Primrose, Therion, & Pit
Level: 10 - Total EXP: 237/100 ------ Level: 7 - Total EXP: 287/70𝙱𝙿 ●●●●● ---------------------------- 𝙱𝙿 ●●●●●Level: 5 - Total EXP: 257/50Word Count: 1921 (+3 exp)
It was very much looking like Pit was going to lose three minigames in a row.
If there was one bright side to that, it was that at least he wouldn't be dead last. During the course of the game he'd passed by others with stopped cars, crashed cars, or no cars at all (along with the results of seeker sabotage in the form of paint and other goopy hazards, craters in the road, and more)... so he was doing better than
them, but it only made him feel a little better. He wanted to win, and not because someone else was doing poorly but because he was doing great.
That said, the red fares turned out to be much harder than they appeared. The sudden jump up from green fares saw Pit wildly careening through the city's streets to try and reach his client's destination in time. Balancing safety with speed was tough, and more than half of the passengers he picked up ended up bailing because of one thing or another. And while at first Pit would happily chat with the NPCs that got into his cab, as the time limit ran out on the more challenging fares the chatting turned into complaints to "stay on the road" or "go faster." There was no pleasing them!
At the very least, driving around was really fun - and when Pit did manage to complete a fare, the elation washed away the previous failures and spurred him back on the road. It prevented the game from truly being stressful, keeping it squarely in the 'enjoyable' category.
He was in the middle of ferrying his latest passenger across town when the sounds of battle caught his ear. With all the hijinks going on, plus the sounds of the city itself, it really wasn't that remarkable. In fact he ignored it; driving with both hands gripped tight on the wheel, leaned forward with his brows pinched and the tip of his tongue poked out of his mouth in concentration. Only when he turned fast around a corner and came upon on the scene of the fight did his attention drift from the road to Ms. Fortune and Juri's bout.
"Huh?" He blinked, craning his neck around to watch while the taxi continue forward, actually registering the newcomer now.
Why are they fighting? Did they give up and decide to spar instead? Aw man, that sounds fun...! Although from what little he could overhear, the girls were being pretty catty with each other. Maybe not a spar, then...? Maybe Ms. Fortune was trying to set the crass lady free from Galeem but forgot the damage was turned off?
"Hey, watch where you're going!" Pit's passenger urged him, grasping his shoulders from the backseat and shaking them to get the angel's eyes back on the road.
"Wh-oh!" The taxi struck several flower stalls and then scrapped the side of the shop itself, forcing the vehicle down a one way alley. It burst out from between the buildings with its wheels bouncing off of the pavement, across the road and onto the curb. Pit spun the wheel, resulting in a loud screech and tire marks burned onto the street as he got the taxi back on track.
"Sorry!" Pit said, looking back at the frazzled man still miraculously in the cab. The NPC held his dizzy head, then shook it. "Just pay attention and let's go."
Since quitting wasn't something Pit did and he was still in the middle of transporting his fare, he got a move on in the direction of the arrow above rather than hop out and join the new impromptu game of smash. It did get him thinking a little though. When the taxi skidded to a halt and his disgruntled passenger hopped out, Pit glanced at the displays on the dashboard. He couldn't read the words, but after the first few fares he determined one set of numbers to be his score, and the other his game timer - and the latter was running down quickly. Pit drummed his fingers on the wheel while he thought. He could keep playing, or he could see what the fight was really about, or if he assumed the feral was trying to help Juri, he could get a head start on doing the same for his fellow Smasher Capt. Falcon... Speaking of, the blue blur (not that one) whizzed by in the opposite direction. It wouldn't come as a surprise if the F-Zero pilot handily won this game.
Pit turned the car's wheel again, quickly sending it clunking across the meridian in order to chase after the front runner, but he never managed to catch up before his timer hit zero and the taxi's engine cut out, gradually bringing Pit and his vehicle to a stop in the middle of the highway. The angel let his forehead fall onto the steering wheel with a
thunk. Game over. In the other lane, another taxi drove by with an unfamiliar driver and a women in red in the passenger seat.
Driving around in the taxi was a little bit fun. Mostly due to the low stakes of the game, as Primrose thought the prospect of controlling these high speed machines wouldn't be half as fun if it was in some serious situation. Either way, the dancer seemed to very much prefer riding shotgun rather than behind the wheel. For most of the game after her first fare, that was what she'd been doing - with that first passenger having taken over her role.
With her Allure, getting what she wanted out of the weak willed was trivial... and there was no will weaker than none at all. The NPCs functioned like real people in order to breathe life into the game, but Primrose was still surprised that batting her eyelashes and asking the man to drive in her stead had actually worked. It definitely would be considered foul play of some kind, if her help was any good at his new job.
As if following a strict map, her thrall never deviated from the road, meaning no short cuts, off-roading, or ramps. He also wasn't the best at avoiding obstacles left over from other players (or said players themselves). Even with those faults, he was still probably more effective than Primrose herself as a driver, so the dancer just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
The slow and steady progress was not enough to keep up with the ever declining timer. When Primrose noticed that it was getting close to running out she sat up straighter in her seat, looking around for any nice spots to wait out the rest of the game. She, her driver, and an NPC woman (a green fare, if the small increase in money was any indication) were headed over the long bridge separating the heart of the city from the island next to it. Palm trees lined the road, making bars against the sky with pleasant streaks of setting sunlight filtering between them to light up the street ahead.
When they crossed the bridge, the arrow indicator turned left. The taxi followed it to a little inlet dock, where the third passenger hopped out. "Thanks!" She called, waving as she dashed away. A couple seconds later and the timer ran out, so Primrose exited the vehicle too.
"My thanks as well," she told the driver she'd enlisted. He replied with a "no problem!" before coming to realize that the car would no longer start. He sat there in confusion for a moment before hopping out and hoofing it, presumably back to where he'd originally wanted to go back across the bridge. If he was a real person, Primrose might have felt bad about that.
She stretched her arms over her head, then stretched her legs by walking along the roadside. Compared to the havoc being wreaked in the main city, things seemed pretty quiet over here. She continued on, appreciating the scenery - the mountain on one side, the ocean and the beach on the other. Even if it wasn't real, this was a pretty place.
Behind her, Primrose heard the rumble of another taxi. Without needing to focus on driving, she'd realized that the players' cars sounded different than the ones that just populated the game. She slowed down, looking over her shoulder before stopping and waving her hand.
"Could you give a girl a lift?" she said as the driver slowed down.
Somehow, Therion wasn't surprised to see Primrose here. He'd hardly seen anyone on the second island, save for a few of the top players taking harder fare to and fro, but eventually other people must have come up with the same strategy as him or else gotten themselves stuck here after trying too hard a fare. Primrose seemed like the latter, since he'd already passed her abandoned taxi down the road.
He pulled over, and with a flat expression he held a hand out towards like her expected to be paid a fare. Primrose's mouth curled into a little amused smile.
"My company isn't enough~?""You know that doesn't work on me," he scoffed. He didn't keep up the act, reaching over the cab's center console to open the passenger side door for her.
"Come on. I'm almost out of time anyway."Primrose obliged, rounding the vehicle and closing the door once she was seated. Therion pulled away from the curb and set them smoothly down the road, downhill where they got a great view of the coastline.
Despite saying he was almost out of time, there were still a couple of minutes left on Therion's timer. Since he'd been taking a bunch of easy fares, his overall time limit had increased by a fair amount while his score, the money he'd earned, was fairly low. He didn't have a chance at placing in the top three due to that play style, but he didn't really care. 'Kooky Cabbies' turned out to be pretty fun, and even pleasant after the pressure of trying to win was removed. Therion had been getting a much better handle on driving with the multiple easy fares, and though he couldn't be called an expert by any means he was at least competent by now. Putting his focus solely on the car and the road kept his mind off of everything else - the mission, the changes everyone was going through, the horrors they'd experienced earlier that day... and there was no chance of creepy monsters, being submerged, or falling off a mountain in this minigame. With the warm sun and the soft, salty breeze... it was actually relaxing.
Savoring that unexpected relaxed feeling, Therion had abandoned the game a little before Primrose herself had been disqualified. He just kept his focus on driving, and steadily getting a little better and more comfortable with it, until he got to this point: being able to enjoy a nice ride with the wind tickling his hair.
Primrose settled down in her seat, resting her head back against the headrest. She'd thought it before, but riding in a car felt so different from riding in a carriage, even an uncovered one. It was nice, especially since she could trust he friend at the wheel instead of what she'd been doing before. Not wanting to break Therion's focus, Primrose didn't bring up any conversation topics. The Orsterrans simply soaked up the wind, the sun, and the sight of the sparkling beaches until the taxi chugged and rolled to a stop.
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