Punishment [Warning: Graphic Imagery]

[cityship]

As the ship was going about its normal business of the day, everything is interrupted when Stacy broadcasts a message to the crew.

||Attention, crew. Your crew mate, Big Zero, has acquired 15 Violations. Therefore, she will now be given Punishment. According to the guidelines in place for Punishment, you are hereby requested to report to the Observation Deck to view the procedure. Though it is not mandatory, it is suggested you attend anyway.||

||It will serve as a reminder that there are consequences to breaking the rules.||

For those brave souls who decide to attend, they'd find Big Zero strung up, dangling from the ceiling of the Obs Deck by her hands, surrounded by a spherical force field.

It was to prevent anyone from...interfering.

[ooc: Warning, this post will contain some rather graphic imagery. Obviously, you don't have to participate in this thread if you don't want to. If your character would ICly go but you personally don't want to know all the nasty details, ping one of the mods and we'll give you the watered down version for your pup to work with.]

Comments

The Audience

[cityship]

Those brave souls who decide to show up make their way in, shuffling around the room to get a view of what's about to happen.

Re: The Audience

[morphitudinous]

Billy had followed Big Zero and Stacy out of the laboratory after a quick putting-away of the projects, cupping his face all the while.

He'd figured most people would head to the Obs Deck, thus he waited there, eyes locked on the force field. His resistance had caused this. It was his responsibility to watch, but it was about to get a lot more horrific than he could ever imagine...

Could he break a record in assuming guilt for bad things happening today?

[bluebrassmonkey.livejournal.com]

Some things in this Multiverse are as close to constants as one could get -- Pi is Pi, black holes don't let anything go and Renne Arc'err is rarely far from his Bondeds' sides.

Having encountered the Neo-Nazi twice now, Renne's opinion had been solidified after one thing: The little cil'a h-chai had crossed a line, threatening Billy. It hadn't mattered what Renne had been doing at the time; he'd put everything down and raced to find the Human.

And then the announcement.

Now at the Obs Deck, the anomaly gives a chirp, still determined to find his Bee.

"Bee?"

Re: The Audience

[itsaboutaction.livejournal.com]

Superman heard the announcement and his blood ran cold. He heard about the Punishment being used as a threat. He didn't expect it to be actually carried out.

"What's going on here? What--" Superman began to say before he saw Big Zero being held up, a small gathering of crewmembers around. "What's the meaning of this?!"

[gunslinging.livejournal.com]

Axl hadn't dealt with Big Zero much, so he wasn't inclined to feel all that concerned about this either way. Fifteen strikes was an awful lot of warning that she might want to watch herself, wasn't it? Not like he was the poster boy for staying out of trouble, but if you kept getting caught like that, you were kind of asking for it, weren't you?

But there was still something unsettling about the whole thing. Stacy's Warden-mode was kind of creepy like that. And the fact that nobody knew what this involved wasn't exactly helping.

It was usually a good idea to know what was going on, so he made his way to the Obs Deck and picked a corner to hang out in. This wasn't exactly his idea of good daytime programming. But he'd learned long ago that what you want to see and what you need to see didn't have much to do with each other.

Re: The Audience

[governorkang]

Kang was not surprised to hear that BZ had gotten that many violations so soon. As one of the council members, he felt that it was his duty to be present, and honestly, he was a bit curious as to what Punishment was. He'd seen (and done) a lot of bad things, but the sight of the woman strung up like that made him a little uneasy; while he wouldn't have been bothered one bit if she were to die, he'd never been a fan of torture.

[voiceofserenity.livejournal.com]

As much as Kaylee wanted to avoid the situation entirely, she couldn't really leave Billy to face it alone. She'd had her own hand in at least one of the violations, and that wasn't something to be ignored either. Before she had even arrived on the Observation Deck she had felt nervously sick, but the sight of the woman suspended from the ceiling by her arms brought on a whole new wave of nausea. The mechanic made her way slowly to Kang, and looped a shaky arm through his.

Re: The Audience

[waylostandfound.livejournal.com]

Nathan flew in, and stared up. He knew about Punishment, the Damocles sword that hung over all of their heads, but no one had got that far. Not even close.

Until now. And as Commander, he knew he had to be present for this. Still it was disquieting to be reminded who was still running the ship in truth.

"What the hell? Is this really necessary?"

Re: The Audience

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Zetta had shown up, expecting to get a cheap laugh out of the whole affair.

...turns out he was wrong.

Re: The Audience

[dared-to-love.livejournal.com]

Ophelia came not out of curiosity, but in obedience to the commanding voice. And the Obs Deck was one of the few places that she knew how to find in this massive place, anyhow. When she arrived, however, she wished she hadn't.

"What's going on? What are they doing to her?"

Re: The Audience

[ruffntumblenut.livejournal.com]

Ruffnut had joined the party of coarse. A near masochist like Ruffnut would love this sort of blood sport right?

By the time it was over she was barely standing. She shuffled away in a haze.

Re: The Audience

[sanguineroyal.livejournal.com]

"You seem very... Solemn. It is not often to see you as such."

She was still a little mashed up inside, but clearly she was doing far better than she had been the last time Zetta had seen her.

She had shown up to get an idea of the things that might be in store for her if she wasn't careful about her actions. Finally she'd have an idea of what she might face.

Re: The Audience

[killsfengshui.livejournal.com]

Mei-Xing arrives almost as soon as it's announced, a bit of fruit in one hand. She finishes it as Stacy does her work, then stands up, giving a sardonic little golf clap as the AI finishes. "Not quite in the top ten, but I'll give you an A for effort."

She turns to leave, tossing a wave over her shoulder.

Re: The Audience

[bonnypiperlad]

It had been a long time since Jamie had thought about Punishment. Oh, sure, the idea of it was there in the back of his mind, and he knew that it wasn't anything good, but he figured that the crew was aware enough of it that it would never come to pass. Billy's message and Stacy's announcement had been rather like someone throwing a bucket of cold water over him, shocking him back into the awareness that it was a very real threat.

By the time he got to the obs deck there were enough of the crew there that he found himself off to one side, trying to look for Billy and the others while also trying not to look at the woman suspended from the ceiling. It was rather difficult to avoid.

"Och, I've got a bad feeling about this."

Re: The Audience

[morphitudinous]

"Bad doesn't begin to describe it," Billy piped up, eying the 'stage' with apprehension. Surely this was excessive.

What had he gotten her into? And when this was over, wouldn't she try to kill him?

Re: The Audience

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

Punishment?

Jr. didn't like the sound of that ... but at the same time, so much about Stacy was still a mystery to him. They were saved by her, woken up and now destined to fight the beings that destroyed their world. Two thoughts ran through Jr.'s mind; did Stacy know what sort of people she saved? Was she aware that there would be those who would cause enough trouble to get to this point? He didn't think so, even though by his own world's standard their current situation was pretty unreal as it was. But why would those on Stacy choose to do things that deter their goals? That was a little less surprising to Jr. ... after all, he'd had his fair share of encounters and experiences with those who wound up causing chaos and pain.

He stood silent, looking very in thought as he waited for it to begin. The sight he was greeted with wasn't a very promising one...

[alterniantaurus.livejournal.com]

Unbeknownst to these two, but knownst to their muns, Tavros had been thinking much the same thing. Why would the ship save someone if they were only going to wreak havoc? Was this going to be a regular thing? If this ship judged them by human standards and his other friends arrived, would they incur unfair penalties just for being trolls? He didn't know Big Zero or even much about her, but he guessed she had to be bad news if she was facing the mysterious Punishment.

And, okay, he was curious.

Tavros murmured an absentminded apology as he nearly bumped into the redhead with his wheelchair.

[behaemmert.livejournal.com]

"What...is this?!" Vita blurted out as she saw the torture taking place. She had expected some sort of punishment, true, but that?
"This is completely absurd..."

She wasn't against punishment or anything, in general terms, but this...?

Re: The Audience

[sonofether.livejournal.com]

It wasn't as if Stephen was enjoying this, but he'd certainly heard of Big Zero. Choosing the path of wisdom, he'd done his best to avoid her.

What Billy didn't know was there for the grace of whatever one chose to worship, there he went.

Brows furrowed, he bore silent witness. It both did and didn't make an impression--after all, Stephen had seen his best friend tortured. Worse, by people who were supposed to be on their side.

He supposed there were parallels here. Stacy was supposed to be on their side, right?

The difference was, he felt, Big Zero definitely deserved this, where Morgan Knight hadn't deserved what the Hermetics had done to him.

Re: The Audience

[notadamnangel.livejournal.com]

Dean warily stepped in, uneasy about being here. He heard of her, and yeah she sounded annoying. But being trussed up like this, he had a really bad feeling in his gut.

Re: The Audience

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna watched the Punishment, his expression a small scowl. He didn't rage or take action, though. However, he looked through the crowd, looking at the reactions of others, but focused on one person in particular...

Re: The Audience /way late

[hack-rat.livejournal.com]

Alex didn't know what to expect. He didn't really want to go, but at the same time, he wanted to have some idea what the ship was capable of.

Seeing the strange woman tied up like that though... He knew what was going to come next was going to be too much. Between the uneasy shadows in the audience, and what would definitely become an even larger shadow around Big Zero he began backing up slowly.

He needed to get out of there.

Re: The Audience

[lol-fireishot.livejournal.com]

Pyro brought a beer.

If anyone had ever mentioned Punishment to him, he had forgotten about it, and he had most certainly forgotten any serious tone it may have been discussed with. He wasn't sure what to expect, aside from maybe some public humiliation (why else would Stacy want an audience?) and that whatever it was, it was gon' be goooood.

The Punishment

[cityship]

It was about time to begin.

More tendrils appear, grabbing her wrists and ankles, tugging in four directions to make her particularly uncomfortable.

||Do you have anything to say before we begin?|| Stacy said to Big Zero coldly.

[downloadtruth.livejournal.com]

When Big Zero heard about Punishment she'd expected a harder slap or something. Getting dragged up here? Getting strung up? Hearing Stacy's normally warm voice turn cold?

Her arms were aching, there was a sharp pain in the joints of her arms and shoulders from the pressure. It quickly became clear that she was in big trouble.

"Are- are you gonna kill me?" She could barely whisper. Her mouth had gone dry.