With the great help she had received from a good deal of interested crew members, the construction and upgrade to the bathhouse had proceeded rapidly and smoothly. The second more open floor looked as much a part of the bathhouse as any other, with enough room and supports to easily allow crew members as large if not larger than herself to access and utilize the second floor just as easily as any other. The second floor itself could be accessed from both within the bathhouse itself or from a set of stairs along the side of the building, a path now leading easily around from the front to show the way to this side entrance.

With the announcment of the completion and reopening of the Bathhouse sent around the comms. Celena padded through the hallways, touring all of the various baths, private, segregated or otherwise to ensure that all were in top working order for any who may wish to use them. Once she was sure that everything was in top condition and the water flowing properly in all cases she set out the open sign.

((ooc: Feel free to mingle around, relax, and have a party if your so inclined. 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. The second level spans the majority of the bathhouse with both individual rooms and areas with the heating pads as well as open areas one can relax and look out over the surrounds))

Irma couldn't explain what she was doing right now.

Okay, she could: she was busy poking through the various houses brought on board and left abandoned. But, she couldn't explain why. True, the W.I.T.C.H. Bus had her own awesome room and rooms for Hay Lin and Will (as well as a bunch of others), but for Irma it didn't feel like it was enough. As much she enjoyed it, she felt that there should be some sort of place to call their own. Or at the very least, a backup home.

She found one almost right off the bat, though - a large, two story house on the other side of the Kohaku River. Stepping inside, Irma was a bit impressed with what she saw inside. By all accounts, it had a few necessities for them to live in - a number of bedrooms, a kitchen just in case. It might take a few raids of other places, but it seemed like a good place to stay.

The only problem would be: would Will and Hay Lin go for it?

Well. That was certainly a waste. At least for Irma.

The mission was a success - they were able to get a hold of a special artifact that was supposed to help them get to point B (whatever that might be), but to Irma, that wasn't the bad thing. The bad thing was that most of the group didn't get to be there. Stupid rituals.

Relaxing on a bench within the ship's bench, Irma thought back to those rituals and the fact that, to get in, they had to get married. Then, thought back to the fact that her and Hay Lin were anxious to drag Will onto the mission. What would have happened if they got through? Would they have to be married for the sake of that?

Irma's cheeks burned red as her mind wandered back to that. Her and Hay Lin? Not a problem. Her, Hay Lin and Will? It made her feel just a tad funny. Probably that same funny feeling that she had about Hay Lin.

"...no. No, no, no. I wouldn't be thinking like that. Would I?" she said to herself. She shook her head and tried to shove that thought back, only for another to surface about someone else. And another.

"...maybe I am." she said.

(OoC: Karl-mun said it was cool to go on, so...)

Hayate was ever so peaceful in the hydroponics. The over lapping leaves of plants crowded together gave an atmosphere brimming with life; what's more, it was relatively quiet and calm. All in all, it was the perfect place to enjoy reading some poetry, especially poetry celebrating nature. It was an act of idealism; there was so little of the nature she was used to around here.

She crunched on little celery she picked, and swallowed, fingers flipping another page. She cleared her throat and read quietly aloud, but in the otherwise almost silent seclusion, it was audible.

A saturated meadow,
Sunshaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarely wider
Than the trees around are tah--tah, aachcoo!"



Her sneeze howls out with ear-splitting loudness, cracking the screen of her digital reader. "Ahhh!!" By comparison to the sneeze, her panicked cry was almost quiet. Or maybe the sneeze was downright deafening.



Her jaw dropped as she stared down at her damaged screen. What is this, Hayate doesn't even

... It's kind of legible on the top half still... she sniffled...

((Hayate has these effects on her right now; feel free to IM me about permissions or planning via my AIM : lichifruit, or to send a message to airgeargaigar ))

Irma was, to say the least, bored out of her skull. Oh, sure, it was nice to have time with Hay Lin and all, but she needed to go out and do something else for a chance.

That something else? Heading for the sensoriums and letting herself go free. Of course, that meant entering one of them and bringing up a nice, cool fall day in a forest.

"Ahh, now that's better." Irma uttered, pulling the materialized jacket around her to keep her warm. If her dates were right, it was nearing December - almost Christmas time. How time flew...

Letting out a soft sigh, she smiled as she walked through the forest, letting the fallen leaves crush under her feet, not caring who showed up at the moment.

Matt had exited as quickly as he had attended the brutality.

He stalked the halls quickly, moving to the Sensoriums, the only place in the world that would be safe from his wrath.

Locking the door, or so he thought, he strode into the room as it changed from stark white to a city.

Perfect.

"PERFECT SHI SHI HOKODAN!

The cityscape lit up with a giant dark blue mushroom cloud.

When it settled, Matt stood there, icy cold winds boiling off his body as he fired another depression wave into the city. And another. And another.

Blast after blast rocketed through the sky and slammed through buildings. Simulated people were vaporized instantly.

And holding up his hands to the sky, a enormous energy ball formed and rocketed upwards.

Roaring Lion Bullet. A attack filled on depression.

Well, Matt certainly had enough heavy chi to do this right now.

The ball came down, bathing the ruined landscape in a mushroom cloud.

Irma's mind was too busy racing through everything to really focus on one thing. Her encounter with that beast had shaken her up greatly and she couldn't understand why. She faced much greater threats before, so why did this one affect her so badly?

Wandering into the observation deck, she sat down and for the first time since the crisis ended, finally started to relax. Or to the best of her ability. As she did, she finally took the time to think it over and finally realize why she seemed so frightened - she was used to having her friends by her side. She wasn't used to hard-headed kids thinking they were heroes. And she wasn't used to feeling powerless... or at the very least, thinking she was powerless.

Letting out a sigh, she laid back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling as she rubbed her face.

"...I need to toughen up. Or start smacking kids when they don't listen." Irma muttered.

[ooc: PLOT POST IS HERE! Read it!]

He stalked through the hallways like a shadow, moving too quickly for anyone to keep a bead on him for long. There almost seemed to be a purpose in his movement as he made his way through the dark corridors of the ship, though it was impossible to tell where he was headed. Perhaps the young man whose body had been hijacked was exerting some kind of control, or perhaps Veronica was doing the driving.

Whatever the case, the Tyrant made his way to the City.

He emerged from the tunnels and into the wide open space, at last free of the cramped hallway. He took a few steps into the streets and sniffed the air, smelling human blood. He roared, a horrible and twisted noise, then headed into the streets.

She demanded they all bow to her. They were little more than prey for the Queen in the grand scale of things. These thoughts rang hollow in a primal mind, though, but he knew what he had to do.

They would all die.

Despite her encounter with Cortana, Irma was still a little on the bored side. Finding a Sensorium that wasn't occupied, Irma let her mind wander... and summoned up what appeared to be a forest. By the entrance was various padding, face masks, and other gear... along with strange guns.

"What in the...?" Irma muttered. "...paintball gun?" She couldn't help but blink at the fact that she summoned up a paintball field. Was she that bored she wanted to do something like that? At the same time, though, a grin formed on her face. Another quick addition - a sign reading "Careful - Paintballs!" - and Irma geared up and headed into the field to hide and wait.

Paint wouldn't stay on and besides - they need some sort of fun around here!

Stacy was never truly silent. There was the slightly audible hum of the systems, and the others in the Sensorium, to create a rather pleasing sound within the audible range of most species. But Cortana wasn't adding to that; rather she was sitting on her own created boulder, deep in thought. She'd learned quite a bit from Chief's video logs, and more still from the Library once he'd uploaded her back into Stacy's systems. It was a lot of data to process, and so she'd adopted the thinking pose some humans used. Legs pulled up to her chest, and her head resting on her knees. She looked, and felt, almost normal.

...well, normal as an AI passing as a human could get. Oh, the plant suit she'd chosen to appear to wear went a long way to making her blend in compared to her normal holographic form, but the violet tinted blue hair and bright blue eyes didn't help her to blend in. And she honestly didn't know why she'd chosen those. Nostalgia, perhaps? No, she could return to her simple AI form at any time she wanted. And it wasn't as if Stacy didn't carry some different looking people, so it wasn't to stand out. Maybe it was becuase it just felt right to look this way. A mix between a human and the AI she was.

But it didn't really matter. Even with all her processing power, sorting all the information she had taken in over the past few days would still take some time, and that time would be much better spent on figuring out just what the hell had happened then moping about why she had chosen to take this form.

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.)

The disease spread through the City, and through the City, to the crew. Those who came in contact with the invisible killer would slowly begin to exhibit many of the symptoms of a common flu: nausea, chills, and fever.

But they would not feel lethargic. No, quite the opposite. Their energy and their activity would only increase. And now, so would their aggression and pent-up rage...

...and it would increase very, very quickly. So quickly, that you might almost lose your mind.

Things just keep getting worse and worse...

The bomb situation was over. They won. They're alive. In a sense - if the reports are true, then they've lost a number of people. And again, there was nothing Irma could do. She felt helpless at this point - no Guardians, no real powers, nothing. For once in her life, Irma started wishing that she was a normal person again. At least that way she could have more options as to what to do.

She didn't want to hide in the W.I.T.C.H. Bus and didn't to hang around the school or the citadel. Instead, she decided to wander, hoping to find someone, ANYONE, to talk to, to get her mind off of what was going on.

Aimlessly wandering around the city again (it was so big), Hayate had managed to stumble upon the Statuary. She walked up and down the hall, marveling at the various works of stone and metal. At first she had tried to flick some of the switches, but after three or four flips on a few didn't result in a thing, she didn't bother with they any further.

Her smile waned a little as she nervously glanced around. She didn't think anyone else was around ... and she didn't see any signs prohibiting it ... ... ... but it was probably just wishful thinking or Hayate critically failiing at spot or perception.

... Get up on the lion's back, Hayate! Yeah, alright~

She laughed a bit, hand rubbing the cold, hard, stone mane with quick affection, as if trying to give the skillfully personified rock some warmth, then pulled herself up and mounted the fierce but petrified creature.

It was not uncommon for different people to be torn away from the others thanks to the wonder that is GLaDOS. Happens all the time and it's very infuriating. However, when a good chunk disappears, especially two important people? Yeah, there's a problem.

In one of the hallways, part of a wall opened up, the sounds of screaming echoed out as six figures spilled out. Two of them, Superman and the hedgehog known as Shadow, were carrying two others in their arms - Irma and Lowe with Superman and Sasami and Vivio with Shadow. Coming to a stop, the two men set the others down... and raced back to the wall.

"You're not getting away with this!" Shadow shouted as they raced to the wall, only to stop as the wall sealed up. "RRRGH! Dammit!"

"Blast..." Superman grunted, pounding the wall. There were others in there - there had to be. Others they could have pulled out. Turning around, he looked at the other four. "Is everyone alright?"

"Fine... though, now I see why everyone HATES that thing!" Irma said, rubbing her neck as she stood up straight.

"Everyone must be worried about us..." Vivio said, looking around.

"I'm sure they are, but don't worry - once they know we're alright, it'll be fine!" Lowe said.

"...hope we didn't miss the elections!" Sasami said. "Don't want to find out we missed it because of that... thing!"

"Don't worry, I doubt we have." Superman said. With that, he turned to his omnicomm and began putting out a message. At least they'll know they're okay now.

(OoC: Go ahead, mingle. Be glad everyone's okay! /o/)

"REAL BEAAAAAAAAAAACH!" Irma said, having dragged Hay Lin to a nearby shore. While the sensorium beaches were nice, nothing beat a REAL LIFE BEACH. "Oh, my god, this is just great!" She turned back to face the dark-haired girl she just so happened to drag with her.

"Not only do I get my best friend back, but we got a vacation! A real life vacation! With real food and real clothes and..." Irma said, getting more excited. "I don't know how this could get any better!"

She looked down at the fact that she was still sporting those ridiculous plantsuits.

"Swimsuits."

Ben had gone out driving early that day when he decided to take another route than speeding down the highway. Weaving into what seemed to be the suburban area of the city, he traveled down the road in search of something familiar. There were so many different homes, ranging from futuristic towers to white picket fences, but he was looking for something, anything to remind him of his house.

And then there he saw it: a cluster of homes with a gas station in the middle. Feeling hope surge, he drove up into the front of the first house and got out. "It's really here," said Ben, half awed that Stacy or whoever, had managed to preserve his HOUSE of all things.

The inside was well kept, no signs of a battle despite what he remembered. The TV was still on but flickering static and he shut it off.

Climbing up the stairs to his room, it was musty from a lack of air going through, but everything was there, including his own computer, television, bed. The lights still worked, presumably hooked into whatever was powering some of the stuff there, but there was no signal for the media which slightly upset the balance.

The kitchen was devoid of food though, save for some preserves that his mom insisted on keeping for a rainy day. Better than nothing at least, but it was a comfort from home.

The next house was Gwen's and it showed more signs of a struggle from the Ohm invasion. Clearly his family fought there. Uncle Frank was wicked with a weapon and now he knew why Superman sounded so familiar: they had the same voice. No sign of Verdona, not even her favorite cloak or energy blast marks. Seems like they took the fight elsewhere after presumably being ambushed there.

Kevin's house was a mess. Still recovering from the attack a couple of months ago, the front of the house still hung mostly open from reconstruction, but the interior was bare since Kevin had moved his mom elsewhere for the time being. Worker tools lay everywhere.

The last place he had to check was the gas station.

The gas didn't bother him, Kevin had built his car to last and it ran on alien tech. But he wanted to see what was inside. Heading to the back, he pulled a key out of the hiding place, thinking of when Elena busted in, and he swiped it. To his surprise, the door opened and a elevator stood there. "Really..." murmured Ben as he walked in and the door closed. The elevator moved down much faster than usual, but soon it was there at it's destination.

"I don't believe this," said Ben, walking into the darkened room of the underground Plumber facility that had managed to survive the trip. It was dark and some of the consoles were broken, but there was one monitor that was flickering with active light. "Lights," commanded Ben and the facility lit up with green emergency lights as he sat down. Entering his password, he booted up the file.

Ben if you're seeing this, then you've survived. We haven't got much time so I'll make it brief. You hold the key to our own universes' survival as you've guessed. The Ultimatrix is the one thing that we can't afford to let anyone get their hands on. It's too powerful as you know.

You may be wondering what happened to Primus. Well, you probably don't remember it, but Azmuth shrunk it down, and installed it into the Ultimatrix. Know that we're all worried, but we'll pull through. Don't worry about us. Give those Ohm the beating of the lifetime. Max out.

Ben, I don't want to lose you, but if Azmuth and Max say it's needed, then it's needed. You can't die, not until you're rescued. Fight, and live. You're my cousin, I don't want anything to happen to you but survive, for our sake. ...I love you Ben. Please live.

Don't screw up Tennyson. I won't forgive you if you die before us. Kay later.

More and more messages spun past him in both video and text. And Ben found himself hard-pressed not to wipe tears from his eyes.

And then the last message finished playing as Azmuth stood there in the screen, flanked by Professor Paradox and Myaxx.

"Ben Tennyson. Good luck."

And with that, the screen flickered off, leaving Ben to ponder what he had just seen.

Stacy's voice speaks over the whole of the ship. What she has to say has become very familiar over the the podlings have spent here.

||Pod Release Protocols Initiating,|| she says. ||Please proceed to the Observation Deck to meet your new crew mates.||

Those crew members that don't head to the Obs Deck on their own are hurried there via gentle but insistent tentacles. A few people stop by Engineering to help bring and pass out omnicoms and comm rings to the new crew members as well.

[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.]

For the most part? Irma was glad to have decided NOT to get her memories back. It was harsh enough that she had found the Citadel of Kandrakar earlier. She didn't want to see how badly she and the rest of the Guardians screwed up in their jobs. She also didn't want to see how everyone...

No, no, she didn't want to think about that. Not here, not now.

She didn't have Taranee's telepathy, but she could tell which ones had their memories restored and which ones didn't. Which is probably why she was hiding in her room within the W.I.T.C.H. Bus - this was way too much for her to handle.

Right now, she wished Hay Lin was here. Or at the very least, someone on the ship that could easily replace her until she finally showed up.

It had been a while after her fight with Kara and Sofia was still feeling the effects. The small bruise on her lung had healed but her two of her ribs were still broken, and there wasn't much to do for them other than rest. And pain medication. To be honest, she was a little out of it from the medicine, but well enough for any visitors that might happen by the medbay. They would be a most welcome distraction. It wasn't like she could do much of anything here.