Eva is all purposeful steps and tightly-controlled anger as she stalks the halls, looking for Dani Phantom. She doesn't want to look any more intimidating than she has to - she is, after all, going to talk to a child - but the idea of someone defending Iniss' enslavement of Tom Berenson makes her insides clench up with fury.

She knows that she's risking blowing her cover as Visser One, but she also knows that if she lies in Cassie's house and just burns with indignation she'll never let herself rest, and if there's any chance at all she can help get that poor boy free it's worth the risk.

She doesn't quite know what Dani looks like, so instead she's asking every passerby in the right age range who they are, trying to sound as innocuous as possible. She's even keeping the post-Controller tics under control, knowing that sometimes people aren't forthcoming with information to twitchy people who talk to themselves.

"Are you Dani Phantom?" she asks, and when people say no she moves on and keeps asking. She's been doing this for half an hour now.

Danny, once again arriving back in the room after a long day of Rogue Squadron training. He collapsed on his bed without bothering to remove his flight-suit, waking Cujo, who leaped on to the bed, and licked at the ghost-boy's face.

"No boy, donw! Down1" Danny groaned and batted at the dog's head.

Dani had an amazing ability to focus if she needed to. Just to focus on that one thing and let everything else take the back seat. However, she needed to HAVE that something that could be the focus without it just leading right back to what she was trying to ignore.

At the moment, she didn't really have it. All of it was too heavily connected to the problem she was having; namely that Jake had ordered, at some point in his timeline, for his cousin to kill his brother to get rid of Iniss. Dani could see his thinking of why he'd done it. While she didn't know EVERYTHING, she knew enough. She didn't think it was right or reasonable, but she understood the thinking well enough.

But that didn't change the situation. Tom was freaking out because Jake had ordered him killed and she was freaking out because she'd been reminded of old wounds and it was very hard to keep a level head.

She had gotten Iniss and Tom away from the situation. Phased them right away and had a blissful few minutes until she found an isolated corridor to finally stop in, well away from Rachel and Jake and all of them.

She pulled away from Iniss then, moving her hands to rub the heal of her palms to her forehead, trying to get herself under control. She DEALT with this. The wound was OLD. Tom was the one who needed help, not her. She just had to get herself to CALM DOWN.

((Bendy-time to after this.))

Hydroponics was peaceful. There weren't that many people in it, and most people were willing to ignore you if you curled up in a corner with a book- well, data pad, and he almost missed the solid weight of paper and ink in his hands - and kept your head down.

And right now, Iniss wanted nothing more than to stay out of the way and avoid all of the humans and assorted alien lifeforms that had decided they were going to hunt him down for Jake.

His host was quiet, on the edge of dozing. Bored by his reading choice and content, for once. He'd sent Jake a message, and he knew Jake had to have received it.

It was a small thing, something very few other people would think much of. Telling your younger sibling you love them? Most teenagers would die first. But Tom hadn't been able to say so much as 'Hi' to his little brother in three years. It felt...nice. Comfortable. He felt almost happy. As close to happy as he'd gotten in years, even with the near miss of freedom.

And so he dozed and Iniss read and they ignored each other completely.

It could almost be said to be peaceful, if living with an alien slug in your head could ever be said to be peaceful.

His hands itched. So did the backs of his ankles. And his head hurt.

It was rather annoying to not be able to scratch the itch. The headache was more troubling. It was going to get worse, but for the moment it was just an ache behind his eyes, aggravating more for the reminder than the actual physical pain.

He was helpless.

He let his head lull forward, resting his chin on his chest and testing the bindings on his hands. They were solid, and it didn't give in the least. They didn't even have the decency to scratch the damned itch.

He was hungry, and that would get worse as well. He had a feeling the current small portions of food would continue until he starved. He would get the added pleasure of his host's hunger making his own worse.

< They're going to kill you. > Tom's voice was soft, invasive, and annoying.

< That should make you happy. You're getting everything you wanted, aren't you Tommy-boy? >

The host was silent, considering.

Iniss kept his head down, soon, perhaps, one of his jailers would decide to lecture him, and who knew what might happen then?

If he pretended to be asleep, maybe they would just leave him alone.

((Occ: Give me what day you're on when you tag in, and we'll just do it sorta day by day? I guess? Maybe? Suggestions?)

Some people are bothered by having found themselves on an alien spaceship, their worlds destroyed, their friends and loved ones sealed away if they're living at all, and that's all quite understandable.

Allen does not now, and has not previously, appeared to be one of these people. At the very least, missing home has never gotten in the way of his focus at work.

Lately, he's been even more focused than usual. Strong work ethic? Possibly. But it's also meant a noticeable drop in his socializing outside the workplace, but hey, there's always a ton of work to do in Engineering anyway, so no reason he shouldn't be at work. Even if it's a bit of an abrupt change. And even if only his co-workers have probably noticed.

In any case, he is anticipating some visitors today, but working steadily away on the department's list of projects before his meetings - and he'll probably still be working while they're taking place.

He still was unsure of this place. Unsure of the odd suit he wore, unsure of the breathing walls or the ship itself.

But space, itself, remained unchanged. It had been a few years since he’d stared into the black of deep space. It had been through a Gedd’s unreliable eyes, then, and not nearly as clear.

< Beautiful. > The human muttered, awe drowning out the chaos and the static of his thoughts for the moment.

Perhaps it was. Perhaps the Yeerk only lacked the human understanding of beauty.

His hands were behind his back, an odd stance for a human teenager. Closer to military rest that anything else, eyes drinking up the black.

The universe had shifted, but out there somewhere, his home world likely still existed. Even if it didn’t, even if like Earth it was gone and most of his brothers and sisters cast among the stardust of its powder like the specks of nothing that they were, he had survived.

His lips curled into a smile, slow and much quieter than Tom’s smile, true amusement causing his face to soften.

He had survived.

He, a nothing and a nobody, had survived when Vissers and Sub-Vissers alike had perished like worms on the pavement after a rainstorm.

It was a good day.

Nightmare becomes reality....

[roster: leader - Jo, Arha, Dani Phantom, Nanoha, Sam Winchester, Gauron]

Immediately after his discussion with the Winchesters in the observation deck, Castiel appeared down in the city.  Standing outside the building that the crew had labeled "Escherville",  he was so still that one might have mistaken him for a statue that one of the crew members with super-strength may have moved.  That is, if it were not for the movement of his trench coat.  His eyes were closed, as if he might actually be sleeping standing up.   But sleep--along with eating--was not necessary for angels, even this one. 

He'd sensed the power of the one the crew called "Nightmare King" when he'd "awoken."  He'd felt his presence.  He'd heard the stories being told by the captain and others.  But the "Nightmare King" had not be his concern.  Not, at least, until the Winchesters both refused to return to Earth with him and to resume their mission to avert the Apocalypse and set right what was done.  He could not leave without them.  He would not leave without them.  So, his only choice was to remain and ensure that Sam and Dean Winchester remained safe and unharmed.  Which meant that anything that might threaten them had to be dealt with...starting with the "Nightmare King."

Beckett was down in the Weapons and Possessions locker, digging through the piles of unclaimed items, looking for two particular objects: her gun, and her police badge. The gun was her main focus; she hated being unarmed in a place like this, and the badge was just an object of convenience... A reminder of who she was and what she did.

She was absorbed in her search, but that didn't mean she couldn't tell when someone was coming up behind her. It was ironic how the timing worked out, because just as she got the feeling that she wasn't alone, she touched something familiar. Looking down, she saw it was her gun; the same one she carried around every day, and kept on her even at night.

With a smile, she picked up the weapon, and checked to see if it was loaded. It was, which made her relax a bit. Just having it there made some of the unease go away. She hadn't found her police badge, but the gun was enough for now, so she turned around and asked, "Who's there?"

This was it, the day that Instructors Callahan and Cranston had been anticipating (and perhaps, on Mr. Cranston's part, dreading). This afternoon, in a Sensorium-created laboratory, their students would be learning laboratory safety protocol and putting it into practice.

As students enter and receive greetings from Billy, they'll notice the main features of the laboratory if they choose to look around. A desk sits in the front of the room with boxes of supplies piled on it. In the middle sits a mysterious boiling pot. One one side of the room sits an eye wash station that shouldn't be needed today. Long work tables stretch from the front of the room to the rear, surrounded by simple stools, and a white cabinet sits to the side of the room, opened to reveal hair ties, gloves, and goggles.

Behind the desk sits a chalkboard, where Billy has written a list of paired names. Feel free to react in dismay or horror at your lab partners, students, but your instructors won't be budging. They have their reasons. When everyone arrives and is seated, they'll begin.

After processing all this, there might be another question on their minds---where's Wyn disappeared to? Students unfortunate enough to fail to arrive on time will soon find out...

((And the nightmare begins! Start tagging in the first few subthreads, team. If you're not already on the lab partner list but would still like to participate, feel free to contact Kuroi or Zoki on AIM or comment to this post, and we'll set you up. Have fun!))

Brainiac 5 had not met with the others. Glanced around to see who was there, if they were alright. Brenda is fine, and so is Koko, there had been no reported casualties other than the people from the Pod Caverns. Tragic, certainly, but not his focus at the moment.

B5's body had been placed on a clear work-table, and then Brainy had gotten to work. First, his casing had been popped open again and lay discarded for a time on a nearby workbench. Next, the casing of his face. One might think that it would be disturbing for Brainy to see the mechanics of his friend's face exposed like that, but if he does, he shows no sign. He works silently and methodically, taking apart the components inside his head, checking for any backups, any information storage devices--anything undamaged that he can salvage some code from. The backup he'd been given is severely damaged, and there's no way B5's personality engrams can be restored from it, but if there are pieces stored elsewhere, even just fragments, pulling them together into a coherent whole is a possibility...

This isn't an organic being, after all, where life functions ceasing destroy the core processor via oxygen deprivation.

However, his investigation uncovered nothing useful. All of his memory storage components had been reduced to melted circuits, his core processor is fried...

After calmly doing his investigation, the moment he comes to the final conclusion that there is nothing to be recovered, he calmly puts his tools down, and calmly picks up an empty work tray, and calmly tosses it into a wall as hard as he can, where it thuds against Stacy's flesh unsatisfyingly. His expression never changes.

Then he takes a deep breath and goes back to work, putting all the parts together again, snapping things back into place. After that, he tidies up, his role of engineer and coroner becoming one of mortician. Cosmetic repairs are done to B5's torso casing to make him more presentable for the funeral services. The mechanics of his face are set to lock it in a peaceful expression, like he's simply sleeping.

Brainy folds B5's hands across his chest, with the hand that wears his Legion flight ring on top. The surface of said ring gets polished until it glitters brightly and is prominent to the eye. The last thing he does is tousle his hair. Not out of affection--it's messy, and hardly presentable.

It isn't so much that he believes it matters, this ritual, this preparation. He doesn't. When he died himself, be it sooner or later, he cares nothing for what's done to his own body after. But B5 had wanted to be human, to be an organic being, and people were so funny about these things. About deaths and burials and culture and rituals.

This isn't done for Brainy--in fact, this is the last thing in the world he wants to be doing, and were he being himself, the pragmatist that he is, he'd be reducing B5 to his core components for later use. They are valuable.

No, this is done out of respect for the dead. B5 had wanted to be organic, had wanted to be human, to be treated as more than his parts. So it's a body Brainy prepares, before it's launched into space with the same pomp and circumstance that any other Legionnaire's would be. It's a body he eventually covers with a sheet when he's finished, a body that will never move of its own volition again, a body that will be present for words spoken about a being no longer there, that B5 will never hear.

Given the last instance, Brainiac 5 is glad that he managed to say all that he managed to say when he could.

And then, at the end, his hand goes back to tousle the blonde hair, sticking up past the sheet, of the young man that would have been his brother if they'd had more time to be family, and this time, it's not because it's messy.

[ooc: Please ask me on aim (psychicsaphie) or email before tagging: psychic.saphie@gmail.com. He'll likely chase out most gawkers or people who don't know him or didn't know Brainy trying to offer condolences, so you might not find it worth it to tag. Who he lets in the room sort of depends on who and on the first thing they say when they come in.]

There was a invisible being currently sneaking around the ship. Unobstructed by walls or other solid objects and having free reign over most of the ship, which itself was miles across, said creature might've gone completely unnoticed for a much longer time than it had. That is, if it hadn't entered the Medbay in it's exploration.

As Danny, who had not left the room due to wanting to stick near the only living family member he had now, rested his eye, he was startled awake by the cold of his ghost sense.

"Oh no. Not now." He groaned.

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.

A battle raged above a barren world, the odds against the two heroes fighting side-by-side in the thick of it all, but they both refused to give up; there was simply too much at stake for that.

"Keep fighting, we’re winning!" One hero declared. He looked a little like an older version of Kon-El, but with some slightly different facial features and a different costume.

Brainy turned to say something in return, but his eyes focussed instead on the cannon levelled at Superman’s back and primed to fire.

"Look out!" But he could see that the warning wasn’t going to be enough, so threw himself desperately forward, managing to shove Superman clear as the weapon fired and hit him full force, ripping open his side and exposing the circuitry within. As he spiralled out of control and fell to the lifeless rock below, he could only watch as Superman quickly finished off the last of the enemy’s forces and rushed to his side.

"Hold still! You’re going to be fine," Superman insisted, clutching the Coluan boy’s hand tightly. It felt real and warm to Brainy’s sensors, and he gasped weakly, playing up his injuries.

"No Superman, I’m too—" a break for another gasped breath "—it’s too... late for me..."

"Don’t say that! I won’t leave you here!"

"You have to! I can’t go—" GASP. And a weak, pathetic cough. "—You have to save the... universe... Please..."

Superman’s eyes began to tear up. "I’ll never forget your sacrifice, Brainy," he said. "No matter what happens, you’ll always be a hero in my mind."

"Super—" Brainy tried to say, but he coughed again and, with a final sigh, went limp in the hero’s arms as the music swelled to a crescendo and—

Someone was in the room with him. The moment he realised, Brainiac 5 sat up and snapped out an order – "Stacy, end simulation" – mentally cursing that he hadn’t picked up on the intrusion sooner. Trying to act like he hadn’t just been involved in that simulation, he picked himself up off the ground and turned to face the new arrival.

[[if you’re curious, this is all completely canon, so feel free to wander in and comment as you see fit!]]

"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!

It was a beautiful sight in the Sensorium. A bright blue sky with just enough clouds to be peaceful, but not depressing. The door would lead right into a group of trees the faded to a cliff outlet that could see all across green the sight below sky was forest covered Rocky mountains. Specifically in the Colorado region.

Many could call it breathtaking, to be perched on the edge of the cliff.
( Read more... )

Weeks of searching, more weeks of life on Stacy, and Zuko still hadn't found who he was looking for.

He was getting plenty sick of tunnel-crawling, too, and closer to a Punishment than was probably smart. And he hated to think of how much time "missions" were going to take away from his search . . . but whether he lacked time or not, he still needed to train.

The scarred prince ran through his katas in the Sensoriums, a breeze cooling the sweat on his back and blowing away the heat from his flames as he practiced in an open-air dojo. They were basic katas. His uncle would have been proud -

Except, no. He really wouldn't. Zuko faltered in his stance, remembering the last time he'd seen his uncle - the dim prison, the quiet disapproval in his voice, and Zuko's fireblast went wide as he stumbled.

Shit. At least nobody was there to see, right . . .?

If he's going to hold a team meeting it seems reasonable to try to make it as nice a meeting as possible, so he's taken over one of the sensoriums so that they can have couches.

...well okay the room is actually just his office back home with some couches ADDED, but they are still comfortable places to sit. There's also juice and cookies!

Mostly he just wants to get a handle on who all is under his intermittent command here when it comes to the missions. It's not going to do him any good to have a team if he doesn't have a handle on their abilities.

Ninjas are trained to work solo with a unified style that lets some missions be handled in pairs or fours. This means that, well, the Doc isn't really much of a 'large group' strategist. In fact his past attempts at planning non-solo missions have gone over in some spectacularly terrible ways. But hey, that plane thing was soooo Dad's fault, seriously.

For right now he has to at least try, though.

He munches on a cookie and waits.

Cloneday? Dani liked it. She didn't have to hide she was a clone, so why not call it cloneday since she wasn't technically 'born' for a real 'birth.' Cloneday was fitting.

She had flown to the Sensorium, asking for a room that was quickly filled with balloons and streamers and a nice big banner that said Cloneday on it. There was even a few pinatas and birthday hats scattered about as well as empty present boxes.

Dani knew birthdays from greeting cards. So whatever she saw on a greeting card, she had appear.

And then there were the tables, covered with food and drinks. Plus a very large strawberry birthday cake and candles on it. She still didn't get why because fire being pretty meant there were candles on the birthday cake, but oh well.

Now she just had to wait for others to arrive.

((OOC: All are invited because Dani doesn't not like anyone on board. Mingling is also encouraged too.))