Sherry had roused slightly, but hardly remembered being carried back to her room to sleep. She certainly didn't remember when her little wounds and goose egg had been attended to.

She'd buried her face in her pillow and exhaled, slowly waking up. One hand patted the space beside her bed where Bandit had been occupying (she hadn't dreamed that, right?), the other went to push her hair out of her face and just stayed there.

"Come on," she urged herself, the words muffled around her hand. "Get up, Me." She needed to go ascertain that her dad was really okay and sleeping, find her mom.

She just needed five more minutes. "Come on..."

"A dog is one of the remaining reasons why some people can be persuaded to go for a walk."

The Sensoriums are being used; this in and of itself is not news to anyone, as the ship has a multitude of active crewmembers now and any of them can be seen in the cavernous VR room at any moment.

No, the oddness doesn't register until you actually walk in to the current user projection. If you're human, that is.

A vast expanse of grass stretches as far as the eye can see. A huge meadow, held in by trees and peppered with flowers like tulips, devil's paintbrush and broom shrub; in the distance, a small pond, bordered by stones and overseen by a twisted old oak. The eye, however, seems not to catch much. The blades of grass are oddly hazy; only when they move, whistling lightly in the wind, do they suddenly become incredibly crisp, each individual strand as striking as the next. The entire field is like this; each time the branches creak the movement is incredibly sharp, and each bee and butterfly alighting on each flowerbud is in clear relief. Rabbits hide in the grass, their quivering bodies pulsing with each heartbeat.

Wonder of wonders, no matter where you go or how you carry yourself--the grass always seems to be at chest level. How odd.

There is no red to be seen, not in the tulips or the paintbrushes; the yellow of the broom flowers in tinged with green. The grass is ludicrously green, the sky and the water both ridiculously blue. No orange in the brown rabbit fur; only a bluish grey. The tree bark is as grey as slate, and the clouds are white and diaphanous.

But the smells. The scents are nothing you could experience from an ordinary human nose. Some people with lighter stomach may find themselves overwhelmed. The cloying scent of flowers, the honey smell of bees, the dusty, bloody scent of the rabbits; every stone, every tree, every strand of grass has its own taste, its own smell.

If you hustle around in this wierd world for a minute, you can find Bandit, dozing lightly in a sunny patch of grass.

The undead were pounding at the doors -- all of them, and the windows, and the walls in general for that matter.

The front doors were going to be a problem, though. They zombies were actually breaking through there.

Battle stations everyone!

A mass of zombies has laid seige to the Vatican.

Time to fight for your lives!!!

The meeting is over, the teams have been assigned, the plans have been laid out. It's time to get weapons.

It's time to wish each other luck, and say goodbyes--with the hope that they're only "good bye for now"s.

It's about to get very hairy from here on out.

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.

Roxie has been doing a lot of work here and there on her little ex-vet's-office. It's a small building, barely big enough for a reception area and a few offices and storage areas. She's taken down the alien lettering of the sign out front of the building, leaving it a freestanding blank, and an odd pile of removed shelving and cabinetry sits off to the side of the lot.

She's decided to leave the building to air out, today: there's the faint stink of drying paint coming from somewhere in there, wafting out through the open windows (in all room but one, the windows of which seem to have been painted over with black from the inside) and doors.

And Roxie herself, well, she's sitting in a rolling office chair that's been dragged out onto the sidewalk out front, and her head is leaning back with her eyes closed.

Ax stood alone on the grass surrounding the Garibah that Stacy had abducted from his homeworld. The ship lacked the sunrise he needed to properly perform the morning ritual, but he had decided that the Garibah would make a more than adequate substitute.

< From the water that gave birth to us, > he began, dipping his right forehoof into the dish of water he'd brought with him. The lack of running water in the vicinity had been the second problem he'd faced. He wasn't particularly fond of the ritual, but he certainly wasn't going to perform them in a room devoted to waste elimination.

< From the grass that feeds us, > he continued, crushing a tuft of grass under that same hoof. < For the freedom that unites us, > he spread his arms wide and looked up at the branches of the Garibah and up further to the ceiling of Stacy's City. < We rise to the stars. >

Ax bowed low. < Freedom is my only cause. Duty to the people, my only guide. Obedience to my prince, my only glory. The destruction of my enemies, my most solemn vow. > Rising from his bow, he stepped into a fighting stance and drew his tail blade against his own throat. < I, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, Andalite warrior-cadet, offer my life. >

The ritual complete, he relaxed his tail and closed his main eyes. This was the part where he was supposed to meditated on the ritual and whether or not he was living up to it. He'd never been particularly good at that part, not being a big believer in the rituals to begin with. But he was an Andalite, and he did intend to be a warrior, to continue being a warrior, and so the ritual must be performed.

Perhaps it would give him some direction.

"A house is not a home without a dog."

Somewhere along Stacy's labyrinthine halls, a wall pulsed and throbbed. All at once, it opened and spat out one startled, furious...golden-brown dog.

Regaining his bearings with the fluid ease of months of training, Bandit made a precise dodge roll and came up snarling, lip curled, exposing sharp teeth. He launched himself at the wall, which was closing rapidly. From the depths of the meatship, GlaDOs' clinical monotone piped up:
"UNFORTUNATELY, DUE TO A SHORTAGE IN CAKE SUPPLIES, CAKE CANNOT BE DISPENSED AT THIS TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION. IT WAS GREAT FUN. WELL, I THOUGHT SO. GOOD-BYE."

Bandit clawed and bit at the wall so fiercely that Stacy's tentacles emerged to pin him down. His snarling degenerated into mad barking as his frustration grew.

NO! !!NO!! !!WwwwwwwhhhHHHHhiiiiIIIIIIiiiiinnnnNNNNnnnnnEEEEEEeeeeee!! LET GO! BAD! BAD!

"Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that is how dogs spend their lives."
- Sue Murphy

Those first hours, after he got back from meeting the returnees from the mission--he slept. In the warm, soft hollow of his tiny sleeping nook he slept the sleep of the dead, and Stacy left him with the firm knowledge that no one would disturb him, he wouldn't be woken for a mission or testing, and he could just rest. For as long as he wanted. He slept until he couldn't anymore, until his legs and body felt cramped beneath him, and the need to stretch was unbearable. So he went exploring. Nose to the ground, with that permanent fleshy scent filling his nostrils, he went about the myriad caverns of the meatship.

The only possession he'd reclaimed was a bright red collar; there was a faded copper tag, with the name 'BANDIT' in big, blocky letters. On the flipside was the name of his owner, but the letters were smaller and faded with wear. John? Jane? And a telephone number: 5something5-23somethingsomething. The collar had come with a box. A big box. But Bandit knew what was in the box, and so he left it alone. He never wanted that again, and Stacy knew. He went back there only once--and the box was gone. So maybe it was for the best.

His first stop had been the mess hall--the food dispenser was his new best friend for life. It scanned him once, and produced the same good-sized portion of kibble it had given him previously. Once that was done, some three-odd seconds later, he made it scan him again, but the ration was smaller this time. I refused to scan him again, stating sufficient fulfillment of nutritional requirements. It would not be swayed--not even by puppy eyes. Made by an actual puppy.

This thing was on to him. So Bandit moved on.

Bandit found his way to the media library, and was busily examining the various terminals. They weren't coughing up anything of note, however; they just did things like play music or start talking at him, which he was pretty sure was a Bad Thing because the last time he'd made something make too much noise he had been punished. Cautious dog is very careful.


ooc. Feel free to come upon Bandit either in the mess hall, the sleeping halls, or the media library.

Spot had, as usual, been wandering the halls, making the most of the large ship. She'd also been hunting for Data, a search thus far fruitless. Still, that didn't mean he wasn't here, just that she hadn't found him. So the small feline continued to hold out hope for his arrival. In the meanwhile, she would just have to find ways to distract herself. Normally this would mean playing with one of Data's toys, or clinging to Riker's legs with untrimmed claws. This fun was a bit more aggressive, however.

Surprisingly (and strangely), Spot had managed to activated one of the many training holos in the Sensorium, and was now running through the halls of a ruined spaceship or space station. Occasionally there was a tall, bipedal creature walking around, making rounds through the halls. The first one of these suffered a most unfortunate, as for some unknown reason, the hallway that Spot and the creature found themselves on was floating over a large pool of magma, with little more than a safety rail to protect them.

Spot crawled stealthily toward the alien, glaring up at it with her angry little eyes. The repeated pattern of walking told the cat two possible things: it was guarding something, or it was inordinately stupid. Spot was inclined to believe the latter. She swooped in as the alien made its next turn, slipping between the creature's feet. With a shrill trill, the alien tripped, rolled, hit the rail, broke it, and fell into the lava.

House cat one, alien scum zero.

Most of the people who used the Sensoriums fell into two categories: They either wanted to use the place to find some new and creative way to break themselves in half, or they used it to replicate their home in some kind escapist fantasy. Leon didn't fall into either one of those groups, which may explain why he didn't use the sensoriums much, if at all. He figured whatever they would face in the rest of the ship would find new and creative ways to try to break him into pieces, and as much as he missed home, he'd rather deal with the reality of the situation than pretend this wasn't happening.

He did, however, visit the media library fairly frequently. He didn't bother looking up too much information on himself, particularly after he became aware of Resident Evil. Nor did he look up information on others unless he absolutely needed to. But listening to some music and browsing through books and articles did help him relax. So did the game of Tetris he was able to download to his phone, but flipping through stuff was a bit more productive. At least then he might learn more about this ship, its purpose, the Ohm, and the mysterious Third Party.

In between Tetris breaks, anyway.

[ooc: Read this bit.]

Something happens outside the ship. There's a concussive noise like something docking, and then the doors to Obs open again, to reveal a mostly intact, but somewhat bedraggled away team. One of them is injured, and part of the group works to get her down to MedBay, some of the others look stoic and a touch upset with what they've learned.

Some look pissed off that their various morphers and power suits have been stolen away from them again by Stacy's tentacles or dampened.

Something happens INSIDE the ship. A handful of individuals are released from their pods after quite some time of running imaginary mazes.

Part of the crew might be gone, but life on the ship goes on. In fact, new people have woken up and, eventually, they've been spat out into the mess hall.

Maybe it's better to introduce them to some of the worst aspects of ship life first, right?

Anyway, the word is out that there's new people, and someone should probably go say hello. Before the n00bs mistake the glop for crew.


[ooc: read before tagging, plz]

[[OOC: Read this before tagging.]]

It seems like things around the ship have been getting rather lively lately.

And now, it's about to get even more lively.

||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounded out to all the podmates.

In the Pod Caverns, there were the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There was condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slid out onto the floors, covered in slime.