This game is now closed.

Some may have noticed the lack of a certain cacaphonic pink pony on board the ship as of late. It seems that Pinkie Pie had found herself being GLaDOS' newest test subject and, of course, with Pinkie being Pinkie, she performed every test and ran every maze with no complaint, because she had been promised cake at the end! In fact, it was likely that GLaDOS would get tired of her long before she grew tired of testing.

And that could very well be what happened, as Pinkie was finally dumped in a random spot in the city, possibly making a squeaky-toy noise as she landed.

"Oof! Ms. Test Lady! Do I get a cake now?" She asked the sky, and waited for an answer. When none came, her ears flopped. "She said there would be cake at the end!"

And technically grief-counseling as well, but Pinkie had only heard the cake part. She looked around and tried to figure out where she was, and what she was going to do now. She wasn't in the big maze anymore, but Ms. Test Lady hadn't given her cake yet. Clearly, that meant only one thing:

The test wasn't over yet.

You could practically see the lightbulb go on over Pinkie's head. Of course! This was just another part of the test! And by gosh, Pinkie was going to do her best! There was cake on the line, after all.

"All right, Ms. Test Lady, I accept your challenge! I'm gonna get that cake yet!"

Passersby may be wondering why she's talking to herself. Unless you know Pinkie and realize that this is business as usual. Or perhaps you aren't even in the city, you're just minding your own business somewhere else when suddenly PONY IN YOUR FACE, asking you if you've seen a delicious cake anywhere. She's not going to stop until she's solved this newest test.

She is on a quest.

A quest for cake.

[[OOC: COME JOIN PINKIE IN HER QUEST FOR CAKE. Anything can happen! In fact, it's likely that anything WILL happen because this Pinkie Pie we're talking about.]]

Cole had only been on the ship for a few days now, and was still figuring out all the twists and turns, so he got to where the distress call had been broadcasted from later than the others.

He had no idea where the flash had taken the people that got here earlier, but he got the feeling that something big was about to go down.

He'd sent out a message over the comms for anyone to get down here, though maybe he should've been more specific.

Still so far one person had said they would get here, but nothing else so far.

(OOC: Cole's omnicomm message went out two months ago, so you can respond there. Or just decide to help out of nowhere.)

There was no warning before all of Stacy's holograms throughout the ship turned on, showing a very grim-looking Kanil.

"This is Admiral Kasna, of the GIA High Command."

The face, and the name, was familiar to some of the older crew.

"We are in dire need of assistance in the Pari'qa'dul System of Universe SL1609P. Recently, several of the planets and moons in the system have come under a coordinated attack, and we do not have the manpower to handle it. If anyone is close enough to hear this message, please, we need your help as soon as possible. Coordinates, as well as information on every hotspot, are attached."

The message repeated one more time before the hologram of the Admiral was replaced by Stacy.

||Attention crew. This was the distress call I received moments ago from GIA command. Universe SL1609P is a remote universe with limited resources on some of its planets and colonies, accessible by only a few routes in the Bleed and as a result, the GIA, who are currently in the midst of heated battle with the Ohm, are unable to send aid. Moments before we received their distress call, the Tapestry went active, providing visions of crew members taking on this mission.||

A list with the names of the crew members appeared.

||Whether or not these crew members take on this mission is their own choice, but the mission's success and the lives of civilians may depend on it. As for information on the threat, GIA intelligence is receiving reports from military and local law enforcement on the affected colonies and planets that this is not an attack by Catastrophists or any other known terrorist or piracy group. This new group is entirely unknown and is attacking these GIA worlds with a variety of MOs used for their criminal acts and acts of terror. The only connections that have been found between these individuals and groups is the timing and scattered communication between them--they all seem to be geared towards destabilizing the planets' governments and causing chaos.||

||This group needs to be investigated because it may be a new player in the overall war, innocent lives hang in the balance, and this is a chance for the crew to strengthen their alliance with the GIA. The Daligig are already spreading propaganda against the Trans 9.||

Newslinks and video of the Daligig denouncing the crew as going rogue flashed across her holographic screens.

||We need some way of offsetting it or we may be cut off entirely from GIA resources.||

[ooc: People in any place in the ship can ask Stacy questions or discuss this development with other crew members. The people on the lists provided by the Tapestry are whichever people sign up for the miniplots oocly.]

Right outside the gate device on the Obs Deck, quite inconveniently located for people with a tendency to trip over such things, lay a large tome.

On the front cover, a face sat rigidly immobile. Eyes shut, mouth frozen, it might as well have been simply drawn on for all that it showed no reactivity to the environment or external stimuli.

To those who know the Overlord, well, that book was indeed the Sacred Tome. But was it still Zetta? For all intents and purposes, the Overlord appeared to have checked out.

[Just the start of a little plot. Respondents are encouraged to thread in pairs, because the book won't be responding no matter what you do.]

Who: Fuu and OPEN
Where: The Chalk Drawings. Specifically the Thames.
Summary: Fuu stumbles into some pavement art.
Warnings: Cockney accents None!

( Supercalifragilistic... )

Starfire had done her best (rather unfairly) to ignore Jinx's presence thus far, perhaps unfairly. She had no desire to fight her formal rival, and she never had, but why cross paths and cause tension?

Now, however, the situation was different. Her only friend from home was gone, and many of her other friendships forged here had ended in repoddings as well. There were very few people left that she counted as friends, and the situation had taken its toll. A warrior whose powers rely on their ability to feel joy and confidence is hindered in a negative state like this.

So, rather unusually, she walks to her destination rather than flying. Perhaps it is worth it to approach a rival after all. When she arrives, she knocks.

"Jinx? Are you here?"

Who: Presea & Barbara Wright
Where: around the city
Summary: There was something about running into another cyclist that made them immediately your friend; or Barbara and Presea hope that you really never do forget how to ride a bike.

( Dart, with heedful mind; / The air goes by in a wind. )

So she wasn't wearing her suit with the wig and mask right now. In a way, during the attack, she understood that maybe it just didn't matter as much anymore. Coincidentally, it was also when she was beat up the most. Even when she had faced that messed up Cain fucker after Sasami, she hadn't been as injured as this. Being thrown against a wall, shot a few times (thank you barrier jacket) and straining every part of her body to its max would pay a toll, and with everything being so wonky, the Overlord's healer hadn't gotten to her.

So here she was. In med bay. Barely conscious.

And she still needed a new cook, damn it!

On a Daligig ship, in the safety of a grand and luxurious room guarded by untold security measures, one of the Daligig was making a call. It was not a call he wanted to make, but then who ever wanted to make a call for help because they'd failed one of their goals?

||Initiating Meet and Greet. Crew members, for the sake of morale, there will be periodic meetings on the Obs Deck so that newer members of the crew can be welcomed and so the crew can communicate with one another.||

Apparently, Stacy liked to throw a party now and again.

[ooc: Anyone may start new threads here]

They had been trained and now they were all on Oa together, periodically dispatched to go on missions for the war effort. It was not entirely unlike being on Stacy, and many of the expectations were the same. They were to look out for their fellow Lanterns, defend themselves, and try to defend the innocent.

It was becoming readily apparent that certain things were not right on Oa, though. The Zamarons seemed to be hiding something within their crystalline headquarters, and the Oans themselves only relayed information through Green Lanterns to the crew, and seemed to be brusque even when talking to their own people.

There were whispers of discontent and concern among the Corps on Oa.

At the Saganami Naval Academy on Gryphon, a younger Honor had utilized numerous in-depth, realistic tactical simulators in her training to be a starship commander, all of which frequently used intricate holographic projections to put one 'in the thick' of combat.

When compared to the Sensoriums of Transmigration 9, however, Saganami Academy was about as cutting edge as a puppet theater.

For a time Honor experimented with it, materializing random objects, calling to mind old locals and places, memories and scenarios: the windswept plains of Gryphon, the cliffs and jungles of Sphinx, the domes of Grayson.

In a fit of nostalgia, she briefly called up the bridge of HMS Troubador that she had so recently from her perspective been snatched, standing in that cramped space of holo-displays and controls as midshipmen and tac officers rushed about.

(http://th02.deviantart.net/fs44/PRE/f/2009/070/4/5/Goddess_of_Battle_by_wraith11.jpg)

Then she dismissed it, shaking her head.

"Time to get down to brass tacks." She says to Nimitz, summoning up a perch for him.

The treecat sits there contentedly, blissfully munching on some celery pinched from the gardens.

And Honor buckles down and throws herself into some hardcore combat training. Anyone can wander in and interrupt/train with her/learn from her/teach her.

Insert Power Rock Ballads at your leisure.

The first thing that Natasha Romanoff - as she had allowed herself to be called in recent years - had done after she had popped out of a gooey pod (and subsequently gotten clothed, briefed on the situation at hand, and retrieved her weapons) was familiarize herself with the spaceship that she had found herself on. It had taken a long while - the size of the ship made the SHIELD Helicarrier seem akin to a SmartCar - but she’d scoured as much of the place as she could, because it was always useful to know one’s bearings.

( Especially in a situation like this... )

Outside the Sensorium, a large floating sign proclaimed in large text:

SENSORIUM IN USE. PRIMARY OCCUPANT: AIBGHALIEN MARSAI. PURPOSE: DEPLOYMENT OF SIMULATED AND GENUINE MAGIC. VISITORS WELCOME. CAUTION! NONSIMULATED MAGIC IN USE!

A helpful magic mouth also repeated these words verbally to those who drew close, a necessary sop to potential issues of translation (or literacy). Despite this ungainly addition tio the illusory sign, Aibghalien was pleased with his idea.

Such thoughts had fallen far to the back of his mind, however, as in the Sensorium he had created a fourfold simulated environment. One quadrant, which the door opened onto, consisted of his tower laboratory from his days as a regent, with tables of magical and alchemical apparatuses set up in various states of use or disarray. The next quarter clockwise was a battlefield, with two armies clashing in a seemingly perpetual state of conflict. Continuing around, in the third quadrant, a group of orogs shuffled aimlessly around a dungeon hallway in exactly the manner one would assume orogs would shuffle about while waiting for adventurers to burst in on them in their otherwise empty and joyless 20x20 dungeon room. Finally, in the fourth quadrant stood Aibghalien, dispassionately deploy a mighty gout of fire from his hands into a swarming mass of Kessek.

“Pause,” he said out loud – not necessary, but Aibghalien found it helpful to set deliberate barriers between his general mental thought processes and the commands he intended to give the sensorium. The image froze in the midst of the fire impacting the Kessek armor. Nodding to himself, Aibghalien stepped forward to examine the intersection of attack and defense, analyzing the impact with the intent of improving it.

Chance had heard some things about the AIs in Stacy's brain, but this was the first time he had been exposed to what Glados actually did to people. Upon being released, Chance found out that he had missed the whole rebellion thing so he was recovering by booting up the sensoriums shooting monsters in a junkyard.

"Man. Too easy. I should up the difficulty..." Torque muttered as he shot monster after monster.

Brenda moved with slow steps down the halls of the crew quarters. Her whole body ached, screaming at her for the marathon she'd forced it through only a few hours ago, but her mind was still too loud to let her just lay down and sleep.

There were dozens of images she couldn't hope to wipe from her mind, a hundred tiny questions about what would happen now and what she should do from here ringing in her ears, and on top of all of it Querl was shutting out visitors. It left her terrified and numb all at once. Not being able to see him, to know he was alright after everything, just made her chest ache but she was too tired to muster the fit of rage she wanted to throw, too overwhelmed and emotionally raw to try to talk to him even if she could see him, probably...

She rubbed at her eyes as she turned the last corner on her route. Once medical had released her she had begun walking without a second thought, remembering the way with remarkable clarity for how long it had been since she'd made the trip.

Brenda lifted her left hand for three quick knocks on Paco's door, her right shoulder still sore from being overworked. She was sure she looked a wreck, hair barely brushed, thin and bruised and bag-eyed. Belatedly, she wondered if she should have sent him a warning message first instead of just showing up to see him looking at least half as bad as she felt. She'd never liked coming to him injured and upset back when they were in school, doing it again now was more than a touch painful.

The door slid open and Brenda forced an awkward smile to her face to keep the tears welling up at bay. Actually seeing him in front of her, close enough to touch, hit her like a brick in the chest.

"Hey you." she managed after a second. "Miss me?"

The crew that returned from Hendersus Villae following their rescue mission was not the same crew that had been sent there in the first place.

Well, they were. They just wouldn't look like they were for a few more hours.

Goliath, Kang, Rainbow Dash, and Crematia were all still stuck as humans, and the reassurance they'd gotten from Zarom Ghartha that their transformation would expire in roughly one day's time was surely enough to allay some of their lingering discomfort with finding themselves still in the wrong bodies, but unfortunately, no amount of reassurance could completely relieve their situation of awkwardness.

Awkward or not, though, they all needed rest and medical attention, so there was no hiding out while the curse wore off. Not unless they wanted to spend the next 12 hours still hungry, tired, and injured to various degrees.

[ooc: setting up subthreads for individual character reactions is a-go!]

Of all things, Ian hadn't been expected to be bested by a tree. That it was a tree that moved without the wind should have given him a clue, but, well, it was a tree. He'd got too close, it got a good hit in, he'd landed awkwardly and now he couldn't walk.

It was only his ankle and, feeling embarrassed about the whole thing, he'd intended to just hobble home. Except that it did really hurt. So halfway there he found the nearest teleport and ended up in the medbay.

The briefing was, well, brief, given the complicated situation they were being thrust into. Stacy tried to give them as much as she could but apparently her intel on this universe was rather limited.

For this reason, they were dumped rather unceremoniously on a vast planet, with grassy green fields, the dropship that dropped them off retreating on autopilot and disappearing back into the transdimensional ether. It was a lovely planet at the very least, with vast deep blue skies, teeming with vegetation, but oddly, they all would likely find themselves dealing with the unnerving inkling feeling that they were somehow being watched. There were no sentients or even animals in site, however.

The only thing they could do right now was wait. They had been told that they would be found, that they would be offered rings, taken into these different Corps of people, and they they needed to make sure the war ended in a way that didn't devastate life in this universe.

That was something of a tall order.

[ooc: Go!]