March 31, 2023 – 11:20AM
As TJ, Alauran, Ianis and Jas exit the weathered motel, the sun is already high in the sky- They wouldn’t have to rush by any means, but if they had a failure they’d probably be too late for Jas’s tastes, which would still be eight hours before they’d actually be late. Stepping in the cars, they set off for the camp, some forty miles away. With Ianis alone in the Ilaris Itan Ute again, the rest make themselves comfortable in the small Imbe.
As they start driving, they start to see again why they didn’t head for the city. Traffic. Traffic everywhere. Not coarse or rough, but everywhere nonetheless. Slowly wading through the traffic, they eventually make their way to the freeway, where they finally pick up some speed. Going only a few miles had taken an hour, but they’d pick up pace now. Like usual, Ianis took the opportunity to swim through traffic going at least twenty over, while the others kept with the flow of traffic.
Jas then speaks up over the CB.
“Hey, is it fine if we like, stop before the camp to get a final look at cars before we head over there-“
Ianis then scoffs, keying the mic in the process. After some silence, he replies.
“Fine, fine. Whatever. If it soothes your nerves.”
Jas looks at TJ and Alauran.
“I’m starting to think bringing him was a mistake.”
“Well, let’s not decide that yet. Maybe he’s just in a bad mood, we all have those days.” TJ gives Alauran a bit of a shove, who gives one back, upsetting the car a bit in the process, which swerves left and right a bit before driving straight again.
“Well, that’s certainly a very serious and chronic case of having a bad mood.” Jas sighs.
The trio-plus-one drove on the desert highway, engine performance noticeably down from when they started in South Dakota. They eventually turn on to Nevada State Route 160, known as the Pahrump Valley Highway, for going through the unincorporated town, though the camp is well short of Pahrump. A few minutes after making the turn, they stop.
Immediately after the Itan’s engine stops, Ianis steps out. He’s either checking tens of things with a glance per second, or just pretending to. Either way, it wasn’t a good check. As he finishes up his round of inspection, TJ opens his door, and with some effort, shouts:
“What’s the matter with you?”
Ianis stops dead in his tracks. His face turns to murder, then back to neutral. Muttering as he walks back to the driver’s side, he says,
“Nothing. I just want to get this done.”
Before TJ can formulate a response, Ianis steps back in the car, door slamming, drowning out any attempt that TJ could have made at getting Ianis’s attention. As he starts the engine again, he honks the horn before driving off into the distance, TJ standing confused, looking at the dust kicked up by the ute in the distance. Deciding it wasn’t worth pursuing, he goes back to what they originally stopped for, which was for a bit of an inspection.
Looking over the car, most things were fine. Radiator was good, oil and coolant were at a good level, brake and clutch fluid topped up, fire extinguisher working well on Jas’s face, and windshield untouched by Jas too. To top it off, the wipers magically started working again, and with that, TJ decided the technical inspection of their own was done. All good, still blowing smoke all the same, however.
As TJ entered the car again, he looked at Alauran and Jas, equally puzzled as he was. Waiting for some talk, he realizes that nobody really wants to speak, which is when he stomps the accelerator, getting back on the road. Only a few minutes later however, they see Ianis and the Itan on the sand beside the road.
“I have the urge to just leave him in the dust, like he’s done to us before.”
“That would probably be a really bad idea. We can’t just leave him with half of everything we have. Considering his policy right now, we’d be positively screwed, probably not returning to see us in the rally again.” – Alauran continues, “Besides, we’re a team. We should seek him out if he’s having troubles. Could have a lot on his mind.”
Hearing this, TJ hits the brakes, the sporty pads screeching as the anti-lock braking system tries to prevent them from becoming a scorch on the guardrail. Jas, who wasn’t buckled in, shoots forward, hitting face-first into the headrest of Alauran. Both yelp a swear as it happens, Jas subsequently throwing on his seatbelt as quickly as possible.
When Alauran tried and failed to fumble with the wind-up windows, TJ decided it wasn’t worth waiting for the little glass to come back down from the simultaneously slipping and rubbing linkages. He steps out of the car, gaining the courage to confront Ianis.
“What is really the matter with you? Is there really anything that’s bothering you to the point you have to leave the rest of your team behind? What do you want?”
Silence.
“We invited you to come with us so we could all be back together for a fun time. For old time’s sake. It kind of hurts us all, you know?”
Ianis throws the cigarette bud to the side.
“Do I come across like that?”
TJ’s face turns into the physical representation of ‘Did you really just say that?’, also known as immense disappointment.
“YES.”
Ianis turns, facing the car.
“I see. I will slow down. This time.”
TJ lets out an immense sigh, knowing that he probably won’t be able to convince him to stay together. With an immense effort he speaks up again.
“Okay…just drive in convoy this one time so we look like actual normal people who joined for the fun of it.” – He sharpens his gaze, “Then you can do whatever. We’ll be having fun by ourselves.”
Hearing no response, TJ is defeated, and heads back to his car, stepping in, and turning the key. As soon as he’s about to drive off, Ianis steps back in to the Itan, where he turns the engine on and throws it in to drive, with the foot to the floor. A bit of wheel complaints, but he’s moving.
The desert made it hard to focus on anything that wasn’t the immediate road ahead or the tenseness of the situation with Ianis. Having figured out how to work the radio, Jas sets out to lighten the mood a bit by playing some music.
Off of the midi tone generator from his laptop. Poorly recorded on to a cassette.
“Guess what, I’ve got some music to keep us company for a bit.”
Like he did before, he triumphantly pulls out a cassette, this time from a cassette deck he seemed to have pulled out of nowhere. Labeled ‘Cool Beats’, he puts it down beside him.
Alauran, understandably confused, asks, “Where did you even get that?”
“I brought a lot of stuff I thought we might need. Like this!” – Jas swings what appears to be a throwing axe – no, tomahawk, in the cabin.
Alauran, fearing he or TJ will end up with an ear less than they started the journey with, shouts panickedly. “PUT THAT DOWN! YOU CAN’T JUST SWING THAT IN THE CAR!” – He tries to wrestle the object from Jas, eventually getting a good grip, and with superior strength he makes Jas lose his, subsequently resulting in the thing flying in to the windshield before hitting the dash.
“Okay…can you NOT do that ever again, Jas?”
TJ chimes in. “We…have to keep this thing running for five-thousand miles, and that includes not tearing up the interior. Remember we have to sleep in this, since Ianis is probably not going to let us sleep in the back of the ute.”
Jas relents, sighs, and hands the cassette over to Alauran, who puts it in the cassette player. Whatever tune comes out certainly isn’t masterfully produced, but at least has a semblance of melody.
“To be honest, this isn’t helping.” TJ says.
“Let’s just let it play before we make judging statements.” Alauran responds, Jas looking satisfied with the proposal.
As the tape runs its course the three start to relax. Though it ends after fifteen minutes because Jas forgot how to get the thing to record on the other side without the help of the long-lost manual.
Mind cleared, they head on to the gravel path laid out in front of them. In the distance, Alauran spots a column of dust.
“There’s some dust rising in the distance, suppose our destination is there.”
TJ, who has quickened the pace a bit following some close approaches from Ianis, says, “Hard to miss it, considering the only trace of civilization here is this gravel path, and it has to end somewhere.”
Alauran shrugs. “I guess…are those military?”
TJ suddenly tugs at the wheel and slows down to move aside. The vehicles rumble past at a somewhat slow pace. Ianis, however, continues on and nearly collides with the trucks, before slowing down, locking the wheels as he gives a love tap to the Imbe, knocking off the already damaged rear bumper, which was held in by a few weak rivets.
As the cars drive on, they eventually reach the campsite. The sun makes everything a bit of a squinting exercise, but a pair of HD-GVs can be seen, with four Diones and their accompanying trailers. Along with them stands a container with what would presumably be water, and a few charcoal grills to finish it off. Additionally, someone appears to be sitting at a picnic table with a computer.
TJ drives up at speed, tugs on the handbrake in an attempt to be stylish. Instead he just slides in to a bush. Ianis arrives more tamely, parking the vehicle, before walking off to go have a smoke and ponder the whole rally ahead of him.
TJ steps out of the vehicle, for his side hasn’t been graced with the presence of an unknown bush. Looking around, he sees a few people walking around and the aforementioned someone using a computer.
Walking up to the closest person he can see, he makes a bit of a noise to draw the attention of Rohan “Arsenic” Patel, before speaking up.
“Heya, I’m here for the Shitbox Rally. This the right place to be?”
Rohan is caught in the middle of carrying a crate labeled as containing ammo.
With wide eyes, he looks back at the stranger, simply shaking his head in the general direction of the HD-GVs of Shift Happens.
Another soldier, passing by, speaks up: “We’re just defense. Hosts are over there.”
TJ, who has never dealt with anyone from the military before, simply goes “Roger, uh, thanks.”, before briskly walking off to the HD-GVs. In the meantime, the rest of the team disembarks the Imbe, standing around, waiting for TJ to come back with more instructions.
Kasiya pulled himself up over the back of the HD-GV Home-Unit’s climate control fan assembly, nearing the end of a quick workout. This time, he noticed a smaller wolf-like being walking toward them, making him pause for a few seconds at the top of his lift. Deciding that meeting the new person was important, Kasiya heaved himself away from the vehicle, landing “lightly” on his feet.
Takaraya, inside the Home-Unit, gripped the counter next to the microwave as he experienced a “minor earthquake” courtesy of his son.
Kasiya walked toward the new person, then said, “Anything I can help you with? I’m Kasiya, with the host team, Shift Happens.”
As TJ stabilizes himself from the impact, he goes on to introduce his team.
“Uh, hey. I’m here for the rally with my team Sinesian Rejects?” - He completely forgets to introduce himself to the ten-foot being towering above him. Eventually, he remembers that he has a name, and says,
“I’m Tolok-Javon by the way…you can call me TJ. I’m, uh, here to tell you we’ve arrived. So like, if you’re keeping track of that.”
He knows he’s spouting whatever words can spring up in his mind at this point, but continues talking.
“So like…what do we do? Are there any, like, things to set up for the others? I suppose we’re the first team to arrive.”
Kasiya gave a light smile, then looked to TJ and said, “I’m not the official keeper-of-the-records, but I know who is.”
He looked over to Kaylie and waved her over, then said, “Kaylie’s somewhat our team captain. Also means she keeps the records. Kaylie, this is Tolok-Javon from team Sinesian Rejects.”
Kaylie nodded, grabbing her phone and checking over the entry information. “Right, a team of four, two vehicles,” Kaylie said, her chromed left arm glinting slightly in the sunlight. “Says here you want some power, so I’ll send Kasiya to let Valentin know you’re here. Now…” Kaylie sighed, looking around for Malavera. “Twin Suns, how can it be this hard to find a two-headed wolf? Kasiya, where’s Malavera at?”
“Playing video games on his laptop, picnic table just over there,” Kasiya said, motioning in the direction of a handful of toilet stalls and a lone picnic table.
Kaylie shook her head, then said, “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. I need to get Malavera to inspect your cars. You, on the other hand, can enjoy our camp for the moment. If you’re hungry, let Takaraya know. He’s the other rather-large wolf, can’t miss him, he’s just in there,” Kaylie mentioned, pointing to the Home-Unit, “and he’ll re-heat either some burgers or chicken for you.”
As TJ deeply ponders the opportunity to eat, he decides he doesn’t exactly want to bother anyone else, exacerbated by the fact that they had a huge supply of perishables to burn through, courtesy of Alauran’s shopping a couple of days prior. Looking back up, he says,
“Thanks for the offer! We do have a lot of food ourselves that we need to get through before it goes bad. And Jas of the team really wants to try cooking with…unconventional equipment.” - remembering the video where someone cooked bacon using a gun barrel.
Kaylie chuckled. “As someone who has done burgers with a hot engine, my advice? Don’t use the smoke machine, everything will taste like motor oil afterward.” She fired off a message to Malavera, who put his game on pause and got up to look over the two cars.
Malavera walked over to the pair of Ilaris vehicles, one a slightly damaged Itan ute with a broken windshield, one an Ilaris Imbe that looked like it was more-or-less two or three cars put together.
He looked around, trying to figure out who was in charge, then waved over TJ.
“What in the name of the Moons is this?” Malavera asked, motioning to the Frankencar.
“That’s… The windshield on the ute, I’ll have Jayde take a look at that for you. This, however… It’s hardly safe. Then again, it’s your funeral if you crash it. I would get the two big guys over here to lift the front so I could get a good look underneath, but seeing the “craftsmanship” used to weld this back together, I’d be afraid they’d rip the suspension off by accident.”
TJ, under the scrutiny of the two-headed Khalan who knew a thing or two, relented on the quality of his work, going on to say, “Y-yeah. The car isn’t…well…great, but I’m sure it’s safer than most other cars that’ll be around here- it hasn’t rusted at all, since it’s made from aluminum. And hey, at least it has a roll-cage.” - pointing at the steel tube structure, unconvincingly.
“Which means if we roll over we’ll have a head. Legs? Not so sure. But a head at least.”
He looks around, trying to think of anything else that would redeem the poor craftsmanship in reassembly. Eventually, he thinks of something.
“And we have a functional fire extinguisher. I tested it on his” - pointing at Jas, “fugly face.”
Jas, sitting on a rock using his computer, goes and throws a pebble at TJ, promptly missing by a fair margin and putting another dent in the Imbe’s bodywork instead.
“Just aluminum things. Like denting at the slightest sign of an impact.” - He kicks the door for dramatic effect, accidentally denting it even more than it already was.
“You’d be surprised to know our rigs are aluminum bodied, too. Yet you witnessed Kasiya, the 500 kilogram, three meter tall, midnight-furred skyscraper using it as exercise equipment,” Malavera replied.
“As said, it’s your choice to drive or ride in this. Consider them both legal, if only just barely for this one,” Malavera added, motioning to the Frankencar. “Here, it’s a Shitbox Rally sticker. Put it on the passenger side of your windshield. Or on the hood. Anywhere you choose. I’d do it, but I don’t need to put any more dents in this car. Also, who’s the one who painted the, ah… “object,” on the fender of the ute?”
Alauran, who has remained silent for most of the conversation, speaks up in unison with TJ:
“Jas.”
Hearing his name, Jas stands up from the rock, setting the heavy laptop aside. “What’s up?” - He says.
“Malavera here wants to know about that .” Alauran points at the…shape.
“I have no idea how that got on there! It was just there by the end of the painting session.”
TJ and Alauran look at each other, both wishing that Jas could at least make an effort to lie, instead of the crackhead paint-job equivalent of a dog eating someone’s homework.
Malavera sighed. “Ran out of paint?” he asked. Before getting an answer, he added another question with, “Would you like a can of either orange or black to cover that up, or are you just leaving it?”
Jas stutters out, “Uh, yes. That. I’m not touching paint again after I ruined my favorite shirt with pink paint. So you can count me out of painting over it.” He then sits back down to do something on his laptop, pretending that the entire thing didn’t happen.
TJ looks at the object pictured and decides it’s probably not worth the effort. Similarly, Alauran just pretends he doesn’t see the pink shape on the fender.
“We’ll keep it, it’s probably not as bad as other people’s paint jobs. And if someone doesn’t like it, we’ll just throw some paint bucket on there.”
Malavera chuckled. “Fair enough. As said, both cars pass tech-inspection. We’ll get Jayde’s attention at some point, convince him to help with the windshield break,” he said. Looking over to where Kaylie was, he called out, “Hey, Kaylie, mind getting Jayde over here to look at their windshield?”
Kaylie gave a chrome thumbs-up, then sent Jayde their way.
Jayde took a look at the broken window, then said, “Fixed one of these last year after someone ran through a bit of wildlife about Kasiya’s size. Should be easier here, I’ve got more to work with.” He took a look around, then added, “Provided you want me to try this, at least. I have a few… talents.”
Narrowing his eyes to take a look at the windshield, Alauran goes on and decides.
“I don’t like freezing at the beginning and I don’t think any of you do either, so I suppose it will be quite good to get that patched up.”
TJ nods in agreement, slapping the Shitbox Rally sticker on the car in the process. Jas’s too busy figuring out why the cassette deck isn’t working properly with a new computer to agree or disagree, and so Alauran just gives a thumbs up and a smile in place of the third nod.
Jayde nodded, then fumbled around with his cane and his bag for a moment, before pulling his old staff out of the bag, despite there being no way it’d fit normally. He then picked up a mortar and pestle, set that on the hood of the Itan, pulled out a bottle of still-frosty orange soda, pried the metal cap from the glass bottle, and chugged the contents, before breaking the now-empty bottle into the bowl, crushing the glass into powder, and, with a slight smile, applied a bit of magic.
For the briefest moment, Jayde was holding a bowl full of molten glass. Then, an instant later, there were red streaks in the Itan’s windshield, slowly cooling to a clean and whole windshield.
Jayde gave a light smile and said, “Now you know why I’m one of our team’s “Repair Specialists.” Try to keep that a little bit of a secret. I’m not supposed to “scare the normies,” as Kaylie would say.”
While they had known that there would be some sort of unnatural occurrence, considering the rift, seeing it performed in front of their own eyes made it sink in a lot more.
“Okayyy-” TJ tries to say more, but the whole magic part hadn’t actually gone to his brain to make it work for once. Contrary to TJ, Alauran just looks at Jayde, a thousand thoughts whirring in his head as it finally gets to his head that maybe the sudden transference of planets was real instead of a collective dream…
“Well, of course. We will.” Jas, who had finished whatever he was doing with the cassette deck, walks up to the now not-broken windshield of the ute. “Guh- wasn’t there a hole in that a minute ago?”
Alauran gets a big smile on his face.
“No? It was always like that.”
Jas spends a second pondering whether his whole life was a lie and he’d spent the years of his life in the Matrix, before uttering, “Okay. I serio-”
“Shhhh…” Alauran interrupts him and shoos him off to the frankencar.
Jayde smirked and dropped his supplies back into his bag, chuckling quietly as he wandered back over to the rest of his team, with Malavera slowly returning to his laptop, resuming his game as virtual rally cars once again hurtled into the digital tree-line.
Kasiya walked over to Robert II and crouched down, carefully knocking on the door before saying, “Sorry to bother you, Valentin, but, we have a team over there, “Sinesian Rejects,” who need power.”
Valentin was sat within the deeply recessed bucket seat of Robert II, now actually wearing a new button-up that he fetched from his suitcase a while earlier. He was shuffling through some sheets of paper, occasionally going to his phone when Kasiya gently knocked against the driver door. Despite the attempt at being gentle with it, Valentin very much was startled at the sudden distraction, jolting within the seat and almost dropping his phone into the abyss underneath. “Uh hello…” Valentin mutters, before he looks up the respective information for the Sinesian Rejects on his phone, where he kept track of anything relevant to power generation and distribution. “Right. One plug for them… if they need it now , they can come and get the equipment and such. Ideally, I would distribute that to everyone in the evening when all participants are actually present.”
Kasiya nodded. “I can understand that. I’ll be over by the trucks if you need me. Sorry for the startle,” Kasiya replied.
Meanwhile, TJ, Alauran and Jas go back to sitting in the Imbe, passing time making some ‘music’ and talking.
Bonus: The bet
March 30, 2023
“I hate you Jas-” Alauran mutters, cradling a hand full of sand.
“You’re welcome.”
Alauran throws the sand in to his face, mouth open, before hacking and coughing, trying his best to rid himself of the mouthful as fast as he can.
“Grah…” - He throws a punch at Jas, who is promptly knocked out, falling down in to a clump of bushes.
Ianis, watching the ordeal from the corner, chuckles, before going back to reading a newspaper.
(OOC: This part is bonus here, since “Who starts a conversation story post like that? I just sat down!”)
