trans_9

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

Stacy's voiced called the entire crew, until all of them were gathered at the Obs Deck. Then, a dossier appeared on the screens, along with the image of a rotating planet.

Planet Designation: Pelau
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Moderate flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: Yes
Water: 75% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Climate varies by region.
Landscape: Landscape at the North Pole varies. Within the biodomes, significant development. Outside the domes remains mostly pristine.
Air: Normoxic concentration: 29% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 3% xenon, 6% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.

Air Pressure: 14.352 pounds per square inch.
Sky: Blue/violet with white clouds.
Sun: A class D4K, yellow star.

Warnings: Be careful of frostbite outside the biodomes.

Mission: None. Shore leave is now initiated.

[Here's a handy map of the North Biodome where the crew is being dropped]


( Read more...Collapse )

An open-gate policy at Castle Wyvern, as Goliath had feared, wasn't doing them any favors in the event of a shipwide attack

He would have made a comment to that effect, if he'd yet been awake to have the thought.

Fortunately, the gate was mechanically sound and could be opened and closed by the humans who lived there, if they reached it in time.

Such a strange occurrence needed, finally a conclusion. Thanks for the Time Lord's trinket gift, there was suddenly an old, fearsome creature made of gears, it's old features squeaking (although not as bad as before, since a certain someone had given him a good oil job). Analog,the fearsome creature known by some as a the crankiest Time Dragon, walked in the city to find out o where Eleven was. She could smell him even in here, you see (wow that's creepy). Flanked by her three handmaidens, the women giggling like schoolgirls at everything, memorized at the ship. The city could hold her well, for all her large size.

First step - Find the Doctor, ask him what he wants. Step two - Do that. Step three - Get out of here.

She still was a Time Dragon, after all. Proud....and cranky. These boring old puny humanoids were nothing as the greatness of HERSELF so the sooner they were our of her mind, the better.

[OOC - Done! Go for it.]

It was very difficult to get things done when your best friend (or boyfriend or mate or whatever the appropriate title actually was) was living in your head. Goliath did his best to allow Elisa to remain in control of her own body, but it wasn’t easy. For either of them.

After all, as well as sharing a body, they shared thoughts and feelings. For Elisa, who was far from forthcoming when it came to her emotions, it was proving to be a constant battle. In many ways, it would have been easier to share with a stranger. They’d reached a comfortable balance in their relationship since she’d woken up from the pods and she didn’t want to disturb that. Not when things were going so well.

If the way that Goliath kept trying to focus on his favourite plays and novels was any indication, the gargoyle was finding it just as hard to keep things that he wouldn’t ordinarily share concealed. And spending a long time as a human was definitely something it would take him a long time to get used it. Elisa sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t have to get used to it. They knew who was responsible for the chaos now. (The goddess, if that was what she really was, hadn’t been particularly secretive.) What they didn’t know was how to persuade her to change them back.

They’d find out.

OOC: Open to anyone who would like to bother Goliath and / or Elisa while they're stuck together during the soulcatcher plot.

This Princess Frou Frou Sparklepants Peace Love and Harmony Ne-Whatsherface had messed with the wrong girl.

Obviously this lady had no idea what Chell was capable of--which was fine by her, because it gave her the element of surprise--and as a result, Princess Frou Frou Sparklepants Peace Love and Harmony Ne-Whatsherface was going down in the worst possible way.

Her ace-in-the-hole was simple. What the self-proclaimed body-meddling deity did not know was that the woman she'd invited to her palace was at her most determined, most ruthless, most unstoppable, most lethal under duress. This was duress. It was the same feeling as facing off with GLaDOS, or hunting down the AI that currently resided in her head, driving her slowly insane--she didn't know how she'd do it, but she knew with all certainty that goddess or no goddess, her opponent would be completely and utterly wrecked by the time she was finished. That was just what Chell did.

Despite the nagging feeling that her sanity was slipping as a result of Wheatley's constant babbling, she at least had enough sense to call for assistance and agree to an organizational meeting before she led a crusade on the ridiculousness that plagued them all.

In accordance with her message, she'd staked out with this strange palace in sight, waiting for backup.

[OOC: Feel free to tag in! We'll start with a little IC organizing, but then they are off to confront Nezaitben. After that, WHO KNOWS.]

Following you awakening and talking with a few of the members through the communication systems by way of the three kind people who had awakened her, Nezaitben realized how the crew was stuck in a terrible mess.

So many of them felt sad and depressed. Considering the entire ship, it wasn't too hard to see why. The next day, there had been an unusual amount of magical flowers spreading all over the ship. Nothing that damaged the controls (she might be naive in the way humanoids were, but Nezaitben was no fool either) but they were found in the most unexpected of places. Her own awakening area was now blooming in a flower paradise, the wooden palace standing proudly on top, the smell and pink cherry blossom strong enough to carry through most of the central city area where most people resided.

Yet the ship was still sad.

This would not do.

That night, or what passed as a night for in the ship, Nezaitben took to the 'sky', letting pieces of her own essence fall on top of the sleeping populace, or those that were not sleeping finding themselves feeling the need too. Enveloping the ship into a peaceful slumber, she searched their dreams. The powers granted to her by the pantheon of gods in her homeworld allowed Nezaitben to weave a series of dreamcatchers giving her the ability to see those whose hearts connected true.

These noble souls would do. Lead by example had always been her philosophy. She would give them a great gift - communication with each other in a single body, allowing them to share everything together. Their two soulcatchers were woven together that night into a single, grand ones, hanging in the garden's trees.

A few minutes later, the empty husks of the bodies that weren't being used showed up at her palace. With a smile, she welcomed them like her own children and began to dress them for their task.

That morning, some of the crewmen would wake up to a strange surprise...and that would just be the beginning of a long, strange misunderstanding and young gods trying too much to please everyone.

[OOC - Just a few rules. Keep in mind the listed rules. You can all start your own threads of waking up in the bodies of others. If you feel like leaving a 2nd post for other people to intact with them, start a reply to your own first post with OPEN header. That way everyone else will know where to post and if you don't feel like having an open interaction post right away, you won't have to!

There will also be another post for all the soulless characters to go around spreading joy and love, so look forward to that too!]

One thing Goliath had forgotten to let Elisa know about was the Sensoriums' capacity to make the slop taste like real food. It wasn't a feature he took advantage of often, because the food Stacy produced was tolerable for convenience's sake. But there was no reason not to share that feature with Elisa, during one of the brief times when they had no reason not to simply enjoy their time together.

"I would not know where to begin. Is there something you would like in particular?"

The only one of the clan who cared enough about food to think of it as something more than fuel was Broadway, and he was regrettably unavailable.

He would have called up an image of Manhattan just to begin with, but didn't believe Elisa would like to see an illusion of the home they shared so soon after her waking.

This ship or whatever it was called was too big. That much Alanna had decided, having already gotten lost more times then her pride would let her admit. Big and strange were the best words that she could come up with to describe it, but it was not actually unpleasant so far. It could be a bit lonely at times without her friends, but she had her brother here and that was something to cherish in itself. She comforted herself with the thought that her friends were sleeping safely in that cavern where she'd woken up though. If they woke up, then she'd be glad to see them. If they did not, then she'd see them when this war was done and their world restored. And that was what she believed. She didn't see any point in dwelling on the negative. This was hardly the first time that she'd gone traveling without her friends, although... it was admittedly the first time she'd done so when not on their world anymore.

She sighed as she entered the next room, her thoughts drifting to the palace before she could stop them. In her mind's eye, she could picture the beautifully decorated walls of the castle and how comfortable she felt when there, assuming that she didn't need to attend any silly formal functions. Looking back on it now, it was funny to think that she hadn't always felt that way, but she supposed that was what happened when you spent so long living and working in one spot surrounding by people that you cared for deeply. It had been her home for years and she still thought of that way for the most part.

Looking around the room, it seemed to Alanna that could physically see the castle walls around her. It was kind of a surprise as her imagination was not usually so vivid, but it wasn't as though...

Then she froze and really stared at one of the walls. That didn't look like a figment of her imagination. It looked real, but that wasn't possible. The palace had been destroyed along with Tortall. She stepped closer and reached out her hand to touch the wall, jerking it back quickly when her hand hit what felt like a solid wall, her other hand flying to the Goddess' token around her neck. What type of sorcery was this? She clutched the ember stone tightly as she looked for signs of magic, but her amulet revealed nothing. Was this not caused by magic then or was it just something that her amulet couldn't detect? It didn't usually fail to react.

With her mind now cleared of all thoughts of anything except the strange things going on in this room, the image of the palace faded away, leaving Alanna with little more then confusion. She reached for her Gift and tried to use it to investigate the room, but she found nothing with it. That was not encouraging.

What had just happened? Why had the palace appeared out of nowhere like that? It obviously hadn't been real given that it was gone now. Not only had it appeared, but it had appeared right when she'd been thinking of it.

That thought caused her to pause. From what she'd learned so far, the ship that they were living on was alive in some sense of the word at least and that it had some very unusual capabilities. Had it... done that? Could it do that? It was hard to believe that it was a coincidence that the castle had appeared just when she'd been thinking of it.

She tried again, this time picturing Pirate's Swoop in her mind as she'd last seen it. Sure enough it appeared just as she'd remembered it. The tall walls, although still in the process of being redone since she and George had moved in, were beautiful and the image of her home managed to put a smile on Alanna's face.

As she walked the halls of the Swoop though, the smile faded some. Being able to see her home was nice, but it was the people who really made it home. She prevented her thoughts of drifting to George though, not sure what would happen if she wished to see him. There was no doubt that she would love to see George, but she wanted to see the real him and not some imitation, no matter how real whatever controlled this room could make him seem.

Still, she'd enjoy what she could get from the experience and if this was the only way to see her home then so be it. Her mind turned again, this time picturing the Bloody Hawk village in her mind, the Great Southern Desert all around them.

( Terrible song parodies and terrible pictures beyond the cut.Collapse )

[Chell and Aya are out and about in the City, wherever you need them to be. I sincerely apologize for this post. The end.]

Artificial night fell on the City, and Goliath and Bronx both awoke with their usual roars. The gargoyles bursting out of their stone skin were a familiar sound at sunset, and their roars carried over the darkening City.

Goliath dropped from his turret and glided towards the wall that surrounded the castle, landing before the gate that would open it to the rest of the crew. Elisa must have still been asleep or otherwise occupying herself in the castle, because the gate was closed. Goliath considered the gates, and the high, newly repaired wall that kept most visitors out of the castle. His instincts to keep the castle fortified against entry during his sleep were still strong, but he considered them as objectively as possible while examining the gate.

In times of conflict, this castle COULD still be used as a fortress. But if he was to open it to the crew formally, perhaps it was time to leave them open, and trust to the crew that he sought to protect.

Or perhaps that was still a step that could wait until he had met more of the crew, and trusted them a little better.

[ooc: a few players have expressed an interest in having their characters sneak into the castle to explore while Goliath is asleep during the day. If you have a character who would snoop around an old castle uninvited, feel free to tag in!]

Medieval World was one of the largest year-round renaissance faires in the multiverse.

Minstrels and bards wandered the streets, vendors sold ridiculously overpriced period clothing, jewelry, weapons, and turkey legs as big as a human's head, and the royal court mingled with the commoners. There were events everywhere: falconers, magicians, belly dancing, hypnotists, weapons competitions including swords, axes, maces, and bows, camel rides, Washing Well Wenches, fake jousting on wooden 'horses' suspended on ropes, and real jousting.

As was typical of these sorts of events, anachronicity was everywhere, as were patrons in all sorts of fantasy costumes.

Join in the fun!

[OOC: Add things if you want, and go for it!

Also, if anyone wants to win a flower for their lady from the Wenches, contact Shae for NPCing. >:3]

The Precinct had a lot of meeting rooms. Dick had signs up pointing to the largest one, since there was never any telling how many people would end up at the meeting. There were chairs scattered around in a vaguely circular arrangement, though they could be moved around as people liked.

Dick himself stood at the front, omnicomm in hand and trying to keep track of what was going on. He was leaning back against a table with two seats behind it. Right now, it was just waiting for people to arrive.

Visitation Day came and went and Goliath still had not seen any of his clan in what felt like, and might have been, years. He still had not seen Elisa since she was nearly killed in his sleep, then vanished angry at him. There had been several times like these before, when the gathering of new crew members has been too painful for him to attend, knowing that his clan would come from elsewhere and at other times, and so podpops offered him only one chance at reunion with a loved one.

Disappointment had settled on him again, and he warded it off with productiveness. Elisa's car shone with the evidence of regular care, but the rest of the castle needed maintaining. He would invite more people in to work in the gardens, dispose of more of Xanatos' things - but first, he felt there was more still to gain by researching the Mayan sun amulet that he hoped could give him control over his waking and sleeping. It would be a good idea to contact Lupin again, but at the moment, it it pleased Goliath to conduct his research in solitude.

Deep in his reading in Castle Wyvern's library, he didn't hear footsteps until the door had already been opened behind him.

[EDIT: Subthreads now open for other characters to comment, starting with the Drunken Dragon]

Shortly after sunset in the City, Goliath leaves Bronx to guard the castle and makes his way to the Vatican to wait for Billy's friend. Last night's search of the lower levels of the castle turned up a room that must have once been used by a landscaper on Xanatos' payroll. Goliath is glad to have tools to offer the human, considering that the castle gardens have grown wild in ages without care. This girl has her work cut out for her.

Goliath is still working on that thing where every time he ventures out of his castle to socialize, everyone he knows reminds him that he really ought to get out of his castle and socialize more.

So rather than patrol again, he's taking care of another matter. Bronx needs his exercise. Normally he'd be getting plenty, with criminals to chase and the Trio to play with, but without both of these things, it falls to Goliath to ensure the gargoyle beast stays in good condition.

So out in front of the towering, still slightly damaged castle, a gargoyle and his species' equivalent of a dog are playing fetch. With a heavy steel pipe.

The game is limited to a long, open street, empty in the late hours of the City's dark night. The pipe is already scored with deep marks from Bronx's powerful teeth, and a litter of broken scrap - chain links, and the twisted wreckage of other pipes - surrounds Goliath's feet.

The source of the litter can be seen when Bronx returns from retrieving the makeshift toy, and Goliath grabs it, pitting his strength against Bronx's in a game of tug-of-war. The metal warps and groans under the pressure and suddenly snaps into two twisted pieces, one of which Bronx bounds off with to savage into a crumpled heap. Goliath tosses his half of the destroyed toy aside, and Bronx returns to his master's feet, panting with pride and looking for approval. Goliath kneels down to scratch his family pet behind his large, fanlike ears.

It's good to have at least one member of the clan back.

Billy hadn't the slightest idea how much time had passed since his rushed deal with Metronome for the Clock's destruction. He'd typed out a hurried plea for help on the omnicom network, sped off to download and review the play's script, and conjured an auditorium-like Sensorium for rehearsal. All that remained was the arrival of the cast and crew, and this probable disaster would begin.

Just what have I committed myself to? If my judgment is questionable for attempting to stage this production in just a few days, the cast...I don't foresee this ending well.

Once everything was prepared, he sent a quick message to the volunteers. They should be arriving any minute

((This is going to be subthreaded out in stages. Mingling, a place for comments from the peanut gallery, auditions/arguments, and brief rehearsal scenes. Thread out whatever you think is funniest! Final casting decisions will be happening here. I'll be on chat/AIM/Plurk during this post if you want me.

Now open for posting! Don't feel obligated to participate, we're not obsessively logging everything. This is just for comedy opportunities. Most of what I want to know is who's playing who. And it's okay to jump in even if you didn't sign up on the comm post. Everyone's welcome to audition!))

Nighttime on XaXing could be a bit overwhelming, depending on what area you were in, with flashing lights everywhere, loud music that literally shook the buildings they came from, and people from hundreds of races in colorful, eye-catching outfits.

Other areas were a bit more tame, though, and that was what Kang and Eva were looking for. One look at the lights, and hearing the bass, and they'd looked at each other and kept on going.

After a while, they found a more low-key bar on a quieter street, playing what sounded like some alien version of classic rock from an equally alien-looking jukebox. The two bouncers at the door were huge, nearly nine feet tall, and covered in irregular patches of dark black fur; their four hands ended in wicked-looking claws, and their long tails had heavy clubs. Kang felt bad for anybody that pissed them off.

He snagged a booth near the door and grinned, "This is more like it."

It was easy to find the Drunken Dragon Tavern, due to the train, and the fact that a good portion of the crew was familiar with the establishment and could point the way. Kang knew that there were a few already planning on stopping by, and that Kaylee could use the help. He also wanted to get more information on the new people, see who was likely to cause problems (Farseer Ildraniath already had) and who wasn't. There were a few he hoped would show up, as well.

Feeling a little happier than usual, despite the Farseer, he took care of business as usual, being sociable and refilling drinks.

[Open post is very open. Feel free to talk to either Kang or Kaylee, or both, or to threadjack (with permission, of course)!]

[ooc: This is open to anyone whose character could reasonably be expected to endure and travel in Himalayan conditions, but is otherwise a necessary purging of IC angst.]

Anyone who opens up the door to this particular Sensorium in the middle of what passes for night on Stacy is instantly barraged by a wind so strong and cold, they might be lucky to get the doors shut again. Anyone who manages to step in won’t be able to see much of interest in the landscape of snowy mountains underneath the night sky.

Why anyone would conjure up a landscape so inhospitable, they might not have the physical constitutions to investigate for very long.

( Cut for lengthCollapse )

The Tempest. Eva has it pulled up on her media pad in case she can't find it in the gargantuan library. She pulls a few books out, curiously, and leafs through them before putting them back.

Goliath is at the door waiting for the other members of the book club. Eva's fidgeting a bit more than usual, humming to herself and playing with her hair. She wants this book club to be a success. She needs to create something good here to help cancel out the suspicion and betrayal she feels at other corners of the ship.

Besides, she doesn't mind spending time with Goliath, and is looking forward to meeting people not involved in this whole Yeerk mess.

(( OOC: Here's what we're going to do. I'll have one subthread for greetings, people milling around and meeting each other, which can branch out as much as people desire. Then I'll have another subthread for the actual book discussion, which you can tag into and then we can go in posting order. This whole entry is open to all characters interested in the book club, even if they haven't talked to Eva about it before. ))

Peter, though he had occupied the castle for quite some time, hadn't quite had the opportunity to explore the place from top to bottom. After he'd managed to finish repairs, something had always managed to come up every time he'd decided to try and examine the entire place.

Today, however, he'd managed to gather enough spare time to fully devote himself to the task. Currently he was trying to pick the lock of a door that hadn't seen use in quite some time. Grinning as he heard the lock click, he opened the door...

"AUGH!"

Only to tumble back in surprise to see a grim visage staring back at him.

"Holy crap Bronx. You nearly gave me a heart attack." he said to the stone gargoyle beast.

Those who had decided not to undergo the rituals were given the option of staying near the observation deck, or in the small settlement near the edge of the trees.

The buildings of the settlement were made of the same stone as the wall, complete with the tribal markings, and people filled the streets, mostly consisting of those waiting for friends. Several more Moai could be seen, oftentimes around groups of Rapa Nui, dwarfing them in size. There were many more Rapa Nui scampering through the crowds, fixing things up here and there, or cleaning messes.

[Go forth and socialize!]

Sunset comes to the city, and Goliath awakes.

This time, he does not retreat to the library as he has been doing for many nights since re-awaking. He glides to the street outside the courtyard of Castle Wyvern and makes his way to the entrance of the City. There's no wind for sustained gliding this false night.

When he reaches the entrance and does not see the woman he spoke to on the communicators, he stands and waits, not meaning to lurk in shadows as he leans against the wall.

"So, I just had the weirdest day ever." Peter said, crouching on top of Goliath's stone form.

"My closest friend on this godforsaken steak apparent doesn't have a nudity taboo, and some people think I might be taking advantage of her. You're lucky, all you have to deal with is my feet on your back."

Yes, he was basically talking to himself. Yes, he was probably crazy for doing so. But he had already known that much, and at least the hunk of rock beneath him was sentient.

Elisa came awake all at once, woken by some internal alarm, shrill and indefatigable. She'd done this before— woken up in the hospital, drugged and groggy, but usually it happened slowly, like floating to the surface of some deep pool of water.

The blanket was too warm, but her midsection ached like—

...like a wolf had...

Elisa focused and found her gaze stuck on the meaty ceiling of the med bay, and the slow pulse of her plantsuit around the tender places and bruises. So, it wasn't a dream?

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Tenaya's systems were on red alert. Her fever was spiking so much that no amount of coolants could lower the temperature of her mechanical systems. A bit of rest would have been able to get her to at least cool down somewhat, but the contagion wouldn't let her do that. She was restless and aggravated, and she'd already gotten into one fight. Her body was still too hot.

And right now, she was not in any mood to deal with anyone. Pity the poor souls to come across her while the City was in chaos.

Despite how long Trudy had been awake, she'd never really been tempted to use the sensoriums, not like the rest of the crew did. Of course flight training was there, but creating the worlds the Ohm had blown up? That was too depressing.

But when she stepped in this time, Pandora grew up around her. She stood on a wind-whipped cliff of the Hallelujah Mountains, overlooking the sunset over the jungle. As darkness touched the undergrowth, neon lights began to shine out. Pandora wasn't dark for long.

Trudy settled on the edge of the cliff, closer than most people would be comfortable with the long drop below. Behind her was a Samson helicopter with a tiger painted on the side - Trudy's copter, the way it used to look. It even had the Na'vi war paint on it. One very important thing was different - she wasn't wearing a respirator. Stacy had made the Pandoran air breathable.

She squinted into the sunset and down at the jungle, her thumb running over her cross in thought.

Maybe Kang was right. Maybe it was the end that counted, and you learned from the mistakes along the way.

The Castle Wyvern is subtly, yet surely occupied again. Goliath appears on the turrets in his sleeping state during the city's portions of day, and lights are lit inside, mostly in the library, at night. Having recovered from being the group meatshield while running GLaDoS's mazes (again) and inspected the castle for signs of trespassing while he was gone, Goliath returns to his more-or-less usual routine - which right now, involves reading. For research, not pleasure - so he is not in the library, but returning from the media lab with yet another portable screen, containing yet another history of the countless Earths across the space of possibility.

Possibly he has mastered the art of walking and reading at the same time. More likely he has not, and is just expecting anyone walking in his direction to see him before allowing themselves to be walked into. Considering he pushes 8 feet tall when relaxed, this is probably a reasonable assumption.

Somewhere near the hub, GLaDoS is returning crew members to the main portion of the ship.

“For your participation, cake and therapy may be obtained in the lobby.”

Mulan springs to her feet. “What lobby?”

Zuko, who looks the most singed of the group, picks himself up and brushes off the front of his plantsuit. “I never want to hear a word about cake again as long as I live.”

“Really?” Biff is adjusting his kilt, which, unfortunately for the rest of the group, has had more than a few wardrobe slips during their runs through the mazes. “Because I’m going to the Sensoriums right now to find out what it is.”

No one shows any signs of accompanying him. Allen, frantically checking his Omnicom, has gone paler than usual. “Motherfuck. I need to talk to Chief, like right now.”

“Why, what day is it?” Will starts to ask, but he has already taken off. She calls after him, brow knitted with confusion. “How long were we in there?”

“Too long.” Goliath leans against the wall, looking more irritated than usual. This may have something to do with the fact that he appears to have been functioning as the group’s meat-shield, judging by the amount of injuries he’s sustained, all hastily bandaged with the remnants of Mulan’s oversized men’s shirt. “I think –”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before he turns to stone.

Will looks relieved. The remaining two just look confused. “Good. He said sleep would make him feel better.” She yawns . “Speaking of sleep, it would probably make us all feel better.”

“Uh –“ Mulan is still staring at the stone gargoyle. “Maybe we should move him first?”
“He should be all right.” Will tucks her hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to accidently break him or anything.”

“Then I’m going to find out what’s been going on. And how long we were gone.” Zuko stalks away from the girls, swords still drawn.

Will looks at Mulan again. “So . . . that’s probably a good idea. Do you want to go to the cafeteria first? I’m hungry, even for slop.”

“That does sound good.” She looks down at her exposed plantsuit – “maybe I can find someone who’ll let me have another shirt on the way.”

There's only so much Goliath can learn about this new era and the future he missed from the castle's library, and so he is visiting the ship's library again, looking for histories.

Besides - the datapad he was using until now is broken (again), so he's there to replace that, too.

Alessa was in the Sensoriums, and assumed that anyone with good sense would take a look in, immediately understand that this place was not for them, and leave unless they were Evangeline.

This was the spot she started with on the outside: while she was not unhappy with her factory, Alessa was starting to get a little homesick with what she had to work with in the City. She missed the overall creepiness that came with a house, and though she had never truly had JUST a house, she was perfectly content with this one. The appearance gave a sort of haunted vibe that she liked very much, but she did not want to stop there. She walked a bit on the outside, and made a dock with a rather eerie feel, and a skeleton hanging just above it ceiling. When that was finished, she smiled and returned to the inside of the house, looking around a moment before starting to fill in the empty spaces.

She started on the walls: what was blank and peeling now was scribbled with these images, all done in the style of a small child, and then she began to work on the inside itself: The basement was a rather bare area, filled with only scattered trash but also troubled by haunted voices. The rest of the house made it clear that Alessa had admired the place where the Nightmare King had been imprisoned.

What she was doing and why was anybody's guess, but feel free to ask.

Kang was feeling particularly homesick that day.

He was standing on a plateau* in an arid savanna, overlooking a walled city, very obviously medieval in nature, with some areas still in construction. Draconians of brass, bronze, copper, silver, and the rare gold moved about, busy with their daily lives; an oddity was that almost every single one was an adult. There were very few children, and none appeared older than the average human toddler. The occasional dwarf or human was there as well, but not many, and they tended to be in the market area, selling wares.

The bozak still had a bandage on his tail and wing (the one on the latter bigger than it had been before), but the one on his leg was gone, showing a healing gash that was likely to leave a scar. Smiling to himself, he sat down, one knee bent and an arm resting on it.

"...you weren't perfect, but you were mine."

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice anyone entering the Sensoriums.

*Look Out Hill, on the map. :D

Castle Wyvern is not in shambles, but it is damaged.

And it stays that way, for the duration of the daytime. After all, Goliath can't do much about a damaged castle when he's a statue.

"Sunset" is accompanied, as usual, by a loud, growling yawn. Shards of Goliath's stone skin rain down on the present rubble of the castle's outer Western wall, and he crouches on his perch, surveying the damages with a strategical eye. He has had his moment for horror and fury. Now it is time to rebuild, and his is not the only home that needs it.

Stacy's drives made managed to come back online, and they had been on the move again. Though, on their journey to whatever destination they were going to next, the ship came to a halt at what would be a very brief pit stop...

...at the edge of a supermassive black hole.

In Stacy's hangar, Leon was finishing up programming the autopilot of a shuttlecraft to fly dead center into that black hole. No, he wasn't the least bit suicidal, and he wasn't staying for the flight. But the shuttle's cargo, the stone that held the Nightmare King, that was something Leon never wanted to see again.

He wanted to toss the Yeerk on there as well, but he agreed to uphold a jury decision. Thus, that thing still remained in indefinite stasis. (And, yes, he had checked personally to make sure it was still there)

The shuttle was easy to program, as it responded to verbal commands. The whole thing only took a few moments before Leon left the shuttle, and it departed, taking the Nightmare King to a prison that no living thing would ever be able to free it from.

As he watched the shuttle sped into the Event Horizon, Leon started going over his To Do list mentally. He had reports to write, and dozens more to read, he had to find out from Gauron which areas of the city were too damaged for occupancy and needed to blocked off so they could be demolished, arrange for Aang and Haku to be evaluated for release, keep the crew from killing each other, and about a thousand other things.

But as the shuttle got swallowed up by the darkness, he let out a breath and relaxed a bit.

"At least there's one less thing to worry about." Maybe he could finally take a break before tackling the rest of that list. Lord knows he needed one.

It was far from the only place in the city that had been scarred by the battle with the Nightmare King. Pieces of buildings lay crumbled all around, the streets were strewn with debris and navigating the city was... hazardous.

But this building - this one was special, at least to the small black cat curled into a ball on the ruined front steps.

The beautiful Tiffany glass of the clock on the main facade had fallen, shattering on the ground and leaving large pieces it shining around. The statues lay haphazardly around - Heremes' head had rolled away until it fetched up against one of the walls. The grand marble steps were cracked right down the middle, and any glass that had been around the building was broken as thoroughly as the clock face.

Rhiow was curled up awkwardly on the front steps, one of her forelegs held away from herself stiffly. Its fur was singed, a testament to the somewhat caustic blood of the creatures Rhiow had been blowing up in the main offensive. Her ears were tilted backward, her eyes closed, and she shivered.

My last piece of home. Why did it have to be here?

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Iron Fist, Erwin, Goliath, Lash, Robert Donovan, Seeley Booth]}

First it was the nightmares. The memories pushing back fifteen years to the last day he'd seen his father alive, the day the Drej had come out of nowhere and obliterated Earth and turned the thousands that had managed to escape into refugees. Without a home, they had become shunned by the other races, viewed with disdain. Ignored at best, openly attacked at worst.

His time on the ship had somehow allowed him to forget all that. Maybe it was being around so many other humans--the first time in fifteen years that Cale had been part of a 'majority.' Or perhaps it was that, now, everyone was in the same boat as he was, the boat he'd been in since he was four years old. Their homes were gone. Destroyed by a mysterious alien race. Whatever the reason, Cale had allowed himself to begin to forget the home he never had, to forget Earth, to forget the Titan, and to forget his father.

That was, until, the dreams.

They'd first come when he was asleep, jarring him awake with their vividness. There were several times that Cale been convinced they were real, only to wake up and be surprised that he wasn't a four year-old kid anymore. He was a nineteen year-old young man.


He wandered the streets of the city, meandering his way aimlessly until by pure chance he happened upon the statuary. He didn't recognize any of the stone sculptures. Most of them were supposed to be from Earth. That's what he'd been told by others in the crew. Who knew if it was true. Cale didn't. He'd been just a kid when the planet was blown to pieces. He didn't know squat about humanity or its history. Just that it was dying and would likely be extinct in another few hundred years. And there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Especially not him, no matter how much Akima and Korso tried to tell him differently. Earth was gone. There was no getting it back.


If only the nightmares had just stayed nightmares. Sleep was easy enough to avoid. Short cat-naps here and there allowed him to get a little rest, keep from hallucinating, without slipping into the dreamworld where his past seemed poised, waiting for him. But they hadn't just stayed nightmares. Now, the nightmares seemed to be alive. His past had walked alongside him. No. Not walked alongside him. It had tried to kill him. His past, the responsibility that had been dumped on him, was back and wasn't going to let him go. Even his father was a part of it. The man who had abandoned him, left it to him to finish what Sam had started. It was his fault the survival of their species had been dumped on Cale's shoulders.

And the Drej. If it weren't for those bastards, Earth would still exist. His dad wouldn't have left him. And everyone wouldn't be looking to Cale to save them.


"Aaaaaaargh!!!" Cale shouted snatching up what appeared to be a stone arm, broken from one of the statues--likely during one of the many battles the crew had fought in the city--and started swinging. He decapitated Venus di Milo. Another blow sent David's leg hurtling across the room. "Leave me alone!" he raged, striking the statues at random. "You're all DEAD!!! It's too late. It's all over. What the hell do you want me to do?!? Huh? What the hell do you want from me?!?"

The crew will see them slinking off, disappearing around hallways--shifting shadow shapes and the backs of heads ducking around corners. They're always people they think they know. Dead loved ones, perhaps, or loved ones they're not sure are dead or alive. They lead crew members into dangerous places, sudden drops, parts of Stacy where things can go wrong.

And they do go wrong. Floors drop out. Ducts become damaged somehow, invisibly, and suddenly spew hot steam. Around the children, items slam into walls--poltergeist activity.

Whether these are really those lost souls, or just illusions, is hard to tell. Either way, those that are part-ghost or have supernatural powers will have a helluva workout. The upside is the presence of the ghosts might disrupt the Waking Dreams to allow people to escape them more easily.

Which is good because the dreams will start to cause injuries now. Real ones.

And refusing to go to sleep doesn't save you when the dreams can happen while you're awake.

[ooc: Waking dreams will continue--and start causing injuries. Furthermore, ghostly apparitions will start to cause poltergeist activity and lead the crew into danger. Start to raise the alarm, meatship. It's starting.]

He is restless, wanting one minute not to leave his castle unguarded, the next certain of some distant conflict that must require his help. The Nightmare King is strong, after all, and only getting stronger. Even Goliath is having nightmares now, flickering visions of warped horror that he half-remembers upon waking. They could get worse. They probably will.

He ends up wandering, fitfully patrolling the ship for signs of crewmates caught in waking dreams, all the while guarding himself against one. Unease gnaws at him, has been gnawing at him for days now. It's becoming as normal to him as breathing, this edgy, hateful boiling discomfort, worse for all that he cannot tell where his natural discomfort for his new setting ends and the Nightmare King's influence begins.

So he wanders, and in his wandering finds himself in the hangar, policing his thoughts for ones of defeat (worse yet: thoughts of submission), when a bright splash of red and the silhouette of a tailfin catches his eye from between spaceships and mechanized suits of armor.

It is a car. A familiar car.

He is inspecting it even as he approaches. The license plate number is correct. There - a scrape from Lexington's overcurious talon. A nick in the door handle from when he once pulled it open for her. Little details, adding up to a sudden, restful quiet settling over his mind.

The Daligig would not have gone through the trouble of saving him only to overlook the rest of his city entirely. She is strong. She is capable. She is the equal of any human here, and they would have been fools to look her over. They would have been fools to have brought him here to be alone.

This much he is certain of now - the Daligig are not fools.

Carefully, respectful of the pride Elisa takes in her car, he spreads his palm over the hood of the vehicle, ensuring its reality. For the first time since his awakening in the Statuary, Goliath does not have to force himself to smile.

She's been onboard and awake a couple of days at most, and Ava already misses Manhattan. There's an oppressive, stale quality to the air on Stacy; it feels recycled, and it's just not the same as home. The Manhattan generated from her memories isn't exactly right, either, but it's better than nothing. She soars down Fifth Avenue towards Central Park, dressed in reassuringly non-pulsing Sensorium-generated clothes.

Anybody feel like flying today?

Slowly but surely, the nightmares have been chipping away at the mental defenses of the crew.

Even those who attempt to stay awake to avoid the nightmares find themselves too on-edge to completely concentrate their defenses.

And the Nightmare King has not been idle during all this, no. He has been slowly feeding off the crew, gathering his strength so that he may yet break free from his prison.

And he now uses that new found power, reaching out to affect the minds of the crew even in the waking world. Even those avoiding sleep will find themselves drifting in and out of their nightmares, bringing everyone a taste of despair.

After all, no one can escape the grasp of the King of Nightmares.

No one.

[ooc: OH NOEZ. As you can guess, the Nightmare King is getting stronger. As such, the crew will start experiencing waking dreams. These are much more subtle than the normal nightmares, however, and are more so depressing and surreal than actually brain-breaking. Mostly they would be miserable versions of the character's normal life, or perhaps even their life on the ship.]

All in all, things were getting off on the wrong foot for Irma. Bad enough to know that the Will and Matt here weren't the ones she knew (not that she minded - they looked different, yet felt the same), but now she's being told to put trust in someone's crazy plan to deal with a god? That just about ranks up there with turning into your element to defeat a snake man armed with twice the elemental power as her and her friends!

Out of curiosity, frustration and boredom, Irma decided to glance around the City. All in all, it was pretty bland, to her, at least. Before turning around to head back, she had remembered that she wanted to see the Jedi Temple - thus the W.I.T.C.H. Bus. Pressing forward, she got nowhere fast.

Until she saw it. It looked dusty from the years of lack of care, but for the most part, it was still standing.

Sheffield Academy. Her school.

"Noooooooooooooo!" Irma cried, falling to her knees dramatically. "They didn't blow it up! Darn them all to heck, they didn't blow it up!"

Okay, enough of the melodramatics. Getting back up, she looked around and realized that no one was around.

"Good. Good. Awesome! No one's around! This will be my little secret. No one's going to make me go to school while I'm stuck in this flying piece of meat!" Irma said, hoping to walk away before anyone spotted her... or the school.

Damian is in the sensoriums, surrounded by ninjas.

The setting is at first a city rooftop, but with a thought, he makes it a desert.

He hesitates again, then gets Stacy to make the ninjas more alien. He's fairly sure they won't be fighting humans when the final battle comes, after all. Plus, he doesn't plan to hold back at all, and that's more likely to be excusable if his enemy is not human.

"Do not hold back," he tells Stacy, then draws his sword and dashes forward, lopping the head off the closest alien ninja before it has a chance to attack.

Of course, none of the other ninjas are as slow. They've all drawn weapons and are rounding on Damian. Some are flying or slithering.

Damian grins sharply. This will be fun.

When he first saw it weeks ago, shortly after the crew had finally caught up him, he thought for certain that he was hallucinating. But there it was, nestled among several other castles. The Luthor Mansion, in all it's glory.

Lex was never a superstitious man, but even he believed that there was more to heaven and earth than what could be proven on paper. The appearance of his home, a reward no other crew member had received (to his knowledge), certainly made him think. He wondered if this was some sort of sign that his decisions so far had indeed been right, or that he was on the right path. Perhaps it was put there as a distraction of sorts, as well, as there were many unpleasant memories that haunted those walls. For the time being, he decided to take it as a reward, however relocating there initially proved to be problematic.

The Mansion wasn't in disarray, but it was clear that no one had walked its halls in quite some time. Not only that, but the last people who had clearly had little regard for the property. There was a layer of dirt and dust everywhere, expensive and priceless paintings had been torn off the walls and trashed, priceless artifacts were just broken pieces of clay or stone, pieces of antique furniture had been smashed, and every vault was empty. Not a single green meteor rock to be found. He counted himself lucky that his pool table, piano, and a handful of family photos managed to survive.

Rather than be dejected, Lex looked at it as project to occupy his time. Since he only worked in Neuropathy whenever he felt like it, and manned the bar in the lounge at his discretion, he did have plenty of time to devote to this project. Which was good, because cleaning up and fixing up a 40 room mansion-- replete with its own library (with real books), well supplied medieval armory and modern armory, pool, wine cellar, gym, and grand ballroom-- took a lot of work.

Work which still hadn't been completed, but he had progressed far enough to not only make it livable, but also presentable. The master bedroom, Lex's office, and most of the common areas had been cleaned up. All the rest was blocked off for the moment, but were in locations that were fairly out of the way.

So, he put out a message on the omnicomms, and invited a few people to check the place out. The ones who weren't already spying on him, at any rate. He laid out a few drinks, and a sampling of some of the fresh fruit and food he picked up while during their last mission to earth. He didn't expect many guests, after all, he had never been the most well liked person, even back when he was a relatively kindhearted kid. Most parties he hosted as an adult, he was usually surrounded by obsequious employees desperate to move up the food chain, business partners who wanted a more favorable deal, business rivals who were trying to find out something about the competition, charity representatives who wanted money, and sycophants who wanted the notoriety of being in the same room as Lex Luthor and access to the connections that alone can bring. Friends were simply a foreign concept, if he ever truly had any to begin with, and he certainly hadn't gone out of his way to make any on the ship. He was curious as to what category his guests, if he had any, would fit in.

((ooc: This is something of a party style post, so feel free to talk to Lex, Lois, or talk to each other while your character looks around.))

After dealing with the mess that was waking up on this strange ship of sorts, Thrall has found it very hard to fit in at all, especially when there were so many human looking creatures on this ship - as well as other oddities. Yet, strangely, no other orcs.

It took him time to orient himself with his sense of direction, being too stubborn and stoic to ask for help to find anything, and it lead him to the mess hall. It was crowded and there were many others there, but he slowly gained his bearings - very slowly. It took Thrall a few times of standing there and watching others go through the process of being scanned by that large eye before they receive any nutrients, if you could call it that.

The orc was leery of proceeding and allowing that thing to scan him, if it was even doing that. The hesitation was quite obvious in both his motions and on his face. For a creature that is as large as him, he certainly did jump when the slop was offered upon his tray. There was a sharp inhalation of whatever was offered. Is this poisonous, he wondered? Thrall then proceeded towards one of the tables to sit and stare at whatever was on his tray. Unfortunately, it was not pork. Nor was it bear meat, lion, or any other red blooded beast that he could tear his tusks into. Instead, he lifted a utensil, and poked at the slop a few times. Maybe he lost his appetite already?

When people were arranging for sleeping space in the new crew quarters, Dean just grabbed a room. Not bothering to ask for roomies, or look for offers. When (If) Sam wakes up, the other space was his. In the meantime, Dean set up his few belongings, including some of the supplies from the Impala. He was glad to find his dad's journal among those belongings, and occasionally flipped through it. He kept his guns cleaned before going to sleep at night.

Or rather, seeming to go to sleep. He hadn't had a full night since waking up in the pods. Maybe it was the zombies, maybe it was the Ohm, but in any case, nightmares of Hell had been playing frequently in his headspace. He buffeted offers of sedatives, and would instead pace the room or borrow music from the Media library to blast out to keep himself awake. It was getting to the point of only sleeping a few measly hours a night but Dean felt used to it. It didn't matter, he could handle it. He also taken to roaming the hallways or checking on the Impala. Any way to feel less alone. Kept him from the overwhelming fear that he had been left behind. Left behind by his brother, Bobby, Castiel, hell the whole damn world and universe went away, and it was just him.

His steps took him into the Sensoriums, and this time it was the Roadhouse. His mind couldn't stop him from populating it with fake people as he sat at the fake bar with a fake drink. Maybe he could drink enough to pass out without any dreams at all. Wouldn't that be a change?

Leon had called for a full staff meeting for the Security team, though it was also open to whoever else wanted to attend. He had gone easy on his group since the Bridge mission, mostly giving them time to rest, recover, and deal with the things they've all been told. But now it was time to start moving forward again.

The meeting was being held in the Precinct, in one of the larger conference rooms. He gave time for people to file in and sit down where they would. Once everyone was settled, he addressed the group.

"First of all, thank you all for coming. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Special Agent Leon S. Kennedy, from the United States Strategic Command, and current Chief of Security here about Transmigration 9.

"A couple of weeks ago, we all learned some startling information. That our worlds were gone, destroyed by the Ohm, and we're all that remains. That we've been chosen to travel across the multiverse to fight the Ohm, save what remains, and possibly restore what was lost.

"All of that may or may not be true, and we have people working to verify that one way or another. The only thing we know for sure is that, unfortunately, we're all stuck here for a while.

"Because of that, there'll be a few changes around here, most of which you'll hear straight from the Captain and the Commanding Officers in the coming days. As for this department in specific...

"Security was formed with the intent to be the first line of defense for this crew; to protect them from any threats on this ship, and sometimes to protect them from each other. That hasn't changed, and never will. How we operate is going to change, however.

"For the most part, we've taken a defensive posture, waiting for something to go wrong before we deal with it. But a Fix on Fail strategy isn't going to work anymore. Now, before you get started, no, we are not going to start hunting down and locking up crew members who may be a problem someday maybe." He wanted to be clear on that point, particularly with a crew as prone to kneejerk reactions as this one. "But, acid spitting roaches, one of which was crossbred with an Ohm; a variety of class 4 viral and biological weapons, all gathered in a failed experiment to create a biological weapon to annihilate the Ohm; the Nightmare King trapped in Escherville; HAL 9000; the Yeerks... these are all threats that originated on board. Things that were left behind when the previous crew abandoned ship.

"We need to find out what else they left behind; what other experiments they had going that have been left unattended for God knows how long. To that end, we need to root through every section of this ship, search it from stem to stern to locate and deal with these problems. We'll also be working with Engineering and Neuropathy to locate threats and malicious programs in the computer systems.

"In addition, we're also going to be expanding our duties to become a full blown Emergency Services Unit. We have to be able to deal with everything from heated arguments and hazmat spills to heart attacks and hull breaches. Some people here would be better suited for certain tasks than others, but everyone will crosstrained in a number of disciplines. I don't want to be caught short handed because we only had a few people trained to handle, say, hazmat spills, happened to be on an away mission, or were busy running through a maze, looking for cake.

"As for dealing with the crew themselves, Stacy has generally handled that, but we do have a bit more leeway now. We can interfere physically in conflicts between crew members without worrying about violations, provided you're not using excessive force. If you feel the behavior of a crew member has warranted something more than just a violation, you can haul them down to the brig where they can sit and cool off for a day or two, and any other additional penalties will be handed down by senior command, if necessary." Because that whole trial thing worked out ever so well last time.

"We have a lot of work to do, people. None of us want to be stuck here, but so long as we are, we need to make sure everyone stays as safe as possible."

((OOC: Beneath the two subthreads, people are free to talk to each other and free thread however they wish.))

Those who have seen Peter Parker around lately will know that he didn't take the Daligig's revelation at all well. Hours spent in the sensoriums fawning over the New York panoramic, even more time spent in the media library trawling through records from Skip James to the Smiths, all of which acutely miserable.

But that was then and this is now. Now-- now he walks quietly through Stacy's corridors, a camera slung over his shoulder and a tatty shoebox in his hands. He scans the walls until he finds one that seems to satisfy whatever purpose he has in store for it and drops to one knee so that he can get at the contents of the box.

One by one he takes out the pictures of friends and family both past and... as present as can be. Being the photography nut that he is most were taken by Peter himself, but there are some from other sources. There is Peter as a kid at Coney Island with his aunt and uncle and photobooth snaps of him and Gwen posing ridiculously. Graduation photos with a begrudging Flash Thompson and one of Harry and Norman back when things were good. A photo of his parents that he credits to May. Shots of the Bugle staff. One of Felicia which he'd had to have been very sly to take and of course, the inimitable Mary Jane Watson.

He takes each of these, looks them over fondly, and tacks them up on the wall. It was a start, the beginnings of what he hoped the rest of the crew would add to. There they were, all the people he'd known and loved over the years. All the people that gave him the strength he needed to face each day were laid out in front of him and in that moment he knew that there was no way in hell that any one of them was gone.

Something...odd is happening on the ship. Plant-like protrusions are occasionally sprouting in places throughout the ship.

They look like mistletoe, but this is purely coincidental. It's not like it's the holidays on the ship, right? It might be for some people, back home (if they still had a home), but others were grabbed from different times. No, it's just coincidence that these little devices look vaguely like mistletoe, and coincidence what they're being used for.

For you see, when this "mistletoe" is overhead, a crew member will be trapped in an invisible forcefield, and won't be able to escape until someone has kissed them or otherwise showed them some equivalent of affection. (Cheek kisses and sloppy puppy kisses from the canine crew members count). The "mistletoe" spring itself is shielded itself and can't be destroyed, the only way out is a kiss.

Why is this all happening? GLaDoS is performing whacky behavioral experiments, that's why. Each time, it happens, she intones messages like the following.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

"The Transmigration9 AI Complex thanks you for your participation in important research. Unless you don't want to participate, but not participating would make me disappointed. I suppose you just want to disappoint me."

And of course, sometimes she even outright lies.

"There will be cake."