trans_9 | Once You Pop, The Fun Don't Stop!

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Once You Pop, The Fun Don't Stop!

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]

||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

There was nothing. You were going about your normal life, then there was a bright light, and then? Nothing.

Then the world lurches.

The chamber here is humid.

Actually, "chamber" isn't quite accurate. You're in a cavern, half-lit by an eerie greenish light, going on and on as far as the eye can see. The light is coming from what can only be described as pods, glistening, round greenish-yellow things, glowing with a pale inner light, outlining human -- and not quite human -- forms. Each is rooted to the floor, to the walls, with something black, twisted, and unidentifiable.

They line the walls of the cavern, go up in maddeningly high columns, curling and corkscrewing up into the darkness, until the light from them is like that of the stars, glowing pale and mournful in clusters in the darkness above. Twisted walkways and stairs crisscross, traverse the platforms in front of the pods, wending their way back and forth, up and down through the chamber.

You just came from one of those pods, broke free like a butterfly from a (slimy, nasty) chrysalis.

Now you stand alone but not quite alone, naked, not knowing how you got there, who took you, or why you were taken.

As your body heats up again, you realize the air is warm -- just a few degrees too warm to be comfortable -- and muggy; it smells acrid and organic, like freshly spilt blood and sweat. Your mouth tastes of salt.

The floors are pulsing under your feet, throbbing...

Wherever you are, this entire place...is alive.

Oh, and also you're naked and covered in alien snot.

When you call out, ask where you are, a voice speaks to you, in your head. She tells you:

||You are here.||

When you ask who she is, she tells you that her name is STA'C K'LTRRB'TXFT, but that you may call her Stacy. When she tells you who she is, there is a gush of emotion, love, maternal warmth. You are on a ship. She is that ship. Her name is Stacy and she loves you. Her voice is warm and motherly, even if these messages sound almost automated.

Glowing phosphorescent lights appear in pustules along the floor. They lead you up a massive spiraling walkway that gives you a view of what are possibly millions in stasis. At the top is a room with moving vines that clean you and clothe you in a plant-like body-suit--soft, but durable. After that, the lights lead you to a great cavernous room with a clear floor that lets you see all the holes and tunnels in the walls of it. When you reach the center, the last thing she tells you before whisking you away to gather your belongings and meet the rest of the crew is this reassuring thought:

||You have been Chosen to accomplish a Great Purpose. You have been Chosen to help fight the Ohm, a race of insectoid beings that are the destroyers of worlds.||

||You have been Chosen as champions of life, as protectors of the worlds and peoples that are left. The others are waiting for you. They will explain everything.||

She will tell you nothing more. Your answers lie with these "others" she speaks of.

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He crouches down with the actives, close enough to be heard and far enough to avoid potential touching. No naked touching, please. "Look, guys, I know it's scary. But if you could just follow me and worry about the paint later, we can make it less scary. Maybe we can find even better paints." He's really hoping that his bad lies will fool at least a pair of actives. The fake cheer is way less easy to maintain here.

It's all Topher can do to not scurry up to Echo and clutch her to him gratefully when he hears her voice. "Oh thank God you're-" there are flailing hands and pointy fingers here to demonstrate his thought, "You. And not bison you. Which really shouldn't be surprising but all the same, it's fascinating."

Topher stands again and approaches Echo, suddenly second guessing himself. "They're in tabula rasa. This isn't good, we need to get them somewhere not so Forbidden Planet."

"See. Better paints," Victor tells Sierra totally buying the fake cheer and calm that Topher is offering. He looks up when Echo approaches them and smiles.

"Echo. We're going to get Sierra better paints. You can come with us if you'd like."

The naked doesn't really bother Victor. It's not something he thinks about either way except that Topher is naked and Topher never takes showers with them. "Topher, we should not be walking around without our clothes on unless we're going to the showers. I would like a shower and then a treatment."

The naked doesn't really bother Sierra either. Naked happens... in groups even! She only half buys Topher's lie, but it's solidified when Victor buys it. His belief is infectious.

Slowly she gets to her feet next to Victor. She smiles at Echo and nods. "Yes. Would you like to find better paints with us?"

Not Priya and Tony. Sierra and Victor. Echo frowned at Topher, not really sure how to respond to that. They shouldn't be back in tabula rasa. They'd been restored to their original personas.

"I'm not really sure that's gonna happen," she said quietly to Topher, looking around the massive cavern for emphasis. The place was huge, and unless it was a gross fleshy psychic womb attached to a nice happy spa, this was just going to be a monumentally stressful situation. "We'll see where the lights take us, though."

She turned her attention back to Sierra and Victor, smiling at both of them gently. She'd always looked out for them, and that wouldn't change, despite weird new situation.

"Okay. Let's see what kind of paint we can find."

Topher just gives Echo an over dramatic shoulder shrug and a completely bewildered look. "They were moving along okay until the paint debacle." He sighs at her quiet comment, mostly because he agrees. He just doesn't want to think about that. He is interested, however, in getting to whatever destination there is. Maybe they could find the others.

"Sure, we'll get you a nice set of acrylics, maybe you can paint some angels on the skin ceiling." He can't help it; snarking makes Topher feel better. He waves them ahead, along the pathway and toward the staircase. It may have been a relief to have Echo in full presence, but it didn't make sense. The others reverting would make sense if it had applied to all of the actives. The selective wiping however threw a monkey, or really more like an ape wrench into his short-lived theory.

Victor slides his hand over Sierra's shoulders and down her arm to hold her hand again as they walk. "That would be nice if you painted angels on the ceiling. It would be pretty." The whole skin ceiling thing is just lost on him. As most of Topher's snark was when he was like this.

Victor smiles at Echo again. "I'm glad you found us. I wouldn't want you to get lost." Echo's arrival and his trust in Topher have him reasonably calm on the surface. Underneath he's still nervous about the squishy floor and nude-without-being-in-the-showers thing. Not to mention they're in a new place.

"I don't think I like this place. Are we going home?"

Snark? What's that? Sierra looks thankfully at all three, Topher, Echo and Victor. So maybe her paint problem was a cover for the bigger problem here. But her brain couldn't handle the bigger problem yet. So she focuses on paint... or the lack thereof.

The good side is that Victor's arm around her feels safe and right. And also, she has people here that she knows. Good sides are good.

She looks up to the ceiling, studying it as they walk again. "Yes, someone forgot to paint it. I can do that."

Echo automatically took point, moving out ahead of the others. If something attacked, she could intercept it before it reached the other three. She was also on the lookout for the others. Her mind was a constant cycle of worrying and trying to figure out what and why this was happening to them. Hopefully the answers lay ahead.

She glanced over her shoulder at Victor's question, forcing a slight smile.

"We'll find our way out of this, Victor. Don't worry."

Yeah, yeah, everything'll be fine. Topher waits until the three of them progress up the stairs before bringing in the caboose. He's worried; even if they do find a safer place that would reduce the stress on Sierra and Victor, he can't guarantee that he can make them any better.

Not without some of his tech, a disruptor at least. Resetting them if they somehow composite and pull an Alpha's more important than being able to make them into assistants to figure this all out. It'd also be nice to have Adele hiding in the shadows somewhere.

Yeah Victor dials into the wrong personality during a stress fit and things won't be funny if Topher can't fix him. Sierra generally has 'good' personalities floating around inside her head at least.

"Everything will be alright now that you're here."

Okay so normally he doesn't say that to Topher and Echo. He says it to Selena but she's not here right now. Topher and Echo are. It makes him feel better to say it; safer.

Sierra is glad hat Echo takes the lead. She knows that it's safe to follow her and does so now easily and willingly. She's walking with her head canted back to look up at the ceiling and trusting that Victor's hold on her won't steer her in the wrong direction.

"Do you think the ceiling is as soft as the floor?"

Because of course it's vital that she knows this right now.

Echo let her attention focus ahead of them, letting Victor and Sierra do their doll thing. She had to focus on the here and now, and while that did include making sure that Victor and Sierra weren't upset, she knew her attention didn't need to be solely on them, for the moment. They were strong people, as they'd proven themselves, and even in their doll states she trusted Priya and Tony to still shine through.

Her attention did drift somewhat, curiosity tugging at the back of her mind about the pods. There were obviously people in them, but not everything they passed by looked human. Every rational being in her mind was brushing it off as ridiculous, but she had a few personalities who indulged in science fiction.

Her wondering was cut short when they came to the eventual exit, and she held up a hand in a silent gesture to pull up a halt.

"Now what did I say about probes, Stace?" she muttered under her breath, eying the moving vines dubiously.

In his own head, Topher is oblivious to his surroundings. He almost talks to himself manically though it's quiet enough that one probably can't make it out. Numbers fly through his head and he tries to apply something he knows to what they're walking through. Perform the observation, prove quantum-mechanical tunneling or maybe 10(^10¹¹⁵) just isn't enough.

Not a big plant guy to begin with, Topher just stops himself short of pointing at the vines and protesting very loudly and vehemently. He claps his hand over his mouth instead, hoping that Victor and Sierra don't see him. Then he looks behind them at the staircase, around them at the pods and again finally at the vine room.

"Well, at least it's not Audrey II?" He says weakly. To him, it doesn't seem all that threatening and logically, they could have just been experimented on while in their comas in the pods. He looks to Echo and then the others and throws his hands up in the air. "I don't know that we have a choice, guys."

Topher's reaction makes Victor narrow his eyes. Even the equivalent to a five year old knows that something is wrong here. He lets go of Sierra's hand, giving her a small smile and holding his hand up in a wait signal before he moves over toward Topher. When he speaks it's in a lower voice.

"We should go first. Make sure it's okay for the girls." He says the words in his version of a firm voice. Which is a little like a serious five year old with excellent articulation.

Priya stares at the door. Every instinct inside of her is telling her to turn around and run back in the direction she came from. Especially now that Victor has let go of her. surely the further she ran she would eventually find the dollhouse... home... she thinks.

Doll logic is not always so logical. She looks up to Echo, her head tilted curiously. "This is wrong. It's all wrong, isn't it?"

"Really not thinking this is much of an improvement, Topher." Just because you can't see a mouth doesn't mean that's not where those tentacles might lead. Echo was about to move forward to find out just what the vine business entailed when she overheard Victor, and she looked back, a thoughtful expression crossing her face.

"Far as I can tell, this place doesn't want to hurt us." Granted, the projected feelings of maternal warmth was hardly convincing to Echo. Considering all the programming Topher did to insert just such feelings into the Dolls, she was a little dubious on the possible sincerity of it. Still, she was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, for the moment, and she moved back to slide an arm around Sierra.

"It's a little unusual," she admitted, her eyes moving around the room again. "But it'll all be okay, as long as we stick together."

He leans away from Victor a little because whoa let's not get that close. Topher gives Victor a sarcastic smile and nod before sighing at Sierra's very astute observation and Echo's statement. Talk about overwhelming. "No, I agree with you there. But-- look, we need more information. Back there? Not so much with the exposition."

With that, he steps forward, expecting Victor in all his chauvinistic glory to accompany him. "Just, stay close-- not that close, but you know. Arm's length or whatever."

The vines begin their work on him, and Topher is standing, stock still and scared out of his hair that this is going to all go horribly terribly wrong. All the while he's hoping that this acting against his own nature might be enough to wake him up out of the nightmare he's really hoping he is having.

He's not chauvin--okay. He kind of is. Sometimes but he means it in the best way possible. He steps forward just behind Topher, not quite an arm's length but not close enough to make Topher really uncomfortable.

When the vines start working on him, Victor's eyes go wide and a little panicked. He looks to Topher and tries not to flail his hands like an over excited teenage girl.

"Topher...Topher!"

He's not panicking because it hurts or because it's harming him. Really the vines kind of tickle but they're so foreign and unfamiliar, he can't help it. Especially when paired with everything else that's happening that he doesn't understand.

Edited 2010-02-03 18:54 (UTC)

Sierra settles in next to Echo. Echo's her friend. And right now, Echo seems very strong. Sierra draws from that strength to keep her grounded and not panicky.

But then... vines. She gasps in a breath and reaches out to grab at Topher or Victor... pick one. She's just trying to get a limb. "Echo, they're leaving us here alone!"

Echo was watching the scene like a hawk, making sure that if something happened that she wasn't okay with she'd be there to stop it. That's why she didn't seem panicked where the others were. She was assessing and processing the situation, and the second the vines took hold of Topher and Victor she could see what it was doing.

"No, no it's okay," Echo moved after Sierra, her voice calm while she watched the vines move with a slightly furrowed brow. "It's not taking them anywhere, it's cleaning the goop off."

Topher's using the smile that he reserves for his more uncomfortable situations; meeting intimidating new people, standing in line anywhere and oh yeah-- getting caressed by freaking vines! When he realizes that the soft material is actually a garment that he's supposed to wear, he's cooperating fully. "Finally! A little privacy, geez."

He looks back to Echo and Sierra hopefully, now genuinely a little more at ease. "She's right, Sierra. It's all right. You'll feel better once you're cleaned up."

Victor's panic turns to laughter when the vines do tickle and he realizes he's being dressed.

"New clothes. We get new clothes," he calls out to Sierra.

And his hair? A total 'just got out of bed' wreck but he's happy with it.

Sierra flinches back the moment a vine reaches for her. But there are too many of them to avoid. She shuts her eyes shut tight, standing her ground. And for the first time she seems aware of her condition, almost ashamed as she's touched. Her arms curl up against her chest until the mess is cleaned off.

And still she doesn't open her eyes as she's dressed. But a few tears do escape, slipping out of the corners of her eyes. For someone with her past, this is the most traumatizing part so far.

Echo made a face while the vines cleaned and clothed her, enduring but not exactly enjoying it. She looked down at the outfit once she was clothed and the vines had retracted, arching an eyebrow. She had worn a lot of weird stuff during her time with the Dollhouse, but this was going to be ranking up there.

"Is this thing breathing?" She muttered, before looking up at the others, and noticing Sierra's distress.

"Sierra, it's okay," she said again, moving towards the other woman. It struck her that she knew what was wrong, Susan was a very helpful personality to have, when dealing with victims of sexual abuse. And Echo knew that was one of many things that had never been wiped away. "You're safe."

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Once You Pop, The Fun Don't Stop!

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