voidtreckerooc | Test Drive 032

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Test Drive 032

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab samples and have fun!

1. Post with your character, including their name and series in the subject. We’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they've been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action.

3. Have lots of fun.

Happy testing!

Culinary Containment

Every month, the train's stores are filled with crates of ingredients for use by its passengers. And every month, one ingredient is the focal point of all recipes. Potatoes, cinnamon, seaweed… but as the train pulls away from the station this month, there seems to have been a blip in the system when it comes to deciding on a biologically-appropriate foodstuff.

Spilling out from the storage carriage and into the kitchen are hundreds of live frogs. They're in the sinks, they're in the ovens, they're hopping alarmingly close to the transgates that link the area up to the sleepers...

Vote-Rigging

At the behest of its passengers, the train has instituted a voting system to allow for more carriage options and upgrades. Passengers are able to submit new ideas, or crowdfund those already suggested...

It's the night before platform, and all through the train, no one was stirring... Apart from your group, with your stockpile of a thousand points and the luminous voting panel you're all currently pouring them into. Bouncy castle carriage? Funded! Fishing carriage? Funded! Clocks? Eh... You have the points. Funded!

Then it's simply a matter of waiting for the morning, and seeing the chaos you've caused to the layout of the Voidtrecker Express. What new delights have you discovered?

Repo Train

The Void Ministry have another task for the Express: locating and repossessing the contents of a number of minor storage craft in an old mercantile zone. The coordinates are given, a small fleet of space-worthy craft and sufficient hazmat gear has been deposited at the meeting site for Voidtrecker use.

The main area is cushy enough, a round communal area surrounded by living pods renovated for basic Voidtrecker requirements. The hangar above allows for groups to head to the next assigned storage location, or to return with their piles of lawfully impounded gains.
Team One

High-risk storage locations are this team's priority. Potentially explosive material, artifacts or experiments without the requisite paperwork explaining how or why they were made, sometimes living creatures, the kind that shouldn't have been left in a large metal crate habitat for a decade. Opening these areas is a study in initiative and dealing with unpleasant surprises!

Team Two
This team are the back-up for the first group - once the artifacts, creatures or hazardous material has been made safe and brought back, they have to be recorded. Scanned. Studied, and compared to the extensive lists of potential contraband or lost goods. Sometimes, they're not quite as safe as you'd like.

Team Three
Some locations, rather than being used for the storage for which they were intended, have been repurposed by sapients who have developed within the system since the depot was created. Short, furred people with clever, webbed hands and high voices, they've turned crates and ships into cramped, partially-submerged warrens. This team is cleared to assess the damage done, and, if the current official owners of the stores will agree, process the change in ownership to the Su Samuru. Not all owners are happy with their squatters, however...

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And here's Koumyou Sanzo, raising a hand like he's in a class and not talking to his very grumpy, grown-up son.

"...I... may not have actually understood the mission..."

He lowers his hand to scratch idly at his jaw, and then points over at one of the small, fuzzy locals scurrying around in the background.

"Aren't these little guys the new owners? The... Su-somethings?"

When Sanzo first decided to participate in this mission, he had some questions. Mainly regarding the blond-haired figment of Sanzo's imagination which seemed to be just sitting and smiling there on the dropship with the rest of his assigned group. But, whatever, hallucinations of his trauma made just as much sense as everything else that had been happening to him since he showed up here.

It was fine.

He was fine.

Everything is okay.

It's probably best not to acknowledge it.

Which-- Was pretty hard to do when the figment suddenly started talking to him.

It made it near impossible for him not to stare at it for a good solid second. His eyebrows scrunched, glaring daggers, before deciding to turn towards the exit of the dropship. Growling out his orders in a way that didn't at all sound stressed.

"... Lets' head the fuck out and get this over with!"

Yep. There Sanzo goes. He's leaving the dropship to enter the shipment container colony. His crazy thoughts can't catch him there.

"Kouryuu-chaaan," Koumyou whines, trotting along after him, "you can't avoid talking to me for forever, you know!"

Edited 2022-01-27 03:13 (UTC)

He could feel his teeth clench against the cigarette with the sound of that oh-so-familiar voice, like a faint echo from a past life. Damn, he was probably ruining the filter at this point. He was probably going to have to pull out another one once he stopped for a sec.

His shoulders tensed as he felt his pace quicker in hopes of escaping facing that familiar face again.

Nope. No. Never. You can't make him. In fact, now he's just outright running down the corridor.

Wow.

That's okay, Kouryuu-chan. You never had adult legs to run around with Koumyou with, so you probably don't know that the old man is wicked fast. On paper, sure; he'd protected two sutras, for crying out loud.

But in practice?

Koumyou just keeps pace, no problem.

"You smoke a lot more than I do, you know. Bet I could do this for longer!"

Fuck.

This ordeal was getting him nowhere. This whole situation probably looked fucking stupid. Wasn't he supposed to be doing something right now?

Well, whatever. It wasn't like the old bastard wasn't technically correct. But did he have to make such a goddamn spectacle out of it?

Instead, Sanzo quickly dived around the first tight corner he could see. He stopped and hugged as he waited to confront the source of the problem where no one else could see it.

Just try coming after him and see what happens, you old coot.

Koumyou can hear those footsteps stop, sliding or otherwise, and he can still smell that cigarette.

He's been at this game a lot longer than you have, kiddo. So Koumyou also stops, just on the other side of the corner, and casually goes digging around in his sleeves.

It was not like Sanzo couldn't hear the Koumyou's pace slow down as well. And even more, it seemed the teasing calls had stopped as well. That was the part that worried him. Did the bastard suddenly decide to take this torment a step further?

He braced himself. Hand reaching into his sleeve and crouching slightly in preparation for whatever was about to come his way.

Bring it, old man.

And what comes his way is...

A brand new, freshly-lit cigarette offered between two bony fingers of a familiar hand poking around the corner.

"Marlboro reds, right? That was Jikaku's favorite, too."

"Ngh!" And there stood Sanzo, prepped for the attack. His hand lifted high with what appeared to be a large paper fan that happened to be stopped mid-swing as he stared down, slightly cross-eyed at the cigarette that Koumyou had offered out to him.

Shit.

This was bad.

This was stupidly bad.

Here he was hoping to at least wack the older man something good before he could get caught in something like this. But it seemed even as much as he progressed along his years, he still was no match for Koumyou Sanzo.

This was really stupidly bad.

Standing up straight, he lowered his ultimate weapon with a scowl. Huffing as he grabbed the cigarette from the other Sanzo priest with the lightning reflexes that only someone with a severe nicotine addiction could hope to manage. Popping it into his mouth almost immediately.

"... Don't expect any gratitude from this."

Jerk.

Koumyou just laughs at that, his hand retreating back around the corner to produce and light up a cigarette for himself, too. He doesn't need a lighter; there's no tell-tale shkt shkt of one in use... but he never did need one, did he?

"Perish the thought!"

And he's just gonna take a lean against the wall and wait, having a lil smoke.

Your move, you big scaredy-cat.

With a sullen unspoken truce, Sanzo mutually leaned up against his corner of the wall. He inhaled the familiar taste of his brand of cigarettes with subtle appreciation and took a moment to hesitate and savor the moment before exhaling with a sigh.

So this was it, huh? So this conversation was going to happen like this?

Damn, he hated small talk.

"Not like you to carry these around."

But then again, he's still fighting with the idea that it even is you.

"These are much more useful for traveling around getting into trouble, don't you think?"

Though Koumyou had stopped doing that as much after Kouryuu had turned around five-ish. When he'd finished his assigned year of traveling with and mentoring Ukoku.

"Besides, the pipe takes more work!"

Leave it to him to complain about the work involved in packing a tiny bowl full of loose tobacco.

And after a moment, Koumyou leans to the side and peeeeeeks around the corner.

On the other hand, Sanzo continued to mind his own damn business. Not even bothering to humor the other man's playful peeking as he continued to enjoy the moment. He refused to acknowledge the reminder of childhood trauma that he shared the same space.

His arms crossed and head tilted back as he allowed the stick of tobacco to dangle between his lips haphazardly.

"If it's such a pain in the ass, why bother?"

It was weird to think of seeing that face without the standard pipe that so commonly accompanied it.

"Well... things that are a pain in the ass are worth it, sometimes," Koumyou returns to his side of the corner, his smile easy to hear in his voice.

"Like certain kids."

Wow.

He felt his body twitch reflexively with that one. His shoulders were tensing and his scowl deepening as he fought every reflex in his body that wished to turn and scream the older man down.

No. It wasn't worth it.

Instead, he opened his eyes and lifted his hand to pull the cigarette from his lips for a second as he continued.

"I believe they call people who collect a lot of unnecessary things 'hoarders'."

"And who's to say what is necessary, and what isn't?" Koumyou asks, just as cheerfully.

"Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You always did seem to think I made some great sacrifice by plucking you out of that river and keeping you around like I did, Kouryuu."

"Who said I was referring to myself?" He was talking about himself.

But the fact that this person who looked and acted so much like his long-dead mentor was bringing up things that his only mentor could recall was grating on his nerves.

He made sure barely anyone knew of his past for a reason.

"A pipe like that definitely wasn't necessary, though."

"Mmhm," Koumyou actually just smokes in silence for a few moments, here. He'd gotten that kiseru pipe right after becoming a Sanzo, before his chakra had even appeared.

But he will not (and does not want to) discuss the process of inheritance. He won't ask how quickly or slowly Genjo's own chakra had appeared. Kouryuu's 'crowning' is a topic that's never been an easy one for Koumyou to discuss, and he has no doubt it's worse for the boy who had had to stand there and watch him bleed out.

Although he has no doubt whatsoever that talking about it will happen, just as talk of muichi motsu will happen. But there's no reason to confront any of those open wounds today.

Particularly while Kouryuu's inclined to keep his distance like he is.

"...The way you've been acting, you don't think I'm real, do you?"

It doesn't sound like a question, really. Koumyou knows what their world is like, and thanks to having gotten to meet a grown up Genjo before, he even knows a little of how it's gone further to shit since his death. Koumyou sighs.

"We really do come from a hell of a world."

Edited 2022-01-29 10:52 (UTC)

"I doubt there's much difference between our world and any other really, at least not at the core," At least, like this, he was able to keep up the facade that this wasn't affecting him. Not looking at the older monk made it easy to talk, easier to process. Instead, his eyes glazed over as he stared at no absolute thing in particular.

He was angrier at himself. Angry that something like this could affect him as it had been. It was easier to pretend it was in his head- to think he was going crazy. Or hell, perhaps this was some trial put on for him by some sick bastard out there that just wanted to fuck with him.

That was far easier than considering any other alternative.

"No place is utopia, much as no place is true hell. The worlds we live in are what we make of it."

It was as easy as that.

"And yet," Koumyou counters easily, as he puts out his half-smoked cigarette and tucks the rest of it back up his sleeve (he's never been a heavy smoker), "you can't let yourself face that I might be real. We're on a totally different world, in a totally different reality where trains fly through space and time, but the place we come from has made us who we are."

The older Sanzo stays on his side of the corner, folding his hands into his sleeves.

"Things that are too hard are brittle. I'm still figuring that out for myself, here in a reality where... love doesn't... always mean death," Koumyou has to pause after that line. It's still so hard for him, but he's still trying. Trying to use that word, to have a sliver of that most dangerous of four letter words: hope.

Hope, that 'love' doesn't spell 'doom'.

"And where the dead can walk, and talk, and smoke, and even guard a sutra."

The last sentence had managed to perk his interest. Lifting his head with alert as he finally looked off in Koumyous direction.

"A sutra?" Bullshit. There was no way. There was no fucking way. He was already holding one of Koumyou Sanzo's sutras. It was right there, draped around his shoulders for anyone to see, just as he had always worn it. And the other one was back home, in enemy hands far to the west. At least, that's what so many people had told him. So how was it this man who sounded and acted like his old master could be carrying such a thing?

The doubt was painted plainly across his features, not that Koumyou could tell from where he stood. Genjo Sanzo could believe many things at face value. But to trust people's intentions by sight alone was difficult.

Sanzo needed proof.

"You want me to believe that you're carrying the legitimate thing?"

"I mean, I am, so you might as well."

Koumyou takes that as an invitation to step around the corner finally, hands still tucked into his opposite sleeves.

"I could show you, but I never used it around you before. Perhaps I should see if the Maten will still listen to me? From right where it is right now, of course."

He'd guarded Tenkai's Maten sutra for a few decades, after all, just as the small youkai had asked. His bond with it was never quite as strong as his bond is to the Seiten, but it's there.

"Frankly, that's how I know you're real. I haven't met an illusion yet that can fake the way one of these sutras feels. Any of them, really, but especially these two."

Pushing himself from the wall, Sanzo flicked the remainder of his cigarette to the side before folding his arms into his sleeves. It didn't matter how often he looked directly at the man across from him. It still felt-- odd.

And yet this time, he did not avoid Koumyou. Instead, settling his eyes upon the older monk with intensity. The hesitance was still there in his gaze, but this time mixed with a resolve to see things through.

He was determined to understand who this man was. To see if what he said was true without raising his hopes too high.

He will never raise his hopes too high.

"All right. Do it."

"Remember," Koumyou tells him gently, as a warning not to jump out of his skin, "I've never needed to chant."

And then, the Maten stirs. A little sluggish, to Koumyou, but it had been even longer than his time on the train since he'd actually used it.

It stirs, and countless tendrils unfold from Genjo's back and float through the hall like seaweed in an ocean turned on its side. Turned on its side in multiple directions, somehow.

The paper glows that familiar violet, stronger and stronger, gradually, like a knob is being turned.

"Not a full firing, of course. We don't know what in this place might take an interest in that much power going off. I use mine like this a lot, these days. Though I usually don't dial it up enough for the light show."

He considers for a moment, then lets the Seiten on his own shoulders join in, its own light a gold that would turn white if he let it ramp up too high. The tendrils of Seiten float around the hallway with Maten, violet and gold.

"Because it's not a full firing for either, it's okay to wake them both up. I fired them both off one time before I found you, and it made my teeth buzz. And... reality buzzed a bit, too. Jikaku wasn't kidding when he told us not to set them off near each other, but I had to try it out for myself."

Edited 2022-02-22 09:14 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive 032

Culinary Containment

Vote-Rigging

Repo Train

Team One

Team Two

Team Three

III now with embarassing dad

>:O!!!

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