It had been a few days since Kanaya had found herself possessed, and the incident still haunted her. Her sleeping arrangements had left her frayed at the seams anyway (which, as she was desperately trying to make herself believe, was why the whole unpleasantness had happened at all), and that unwanted presence in her mind had shaken her, let alone what had happened afterward. The violence wasn't so much the issue as the thing's absolute clarity -- its desire for hurt, and the thirst for revenge it had given her.

There were far too many things to do, but one of them stood out above all else: retrieve her lipstick. She'd thrown it away when she first felt the invasive presence (for all the good it had done her!), and in the resulting chaos, she'd lost track of it entirely. It was perhaps the least important of her needful errands, but it would be a comfort to her to have it back... so there she was, back where this latest nightmare had begun.

Kanaya slowly began to retrace her tracks, trying to remember just where and in which direction she'd thrown it. She stopped abruptly when it clicked for her, the jagged alien skyline suddenly terribly familiar. Here. Here is where the power had found her; now she just had to figure out where she'd thrown the lipstick.

A glance revealed the hopelessness of the endeavor; to her left were ruins grown thick with underbrush, and to her right, the path sloped gradually down towards a riverbank. (Could it have gone in the river? Please, please, let it not have ended up in the river.) There was nothing to do but try, though. Kanaya knelt down, starting to scan the underbrush for any hints of white.

It had to be here somewhere, after all. It had to be.

Anyone else seeing the scene before them would probably think they were nuts for doing this.

On one end of the Sensoriums was Sonic the Hedgehog, Caliburn at the ready. On the other side? Dozens upon dozens of swordsmen. Not just the Knights of the Round Sonic had faced, but all sorts of swordsmen, actual or not (at least from his point of view). And all of them had one main goal - turning Sonic into so much sliced meat.

"Sonic, are you sure you want to do this?!" Caliburn asked, panicked.

"I need a bit of practice, right?" Sonic said. "Why bother with one at a time when I can go all out?"

"This isn't the way to practice!" Caliburn yelped as Sonic charged at the gathered swordsmen, all ready to take him down.

(OoC: You're free to watch, join in, challenge him, whatever!)

Billy had just launched another portal in that maze of mazes, exhaustion setting in. Surely this time he would land on another moving platform of death?

Nope, just the exterior of the finished bathhouses. All polished, systems running, and just about ready to open! Given how sore and exhausted he was, that sounded like an excellent idea at the moment.

With a quick message to the rest of the crew, he set out the 'Open' sign for the first time and took advantage of his owner status---the prime waterfall spot could be his!

((ooc: The bathhouses are now open! Feel free to mingle around, relax, and have a party. Or cause trouble, but that might invite more trouble. Just start a subthread with your character's location and have fun. For reference there are individual showers in front, followed by hot tubs centrally located, saunas further back, and private baths along the side. The showers, tubs, and saunas have smaller sex-segregated units along with a central group unit that's larger.))

For the first time in, well... ever, Sasami had seemed to be happy. Or at the very least, relaxed. Since the whole Punishment thing, she had started to try to prioritize everything around her. Her talk with Alessa and her time with Hay Lin made her realize that trying to be a grown up was probably not the best thing at all.

Even if, as Hit-Girl once pointed out, she had her foot in the inner workings of the Command.

At the moment, though, Sasami had opted to spend some time in the sensoriums, recreating a simple lake scene and just using this area to relax. Anyone who would walk in would probably spot her resting by a tree, her hair down and draped over her body somewhat...

...and a big, happy smile on her face.

aaaaaaaaaAAARGH!

The noise seemed to come from out of nowhere, a wail of frustration raising in pitch until a part of the wall in a less-than-crowded section opened, spitting out a peeved-looking girl in red.

And was she peeved.

"Damn you, you stupid cowardous computer! We're not done yet!" She yelled at the wall which, for all intents and purposes, was as good as new. "Get out here, Glados!"

With a frustrated expression, she pointed her hammer (which was pretty large, come to think of it, larger than usual) at the wall. "Don't make me SMASH my way in!"


[OOC: Yeah. I fail. Anyway, Vita evidently got swallowed by Glados and was busy testing stuff. She's back and angry.]

Shadow, for the most part, had kept to himself in the past few weeks, seemingly unaffected by the rage virus or the incident with Steve. Maybe that was a good thing in his case. However, during this time, he found himself contemplating some things. It seemed that Stacy, being a little more kinder to him, had restored more of his memories.

It was less that he didn't want them and more why didn't he have them before? In either case, he now remembered more of his life - that he was an agent of G.U.N. and his dealings with the "future" scientist Eggman Nega - and he decided to try to figure out more. It didn't work out.

At the moment, Shadow had found himself in the hangar, looking for certain somethings. He found them - G.U.N.'s mecha arsenal. Big Foot and Hot Shot walking tanks, its flying counterpart Flying Dog, the hovering tanks Heavy Dog and Blue Falcon and the incomplete battle mech Diablon. There was probably a whole lot more there, but this was a bit more than enough.

"At least this blasted place kept our gear..." Shadow uttered. "Hmm... I wonder if it would be worth it to restart the program here..."

Sasami regretted going down to the Observation Deck. Oh, HOW she regretted it. She shouldn't of seen that, but her childish curiosity got the better of her. However, when the Punishment had started, Sasami ended up turning and running. It wasn't enough - she heard Big Zero's screams of pain and horror down the halls.

And that's what haunted Sasami at the moment. Huddled up near the base of her tree palace, Sasami shuddered as Big Zero's screams echoed through her head, the brief image of Stacy's tendrils starting to penetrate the meta wandering through her head... and her imagination running wild as to what may have happened.

"I hate this... I-I wanna go home..." Sasami uttered, pulling her legs close and hugging them, resting her forehead on her knees.

Oh, she was going to have nightmares for awhile.

Who knows why the ship was doing this. Maybe it was some kind of social experiment. Maybe Stacy was feeling festive and somewhere, out there, it was Halloween. Maybe the players just wanted to have Halloween fun. No one would ever know, would they.

In any case, what better place for a Halloween dance than a graveyard? In an area in the center, clear of headstones, there was a dance floor, and there were seats and tables with skeletal frames. Somehow grisly carved torches and jack-o-lanterns of varying sizes and shapes, cast enough eerie light to light up the place, despite the fact it was night. There were places to bob for apples, popcorn balls on strings strung up for people to try to eat for games involving that. The food tables will full of Halloweeny snacks and candy.

Far off, there was a haunted house, decrepit and foreboding. It seemed people could look into it if they dared sent down the dark trail to where it was. [ooc: Haunted house post link forthcoming].

Creepy--but danceable music was playing, from nowhere.

Perhaps most notable was the fact that the moment someone entered the Sensorium, they would find themselves in a costume. Sometimes these costumes would be what the character themselves would choose, but sometimes they'd be dressed as something strange, embarrassing, or just something they wouldn't even recognize. Leaving and coming back wouldn't fix the problem, in most cases. The costumes wouldn't change, and if they did, it wasn't guaranteed that they'd change to something better.

Whatever the case, party hard, Meatship. Somebody's got to teach the Vikings, draconians, aliens, and other sundry people to Thriller dance.

Some people had said he ought to train.

Some people seemed to need training.

Some people he wanted to teach.

And the Overlord felt like being productive.

So he'd grabbed a sensorium, shut the safeties off, set up shop, and sent out a call. And divided the sensorium into three distinct parts...

She had waited. Contamination of the city had made things difficult, had made it hard to regroup, and so she'd become weaker. Once she'd been purged of the filthy virus and had access to the city again, she remained at her place for several days. The monsters had become restless, and the arrival of their master satiated their wanderlust. It was just as well: Alessa had pent up aggression, and that could only be dealt with right with the creation of more, different monsters. To her irritation, many of them started to look a little like increasingly zombified versions of Sasami and Negi, two of the people constantly on her mind in the last few days. She'd kept them a secret for the moment though: she didn't need to give Sasami more reasons to be freaked out by her. Instead, she continued to increase her strength, and soon she was able to maintain her human appearance again.

Still, the monsters were numerous, and starting to attack each other. She would have to find a more permanent solution for her monsters, or at least have a new mission where she could kill things. Otherwise, she was going to land in hot water with the inhabitants of the ship. For the moment, Alessa wasn't going to think about it. New people had arrived on the ship and several different things had happened while she was in medbay.

Now she was simply wandering aimlessly for the moment, in older guise, unable to really pinpoint a feeling at the moment.

Bleary-eyed toil brought results, and there was a cure for ROM-199A. Now the problem came with administering it.

Down in the city, the makeshift strike team wielded modified tranquilizer rifles and each of them had 12 cure rounds to use. The infected needed to be struck solidly in order for the cure to be injected-- they were instructed to aim for the chest, though a shot in the arm or leg that hit and stuck would work as well.

It's like paintball, except with deadly pathogens!


Meanwhile, up in Quarantine, those who didn't feel comfortable with shooting their crewmates in the face chest and lower extremities were charged with curing those who had already been subdued and contained.

That was more like tag than paintball, except with deadly pathogens, of course.


(ooc: If you signed up here or here, fire away. If you want to participate but didn't sign up, fire away. If you're infected, tag in to your victim of choice and tear those jerks apart before they shoot you in the face chest and lower extremities! THROW-DOWN! Remember, give the newbs and less plot-fortunate first shot. HAVE FUN.)

It was official, come down from the ship herself; there was an outbreak aboard the Transmigration 9.

Naturally, the Contagion Containment Laboratory was unusually crowded-- patients in quarantine bubbles, panicked crew members asking questions, medics and scientists hard at work in desperation to find a cure.

[ooc: If you've got business in the CC lab, this is the thread for you. Pick an appropriate subthread and mingle, or start your own!]

That feeling she'd been having with random nausea and chills were starting to get worse. but Alessa was not slowing down. In her own typical fashion, she'd been braving the inconvenience, and found that instead of having less energy, she had more. The lack of composure, however, was taking its toll: she couldn't stay in her older form, much less a human guise to begin with, and anyone getting even remotely near Alessa felt a chill straight down to their bones.

She didn't like this feeling: she attributed it to filth creatures that had attacked when she first arrived, and that made no sense considering she'd never even allow them to get near her. It would be more accurate to say there was something that was weakening people on the ship somehow, and it had to be pretty strong for it to even affect a demon. This thought did not comfort her, and she walked on with no particular destination in mind, her face flushed.

At this moment, she would prefer the company of any of the people she actually trusted.

It was night on the ship - or at least as close to night as the ship ever got.

But while most of the crew slept, something had been released from within the ship. Something invisible, something undetectable, and something very, very dangerous.

If you passed through parts of the City, you might start to feel a little sick...

Beyond what was going on, things seemed a bit tame for Sasami. Though she had been falling into the habit of helping Nathan with his work and practicing her newfound magic via Negi's Pactio, she missed some of the better things of being a kid, like actually having some sort of fun.

It was probably why she made her way to the Sensoriums and just let something random form up. Suddenly, it felt like home - trees, trees and more trees formed within the now-virtual forest. True, she could have gone to Hydroponics for this, but she didn't want to disturb anything special there. A big smile formed on her face as she ran up to one tree and started trying to climb it. She wanted to see what was at the top of it all...

Shiva spoke through the comms (not the omnicomms) directly into the minds of the crew.

«I am Shiva. I am the destroyer of all that you know and the creator of a grand new empire. For months you thought of me as my host, Charles Kawalsky, but now you shall see me in all my glory. I have positioned bombs throughout this vessel, including the pod caverns. I need but press the trigger and they will explode. I also have one hostage of my own, Sheryl. You will not be able to stop me. I am fully equipped with a power dampener, and a forcefield. I am untouchable. You have one hour to surrender yourselves to me and begin your new lives as my slaves.»

His eyes flashed gold and he held his hostage firmly. He did not wish to wait, but if he tired of this he would amend his demands. For now he stayed in one of the areas in the City hidden from Stacy’s view, in the middle of a pile of rubble, with not a landmark in sight.

Still, he knew they would come.

Alessa was typically a loner: she would mostly stay at the factory in the city, which was becoming much bigger: now there was no doubt what area was Alessa's recreated Silent Hill, what with the constant fog and the eerie silence that cloaked the place. What was surprising was that Alessa was finding more and more there was one other place that she liked to frequent: hydroponics bay.

It was nowhere near as quiet as her Silent Hill, and it was definitely much brighter, but those were the only real flaws. Being surrounded by alien creatures, not really having to deal with random conversations unless she so chose: it was far different from the Sensoriums, where people could blunder in without so much as a moment's notice. In any case, she was perfectly content here, and anyone who saw her could FEEL something different, even being in the bay: it was as if there were a vibration coming from the demon girl, and she found it so pleasing she didn't bother with a disguise now, preferring her true face.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a green-skinned alien and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

How long had it been since Zokez II? A month? A month and a half? It didn't matter to Vivio - it was a bit too long for her. And despite her injuries (which were mostly healed), staying on the ground for this long was starting to take its toll on her. She needed to get back into shape big time.

Heading into one of the Sensoriums, Vivio brought up one of the various scenarios the other TSAB mages use: an abandoned city block. She let out a sigh as she looked up at Sacred Heart, the plushie device worried that she was doing this too soon.

"It's okay, Kris." Vivio said. "I'm fine now. Still a bit sore, but it's best that I work it out now...!" Sacred Heart nodded slightly. "Alright... let's get to work. SACRED HEART! SET UP!"

A burst of rainbow energy followed suit and Vivio transformed into her Barrier Jacketed adult self, taking off into the sky. A few moments later, a set of drones would start chasing her, following the same tackle and skewer pattern the Shrikes followed in their attack.

She would not let that happen again.

Ba'al could not say he was particularly surprised about having lost the election. He had not been playing his role well enough, not nearly. He had mingled somewhat, yes, and he had put up the face of a pleasant human as thoroughly as possible. But it needed more than that. He should have branched out more, made more connections. The cause of his loss was clear.

That did not make him any less angry about it, however.

He had missed his chance, surrounded by these imbeciles. Perhaps if he had had surer footing here-- perhaps then they would have been able to see who was deserving of the power they were granting to idiots. He doubted most of them would make more than sentimental fools (the only benefit to which was that perhaps he could still manipulate them, to an extent).

Now, he would have to exercise power more indirectly. Subtlety. Subterfuge.

With that, Ba'al was wandering - seemingly aimlessly - throughout the ship. He was not looking for anyone, but the more people he ran into the better.

((ooc: open to anyone, anywhere! Let me know if you want a thread in a particular place or anything?))