin is snapped up, a massive crackle of thunder peals out overhead and splits the sky to *somehow* find the squid as it crests up to punish it into a cooked to edibility level decisively. Tossing the tail and ending of bone out into the water, her face resuming being pleasantly Osakan with masked-ringed eyes. "That one doesn't count." She states, as if anyone else is paying attention. AND THEN KUKURU PULLS IN ONE THAT MEASURES OVER TWENTY HERSELF, and it is at that point that Natsuki sits back in a grumbling huff and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket near her seat to settle back and hold it between her lips and draw slowly as she cools off.
Rufus Shinra	GIANT SQUID Rufus is taking cover in the cockpit. "Kill it! Or throw it overboard! Or get the sashimi knives out! Just do something with it!" Several people keep fishing, because they have their priorities in order. Natsuki's pile of fish is growing ever larger. Kukuru catches more fish *while* being in the water, somehow? After getting shot by Sarracenia's silver spikes, it gets agitated enough to flop out of the boat on its own, not least because it wants to be in the boat about as much as you want it to be in the boat. There's ink everywhere, two people are overboard, and Sarracenia is having a fish-related wardrobe malfunction. "Well you know what they say, a bad day fishing beats a good day working?" suggests Rufus as he emerges from his hiding spot. "Uh, let me get the life vests." One the (current) catastrophe has passed, Rufus opines on his thoughts some more. > "I feel that Lobotomy Corporation was likely an outlier in terms of the cost of caring about something." "... Alright, well... alright. If it's going to be that rare..." > "The thing is, the rate you live is how many times you can absorb that..." "Yeah?" He gives this some consideration as well. "Find how much I can handle, I guess. Okay. Thanks." > Petra Rufus bristles. He calms down. Then he bristles again. Fists clench. "Just..." "... Fuck you," he settles on, finally, as he grabs a fishing pole and starts fishing agitatedly in a way that catches him zero fish.
Rufus Shinra	A KEY Hey it looks like it might fit the lock on that chest. If you think it's a good idea to open it, anyway. Nothing bad happens on Friday the 13th, right? ... Do you open it? Y/N
Kukuru	After holding Sarracenia for as long as she wants, Kukuru does finally let her go, but not without a towel to dry her face off. Alas, this is just before the advent of GIANT SQUID, so it's probably not going to be anywhere near enough for any squid ink-based incidents in the very near future. --- Spending that time in the water is actually pretty good for Kukuru following the ink spray, because it gives her a chance to wash most of it off instead of getting concerned calls from HR. It's also an opportunity to snag several more fish that happen to be close enough for her to catch just by swimming and catching them by hand, although a light squeeze and holding them close to her head tells her that they're not the ones she's looking for. She does keep a few of the bigger ones, though, since those'll be good for eating later! When she finally comes back out of the water, though, she's reminded that there was a giant squid at all when Natsuki's lightning comes right down for it. "Oh yeah... Ah, maybe we don't need aaaall these, then. Gotta be responsible about not overfishing~" She murmurs to herself with a satisfied nod, settling on just keeping at trio of fish stuffed into her overalls while letting the rest go. Getting back onto the boat without dropping the other two is still going to be tricky, though, especially since she doesn't want to damage Rufus' fancy boat! And then she remembers she can teleport. A few seconds later, and she's right back up next to Natsuki, a worried frown crossing her face when she sees her smoking. "Aw, Natsukiiii. What's wrong, dear? Did the squid get you with the ink, too?" She asks, hair still carrying plenty of black streaks in it mixed in with the usual green. "We can wash in the water if you wanna go for a little dip. Or maybeeee... We can start prepping these to eat. Wouldn't that be fu-" As Kukuru slides the three biggest fish she caught while she was still in the water out of her overalls, another distinctly non-fishy shape falls out from her clothes. It's a key! She blinks slowly while looking down at it, then looks over to Petra and wiggling the key in her general direction with a playful giggle. "Wanna do the honors?"
Petra Soroka	"That one doesn't count."     "Oh, we're counting?" Petra barely hears Natsuki over the thrashing chaos of the squid, but she immediately tunes herself into the sentiment. "Oh, I see. Yeah, we're counting."     Petra's Silver fishing rod is one that she's much more intuitively capable of using than Rufus's, even accounting for the materia. With a telekinetic tug on the hook to convincingly wiggle it, and then readjusting it in the mouth that bites to hold steady, and then an unbreakable line to help her reel the resulting catch in, Petra soon has another twenty-one-pounder hefted in her hands. She tosses it from her seat up on the roof, splashing it into the bucket on the deck below in tandem with the squid's retreat. "... Fuck you,"     "Yeah? Yeah?"     Sure, Rufus seems to have settled down once the giant squid is ejected, so Petra could just lay off. He doesn't seem to be spiraling any more, at least. But Rufus is, despite everything, someone that Petra likes *more* than average, so hearing this line of thought from him pisses her off too much to lay off.     She hops down from the roof, landing right beside him and crossing her arms in his personal space. "'Fuck me', is it? That's all you have to say? Try *listening* to me, asshole, because I *mean* what I'm saying."     "You're paving the road for your own mental suicide. You're a fucking Concord Partner, idiot. Are you scared of getting *hurt*? If you're going to *take it easy*, why are you even *out* here! Why were you here in the *first* place?! You're *dipping your toes* into justifying bailing out of the one thing you've ever chosen in your life to go back to how things *used* to be for you."     "I remember that fucking, fundraiser dinner of yours, you fucking idiot. Those people aren't gonna get hurt. They're basically immune to it." "Wanna do the honors?"     Petra puffs out air and swivels on her foot to pivot away from Rufus. The treasure chest is very cool... finding a *key* is some high LCK gaming, so they can't *not* open it... but....     She sideeyes the ink-covered, dead-butler-onesie-wearing Sarracenia, and sighs. When the key's passed to her, she flips it with her thumb towards Sarra so that she can take it instead.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel returns to the surface, having psychically convinced a decently-hefty perch to lift him. Unlike, say, a true fish-communicator, he can't really do this without the fish subsequently having a small seizure. But he then lifts himself out of the water using his telekinesis, hovers back over to the boat, and clambers on.     "If someone throws a chest away with the key, they definitely want you to open it. That sounds like a generous soul! Give it a go." He says, climbing out and beginning to blow-dry himself with handheld minor pyrokinetics. "I dunno, I've never put anything into a chest that I really wanted to keep, so it's probably a generous donation. Is that thing waterproof...?"
Sarracenia	Sarra hugs Kukuru basically right up until they are knocked into the water. She'd probably have hugged longer if not for the squid. Speaking of squid...Squid ink. Now Sarra's outfit is soaked -and- stained! Feeling especially emotionally unstable right now -and- especially not caring about appearing princess-like AND with a fish in her clothes, Sarra finally just unzips and steps out of her onesie. A princess in nothing but lacy red undergarments is visible for just a moment before she touches her Silver lotus again and the liquid metal flows over her. It covers her almost like a henshin transformation, forming into a full body leotard-like garment before filling out into a silver dress that hugs her a bit more tightly than her usual dresses.      She then wipes at her eyes and sniffles before looking at the key, then at Petra. "Well, do not keep us waiting." she says, then...blinks in surprise as the key is handed to her. Sarra hesitates, looks at Petra as if to confirm she is offering the key, then bites her lip to hold back more sniffles as she takes it and clutches it in both hands. She moves toward the chest and actually giggles just a tiny bit before reaching to open it.
Rufus Shinra	Rufus bristles all over again. "Yeah? YEAH?" Petra steps up. Rufus steps up as well, or at least stands his ground. "I *am* a Concord Partner! I *earned* my spot out here!" "I'm not fucking bailing! I'm gonna go- I'm gonna go take what I *deserve*. Including my world. You just watch. Thinking I'm actually going to bail, really..." Meanwhile: the lock clicks, and the chest pops open, and inside... ... silver coins! Lots of them! They're each about half as big as a hand, and stamped on one side with a square-jawed face with bushy eyebrows, and on the other side a landscape with a river, a five-sided pyramid, and an odd looking tree. It feels like it depicts a place.
Angela	Angela glances over to Sarracenia, then to Natsuki, then back at her fishing rod. She agrees with Petra, more or less, though she wouldn't be as fierce about it (though Petra's fierceness is one of her many charm points)... but her objective is to relax. Not pick a fight with a guy who has experienced about as much of the real world as she has. She allows the chaos to move her as she continues to fish. She is doing pretty well but eventually takes a break and just sort of leans back and closes her eyes while her hand remains on the rod. She mimes breathing in, and breathing out, pulling her hoodie slightly over her eyes like she's seen people do with hats in the representations of fishing she's observed. She reaches into one of the pockets in her overalls and places a reed between her mouth. This is unpleasant, but she keeps to it in case the charm of it arrives eventually. Yep, nothing to worry about today. She turns her head away from the mysterious coins. Nothing to do with her.
Kukuru	Breathing out a sigh of relief as Rufus and Petra appear to be disengaging rather than getting into anything physical, Kukuru still can't shake the gnawing feeling in her gut that things might get worse before they get better. The most she can do is suppress that feeling for now, aided considerably by that transfer of the key from Petra to Sarracenia that puts a broad smile on Kukuru's face when she realizes what's going on. It's a heartwarming moment combined with a release to all that built up anticipation since fishing up that chest. "Coins!" Kukuru shouts excitedly in a half-cheer as the chest's contents are revealed, followed by a quirked eyebrow and tilted head. "Coins?" She repeats, squatting by the pile to pick up a coin and eye it curiously. She flips it over a few times in hand, then looks right back up and around at the group while her larger catches continue flopping about around her. "Does anyone recognize this face? Orrr... these places?"
Rufus Shinra	A dead body. It gets pulled up and falls into the boat before anyone can really think to stop it. It is in fact a body - real, not a mannequin - and it is in fact dead. It's a man dressed in seafaring clothes, leathers and fabrics meant to be durable and flexible and swimmable. He's also missing a foot from the ankle down, with a wooden peg prosthetic strapped on in its place. He's got... sort of the same square jaw and bushy eyebrows as the face on the coins in the treasure chest. He's not the same person as the man on the coins, for certain, but possibly the same ancestry? ... He also has jewelry. Like, a lot of jewelry. Golden chains around his neck, with precious gems set within. Studded earrings. A diamond stud on his nose. There's easily, easily, enough worth in that jewelry to pay for ten copies of the luxury boat you're standing on. He's also perfectly preserved. For being in the water for an unknown length of time, it looks as though he couldn't have died more than a few hours ago.
Petra Soroka	"I'm not fucking bailing! I'm gonna go- I'm gonna go take what I *deserve*. Including my world."     Petra attempts to cooly raise her eyebrows to doubt Rufus, but she's too mad to have that level of fine control over her face, so they return to being scrunched up in the middle of her forehead after briefly rising.     "Oh, are you? Well, gosh, buddy, but that sounds like an awful lot of *caring*. Aren't you worried you're gonna get *hurt*? Or is your plan to just sit back and hire mercenaries to do all the hard work and then kiss your little boo-boos better?"     She eases off a bit, biting the inside of her lip in a frustrated pout. "I don't give a shit about what you *deserve*, anyways. You deserve nothing. Only lazy incel normies think they *deserve* things. But if you want something, you have to care about it enough to take it. *Caring* is the solution to everything. And so is bleeding and getting hurt for it. What's gotten into you, huh? It's not just Lobcorp, is it?"     Withdrawing even further, shoulders slumping even though she still looks irritable. "... It's been a year, just about. Tomorrow, it'll have been a year." Since the start of the week long war, not the end. More specifically, since the day Cinder died. "Is it just setting in now, or something?"
Angela	''Tomorrow, it'll have been a year.'' Angela's grip loosens on her fishing rod at a bad time, and a fish just drags it into the water while she's distracted. Angela opens her eyes and stares at the water. SODA is too weak an EGO Gear to take over Angela even when she's shaken. It HAS been nearly a year. Why is she still thinking about it? Shouldn't she have stopped by now? Shouldn't she have ... well, shouldn't she have ... stopped caring? But she hasn't. She still feels a pang whenever she thinks about it. And even if she isn't always thinking about it, she can't stop thinking about it. It worms its way in whenever she lets down her guard. "...I'm sorry." Angela says.
Natsuki Nuki	The disgruntlement, the non-relaxation, sets in deeply to Natsuki while she keeps pulling up fish and having to toss them back for size or weighing in a twenty. Angela gets 20's all in a row with only a few casts, and Kukuru somehow brings up everything interesting in the lake after the defeat of the Squid - straight up treasure!! Fuming, focused on her fishing, Natsuki spits a "Dunno. Busy. Probably worth more traded as silver." She evaluates without looking, until. . . She casts, jig ready. she feels a deeper tension, and goes all in on a reaction while taking a draw of her cigarette, spinning reel until... 21! It weighs in 21! Immediately after, Natsuki immediately returns to normal and idly pleased Partner. "Well, see? Wasn't ever in doubt. Plus, my thunderbolt cast really has brought in a lot, hasn't it?" Natsuki has a pretty clear idea that Sarracenia isn't the kind of person to enjoy elective burning of fine-bodied Japanese tobacco. However... The matter with Petra, on the other hand... Setting pole aside for a moment, Natsuki heads over to Petra as she tightens up, holding out cigarette pack with a lighter held between fingers. "I've got some embers to remember by, if you want to call it a burial at sea." She offers, before looking over Petra to Rufus. "This is a nice place. Even one of your fancy monsters that you can draw your powers from, and plenty of fish biting. So why are you so..." Petra is looked at again, and then Natsuki's eyes rise to Rufus. "It's all Partners here isn't it? Petra was the one bringing Angela here, to your invitation."
Rufus Shinra	> "Is it just setting in now, or something?" There's a long pause. "I kept going for a bit after that, and then..." "... I took a break." "It was supposed to be a short break, but... well, a couple days became a week, became a month, became three months, became nearly a year..." "Back to the old habits. The old desires. The old hedonism. The- why am I telling you all this... And I come back, and there's people I was working with dying and fighting each other, and massive stakes, and I think Flamel's about to leave his earthly body behind..." He looks frustrated. "It's easy for you to care. It's easy for you to bleed. It's easy for you to get hurt. You're already doing it, you've got momentum, when I'm looking at it from a standstill. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry about Cinder, and I don't know a better way to put it but I don't want to have that for myself. I don't want to have a Cinder that I lose. I don't want to have another Lobotomy Corporation or an Angela or a Flamel or a *you* that I might lose." "I'll do it, I'll care, I won't go hide from it anymore, I just..." He makes a frustrated noise. "You know?"
Sarracenia	Sarra...actually looks a bit disappointed at finding big silver coins. She has big -gold- coins like these at her fingertips everyday, and is basically covered in silver now. "...just coins..." Of course, coins are a reasonable thing to find in a treasure chest. "Well, it was still nice to open." she says. She turns to thank Petra but...Petra is busy yelling at Rufus. Perhaps ironically, Sarra also likes Rufus. They seem to share some of the same elements in their background. But, also ironically, Sarra finds herself agreeing with Petra on many points.      Sarra approaches Rufus, and pays what Kukuru gave her forward. She attempts to give Rufus...a hug. "It does hurt to care. But, if you stop caring about people completely, you become like the Darkmancer. The one who took Gregory from me. Someone who cares nothing for those around him or the lives he destroys. People become a mere currency. I happen to know you are much better than that, Mister Rufus. Besides, if you stop caring about people...what is left? Money? Money is useful, but it is not a replacement for people." she says.      'Tomorrow, it'll have been a year.'      Sarra almost doesn't place what Petra means, but when she does her hands go to her mouth. "Oh...Petra..." she says, her eyes getting misty again. Having even more of an appreciation for losing someone close to her now makes her sympathize with Petra. It results in a bit of a feedback loop with parallels between Cinder and Gregory being lost. The only real difference is that Cinder chose her fate in a great heroic deed.      Then...DEAD BODY      Sarra outright screams as it flops onto the deck from Kukuru's fishing. "What in the world?!" she exclaims in horror, only to blink as she realizes that the coins sort of look like him. "Wh-what?!"
Kukuru	"I'm not fucking bailing! I'm gonna go- I'm gonna go take what I *deserve*. Including my world." "Good. Keep that... Mhm. Keep that spirit up, dear. That's the difference between us and everyone else that isn't a Partner, an Elite, or... You know?" Kukuru chuckles softly, her expression softening somewhat even though she starts getting a slight pang in her gut. It's not as though she doesn't understand part of Petra's perspective, after all. "Tomorrow, it'll have been a year." She had been there, too. "We do stick it out, even if it's rough. Our friends and our families are all here." She says with a little nod at Natsuki, smiling again while casting a wistful stare at the clouds above. "And we take care of each other even through... No, especially during all that. It's really been that long already, huh...? It really was, wasn't it." She murmurs, looking over at Angela with a complicated-feeling frown at the apology. She's not sure how to fully process all those feeling at the moment, so she settles for heading over at Angela with her rod across her shoulder. Kukuru sits besides her, and that complicated feeling remains even as she smiles in a way that's not quite as beaming or absent-mindedly happy as her usual. "Thank you, Ange." She keeps her hand in grasping distance nearby. That doesn't last forever, though, as the rod starts to stir against her shoulder. At first, the newest big catch is one Kukuru's not paying particularly close attention to. She's distracted by lot of things, after all, but the fact that there's yet another thing that feels too still to be a fish gives her enough reason to actually try hauling it out instead of letting it go. And so, there's a dead body on Rufus' fancy yacht. Kukuru doesn't look freaked out about it, at least, as she squats by the body to inspect it with an almost casual indifference like she's seen this sort of thing before. "Oh, this doesn't look like one of... Ours? His clothes are a little too fancy to be from Nassau, but maybe a differeeeent place...?" The temptation to relieve the corpse of some of that jewelry is tempting, of course, and the somewhat intense stare on  Kukuru's face at seeing all that expensive stuff on the guy makes it kind of obvious that she's having some kind of internal battle going on that's stopping her from just pumping the corpse full of nanites to get him back on his feet. Aside from the money, however, another thought comes to mind that she's actually willing to put into words even while getting her nanites ready: "Do you think this is someone the Concord wanted dead?" Kukuru finally pieces together, holding the swarm in a intensely green cloud overhead. She'll drop them onto the corpse if the group ends up deciding on reviving the man, but if not? This wouldn't be the first time she's robbed a corpse for valuables.
Rufus Shinra	When Kukuru touches the jewelry, a series of images force their way into her mind. Her natural mental shielding keeps it from being as bad as it could be, but there's something *insistent* on her seeing these images. The images flash by - five-sided pyramids. Weird fuzzy trees. An unknown sport played with triple-netted rackets. Square-jawed men and women and children, the latter looking *quite* like the man laid out on the boat deck. And then the last image, taken from the bow of a sailing ship, departing from an unknown coastline. Something is insistent: Kukuru *will remember* these images if she can't resist the psychic assault.
Petra Soroka	"It was supposed to be a short break, but... well, a couple days became a week, became a month, became three months, became nearly a year...."     This does finally mollify Petra. Or, rather, it worms its way into the melancholy that Cinder coming to mind created, widening the crack in her anger and frustration until it falls apart on its own. She deflates with a sigh, with her fishing rod slumping along with her, reverting to a metallic puddle on the ground.     "... Alright. Yeah. I get it." Breaking eye contact doesn't make her 'more' sincere, but it changes the type of sincerity that she's channeling into something approximating sympathy. "But that's all the more reason not to back off again, right?"     "I don't believe in... easing yourself into things. It's not like 'momentum', like a thing that you can... build up gradually, I guess. It's inertia. Commit to something hard enough, and the only way to change course is to hit a brick wall."     Petra's eyes flick downwards, uneasily shifting her weight between her feet when Cinder is mentioned. "It's easy for me because I can't be anyway else. It's easy because...."     She trails off. She really hadn't meant to think about tomorrow, Valentine's day, marking a year since Cinder's death on this trip. Even with Gregory dying and Sarracenia showing up like that, she hadn't voiced the realization even to herself, because she was *fishing* and she was going to have a good day fishing. She's never dressed up in a stupid onesie that looked like a skinsuit of Cinder. She's never even considered doing that. Is that, like, more normal to do, maybe?     "... Sorry. It's normal to not want that. Just... I guess, I'd rather you be around." Petra breathes out and swallows, throat dry like she hadn't spoken for a day instead of just a minute. More lightly, "Anyways, if you think of something to get that momentum back, you know where to call."     There's coins, which is cool. It'd be better if they led to somewhere more interesting, like a dead body that's brought up onto the boat right after that.     Petra looks aside at Natsuki, who's just about tied with her for the number of top of the line fish they've hauled, and snickers lightly, covering up her mouth with her hand. "... Y'know, I think Kukuru might've got both of us beat."     She does end up taking an offered cigarette, even if she's all but quit. There's a particular symbolism to doing it now, with the earlier topic on her mind. She exhales smoke and closes her eyes, now fishing rod-less and not grabbing or making a new one.     Asiding to Natsuki, who she intuitively senses is the most interested in actually fishing here, "... I think I kind of like fishing. But this was kind of a weird fishing trip. I bet there's a whole sport around nabbing things like that squid on purpose though, huh?"
Kukuru	"Someone's home..." Kukuru murmurs as she touches the jewelry, freezing up for a moment as those images start to flow into her mind. She's not actively resisting them, so it's not too hard for the images to stick long enough for her to remember them, although she's not sure wha tto actually make of any of it. "Big triangles and fuzzy trees.. And lots of people with faces like these." She murmurs, loud enough to be heard for anyone listening, but not deliberately said out loud so much as she's just kind of absent-mindedly saying the things she's seeing. "And they're... Leaving? Someone's leaving.. Oh. Would that be this one?" Kukuru sighs lightly, and then she decides to do the thing that won't result in immediate payday and drops that cloud of nanites right into the dead man. "Maybe he'll have any easier time getting home once he's back up. Better than laying around in the water, that's for suuuure."
Angela	''Thank you, Ange.'' Angela bristles. "For what?" she really doesn't want to be THANKED right now. And honestly, while it is nice to be someone someone doesn't want to lose, it is a little annoying that it's being brought up on a day she just wanted to chill out. Why is this conversation happening anyway? She thinks back. Because of Flamel. It's all Flamel's fault, again. She curls her hands into fists and looks away. ''I'd rather you be around.'' Angela nods, mostly to support Petra but she's starting to finally feel silly wearing this uniform and is broadly relieved when the topic moves to stupid treasure shit.
Rufus Shinra	RESURRECTION The man sits bolt upright. "-under attack!" He blinks. "And taken... captive?" he says. The fact that nobody is pointing weapons at him means he doesn't panic right away, but there's definitely some confusion. "Where's my crew? And my ship?"
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki looks at Kukuru, reviving the dead, having pulled a whole treasure chest out of the lake. However, due to having arbitrary liquid wealth and incredible pride, her power to rationalize is almost unmatchable. "Nah." Natsuki answers Petra casually, letting the other woman draw out a cigarette and then tucking away pack to offer out a light. "She didn't catch the squid, it attacked. And you and I are tied. It seems like everyone was able to pull off the trick cast by the end, too." ... Natsuki leans against the edge, finally done fishing. "It's nice." She agrees, sighing with a chirping chuckle. "But it was weird. And... Yeah, there's a whole sport around *big* fishing. It's less relaxing."