Samus was taking part in one of the few luxuries she had here on the ship: the amenities of the crew lounge. She leaned back in the leather armchair, taking a sip of her whiskey coffee and tapped a few times on her omnicomm with her free hand. She was busy at work. It was nice to get out of the office. She didn't have to stare at the empty side off the office that way.

Not that she missed the other Chief of Security or it bothered her at all. Nope. Not one bit.

The Person: Aang, the Avatar, master of all four elements, truly an individual to be reckoned with.

The Place: The Lounge. Right now, he was in the kitchen practicing his Airbending via the highly deadly art of--

Making fruit pies. What? It took some very precise Airbending to get the fruit fluff all fluffy on top. Good practice.

And eating the fruits of his labor was, uh...exercise for his jaw, yeah. And stomach.

Okay, so he was just hankering for cake after all that time with GLaDoS. It was still good Airbending practice, though.

And he brought the rest out to be served to whoever had a hankering for confectioneries.

"Hey, do you want a piece of fruit pie?"

Come and let me bake you the pie of my people.

[bendytimed a bit, it wouldn't have taken her QUITE this long to get to the bottom of things, orz]

It didn't really take Claire that much detective work to figure out who on her narrow list of people aware of Steve's unique condition were responsible for the boy's current unfortunate state. Her gut instinct of who was responsible had only been verified by a quick check of Stacy's records, and that was really all she needed, for the moment. She'd make plans to figure out how to deal with the AI later (something involving a brick of C4, perhaps) but for now, she needed to have a word with Lex Luthor.

She didn't know much about the man, but she knew enough to know he'd more or less taken up the bar in the crew lounge as his own, so she headed directly there, intent to wait him out of she had to. When she spotted that very distinctive bald head she quickened her pace, her right hand balling up without her even thinking on it.

"Luthor!" The second Lex turned to his name, he'd find himself getting a square crack in the jaw by one angry Redfield.

This had been a rare find. During all of his wheeling and dealing while on shore leave, he never expected to come across a box of Monte Crisco cigars. Cuban Monte Crisco premium cigars. Even back on his earth, those were difficult to get a hold of, though far from impossible for a man of his resources.

He decided that he would enjoy it in the crew lounge. Partially because the one bottle of brandy that he knew would go best with it was there, and partly because a cigar like this should be enjoyed in good company. Unfortunately, at this hour, the lounge was mostly empty, most of the crew busy licking their wounds from the recent fight.

Still, he knew eventually, someone would show.

In the meantime, he took a seat near one of the windows. The light from the Bleed filtered in, giving him a red tint. He asked Stacy to play some jazz for him, and lit his cigar. He took the first deep drag and held it in, taking a moment to truly taste all of the flavors, then exhaled.

Truly excellent work. He was going to savor this.

Gauron is not exactly a fan of things that aren't within his control, and this thing with the Nightmare King's starting to wear on his patience. He'd found a measure of morbid amusement in it at first, and he'd been content to leave this one to the Magic Department while the prayers Roxie had taught him could still protect him well enough - but now, it's clear the situation is getting progressively more and more out of hand, and he's getting tired of it.

He's still shaking the numbness out of not just his left arm now, but half his torso, down to his hip, as he emerges from the city - the spreading numbness that his dreams inflict hasn't changed despite the number of sleeping positions he's tried, and he's starting to wonder whether there isn't an underlying medical condition the Nightmare King's agitating. His first stop should probably be the Medbay, but for now, he wants to collect his thoughts, maybe start laying out a longer-term plan of action.

Which is why he's up at the bar in the lounge instead, having a cup of cocoa and looking through the Engineering and Science department staff lists on his omnicom to see if there's any overlap with the Magic department - if there's any way for him to help out directly in the defense, someone with the skillsets of both is his likeliest way to find out about it. He's also got plans for after this mess is handled that he'd like to start laying the groundwork for, and he'll need some help from Engineering to bring them to fruition - though maybe he should begin putting them into effect, or at least recruiting for them, sooner rather than later. It'll give people something to focus on other than what they can't do about the Nightmare King.

After another minute or two, he sets the omnicom down and takes another swig of his cocoa. These next couple weeks - or however long it takes to destroy the Nightmare King - are obviously going to be long ones.

It was late.

How late, Claire wasn't sure, she hadn't really bothered to take into account of how long she'd been up, but she was up, the insomnia she suffered in the months after Raccoon City making an ugly reappearance as of late, thanks to all this Nightmare King business. Rather than lying in her bed and staring at the ceiling, she'd moved herself to the lounge, where she now sat with a pen and pad of paper she'd picked up while on earth. She was making lists of everything she wanted to cover as far as survival went for the kids, but she was getting a little distracted.

Anyone who was up at this hour like she was, would probably come on her doodling in the margins, as opposed to actually getting any work done.

Scout had been rather secretive after the mission, ditching the second meet and greet (who cared about those jerks anyway) to head straight to the crew lounge. It was empty, which was actually great for him. After all, he wanted a bit of quality alone time with some of the "souvenirs" he brought back from that Earth.

He pulled out a white bag, practically dripping with grease now, but -oh God- did it smell good. Scout inhaled deeply, savoring the scent before gently pulling out a taco, hastily wrapped up in some thin paper. Sure it'd probably take a couple years off his life by eating it, but what what was he gonna do with those anyway?

Lex was always one to keep things secret, and here on the meatship was no different. He had been quietly working on a small project, but one that he had kept well hidden. Over the course of several days, he worked on it in the Special Weapons lab, when no one was around. Now, however, it was finished, and ready to be unveiled.

He was the lounge at the moment, back behind the bar, holding up his completed project. It was fairly small, about the size of an hour glass and shaped similar to one. What it did was anyone's guess, but the way Lex smiled at, clearly it could do nothing good.

"And with you," he muttered to the device, "Engineering and Security will essentially be mine."

What disturbing and diabolical device did Lex dare design? What secret scheme of sinister science is Lex about to unveil?

But, more importantly, all of you honorable heroes who are holed up here, do you dare stand in his way?



((The post is open, but please try to keep it at one continuous thread to start with, if only so Lex doesn't have to explain himself several times.))

Not too long after his introduction to the rest of the crew, Lex slipped away to head back to the Lounge area. That particular part of the ship had been his main workspace for several months now. He knew he would have to share that space one day, and he was certainly prepared for it.

Lex was, at the end of the day, a businessman. As any good businessman would tell you, the biggest deals are never negotiated in the board room. They're done on the golf course, the tennis courts, but more often than not, in the smoke filled backroom of a high end bar. Alcohol was always good for soothing frayed nerves, loosening tongues, and getting people to agree on things they normally wouldn't.

And now Lex had his own bar to conduct business. Actually, he had his own bar and lounge as a business now. Yes, a business. That meant that the booze and smokes that he had were not free anymore.

This is Lex Luthor here, did you think he'd give away all his booze for nothing?

Luckily, he was aware that people are running low on cash, but money isn't the only thing of value around here. His asking price was simple. He'd make any drink you want, even non-alcoholic ones (and given that he had spent some time mixing and matching liquor and juices from different universes, he can mix dozens drinks you never even thought of), and all you have to do...

"So, tell me about yourself."

...is have a conversation with him.

Hal9000 had been defeated, but it isn't quite over yet. After the injured had been healed and Jaime Reyes had stopped blanking out, after they'd regrouped and got their stuff together, it was time to move on. Engineering and Neuropathy had yielded nothing fruitful.

They could, of course, just blow the ship to hell by messing with the engines, but that really didn't benefit them and they were already dead in space right now, the ship stopped in some random dimension. Neuropathy was locked down.

No, they had to make it to the bridge.

And this was one of the places on the way, a wide open area, sort of like a courtyard with something like a open-air cafe. A section tucked away was more like a lounge area, with a viewing window, like the one in Obs.

Here, someone was waiting for them, someone that had watched their every move.

He's not a very nice man. In fact...maybe they don't even have to go to the bridge. Maybe the one in control of it has come out to meet them.

[ooc: The old threads are still open, obvsly, but I'm trying to get everything up to keep things moving along.]