After receiving the warning the Tapestry had provided them, along the order to begin preparations from Councillor Kang, the crew had been getting ready for upcoming combat with the Ohm.

Unfortunately, the rather vague nature of the warning they received meant they had no particular way of knowing exactly when this battle would occur. Understandably, this put some of the crew on edge, but at the very least they had some prior warning that they would be facing the Ohm, rather than being thrown blind into such a dangerous situation. Combat drills, vehicle maintenance and armory inspections seemed to be regular sights for the week or so following Kang's message. Not much time to prepare, but the crew worked with what was given to them.

Eventually, however, the call came.

||Alert, Alert,|| Stacy called out throughout the ship, ||Priority One message from GIA High Command. All crew members please report to the Obs Deck. Repeat, Priority One message from GIA High Command, All crew members please report to the Obs Deck...||

Stacy kept repeating the message over and over until the crew began making their way towards the Obs Deck to receive the message.

[ooc: As implied by the post, we're assuming the crew's ICly had a one-to-two week heads-up about the battle. It was supposed to be played out, but RL timing prevented this from working out. Feel free to come up with the details of your character's preparations on your own

Also, as usual, please wait for subthreads to go up before tagging in.

Edit: It's up! Feel free to start tagging in!]

The day had finally arrived for her big event, and Starfire couldn't be happier---or more nervous, actually. She was certainly not an expert on the inner workings of a prom, but it couldn't be too terribly complicated, right? As long as the people could eat, dance, and talk, it should be a reasonable success.

With that in mind, her decorations sprung from her mind into the large dome all around her, transforming a grey Sensorium into a beautiful underwater world, one with clear waters and free from the possibility of a shark attack.
( Diving into a underwater wonderland... )

The City was the area of the ship that was frequented the most. Not only did some of the crew members made their homes there. But a lot of the more pleasurable areas on the ship could be found there as well. It was mostly empty, a ghostly graveyard for many of the buildings from the many worlds that had gotten saved by you lovable ship, Stacy.

The sheer size of the City itself was impressive and yet it wasn't hard to run into someone exploring it, or bump into one of the occupied buildings... Three of it's denizens now found themselves going about their everyday lives on the ship that had become their current home.




[[OOC: Didn't want to clutter up the comm with three posts, but I really wanted to do all of them! So this is a general post and you can go ahead and tag whichever you want to, wherever you want to! There will be an individual tag for each one of them.]]

An amusement part was an interesting place to find Mal, given that since his arrival for the most part he had been anything but amused. It was, however, the only location he could find with a shooting range, and for the moment he had a powerful need to shoot something.

Which was why he stood in the middle of the range, putting bullet after bullet into the target's heads and chests, and totally ignoring any shocked looks by others that might be sent his way. Having found himself dropped into another war, one he had never asked for this time, he had every intention of seeing that it was not a repeat of the last one.

Especially not with what was at stake.

Down on the city level, right by the Kohaku River and near the imposing castle, a modern-looking white building welcomed one and all to its promise of running water and warmth. Maybe even a little socializing was in order.

The ramp led up to the heated roof level, where one and all could sit down and relax in an almost sauna-like environment. Below, corridors contained plenty of towels, places to leave clothes, quick showers, and the baths, a number of them sized for any and all comers.

The private areas were accessed through separate corridors on the outside, but the busier communal baths were just as warm and welcoming. Anyone of any size or species was welcome here, so long as they behaved themselves.

[ooc: it's mingling party post time! Just start a thread or hop in one, and note if your character's in a single sex bath, co-ed, or the sauna level upstairs. My characters will be here to meet some people too.]

In this world there were givers and there were takers.

The helpful, and the help themselves.

Jinx was for the time being one of the latter. Though the coarse of her short few years of life before the Earth was destroyed she had spent most of it firmly in the mindset of taking care of herself first. Up until recently that mindset had done pretty well by her.

But here she was now, adrift in space both literally and metaphorically speaking. She had worked all her young life for respect, perfecting her body, training her abilities. Scheming and plotting into the wee hours of the morning some days and what had that gotten her?

A backhand from a selfish woman she had looked up to.

Jinx had taken a few days to adjust to the sudden change in surroundings, hunkering down in a few areas, learning what she could. Now was the time for exploration. The ship had things she could use, information she wanted, skills she could learn, and who knew what other treasures she could stumble upon. She just had to find them.

After he sent the message over the comms, Splicer relaxed back at the DJ booth and closed his eyes, losing himself to the beats of the music... Alex would have been happy here... he thought, remembering one of the people who had helped him with the idea, but wasn't with them anymore.
( Cut for description! )

 

[[OOC: Feel free to make a post or join the subthreads/locations and from now on you can use the place to start your own threads or meet people or plan parties!]]

There was an inner battle in her mind (wasn't there always?). On the one hand there was her personal distaste for anything tampering with or influencing her mind and on the other... On the other there was the craving- no, the need to split something in two. In the end, her anger at GLaDOS pushed her over the edge.

She strode into one of the Sensoriums and waited for the door to close behind her.

"I hear you can bring up illusions. And since you're psychic..." And your little friends dug around in my brain. "I want you to show me something from my past."

Several moments later, after giving the sentient spaceship more details, Kerrigan stood on Char, surrounded by her beloved zerg. She was close enough to a hydralisk to feel as well as hear its low growl. It wasn't hostile but welcoming as one would welcome family. She didn't remember most of her reign as the Queen of Blades, but this was familiar, almost soothing.

Kerrigan placed her hand on the hydralisk's carapace, stroking down its head.

Much too familiar.

One telekinetic blast the zerg sprawling backwards. It let out a shriek, one that did not evoke a feeling of comfort in the former Ghost. Good.

"See your Queen of Blades now!" Kerrigan shouted. "They may have mutilated me but my wrath is still the same!" Challenging a brood of zerg to a fight after being deinfested- and after the Ohm had experimented on her and somehow dampened her strength- it was impossible odds, even in the Sensorium. In short, it was nothing she hadn't faced before.

Several hours later, she left the Sensorium both exhausted and wired. And completely confident in the Sensorium's safety precautions.

It had come to her just a few days after returning to normal. Why not have a beach party? ...Well alright, her first thought had been 'why not have a war party' but then she wisely realized that not everyone would enjoy something like that. But everyone had enjoyed the time they had spent on the beach a year ago! ...At least until the Ohm came and ruined everything, but it still had been fun!

But her? Organizing a party? On a beach of all places? It would take research. Books. A lots and lots of books. A few days in between all her other usual routines and activities, the wunderkind was unusually quiet, her head stuck in between pages and taking down notes. After reading and thinking herself good enough (of course she was! She was the wunderkind, right?), Lash had finally gone into the Sensoriums and prepared.

The beach itself came from a mishmash of ones she had read up on along with her single experience a year and a half ago. The sand was warm, free of any debris a normal beach might have had and colored pearly white. Seashells dotted the shore, in intervals so that it wouldn't be too annoying to go into the water, some comically large but how could you argue with someone who didn't know about this? The water was clear, slowly fading from view as it got more and more blue reflecting the cloudless sky. A few schools of colorful fish could be easily seen, moving away whenever someone got too close to them.

The sun was warm, but not overly so. Humidity was at a comfortable level. Dreamlike perfect weather. If you looked really closely, you might notice that the sun itself changed from orange to yellow to red once in a while, giving the beach a subtle tint.

Parasols of all shapes and colors dotted the sandy landscape, nestled between palm trees of various sizes and large tropical flowers and a single human-sized large Venus Flytrap. A few hammocks were also strewn between two tree trunks, for those that desired a prolonged rest. There was also a volleyball court in the shade.

Lash had taken a few trips to get as much food slop as she could carry, and had turned it all into typical beach food (at least what the books had explained to her anyway). Hot dogs, hamburgers, tropical fruits, seafoods of all kinds and, curiously, large bowls of chocolate pudding were presented on...well, bare-bones picnic tables with no decoration whatsoever. She wasn't one to make things pretty. Another note stuck nearby told visitors to create more food if they didn't find anything they liked. Next to all of that, a large wheelbarrow filled to the brim with a sweets of all kinds for no real reason (watch out not to eat too many of the poprocks!)

The next few tables held all the alcohol and juice bottles. Lash, again, had been getting reference from the library's liquor books, trying to pamper to everyone's personal likes. However if you looked closely some of the bottles had unusual names on them; "I guess this is supposed to be vodka? What's vodka?" and "Green stuff! I don't know what it's supposed to be but, it looked cool, tee hee." Empty coconuts shells with rows upon rows of miniature umbrellas acted as drink holders. However if you wanted to use a cocktail shaker or other specialty tools to get all fancy, you'd need to create one yourself, Lash didn't know about them and therefore hadn't herself. Large buckets of ice stood nestled in larger blocks of frozen liquid nitrogen (hey...it was Lash, after all).

A robot band played close by to the food, each sporting a small name tag 'HI MY NAME IS ___', filled out with ones she had found in various music media (Bill, Ted, David, Nigel and Derek) sporting a fine selection of wigs that might remind people of the original musicians themselves. It was possible request a song, if you were able to think of it. Currently, they were playing something that sounded good to Lash's ears. But then when no one was asking anything, they'd play something with a little bit of more of party time.

This almost looked like a typical beach!

...until you noticed the two giant pirate ships in the middle of the ocean, and the giant sand castle farther away from the main beach area. Oh.Of course. Both had everything true pirates could ask for, even working cannons, treasures, hats and weapons. Yeap, that sounded a lot more like Lash's style. Look, she just really needed excitement in everything.

When everything was done, she put on her best swimsuit (and shades) before sending out a message to everyone (well the girls in particular) but didn't bother locking it to just them. After all, what was the fun if the boys didn't show up? Either way, it was going to be fun.

[[OOC - Feel free to jump into each other's conversations if you like or start new threads with an activity like 'so and so serves drinks', 'pirate ship battle' or 'this guy marches into the sensoriums with his speedo' etc. Have fun!]]

Now that the crisis concerning the clock and the children were over, she couldn't be more thankful. The gurgling roar that filled her mind had died down to a more manageable but similarly annoying simmer that continued to give her plenty of reason to be eternally displeased. Still, if she planned to be anything more than a lethargic shut-in, it would require her to brave the 'babbleroar'.

Mulling over her choices for some time, she eventually decided on Hydroponics and made her way there. With the minimal amount of time she'd actually spent on Earth after joining with the Superhomeys, most of her encounters with the natural world were only conjured up from the depths of her memories.

She began walking through the wide expanse of shrubs, trees and other vegetation, intent on both relaxing and rebuilding her mental imaging of how forests and jungles were actually supposed to appear.

( Read more... )

MSCF 7 was a hulking fortress, made of miles of reinforced steel, concrete, and blast shielding. Its subbasements contained enough food, supplies, and oxygeon to care for an entire city for well over a year; it had been built to outlast a war, but refitted with multiple levels of decontamination chambers and air scrubbers once the threat of N5S had finally scared the parties in power into some form of preventative action against the virus.

And its roof was now covered with zombified drones.

Even with his enhanced vision, it was difficult to tell exactly how many there were, shambling about aimlessly as if in search of something -- or someone. With no warm human bodies to goad them into action, they were almost quiescent. Almost.

Zouichi grasped the haft of the collapsible axe, sliding it out of its resting place in one of his bike's compartments. It was a steep drop from where his bike was silently idling to the roof itself -- maybe a few stories, which he deemed more or less negligible. He snapped the axe back into its fully-extended position with one clean flick of the wrist.

Time to party (Y/Y)?

The old cherry trees in the courtyard had decided to bloom with impeccable timing, transforming the entrance of the Susono Inn into an explosion of color. Pink petals collected between the stones of the courtyard's walkway, on the overhang of the foyer... oh, and if you got anywhere in a fifty foot radius of the place, you probably got a few on you, too.

( Read more... )

The weather was cool and the air slightly crisp beneath the shade of the old trees. There were some wines and sake available for the older guests, and juice for the younger ones (both rescued from the Inn's storehouse). And of course, there was cake.

Mmm, cake.

[Subthreads are A-OK, feel free to threadjack. If you want a super-pathetically detailed map of the Inn for some reason, check here. The invitation post is here. Again, if you've threaded with Allenby/Zouichi a couple of times/are on good terms with them, consider yourself invited! Just ask if unsure]

After everyone and all of their ships were properly loaded the Quarter had launched successfully. The journey from Stacy to the Trojan Asteroid field trailing NiSaris took several hours, but they managed to approach the field with the people of the nearby world being none the wiser.

The problem was that the NiSarians weren't the only ones watching the skies.

As the Quarter approached and entered the asteroid field, all was quiet. But it was only going to be a matter of moments before that would change.


((ooc: See this post for instructions, but otherwise, have at it, and have fun.))

Cagalli in the bathhouse isn't an odd sight at all. It's pretty much her favorite place to relax alone, even if the 'alone' part ends up not working out for all that long, depending on the day.

If you don't really look closely, there's nothing out of the usual here, but beyond that... she's a bit smaller, her face just a little more youthful. She also looks like she's ready to slip into the water, just that little bit, and take a nice deep breath. Not that she's considering it, but she really wears her emotions out in the open.

"Father..."

PT finished at 0700, and the pilots and new recruits got a half hour to cool off before they got into the cockpits of their assorted craft. In the two hours since 0500 they ran several miles, did push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups, and then a hundred jumping jacks to get the blood pumping. "You don't even want to think about how much force you put on your body when you're piloting," Trudy said at the start of the exercises. "Pilots need to be in peak condition to handle it."

Those who were used to doing the training five days out of the week would be out of breath but not exhausted. Anyone new, however, might have a little trouble getting their wind back.

"All right everyone, gather around. We have a few new recruits today, so we're not going to be running the Zokez scenario. I know you're all heartbroken." She kept a straight face, but that was a definite joke. She was sick of running the Zokez scenario. "We'll be doing some standard training exercises - maneuverability and gunning practice."

The track and exercise equipment melted away, and in its place the hangar of the Macross Quarter materialized with all its fighters and mobile suits. "Outside is a standard sim course. I'm going to have the recruits run it first to see how they handle and then the squadrons will go out as a unit. Recruits, let's put you in birds."

((OOC: This log is for anyone who signed up to fly a mobile suit, a VF or an X-wing and is not already in Starfighter Command. The flight sim is like something you'd see out of the training missions on Star Fox - fly through the rings, shoot the enemies, avoid the obstacles it throws at you like sheets of scrap and asteroids. EDIT: Subthreads for the squadrons are now up!))

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

All over the ship, Stacy's voice continues to repeat the announcement until all crew members have reported to the Orbs Deck. Once there a dossier appears on the screen. Next to the dossier is the picture of a rotating planet, one that is almost entirely covered in cities with a few small patches of green ocean, and the planet's stats:

Planet Designation: XaXing
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Minimal flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: A significant number of species of intelligent life. Most are not native.
Water: 30% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Similar to Earth's Mediterranean regions. [Click here for cultural equivalents for non-Earth cultures.]
Landscape: 96% of land is developed for primarily commercial purposes.
Air: Normoxic concentration: 29% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 3% xenon, 6% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.

Air Pressure: 14.499 pounds per square inch.
Sky: Green with gold clouds.
Sun: A class D3L, yellow star.

Warnings: Some inhabitants may not follow fair trading practices.

Mission: None. Shore leave is now initiated. Requisition of resources is recommended. Each crew member will be provided with 3000 XaXingian credits.

It's time for another Shore Leave, guys.

[[ooc: Shore Leave is go! Post reactions to the announcement here]]

 Well, that was something he hadn't really expected. He had gone so long without ever having a run-in with the crazy AI, GLADoS. It really wasn't nearly as bad as he had expected. There were just a bunch of interesting mazes. There were no security bots trying to kill him, or even a lava pit, or anything really extreme like that.

He was happy that at least he knew to not expect the promised cake, though it was a bitter comfort, not knowing what happened to his friends during his time gone. He pulled out his omnicomm as he oriented himself and began walking towards Engineering as he reviewed the recent posts to the network and typed out a message.

He hoped to find Billy, working away in the department that he'd come to love so much. Maybe even Sam or Anwei would come to visit him there as well. If not, at least he would be able to get some work done and try to get back to normal.

It was easy to find the Drunken Dragon Tavern, due to the train, and the fact that a good portion of the crew was familiar with the establishment and could point the way. Kang knew that there were a few already planning on stopping by, and that Kaylee could use the help. He also wanted to get more information on the new people, see who was likely to cause problems (Farseer Ildraniath already had) and who wasn't. There were a few he hoped would show up, as well.

Feeling a little happier than usual, despite the Farseer, he took care of business as usual, being sociable and refilling drinks.

[Open post is very open. Feel free to talk to either Kang or Kaylee, or both, or to threadjack (with permission, of course)!]

Mewtwo had been searching for somewhere less busy, and he found it in the form of the city. It was more open and somewhat cooler, but the most important thing was that there were fewer people. There were some, true, but it wasn't as much of a big rush of strange beings as there was in the main living area.

He could think here.

Probably his biggest concern was checking that his powers were still working properly. There was something... off. He had to figure out what it was.

The catlike creature could be found on a grassy hill, floating with eyes closed just above its crest. His legs and arms were folded up almost in a fetal position, his tail swishing slowly back and forth behind him. As he meditated, he was focusing on the grass below. If someone stopped to watch, they might notice he was slowly flattening out all of the blades of grass on the hill a handful at a time from the center down.

It was something to do while he thought, and it was a test for his precision to see how badly it had been damaged.

"Yes! YES!"

In the hangar, amongst the various vehicles and machines that line the expansive room, Lord Zedd had found something he had been looking for for the longest time: Serpentera. Exposed within the damaged area from KAIN's attempt to kill Sasami, the head of the massive Warzord stood exposed and, at its base, the self-proclaimed "Emperor of Evil", excited to see his weapon of mass destruction on board the ship. From the angle where he was looking at, though, it was hard to see just how big the thing was, especially since it was laying down.

"So, it seems not everything has been lost. Serpentera still stands, thus I still have some sort of power here." Zedd said. At that moment, a few of Zedd's Z-Putties started to flank him. "Putties! Guard Serpentera. I'm certain Billy's told everyone about me by now. I refuse to let anyone take advantage of that. If they're going to win this 'war', they're gonna need my help! Like it or not!"

With that, Zedd began pacing the Hangar, eying various leftover vehicles in an attempt to see what would make excellent monsters.