Following you awakening and talking with a few of the members through the communication systems by way of the three kind people who had awakened her, Nezaitben realized how the crew was stuck in a terrible mess.

So many of them felt sad and depressed. Considering the entire ship, it wasn't too hard to see why. The next day, there had been an unusual amount of magical flowers spreading all over the ship. Nothing that damaged the controls (she might be naive in the way humanoids were, but Nezaitben was no fool either) but they were found in the most unexpected of places. Her own awakening area was now blooming in a flower paradise, the wooden palace standing proudly on top, the smell and pink cherry blossom strong enough to carry through most of the central city area where most people resided.

Yet the ship was still sad.

This would not do.

That night, or what passed as a night for in the ship, Nezaitben took to the 'sky', letting pieces of her own essence fall on top of the sleeping populace, or those that were not sleeping finding themselves feeling the need too. Enveloping the ship into a peaceful slumber, she searched their dreams. The powers granted to her by the pantheon of gods in her homeworld allowed Nezaitben to weave a series of dreamcatchers giving her the ability to see those whose hearts connected true.

These noble souls would do. Lead by example had always been her philosophy. She would give them a great gift - communication with each other in a single body, allowing them to share everything together. Their two soulcatchers were woven together that night into a single, grand ones, hanging in the garden's trees.

A few minutes later, the empty husks of the bodies that weren't being used showed up at her palace. With a smile, she welcomed them like her own children and began to dress them for their task.

That morning, some of the crewmen would wake up to a strange surprise...and that would just be the beginning of a long, strange misunderstanding and young gods trying too much to please everyone.

[OOC - Just a few rules. Keep in mind the listed rules. You can all start your own threads of waking up in the bodies of others. If you feel like leaving a 2nd post for other people to intact with them, start a reply to your own first post with OPEN header. That way everyone else will know where to post and if you don't feel like having an open interaction post right away, you won't have to!

There will also be another post for all the soulless characters to go around spreading joy and love, so look forward to that too!]

Despite having traveled with the Doctor and having been awake on Stacy for however long now, there's still certain aspects of 'modern' life that Jamie often finds himself fascinated by - even if it's something he's experienced before. Watching the moving pictures in the media library is definitely one of those things. There's so many to choose from, he often doesn't know where to begin. Usually, he winds up picking something at random. This time around, it happens to be something called 'Back to the Future II'. During the movie, he can't help but wonder about what he's seeing. For instance, what would the Doctor or any of his other companions think of a time traveling DeLorean? Or a flux cap...capic...that 'y' shaped thing with the glowing lights? But what catches his interest the most is the hoverboard chase. Stacy's a big ship. Something like that would come in very handy, if they could figure out how to build it. The main problem, of course, is how to get started.

However, there's an easy solution for that, at least to Jamie's mind. All he needs to do is go down to the Sensoriums and imagine up one of those boards to test it out. Once he's done that, he can maybe see what would be needed to turn it into something more real. It doesn't really occur to him that a fictional technology might not translate so well - especially since he never really got a good look at the inside of the thing. All he knows is that it won't work over the water, so he's going to avoid that.

A short time after the movie ends, he can be found down in the Sensoriums, ready to try out his idea. Something that resembles a skateboard without wheels appears, floating slightly above the ground. It's pink. Very pink. Jamie quickly switches it to a much nicer red color before hopping up onto the board, fully expecting it to start right up. It wavers a bit but doesn't otherwise move. Frowning, he takes one foot off and pushes it against the air, like he saw in the picture. It continues to sit there, not doing much of everything, and Jamie scowls down at it. "Och, why isn't it working?"

An area built over a bay, there is no actual solid ground anywhere to be found in Pirateland. It's a land made entirely of wooden walkways, nets to climb, and of course, wooden pirate ships to explore. And then there are the rides: A pirate ship that swings nearly upside down; bumper boats; a ride that starts out as a Tunnel of Love but quickly transitions into a drunken pirate-themed It's a Small World.

And then, of course, there are the souvenirs to buy in the many assorted gift shops. Flimsy plastic swords, pirate hats, stuffed parrots. Or why not go get drunk down at the tavern?

((OOC: Like with Kittenland, feel free to come up with your own rides and attractions at Pirateland in addition to these ones!))

-1-
Ever since their talk, Taichi's been spending his time in the Media Library going over the cache of Gennai's notes. He had been able to find various files from different groups that cited themselves on Digimon things. One of them spoke about containment called Hypnos. The other was a recovery and containment and restoration group called DATS. All of them pointed however to various things that were making him ponder things over.

With access to Gennai's notes, and the notes on various Digivices, he was moving through it. He hadn't found anything on Izumi's world but figured that in time, he'd find something from their world literature-wise. Until then, he was browsing through a few other things, most importantly notes on Takato's D-Arc.

Leaning back in his chair, Taichi examined it. "So it interfaces with cards, and then grants the digimon power ups. Digimon rarely come back from a process called data absorbing, which strengthens the winner of the battle. Pretty straight forward."

That was another thing worrying him. What if one of the digimon fell in battle, and couldn't revive without a Primary Village? What then?

Just another thing to research too, as he passed over a small footnote about DigiXros.

-2-
Later on, Taichi was driving through the city. It wasn't like he wasn't skilled at driving, but he was taking it easy. With Agumon in the back seat, he turned the corner and hit the brakes.

"What's going on, Taichi?" inquired Agumon.

"Agumon... look at that." Getting out of the car, he and Agumon hopped out as there stood a familiar row of toy-like blocks, childrens pens and a familiar tree.

"It's... Primary Village," said Agumon. "How...?"

"I dunno," said Taichi. "I was sure we passed by this place before..."

Everything hurt, which was why Devlin opened his eyes. Taking a breath was painful--his nose was broken, and when he tried to take a breath through his mouth, he felt the pain from his broken ribs and sternum. He tried not to, but he breathed shakily, as if he was going to cry.

It started with a faint tremor.

In the depths of the Ben 10,000 headquarters, there was a faint crack as a containment field, long since degraded over the course of many years finally gave way, and reality split in two. From it, three hulking forms spilled from it, and there was a faint rumble of satisfaction from the first one.

"Free at last," rumbled the first, a gargantuan behemoth in a powerful looking exosuit.

"Yes," remarked the second, a massive albino gorilla with what appeared to be a tiny head on the shoulders. "We made it through the barrier separating us from the rest of reality."

The third grunted, folding his powerful looking arms as he sneered down at his companions. "So then, we all know what to do."

"Of course," chuckled the first, clenching his fist. "From here, our paths cross no longer. It's them or us."

The others nodded and quietly they moved as the first sneered, accessing a scanner on his wrist. Scanning the area, he smirked to himself. "Jackpot."

And quickly, he began moving towards the Armory, eager to get his hands on whatever was laying around.

 After dropping off some of the crew at Balisair, it was time for the crew to set course for Lirath. The situation greeting them wasn't the most promising.

The cracked surface of the moon called Lirath was one of its most unmistakeable features. One of the three moons of the planet Kehoe, it had been terraformed and served as a settlement for a hundreds of different species, some humanoid, some not. Despite occasional class struggles, environmental issues, and speciesism blocking their way, the darker parts of Lirath's past were largely left behind, and an era of peace and tolerance had reigned for quite some time. The only problems they'd had recently were with a terrorist group whose cause for their actions had been a mystery, but they weren't tied to any particular species or social group and had been likened to a cult and had largely gone quiet in recent years.

Now the peace on the moon of Lirath had been shattered by the invasion of the Ohm.

The capital city had been destroyed. Now, all that was left of the peoples of Lirath was evacuating from one of its smaller cities, one known as Smyteval. A desert city, existing in a valley in between a rocky range of canyons and mountains, even though it was in the low ground, the natural channels of rock served as bottlenecks for any Ohm attacking from the ground.

GIA squadrons patrolled in space, locked in explosive warfare, protecting the Bleed-gate that had been activated to see the evacuated ships to the refugee world, and a shield created by massively-powerful shield generators extended around the city and up into the atmosphere, creating a shielded tunnel so ships could escape.

Word had come that there was a vital weapon to be deployed on Lirath, one that needed to be destroyed, hence why the Transmigration 9 had been called in. Given the diverse crew, and the ships that were in its hangar, there was at least someone or something on board that could blow the weapon up if it did show.

There was no sign of it yet. Right now, there was just chaos, streams of evacuees boarding ships, armies of Ohm engaged with GIA soldiers outside the shields, and forcefields that everyone hoped would hold out just a little bit longer.

The crew would be following Leon's orders but finding themselves fighting side-by-side with GIA platoons, full of various species that were currently all getting their asses kicked severely.

[ooc: STAGE 1 is now open! Please do not tage STAGE 2 until it's announced as open as well.]

[ooc: STAGE 2 is now open!]

Lash couldn't complain about her life on the ship. In fact, if asked, she might have regarded it as 'pretty good'. In the time she had been there, she had become a Power Ranger (in the brightest of yellow colors), become friends with a rather colorful cast (not that she'd admit it out loud) and even really, really liked a guy (not that she'd admit that out loud either).

During the attack on Galilee, Lash and Zetta had used the distraction to go around and steal--er prolong borrowed some of the items in the nearby shopping mall. It was only fair, considering what they had been put through! Not that neither really cared about morals anyway.

After taking their share, they found themselves with a rather large amount of items and strange knicknacks that might interest the rest of of the ship's fine citizens. Maybe not enough clothing to dress everyone up or to give them a pair of fitting shoes, but she was sure someone could appreciate a new shirt or two, or use them for rags or other creative uses they could find. Therefore their next part of the plan came into motion; if they built it, the others would come.

One of the city's many abandon buildings had been getting fixed and patched up the last few days since their arrival, an old store getting a second lease on life. Only, you know, this one involved demons and afro girls and stolen merchandise. But it was okay! This wasn't going to be a purchasing store, but a bartering one. In between their talks, meets and crashing a prom in the best of ways, they'd managed to get a very crude and badly painted "THE AWESOMEMPORIUM" in dripping red paint over the building front. One of the windows also had the rules, also painted with the same brushstrokes;

1) Find stuff you like
2) Exchange it to us for stuff and service you have
3) We have the right to refuse any deals
4) No Zedds allowed

Truthfully, both Wunderkind and Overlord had very little use of extra materials they might get in return, being people of simple needs. However, just giving items away would label them as being too nice. Turning stolen goods into a store and hiding behind a bartering system? Now that was much more devious. Besides, maybe they'd end up with some pretty cool items and tools in exchange, or having half of the ship owe them favors. Both were prospects interesting enough to follow.

Inside, the store was brightly lit thanks to Lash's repairing skills and Zetta's Merchant Minions (which Lash fondly liked to call Sonja Jr's) walked around the shop, tending to to the shelves and making sure everything looked presentable. Everything was in sections, with the same red paint just put on the shelves (lacking proper materials for labeling) so people would know what they were exchanging for.

Most of the time, Dog, Lash's alien green caterpillar dog was in the store, being lazy behind the counter. Dog was looking abnormally fat lately, barely moving around. The counter sometimes had Lash standing there working on fixing an item, a book lazying around, sometimes the both of them, or sometimes just a merchant minion standing there when neither of them where available. Rest assured, they'd find out what you traded when they were gone.

And just to make sure it could easily be found, one of Galilee's fabulous floating fountains now stood in front, hovering for no real reason that it was built that way. Sometimes you could find Lash was riding in it on a good day or early in the morning.

[[OOC info - this is the list of things that Lash and Zetta have available (one item is slightly unsafe for work). The list will be constantly updated depending on what your characters want and what they exchange for it. Sometimes the bartered stuff might end up on the list if neither of them have use for it.]]

Intense light and heat spilled out of a portal from the mazes, and as it faded, Aqua emerged, an angry look on her face. Some distance behind her were Tenaya, Devlin (encased in a protective layer of stone), and Ren in Rider form. Tenaya's visor and Ren's helmet hid their expressions well, but Devlin was practically gaping at the Keyblade Master.

"Okay," Tenaya said. "Not ticking you off anytime soon."

Managing to calm down after the Mega Flare spell, Aqua dispelled her Keyblade. "At least we're out now."

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 tall man in green armor 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.]

The sensoriums were often used to recreate people's homes--this meant familiar Earth imagery for most. But Devlin had grown up in a space colony, and Earth had been a very new and dangerous place for him at first.

So now, he wanted to show Hikari his old home. The small buildings and streets lined with trees looked like any neighborhood on Earth, but the sky overhead was covered with a transparent biodome. Outside were swirling golden clouds and streaks of lightning from the Dragon Storm. The gold clouds, lightning, and high winds outside the colony were just as familiar to him as blue skies and sunshine were to anyone from Earth.

"What do you think?" he asked.

After typing up her message, Sasami sat back at her little counter and waited to see who would come up to see her and have a meal or two.

Between finding out that most of the stuff in her restaurant wasn't useful, the attack by KAIN and the subsequent reveal of her true self and the slight relaxation moment after getting everything on XaXing, Sasami hadn't had the time to open up her shop. Now, after all that time, Sasami finally had a moment to finish up and open up the newly-christened First Tree Cafe. If anything, she wanted a place to show off her cooking skills and give some of the crew some good meals here and there. Hopefully, those who aided her recently would come back to keep helping her.

As of now, all Sasami could do is sit and wait...

If anyone could see Sasami at the moment? They'd be utterly jealous of her. Thanks to the unprecedented event of having two sets of memories, ranging in over 700 years worth of events, Sasami was a rich little 708-year-old girl. Her mind ran rampant at all the stuff she could get with her money, but stopped as something else took priority - she needed equipment and food for her store in the City.

About an hour or so later, Sasami's main mission was complete - dishes, utensils, special stoves and enough food to fully stock both her store and her recently-discovered home. But, even with all this, Sasami still had plenty of money to burn.

"Now, what do I do?"

Ben had spent the last couple of days feeling strangely hollow inside. As such, he had filled it with junk food (what was left) and watching his DVDs of Sumo Slammers. But he was getting restless.

As such, he was standing in the sensoriums, thinking up locations and discarding each one, one by one. “Too much debris.” Flick. “Too risky.” Flick. “Too high.” Flick. “What the moon? Why would I even…?”

Finally he settled on a familiar sight, the base of Mt. Rushmore.

Next he cleared out as much room as possible, removing manmade items and then filling them with various trees and rocks and stuff. A few hazards ought to do it.

Finally he thought hard, and in a flash of light, about fifty of his old opponents appeared from both kid years and elder years. Going down the line of unnaturally still opponents, Ben started weeding each of them out. “One-shotted. Not this one. Nope.” He paused at Tinny!Kevin and dismissed him completely. “Not my cup of tea today.”

After weeding out the weakest from the strongest and most dangerous, Ben asked Stacy to save this scenario and title it “Smackdown”, over-writing his previous attempt at this.

Cracking his knuckles, Ben asked for danger to be cranked up a notch, and looked at everyone who suddenly came to life.

Vilgax stabbed his giant sword into the ground. “Ben Tennyson, I’ve come to subjugate your entire world and kill you. Is this a bad time?”

“No not really,” said Ben as he struck the Ultimatrix. “FOUR ARMS!”

On cue, his entire rogues gallery rushed him and they met in a resounding clash of flying fists.

Somehow, this was soothing the ache in Ben’s chest.

Those left outside the city would find their experience to be far less exciting, but at least it was still relaxing for the most part.

The accommodations they were given were relatively spartan but well maintained, and the locals seemed nice enough. The food was good, and they were treated fairly well despite refusing to undergo the rituals.

But strangely, by the time night started rolling around, the locals began hurrying to finish up whatever they were doing, cutting conversations short and rushing back inside. By the time the sun fell, none of the locals were outside.

...Well. That certainly wasn't ominous.

[ooc: secondary plot is go! try to keep everything in one thread for now]

Those who had decided not to undergo the rituals were given the option of staying near the observation deck, or in the small settlement near the edge of the trees.

The buildings of the settlement were made of the same stone as the wall, complete with the tribal markings, and people filled the streets, mostly consisting of those waiting for friends. Several more Moai could be seen, oftentimes around groups of Rapa Nui, dwarfing them in size. There were many more Rapa Nui scampering through the crowds, fixing things up here and there, or cleaning messes.

[Go forth and socialize!]

Stacy's voice came over the comm, blaring across the entire ship.

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

The mouth in the main sculpture on Obs Deck opened, revealing a screen with the image of a mottled blue and purple planet, rotating slowly.
( Read more... )

Time for another mission, then.

After that scare of thinking Nura was in the pods when she'd actually been running mazes for GLaDoS, Devlin was glad to have some time to spend with his surrogate mom/grandmother/whatever.

Devlin, clingy?

...Yeah, that pretty much cut to the heart of it.

"So, anything you wanted to do?" he asked. "Or any place we're going?"

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 tall man in green armor 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.]

"Crap, crap, crap!" Devlin moaned as he walked through the City.

See, Christmas was great. He loved every minute of it, like most kids did. But there was just one little thing that made things hard: coming down to the wire and knowing you didn't have any gifts to give anyone. Especially when you had a girlfriend.

"What am I gonna do?"