In a slime-slicked chamber, surrounded by darkness, they watch illuminated screens. Organic projectors swirl screens around in circular patterns so many glistening compound eyes can see. They have never had any real opposition before. It must be analyzed, prodded at, inspected, understood. There are individuals on the screens, a girl riding on the back of an angel, a giant girl, a young woman firing magic. A man in red and blue blazes across a screen, an S on his chest, and they hiss their discontent.

( They Speak )

Ben was in a mood.

he was also periodically shaking but quelled it as he rolled around his haunt, the Mr. Smoothie in the middle of the city district. He hadn't driven there, but instead rolled to it sullenly, needing to get away after being released to the public. In his lap he had carried ingredients and had used the facilities to make himself a strawberry and avocado smoothie. The actions was more or less a cleansing thing for him, and the long roll down to the city was enough time to allow him to think.

"You really blew it this time Tennyson," he grumbled to himself as he sucked on the drink.

So that was the Ohm invasion first hand. They had done well, in his opinion for such a rushed job even if they had lost. Yeah, it was a loss, but they'd learn from it. He just hoped everyone else would think of it as a learning experience.

Ben was a big fan of learning from your mistakes, something that had been drilled into him since his irresponsible days as a ten year old playing with alien tech.

Raising his glass to the artificial sun, he toasted the sky. "Here's to you everyone. Hope the next time we meet the Ohm, we'll be ready for it."

Ben sucked on his smoothie, feeling just a little better.

Cargn limped silently through the halls.

During the battle, he had watched as numerous possible fates had presented themselves to him, and he had tried to reach for one in which the crew had been victorious. Yet in this, he had failed.

A bitter look strikes his face. He continues to make his way through the halls, dressings still applied to his wounds on his stomach and where his right arm used to be. Though he had let the medics take a look at the wounds, he hadn't waited to get proper treatment for them yet.

There was something he needed to do.

He comes to an abrupt stop in front of the entrance to the Hub.

"Stacy," he calls curtly.

During the last few days prior to their adventures during Shore Leave, Arha had been nudging around the city for places that were suitable for living.  Near the Vatican, she had found a damaged villa and had been able to begin the process of fixing it up.  There were times when the Force was a most welcome ally.  Where there was rubble involved, she found the practice of lifting it even more of a challenge than expected.  Lifting larger items was still not her strongest ability when it came to using the Force.

Chasing away the dust was the simplest of tasks, however, and marked the end of a long period of cleaning.  The small courtyard garden was clear at last.  Arha was pleasantly surprised to find that the large pots that had, at one time, housed trees and plants were largely undamaged.  There were a few chips, but such was all.  Only one had been destroyed, and she had found it a serious task to remove.  She counted herself lucky that she had the Force to fall back upon.  There was good earth under the rubble, this she found rich with moisture.  One could plant things in it and make them grow. 

( In which nothing happens save a bit of dozing. )

Fletcher should have known that it couldn't last. They'd actually been happy, relaxed, and enjoying themselves for once; of course it had come to an end. Everything had come crashing down around them. He should have predicted it. And Fletcher had spend the entire fight cowering, hiding, and clinging to his brother.

And now he was back on the ship again. He could have gone back to the science labs and picked up his plantsuit research again, or over to Hydroponics to do some work there, but right now he just felt lost. Again. As usual. He was ten years old; what could he do when a crisis like that came up?

Instead of doing something productive, Fletcher had run off to the Sensoriums. Right now, he was lying on his back in the garden at Belshio's house. Resting on his chest was a copy of the hologram picture Edward had taken back on shore leave: Fletcher and Russel standing in front of the line of statues that the two older brothers had transmuted. He wasn't looking at that right now, though; he was staring up at the bright blue simulated sky, watching the clouds float by.

Is Special Weapons a classroom today?

No, but the young man in glasses with a slight limp scribbling furiously on a new whiteboard definitely makes it look like one. The scattered tools suggest an 'absent minded professor' vibe. Someone hasn't bothered to sort everything yet.

On the board are drawings of various Ohm in varying quality with an ever growing list of their strengths and weaknesses. Suggestions for small arms and techniques to deal with each Ohm type most effectively are being listed to the side.

On another wall, blueprints of the small arms scribbled on the whiteboard are slowly accumulating on the row of datapads propped against the wall. Someone had been working overtime while confined to his bed. Blueprints for shielding devices and armor are starting to crop up as well. They can't focus solely on offense.

Slowly, the plans are starting to build. But they need all the input they can get. Hopefully others will soon answer the notice he sent out.

((OOC: Hey, feel free to talk to Billy or whoever else you find here about Ohm plans and reorganizing things! I'd just like to ask that we hold off on discussing Lex's plans/the superweapon until I get a chance to coordinate with Will and the mods about what they want to happen and what's allowed.))

Dean never liked hospitals. Bad things always went down in hospitals. Especially death. And he thought he remembered briefly seeing that reaper Tessa, or maybe it was just a delerious dream from his injuries. No matter, once again he skirted death, and is living. Again. Awesome.

Still it took a while to really wake up from his injuries, combination of them and the lack of regular sleep. So it was some time while he healed that he woke up. He wanted to leave the medbay right then and there, but no dice. Even after cursing the EMH a few times. Stupid hologram, stupid medbay.

He was also wondering how his brother was, and he hadn't heard any updates about the Ohm battle yet. So the hunter was grumpy AND worried. So he hoped somebody better have some damn news.

"Come on, somebody give me my damn walking papers already!" What Dean wouldn't give for those sign out forms most hospitals had. This damn place never seemed to have heard of it.

Injuries hardly ever stopped Samus Aran. As long as she could walk, she would train. This time was no exception, and the bandaged scratches and gashes underneath her plantsuit would just have to demand her attention some other time.

Still, she did take it a little easy, even if it wasn't obvious. Samus decided to forgo the stresses of her heavy armor, opting to practice armed only with her gun and her fists in combat situations. Generic enemies attacked from all sides, increasing in difficulty each time she took down another with a combination of acrobatic moves, tricks with a laser gun that doubled as a grapple beam, and straight up hand to hand combat. It went on for a good while until finally one laid a hand on her.

The simulation halted suddenly at the apparent hit. Samus glanced over at a display, which totaled how many foes she had taken down before what would have been the first hit an enemy got on her in the session. She pursed her lips unhappily. It was less than her total would have been in suit. It was always less than her total in suit. Try as she might, she could never match the firepower she had with her armor.

Gun. Maybe a different one could help. She waved away the current simulation and brought up another. The Sensoriums looked not unlike the rows of weapons in the armory. Samus scanned over a few, looking for something that might give her an edge. She reached for one that looked out of place: a long, thin pole. As soon as she held it in her hands, though, red laser planes sprung from the end. It was an axe with laser blades.

This might work.

He awoke slowly, taking in the soft beeps and faint thrum of engines around him. They’d been disconcerting when his team was first stationed on the Minerva, but he’d gotten used to them, just like he’d – no, that couldn’t be right. The Minerva had gone down on the moon. And the moon was gone, so he had to be on another ship. He’d be able to figure it out if his head would stop hurting; he hadn’t felt this groggy since Neo-Genesis, when the Destiny had been shot down –

He’d been shot down.

The fight over Zokoz II came back to him in a flash. He struggled to sit up, but it was hard enough just to open his eyes in the bright medbay, and one of his arms was wrapped in some sort of plaster, making it awkward just to scramble just to angle himself slightly upright against the pillow. “What happened?” he choked, his voice coming out hoarse with disuse.

If there could be a little line following where Hiccup was going through the ship, it'd show that the young man couldn't stand still. Several things were on his mind.

1) Finding Astrid.

2) Finding some mead or ale to thank Kang.

3) Finding the other two that had helped save him, other than Astrid and Kang.

4) Finding Ed to learn about science.

5) Finding this "Engineering" place that was clearly the kind of place that would be wonder and a joy for him to be in.

The search was afoot. He had people, places, and booze to find.

And thus Hiccup hobbled through the halls with a set of crutches (he really shouldn't be putting much weight on his injured leg yet), on his mighty Viking quest.

Negi was at the Takamachi's door as he flew over quickly, Chamo riding on his shoulder. Through a clothing mishap however, the kid was wearing a girls shirt and shorts. Chamo laughed at him when he tried to hide his embarrassment with a very familiar looking red haired wig.

"This isn't funny Chamo-kun," said Negi as he got off his staff.

"Aniki, you're going to go talk about girls with your best friend on this ship. I think she can laugh at you if you're wearing half of the mini-skirted fox girl outfit that I just HAD to get for you." said Chamo.

Negi rolled his eyes. And rang the doorbell, shifting from foot to foot, hoping Vivio would answer before her moms came home and laughed at him or something.

Nanashi had found an abandoned house in the depths of the city. It had taken a little while to find just the right kind of floor plan. The first room was a normal entrance hall of a house, with a flight of stairs leading up to a loft. The loft was closed off, with doors leading to several different bedrooms. There were three doors on the first floor. The doors to the left and right lead to a kitchen and dining room, and a bathroom respectively. The third door was directly opposite the entrance, and led to what was once some sort of family room, but the only evidence of that now is a left over fireplace and mantle.

All of the other furniture in the room had been dragged out to the neighboring alleyway, though she was considering bringing back in the couches and leaving them in the entrance hall, along with perhaps a table and some chairs. But for now the entrance room remained empty as it had been when she found it. She was busy in the family room, glaring at the hardwood floor. Sure, she had learned swordplay on stone, but her body was far more resilient than a normal human’s body. As she understood, humans usually either trained on grass and dirt, or on some sort of mat that had some give to it. Hardwood floors did not fulfill that requirement.

Well, they could make due this first day. With any luck she would be able to borrow mats for tomorrow. Maybe she could incorporate their pick-up into the children’s training. She remembered her old teacher making her do ridiculous meaningless tasks until she learned discipline. With any luck, Ed and Katara, since she knows that they already have been training, would not need to learn that lesson, and they would be able to move on quickly.

Well, with no mats, and her sword and cleaning materials already out, all she had to do now was to wait for Katara who would be in trouble if she did not arrive early as she had promised. A mysterious long box wrapped in blue cloth and tied with a ribbon of a lighter shade sat on the mantle of the fireplace in the room.

Dwelling on failures wasn't something Axl did much. Red had all but beaten it into him back in his early days with Red Alert: you don't freak out over what happened, you make sure it doesn't happen again. The damage to his arm hadn't been that hard to repair, so after an hour or so of being poked at, he was ready to make good on that -- albeit in whatever small way was actually within his power. The problem was that there wasn't much he was in a position to do, aside from improving his own performance, but that was better than nothing, at least.

He was in the Sensoriums, which currently simulated the form of one of the high-ceilinged, mostly featureless rooms that were used for running training sims back in Maverick Hunter HQ. He'd left his armor off; for the time being, he wasn't worried about mobility or eating hits, because he was focusing on one very specific thing. The guns in his hands were exact replicas of his signature weapon, save for one thing: instead of plasma, they were set to fire paintballs.

The fight in the reactor control room could've gotten much uglier, and he was still inwardly amazed that it hadn't. Close quarters, sensitive equipment, a lot of people, and bullets flying were generally a recipe for disaster. And the Ohm they'd faced had been quick enough to dodge most of the shots. Axl was an excellent shot, but had he been firing, he was sure he'd have had at least a few misses. Another scenario like that could easily head south in a hurry -- which was reason enough to sharpen his aim. If the Ohm could move that fast, he'd have to get the hang of hitting them even faster.

The scenario he'd set up for was based off one of the Hunter training sims. Thirty waves of automated targets; though the first ones weren't too difficult to hit, each wave moved faster and more erratically than the last, and by round thirty their movements were notoriously difficult to follow, even with a reploid's superhuman senses and reflexes. The targets were harmless; they didn't shoot back (yet; he'd work on that later), and were programmed to remove themselves as soon as they took a hit.

And as for the paintballs...well, every miss would stand out horribly on that white ceiling, and he'd know exactly how much work he had ahead of him.

Everything was set, just waiting for the starting signal. Axl stood in the center of the room, arms hanging at his sides, eyes closed. Focus. Nothing but the targets.

The signal came, the same computerized voice that kicked off every sim he'd run back with the Hunters. "READY!"

His eyes snapped open, his guns snapped up, and the paintballs started flying.


(OOC: Anyone walking into the Sensoriums runs a high risk of getting virtual paint all over them, because those targets aren't set to stay away from the door. :|b )