cityship: (Default)
cityship ([personal profile] cityship) wrote in [community profile] trans_92011-01-01 02:54 pm

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.

[identity profile] myboggartismoon.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Choosing not to challenge this, despite all evidence -- if the ship was, in truth, a ship, is it not always around? -- he simply nodded. "What, then, should we do now?"

[identity profile] helipack-jack.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 08:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"Follow the lights, get a uniform. Fair warning, it's like it would kill the people who designed this tub to have a fashion sense."

He took his own advice almost immediately, setting off along the trail of lights without a backward glance. He either assumed that the stranger would follow, or didn't care.

"Who are you, anyway?" he asked, still without looking back. Assuming the guy would follow, then.

[identity profile] myboggartismoon.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
He followed, his right hand cupped at his waist. Even lacking his wand he was not completely defenseless, but to react hostilely to anything at this point could be most unfortunate...

"Remus Lupin, Pr--" He stopped, and gave a wan, tired smile that nonetheless held warmth in it. "Former professor, now. I wonder if I am allowed to keep the title."

[identity profile] helipack-jack.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
"Hey, I won't judge. It's not like anybody here probably knows," said Jack.

"Me? I'm Jack Spicer. Evil boy genius. Before this I was working on world domination, but now I'm on the engineering staff. I need to go hunt down Cranston and Gentry about it and see if it fell apart without me there to hold it all together."

Jack had, of course, something of an inflated opinion of his importance to the department.

The floor under their feet began to slope upward, twisting around the central spire as they approached the clothing room. Thousands upon thousands of pods were visible hanging in the gloomy dimness of the cavern, but Jack ignored them. He'd seen this before, yadda yadda. But mostly, he just didn't like looking at them because they sort of creeped him out.

[identity profile] myboggartismoon.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 09:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Evil boy genius? World domination? A certain amount of tension went into his spine and shoulders, but beyond that and a certain intensity in his eyes, the wizard betrayed little of his true thoughts. What manner of ship was this, to bring aboard those self-avowed followers of the Dark Arts?

And yet, was it not true that few such followers, few of the truly evil, believed themselves such? Perhaps there was more afoot here than he knew. Well, if necessary, he could always pretend to those ways himself, to gather information -- much as he despised it.

"Could you perhaps tell me... Well, anything."

[identity profile] helipack-jack.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"Weellll," said Jack, thoughtfully. Really, besides his own declaration of evil, he seemed like any other teenager. Probably about fifteen years old or so. He was scrawny, starting to get gawky in the limbs, and sure he knew everything.

"I'm not actually sure. Cause I might've been out of it for a while. But we're on a space ship and our worlds are gone. So, we have to fight some naaaasty space bugs in order to stop them from tearing the universe apart and maybe get our worlds back." He wiggled his fingers in the air at "nasty space bugs", contempt clear.

"Which, you know, I kinda wanna do because without a world I don't have anything to take over. But first, clothes."

He peered around the corner into the clothing room, the vines at the top swayed gently in a nonexistent breeze in their usual, faintly ominous manner.

||Please go to the center of the room to be clothed.|| Stacy's voice chimed in.

Jack bowed facetiously to Lupin like a bellboy. "You first, Professor."

[identity profile] myboggartismoon.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
He felt rather certain of a trick or trap, all things considered -- one didn't survive a year amongst reckless, feckless wizarding youth without a little common sense. So it was that when he stepped into the vines, and found himself cleaned and garbed, he did not let out a shout of surprise. Jack might be well-pleased to see Lupin looking particularly disconcerted and uncomfortable, at the end of the process.

"There must be a better way to do that," he said, half to himself, as he examined the suit in which he had been clothed hesitantly.

[identity profile] helipack-jack.livejournal.com 2011-01-01 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Jack took the vines like a champ, knowing what to expect. He still scowled and grumped through it, though, because he honestly had to agree.

"Yeah, but nobody can convince her of that. C'mon, we'll head up to weapons and possessions and then the observation deck. Everyone mills around like a bunch of cows up there after a pod release, and I got people to find," he said as he stretched a bit, feeling the familiar heft and suppleness of the pod suit.

[identity profile] myboggartismoon.livejournal.com 2011-01-02 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
"Weapons and possessions?" Lupin's heart lightened at the thought that his wand might not be lost to him. He had no doubt that he could handle any challenge he met with it back in his hands. "Which way?"

[identity profile] helipack-jack.livejournal.com 2011-01-10 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yup, c'mon. I'll show ya. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll find my coat."

Unlikely, but he still wasn't going to give up on that.

Jack led the way to the transport tube that would send them speeding on their way.

[identity profile] myboggartismoon.livejournal.com 2011-01-10 08:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"Lucky? There is an element of luck in getting one's things back?"

Just as his heart had lightened, so it sank once again. He had no illusions of the measure of luck allotted to him in life.