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?"

Who: Jamie and open!
Where: The Brig, unless someone drags him out from it.
Summary: A reaction to Billy's repodding and Zetta's subsequent announcement.
Warnings: General unhappiness warnings. Possibly a bit of sulking and a reluctance to do things.

( This wasn't how it was supposed to go )

Ildraniath had found a small park that was out of the way of most of the main streets. It was quiet, shaded. Perfect for a little get together. If people had read her message on the comms, they ought to show up. And if they didn't, she would figure out another way to proceed. Even if she had only a handful of people she could rely on, she would press on. Better than inactivity and waiting for results that never came. She knew patience, but this? Was simply waiting for the sake of waiting.

She folded her hands into the sleeves of her robes and waited, stone still. Once they arrived, she'd have a few words to say to everyone. And then they could begin bandying ideas and organizing.

Who: Ax, Jonas, Paco, Jeka, OPEN
Where: On the move
Summary: Crew members released from GLaDOS’ clutches request information.
Warnings: None

Several holes opened up just inside the Hub and ejected a handful of crew members out onto the corridor floor. It took several moments for them to extricate themselves from the tangle.

“Hair. HAIR!”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pin it down. Jonas, Ax’s back legs are tangled in your cape, can you do something about that?”

“[Tell him to stop kicking and I will try.]”

< This is not kicking. >

“[Then please squirm less. Do you see anyone?]”

“I don’t see anyone, but we’d better get this worked out before we need to run.”

“Amen, sister. Ow!”

Once on their feet again, they all pulled out their omnicoms to find out what they’d missed and to let the rest of the crew know that they were back.

“I don’t see anything about Brainy or Brenda,” Paco said, disappointed. Jeka huffed unhappily, running her thumb over her Legion ring.

“I’m going to report in to Security,” she said. “Aximili, do you want to come with me?”

< I should talk to Allenby first, I think. Tell them that I’ll be by soon. > Ax replied.

“Aaand Jonas is already tearing off to go find his girlfriend, so looks like it’s just me and myself going for food again,” Paco said as the other teenager in question vanished around a corner. “Catch you guys on the flipside, assuming we’re not about to get ambushed by tentacled space-snails or something.”

[[OOC: Say who you want to talk to in the subject line!]]

[backdated to the beginning of the event, I had a big paper due so I couldn't do this right off the bat, sob.]

Claire was trying to catch up on things she'd missed while stuck in GLaDOS's mazes when the ship went dark. It didn't even take her as long as it took SHODAN to cackle about domination over the speakers for her to be up and moving around her office. She always kept a flashlight in the top drawer of her desk, just in case. Never know when you're going to need a flashlight, and since the wiring in the school was probably extremely old it was a good idea on its own.

( Is that the way you like it? )

Paco had been among the first people to wake up in a puddle of alien snot in the Pod Caverns. He'd been around to greet almost everyone currently awake on board the ship, if not at Pod Pop then at whatever time he'd been released from the Medbay or from GLaDOS' maze-running. Some people probably thought he was maze-running right now -- he hadn't been causing much of a ruckus lately.

He wasn't running mazes. He hadn't been for awhile, but he really was just waiting for GLaDOS to grab him again to make sure his soul wasn't going to fall out or whatever it was that she tested. With the mood he was in, he wasn't sure that it wasn't about to.

Lately, he had settled himself at the Vatican. He wasn't exactly a big religion kind of guy, he was way more into sleeping in late than dressing up for church and all that. But it was pretty quiet in his corner of the Vatican, and right now he didn't really know where else to turn. He leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling like it might have an answer for him. It didn't, but talking to the ceiling beat talking to himself.

"You pick a lousy-ass time to break out the neck-punching. Just FYI."

The City didn't have weather as most people knew it, but it was nonetheless a beautiful day - warm weather with a nice breeze, Stacy's sun-equivalent shining in the sky... almost as if it was reflecting the emotions of at least one of the ship's crew. In the middle of the Park, someone had set up a little white lattice archway amongst the hedgerows, decorated with ivy and roses and lilies that looked remarkably real (if they were, in fact, synthetic). In front of the arch were several rows of white chairs, more than enough for anyone who cared to show up.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding.

And frankly, Nanoha needed it. After the chaos and confusion; the rage and terror on Galilee... she didn't think she could ever forget that horrible sense of loss and emptiness when she'd thought that Fate was gone, if only for a day or so. But this would go a long way toward exorcising those demons - a day that she'd dreamed of for years.

Of course, she couldn't go greet anyone yet. She was in her wedding dress, after all! These things needed to be proper.

(ooc: Tag the respective subthreads, please! Mingling is highly encouraged.)

The Bleed looked a lot the same whether you were looking at it upside down or right side up. Good to know.

Steve was sitting on one of the chairs in the obs deck... slouching, really, a typical teenage slouch, his head tilted off to the side and his hair hanging in his face as he stared out the window. He was fighting off the end of one of his dizzy spells, the ones that always hit about an hour after his weekly treatments in medbay. He looked a little more pale than usual, and a close inspection would notice the greenish veins trailing up his left arm towards his tattoo, but the spell was finally passing and he'd be back on his feet in a little bit.

He already knew from past experience that there was little point in trying to exert himself until it was over... otherwise they might find him unconscious in the middle of the mess hall again. That had stirred up a few conspiracies about what was really in the food, and was really more trouble than it was worth. He didn't want to freak out Kaylee, either, particularly when she'd been so nice in helping get him situated in the Engineering department.

Yes... for once, Steve didn't have a whole lot to be cynical about.

Hell, it might even be safe to make some small talk with him.

The first thing he'd insisted on them fixing was the clone brand, but the surgery to fix his arm had come first, to allow all the tissue to heal right. His tendency towards fast healing was taking care of the rest. Then they got rid of the stupid clone brand after.

His hand was gone.

It was still a thought he had to get used to. One second it'd been there and now it was gone. It hadn't even been all the dramatic, like things like that were in the movies. It wasn't some moment over a gaping pit, with a villain chopping off his hand and revealing he was his father. He didn't have to saw it off to escape from some deadly trap, horror movie style.

There'd been a fight, he'd fallen on the teleporter pad, there'd been a bright light in front of his face and that was it. Apparently, it could happen just that easily.

Then again, it wasn't the first time he'd lost a hand--that same hand, in fact--but after healing for a thousand years under the North Pole, all the damage from the fight that had killed him had disappeared, and the thing had apparently regrown. So losing limbs wasn't exactly something he never expected would happen, when it already happened once. This time, he was fairly sure it wasn't going to grow back, though.

Ultimately, he decided that was okay. He was a little freaked out about it, but he'd cope. You rolled with the punches, right?

Sometimes you have to roll with the accidental amputations, too.

It was war. This stuff happened, it was going to keep happening, and at least it hadn't been his head.

It was war, and people got hurt in wars, just like you made decisions you weren't sure were the right ones. Just like his decision to let Moses free all the clones was one that was weighing on his mind. (He was just WAITING to hear from Leon on that one).

Superboy sat upright on his bed in Medbay, arm bandaged and in a sling, and played Tetris on his omnicom one-handed. Hopefully, they'd let him out of Medbay soon, and then...then he'd figure out the rest.

He hadn't expected to find it. Not here. It wasn't important. It didn't turn into a robot or do anything particularly special except take people from one place to another. But all the same, it was here. Jaime looked at the worn truck his father had driven for years, the one that had vanished in a ball of flame when the Reach had blown up his old house in an attempt to destroy his family. He clambered into the bed, touching at the worn paint. And looking at that truck, feeling it under his hands, it hit him like a ton of bricks.

He was alone. Very alone. Only one person he really, truly knew was here, and that was Paco. Sure there was Tim and Kara and the others, but it wasn't the same. Not the same as family. he could still see Milagro and her smile, the brightest smile that he could think of, even when she was a little pill. His mom, nagging at him to make sure he got his homework done before going out to save the world, supporting him through all the danger and stress that this life put him through. His father, telling him that he was a good man, even when he couldn't possibly save everybody. The worst part was that he didn't even know for sure. Were they in the pods? People said they probably were but there was no guarantee, no way of checking on them. They could be gone, all of them, erased from existence.

He teetered across the truck and sat heavily against the back of the cab. With a quiet sob, he put his head in his hands and very quietly began to cry, shoulders shaking.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

Paco hopped up on a box to survey the work already done.

It was getting toward “evening” in the City. They’d hung a sheet up on the Great Wall, and a couple people were currently adjusting the movie projector that had been constructed in Engineering so that the picture would fall exactly on the sheet. He’d collected the recordings from the Media Library himself, everything on there was appropriate for pretty much everyone who might show up.

At the other end of the space he’d picked for the party, a few people were testing the sound system (also constructed in Engineering) and arguing with each other, probably about the music. Well, he’d done his best, anyone who didn’t like it could throw their own dance party somewhere else.

In the middle, up against the outer wall of a building they’d hung lights from, Kang and his helpers were putting the finishing touches on the drinks area. And there was plenty of space for people to mingle or play tag or whatever if the shows and music weren’t to their taste.

Paco grinned and cupped his hands around his mouth to form a megaphone.

“OKAY EVERYONE,” he shouted. “TRY NOT TO DO ANYTHING THAT WILL LOSE US OUR PARTY PRIVILEGES AND LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!”

[[OOC: Post-Melting Clock! Mix! Mingle! Make fun of the music, thread with people you haven’t threaded with before! It’s like a Pod Pop for oldbies!]]

Jaime had taken the time to wander down into the city, something he did most days as spending a lot of time in a conjured world in the over-crowded Sensoriums didn't really appeal to him. He found himself drawn, at least today, to the Statuary and its baffling array of sculpture and monuments. Fascinating stuff, really. He stood at the base of Superboy's statue, occasionally flicking the switch back and forth.

Nope.

Nothing happening there. He frowned and wrinkled his nose, turning to look over the other statues before moving on to flick at the switch beneath Elfangor.

Still nothing. He moved over again, this time to George Washington. Another futile flickering of the switch.

What did this all mean? And more importantly, what did these switches do?

At four different points throughout the ship is one of those sights that is more regular than any would probably like. Suddenly, GLaDOS drops a handful of women who had been shuffled off for tests back out, deeming them capable of being among the others, again.

Claire Redfield stood up after being expelled and quickly spun around, kicking the wall in frustration.

"Should've blown up your goddamn AI core when I had the chance!" she screamed at the wall. She spun away and stalked off down the hall before Stacy could issue any warnings for her attempting to damage the walls, and she was irritated enough that she might just try to claw her way back in to break the AI for good.


Scarlet Levy had a somewhat less violent response to the tests, because as uncomfortable as it had been, she understood and accepted it was something that was apparently needed. She straightened herself out, and started back towards Contagion. She wasn't sure how much work she'd missed, but she needed to get on it.


Yve Cousland was mostly just confused, and annoyed that she didn't have any cake, and with that in mind, started back towards the castle.


Zoë Shepard stood and checked herself over after the experiment, frowning a little. Unbeknownst to her her time was a little messed with at the moment, and the tests just made everything else all the more confusing. With a bit of a careful surveying of the area, she started back towards the Hangar.


[ooc: herp derp, i'm back. feel free to tag any of my ladies, just let me know who you're tagging and where you've caught up with them! ♥]

It had only taken Snow a few minutes after waking up to realize that he still had his powers. As strange and unfathomable as it was (for crying out loud, he saw that it was gone), there his l'Cie brand was, easily noticeable on his left forearm and, from what Snow could recall, in the same form it was in right before he had lost it. But then again, he couldn't be quite sure, he wasn't very keen on studying the mark very closely when he did have it - he just knew that it had been pretty well along. A round, eye-shaped pattern inside of a rectangular brand, arrowed edges branching off in all directions. But it was no longer the deep black color that it had been, it was glazed over in a dull grey. And though it made him uneasy to see the brand there again, he was relieved that it was at least frozen. No ever-present countdown to turning into a monster.

He had felt the rush of icy powers when he tried to use them down in the pod chambers, even though they had been promptly cut off by one of Stacy's tentacles. So Snow'd be able to fend for himself (and protect Serah. Which was ten times more important than fending for himself, really), since despite what he'd read and what he'd heard so far, he was skeptical of many things. He had dealt with enough to easily trust some voice in his head that later reprimanded him and ordered him to follow the rules when he had no idea what was happening. He never did like rules, and he especially didn't like the idea of some giant talking creature trying to play puppeteer with people and simply expect them to go along with it. He'd had enough of that. So having his powers back was a point up in feeling even a little more safe.

But as he stood in the city, in an area large enough to both test this out and for any passersby to easily spot him, he had one more thing he wanted to try. "Let's see if you two are still here, too." Snow spoke, seemingly to nobody in particular. He raised his arm, a small, ice-blue orb forming around and rising from his brand. "Shiva!" he called, and a glyph-like pattern materialized in mid-air in front of him. From it rose two figures, completely contrasted from the other. One dark, one light - the summoned sisters looked more like robots of some sort, adorned with chains and huge, bulky pieces of metal. The large wheels clearly visible on their bodies gave the (very obvious) impression that the two could combine into a vehicle of some sort. They landed gracefully in front of Snow, who just smiled widely at the them.

"Hey! Long time no see!" he greeted with a wave. "I can't believe you two wound up sticking around, too! At least getting around'll be a little easier, now."

Tony needed time to think. He needed time to reflect. He'd ended up in the plant temple - the one that Bella had found so very long ago (or so it seemed) and now there was a depressing lack of the other Garou. Even for a Get and a lupus, she'd been a good friend. A companion. Someone he could fight beside. As much as he enjoyed having other Gnawers around, Bella had been the first. She'd helped him when he hadn't understood a damn thing about the ship. She'd even helped him overcome his own trepidation toward leadership, in her own way.

She was in the pods again now. That didn't console him much - after the disaster with the zombies, he didn't really think of the pods as safe. Hell, he didn't think of anywhere on the ship as really safe. The ship was a ship of war and they were its crew. As young as he was, he still thought he understood war. He still thought he understood what they had to do.

They had to stop the Ohm or die trying. Much like the impending Apocalypse back on Earth, Plays was of the rather morbid and cynical opinion that they were going to die trying. He'd made his peace with that. Sort of. He didn't want to die - no one wanted to die - buthe knew that he probably would, before the end came. It was something he'd realized on earth too, especially after seeing Black Spirals rip through friends and comrades like tissue paper.

Life was cheap. Nothing changed that.

Shit, he was depressing himself. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back onto his elbows. At least he had Kate. At least he had someone worth fighting and protecting for. At least it wasn't an abstract, nebulous concept.

Gaia help them all, really.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

It's taken longer than he thought it would to get everything planned and written up, but Paco's got a mind to throw that party he and Tony had been talking about for ages. The only thing he needs now is "adult permission", just so no one gets cranky about the Great Wall of China getting used as a movie screen. Or about any of the other shenanigans an outside-of-the-Sensioriums party might get up to.

So he was going a-hunting for the highest authority figure on board without tentacles for his permission -- well, his permission for the party and to run a completely different idea past him, just to see what he said.

Captain Kennedy, your favorite one-armed El Pasoean is looking for you.

She'd gone looking for him in all the regular places. First, to the cafeteria, where he would've been sure to stuffing his face. Then, down into the hanger, where he often hid from her and the terrors of book learning. She wasn't supposed to be down here, exactly, not with people actively working on things, but the Fury was there, so it stood to reason that Vega would be, too.

But it wasn't.

So he wasn't.

"You didn't let him say goodbye," she murmured. "You didn't let Roxie say goodbye, or Yuri, and you didn't let Vega say goodbye, either." Sherry sat down heavily on the floor and rested her chin on her knees, curling herself up into as small a package as possible. She didn't want to cry, but it was tempting.

Instead, there was a familiar kind of numbness, which spread out from the back of her head and down into the rest of her. The same kind of feeling after all of her classmates had gone off to be eaten by monsters, and she was alone. Only, the difference was she hadn't really even liked her classmates. Vega had been her best friend aboard. But she would just have to get used to not seeing him, or yelling at him about studying, wouldn't she?

She didn't want to. A sniffle escaped, and Sherry worked hard to keep her face straight, her cheeks blotchy and red. It was embarrassing; Vega would definitely have made fun of her for crying. It wasn't like he was dead! Just sleeping. And maybe someday, he'd come back.

"It's okay. I'll wait for you," she mumbled. Sherry sniffle-hicced again and stood up, slowly scrubbing her hand over her face until she was sure any suspicious tears had been mopped up inexpertly. There was homework to do, and she'd have to teach him all this stuff if he ever returned. "Stupid." The little girl turned and began her long, miserable trudge to the Hub.

[[OOC: This right here is required reading if you're going to tag. OOC organization is here

For too long the firstborn son of Satan's demonic soul had been trapped, denied his rightful control over Daimon's body. Now, thanks to Mei-Xing, he was finally free. The next course of action was obvious- he would have to take control of one of the beings on this ship. He could start with the vulnerable and move on to the more powerful. He had to act fast before that fool recovered. Fortunately he needn't go very far. The city was full of potential victims.

Now, now. Who to possess first?