The Scarlet Witch was in one of the Sensoriums. She had set it so that the environment was one of the forests by Mt. Wundagore. She had removed the mountain itself- she didn't want to see that place ever again, especially after her nightmare.

She sat in a clearing, on the top of a hill and underneath a tree, book in hand. Specifically the book on the Roma her husband had given her. It was one of the few things Wanda had from her life before she was taken. Reading it helped her to feel more centered. Usually.

Maybe this was Stacy's work in order to boost crew mortal. Maybe a distracted crewmate had left the program running, but whatever it was, Lash walked in prepared to recreate a full scaled battle, and instead found herself gazing at stars in the open sky. The air felt slightly cold, but not enough for shivering. Instead it only drew her eyes towards the middle...

It was quiet, the only light coming from the fireflies that flew around, and the huge central fire that crackled and fizzed with orange energy. It looked very inviting, especially since pieces of cut wood and metallic chairs had been placed around it, in a circle-like fashion. Come rest on us, Lashie-poo they called out. Old guitars were placed on the grass floor as well, as were a few drums of various nationally and universes. Huh. The strangest thing, however, where these plastic wrapped piece of candy that were resting on some of the chairs. Upper pieces of branches were placed near them, as if they were meant to be used together.

Unused to such things as Black Hole was not known for parties (or pretty much anything that was celebratory or fun), but not completely ignorant, Lash sat down on one of the makeshift logs, before opening one of the candy wrappers and putting one of the white candies in her mouth. It was very sweet. The afro girl then took a guitar and give it an experimental clang, unsure of how to use it.

"Huh." Music wasn't her forte.

The Sensoriums open up to an amazing scene. A long hallway, with no seeming end, and large windows depicting billions of floating heads stuck together. Sleeping. The world that telepaths visit and share when they dream.

There's an open doorway, with noise and light coming from it. As one turns the corner, they can see three couches in a semi-circle around a large collection of televisions. Standing in one of the couches, with a bowl of popcorn under one arm and gesticulating wildly with the other, is Apollo. "YES! YES! THAT'S IT! CRAWL! CRAWL TO VICTORY AND BITE HIS KNEES OFF!" The source of his amusement fills several of the gigantic television screens in front of him.

That's right. One of the most powerful people on his planet is cheering to a fight on Jerry Springer. Not just any fight, though. A midget fight.

Nightmare becomes reality....

[roster: leader - Zuko, Matt Olsen, Kate Beckett, Billy Kaplan, Jono Starsmore, Link]

Carol really didn't know what she was doing as she made the post to the com. Sure she had been sick and tired of all of them dancing around each other, grouping off, being just people rather than heroes from the same world. She'd noticed the other heroes forming a team, they got on so well it made her sick to think about her own world.

"God Steve, you'd be pulling your own hair out if you saw us all like this." She knew talking to the dead in the Sensoriums wasn't a good idea, but she couldn't help it. As she moved into the room, she looked around herself. Her first thought was to form the Avengers memorial garden, but the mutants on board wouldn't like that. She'd been at Xavier's plenty of times, but the Avengers weren't connected to that place.

"Central Park please. Add in the memorial garden from both the Avengers mansion and Xavier's." She didn't know if it'd work to help connect them all or not, but maybe it would. As she stared at the statues she moved to an empty section and stood, her Ms. Marvel costume appearing on her body as she stood at attention.

She wasn't Captain America, or even Captain Marvel. But she'd led the Avengers before, and damn it she'd do it again.

Billy's eyes reopened and he smiled a bit. Looking around the temple he waved a hand to one of the side rooms. "Shall we Mr. Stark?" He moved to the room, even without having him following. He needed to have his answers, and he really needed them. At least this could make sense, because nothing else in his life was.

Plus, maybe he could inform Mr. Stark about all the things that had happened back home. Find out where the man had come from in his time line. Obviously he was in good health, which meant he was from the past. The civil war still meant something to him, which means he had to from either during, or shortly after. He wasn't on edge, so that ruled out anymore than a few weeks after.

And now his head was hurting.

Some cheer was definitely needed on this ship. Whatever chance meeting had brought Kaylee and Claudia together in mechanical mischief had also set their minds to turning over what they could possibly do to get some smiles back on the faces of those onboard.

A costume party.

Claudia had come up with the idea, really. She knew a bit more about it than Kaylee did, but she explained it all in such a way that Kaylee really couldn’t resist wanting to throw one. It’d be a good chance for everyone to let loose and have a good time in the midst of the nightmare madness. Who could resist that?

The sensorium had been melded to an image from Kaylee’s mind, though. A grand ballroom, with marble floors and painted ceiling. A large buffet table stood against one of the walls, covered mostly in fruit, but in some other hors d’oeuvres as well.

[[ OoC: Party style!! Costumes aren't a requirement, but they are fun. If you've got questions about anything, ask Cheryle or Holly. :D ]]

Wanda sat before one of the terminals in the media library. She'd come to try and find more information on mystical phenomena and training, after all there were whole new worlds different from her own. The laws had changed, so to speak. Unfortunately whatever she found was too dry for her to focus on. She was used to hands on experience, nothing this esoteric. She sighed and leaned back.

If she were honest with herself, the reason she was having trouble with the reading material wasn't because it was boring (even if it was) or poorly worded. She missed her family. She missed her friends. She missed her home. She even missed her neighbors. Well, some of them. But none of them had deserved to die.

And then there was what Bobby had said.

As hard as she tried not to think about it, the thoughts crept into her mind.

Something...odd is happening on the ship. Plant-like protrusions are occasionally sprouting in places throughout the ship.

They look like mistletoe, but this is purely coincidental. It's not like it's the holidays on the ship, right? It might be for some people, back home (if they still had a home), but others were grabbed from different times. No, it's just coincidence that these little devices look vaguely like mistletoe, and coincidence what they're being used for.

For you see, when this "mistletoe" is overhead, a crew member will be trapped in an invisible forcefield, and won't be able to escape until someone has kissed them or otherwise showed them some equivalent of affection. (Cheek kisses and sloppy puppy kisses from the canine crew members count). The "mistletoe" spring itself is shielded itself and can't be destroyed, the only way out is a kiss.

Why is this all happening? GLaDoS is performing whacky behavioral experiments, that's why. Each time, it happens, she intones messages like the following.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

"The Transmigration9 AI Complex thanks you for your participation in important research. Unless you don't want to participate, but not participating would make me disappointed. I suppose you just want to disappoint me."

And of course, sometimes she even outright lies.

"There will be cake."

In the fashion that only a speedster is capable of, the Flash is late to the party. Extremely late for someone who can cross the whole ship in less than a second.

Where he's been during the podpop and the crew social is best left unasked. Oh, he'd been in the caverns before the new arrivals had their gooey awakening, but he'd had an agenda. Had it been minutes, hours or days spent searching for Linda amongst the seemingly infinite mass of pods? He could never be entirely sure when he was back on Earth, but the ship's timelessness made it that much easier to lose yourself in.

The rest of the time spent absent? Well, he never did find her...

But here he is regardless, late rather than never, a crimson streak hurtling onto the observation deck.

"Hellooooooooooo...? Don't tell me I missed the show?" he looks around for a familiar face, while absently muttering, "Bet the buffet's already been rustled too..."

Tora Olafsdotter was new to the ship and it's people but she made finding her way around a top priority. She wandered the streets and began to familiarize herself with the twists and turns of this odd cityship. It was not completely unlike the Watchtower really, there were similarities.

Gently Tora's fingers ran over the living walls of the ship, if she tried hard enough she could feel the life in them, feel all around her that the ship was a living being as much as a technological entity. Such was common for those connected to nature, and being essentially a spirit of nature herself that was innate in her.

Her wanderings lead her down through the tall buildings to where things grew open, a wide space as Arha had told her there would be. Moving to the center of this open square Tora took the chance to center herself as well. Her eyes slid closed and her hands drifted up from her sides, fingers uncurling to free her upward facing palms. She thought of home, her real home, her family and all those who she now knew to be lost. So many she would miss, so much unnecessary death, yet there was hope.

In everything there was at least the smallest ray of hope, and that was what Tora focused on. She had lived through a crisis before, and now she was needed to aid in helping others put things in many universes to right. Hope was a powerful thing, and hope was the shining force behind the gentle fall of clean white snow that fell around her, covering the entire open area in a slowly deepening blanket of fluffy white powder.

Being popped out of a tube like some kind of pez candy had to have been the worst experience in Teddy's life. Well, next to the whole nearly getting dissected thing. Once he had done his impression of a Hulkling Pez candy he had immediately bolted away from everyone, he couldn’t think of anything else, really. The combination of fear and confusion tends to do that to people.

It really wasn’t hard to take care of the entire naked issue, he had the ability to change shape at will, so it was easy enough to shift some clothes onto his body. Of course, at the same time he hadn’t expected to be tossed into the middle of some Night of the Living Dead remake. And he did whatever red blooded American teenager would do in a situation where he had no friends and had no clue where he was, he hid.

And he had no problems admitting that he had hidden until the Zombies were gone, he liked his brain where it was, thank you very much. Though, he noticed one thing once they were gone… there were people around here…people who looked somewhat normal... Though, normal was a relative term, even Teddy knew that.

He had one goal and that was to get the hell out of Dodge. Billy was probably having kittens and if he wasn’t somebody else probably was…


[ooc: ogod, I hope I’m doing this right. If I’m not just beat me over the head with a 2x4 or something :o]

To say that 'Nate' wasn't in a positive mood would probably be understating it. If you'd asked him, he would have told you that he didn't rightly know how he felt. For the past few days, or at least, for what had felt like the past few days, his emotions had been swinging from angry, to frustrated, to depressed and back again. His homeworld had been destroyed. His parents. His friends. Everyone he had ever cared about was gone. Except for a girl, a girl he barely remembered, a girl whose face he saw in his dreams. A girl, who was with that twisted shadow of himself.

As he walked toward the Sensoriums, the thought of Cassie with that...thing made him stop, slamming a fist against a fleshy wall, he gritted his teeth against the spike of anger. How could that machine dare to wear his face? Dare to pretend that it was human? Taking a long, slow breath, he shut his eyes, shaking it off and trying to focus on something else, clear his mind like he'd been practicing during meditation times. It didn't work.

Stalking into a Sensorium, he stood for a long moment, looking up at the empty room before speaking.

"Stacy, could you project a simulation from me memories? A simulation of my old school."

Stacy's main AI must have been busy elsewhere. Because the simulation began wordlessly. Looking around his old classroom, he almost smiled, moving to take his seat beside her. His teacher walked in, set her books down and turned to write on the holo-board. He remembered this lesson. It was about the Superhero Civil War. The Death of Captain America.

But he hadn't paid attention back then either. He knew all this already. No, he'd only come to school because of her. Standing up, he moved to her table, touching her on the shoulder gently. She turned, casting those big, brown eyes up at him, and he swallowed. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. A smile spread across her face as she saw him.

'Hey Nathaniel. Do you need something?'

"No...I just." He shook his head. This was stupid. Was was he even doing? "I just wish I'd told you how I felt about you when it still would have mattered. Shut it down Stacy."

Everything faded away, and for a moment he saw her face, frowning at him concernedly before it vanished. Moving to a corner, he sank down against the walls, pulling his knees up to his chest and cradling his head in his hands. "What am I even doing here?"

A mass of zombies has laid seige to the Vatican.

Time to fight for your lives!!!

Stacy jerks and shudders to a sudden stop, likely upsetting more than a few things already upset because the comms have stopped working. And deep down inside Stacy, on the first level, a little section thoughtfully titled "Contagion Containment and Quarantine" spilled open.

Hal 9000 had opened it up. And the things that had been kept there were still alive.

Or at least, they were moving...

Their groans echoed through the lower level as they spilled out of Quarantine 1, shambling and shuffling toward the Hub. The Hub would take them where they wanted to go. And what they wanted to do first was make some new friends.

So they went to the Pod Caverns. Then, after that, the zombies started heading up to the City...

[[OOC: Holy $#%&, Team Left Behind, ZOMBIES. Going to set up some subthreads, please wait until I do! INFO HERE, FIRST SUB-THREAD GO GO GO!]]

There is a clandestine transaction going on near the Media Library.

"It's just... I don't feel right without it, y'know? Like everything's wrong inside. I get all weak. Shaky."

It's a sad, sad thing when someone becomes a slave to some outside force, has to rely on it for their strength.

"I just--I just need a little of the white stuff..."

Oh, to be brought down this low, to have to rely on someone else for this, but this ship doesn't let him have access to enough of what he needs, so he had to find someone else to provide it. Originally he'd seen her only every so often, but now he's weak, in withdrawal, he's a slave to it, reliant on her to function as he's been functioning.

"Just one more hit? To hold me for the week? That's all I need, I swear. Just one hit. I promise I won't bug you for it again this week."

Two teenage boys, just loitering in one of the hallways. It was the scene out of your typical high school movie, but instead of thirty year old mortar and whitewashed cinderblock the walls were made of meat. And the boys were wearing plantsuits. And one of them was a magical superhero and the other was a walking biohazard.

Not that Steve had told Billy about that yet. He was... planning on it. He figured that Billy deserved to know such a thing so he could disgustedly cast Steve off like he rightfully should. But for right now their conversation was going too well.

Or pretty normally, at least. Steve very much appreciated the value of a normal conversation anymore. He was cool with keeping it going for a while.

"Isn't there anything we can do around here for fun?"

    Cassie hasn’t gone swimming (voluntarily) for a while.

    The Sensoriums have given her some coast of Themyscira, from when it was an island and not a floating world. It’s familiar; many trips and visits have ingrained the place in Cassie’s mind.

    She spends a bit out in the water, seeing how deep she can get before she has to turn back up to the surface for air, kicking around on her own. She ducks under, opens her eyes and watches little fish go around. It’s relaxing.

    But it doesn’t take long to get tired. When treading water has her muscles and back sore, she surfaces for the last time and bobs there for a second, brushing her hair out of her face when it covers her eyes. She should go in, she realizes. She’s been out here far too long as it is.

    The beach is a long way off and she doesn’t really feel like swimming back.

    “Hey,” she says, aloud. It feels ridiculous to be talking out loud when no one’s around for miles. “How about that underground spring?”

    Everything shifts. The sunny skies are gone, replaced by a rocky ceiling, and the water is colder. It’s mostly silent without the tides, other than the drip of water somewhere, echoing off the walls.

    Her feet can touch the bottom as the ground changes, and she gives her arms a break by standing, waiting for her eyes to adjust. When they do, she grabs the rocky edge of the pool and hoists herself up.

    Sort of, anyway. It’s a bit of high ledge, she’s not exactly tall, and she’s getting tired. After a second of hanging off the edge, she sucks it up and tries again.

    Heave ho, up she goes.

    “Jeez,” she breathes, “don’t overdo it, Cassie, you're only human.”

After being released from stasis, having the slime removed from their bodies and clothed in the creepy, pulsing leaf-suit that everyone wore, and being taken to the Weapons & Possessions lockers to collect their belongings, the new arrivals would find themselves standing in the Observation Deck. Round windows lined the fleshy walls, revealing the bright display of lights that was inter-dimensional travel. They would also discover that there were people--members of the command staff and crew that had woken earlier--waiting for them.

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


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

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

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

--

( There was nothing... )