What had he been doing? How long had it been? Superboy had no clue what as going on, all he knew was that he had woken up only to find that a few weeks had past. He didn't know what had happened over the time and it wasn't as if he knew a lot about the place to begin with.

So he found himself again wandering the city, but this time with a purpose. Discovering what happened to him.

( OOC note under the cut )

Chase stands at one end of the room, left fairly blank for the moment, looking over those who've chosen to respond to the open invitation to get in some more training, watching for reactions as much as anything while he speaks.

"For those who don't know, I am Adam Chase, Chases-Parked-Cars. You can call me Chase. In fact, you will call me Chase. And regardless of ability, you will call each other by name while here. We are all soldiers in the same war. I am just a soldier with knowledge that can and will save some of your lives. I will teach it, and in the process, I will find out what you can do and learn from you too.

You can and will use whatever the hell kind of language you fucking want with me, and with each other. I do not like people censoring themselves without need. If you have something to say, say it, and say it quick. If you are offended by my fucking mouth, this is not going to work well.

While in here, I am teaching, you are learning. You will do what I say, or you will leave. However, if you have questions, any questions, or wish to question my methods, say so, godsdamnit. Always question authority - it is the only weapon soldiers have against stupid fucking orders. Be warned - if you question me, I will make you run, I will make you do painful but productive drills, and I may kick your ass - because any authority will do that or worse if you open your mouth when they think you shouldn't. This is not punishment, this is a lesson. Question authority, face the fucking consequences of pissing off authority, and do not stop out of fear of punishment. It may hurt, but unlike some authority, I will answer your questions, even if you piss me off.

That does not mean I brook disobedience. If you're going to learn, you'll do as you're told. Sometimes you have to suck it up, and believe me, I will not be doing anything for no reason. You just get to ask questions along the way.

This is not mandatory. Anyone may leave any time they wish. If you choose to leave because you're bored, or its too hard, good riddance. But I promise you, you make it through all of my classes, I will fight beside you, I will go to hell and back for you, and if necessary, I will die for you, the same way I would for any of the people I trained with back home.

Everyone is going to learn some basics, and everyone is going to learn some small unit tactics, some infiltration and some wetworks. After you know the basics, I will start working with each of you on individual combat styles. I know at least parts of a dozen fighting styles, armed and unarmed, plus long range weapons - but there are some things we'll be getting to first.

I will warn you. This will often not be fun. You will leave my training tired and bruised, and wake up with sore muscles in places you didn't know you had muscles. I do not go easy. There will be days where you hate me, to which I say, good. As long as you know there is a reason for it, and keep coming back.

Any questions?"

To Buffy Anne Summers, it seemed like the only reason she'd been podpopped in the first place was to have been placed in GLaDOS right away, forced to run mazes and the like. It was an experience that had somewhat reminded Buffy of her eighteenth birthday, when Giles had secretly sedated her powers away so that she'd have to fight a vampire all on her lonesome. The Cruciamentum, the Council of Watchers had called it.

Okay, so it wasn't that unfortunate of an experience, but still. Forced testing does not a happy Slayer make.

She brushed back her hair and stared up at the statues in the art hall. As much as she did not want to be, she was mystified by them. Buffy hadn't run across them before, but she was quickly figuring out that they depicted the scenes from one's life. At the moment, it was showing Buffy when she was powerless and running away from some thugs, on the night of her Cruciamentum.

Because that's something I definitely wanted to be reminded of, she thought dryly.

Finally, though, the Slayer forced herself to turn away from the statues. Enough taunting. I need food. Or something.

Xander was in the city, overlooking the damage. It was odd how he knew things got messed up, but couldn't remember how now. Something to do with the whole Nightmare business. Well no matter, it needed to get straightened up, and see what was possibly salvageable or repairable. Not the best niche around, but a necessary one, and at least it was a good area he was familiar with.

As it was, he got started making his way through some of the rubble to see how to get started.

Several buildings in the City had been completely destroyed during Aang's rampage, but a few had survived relatively unscathed. It had only taken Kang two days to repair the Drunken Dragon; he'd done so by himself, not even waiting for his leg to heal up a bit first.

Usually, he didn't bother lighting any candles or using the fireplace in the tavern unless it was a period when the artificial sun had set. He could see perfectly fine in the dim light. For the celebration, though, he'd thrown the windows open wide, scrounged up every candle he could find, and started up a fire, knowing that human vision wasn't as good as his own. The tables surrounding the stage had been cleaned, as well as the tankards, and the door was propped open. The bozak had even wrestled two of the 60-gallon barrels from the back room into a corner of the main room for easier access, one of cactus juice and one of ale. If more was needed, he was sure he could get someone to help bring out another.

Tess had commandeered the kitchen to make her food, bringing in her own equipment. Kang had been slightly afraid at first that she was going to burn the place down, but nothing had happened yet. She seemed to know what she was doing, even if she'd given him a few scares.

The sunlight glistened on the old sword blade teeth and dinnerplate eyes of the comical-looking wooden dragon grinning above the entrance. Come in, relax, have a drink and a bite to eat!

[OOC note: Both drinks are alcoholic, and the cactus juice has twice the kick of the ale. :D;]

Welcome to the Unholy Cathedral at the heart of Escherville. It is here, in this place, that the Nightmare King has made his bid for release.

And he will not be stopped by the likes of you.

More monstrosities pour out of every angle, intent on ending this adventure. These monsters are every bit as horrific as the ones you all faced to get to this point, though you will quickly notice there is something drastically different about them.

Magic does not affect these creatures. At all.

Your spells do nothing. Your prayers are meaningless. The power of your God is useless against them.

No force in heaven or hell can affect them.

Nothing at all Magical can hurt them.

You're the ones who are good enough (or lucky) enough to be close to Escherville. You've had the good fortune to be scooped up and now you need to regroup and get ready to take on the Nightmare King himself. Time to reorganize and gear up as best you can with what you've got. The Nightmare King isn't going to wait for you.

Get moving.

_{((OOC: This is for the various groups/peoples who will be fighting the Nightmare King directly or assisting in that endeavor. If your character was in one of the Challenge from Beyond Groups, tag them in here! Feel free to do some tagging back and forth and enjoy yourselves. Please get tagged in by Tuesday night, March 2nd though, so we can get the Final Fight properly organized. ))}

Nightmare becomes reality....

[roster: leader - Leon Kennedy, Alessa, Buffy, Mai, Mat, Scarlet Witch]

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.

Meet n' Greet, smell my feet, gimme something good to eat! Unfortunately, the newbie meet and greet takes place the same time the command staff is congregating, so they might be a little late to the party.

But the crew is there to welcome the newcomers and explain their situation. At the end of the milling and spilling about, the command staff is going to start a general meeting to apprise everyone of their situation and discuss their next course of action:

Getting off the damn ship.

[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... )