Gods could be too arrogant. Such was the case of SHODAN, who had turned the Pods into a nightmarish zone where she could freely amuse herself and torture those that had come here.

But arrogance breeds pride which breeds mistakes. Instead of killing everyone off, she had decided to do this more slowly – watch them suffer in a slow agony, and, therefore had not expected them to fight back.

It had been a lucky shot, really, one in a million, But one of the people present that day had accidentally shot a tiny, insignificant object. A tiny little drone, that, once it had been the source of the power damper, had fallen. The tables were turned, and the goddess had been forced to retreat from the pods.

Now she was on a panicked mode, not only because some of the other people on the ship had managed to work their way into her system files, using another AI to send pointless images and sounds to her, distracting her from her task, but they knew how they could defeat her and gain their powers back.

It didn't take long for the message to be sent out, as the word quickly spread. Find the tiny little creatures, and shoot them down. SHODAN couldn't work their shields properly and once they were found, it was only a short matter of time before the powers returned to an area.

It would take time, but, finally, the tide of the battle was turning on the side of the crewmen and women. In vain, she was throwing her all; even more strange robot creatures, attacking in packs, but with hope on their side, they could win this...

[OOC - OKay go for it! NPC players, feel free to NPC as many robots as you like. Players, once your powers return, feel free to make as much scrap metal as you like, no need to have people NPC for you if you just want to write tags of them kicking ass.]

At times, Cedric has visions of gnawing his own arm off. He's not desperately hungry yet, but he's getting close to it. Being trapped in the City with no access to the slop is a recipe for disaster, after all, and he definitely can't hold out for another few hours. It's time to move while he still has the strength to.

It's a route filled with danger. Without any sort of Muggle firearms training, he only protection he has is his speed and a pile of rocks for throwing and swinging---that, and an improvised club, like the one he'd once taught new players on the Quidditch team to use. The useless wand still sits in a holster on his sleeve, as he can't bear to let that piece of his past go.

He crouches in the doorway, reminding himself that he has two choices: risk it all to survive or die. And the death if he's unlucky will be quicker than starvation. With that pleasant thought at the forefront of his mind, he runs and hopes he lucks out. That possible food storage is maybe six blocks away if he's read the map correctly. He has---but he's not lucky. A line of robots is marching down the street, right in his path.

The only choice is to run, dashing over and pushing over some unstable rubble. Maybe the rolling rocks will trip up the robots he's so desperately evading.

The term ironic didn't even begin to describe the situation Azula found herself in.

She stood gazing out over the city from one of the higher balconies of the Southern Air Temple with a blade in each hand watching the mechanical minions of that insipid voice crawling through the city destroying anything worth their attention.

Any time now they would turn their attention to one of the last bits of airbender culture, and she was loath to admit she would have to defend it.

Any other day she'd have let it burn, possibly even set fire to it herself, but now the stakes were higher and the situation had adjusted.

For one, she was living there. What few items she owned were stored in a small safe room deep within the temple. A room that she had felt safe in. Her time spent sharing a body with Nima had taught her one invaluable fact. As much as she looked down on her, Nima was trustworthy.

And so to protect the one place on the ship where she felt slightly less like she was going to be murdered in her sleep she had abandoned Kaya and Zouichi in Hydroponics and had escaped to make her stand here.

A snort and low whine reminded her she was not alone.

She sighed and turned to face one of Nima's Glow Sloths. It had been separated from the pack and Azula had found it in Hydroponics. Against her better judgement she brought it with her. If nothing else she could always eat it she supposed.

At least that was how she justified it to herself. She certainly didn't care about it. Either way she shooed it back into the temple where it was less exposed and turned her eyes back to the city.

Erhart kneels before the great statue of the god-emperor of mankind, lost in prayer, and contemplation. His armor is bare, stripped of all the paint and embellishment that is his right to wear as the Emperor's Champion, instead it is mostly gunmetal gray, with a few patches of gold showing through in places. His Crusader and Purity seals are nothing more than tattered scraps of parchment and wax, mostly burned away. His right pauldron is shattered, his left deeply groved, there are multiple puncture and burn marks on his plastron, and he bleeds. Oh yes, inside, there are many bruises, and he can feel at least one broken rib grate as he holds his humble pose before the image of the Master of Mankind, going through a Litany of Remembrance as he does so.

He stops, after finishing his devotions, and anoints himself with an ampule of holy water from a great marble bowl set in the Reclusiam, off to the right of the statue of Him on Earth. He turns, and stands, looking out over the city, watching the flashes of gunfire and the sounds of battle. He can do nothing, for now, too tired. While one of the catchphrases of the Eternal Crusade is no mercy, no respite, he can't bring himself to go out to fight again quite yet. Not like this. He can barely lift his sword. He needs.... rest.
And so he waits. For someone? Perhaps. Or perhaps just for a few moments of rest before returning to the war.

Figures that no sooner he gets finished with one thing, all hell breaks loose. Again. And this bitch AI was pulling this crap on his freaking watch. Yeah, that's not happening. He could hear the rumbling as company was heading in their direction, and there was barely time to call everybody together on the omnicomm. He grabbed some weapons as he could feel vibrations from the approaching attack. Hopefully they can arrange some surprises here to stop the Terminator squad in their tracks. He briefly thought of John Connor, man would he and his mom have loved tearing apart these things. Least the crew they had awake was a good one, and the team was prepared.

There wasn't much time. They needed to get out to locate anybody stuck, or in trouble so they could get to safety. He hoped it would be enough.

(OOC: First thread will be grouping and organizing for Security members and setting up teams. Then you can set up your own threads underneath for any daring fights/rescues.)

Chancy as it was to move between levels, it was still quite often a necessity. Especially when there was more to try and get out of Medical and the nearby Science Department, before the cogs and wheels hands of SHODAN ran amuck over everything.

It didn't make for easy transitions, on the otherhand. Those traveling upward found themselves abruptly diverted to the second level, at the hub of the pod caverns. This unintentional side-effect of something the wired fiends were doing made it both necessary to stop off and stay out of a larger group's way, as well as finding immediate progress elsewhere inconvenient. Getting down to the MedBay again would be easiest, and with a safezone set up in Contagion it wasn't a bad bet.

The problem primarily being they still needed some contact and transfer of supplies between safepoints, if that really could have been left in more organized hands. Things the ship needed to work on? Possibly a sense of coherency, but Sakura was admittedly biased. It's what she expected from folks at home, and what she'd been made to act on and with during the war. Her war. Her world's war. Might as well apply it to space.

Whatever poor sods had also gotten the shaft and ended up in the hub to the pod caverns had similar options to what Sakura was facing. "They were headed this way. We need to move." Finding someplace to either be out of the way and line of attention, or to use as a stronghold if they needed to, would be important. If the metal and plastic minions were following them into the caverns, they'd hopefully leave soon afterward. If not...

If not, they had even more of the many problems SHODAN had dropped in their deliciously frail buggy hands.

[ ooc: Any and all who wanted to be around before the Pods were known to be under attack/to witness the Pods coming under attack, get in here! Trudy's rallying for a drive of robots out here -- SHODAN will be killing pods in this log. ]

Sneaking through corridors armed to the teeth was something she'd gotten depressingly used to over her time on Stacy, but Trudy didn't think much of the latest threat. For one, the invasion was scattered across all decks of the ship, giving the crew small pockets of robots intent on taking over key areas. It made it easy to fall back to Level 1 and Level 6, respectively, to regroup.

Contagion was a safe zone for now, and Trudy intended for it to stay that way. In fact, she intended to retake this whole deck very shortly, once they had enough manpower to do it. Medical seemed to be handling themselves fairly well on their own, and the only spot that threatened to be overrun was Special Weapons.

"All right people, listen up, here's what we do. Move anything you can to barricade the windows to Contagion - we don't want them to know how many people we've got in here. We'll wait until we have a fairly sizable force and then we'll push out into the corridor and retake Special Weapons. From there, we'll push forward to Level 2 and try to force them out of the pod caverns. Fortify this position as much as you can and keep an eye on the corridor. Friendly target, pull them in. Unfriendly target, eliminate with extreme prejudice."

She didn't want any surprises, but she did want as many people on her side as could be had.

The last time Allenby had been snatched up by GLaDOS, she had quickly abandoned the AI's preferred agenda in favor of seeking her out to deliver a righteous beatdown. The second time, Allenby hadn't changed anything except to get started on that before hearing GLaDOS' instructions. She hopped walls and dodged flame-shooting floor panels in her quest to get to the computer and put a fist in her processors--her soul was attached to her just fine--and just as suddenly as before, she was in mid-air. Unlike before, she was in the Hangar and surrounded by hostile robots.

"Whoa!" Instinctively, she punched the first one in its banana-shaped head, wincing at the unexpected pain. The hell--bam! Whack! She grabbed another one and hurled it at some of its comrades, which were taking aim at her. It didn't go as far as she'd hoped... ducking and dodging between them and some nastier-looking big guys, she spotted what she was looking for. "Nobel Gundam! Let's go!" she yelled, and launched herself up towards the cockpit.

It became apparent about halfway up that, well, halfway was all the way this time. That made it certain. Something was wrong with her. Had GLaDOS done this? And what the hell were all these robots trying to kill her, anyway?!

It would be a lie to say that Allenby wasn't afraid as she started to drop. But she was too pissed off now to think about being scared. With a bloodcurdling roar, she slammed herself into a clump of battle-bots and went right back to work, trying to ignore the question of how long she'd be able to keep it up.

[backdated to the beginning of the event, I had a big paper due so I couldn't do this right off the bat, sob.]

Claire was trying to catch up on things she'd missed while stuck in GLaDOS's mazes when the ship went dark. It didn't even take her as long as it took SHODAN to cackle about domination over the speakers for her to be up and moving around her office. She always kept a flashlight in the top drawer of her desk, just in case. Never know when you're going to need a flashlight, and since the wiring in the school was probably extremely old it was a good idea on its own.

( Is that the way you like it? )

There was only one destination in mind when the war started: work. Billy had dashed down to the transportation tubes, arriving on the first floor when he'd hit a snag: a robot swarm already assaulting the Med Bay and Special Weapons. But that wouldn't stop him: his coworkers and friends could be there, and the lab could easily hold the key to fighting back. He'd struggled and shoved his way through, roughed up very well by the time he crossed the threshold of his lab.

The hordes were closing in. Only his guns and a narrow doorway stood between Billy and death, and so far it seemed that death was gaining the upper hand. Would there ever be time to cobble together a better solution or escape? He doubted it. Not unless help arrived for them.

(ooc: Defend the laboratory? Your characters can be trapped with Billy rigging together some kind of defense system or trying to get through to him. If it gets bad, though, they might all have to escape and blow up the tech...)

It had literally been a day after being released from GLaDOS (oh, she was going to give that bit of AI a piece of her mind, no doubt ... ) when it started. The message from Shodan, the ship shutdowns, the robots ... one AI for another, great. Just her luck, right? But there was a problem with this situation: the medbay was under her control. Martha could sit back and allow other places to be taken (albeit with much anger and gnashing of teeth) but the medbay was not one.

So she set out with one stupid goal in mind: get into the Medbay. Yeah, thinking it out only went so far, and as smart as Martha knew she was she was also tenacious as hell. At least she could grab some supplies, maybe smaller equipment, something to help the people in need. She walked around the entire Earth in a death-zone, how hard could a trip to the Medbay be?

Currently hiding behind a convenient outcropping of the ship, listening for the disappearing metal footfalls of some robotic creature, and trying to keep her heart rate and breathing down, it would likely be much harder than she thought. Maybe she could use some help.

Things were not good. This was the polite way of putting things, anyway. SHODAN had announced herself over the ship's systems and now there were crazy, deadly robots running around. And worst of all, Khaji was silent. He wasn't dead, Jaime was sure of that. He would have felt it. But distressingly, somehow, they were cut off from each other. And Jaime was just now realizing how horribly alone he felt without the faint buzzing presence of his friend and partner constantly at the back of his mind, ready to offer advice, a sarcastic quip (he was getting really good at that) or some mild observation.

So here he was, the Blue Beetle, darting through the corridors and dodging robots to check on a friend. Without powers. Great. If he was in bad shape, how as M'gann holding up? He scurried at ast into the crew quarters and headed down the line to her room, throwing open the door.

"M'gann? Are you okay There are a bunch of robots out here!"

Once Atom had read the initial comm post, he headed over to the closest place where he thought people would be -- the Vatican, once converted into a fortress against outside attack. It had since been mostly restored to its original state, but some fortifications still remained -- hopefully, some food and supplies, too. He'd heard people had used it as a safe area before, so maybe some of them would head there now. As he touched down within its limits, his rocket boosters kicked off. His footsteps seemed to echo through the tall construction as he walked along the paved stone... but for now, he seemed to be alone, in the midst of dead silence.

Or was he?

"Hello?" he called. "Is anyone there? Does anyone need help?"

[Robutts will be forthcoming 83. I'll bring some Terminators, but if anyone else could NPC some other robots, that'd be great!

P.S. I will be waiting for more people to tag in before I add robots.]

Splicer had been chilling in his pad when the announcement was made. Another day, another psycho on-board the ship. It was sort of ironic that it was one crazy AI taking over the resident crazy AI, one messed up overlord for another. Regardless of what the deal was, it was time to suit up and get shit in gear.

"I'll be heading out guys, keep the fort safe!" He was ready in a matter of seconds, armor, weapons and explosives... But there was something amiss. Besides feeling a wicked migraine, he had gotten no response from his friends.

"What? Did I do something?"

No answer. He walked over to the doll that had been sitting in front of the computer screen. "Hey, dude, don't worry, I'll fix the rig soon enough." No answer. "Fine then, be a fucking douche Miggy."

He turned and frowned, looking at where the other two had been at. Alice brushing Lil's hair. "You two too?"

No answer.... Lil would never not talk to him... He took long, hurried steps towards the doll and picked it up. "Lil... Lil, can you hear me?" No answer.

A cold fear gripped his body for the first time in decades. That feeling of cold dread that he felt that day, the day they died. But they didn't die! They were here with him weren't they?! They escaped that planet! They survived and they were on board Stacy with him!

"Talk to me damnit! Lil! Alice! Mig?! Anyone?!!!" The silence that permeated through the room was only broken by the heavy breathing of the mask.

"No... nononononono NO!" He couldn't lose them, He couldn't fail them. Not Lil!

Stacy... And now this other fuckwad Shodan.... They did this. THIS WHOLE FUCKING SHIP DID THIS!

There'd be hell to pay. Everyone had betrayed him, he could hear them. Laughing. After all he tried to do for them... Especially that nut and bolt sucking bitch.

Splicer, no. Agent 779 loaded up on his stash of explosives and weapons. It was about to become a lot more heated in this place.

[[OOC: Here you have a black ops specialist gone berserk! Who also happens to have a mighty fine stash of explosives and weapons and is now convinced that the crew, and especially the ship, have betrayed him. he's currently attempting to add nice, new vents to Stacy with random explosive charges all through the City. Go on an easter egg hunt to deactivate them, or run into a bullet from his high powered sniper rifle! Or just go fight him during one of the times he's placing one of his bomb packets! Either way, he's extremely dangerous to the crew right now. Needs to be stopped!]]

The Doctor isn't there to open the doors of the old girl.

Not the the TARDIS needs him to.

It's only a few hours after the attack starts that the TARDIS doors suddenly open on their own, that golden light spilling out onto the hanger floor, almost as if beckoning any companions or would-be companions or maybe they just want to try on some adventuring on for size in a safe(ish) zone and maybe she isn't quite 100% safe, but there's still loads of hiding spots for anyone who happens to duck inside. The hum and drone of the TARDIS tries to entice any crew inside that can make it through her doors.

She does miss having people inside her. It's been so lonely and wrong in parts of her thanks to that horrid Time Lord rummaging around in her guts, so to speak. There's that angry little library storming about somewhere in the Southern(ish) hemisphere, looking for bones to chomp and a willing ear to listen to the Recital of the Three Mountains audio-drama at the same time. The dumbwaiter is bored to tears (if it had eyes) waiting for someone to cart to places. The bog of black water and the stench of smelly socks expands a few more rooms out from the Wardrobe. Out Somewhere Beyond, the Everything Forest lies about its name and gets a few more shades of mind-wiltingly boring, but might provide cover if you can stand that sort of thing (the Doctor can't).

And there's loads more rooms, undiscovered. The chances are out there in Stacy or possibly risking diving into the depths of the TARDIS.

[OOC; Basically the TARDIS is wide open for anyone who wants to explore her. :3 If you want to make up a room or trash another (just not console room please), go for it. It's probably going to be possible for the smaller droids to follow inside but it's a huge place, so yes]

There were ten around the building. There were fifteen or so at the door. There would be more once the shots started firing. No magic, no lightning, no super speed: just bad ass normal fighting power, and whatever actual skill they had in hand to hand combat.

Oh, and weapons. She had stored and fashioned some weapons. You don't have Hit Girl live someplace and expect it to be without some firepower and bludgeoning weapons. She had done this over the course of a few days, back and forth from weapons and possessions: she smuggled them as Mindy, just so she wouldn't look conspicuous too. Blades of several shapes and sizes, pistols capable of shattering through skulls, a mace or two, staffs with blades at the end, a spiked bat: Hit Girl's paranoia, which had amused Ruffnut at the time, was now about to pay off.

Now, to lay out the plan to actually getting out...

((Hit Girl, Ruffnut and Hana are in her castle, about to fight their way out. Open to anyone passing by, but especially to a certain afro sporting Wunderkid...))

Even if Kang hadn't already decided to stay by the tavern, he wouldn't have been able to get very far from it before running into hordes of robots. They'd moved into the City quick (or had they been there all along?), and several were making a beeline that way, from all directions in an attempt to completely surround it, their intentions clear.

Cursing, he rushed over to the other building, where he happened to live, to grab his armor and weapons. He'd gotten out of the habit of carrying more than his dagger when he was in the tavern itself; that was something that was no longer going to happen. By the time he got back downstairs, he could already hear their approach, and he hoped that others would show soon. It was one of the slow hours, with little to no patrons.

[Planning thread is here.]

Morgan had been in Hydroponics when the message first came over the comm system. He had exactly enough time to frown at his omnicomm before the power limiters engaged and the hyperspace compartments in his cloak failed. Like some outtake from a horrible collision of the Matrix and Harpo Marx, the entire contents of that space fell back into normal reality, leaving Morgan in a thigh-deep mound of guns, swords, and an electric guitar.

"Damn," he said, mildly, as he rolled his neck. He glanced off into the distance, quickly judged the amount of time he had till the robots he saw way out there reached him, then spent a few of those precious seconds tossing out a heads-up over the comms for his location.

That done, he dug out the multi-sheath he had made back when he used to carry weapons openly, slapped half-a-dozen blades through it, threw it on, then scooped up a pair of submachine guns.

"Why can't there be an army of good robots for once?" he muttered, flicking off the safeties.

(ooc: feel free to thread together to help Morgan defend against the evil robots. Also, evil robot NPCs are needed here!)

The next few hours when on without much problems for the ship. Life went on, and in fact, seem to be going for the best. Of course, the saying goes, if it's too good to be true....That's probably because it is.

Late at night IT finally made it's presence known and spoke.

( And speak it did... )

[[OOC - Planning post! :3c.]]

That 'morning' the crew got a Holograms messages from Stacy regarding the survey they had been filling out during the week.

|I wish to thank all of you who helped GLaDOS fill out the survey. Due to your responses, I am shutting her down for a few hours to do repairs on her system, in the hopes she will be much more pleasant to deal with, as well as remove the cake protocol. Please understand that she does an invaluable service and as such, this measure is only temporary. Anyone who is currently running mazes will be allowed to continue while this upgrading is taking place.|

There was a pause to let the crew realize what this meant.

|I am also researching the ship to see if there is another crew area that has not been used with, hopefully, more beds. If I do not find any, we will stop in a nearby planet tomorrow and stop for a few days to acquire as many goods to make the ship's life as comfortable it can be during these times of war. If any of you have requests about material goods you would like, please tell them to me. Remember that we are at war. If you have material goods to share with the rest of the crew, please do so as much as possible. Thank you.|

|Finally, I will also do my best to make sure that missions are properly researched, so that there is not as many problems as before.|

|Thank you you all for your feedback, it has been invaluable help.|