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This was so not turning out to be a good day.

Okay, so they were stuck. In some random part of the ship that he'd never seen before, and they couldn't go back. And just to make it all better, none of their omnicomms or communication rings were working.

Which was why Marco was now sitting at the tables in the new mess hall, fiddling around with his omnicomm in an attempt to get the stupid thing to actually work. He was guessing it was some kind of hardware thing, which sucked, because Marco was better at messing with software than hardware.

Why the hell wasn't Ax here? He at least would know how to fix the damn thing. Ax could fix anything.

And as if to prove Marco's point, while he was poking at one of the wires the omnicomm sparked, causing Marco to let loose a flurry of curses.

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Maxine was idly exploring (and trying not to be too scared of any and all implications) when she heard the cursing. She hadn't run into many people in this part of the ship yet, but that was a voice she hadn't met yet. And she didn't know what this place held, so-- what if there was something dangerous?

After she literally flew into the mess hall, the relief was palpable.

"Are you okay?" she said, after a moment, landing and walking over to the teenage boy. She was also, admittedly, curious in what he was doing.

Marco looked up. Then he blinked. Okay, there was a girl flying in. Considering what else they had on the ship, that wasn't even that weird. "Am I okay? Oh sure, I'm perfectly fine. Not only have I been stuck on a ship traveling through the multiverse after my world was destroyed for who knows how long, now I'm stuck in some cast of part of that ship that doesn't even have cable and the stupid omnicomms not working. Really, I couldn't possibly be better.

Can you sense the sarcasm, Maxine?

Maxine looked a little disheartened at the response, her face falling for a brief moment. Sure, he was right to not be in a good mood, but...

"Oh, well, I guess I meant-- relatively speaking? I mean, the situation is really bad but that's for everyone involved. I don't know that anyone is in a particularly bad spot with this, but it is true that we don't really have any reason to feel that great about it. But I mean, if you're not hurt and you can still fight then it could be worse, right? Even if it'd be better to not have to fight at all. I was just worried that-- maybe someone got hurt coming down here, or maybe someone else is scared because I know I kind of am, but I have to try for other people anyway, right?"

Maybe he upset her a little bit.

Marco blinked, not having expected her to...well, actually get upset.

"Well sure, we're not dead," he said, rather lamely. "Except for the omnicomms. They've all suffered a violent and painful death."

"Well, true." Fortunately, she seemed to perk up again reasonably quickly. "The omnicomms aren't doing as well as we are, so far, though we don't know what's down here but I don't think it's anything that dangerous or we probably would have seen some sign of it by now, right? But I'd have to guess there's something blocking the signal, though I couldn't imagine what, since the whole system is tied into Stacy herself and we're obviously still on board. So for some reason her communications don't reach here. Does that mean she can't sense us, either? Because that could prove problematic in trying to get back..." She frowned. "I don't know if I'll be able to help with the comms though. I'm not an expert on that kind of thing, or anything."

"It's not the signal - something zapped them when we came through the tubes," Marco said, rolling his eyes as if that were obvious. "And this is Stacy, remember? I seriously doubt she'd have an entire section where she couldn't watch everything that we were doing."

Barbara had found the mess hall after being lead there by Sakura, who found her wandering. For the moment, she had no intentions of leaving the mess hall and, seeing someone working at one of the tables, she thought she might be of some use.

"Is there anything I could do to help?" she asked politely, hands knotted behind her back as she bent slightly, so that she didn't tower over the young man.

Marco looked up, and scowled slightly for half a second. Okay, so he was pretty used to people towering over him (never mind that she was bent a little; with Marco's height it didn't make that much difference), but it still annoyed him.

"You know how to fix these things?" Marco said, raising an eyebrow at her.

So that's what he was fiddling with. The Omni..things. Barbara shook her head, "I'm afraid not," the fact that she wasn't even entirely certain how to work one of them, prevented her from ever possibly fixing one.

She sat across from the young man - who appeared to be younger than what she first thought - and pulled out her own communication device, lying it flat on the table. "I don't suppose you know why the transportation tubes brought us here and not wherever we were going?"

Marco rolled his eyes. Figures.

"How the hell would I know why? It's not like I arrived to find a bunch of dancing monkeys holding up signs that detailed exactly how the hell I ended up here."

Idly he picked up Barbara's comms, fiddling with it a bit to see if this one worked. But it didn't take long to figure out that this one was just as screwed up as his, and he tossed it back onto the table with an irritated flick.

What...what did monkeys have to do with anything? Was he expecting to find monkeys? Or should Barbara expect to find a group of sign waving monkeys whilst on board?

She took back the omnicom, feeling over it with her fingers as she watched him work. "I simply thought that I might be the one out of the loop, that someone else would know."

Everything, Barbara. Everything.

Marco snorted. "No way. On this ship, hoping that someone else actually knows what the hell is going on is usually way too much to hope for."

"You'll have to excuse me," Barbara cringed at his language again but covered it up by putting the omnicom away. "I'm still quite new. I've been told that strange things happen but this is the first I've experienced."

Dripping wet, Sakura walked with as much aplomb as a cold, saltwater soaked ninja could manage when thoroughly irritated with themselves. Add on an extra side of tired, and the most enthusiasm for speaking she could come up with right now cumulated into a short phrase. "Marco, I could use your help."

Let's take stock of the situation. She was down to just her plantsuit. She looked like she'd gone swimming or had a pool dumped over her head. She smelled like the sea, in a less rotting-seaweed-on-the-beach way, and a more hard-to-define-but-noticeable way. The circles she had under her eyes before, but that passed off as acceptable, look more like smears of charcoal. There was a pale, clammy cast to her skin, like she wasn't quite warming up right.

Or maybe that was just Stacy's wonderful interior lighting.

There was a moment's pause, as Marco took in Sakura's appearance, before he started sniggering.

"Don't you always when you're wet?" he said, smirking inbetween snorts.

She must have been more tired than she even hazily chose not to recognize, because it takes a few seconds before her cheeks gain some color (all the more stark in comparison to how generally pale she was right then) before she tromped over and slapped him upside the head. "Pervert!"

Hey, it was to the point. "Come on, before the whale eats something."

Marco just grinned in reply. (Hey, what can he say. It was always fun to watch Sakura flail.)

Soon though, he was seriously staring at Sakura. "You know, I must have finally gone completely insane, because I thought you just said we had to go before the whale eats something."

Sakura paused, slowly turning her head to look at Marco. Then the rest of her. "You weren't already?" she asked in mock surprise. "Here I thought we were finally on the same page for something. Our relative insanities, our general stabilities, what buttons not to press repeatedly until they break..."

She was stuck on a mental image of the elevators on Galilee. Sakura had to shake her head to get out of her own thoughts, sending water droplets flying.

"There's a big whale. A big white whale. And before I left, he was having a whole lot of fun tearing up the boat in the aquarium, so yes, before the whale eats something. Now are you coming, or do I have to carry you? I will. I will carry you if I have to."

"Hey, there's a difference between insane and completely insane. Besides, it's not my fault that the whole multiverse is nuts, is it?" Marco said, rolling his eyes.

"Wait, there's an aquarium? Seriously? And what the hell do you care about some boat? You don't own a boat! And I don't care if you carry me, I am not going to go and jump in-between and angry whale and a boat. That would really be insane." Marco paused. "I have a flea morph you know. You'd never be able to find me."

Her expression didn't change over the duration of him speaking. "Try me," she said dryly at the end. "And when did I say anything about my omnicomm being on a boat? I didn't. That's down at the bottom of the tank. The whale's having a party over at the far right."

She took another step toward him, and then sort of shrugged.

And a moment later Marco was getting a very wet, very squeezy hug from Sakura. Mostly to be annoying. "I asked nicely, and I promise the big mean ship destroying whale probably won't eat you."

"What? You didn't say anything about your omnicomm!" Marco said, pointing a finger at her accusingly. "You told me I had to stop the whale from eating something, not pick up your crap from the bottom of a tank!" Marco paused. "What the hell is your omnicomm doing at the bottom of a tank!"

And at that hug Marco let out an indignant "Hey!" and tried to push Sakura away. (That was not fair!)

"I didn't?" Funny, but she really thought she had. "It fell there. I tried to get ahold of it when it first fell in, but my flak vest was causing too much drag, so I had to get out of that, while swimming, and then I almost had my omnicomm when I ran out of air, I touched it with my fingers..."

Sakura sighed almost against his neck. "Now you don't want me around you when I'm all wet?" She let him push her away, glaring at her right hand like it had personally let her down. "If I'd been near a tank wall, I could have run down it, but the walkway comes out over the tank itself. Then when I figured to cut losses and grab my flak vest, the whale's disturbance had pulled it out and down some thirty meters away. By the time I'd surfaced for air and made a running dive for it, it was out of reach."

"No, you just rambled on about some whale and a boat!" Marco said. "And did you seriously drop your omnicomm and your vest into a tank?" Have some more laughing, Sakura, because Marco was finding this hilarious.

"You're not the fun kind of wet," he declared, before scowling momentarily at his now damp clothes. "And what, and you can't use your Ninja Underwater Breathing Technique or something?" he added with a snort.

She sighed again, because she really wasn't sighing enough already. Then she didn't bother dignifying his questions with a response, since not only did she drop her omnicomm, vest, and anything else on her into a tank, she wasn't the sort of shinobi with those kinds of water techniques.

No point in rewarding what she felt was a facetious question with a legitimate answer.

"You're right. I just need to try harder."

Hefting herself back up, she dusted absolutely nothing off her thighs, and then started walking away.

Fire what was she going to do. Maybe if she got a running start, pushed off high enough, and angled just right she could make it to the bottom without passing out?

"Maybe I can talk the whale into it," she muttered, unaware that she'd spoken out loud. "Maybe I can ride down in the whale."

Now that was just crazy. (And a little funny. "Hello, Mr. Whale? Or is is Ms. Whale? Can I get a short little ride from you? Just to get these tiny things from the bottom of your tank, no real reason, I'm a little fond of them is all?")

Admittedly if Sakura had replied with a serious answer, Marco would have bogged at the fact that Ninja Underwater Breathing Technique actually existed.

"You have to be a dolphin to talk to whales," Marco said breezily, half running up to catch up with her. "And in case you hadn't noticed, I never said I wouldn't help." Marco grinned, in a way that he new would irritate her. "You just can't get by without me, can you?" he added, teasing.

Hey, he would have boggled if she told him shark-men also existed, and not in a "bred to be" way, but a "chose and yeah it's also a ninja technique" way. Her world had crazy inventive all over the place.

She glared at him sideways, more grumpy than she would normally be when better rested. "Like an explosive tag in the middle of a poison cloud."

See, he'd told her her world was completely insane!

"Yup," Marco said cheerfully, apparently unconcerned about her grumpiness.

[[continues on here]]

Edited 2012-01-15 02:27 (UTC)

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