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Entry tags:
- !location: pod caverns,
- !plot: pod release,
- aibghalien marsai,
- alistair,
- arhu,
- chris redfield,
- cinque nakajima,
- duo maxwell,
- dustin brooks,
- elisa maza,
- eva,
- gaignun kukai jr./rubedo,
- hal "otacon" emmerich,
- hit girl,
- james,
- john-117,
- jomy marquis shin,
- lacus clyne,
- namira amell,
- nunnally vi britannia,
- phillip,
- ren akiyama,
- setsuna f. seiei,
- spider-man (older),
- tavros nitram,
- tieria erde,
- vislor turlough,
- volstagg,
- wash,
- wheeljack,
- yve cousland,
- zhiai'kahn ahl
Podpop
[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.
||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:
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 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.
no subject
Nowhere did it compute she attends her first day of school, then she's zipped onto a strange place, shoved into a pod of alien slime. She could hardly breathe, and she wasn't even sure where she was, so there was only one thing to do in this situation.
She broke from the pod with a fury hardly known to be possessed by ten year old girls, her eyes wild with fear and bewilderment. This was definitely too much and she wasn't sure where to turn. How could anyone get to her without her knowing? She would have known if she were being sought after, her senses hadn't gotten that dull! Her face moved from right to left, and that was enough time to realize that she was far, FAR from anything that she knew in her world.
And then Stacy, THE SHIP, started talking to her.
"No fucking way," she said shaking her head. "This sounds like something out of a geeks wet dream. A CRAPPY wet dream. What, I'm just supposed to believe I was brought here because I'm so awesome I was spared to be in some kind of save the universe scenario? I mean I'm only ten! What the fuck am I supposed to do?"
Unless this Stacy knew who she was? And even if she did, she could kick some ass, yeah, but alien ass? that was a whole different story. The idea of being gone from her world was a kick in the stomach enough. She was supposed to be starting over, acting like a regular girl and all of that. She'd done what she needed to do as hit girl, and it hadn't come without a price: daddy was gone. So now she was here, only days after all of that, trying to sell her some cock and bull story about aliens that obliterated worlds. This was just insanity.
But she'd play it cool for now. She did not like the atmosphere of this pod place and she really didn't like being naked. She'd have to get more concrete answers before she could figure out what was what.
no subject
And then she's here. Before the panic takes over, she tries to assess. Naked, but covered in enough slime and gunk to somewhat approach modesty, oddly enough. Smelling putrid, but she lived in a Hork-Bajir refugee camp and had her face shoved in Yeerk Pools, so this is nothing she cann't handle. But the disorientation and confusion - well, that'll take a minute to work out. She just was having dinner, in San Diego, California, on Planet Earth, in her own solar system, and now...God only knows.
|| You are here. || she hears, and instinct kicks in. She's used to thought-speak, but thought-speak on top of being suddenly yanked from a meal and placed in a totally new situation brings up old fears. She stretches her arms, clenches her teeth, cracks her fingers, does twenty little tiny motions to prove to herself that the voice in her head is external, and she's not been infested by another Yeerk. Once satisfied that she's not a slave again, out loud, she mutters, "as a word, 'here' doesn't mean all that much unless you explain where 'here' is, you know."
She follows the lights on the floor and recoils a bit as the strange vines dress her, but as a whole she's doing a pretty good job keeping the panic to a minimum. Years of warfare and slavery can do that to a person. Stacy fills her in on some bull about being Chosen to save worlds and be the champion of life or something to that effect. Eva's none too pleased; she and her family have done enough to save the world lately, and all it's brought them in the last year is grief and anger. But she doesn't argue with this strange, slime-covered half-sister to HAL, and instead surveys her surroundings.
She sees a little girl, maybe ten or eleven years old, nearby, and while Eva's no stranger to the danger children can possess, the kid's probably less likely to be a threat than anyone else here. Not that that guarantees anything - when her son was thirteen he fought a war. Eva smears the gunk in her hair down over her face, plastering herself with a mask of hair and slime. No need to make herself easy to recognize. "You, kid. Little girl. What's happening here? Do you know where we are? Besides 'here', because Stacy already filled me in on that little detail."
no subject
"A ship, I guess," she replied, her voice sounding small. "I don't even know how we got here though. Something about fighting an alien species called the Ohm. I'm still trying to get all of this slime off me. What's going to happen to us now? Where are my clothes? And why pick us? I don't understand. I want to go home!"
Yeah, that was the typical ten year old reaction, right? Whining about stupid discomfort. The REAL questions were the ones that Mindy knew wouldn't be answered by someone just out of these disgusting pods. THose she'd have to get by moving out of this humid place.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
no subject
And naked. And no wallet anywhere near him, Mom was going to flip whenever he told her...
And then he realized that this place wasn't anywhere that could possibly exist anywhere. What the hell was going on?
He looked around, seeing a few people near him... one looked like a woman and the other was a little girl.
He was about to ask them what was going on when he heard a voice in his head... and now he was just standing there and staring.
no subject
She turns and sees someone watching them. He looks about her son's age. "Is there a problem, young man? Besides the obvious nudity and gunk? And would you happen to have even a clue where we are?"
no subject
And there was a boy here too...the same age as Dave even. Making sure to concentrate on his face and not make him feel too out of it, she touched his arm lightly.
"He looks like he just got here, and I guess the computer lady is talking to him now."
no subject
no subject
...Peter. Oh no, what if she's dead? What if she'd just vanished? Is her depressed husband still sitting there are the dinner table, wondering where his last family member's gone off to? Is he sitting in a hospital waiting room while she conjures up slime-pods and dressing vines in an anesthetic-induced hallucination on an operating table?
Eva feels the panic building up in her and takes a deep, stinking breath and closes her eyes for a second. When she opens them, she's stern again. She motions towards the vines. "Those things'll dress you. It's creepy, but what isn't about this place? It feels like the whole place is alive, like we're inside some monster's nose or something. And I'm guessing we need to follow these lights if we're going to find out more."
She pauses, looks at the little girl and the young man. "Unless it's a trap," she adds with mocking cheerfulness. "What are your names, by the way?"
no subject
She sighed, looking unsure of herself (she wasn't). "My name is Mindy, Mindy Macready. Who are you two?"
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Eva casts a sideways glance at Mindy. "Considering the temperature and smells in the air"? Definitely not an average child. But possibly just a precocious, observant one. No need to go getting herself psyched up about enemies that don't exist. Andy appears harmless, but it always does well to remember that looks could be deceiving. For an instant, it makes her sad that this is how she views children and people as young as her son. Paranoia has served her well, but it's never a pleasant feeling.
Eva considers giving them a fake name, or telling them that they don't need to know hers, but that would look pretty deeply suspicious and you never want to start up an unnecessary lie, because those get difficult to remember. "I'm Eva. From California."
no subject
"I don't think any of us new people know how big it is," Mindy said. "But it just feels like its alive, doesn't it? I'm not saying it makes any sense, or why anyone would put us on an alive ship but what else would explain it talking in our heads and stuff?"
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She'll also be watching Mindy from a distance until the reach the meet-and-greet, partially because she thinks she's hiding something and partially because a ten year-old could probably use someone watching out for her.
no subject
She paused at hearing what Eva said, and gave her a grin. "Wizard of Oz. Nice."
no subject
And with that, he started walking forward towards the lights.