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.

In a way, it was almost good to be back. After all, the ship was free of giant insects (or so one would hope), he was no longer being toyed with like a rat in a maze, and.. okay, so where he really wanted to be was home. Kurt was just going to have to take the bright side of things, and run with it.

It just really felt like everyone had their own issues to deal with, which was the honest truth. For now, he wanted to remain out of the way. Not to mention he wanted to distract himself. Too much stress was bad for the heart, after all. He had considered playing with the Sensoriums and had finally figured that being even lazier about it all was the best choice. Instead, he'd found himself in the Media Library, scrolling through the outrageously large collection of movies. Kurt still couldn't pick just one, even after narrowing it down by genre. He was sick of sci-fi, obviously. He didn't want the ship to pick out something by mood.

So, for awhile, he'd just been stuck there, prodding at one of the consoles, hoping something would catch his eye. Heck, he hadn't even decided if he'd put it on a player or stay here to watch it in one of the pods! There was almost too much to use, making the choice even more difficult..

Then again, he was the kind of person that made Blockbuster employees crazy, spending hours reading the back of cases, and sometimes never even borrowing anything at all.

Spock stands on the observation deck.

Through his brief discussion with Stacy and his journey from the lower to the upper levels, he's ascertained that this is indeed a ship that he is situated on. Thus he decided that it was most logical for him to frequent the area designated as the living quarters, as he'd yet to encounter another biped.

So, having acquired the regulation away team satchel -complete with phaser, tricorder and communicator- from his locker, the fact that he even had one and that it housed the tools he used most often striking him as little more than a fortuitous coincidence, he did just as he planned.

He stares out into space, arms tucked behind his back, at the worm hole or nebula whatever it was that the ship was plunging through. If only Jim were here, he'd probably have a few words to entertain him with.

In the past few days, Dean has: been manhandled by a bunch of animated vines, been called an incestuous homosexual, nearly gotten into a fight with Blondie, nearly gotten into a fight with a giant blue horse, watched his brother try to fix his brain, gotten beaten up by a girl, and had to listen to the same Blondie and a giant wolf argue. It has not been a good week.

So Dean is wandering the ship, drinking straight from a bottle of booze, trying to unwind. By the time he reaches the sensoriums, he's feeling a bit better, so he sits down in the middle of one of them, ignoring the open door, and lets Stacy take over.

What unfolds around him is, in fact, Bobby's house. The car junkyard is off to the side of where he's sitting, and Bobby's messy house is behind him, and he's sitting on the lawn, feeling the sun shine down on him. It's nice.

So to anyone wandering by? You'll see Dean, on the grass of the lawn, soaking up the sun and occasionally sipping from his bottle.

||All crew-mates. Please report to the Obs Deck to meet your new crew-mates.||

It's time for all the newbies to get a chance to have a formal meeting with the crew. Given the confusion of their arrival, that's probably a good thing.

Word gets out among the crew mates, spreading in a game of whisper down the meat-alley, that an informal crew meeting is what's happening, free from Stacy's prying ears, and sure enough, as soon as everyone's in the room, they're gestured to move in close, and a wall of blue energy goes up around them all.

((ooc note))

There's a lot of people that mill around after the crew returns. Jaime Reyes, also known as the Blue Beetle, stays suited up for now, just in case, especially after getting fried with a Dracon beam twice.

He's trying to get through to the MedBay, where Paco is, because he doesn't want him to have to go through his de-Yeerking alone, whatever the Yeerk said or tried to do to him.

But the blue-suited, alien symbiote-powered teenager is willing to talk to or help any new person that needs it.

"Everybody okay? I know you new guys got all confused and shaken up by this, too."

There are three major things happening. One of them is that the crew is sweeping through the ship, scanning whoever they find, and shipping the restrained Controllers back to the MedBay with some crew members.

Another is Paco--or his Yeerk, at least--is leading Scorpius, who appears to have betrayed the crew, towards the machine, hidden away in an alcove in the city, attached to one of the fleshy walls near one of Stacy's nerve clusters. It took them quite a while to find it.

The Yeerks do so love collaborators.

The last thing happening is the Doctor, Master, and Bumblebee, with the last one carrying an unconscious West, are hunting for that same machine and closing in.

With all these thing happening at once, the shit is, as they say, about to hit the fan.

Cybil is currently talking with Jaime Reyes about the possibility of hacking the ship's systems. Just a normal day on the meatship, a normal conversation in one of the cold zones, where there are no working sensors, about getting the hell OFF the ship, or turning the big bitch around.

"Do you think we could have our resident tech nerds build something to bridge the gap from technological to the more organic parts of her systems?"

Ax had escaped the Controllers on board. Brainy had not been so lucky. Neither had Sam and Tim. And who knew how many others on board had Yeerks wrapped around their brains, controlling their every movement, pretending that everything was normal until the time came to strike.

Who do you trust, podlings?

It was time to get a little more organized, share some information with each other. She had a talk with that bigface kid, Jaime, to see if he could do anything to shield them from Stacy's prying eyes and he said he had a few ideas, so a meeting place was chosen, and it was time to gather.

Cybil had a good authoritative, shouting voice.

"Everyone, listen up! We're meeting down in the city near that big tree. Grab whoever you see and get down there."

Indeed they were. People were starting to gather there.

[ooc: Instead of little subthreads, everyone post in one thread as people arrive. Try to keep the convo general, like everyone talking to each other, instead of devolving into private conversations.]

Christofel is leaning back in one of the mess hall's uncomfortable chairs, staring at the... stuff... on his tray. It's crimson-red and thick, obviously different in color and a bit of texture from the "food" the machinery's given out to anyone else who's come by.

His face is only its usual paleness, but his expression is faintly queasy.

Now, this was just terrific. Kurt had just been awakened in a strange place, had barely gotten dressed, and was still trying to pick odd bits of dried gunk off any bit of visible skin. Luckily, the suit he'd been fashioned with was customized, and it was actually absurdly comfortable, if one could ignore that weird, living pulse.

He was going to try very, very much to forget about it. There were other things to occupy his mind.

First of all, his things, whatever Stacy had deemed appropriate to take with him. Hopefully, his 'watch' was in there. not that he needed to know what time it was, but because it would hide his more startling features. The idea of strangers getting a glimpse of him like this was enough to make his mouth dry. Reactions from people he didn't know were usually pretty unfavorable.

Cautiously, he had stepped out of the lift, looking for the locker room. Everything looked somewhat the same, the halls all having that strange, living texture. Despite his nerves, he didn't dare try to teleport in here yet, lest he get stuck in some other hell-dimension. He was keeping himself as low to the ground as possible, not a problem given his unusual build, and trying to just not draw anybody's attention. Yet.

After the most recent pod-pop had been completed, Stacy began encouraging the crew towards the Obs Deck. They would be most effective if they were familiar with each other, and as the Jaime Reyes Incident had proved, leaving them to meet whenever they happened to cross paths was not effective.

Anyone who stepped into the Hub would be transported to the Obs Deck, no matter where they had intended to go. Those who had been exploring the City were verbally herded towards the Hub, although the energy tentacles did not make an appearance.

||Please report to the Obs Deck for Crew Introductions.||

The Obs Deck hadn't changed very much since they'd last been there. The creepy sculpture was still present, as were the fleshy couches. However, the couches were arranged in a more obvious circle this time.

Come and meet the new -- and in some cases, weirder -- members of your crew.

Disconcerted though Leni was, it hadn't taken her long to find a way to cope with her current situation.

Naturally, it involved filming everything.

The... whatever-it-was that went by the name of "Stacy" had apparently been kind enough to grab her equipment. There was her minicam, which allowed her to keep a videolog, something she did faithfully every day. She had her handheld 2D corder, too--a sleek, streamlined piece of equipment that was about as top-of-the-line as you could get with tech that was mostly used these days by amateurs, arthouses, and housewives filming birthday parties--which never left her side these days. Her holorecording equipment (she felt an obligation to keep up-to-date with it, even if she didn't like the medium; it'd come in handy here, though) was too bulky for her to move out of the lockers by herself, but she'd be back for that once she was ready.

Most of what she'd done so far involved scouting, trying to get a feel for the place and plan out her shots for later on, as well as doing a few preliminary testing sweeps. From what she'd seen so far, she had the place pegged as some kind of pseudo-military facility (particularly given the food, which had almost made her sick at the mere sight of it). That she could handle easily enough, she'd figured; she'd done it before, and all she'd need to do would be to adjust for the size.

Right about then was when she'd found the city.

It was stunning, unnerving, and yet beautiful all at once, like all good art was, and--was that a real, honest-to-goodness, atmospheric-scattering-induced blue sky? No, the transport tube went up past it, but it was a good imitation.

Hardly knowing where to begin, she set off outward, not knowing what she'd find but certain it wouldn't take her long to run into something interesting.

Throughout the ship, people would hear the familiar voice of Stacy in their heads.

||Pod Release Protocols Initating||

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.

Pop. Poppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiissss.