Is Your Love Strong Enough? Part 3 - Impersonal Interwoven Soulcatchers

[cityship]

This still was not enough.

Sadness and depression continued, and now confusion had entered the mix. Nezaitben grew desperate that night, for the need was too great and the souls of those in the pods could not be taken. That could possibly kill them. But she still needed more followers.

There was, she thought, no other choice but to allow fate to pick for her.

That night, or what passed as a night for in the ship, Nezaitben took to the 'sky' once again, this time passing over everything she could, sending even more of her own essence fall on top of the sleeping populace, or those that were not sleeping finding themselves feeling the need too. Enveloping the ship into a peaceful slumber for a second day, she searched their dreams. The dreamcatchers of those who did not have connections were harder to weave together but it was still a skill she could do, and carefully, she did.

New empty husks of the bodies that weren't being used showed up at her palace, making the mass somewhat larger. With a heavy sigh, she began to dress them up, hoping this would be enough.

That morning, some of the crewmen would wake up to a strange surprise...and this time it wasn't just because their souls fit. In fact it was much worse, considering.

Beward of young, naive gods bearing gifts.

[OOC - Just a few rules. Keep in mind the listed rules. You can all start your own threads of waking up in the bodies of others. If you feel like leaving a 2nd post for other people to intact with them, start a reply to your own first post with OPEN header. That way everyone else will know where to post and if you don't feel like having an open interaction post right away, you won't have to!

There will also be another post for all the soulless characters to go around spreading joy and love, so look forward to that too!]

Comments

Rein Eins and Sayaka

[herblessedwind.livejournal.com]

Reinforce did not often sleep. The power of the tome, the long-ago alterations to its function, both had served to make her less human than, say, her sister; in the vast sea of information and magic in which her consciousness rested there was too much chaos to order with simple rest, and the strength of her body was maintained by the same spells that had created it, with no need for periods of recuperation.

But sometimes, still, she became lost in herself. The old lingering corruption, the weaknesses and flaws exacerbated by the excision of the defense program, made such things possible on occasion, but more often now she retreated into the warm darkness of the Book, away from her senses, for the same reason a human might seek sleep without physical need for it - simple escape from thought, when it had turned against itself and become a burden.

This night had been one of those times, but if she expected only to awaken refreshed she was in for a bit of a surprise.

Re: Rein Eins and Sayaka

[swordstabmagica.livejournal.com]

Unlike Reinforce, Sayaka slept often enough. Even if it was possible that she might not even need to anymore, she still ended up doing it quite a bit. It was hard to break habits that you were used to doing, after all.

For all Sayaka knew, her own body didn't need her to eat or do anything that it needed to do before a magical girl, but she still did it anyway.

Of course, now that she was waking up, something about her body just seemed off, but she couldn't place her finger on it just yet. Maybe she'd be able to tell once she was done waking up...

[herblessedwind.livejournal.com]

Rein, too, felt that something was wrong, less because she could actually sense anything amiss than because even that vague sense of Sayaka's bled over to her. It could be said that she, too, did not wake up all at once; reengaging with her body when she had retreated like this did take some time. But still, she came to full alertness quickly compared to a human. No stretching or lazing about in bed for her - and in fact no bed, ship-made bioconstruct or otherwise, at all, just the hard stone of a bench in some minor park in the city she'd been near when the urge to sleep had come over her - as soon as she was aware, she was up.

Now, time for business -

[swordstabmagica.livejournal.com]

- yeah, there was definitely something wrong. This was NOT where Sayaka had gone to sleep last night. She had been in the Crew Quarters, not the city. "How'd I get..."

... That wasn't her voice. What the heck was going on?

[gogopowersuit.livejournal.com]

For the first time in a while, Samus had managed to get a decent night's sleep before her early morning alarm woke her up. Calendars were difficult to keep due to ship time, but she tried to stick to a routine, and every 2-3 days she'd wake up early to get a work out in before duty at the precinct.

She was comfortable in her bed, though, and wasn't near fully awake yet. She didn't quite know why, perhaps because she was still trying to wake up, but something felt off to her.

Billy and Satellizer

[morphitudinous]

Billy had fallen into an exhausted sleep in his bed the night before, feeling rather unsettlingly alone. The house was empty, the halls were cold, and it was surprisingly lonely for what was supposed to be a happy time in his life. When was the celebration coming?

Not this morning!

He stirred, immediately sensing that something was wrong. For someone who knew his mind as well as he did, this obviously couldn't be the right place for it. Looking for any scrap of information that would help, he tried to crack open an eye.

[aphephobiaqueen.livejournal.com]

It took a moment for his eyes to open, but soon enough he managed to do so and be welcomed into dark room. The bed seemed unfamiliar, yet comfortably soft. There seemed to be many other soft things in the bed and the only form of light came from a dim, blue, small light in the corner opposite of the bed he was now in.

A small night light... That certainly hadn't been there in his room, but with his blurry vision, he wouldn't be able to be sure at first.

Satella however, at least in mind, was still asleep...

[morphitudinous]

This was bad. He opened his eyes, and it took a moment of adjustment, but...okay, at least he still couldn't see without glasses. Problem? His glasses weren't there at the bedside table. His table wasn't there at all, he realized, nor was his room.

With the horrible realization slowly dawning, he looked down and realized that...this wasn't even his body. He yelped in a voice not his own, a million panicked thoughts in his head.

[aphephobiaqueen.livejournal.com]

Not his body was right. Looking down he could tell that he was currently residing inside a rather curvacious female. On the other side of the bed, unlike in his room, was a small night stand with a pair of glasses, different than his however.

But it didn't seem as if he would get a chance to grab for them because soon enough, there was a bit of an unaware struggle for control as Satellizer blinked a few times and looked around the room a bit warily.

It felt as if someone was there, but she could see anyone at the moment. She leaned over and grabbed for her glasses, putting them on and voicing the command to turn on the lights.

Her room wasn't in the Crew Quarters, as much was apparent from the lack of meat furniture. But it seemed to be a rather modest, single studio apartment. The soft objects that he had felt were actually various stuffed animals or toys and the night light had turned off.

Satella raised her sheets a bit to cover herself and began to scan the room for the odd feeling she felt earlier... unaware that the person wasn't in the room... but inside her.

Day 2

[morphitudinous]

After a series of bizarre dreams, Billy found his consciousness stirring in a crowded space again---but this time, the space was familiar. He was inside his own head, that was atop his own body, and in the laboratory he called his workspace. Today would be a little better.

He pulled himself up from the floor (it was a terrible place to sleep, if how much he ached meant anything) and studied himself. He was dressed in a rumpled tank top and boxers, barefoot, and the hand on his hair indicated a mess there too. As he'd predicted, his wrists were chafed---one to the point of sores and scabs. Perfect.

And he smelled like flowers. How...silly.

"Ugh. Can this be the last day?"

[aphephobiaqueen.livejournal.com]

Satellizer wished that she had locked herself in her room. Especially seeing what happened to her crewmate's body while it wasn't acting of it's own accord. Painstaking fears ran rampant through her mind at the thought of what might happen to her own body while under the whims of this so called goddess!

Just the thoughts were enough to have kept her up the better part of the night, but soon enough she settled down, she decided to blank any thought of such out since it would only hinder their progress. And that was something she couldn't stand for.

She already hated losing to anyone and anything... to lose her body completely if they could not succeed here would be the ultimate failure.

She wouldn't have that.

So her presence was felt within the youth's body, but it was a mix between fear, anger and loneliness.

I hope so... I reall hope there's been more leads as to how we can defeat this.

[morphitudinous]

What about that message we got? From her exiled brother, or...something, Billy tried to remember. He braced himself against one of the desks, wobbling as he tried to get used to being in control again. His body felt different somehow.

We'll focus on trying to find the solution, all right? But I might have to do some of my normal work. And let me know if you need me to do anything, okay?"

Ted and Rin Okumura

[cooldemonkid.livejournal.com]

In the end of the day(?), no matter how much he could pack a punch or how much work he's used to do, Ted was still a kid and children needed at least eight hours of sleep. It was only normal after all, being overall how he would tire himself out during most hours with training and the like.

Ted slowly lifted his eyes open, however close them again and curled up in his bed. It felt different today like the bed and blanket seemed to feel less big, either way sleeping a bit longer shouldn't hurt...

[cobalt-inferno.livejournal.com]

Ted might be feeling a bit of drool running down 'his' cheek. Rin tossed and turned and nearly feel off the bed, clinging to the last bits of sleep that he could before waking up.

Relaxing and snoozing were, of course, amazing pastimes! Especially when you didn't have to go to school!

... Unless Yukio was around and he ended having to go study. But right now? There was nothing stopping him from getting sweet, sweet, sleep~!

[cooldemonkid.livejournal.com]

Okay, he was slowly rejecting slumber, it was time to wake up and tire himself out until he feels sleeping again. Ted groggily stretched his arms. Huh, that was odd, his senses feels rather damp; usually, he can even smell the faintest scents and now? Nothing but the strong scent in the room.

Was he coming on a cold? He felt rather fine though. He ran his hand through his hair and noticed a much longer arm than his usual, admittedly stubby ones. The demon yelped in surprise, he had catch a few post about bodyswaps some time ago, he can't possibly....!?

[cobalt-inferno.livejournal.com]

"Not yet Yukio... it's still early..."

Rin's conscious slowly came to and he rubbed at his eyes, looking around sleepily a moment later and noticing that Yukio was not in the room... Actually, nobody else was, so what was with the sudden jerk he felt earlier?

"Maybe the ship had a hiccup." he thought idly to himself as he scratched his head absentmindedly.

Fate and Einhart

[thunder-ace.livejournal.com]

Fate never had any trouble sleeping. She slept a bit on the light side - it came with working in the military and countless midnight scrambles over the course of a decade - but it wasn't enough for that light shift to wake her up.

... Luckily for the blonde's new mental companion, nothing... interesting had happened last night. Yes, she's currently sleeping next to her wife, her front to Nanoha's back, but at least they're both clothed!

Re: Fate and Einhart

[hegemonstratos.livejournal.com]

Einhart would be really happy about that, at least once she woke up. Right now she was still comfortably asleep, her mind dreaming about that attack that Vivio had come up with (http://trans-9.livejournal.com/854641.html), only with getting it to actually work.

Though, after a few moments, she started to stir awake, feeling that something was wrong. Why would she be in Adult Mode when she was sleeping?

[thunder-ace.livejournal.com]

The feeling of being pulled awake was nothing new to Fate - again, she was used to waking up in an instant - but the fact that there were no sirens, no sort of communication from Stacy, was a little... strange.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes and glancing over to the table by her side of the bed. Bardiche is resting there, no sign of any alerts there eitehr. Frowning a little, she picked him up.

"Hm, maybe I'm just being paranoid..."

Being a pony is for the birds (Pinkie Pie and Hawke)

[mylittlelolny.livejournal.com]

The first thing Pinkie Pie does upon waking is stretch and yawn in the most exaggerated fashion possible. She throws off the covers of her bed and leaps up.

"Okay! Time for morning stretches! Gotta get up and GREET THE DAY!" Pinkie, of course, talks to herself when there's no one else to talk to, because she must always be talking to someone. "And one! And two! And move those hooves! Whoo!"

Anyone in the vicinity would find it hard to sleep with all that jumping and jostling and noise. Good thing there's no one else around. OR IS THERE.

[black-hawke.livejournal.com]

THERE IS.

Waking to the feeling of someone yanking you out of bed and jerking you around was unpleasant, to say the least, and Hawke was immediately disoriented. He did not remember falling asleep near anyone, especially not one of those creepy, colorful talking ponies.

He was, fortunately, disoriented enough to not quite realize just what was going on. He only knew that he was sort of peeved about being woken up in such a way.

What.

[mylittlelolny.livejournal.com]

WHOA. What was that.

"Whoa, what was that!" Pinkie gasped, her gaze darting around every which way. Did she just hear a voice? Or was she imagining things? "Hellooooo! Is anyone there?"

Punchy and Esplin, sitting in a tree, B-O-D-Y-S-WITCHING

[andalust.livejournal.com]

When Esplin usually rouses himself into movement out of the crew quarters, it's to preform certain bodily functions his mindless clone host requires, or to head toward the mess hall and get certain other necessaries done before following through on the rest of his day. He knows what to expect, and he knows (more or less) when to expect it.

Today isn't going as expected. For one, as he pulls himself out of the sort of stupor he's just now realizing he's been in, there's a flash of paranoia at the unexpected state, and a second one as he realizes a few other choicy tidbits. Esplin's well familiar with the presence of another mind within any given headspace, since it's usually him, but he also knows the clone this ridiculous, largely ineffectual council gave him was designed to have no actual higher thought processes.

When he becomes aware of another mental presence, his first instinct is to overwhelm and suppress. Yeerks aren't physically imposing in the least, but in this one area, they were downright frightening.

Only there's something wrong with this scenario, above and beyond the fact Esplin knows he hadn't been sliding up any new ear canals lately. His attempt to spread, to fold out as he would naturally, make sure of himself being entirely in contact and control, is short circuiting. His directive is skipping straight to the body itself, which if left unchallenged, is going to make Punchy into one hell of a cuddler of whatever surface he was currently on.

< This is impossible! > Feel that outrage? Esplin's not bothering to hide it, if he does sit firmly on the quaver of uncertainty and fear that pokes its head up before running back under his own self assurance. < You! > he snarls, rounding on the other presence, focusing in on it, pushing against it as much as he theoretically can, < Tell me how you've done this! >

Clearly Esplin just wanted Punchy's bah-dee.

[masterofnun.livejournal.com]

Punchy was, for the first time in nearly seventy-two hours, getting legitimate sleep in a sleeping bag rather than sprawled out and drooling into a laptop keyboard. He was actually looking a bit forward to waking up warm and cozy and without QWERTY emblazoned in red imprint on his cheek.

And yet instead of admiring his clean, non-qwertied face and fantastic bedhead when he wakes up, he's clutching his sleeping bag between his arms and knees so hard he thinks it counts as an ab-strengthening workout.

He should have known sleep was a bad idea! Sleep's when all the awful things happen, like cool things that go on without you there! Of course he'd end up with his body possessed by something!

At least a look around - not easy to do when someone else has at least partial control of your neck and shoulders - reveals that he's still in the tent he set up in Programming, with LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" on quiet repeat on the little stereo he's set up as a lullaby-machine.

{Yo, what the shit, dawg!} Punchy's not used to having other people try and control his body, so he can't combat Esplin's presence that way, but if there's one thing Punchy has never been, it's weak-willed. {Who's you and why you all up in my psyche, bitch?}

It's just too built to resist. 8|a

[andalust.livejournal.com]

< Great. You're useless. > Esplin doesn't bother directly responding, taking Punchy's confusion as enough of an answer to show he had no more of an idea than Esplin did. He shouldn't have expected otherwise.

Without much casual pause, Esplin attempts to get Punchy to his feet -- or knees, or anything other than lying on the ground. He's up for a battle of wills, almost ridiculously so, not recognizing his own basic competitive desire as partly fueled by a reassertion of what he feels is his natural state. You know, oppressing other sentients from within.

Yeerk rights, yo.

< Whoever you are. Where are we? > Still not bothering to "introduce" himself, Esplin focuses on getting some idea of -- what was the he was even hearing? Quiet, nagging, I'm gonna tie you up and let you understand, if that's even what he's hearing.