After this

Dean kept leading his friend toward the hydroponics which was a beautiful setting of strange plants and animals. But the hunter was mostly ignoring the flora and fauna because he was on a mission. And then there it was, a large tree surrounded by metal horn flowers and large rocks shaped like speakers. Here the bottles of beer were hanging down like ready fruit. He debated on a commlink to Sam about the news, but decided to wait a little longer.

"Here we go, easy to sit around here." He grabbed a couple of bottles off the tree, and offered one to Castiel.

(feel free to tag in, and threadhop even but give a heads up on the latter, thanks)

He couldn't find her in the great hall, and that meant that she had likely heard, too, heard the truth. He wasn't sure if he should look for her, wasn't sure if she'd want him to find her. It wasn't that he expected her to run off and cry, but Astrid, by her nature, was the type to deal with things like grief alone.

In fact, he remembered when they were younger, when her father had died, she'd just... withdrawn; disappeared to practice like the crazy person she was. He wondered sometimes if the Astrid of the present, who made everything look so effortless, had been built on those quiet afternoons in the Berk woods, as she worked out her grief with relentless practice.

He still found her anyway, trying to find somewhere to be alone himself. It was a room that wasn't really a room. It led to an open sky, a meadow surrounded by trees, somehow still inside the ship. They weren't trees like back home, but they were trees. What he didn't know was this was Stacy showing off the Sensoriums to anyone nearby. All he did know was that he heard screaming. Over and over. And thunking noises. Scream. Thunk. Scream. Thunk. Scream. Thunk. Grief and anger with its own percussion. As if just screaming or just thunking alone weren't enough.

He watched her, and for once she didn't see him coming, she was so lost in it. For a moment, he wondered idly if he should leave, since she hadn't noticed him coming in, but found that he just...didn't quite want to. Right now, as far as he knew, she was the only Viking left, the only person from Berk left alive with him. After a while of standing there, watching, listening, he started to shake, and then closed his eyes, his mouth setting in a firm line.

Then he pulled his knife out of its sheathe, and his eyes opened again, and there was his own scream, his own thunk, as he threw it into the same tree Astrid was using as her unfortunate practice dummy. It actually hit the tree for once, next to her axe. And it even stuck. A testament to what he was feeling maybe.

(Everyone always told him he needed to focus more.)

Then he stood there, shaking with pent up...something waiting to see if she'd yell at him to get out or not.

John would find her.

Earth was gone, Humanity was gone (but here) and here and burning.  Did the goddamn ship have everyone in those pods? No.  Skynet.  This was Skynet.  And she was on the move (you keep moving, you always keep moving). She hugged the walls, then remembered the tentacles and hissed as she veered away.  It was a misstep that had her tumbling and thrown up from some goddamn chute.  Sarah sat there for a moment, blinking as she stared out across a fake horizon and took in the fake sky.  It wasn't real.

John was real.  He was real.
( And reach for solid ground. )

"Oh..."

"...my..."

"...god!"

Lowe's exclamation could be heard as it echoed throughout the hangar. It was like being 8 again and waking up Christmas morning. Inside was nothing but vehicles of all types. It was like a melting pot of hundreds of thousands of civilizations' technologies. Many of them a lot more advanced than what ZAFT, the Earth Alliance and Orb could EVER make.

[There's a lot of machines in here. It's almost impossible to count...!] 8 chirped in.

"I know! Ah, man...! I gotta see, I gotta see...!" Lowe said, making his way over to the first thing he saw: an X-Wing. "Man, look at this! This is too sleek of a machine to be a normal Mobile Armor! A-And those guns... they have to be beam weaponry!" He pulled himself away and made his way to the next machine he saw - the Unicorn Thunderzord. "Man, look at this thing! Such an odd design! There has to be something more to it, though: there's no way it could JUST be like this!"

[Perhaps it's a component of something!] 8 said.

"It has to be!" Lowe said. The next thing he gazed at: the Unit 2. "Wow... that thing's HUMONGOUS! There's no way that's a Mobile Suit - Mobile Suits that big is just ASKING to get it's butt kicked!"

[We're dealing with a melting pot here. What may be a sitting duck in our world may be... Hold on!] 8 chirped before being stopped. [I think... 20 meters in front of us!]

"Twenty meters...?" Lowe repeated, confused. He made his way forward and gasped. In front of him was a VERY familiar machine. "It's... it's Red Frame! But, it's different!"

[Perhaps it's a gift from our saviors!] 8 said.

"It has to be... I-I gotta check it out!" Lowe said, making his way into the cockpit.

After slipping away from everyone else John started to search the ship for some place he could fortify. Eventually he stumbled upon the city. It was perfect for him. The crew would have a hard time finding him here. If they did he'd have the advantage. Walking through the city he searched many of the buildings for something suitable. None of them fit his criteria. That is until he stumbled across something he never expected to see. There was no way it could be real? It was Grand Central Station, and it looked as if it had been moved perfectly brick by brick to here. It was either the real thing or a perfect copy. Stepping inside he found it fairly intact, and well preserved. It was underground, had a large network of maintenance tunnels he could use, and it looked unoccupied. With a bit of work he could have it secure reasonably quickly.

Leaving Grand Central he continued his search through the city just in case a more suitable location presented itself. He so rarely had the luxury of time or choice so he was going to use it while he had it.

He still couldn't believe it. He'd just seen Grand Central Station preserved here, and now the Vatican? Scurrying toward it he noted the obvious fortifications that had been done to the grounds. Signs of battle too, and not that old. Someone had thrown down here big time. That moved it down on the list of possibilities. The fortifications were obvious which means someone else had to notice it. While it would be an advantage in a fight he didn't want them to find him in the first place. Still it was worth looking into. There might be left over supplies inside.

Stepping inside he followed the corridors until he found what probably served as some kind of rally point or command center. The presence of ammo, and food supplies made that clear. After looking around again to confirm his suspicion that the building was indeed empty, he picked up one of the rations. It looked like it was a vacuum sealed version of that slop they served in the mess hall. Not ideal, but it would do. Quickly he started to gather up what he could.

Decade leaned against his Machine Decader, recalling the small amount of research he had done into the Blue Ranger.

After seeing the training sessions Mr. Cranston was in, he needs some help. Since we're generally similar in powers and abilities, what works for me should work for him. If not...well, I'm sure this place has excellent safety protocols.

He stretched, waiting for the Blue Ranger to arrive.

For the most part, between trying to spend time with the younger kids and her magic studies, Sasami has spent a lot of her time trying to clean up the massive tree-palace that was her first home. It didn't matter if she had help or not - she was enjoying it nonetheless.

It's been a month (maybe two? She can't readily tell) since she started and she had made some good progress with it. However, this latest round of cleaning had left her exhausted. Maybe if she hadn't trained beforehand... Nah, it was just tough, that's all.

Sasami flopped down on a chair to relax, letting out a sigh as she did. "Whew... and that's another one!" she said, letting Ryo-Ohki join her. "Hopefully, I can get this get this place looking much better than it was before!" She scratched the cabbit on her head. "Especially since I'm helping Hay Lin...!" The cabbit let out a meow as Sasami looked up in thought. "...I wonder if there's anything else I could do..."

Mara was a woman of action, one who liked to get things done sooner rather than later, instead of waiting around.

So when Luke told her she'd need to get a contraception shot for things, she decided to go ahead and get it done. She'd apparently been given a second chance with her husband and she wasn't going to waste any second with him, in any way.

Plus, check ups were always good, right?

She sighed as she sat on the chair. Eugh, doctors.

Char has only one focus in mind when he reaches the hangar - well, technically, two.

Sure enough, there stands his Sazabi, looking to be completely undamaged from its fight with the Nu Gundam standing next to it, despite Char having a rather vivid memory of it being nearly totaled no more than a day ago, tops. Pleased as ever, Char mounts the scaffolding next to it and makes a beeline for the cockpit. He doesn't have any particular plans for the unit (although Nu being right there within punching distance made vandalism awfully tempting), he just feels the need for the familiarity of its cockpit, and the psycoframe system, in the strange, strange new world he had suddenly found himself in.

"Never thought I'd be this attached to a unit," Char mutters to himself as he starts the machine up and dons the psycommu helmet unit to link up with the sensor and weapons systems. "I must be getting dependent in my old--"



"Wh-what the hell is this pressure?" Char practically yells once he's connected to the psychoframe. "It's enormous...could it be the ship?"

Char takes the helmet off, disconnecting himself from Sazabi's psychic enhancement. He's breathing heavily from the effects of the shock. "That's going to take some getting used to."

As usual Tycho had arrived at the designated meeting place at the debriefing room in Rogue Squadron's headquarters a little ahead of time. There was nothing for him to prepare really, but he'd called the meeting, so it was still good for him to be there first.

The room contained a semi-circle of chairs which faced a projector screen, and Tycho sat himself in one of them, looking something over on his datapad as he waited for the others to arrive. Someone who knew him well would see that his jaw muscles were tight, the only outward sign he was showing of how seriously he took this. Deciding what they were going to do about Darth Vader was a Big Deal.