The Sub-Visser was dying. It was obvious to anyone in the MedBay, from the way Paco was shuddering and moaning in his restraints. The last hold-out of the Yeerk infestation was dying. It would all be over soon.

He looked up as Superboy and Robin entered the MedBay and laughed, baring his teeth in a grin.

"Hey Superboy, want to know a secret?" he asked. "It's a good one. A real kicker, that Francisco and Jaime and Speedy have been keeping from you and your little friend there."

And before Jaime can stop him, he spits it out:

"You're dead when you go home. Dead! Had a nice funeral, too bad you weren't there too enjoy it. Oh!" he rolls Paco's head to look at Robin. "And I wouldn't get too attached to your little buddy Kid Flash either. Oh wait, too late isn't it? Ah well. At least Superboy goes out saving the world. Flashy drops the 'kid' off his name and goes out like a punk."

"And now we play the waiting game," says Jaime, lounging around Paco's bed with Brenda. Brainy's left them alone, but hovering nearby in case he's needed again. Right now, they're hoping the real Paco's being entertained by the pointless babble and that the Sub-Visser's annoyed.

"Shame we don't have any Scrabble. How about charades?"

The Sub-Visser stared stonily up at the ceiling, still holding Paco under rigid control. The fugue was coming. He knew it. Everyone knew it.

Paco in particular was taking a double-handful of joy in it.

Suffer and die, you sluggy bastard, he said. I am going to grind you into the floor when you fall out of my head. You're going to be paste.

Does your precious little best friend know that you take such pleasure in others' slow deaths? the Sub-Visser sneered back, flicking Paco's eyes down toward his right wrist, where the tattoo Paco had gotten when Jaime had disappeared was currently covered in bandages. One of the many watchers had caught the Sub-Visser rubbing that wrist against the restraining strap, wearing at the skin and scratching up the tattoo.

It was petty, yes, but oh so satisfying.

You tried to shoot him in the head, Paco retorted. His heart bleeds, I'm sure.

Down in the city, behind a holographic wall, an epic battle for the whole of Stacy was taking place.

The Yeerks had dug out a portion of Stacy's 'brain' and built a machine that would let them wipe it clean, let them take her over and control her. It would also probably destroy the coordinates that would let the rest of the crew find their way home, but the Yeerks didn't particularly care about that. They knew their own coordinates, that was all that mattered.

Bumblebee, the Doctor, and the Master had found the machine, following the directions of the very unfortunate Yeerk that had wound up in the Master's hands. They'd brought an unconscious West with them and were shortly confronted by Sub-Visser 7, the leader of this particular batch of Yeerks. Scorpius had apparently attempted to first team up with and then betray the Sub-Visser -- what the result of that was, the Sub-Visser hadn't said.

But between two Time Lords and an Autobot, they should have no problems taking down one baseline human, right?

Well, that was before he'd brought out the Taxxons. Giant, flesh-eating alien centipedes, driven by a mad hunger to devour anything that couldn't run away fast enough. They weren't very sturdy, and they would immediately fall upon any Taxxon unfortunate enough to be injured, but there were hundreds of them. And they just. Kept. Coming.

And over all the fighting, the machine that would wipe Stacy's brain was slowly charging up...

((OOC note.))

There are three major things happening. One of them is that the crew is sweeping through the ship, scanning whoever they find, and shipping the restrained Controllers back to the MedBay with some crew members.

Another is Paco--or his Yeerk, at least--is leading Scorpius, who appears to have betrayed the crew, towards the machine, hidden away in an alcove in the city, attached to one of the fleshy walls near one of Stacy's nerve clusters. It took them quite a while to find it.

The Yeerks do so love collaborators.

The last thing happening is the Doctor, Master, and Bumblebee, with the last one carrying an unconscious West, are hunting for that same machine and closing in.

With all these thing happening at once, the shit is, as they say, about to hit the fan.

Cybil is currently talking with Jaime Reyes about the possibility of hacking the ship's systems. Just a normal day on the meatship, a normal conversation in one of the cold zones, where there are no working sensors, about getting the hell OFF the ship, or turning the big bitch around.

"Do you think we could have our resident tech nerds build something to bridge the gap from technological to the more organic parts of her systems?"

Ax had escaped the Controllers on board. Brainy had not been so lucky. Neither had Sam and Tim. And who knew how many others on board had Yeerks wrapped around their brains, controlling their every movement, pretending that everything was normal until the time came to strike.

Who do you trust, podlings?

The lab is coming slowly but surely. Use of the Sensorium means that they have proper lab conditions to work on equipment to make sure the actual lab has proper lab conditions. One of the first things Brainy had managed to work on is something of a secret project.

"Phillip" had given him some pertinent data on this Kandrona. Brainy doesn't think that there is much likelihood that any of the parasites Ax is afraid of are on the ship, but he thinks it's prudent to make absolutely sure, first. Afterwards, if they find there are none, Ax can finally introduce himself--for real this time--to the crew.

The scanner he made is why he's waiting down in the city for Ax to come with him as he scans. Ax had told him he would meet him there once he was finished eating his slop.

As Brainy waits, he flicks the scanner on, to test it out--wait a moment.

There's a blip.

Curious.

Brainy starts to follow where the scanner leads, ignoring the potential danger of doing it alone. The addition of Ax would not likely help him, after all, and he's a Legionnaire. If there is indeed danger, he can at least fight well enough to escape and warn the others of the threat.

This arrogance, unsurprisingly, is going to be his downfall.

They haven't been all getting locked away in experiments. Well maybe they had at times and somehow found the way to block it out.

It's a mystery.

But now there was a Nathan, a Xander, and a Kate all milling around the Living Area. Nathan was currently pacing around, while Kate was checking her bow on one of the fleshy seats. Xander was resisting the urge to poke the weird sculpture just from sheer boredom.

If there was ever a group that needed distractions, it would be them.

(ooc: Tossing the lot in since been ages that they're all had posts and threads. Newly popped pups, come on in. Old pups, definitely stop by. Especially any car keys one. My AIM's Whspr2ascrm13 if you need to ping. Tag any of them individually, just say you want in the thread. The post will be open forever for threads.)

Thanks to the organic uniform provided by Stacy, Sam was clean and free from the sticky goop that he and Murphy had fallen in while exploring the secret room in the clock house.  Now, clean and dry once again, he meandered down the streets of the city, studying all the massive structures that he'd only given a fleeting glance before.  He stopped in front of St. Peter's Basilica, the very same cathedral that Connor and Murphy had been coming out of when he ran into them.  Glancing downward, at the cargo pocket on his thigh, he pulled out his father's journal and took out the rosary that they used as bookmark--among other things--and a small silver flask.

Turning his eyes back to the building in front of him, he started up the steps and disappeared inside.  Several minutes passed, minutes spent over the basin of holy water, blessing it for a second time, and filling his flask with it.  Giving a satisfied nod, he tucked both items back into his pocket and stepped back out into the city.

Nothing had ever, ever prepared the MacManus brothers for being abducted by aliens. This wasn't covered in school, or in any of the extra lessons Ma made them take. Nobody at the slaughterhouse ever talked about this, though one or two people may have mentioned it in a pub or bar or insert place serving alcohol here. Those people, though, they hadn't taken very seriously. Here, even the unshakable certainty of their Mission was trembling in the midst of so much foreign and bizarre.

So after the 'OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK' factor had died down a little - definitely not completely, but a little - and the big group had been disbanded, the twins went where they felt sure to get some guidance.

During the very brief tour of the city, Connor noticed something in the distance. He'd nudged Murphy about it, but they left checking it out until later. When 'later' came, and they checked, it was, well, "Jesus fuckin' Christ! That's the fuckin'- that's- that's the-! Fuck!" the Vatican.

Ten minutes later, they'd calmed down sufficiently to stop cussing and were walking through the eerily quiet St. Peter's Square. Slipping wordlessly through the doors of the Basilica itself, they made their way to pray. At the moment it didn't matter why these buildings were here. The aliens might be overstepping themselves, in which case they would die soon. On the other hand, it might just be a sign. Before they could decide, Murphy and Connor needed advice.

Nearly an hour later they reemerged, troubled but much calmer. There had been no direct answers - there rarely were - but the two of them were ready to wait it out. Whatever happened here, their Mission remained unchanged.