After Sam Henderson's announcement, the Contagion Containment and Treatment lab was going to get busy. Anyone suspected of being affected by the mysterious affliction would be brought here, and put into one of the large bubbles that would keep any potential contagious diseases in - and the patients themselves. Once in inside, they wouldn't be able to get out again until the Medical staff had cleared them.

And before they could do that, they needed to find out what was causing this - and why.

They had a lot of hard work ahead of them.

[[ooc: Just start your own sub threads under the main threads, guys! And if you're happy to have anyone tag in, put "Open" in the subject line. If you've already got plans for who you're threading with, put "Closed" instead.]]

Neither Rachel nor Marco had any real trust in the medical situation they'd both been forced into. It seemed like they had been tricked and betrayed; and it meant that there were instantly a few more people crossed off their list of who they should trust when they escaped. In fact-- it left them at each other, it seemed, when they did escape from medical, two cockroaches slipping out of sight while medical was distracted from them.

Of course, this was compounded by the fact that several communications posts went up shortly after-- one announcing a Quarantine (thankfully they'd gotten out in time for that) and one announcing their abilities to the crew to warn them. And then things got worse-- Marco's morphing began to get weird, and Rachel... literally split into two.

This wasn't going well.

((ooc: As Blue's OOC post said, we need to make sure that only the people signed up for taking the two 'groups' (Nice Rachel and Marco in one corner, just Mean Rachel in the other) to Quarantine are the ones who actually do that. Other than that, feel free to try and do it! Tag under the header for whoever you want to thread with and feel free set the scene, and ours will enter in. :) ))

Things had been running as usual down in the med-bay, and to first appearances, this week wasn't going to be different.

But first appearances could be deceiving. This week was going to be different. And as the next few days passed by, the Medical Department was going to find that they now had quite a situation on their hands.

[[ooc: Okay, so this post is just for the affected characters who go into the Med-Bay before Quarantine, the Medical peeps who volunteered, and also the people who bring in said affected characters. If you've already organised who you'll thread with for this, just put their names in the subject line. If you're happy for any of the Medical guys to tag in, then just put "Open". There's also an ooc planning post for this if you want to try and plot for this.

Also, please note that both in terms of the timeline, both Kon and Jeka will be the last two to be brought in, regardless of thread order - they're essentially the ones who'll show up right before Quarantine, and be the ones that clue in Medical as to what's really happening here.]]

Marco couldn't really say that he was a fan of Kang coming around to teach Eva some random language she'd never even use. It's not like she'd ever need it, and he wasn't going to by the argument that there was value in learning a language anyways; if she'd really believed that, why hadn't she ever made him learn Spanish?

Okay, so it wasn't really the language thing. Marco just still wasn't on good terms with Kang, so all he'd done was mumble a grudging hello before making a point to be Somewhere Else.

Now though, they'd gone outside to look at plants or something, so Marco could rummage through the kitchen without being bothered by any scaly reptiles. They had food! Lots and lots of glorious food! Alright, so it was a battle to stop Ax from eating it all, but for once they didn't have to live off of slop.

As he took out a spoon and box of ice cream, eating straight out if it without bothering to waste time by actually putting it in a bowl first, something about Marco...shifted. His hair didn't quite seem exactly the same length anymore, and he seemed to have gotten a little shorter. Marco, however, was oblivious.

He took another bite, feeling a kind of perverse glee at the fact that Nora couldn't show up and tell him to knock it off.

Sakura figured she should probably be more annoyed than she was, crossing her arms and staring down the statue of her that was, consequentially, also crossing its arms and staring her down. Life imitating art was usually an expression she'd heard, not something she'd expressly seen. (Given the artists she knew, art wasn't even something held back to be appraised -- most shinobi artforms leaped out and grabbed you in some way or another.) She couldn't say she appreciated this particular example.

"Really funny. Can we move on now?" She unfolded her arms, clapping her hands together in the vain hope it would actually do something about the statue staring out at her.

Surprisingly, it did. The swirling inky whatever underneath the odd statue head produced another statue after a while, one that carried slightly more context than the last. Contorted awkwardly between dozens of jointed arms belonging to an unseen puppet, Sakura looked back in shocked frustration at someone left undepicted. "This isn't any better," she muttered, crossing her arms again.

[ ooc: For the curious, this is from her fight with Sasori. ]

He kept his eyes closed the entire time, once he regained control of them. It wasn't that he didn't want to see, it was just that there was some sort of childish belief that if he opened his eyes, the entire thing would pop like a bubble and just be a dream.

He really didn't want it to be a dream.

About the time his eyes closed, hands closed tight around his shoulders, holding him firmly in place. Iniss didn't really need to, but the Yeerk was weird about control at times. Weird about physical dominance even though the fake host was really about the same size as him.

There was a sharp pang in his chest as the Yeerk pulled away for the final time-something he didn't want to call loss, something he couldn't quite label relief. "It's done. Now what will you do?" The words were soft, hushed, pressed against his ear in a mockery of an intimate embrace. "You'll miss me. You'll miss being able to yield control and not fight back. You know you will. You'll miss the utter certainty that someone else is there to clean up your messes."

He kept his eyes closed, arms hanging lose at his sides. "It's going to be scary, isn't it? Being all alone in your head, you've never done that before. No one to talk to when you have doubts, no one to watch your back or protect you from repercussions when you screw up- and you will, you always do - I bet that terrifies you, doesn't it?" He swallowed, lips curling into a smile. "I have friends, family. They'll help me. They'll be strong when I can't be. Who's going to help you?"

It took a lot of effort to pull away, not opening his eyes to look at Iniss, not opening them at all until he was sure he was facing towards Sam.

He managed to not look back. It made him feel oddly proud.

ooc: Tag under the headers of person you want to talk to.

There is a point, Sakura decided, Where directions are useless if there's no consistent measurement of distance. She felt she'd reached this point, stepping out of the main walkway and up onto a semi-clear platform lining this part of the road. By what she could figure, she should have arrived at this particular bookseller by now, but she still seemed to be stuck in some bizarre toyland.

Or at least what could pass as a section of it, with stores and merchants displaying all kinds of toys from and for all kinds of species. There were even people dressed in funny costumes wandering around and trying to sell her intestine animals they were tying up on the spot. (They were apparently very popular with Traflimadurian children.)

"You'd think people would want to be easy to find..." She trailed off, sighing in frustration. On a planet of merchants? Ones who probably do everything they can to catch a buyer's attention before their competition? Right. Stepping back off the platform into the crowd, Sakura steeled herself for good old fashioned trial by error exploration -- until either persistence or blind luck paid off.

Down one of the back alleyways, one might stumble across a small sidewalk market full of peculiar shops. To one side was a store selling hub caps, to the other was a man who'd try to convince you that his potions would bring you eternal youth, really.

But in the middle, was a clock shop. It's collection of clocks in stock was peculiar, made of strange materials and working in odd ways (and if you wanted a cuckoo clock, here you could get one with a real cuckoo). But by far the most striking clock was the one that was draped across one of the back tables. The fact that it could drape at all was a big hint to the clock's strangeness. It looked like a giant, metre-wide clock face that had an unfortunate accident with a Bunsen burner and gone all floppy as a result, like it was melting. And yet, the clock still ticked.

The merchant spoke. "Do you want to see something strange and mystical?"

[[ooc: Alright, this is the post that kicks off the Melting Clock! The clock store Merchant here is Jeepers/Peepers, who's being NPC'd by Allen. Since people other than the Melting Clock guys might want to tag Jeepers/Peepers, please mention in your subject line whether your character is to be affected by the clock or not, so Allen knows who to set the chime off at!

Important Note! If your character is to be affected, make sure that you've signed up, guys. If you haven't filled out the form, you haven't signed up]]

Another Important Note: No more new threads please! If you really really want to thread this out, please ask Allen directly if he's able to. Otherwise, just handwave them coming to the shop.

Next to the Mall Hotel, a large bazaar sprawled out through the streets. Food stalls, jewelery stalls, plastic surgery stalls...might want to stay away from that last one. But since the bizaar was close by, it served as a good place for the crew to meet up and start their exploration of XaXing.

[[ooc: This is just a general mingling post guys, so jump in and start threads, tag into other people's, whatever you want!]]

The plan of attack was pretty simple-- the bazaar was generally unfamiliar territory, so the point was going to be to stalk the field, to scope out the best items and deals. If she could find the weakest salespeople, the best deals... those would be the best places to strike. This was going to be good.

Moving with purpose, Rachel started to weave through the crowded bazaar, eyes set on her first target: a nearby clothing stall, vivid fabric aired in the open.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

Ever since he'd talked to Aang and watched the guy swimming around with an imaginary dolphin, Marco had been kinda missing his dolphin morph. The dolphin morph was, without fail, always fun. And hey, Marco was definitely a fan of fun.

So he'd called up the pier over the ocean again, jumped into the water, and morphed dolphin. Marco clicked happily as the dolphin's bubbly personality rose up. He needed to play a game!

Angling his fins, Marco started swimming around underneath the pier, swerving inbetween the poles. He needed to go faster!

Marco was on a mission.

He was going to find that cinnamon stash of Ax's, dammit. He was sick of gloop. So, after surreptitiously checking to make sure that Ax was out in the barn and not the house, he'd started checking the inside the couch. No, not under the cushions. He was checking inside the cloth itself, around the springs.

Hey, he hadn't checked there yet - you never know! It could be there!

But, Marco's search wasn't going to last very long, this time.

It was just for practice, and also something to distract himself and pass the time. It was almost meditative, after all.

Not that he was feeling as sad anymore. Life happened, there were hurts that were just part of it all. He was human so he could feel them and understand them, so he could know heartbreak just as well as love, calm just as well as anger, sadness just as well as happiness. He was human so he'd make choices he wasn't sure were right that he had to live with, so he could be hurt and wonder if it was right to feel that way.

Aang had come to accept that, so now he was just distracting himself. He'd managed to find paper--real paper--from Weapons and Possessions. It was rice paper, in a wide variety of colors, and he sitting against Appa in his Sensorium and folding it into a wide variety of animals.

Some were pretty good, depending on how long he'd actually bothered to practice doing that kind of animals. Others...well they were almost recognizably animals.

"What do you think, Appa? What does it look like to you?"

Appa grunted a long groaning sound, and Aang scratched his head.

"Actually, it's supposed to be a bison like you, not a boarcupine. But I guess it's a boarcupine now!"

He smiled and placed it down with the others and picked up his birds (most of them cranes) and started making them dance in the air over his head, which was the real point of all this. Airbending practice. Fine control was something he could always use work on and making the little paper birds fly overheard was fun.

The way things kept going with frequent visitors, and how their little family was increasing all the time now... Well the place was just getting too small. So Dean had started working on expanding out some rooms. He went over some plans with Xander recently. (Following a stern talking to about his brother, and how weird the idea of having a possible brother in law now was to all parties. A few threats were made and noted before he finally tabled the topic for the time being.)

The sound of hammering could easily be heard in their part of the city. Furthermore, between the humid temperature of the ship, and exertion from the construction project, Dean was now working shirtless with jeans and boots.

It was, all things considered, a pretty good day. Sokka had decided to take the day off and spend the day doing something he loved: fishing. He wasn't sure if there were actually any fish in the river that ran through the city now, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that he had a body of water and a stick with a piece of line that was baited with a worm. He was happy to sit beneath the artificial sun, hat pulled over his eyes and stick held easily in his hands as he idled the day away. True, he could have done this in the Sensoriums but that wouldn't be the same. Real water was just more satisfying. And maybe he'd go for a swim later.

All in all it was shaping up to be a pretty good day.

It had been so long since Cassie had so much as seen an actual bed that it was hard not to close her eyes and fall asleep the moment she lay down in the Medbay. But there was still a lot to do first. For the long-term she was going to need several surgeries to fix the scars down her left side but for now the priority was to get her stabilized. So she was hooked up to an IV drip- oh, she remembered how those felt. And poked and prodded a little bit more before being left on her own.

She could rest now, but there was a lot to catch up on.

And probably a lot to explain.

Sofia didn't want to venture outside of her room. She'd stayed inside and cried on and off for days but she had more than just herself to worry about. Spot, the dog she and Laurie had adopted, needed exercise so Sofia brought him to Hydroponics. After wandering aimlessly for a bit she sat down under a tree and watched as the purple and green dog ran around.

You didn't have to be an expert to see that Sofia's normal cheer was gone.

[[OOC: This is closed to Aang but if you really want your character to run into a depressed Sofia you can poke me then comment.]]

It's one of those days where Jamie's found himself with free time and no idea how to spend it. He's already finished his shift in Engineering, there's not any training, and for once, he's not actually hungry. Neither the Sensoriums or the Media Library really sound appealing right now, which leaves...what?

Idly wandering the halls, he supposes. If only he could get into the TARDIS, he'd have something to do, but the Doctor was off who knows where and without the Time Lord around, he's stuck. Oh, sure, his old room was still in there, but what good did it do him if he couldn't get into it?

He's passing by Weapons and Possessions when he hears a noise that seems to be coming from just inside the door, and he stops to listen. It doesn't repeat itself, and he frowns slightly. Maybe he misheard. With a shrug, he's about to move on when it happens again - a faint *thump* this time, as though something in there had been knocked over. There's a flash of movement, just out of the corner of his eye. It looks for all the world like a small black and white cat streaking through the room, which is...unusual, to say the least.

That's enough to gain his full interest, and he slips inside in full 'creeping quietly' mode to see what's up. It's not exactly like he can hide that he's doing so from the hallway, however, and anyone else in the area may very well notice what he's up to.

(( OOC: Rachel is here as well as Jamie and will likely be joining in at some point. When exactly that will be...? Only the Shadow she knows. Enjoy! ))

The team was assembled and ready, now all that was left was to track down the Helmacron ship, which was harder than you might expect. Fortunately Brainiac 5, in spite of all his other failings, had provided them with an accurate location. Securely attached to the base of one of the untouched ships.

Now's your moment, boys and girls.