Brainiac 5 had not met with the others. Glanced around to see who was there, if they were alright. Brenda is fine, and so is Koko, there had been no reported casualties other than the people from the Pod Caverns. Tragic, certainly, but not his focus at the moment.

B5's body had been placed on a clear work-table, and then Brainy had gotten to work. First, his casing had been popped open again and lay discarded for a time on a nearby workbench. Next, the casing of his face. One might think that it would be disturbing for Brainy to see the mechanics of his friend's face exposed like that, but if he does, he shows no sign. He works silently and methodically, taking apart the components inside his head, checking for any backups, any information storage devices--anything undamaged that he can salvage some code from. The backup he'd been given is severely damaged, and there's no way B5's personality engrams can be restored from it, but if there are pieces stored elsewhere, even just fragments, pulling them together into a coherent whole is a possibility...

This isn't an organic being, after all, where life functions ceasing destroy the core processor via oxygen deprivation.

However, his investigation uncovered nothing useful. All of his memory storage components had been reduced to melted circuits, his core processor is fried...

After calmly doing his investigation, the moment he comes to the final conclusion that there is nothing to be recovered, he calmly puts his tools down, and calmly picks up an empty work tray, and calmly tosses it into a wall as hard as he can, where it thuds against Stacy's flesh unsatisfyingly. His expression never changes.

Then he takes a deep breath and goes back to work, putting all the parts together again, snapping things back into place. After that, he tidies up, his role of engineer and coroner becoming one of mortician. Cosmetic repairs are done to B5's torso casing to make him more presentable for the funeral services. The mechanics of his face are set to lock it in a peaceful expression, like he's simply sleeping.

Brainy folds B5's hands across his chest, with the hand that wears his Legion flight ring on top. The surface of said ring gets polished until it glitters brightly and is prominent to the eye. The last thing he does is tousle his hair. Not out of affection--it's messy, and hardly presentable.

It isn't so much that he believes it matters, this ritual, this preparation. He doesn't. When he died himself, be it sooner or later, he cares nothing for what's done to his own body after. But B5 had wanted to be human, to be an organic being, and people were so funny about these things. About deaths and burials and culture and rituals.

This isn't done for Brainy--in fact, this is the last thing in the world he wants to be doing, and were he being himself, the pragmatist that he is, he'd be reducing B5 to his core components for later use. They are valuable.

No, this is done out of respect for the dead. B5 had wanted to be organic, had wanted to be human, to be treated as more than his parts. So it's a body Brainy prepares, before it's launched into space with the same pomp and circumstance that any other Legionnaire's would be. It's a body he eventually covers with a sheet when he's finished, a body that will never move of its own volition again, a body that will be present for words spoken about a being no longer there, that B5 will never hear.

Given the last instance, Brainiac 5 is glad that he managed to say all that he managed to say when he could.

And then, at the end, his hand goes back to tousle the blonde hair, sticking up past the sheet, of the young man that would have been his brother if they'd had more time to be family, and this time, it's not because it's messy.

[ooc: Please ask me on aim (psychicsaphie) or email before tagging: psychic.saphie@gmail.com. He'll likely chase out most gawkers or people who don't know him or didn't know Brainy trying to offer condolences, so you might not find it worth it to tag. Who he lets in the room sort of depends on who and on the first thing they say when they come in.]

They now know what they're up against: space pirates. Interdimensional kidnappers and ruthless scallywags, that hijack ships, and sell the ships themselves and their contents for profit.

Their spaceship is rammed through the hull of the bridge, they're outnumbered fifteen-to-one, and the pirates have some very shiny tech on their side. But even with Stacy suppressed, the crew has her on their side, as she's trying her best to hide them from view and not allow her internal defenses to be used against our stalwart Meatcrew.

Now, in the area outside the bridge, which is home to a wide open space surrounded by a network of hub tunnels and the like, the crew is going to make their stand against the pirates--and the success of this fight will decide the fate of the rest of the crew. It's not easy task, either, considering the powerful weaponry the pirates have at their disposal, and the physical strength, cyborg augments, and powers a number of them have. But they do have a plan.

Will Team GTFO succeed, reopen the ship, and be able to go back to help the others fight against whatever was released against them? (Is it already too late to help them all?) Or will they fail, will those Left Behind have to cross their fingers and hope for the best, will the crew be doomed to a horrible fate in the meat markets (both literal and figurative) of the of the pirate black markets known as the Chopping Blocks?

[ooc: As usual, old threads are still open. And subthreads will be left open so folks can tag them. For instance, even after the subthread with the pirates retreating goes up, the pirate FIGHTING can still be tagged. You can also tag multiple subthreads, since it's a big-ass brawl and you can do fun stuff like having your character flung across the fight.

OPEN FOR TAGGING]

Jaime Reyes was still alive, not that most of Team GTFO knew it. He lay still as death in front of Hal 9000, the scarab slowly working on repairing the damage he'd used to fake his death.

The only people that knew what had really happened were the telepaths. And they had some important information to pass on to a few of the others before anyone else got injured -- or worst, killed for real.

You have my sincerest apologies, but I have my mission.

The traps start. Rotating blades coming out of the walls and floors and ceilings, jets of fire, lasers, holographic enemies. The clear walls of the maze let them see what's happening to everyone else.

The traps start, and they have to stay alive despite them. If they stop avoiding them, it's their own fault, you see, if they die. That makes it indirect enough for Stacy's Anti-harming-the-crew protocols to be avoided, as Hal, despite his reprogramming, still has to follow some constraints.

Please commence with killing yourselves by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The only chance the group has is if they work together to stay alive, and somehow they have to take out the shield projectors creating the maze even though they themselves are shielded...

[ooc: Cooperation is key, people. Hal can only adapt to one power/skill-set at a time, not all of them.]

Team GTFO gathers in the Living Area Level, near what appears to be a blank wall near the Sensoriums, and now it's time to distribute equipment, go over the specifics of the plan, and get ready to commence Operations. With a capital 'O'.

There's a multitude of robot drones and other equipment about.


[ooc: Read instructions for these threads here! Edit: Srsly. Read 'em. Try to keep all the subthreads as one consecutive thread. Please?]

[OOC: Set during the Yeerk Trial. Only ping in with characters who were around for it -- characters that pod-popped during are okay too; and there will be other Movie Nights with less bendy-time issues for everyone to play in.]

Someone had gotten their hands on scrap stuff from various places all over the ship -- there, bits of the trays from the mess hall, here shredded pieces of plantsuit, over there some scrap wood -- and had decorated the upper floor with a variety of arrows pointing to the Sensoriums. One door stood wide open, leaking the sounds of movie sound tracks into the hall.

Tonight was Movie Night.

The Sensorium was set up like the biggest, most awesome home-theater that anyone could ever want. Lots of open floor space, and a variety of chairs, cushions, and blankets to choose from. And then there were snacks and drinks and the all-permeating smell of popcorn.

Paco grinned as he sent an open invitation to everyone on board. He couldn't believe he'd waited this long to do this.

Jaime Reyes voice sounds over the comm-rings--all of them--and it sounds very urgent.

« Everyone on the ship, listen up! This is Jaime Reyes, your local 'Blowing this pop stand' coordinator and escape facilitation engineer. I need everyone on the ship to come to the City, in front of the Precinct, immediately. Grab people who don't have their comm rings with them--and tell them to grab their comm rings, people who are sleeping, whoever you find, and try to make sure everyone on the ship knows to come. This is very important. This is "getting the heck out of here" important. »

When they arrive, they arrive to find the Command Staff waiting, and a tiny, tiny young man standing on stone ledge from a fountain, waiting for them.

Here goes nothing.

Wyn thought she could head out to the Obs Deck and wait for the array to finish running on its own. She thought she had double-checked it. She thought she could have some downtime before everything started going crazy around her yet again. Clearly she was wrong, as she sprinted down the hallway towards the sound of the explosion she had just heard. At least she had remembered to put up a containment field around her desk, just in case-- although she certainly didn't remember her omnicom. That was left on one of the bone-like tables near where she had been sitting.

This? This is why Wyn shouldn't be allowed to leave Special Weapons until her projects were completely finished.

A battle raged above a barren world, the odds against the two heroes fighting side-by-side in the thick of it all, but they both refused to give up; there was simply too much at stake for that.

"Keep fighting, we’re winning!" One hero declared. He looked a little like an older version of Kon-El, but with some slightly different facial features and a different costume.

Brainy turned to say something in return, but his eyes focussed instead on the cannon levelled at Superman’s back and primed to fire.

"Look out!" But he could see that the warning wasn’t going to be enough, so threw himself desperately forward, managing to shove Superman clear as the weapon fired and hit him full force, ripping open his side and exposing the circuitry within. As he spiralled out of control and fell to the lifeless rock below, he could only watch as Superman quickly finished off the last of the enemy’s forces and rushed to his side.

"Hold still! You’re going to be fine," Superman insisted, clutching the Coluan boy’s hand tightly. It felt real and warm to Brainy’s sensors, and he gasped weakly, playing up his injuries.

"No Superman, I’m too—" a break for another gasped breath "—it’s too... late for me..."

"Don’t say that! I won’t leave you here!"

"You have to! I can’t go—" GASP. And a weak, pathetic cough. "—You have to save the... universe... Please..."

Superman’s eyes began to tear up. "I’ll never forget your sacrifice, Brainy," he said. "No matter what happens, you’ll always be a hero in my mind."

"Super—" Brainy tried to say, but he coughed again and, with a final sigh, went limp in the hero’s arms as the music swelled to a crescendo and—

Someone was in the room with him. The moment he realised, Brainiac 5 sat up and snapped out an order – "Stacy, end simulation" – mentally cursing that he hadn’t picked up on the intrusion sooner. Trying to act like he hadn’t just been involved in that simulation, he picked himself up off the ground and turned to face the new arrival.

[[if you’re curious, this is all completely canon, so feel free to wander in and comment as you see fit!]]

There was a dog wandering around through Stacy's hallways.

The observant might have identified her as a Ramtops wolfhound, but that was an unfair qualifying statement since all but one person on the ship did not have any idea where the Ramtops were or what a Ramtops wolfhound looked like. For the uninformed, she looked like a spectacularly well-bred dog, large and sculpted with a beautiful coat of thick golden hair, pointed ears and strikingly human eyes.

She wore a leather collar around her neck. The tag looked bizarrely like a police badge. It read "ANGUA."

The dog seemed to be minding her own business, however, simply sniffing around from hallway to hallway and occasionally stopping to stick her nose a little too close to a crew member for comfort before continuing on her way.

Luis had already been all over the medical bay, poking and prodding at things, messing with the tools and generally trying to get a sense of what all new toys he'd have to play with if the opportunity arose. The presence of patients made him feel guilty and he ended up stepping out after the wounded from the little skirmish had been brought in (besides, Leon's one friend was extremely hot and Luis felt like leering at her while she was unconscious was extremely creepy.)

That brought him to the special weapons division down the hall. An engineering department... seemed there were no general science labs. That was a shame. Oh well, he'd have to make do with two massive rooms full of fun and interesting scientific tools that he had no idea how to use, but very, very much wanted to learn.

You could find the self-proclaimed Spanish Stallion of Science putting his hands on literally everything in the special weapons division this afternoon, highly engrossed in his work of doing nothing productive but dreaming of all the science he could be up to in here.

Brainiac 5 hasn't been outside of his area of the labs much of late, preferring to keep working if at all possible and finding it easier than most others since he doesn't need to break for food or rest nearly as often as organic crew members do. Not to mention that the last few times he'd ventured outside, he'd gotten caught up in an altercation and, earlier, run into a particularly irritating girl who'd compared him to a vegetable of all things.

Therefore he's determined to stay in here where the company is infinitely better and continue working on his experiments in power sources. He's not, despite what others might think, sulking. He's simply working on something that requires a lot of concentration and--

His sensors beep faintly. Apparently his work requires slightly more attention than he's been giving it, because it's about to overload.

"Oh," he says. He has just enough time to throw up a forcefield around the device, his work station, and, by proxy, himself, so that nothing else in the area is going to get damaged. And then it explodes.

He thinks that the forcefield contained the worst of it before it gave out, but he's not entirely sure because he's busy describing a near perfect arc through the area before colliding heavily with the door. Which promptly opens and dumps him out in the hallway.

"Ow," he mutters. This really isn't turning out to be his day. Or week.

After a series of vicious ego-bruising arguments, Asuka had slipped away from the observation deck to go sulk. Well, she wouldn't call it sulking, but really, that's what it was. She already hated this place and, by extension, most of the people on board. No one cared about what she'd managed to accomplish. No one cared that she was a prodigy, that she was intelligent, that she was the best Eva pilot in the world. They just wanted her to be quiet. The fact that this was partly (if not mostly) her own fault seemed to not register to her (or if it did, she was ignoring it very effectively).

She found herself just... wandering. She didn't know this place and she hated it, anyway. She didn't have anywhere to go - all she knew was that she wasn't going back so she could just be humiliated again. She found a quiet corner, away from everyone (she hoped) and buried her head in her arms. She wasn't crying - she was never going to cry again - she was just thinking, away from everyone. That was all.

Sheeana doesn't like to train in the sensorium. There's something about the guarantee of safety, the artificiality of the sorroundings...It dulls her edge. Her reactions are a fraction of a second too slow.

Instead she's brought her little maker to the park with her. Purple grass. Strange, crystalline trees. Bags of multicolored sand lie in a heap a few meters away, where she's dragged them from the nearby playground.

The sandworm is barely seven feet long on its diet of scraps and sickly from the humid environment. Even still, it rears back and snaps at her with impressive speed on the purple grass. Sheeana dodges back and twists side to side. Each snap of the tripartite jaws closes just a few inches from her. She is a literal blur of motion, dancing evasively then vaulting over it like a naked ancient Greek on a vase.

There is something to this scene of a boy wrestling with his dog. It can be seen on the Dune waif's little crook of a smile.

She draws her crysknife. The bone-white blade is the tooth of an adult maker, and she tells her charge so: "Someday you'll have teeth this big too."

She feints playfully at it, careful to keep her arm from getting caught in it mouth with its rows of little daggers and blazing internal fire.

She doesn't realize she's not alone at first.

Kara Zor-El stepped out of the small Kryptonian temple to Rao and walked back onto the...could she call it a street? She wasn't sure. She'd privately nicknamed this place Religion Row, though, because of all of the houses of worship. She brushed back a lock of her impossibly shiny golden blonde hair, noticing that the more she was away from the affect of the yellow sun, the more her hair was fading to becoming just a regular, dull blonde. This, she wasn't so fond of. She liked it when her hair was all prismatic and shiny and impossibly unreal. She crossed her arms and sighed, walking through the area and seating herself underneath the shade of a large, inexplicably blue tree. She'll never get used to seeing some of the things here. Back home on Krypton, almost everything was made of organic crystal. This place is as organic as Krypton, but so much more filled with life...though perhaps not as much life as Kara's seen on Earth during her short time there.

She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them, lost in her thoughts and daydreams, enjoying the solitude and being far and away from anyone named Brainiac.

For the newbies, there are people waiting for them in the Obs Deck. A whole gaggle of people. Behind them is the nasty statue, and the beautiful sight through the windows of the stars streaming past and the swirling vortex of collars that was interdimensional travel.

There are more questions than answers, but the crew is willing to help, especially the Command Staff and greeters.

Picard sat at a table in the Sensoriums, the area now keyed to appear like an original Enterprise recreation room. Rubbing his temples to soothe the migraine he felt on the way, the captain idly wondered if all teenagers were like this. As much as he could respect someone having a healthy concern for the security of things like communications networks, the Brainiacs seemed to have little to no semblance of respect for the privacy of others. Now, Picard found himself in the unenviable position of teaching that respect to them.

He'd been deliberately avoiding people since they returned from the mission and Leela had been safely transported to the MedBay to recuperate from her injuries. Brainiac 5 didn't like to admit it, but even he needed some time to process things if the events were significantly large and life-changing enough.

And finding himself here, in this bizarre ship with no idea how he'd come here, then meeting an alternate counterpart of himself who was similar enough to be disconcerting, but different enough to make him more than a little jealous and defensive, and topping the entire experience off with suddenly having to be involved in a mission that he didn't understand his role in and with a group of people he didn't know? It was enough to make even his considerable intellect need a break, if only for a short while. Particularly when he factored in the... unfortunate circumstances before his arrival.

Fortunately Stacy had more than enough room for him to find a place to just take time to work things through in his head without being distracted by the presence of others.

And he'd since resolved to try and avoid sleeping in the 'bed' provided by the ship at all costs.

But experiences with the sleeping area aside, he's now feeling a little more accepting of what's happened so far. He's far from happy about being here, but there isn't much to be done about that - and it's not like he's particularly unique in that regard either - and he'd rather do something productive with his time, so he heads down to the laboratory in Special Weapons his counterpart had shown him around earlier.

After checking that the area is indeed currently empty by cautiously elongating his neck until his head could peek into the room without being too noticeable, Brainiac 5's body follows the rest of him into the room and his neck returns to its normal length. He's alone in what passes for a laboratory, and therefore feels a bit more at home.

And also free to poke through other people's projects.

It's not meant to be rude or anything. It's just that he's not used to having other people working in his lab back with his Legion and while he reminds himself that this lab is a shared space, he can't help but occasionally make a note on someone's equation or a footnote on a diagram to suggest a different idea.

He's just trying to be helpful, really. It doesn't really occur to him that others might not see it that way.