etrayalogs | ( open ) experience has made me rich and now they're after me

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( open ) experience has made me rich and now they're after me

WHO: Rufus Shinra (

unionized) and various (including YOU)!
WHEN: April
WHERE: All around Etraya!
WHAT: Open top-levels for various prompts including dreamshare, general interaction, and potentially mission-related things once those become available.
NOTES\WARNINGS: The usuals for FF7: potential discussion of shitty parenting, parental death, mass murder, unethical human experimentation, less mass-y but still severe murder, ecoterrorism (both ways) etc. etc.

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[Whatever response the boy on the fence might've been expecting from his newly-arrived company, it's apparent in an instant that "just visiting" wasn't it; though the smile doesn't leave his face, his blue eyes narrow just fractionally beneath his shaggy blond bangs. (It's altogether possible he keeps his hair that way for precisely that reason, with how good a job it does at concealing those little tells.) His gaze flicks over Krouse from head to toe, gauging the red hoodie and the casual gait, before finally he brings the water bottle up and takes another unconcerned drink.]

You'll never get anywhere in life, lying as badly as that.

[He seems amused, and maybe a little triumphant. Like he's caught Krouse in something, maybe, though the what of it is less clear.]

Let me guess. You were supposed to memorize the layout and didn't, and now you're lost and hoping I'll save you before someone notices. Tsk, tsk. That's a rookie mistake.

[ Krouse's smile turns up a watt as he turns around to hoist himself up on the wall a few feet down from the other teenager, curving into an unconcerned semi-slouch as he props his elbows on his knees. ]

'Visiting' and 'lost' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

[ Rich kid, bored, wants to talk. Not a hard assessment to make. Odds are good that the projection of what Krouse wants onto him is more or less exactly what this guy hopes will happen. That, or he's going to enjoy dangling the prospect of help in front of him before yanking it away. Either option will tell him a lot about whoever this is. ]

You got me. [ He shrugs, looking out over the scene. When he tries to pay attention to some of the details, he finds his eyes sliding off of them like the poles of misaligned magnets. ] I was going to try to get some context clues out of you, but so much for that. Guess I might as well give it up and turn myself in.

They are around here. Mostly because nobody "visits".

[Such are the downsides of being a teenage blueblood on the precipice of adulthood responsibility, yet not quite toppled over yet: he likes the sound of his own voice but hasn't quite learned to err on the side of caginess, with an added dash of just seeming a little pleased to have someone to talk to at all.]

And since you wouldn't have made it here at all if you were that clueless, then I assume you're actually here to check up on me. The civvies were a nice touch, but you really should've known better.

[He pauses, seeming to consider a minute.]

Who do you report to? Don't worry, I won't rat you out. Probably.

[ This isn't a place that people just visit, but here sits this deliberately slightly rumpled teenager with apparently nothing better to do than sip expensive water and interrogate passersby. Combine that with him expecting to be checked up on by barely inconspicuous strangers, and that probably means he's related to someone fairly important around here, dragged out and set loose while the adults deal with something other than entertaining him.

It reminds him of the volunteer events his mom would insist he come with her to. Slipping off to some corner of musty community halls to idle away the time until he was called on to participate, and bumping into other kids in the same position.

He hooks his foot around one of the rungs of the fence as an anchor and tips forward, looking rueful. He doesn't really know why he's drawing this out when he's going to get caught anyway, to the extent 'caught' even matters here. Maybe it's the principle of the thing. Maybe it's just nostalgia. ]

My dad.

[ A vague nothing in reality, which has made the role a conveniently flexible tool for plenty of lies before. This time, he invents a stern looking man in a suit a few steps less expensive than the teenager's, a humourless go-getter not above roping his shiftless son into angling for a higher rung on the ladder. ]

For the record, I told him it was a bad idea. But I guess what's the point of having a kid if you can't send him off for playdates with the boss' son?

[It's a good gamble, and it pays off — whether that's a concept that fits, strictly speaking, in the environment of this dream or not, it's clearly one plausible enough that the resident dreamer has no particular trouble accepting it. It tracks, of course; all of his so-called playmates in his youth were the carefully-vetted children of sufficiently acceptable families, and right now the two of them are visibly of similar age. Why wouldn't someone have sent him a companion, at a time like this? People always get things for him. It's just not usually because he wants them.

There's a dissonance here, however, and it's one that leaves him quiet for a reflective moment that drags on a little longer than necessary — like there's something about the explanation that isn't quite right, but the dream logic is sufficiently obfuscating enough that he isn't disputing it.

Either way, it eventually produces a grin — a little mischievous, a little reckless, and altogether that of someone who's lived a cushy enough life that he's largely become indifferent to consequences.]

Well. It's about to be a lot more fun out here than it is in there. We're up next for the course.

["In there" doesn't get or require any more definition than he gives; like many things in the dream, it's ambiguous, and sufficient enough that it fits the criteria of "not here". The boy finishes his water, tipping the bottle up to get the last few drops out of the bottom, then recaps it and balances it atop one of the fenceposts upside-down before turning his gaze intently out towards the asphalt.]

I am, anyway. But you can ride along. Bet that wasn't what your father had in mind, huh?

[He grins.]

[ Krouse wonders what the dream is filling in for him when the other teenager accepts his explanation without the further obvious questions that should follow it up. 'Who's your dad', for a start.

There's a half-answer in the way he tosses off that remark about patriarchal defiance. It's not exactly a deep revelation, that a teenager is annoyed by at least one of their parents, but it fills in some tint to the picture Krouse is assembling.

If he thinks about it more than that, he might end up feeling a little bad for the guy that this fits his dream-concept of normal. It's not easy being a teenager shoved into a role someone else planned out for you down to who you spend time with, however cushy that role looks from the outside. ]

Nope.

[ Krouse straightens up and unhooks his ankle, following his new buddy's attention out to the course. He can guess what a 'ride along' entails. When he looks back to the other boy, his smile matches his devil-may-care enthusiasm. ]

But pissing him off does sound more fun than melting out here. You any good?

[ The challenge is playful, but unmistakable. ]

[As if cued by the dream, a heat shimmer can just barely be spotted far at the opposite side of the course, and after a moment or two it morphs into a hint of a dark-colored vehicle — a shame about the paint job, it's probably like an oven in there on a day like this — making its way back to what is presumably the start of the course a handful of yards from where they're sitting. At the sight of it, the dream-boy seems to come alive, his idle and unconcerned facade giving way to a note of genuine eagerness that has him sitting up a little straighter on the rail.]

What do you think?

[It's not a question.]

Don't say anything stupid when they bring the car up. There aren't enough strings in the world for your dad to pull if the man driving it decides you're an idiot. He'll bench you in a second, and then you'll really miss out.

[ Looking at the car, Krouse does have to think there are some perks to the whole golden cage scenario. Not that he cares about cars, but you don't have to care about cars to notice when a car looks like that.

He still rolls his eyes when he slides down off the fence as the car pulls up, because that's practically obligatory. ]

I try not to make a habit of sounding stupid.

[ Dry to the point of being acerbic, but he still shifts his weight to one foot in a spurt of restlessness and follows the approach of their ride with more interest than is strictly nonchalant.

It would actually be stupid to get benched by a dream's judgment call. For once, Krouse opts to shut up for a minute and let Speedracer over here handle the hellos. ]

[The blond boy flashes a sidelong grin at him, which has all the trappings of an unspoken remark along the lines of and how often do you succeed, but by now the dark car has skidded to a smooth, tight halt, and there's really only a second or two for them to get down to the asphalt before the door opens and its driver emerges.

The blond doesn't precisely undergo a metamorphosis in that span of a moment, but rather he continues along the same evolution that began from the point when they'd first sighted the car; though there's still a lazy confidence in the way he's carrying himself, the insolent undercurrent of it vanishes a little more with every step. Whoever it is that's about to emerge, it's evidently someone this boy thinks must warrant a level of respect.

The car door makes a metallic click as it opens, and a tall man emerges from the driver's side — brown-haired, early forties, in a black suit and tie so sharp you could cut yourself on it.

You should've waited indoors, sir, the man remarks, with a dryness in both his tone and his expression that suggests he knows better than to think that was ever on the table to begin with. It would've been more comfortable.]

Never mind that. Am I cleared to go out?

[The man in question is visibly too professional to sigh outwardly, and yet it's not difficult to imagine what he might be thinking as he continues: You are. But you watch your speed on those hairpin turns or the only thing you'll be driving for the next year is a gyroscooter.]

[ Two steps behind the other boy at a respectable left hand remove, Krouse follows the cue he was primed for. His metamorphosis is a variation on the one playing out ahead of him, an attentive edge to it brought on from his doubled position as an uninvited observer. Less power goes hand in hand with more caution.

There's a moment where being overlooked by the man who emerges from the car strums over latent tripwires of old habits. He catches them before they go anywhere. This isn't a show where he needs to elbow for spotlight.

He tucks gyroscooter away for future consideration and folds his hands behind his back, sizing up the man in the suit. There's familiarity here, if not indulgence. ]

We will, sir.

[ Politely respectful, without a drop of glibness to be found. Implicit: that Krouse is a responsible, moderating presence capable of being impressed with the importance of caution where his counterpart might underestimate risk. It's a routine with a short half-life of effectiveness on any one authority figure, but it usually does the trick at least once. ]

[The man in the suit regards the both of them with a long, stoic look made all the more solemn by the cut of the faded scar down his left cheek. It's not difficult to guess what he sees: two eager boys of varying degrees of fecklessness, already coveting the chance to get into control of a vehicle neither one is yet eligible to drive anywhere else but here. And if this weren't a dream, it's likely that they'd never make it into the vehicle at all — Verdot had never been a man to let things slide, and allowing his president's son to train with his Turks had been exception enough as it was. Bringing friends along? Not a chance.

But this is a dream, and dream-Rufus wants it to happen more than he wants realism, and so eventually the man in the suit steps to the side and permits them access to the vehicle.

The blond boy, unsurprisingly, makes a beeline for the driver's side, leaving Krouse to figure out his own set of circumstances. Shotgun is the obvious choice, but also, if he wants to be chauffeured and chill in the way back, who's going to say anything about it, really.]

He set something up while he was out.

[Says the boy, caught up in showing off as ever, as he methodically goes about getting the seat adjusted and the mirrors into place to accommodate for his own frame, instead of the full-grown man's.]

He wasn't just surveying. No chance. That's how it always works — keeping you on your toes.

[ There's no hesitation in choosing shotgun. That's where he always sits when he's not the one driving, those few and far between occasions when he had to pass the wheel to someone else.

Sliding into the car, he's unwelcomely reminded of the last time he was chauffeured around. It's the cool, smooth feeling of the seat underneath him first, then all the other subtle touches inside the vehicle that speak to the quality of its manufacture.

He'd been in the back of the limo then, a passenger for a very different kind of ride. He sets the memory aside and focuses on the memory of the 'now', fastening his seatbelt as responsibly as he implicitly promised the man who has apparently set something up for them he would have. ]

So it's a test?

[ He's curious in an open-ended way, reevaluating the situation in light of how the man and the boy talked to each other. It's an adjustment of a few degrees towards taking the blond seriously. ]

[The blond boy remains silent a moment, casting a sidelong look at Krouse in the passenger seat even as his hands continue their minute adjustments — ones he's so familiar with, maybe, that he knows how to make them to a reasonable degree of accuracy even without looking.]

You really don't know what you're in for, do you.

[It's a remark that comes almost gleefully — not at Krouse's expense, from the tone of it, but still with a hint of that same cocky superiority, that tireless need to be clever. The gearshift makes a soft thunk as he puts the idling car into reverse, evidently ready to get this show on the road.]

That man? That was the leader of the Turks. And we're —

[It happens rapidly, with no warning; without even flinching, the boy puts the hammer down, sending the vehicle accelerating quickly backwards before cranking the wheel, braking, and dropping into gear into what's clearly a long-practiced J-turn.

By the time they're in drive and heading down the wide asphalt towards the start of the course, he's laughing.]

— out to beat the course record!

[ Krouse knows the sound of a flourish when he hears one. Before you pull off a trick meant to astound and amaze, you have to introduce it to the audience. It's showmanship 101.

Knowing that doesn't undercut the impact. If anything, it heightens Krouse's interest, a little coil of genuine anticipation winding down his spine. He braces his feet lightly on the floor of the car and flattens his shoulder blades against the seat as the blond shifts gears, ready for the reveal.

And but does he deliver.

Krouse doesn't quite laugh, the hitch of startled sound through the wide grin that blooms over his face more breathless than that. The drag of acceleration slams him back into his bones, and for a split-second, he's not thinking about anything, his head blissfully empty of anything but the thrum of the engine and the glitter of sunlight off asphalt. ]

What's the record?

[ He wants a number, the benchmark to beat. He wants to see it come together, just for the hell of it. Why the fuck not? ]

[One thing rapidly becomes apparent, as they hurtle their way to the end of the open lot and onto the narrower track of the course proper: that one neat trick wasn't an isolated incident. The way the blond is handling the car even in the minute aspects and details speaks to either the fact that he's driven this specific vehicle enough to know precisely what he can get away with while handling it, or he's simply a skillful driver in general. He takes turns at speeds that a more cautious driver would be slamming the brakes at; he follows lines that make the car veer back and forth from one side of the track to the other like he knows how to compromise an objectively shorter span of distance in favor of a longer one that will let him keep his average speed higher without risking a spinout.

As they progress along the track, the warehouse buildings gradually disappear into the rearview mirror, replaced by scrub brush, open plains, and the occasional rock formations; a short distance up ahead, the air ripples in a heat mirage that looks almost like a lake, but in fact is likely the first stunt driving interlude of the course.]

Every obstacle missed is a ten-second penalty.

[Also we're just going to pretend he cites a relevant number here because fuck if I know the average time of a tactical driving course and Google is, perhaps understandably, not being forthcoming about this sort of thing.]

And casualties are game over. Obviously.

[..."Casualties".]

[ With parameters locked in, Krouse nods, sliding his feet higher in the footwell for a firmer brace. He doesn't blink at 'casualties', even if he doesn't have context for what that could mean here yet - he's assuming that's not a clever way of referencing their own possible imminent demise, given how valuable this stunt driving teenager seems to be.

But he could be wrong, and it wouldn't matter. If he dies here, it doesn't make a difference. He'll wake up eventually.

Right now, the rapid shifts of momentum and the thrum of the engine under the hood are still holding his attention, and his heart is picking up in something other than anger or fear. ]

Obviously.

[ He glances sideways from the shimmering obstacle up ahead, smile tightened to a sharp, competitive line. ]

I guess you'd better not miss.

[ The time quoted is staggering, given the length of the course he can make out already, which isn't even inclusive of whatever they'll have to face out there. But he believes it's doable, for no reason except that he believes in the electric focus radiating out of the driver's seat. ]

I never do.

[They're close enough now that the first array of obstacles becomes apparent: a smattering of pylons and spike strips designed to force the driver through a series of tight precision maneuvers of varying difficulty. The pylons are forgiving enough; run one down and it'll give way, leaving only shame behind. The spike strips, on the other hand, pose a considerably more real and present danger, when certainly the last thing a pair of teenage boys want is to blow out their tires and have to summon assistance — or worse, end up walking back.

The blond, however, seems reasonably unfazed; he evidently knows the course well enough to not have to think very hard about what he needs to do in order to complete each maneuver, relying on reflex and familiarity as much as quick tactical thinking. Tires squeal and the asphalt picks up darker marks from the rubber left behind, but turn by turn they navigate the slalom deftly, and begin to pick up speed again as they exit the obstacle and back onto the connecting straightaway — a narrow tongue of road flanked on either side by smatterings of large boulders.

And it is, evidently, a bid to prey on the driver's complacency, because they're not far out of the obstacle — close enough to still be crowing about it — when an audible thunk resounds off the side of the car, and a few droplets of bright orange spatter fleck up onto Krouse's passenger window.]

Shit —

[The blond boy puts the hammer down, but he's still not fast enough to avoid another thunk, this time near the rear driver's side.]

[ This obstacle course is like something Krouse has only seen on screens - reruns of a test driving show that played endlessly on hotel televisions when they'd head down to visit his cousins, or part of the opening scenes of a movie about spies whose job involved a strangely conspicuous amount of introducing themselves by their real names and car chases in tourist destinations.

Which is to say that it's a hell of a ride. Krouse doesn't want to distract the intrepid driver from dodging those spike strips, so he keeps his mouth shut, but the arc of his grin only grows with every hairpin turn and skid of tires burning friction to propel the weighted inertia of the car in the right direction.

When you're just driving a car from point A to point B on a city street, it's easy to forget how many hundreds of pounds of metal are wrapped around you. There's no forgetting it here. Any wrong move, and all of that momentum careens out of control, dragging you along with it.

But for all of his focus on that - as if he can influence success on the course by paying it close enough attention - it's an easy snap to key up in a different direction himself when the paint hits his side of the car. He flattens back against the seat and slides lower before he registers that it's just paint, and he's already back up by the second hit. ]

They're shooting at us?

[ There's a bright ripple of excitement at the prospect, once again for no real reason at all. ]

Keeping you on your toes, remember? Glove compartment!

[So he says, with the sort of look of someone who's already calculating how to reach over mid-maneuver and do it himself, but recognizes that achieving it would take probably a lot more focus and motor control than he's really got to spare right now. But even without that focus, the implicit lesson is already dawning — he didn't check the car before he set out. If there's a weapon in there, and he rather expects there will be, he would've found it if he'd done a proper check of the car first. Verdot might call him careless, cocky. Chide him for not paying better attention.

Well, he thinks with a flash of spite, so long as we handle it by the time we're back, then he'll have nothing to say, will he?]

They won't aim for the windows. Too risky for a drill. But it's open season as soon as you roll it down.

[And should Krouse, in fact, get the glove compartment open, he will indeed find a paintball gun of his own, loaded with bright blue ammunition, just waiting to be utilized as behind them, a pair of black dots enter the track and begin gaining fast.]

[ Krouse is on the glove compartment as soon as the other boy says the word, moving with urgency that doesn't cross over into carelessness. He might think to be critical of having not been informed about it earlier if this was real, or if he had enough context to jump to the conclusions Rufus is about the intent of putting it there, but here - for all he knows, there wasn't a gun in the glove compartment at all until just now.

He listens to the rest as he checks the weapon over, snapping the glove compartment shut again as he does.

There are rules he can assume. Even trying to avoid the windows, there's another element of live risk being added to the mix here. Combined with the spike strips and the pursuit, he has a decent idea of the risk band they're operating in. Don't try to fuck the other guys up on purpose, but otherwise, play for keeps. Trust the competency of their opposition like the opposition is testing theirs. ]

Got it.

[ Krouse undoes his seatbelt, woven fabric retracting in a hissing whisper as he pivots in his seat and goes for the window. As soon as it starts to roll down, the sandy air whips in, dry turbulence stinging his eyes and whipping his hair around his face.

He leans out of the window without hesitation, like this is something he's done before. He technically has, although not armed with a gun. The gun was always an emergency fallback, something to bring into play only when the risk of escalation was outweighed by necessity.

But he knows how to brace himself in a speeding vehicle and line up a target, and he knows how to shoot. Marrying the skills together isn't hard.

At this distance, with ammunition he's not familiar with and a gun he's never used, the first shot is a test. A flash of blue explodes on the course behind them a short distance in front of the leading car, and vanishes under its hood as the driver accelerates. Krouse pulls back in as the passenger leans out, processing feedback in the split-second pause. Orange splatters on a pylon ahead of them, a fortunately missed return shot. ]

How much do we care what happens to the other cars?

[If this were reality, and not a dream, there would be all manner of inconsistencies about this encounter to question — like how long is this track, really, and where did their pursuers come from, and how could anyone have known that this would happen to prepare for it. But none of that matters, really, when it simply seems logical that what should be happening now is a high-speed shootout, and so it is, with a course that goes on as long as it needs to, with obstacles present wherever they're expected, and a vehicle whose limitations are ambiguous but more about the encounter than about physics.

As Krouse is returning fire, the blond boy continues to watch the course — but now there's a new, and even more entertaining, element of the run: not just how to clear the obstacles, but how to use them effectively to deal with an unexpected threat. It's a rush of adrenaline that's made him sharp, tempering his recklessness away from teenage hubris and into something far more calculated, riding that perfect knife's edge of "if it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid".]

If they're hit to incapacitate, they'll pull out.

[Presumably there's a system in place that would indicate when a paintball has incapacitated a vehicle. Dream logic says no one needs to worry about how this works.]

If we're hit to incapacitate, they'll remotely kill the power to this car. Game over.

[He flashes a tight grin.]

Better them than us.

[ The other boy is a better driver than Krouse is. That was an understanding he started to form early in the obstacle portion of the track, and it's confirmed beyond a doubt now as Krouse tracks what he's aiming to do with the landscape of the course itself. This realization doesn't come with (much) envy, but more of the admiration of a talented amateur watching a professional fall into rhythm.

The implicit challenge is keeping up, and it's one Krouse is happy to take him up on.

He grins back, close-mouthed, a sliver of reckless anticipation. ]

Always is.

[ And for a second, he almost feels the rush of those moments where everything wasn't a grim cascade of fuck ups. The times when things lined up, everyone in their grooves, the tumble of chaos something he could skim on top of instead of being dragged under by. When it clicked, and the world transformed to a flow of possibilities from second to second, the threads around his throat so light he could barely feel them at all.

He slips back out of the window off the beat of the return fire, popping into view as the passenger is still hanging out of his own window in the leftside vehicle, and takes three swift, nearly instinctual shots at the windshield. The first one goes wild - the second pings off the side, catching the passenger in a cast off splatter of blue droplets - and the third smears directly over the driver's view, sunk where a real bullet would have put a permanent end to his career aspirations.

The car drops back, cutting acceleration, and the righthand vehicle surges to the middle of the track. Krouse ducks back into cover and laughs, a crackle of bright sound. ]

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( open ) experience has made me rich and now they're after me

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