In the middle of one of Stacy's nights, a distress beacon comes in. A desperate S.O.S. shows up on the screens. Source: one of Stacy's mission shuttles, the one that went to the small colony planet 'Eden' to answer a distress call.

|| Crematia, Goliath and Jorge. Please report to the Observation Deck for a rescue mission. ||

The rescue crew has little time to react and prepare. Within a matter of minutes, the available hands on deck are equipped and stuffed into an unarmed shuttle, then sent down to the planet surface. The shuttle lands a few hundred yards from the radio tower, the source of the beacon. The original crew is still inside the tower.

And between the tower and the shuttle, fifty strange, malformed beasts loll about in the baking desert sun. They're the pinkish color and texture of uncooked plucked chickens, the size of bears and armed with mouths large enough to fit a dog in. Drool dribbles from their fangs in thick ropes. Their hands are unsettlingly humanoid, with six long fingers that taper into a needle point. They don't look even a little concerned about the shuttle.

[OOC: I will be traveling tomorrow, so please feel free to NPC your own monsters and cause carnage. This is your chance to get your character mutilated, or have them save the day with a heroic gesture! Threadjacking and teaming up is encouraged! The monsters are intelligent enough to learn from imitation, but otherwise just lunge at you and bite you. They can also mimic sounds, but they are no longer flammable. Alas. If you want me to NPC for you, drop me a line or tell me in the subject title.]

Who: Fuu and you!
Where: In the city, at the blind-spot Warehouse.
Summary: Fuu alternately distracts herself and thinks about things with the help of archery.
Warnings: Allenby made her a beam bow. that is not cheating

( The laser-like sounds were a little different... )

[ooc: For reference, the beam bow looks kind of like this. Just, y'know, not Gundam-sized.]

Howard doesn't like to share. Anyone who's known him long enough, and by long enough that would mean twenty minutes, would piece that together.

So while delivering some homemade jam to a friend might be, in the hands of others, a neighborly gesture, for Howard it's a lot more important than that. It's practically sacrificial. The jar in his backpack feels heavy, and each thump of it against his spine feels like a reminder of how many calories the stupid thing is. Howard picks up his pace and wishes he brought his bike.

Finally, he gets to the Cedric's room, and shuffles foot to foot in the time-honored Dance of Awkwardness while he waits for Cedric to answer his knocking.

DAY 6

The break of the new day finds the crew members scattered. Clef and Maxine have made it to the radio tower; Cedric and Howard have woken up in an abandoned house and are making their way there to join them; and having been attacked, Diana has been separated from Karis and is somewhere in the town.

With their opponents growing more and more clever, the time to escape is now. They may be dead before they get another chance.

Sirius's investigation of the ship had been haphazard at first. Now that he was working with Moony on a map of Stacy, he planned to fix that. The Hangar was well explored as far as he knew, but he had yet to go there himself. At first glance it looked simple enough. Lots of vehicles of all kinds, most unrecognizable to him. Their unfamiliarity made up for the lack of secret passages of any kind.

It wasn't until he reached a motorcycle that a strange thought passed his mind. He hadn't expected anything of his to be here. After Azkaban he was grateful just to have his wand. The fact that Stacy had given him the Marauder's Map, his mirror, and enchanted knife had been mind blowing at first. Now he wondered if there was something else Stacy brought from his world.

He walked faster and scanned the Hangar. It was a long while before there it was. A Triumph Bonneville T120 that belonged to one Sirius Black.

"Oh, baby." He ran his hands over the handle and then down her body. His fingers found several dents but the damage was minimal. He could fix that.

He straddled the motorcycle and held his breath as he turned the keys that were still in the ignition. The engine revved. The bike sprung to life. Sirius laughed.

"That's my girl." He pressed a button and kicked off into the air.

Nearly an hour later anyone walking around the City would see a strange sight. A man on a motorcycle soaring over them. The motorcycle's engines masked his laughter. But he was still laughing when he set her down on a road and let the engine rest. He stroked the handlebars lovingly.

"We've both still got it."

It's a beautiful day for soaring in the sky. At least....it's a beautiful simulated day, Cedric corrects himself. He stands in the center of a grassy field, hoops standing tall on either side. Racing brooms that will soon take to the sky with their riders are laid out in neat rows on either side of him, and a case containing the many balls of Quidditch rests at his feet.

He's exchanged the loose-fitted clothing he'd taken up after his injuries for loose-fitting yellow and black robes, and even that small change brightens his mood. Cedric Diggory is in his element. His cheerful, dangerous whirlwind of an element, the finest sport the wizarding world has to offer.

This should be a fun one to watch!

((And go! Use the subthreads, or start your own threads to chat and trash-talk and have a good time! Threadjacking is totally encouraged.))

Everything hurts, Cedric thought, but no broken bone or bruise was as painful as the guilt he felt at the moment. Much to his displeasure, he'd been admitted to med bay immediately upon delivering Sirius, and they'd been placed together. Even worse, there was no chance that he'd be discharged before the older man woke up.

...It's no wonder I walked straight to my death. If I'm going to be horrifically stupid, I can't be taking anyone with me.

He'd managed to win the right to prop himself up against the wall after a tussle with a nurse, using his vantage point to look fearfully over at Sirius every few minutes. What could Cedric say? There was no explanation other than 'hello, I'm an idiot, I'm sorry.'

And he'd have to swallow the consequences of that.

Less than an hour after the ship leaves Agrestic's orbit, an announcement is broadcast throughout Stacy.

|| Attention, crew. Your crewmates, Howard Bassem and Charles Merriman, have been apprehended attempting to desert. They will now be given Punishment. According to established guidelines, you are all requested to report to the Observation to witness the Punishment. Attendance is not mandatory, but highly suggested. This will serve as a reminder of the consequences of treason and desertion. ||

On the observation deck, Archon Yavek, Archite Rekkti, two other Daligig and a handful of Kessek soldiers stand outside a spherical force field. Inside the bubble, Orc and Howard are suspended by tentacles looping around their wrists. Orc's ceased thrashing around and struggling against his restraints; rust-colored fissures have developed around his shoulders and forearms from the strain, but now he simply hangs there, looking defeated. Howard's nose is bleeding, and every time a drop falls to the bottom of the forcefield there's a small sizzle. He's weeping and begging the Daligig with every plea possible, but they act as if they aren't listening. Instead, they wait for an audience.

Day 3 and 4

The remaining hours of the night are tense and ugly, marred by the smell of blood and the complete distrust sewn by Bridge's death. When the sun finally rises, it feels as if the night's been far too long and yet their chance to rest was cruelly short.

The sun peeks over the horizon and onto the parched desert. In the bright sky, if one squints, it's possible to make out that lights are still flashing on the radio tower. The rest of the town is dead, as usual.

He's got his passport.

He's also got a fake birth certificate, a fake ID card, a fake driver's license and insurance card, and hopes for a brand new life. And he has the same for Orc. That and a suitcase for each of them.

He has to leave the cats. That is, he thinks, the only downfall to the planet. You can't import live things, and he doesn't know how to smuggle them in, so he's going to entrust them to Cedric. Between that and the food stash, the knowledge that he's leaving things behind, things that he'll never get back, hangs heavy on his mind.

He's leaving people behind too. He can't forget that. He wanders through the streets of Agrestic with his new papers and his suitcase looking for the people he wants to say goodbye to before he and Orc escape this war forever. He's not even thinking about what he's going to say to them, hoping that somehow the magic words will appear on his tongue. But he has to say goodbye before he goes.

Away from the Daligig. Away from Stacy. Away from missions and more importantly, away from the threat of the FAYZ. Scared and sad as he is, there is a little skip in his step.

[OOC: he's looking for his closer CR, so new people may approach him but he'll probably brush them off. If your character hasn't met Howard and would like to thread with me drop me a line and I'll set up something new!]

It's been a long time since Howard engaged in some harmless graffiti. Two years, if not a little more. He's exhausted from a long shift in Med Bay and then hitting the Media Library for his new Leon-appointed position, but it seems like the urge to vandalize things has been pent up for so long that he has all the energy in the world to do this.

The memory-statues and painting under the giant lit-up head in the Art Hall are as good a place as any. Using permanent marker, some pink spraypaint and his knife, he starts to carve and mark things into the shifting wall.

DGIG KILLED 1ST CREW

STACY WIPES MINDS

DON'T TRUST THEM

The paintings and statues shift and mold to his memories, images both calm and terrifying, images he remembers and ones he's long forgotten. There's him playing basketball in his driveway. There's Orc's face torn open by flesh-eating worms. There's a massacre, and there's a busy cafeteria, and there's Disneyland, there's the first time he broke his nose and there's him sleeping in math class. The statue becomes a child's corpse and then an impatient P.E. coach and then his grandmother. On the wall, the images keep shifting, but the marks he's making stay where they are, black and pink and chiseled.

WRITE IT ALL DOWN

Even though Sabrina seldom used the Sensoriums, she knew for her sake and her Pokemon that Sabrina should see if the site atrracted anyone besides her. She didn't get angry often, but what 'Tyrant' had said to got under her skin. She was Sabrina, one of Kanto's Gym Leaders and a simple nobody caused her to feel this way! She was no warrior or fighter but she knew her own skills helped the crew in her own small way. The image of Saffron Gym stood in the background as she stood nearby the entrance, undamaged unlike the one that stood in the city.

End of Day Two

If there were any signs of life at all, it could be said that the town is now sleeping. After a blistering day in the sun, the cool of night may be a welcome relief - at least, in terms of temperature. The knowledge that the crews foes are out there, now hidden under the cover of darkness, will be decidedly less comforting.

On the south end of the city, a series of red signal flares goes up, signaling that at least one crewmember has found safety out there. Howard waits across the street with binoculars, ready to hail anyone he sees down.

Day One

Stacy calls Cedric Diggory, Diana Ladris, Guru Clef, Howard Bassem, Karis Needleteeth, The Master and Maxine Hunkel to the deck.

( Read more... )

[OOC: Tag into your designated subthreads! In a little, once we've established what's going on a bit more, while I'll put up a thread for them all to reconvene. I will be NPCing monsters in these threads, so please drop me a line if you want the monsters to do anything specific or if I'm being slow on a tag.]

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

Stacy's voiced called the entire crew, until all of them were gathered at the Obs Deck. Then, a dossier appeared on the screens, along with the image of a rotating planet.

Planet Designation: Pelau
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Moderate flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: Yes
Water: 75% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Climate varies by region.
Landscape: Landscape at the North Pole varies. Within the biodomes, significant development. Outside the domes remains mostly pristine.
Air: Normoxic concentration: 29% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 3% xenon, 6% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.

Air Pressure: 14.352 pounds per square inch.
Sky: Blue/violet with white clouds.
Sun: A class D4K, yellow star.

Warnings: Be careful of frostbite outside the biodomes.

Mission: None. Shore leave is now initiated.

[Here's a handy map of the North Biodome where the crew is being dropped]


( Read more... )

It's probably a solid two weeks before Christmas is due, assuming that their Thanksgiving dinner was on schedule which, given the nature of the ship, it presumably wasn't. But the robot attack was terrifying and disheartening and exhausting, and Howard wants a holiday, so according to him, it's Christmas. A nice, relaxing break from things trying to kill them.

Aside from this strand of Christmas lights doing its damnedest to strangle him, that is. Howard's managed to get it around his neck, and if it weren't for the fact that finding light strands is hard enough on Stacy, would be cutting it off with scissors.

He's still a bit beat-up, bandages around his head and his knees and one looping around his torso, under his shirt, but thanks to the healers and medical technology on Stacy he's not in much pain. His foot being in a brace is the worst of it.

He's managed to salvage an old plastic tree from a run-down building. A few packets of hot cocoa from the Warehouse sit on the table. Flossy Raptor is downstairs and dressed in a Santa hat and bizarrely, a feather boa in a shade of green too lime-ish to be Christmassy. A clunky-looking dog-sized gift for Zouichi is by the couch, wrapped in tin foil and newsprint, and another is on the table for Karis, although it's unwrapped. No one else quite makes Howard's list this year.

He pulls his way out of the tangle of lights. Christmas numero dos sans his family. Christmas numero uno on Stacy. He finds he's less okay with the former than he was last year, but more okay with the latter than he'd presumed.

Anyone who walks into the kitchen of the Susono Inn will be greeted by the rare and unusual sound of Howard humming. Go Tell It On the Mountain, actually. He even sings the section of the first verse that he vaguely remembers under his breath.

"Go tell it on the mountain, up over the hills and everywhere, go tell it on the mountain, tell them something, I don't care."

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.

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.]

Zouichi did have a point that Howard's being a hypocrite about dodging that whole Cedric issue. Not that Howard thinks that makes it fair to point it out.

And naturally the totally adult thing to do is go throw rocks off the cliff instead of address anything. Throw rocks off the cliffs and swing his feet off the edge, watching his shoelaces dangle and trying to work out exactly what he sees in a good-natured dummy who's about a foot taller than him and still believes individual lives are worth something.

There's still a part of Howard that doesn't believe Cedric; he has trouble accepting that someone can see the world up to the moment of their death and walk away with a positive outlook and an open heart. Where horrible things and near-certain death left Howard stilted and twisted, Cedric has just accepted things. And in a way, that makes him serene and whole.

Or maybe just resigned. Maybe Howard's stupid no-good dumb useless idiotic fricking teenage hormones are making him go easy on Cedric and see everything he does in a flattering light.

Howard picks up another rock and clutches it in his palm until it's warm. Then, rather than tossing it off the edge to join the others, he puts it back down on the ground and runs his dirty hands all over his face, as if wiping the day off himself. When he looks up, he notices exactly the subject of his thoughts near the base of the cliff.

After a few seconds and few fingernails bitten down, Howard waves and calls out to Cedric.

"Hey!"

Which is clearly the most charming and witty opening line ever.