Wedge waited quietly at the front of the squadrons ersatz assembly room, watching and waiting as pilots took their seats. An eclectic and strange group, to be sure, but he was determined to mold them into a fighting force to be reckoned with. They had the potential. They just needed a push in the right direction. He took a breath, waited as the last few pilots took their seats, then began.

"Welcome. I'm glad to see that all of you managed to make it through our latest ordeal in good health, and I hope you've all had a chance to rest up and recover from the experience. First of all, I'd like to introduce you to two new members of our squadron." He gestured to the two people standing behind him and off to one side.

"This is Colonel Tycho Celchu and Lieutenant-Colonel Jaina Solo. They're both experienced pilots and they'll be helping with training and getting the squadron into shape. And to that purpose, I'd like all of you to go around the room and introduce yourselves so that they know who they're working with. Your name and a little something about yourself." He nodded at the first person who came to mind and waited for their introduction.

It's been an intense half a day for Tycho, what with arriving here, learning about the destruction of his universe, learning about the existence of other universes, and the fact that he's been dumped in the middle of a whole new war to fight. After talking to Captain Kirk, he'd spent a while reading as much as he could find on the omnicoms about the Ohm and the ship and the entire situation. He'd also messaged his new squadron, the thing he suspects will take up most of his time on this ship. What he's learned so far tells him ... it's going to be a challenge.

Now though... he could really use something familiar, something from home before his head starts to spin like an x-wing with the stabilizers blown. Stacy's hanger is certainly like no hangar he's ever been in before. The air is humid, and his boots echo strangely on the organic floor. It's also large, maybe almost as large as the main hanger on the Lusankya, filled with all kinds of craft he's never seen before, which compounds the feeling of strangeness. Tycho isn't some outer rim dweller- he's been around the galaxy a few times, seen plenty of things, and the unfamiliarity of almost everything here compounds the feeling of how far he is from home. Still though, his heart can't help but begin to soar as he takes in the sight of near two dozen x-wings parked together near one of the edges.

Tycho strides quickly up to them, noting the familiar shape of Wedge's X-Wing, kill decals bracketed by the two Death Stars, before his eyes alight on his own. He traces his fingers up the side, instantly feeling more centered, more at peace for the feel of the durasteel under his fingertips. He's going to be okay. As long as he has his X-wing and his squadron, everything will be fine.

His R5 chirps in greeting, and Tycho pulls a datapad out of one of his flightsuit's pockets. He might as well use his time well and start running some preliminary diagnostics while he waits for Wedge to arrive.

"Yep," he responds in answer to the astromech's query as the translation scrolls across the screen. "We're far from home buddy." He comfortingly pats the X-Wings side. "We still got our jobs to do though, so let's get started."

Even captains need their moments of rest and relaxation. Kirk had retreated to the Sensoriums to try and catch his breath and ease some of the tension from the past few months. This ship was draining, sometimes in the extreme. Not for the first time he missed Enterprise. She had been his ship, for better or for worse and now that she was gone, he found he missed her more then ever. That didn't even account for the crew. Sulu, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Chekov - he wished he had them here right now. Their advice and support would meant quite a lot. As it was, Spock had recently arrived, but he seemed different somehow. Something he hadn't been able to put his finger on yet.

Kirk sighed to himself and finished saddling his (virtual) horse. The whole affair with Roxie Schreiber had gotten too far out of control. He'd reacted instead of letting himself think. He'd overstepped his boundaries. In one smooth motion, he slip up onto the horse, settling himself in the saddle. An apology to the crew at large was probably in order. They had a trust in him that he'd violated to a certain degree. He just wished that some of them returned that trust.

Giving up was out of the question, though. There was no such thing as a no-win situation. With a click of his tongue, Kirk flicked the reins and set the horse out into a steady trot. Ahead of him were rolling hills and blue skies. A beautiful day for a ride.

Welcome to the Unholy Cathedral at the heart of Escherville. It is here, in this place, that the Nightmare King has made his bid for release.

And he will not be stopped by the likes of you.

More monstrosities pour out of every angle, intent on ending this adventure. These monsters are every bit as horrific as the ones you all faced to get to this point, though you will quickly notice there is something drastically different about them.

Magic does not affect these creatures. At all.

Your spells do nothing. Your prayers are meaningless. The power of your God is useless against them.

No force in heaven or hell can affect them.

Nothing at all Magical can hurt them.

Not much time for rest during emergencies, unfortunately. However, now that part of the crew has had time to regroup, the task won't be as horrible, right? Right? Well, either way the Nightmare King isn't slowing down. It's time to break into Escherville-one way or another.

Though there might be a bit of a bit of resistance along the way. Watch out for more monsters! Have fun!

((OOC: Are you guys ready for some ACTION? Nightmare critters ahoy!))

Nightmare becomes reality....

[roster: leader - Leon Kennedy, Alessa, Buffy, Mai, Mat, Scarlet Witch]

Nightmare becomes reality....

[roster: leader - Roxie, Indiana Jones, Jason Todd, Lafiel, Sheeana, Shadow the Hedgehog]

( ...who, without hesitation, crams a few points up Slytherin's bum with an effortless play. )


[OOC: This is mostly going to be Rogue Squadron scrimmaging but other characters are welcome to watch]

She'd done it again. She'd promised that she wouldn't but she'd done it all the same. She'd lost her cool and let her emotions govern her again. She feels the vestiges of what she felt at Mykr; rotten, brittle kindling in her gut. All it takes is a single match...

It won't happen again. She's stronger than that. Bee-lining through the ship and chastising herself under her breath, she goes in search of the only thing she had ever needed. Family. They're here somewhere, but between Stacy's awesome presence in the Force and the thrum of life vibrating from the pod caverns she has difficulty centering herself. Not keen on the idea of trawling the entire ship (that's no moon... but it's not far of) she decides to wait for them in the one place they would know to look for her.

Here in the hangar she could be at peace. When people confound her, she knows she can always turn to her beloved machines for solace. Machines speak plainly, machines she understands. When she asks a machine what is wrong, it tells her so that she might fix it.

And that is precisely what she does. She picks a ship, and boy, is it a doozy. Yes, she thinks her family will find her here.

Leaping with the Force onto the battered hood of the craft, she surveys its condition and tuts, "What has he been doing to you, poor baby?"

Minutes later she's an ocean in the stillness of night, absolutely dead to the world. A pair of oversized blast goggles slung over her eyes, she sets about blasting debris from one of the forward vents with a vibrotorch. Occasionally and without realizing, she slips into tunelessly whistling a popular ditty from home.

Erwin had spent enough time exploring the ship to discover the media library. At first he had spent so much time simply reading books he'd missed or reading new books he'd never seen or heard of before. That had taken time. Then, slowly, his curiosity had turned to visual media. At first he had been amazed and overawed by the pictures produced sixty years in his future - sharp color, focus. Amazing special effects. It all seemed so real to him. His attention had shifted again. His curiosity got the better of him. He began watching old newsreels - German, Russian, American, British - about the war. He'd never worked up the nerve to discover if what Robert had told him about the Jews as true. In a way, he didn't want to know.

Still, he'd eventually reached the end of the war. So he sat, stonefaced, as he watched Germany crumble. When he could, he watched the raw footage. When he couldn't, he watched newsreels. It was depressing in away - to learn how the war would've ended. How the Allies swept over France and the Russians raped and looted their way through Germany. How depressing.

He was watching one of the later German newsreels about Berlin. He sighed softly. Maybe he would never see his homeland again. Maybe that would be for the best. German divided into a communist state and an rump republic? Better then national death, he supposed. He flicked over to another reel of footage. The Battle of Kursk. He hadn't been there, but he'd heard about it. What an utter waste. He leaned forward, watching the black and white footage intently, remembering everything he'd ever done and all that he'd gone through.

Lafiel staggered out and away from the sensorium pod, clutching her bruised jaw. Blood pooled between her teeth, coppery and salty in her mouth and she swallowed it.

There was a special kind of humiliation that came with being physically bested and though Lafiel knew she was in the right, it still stung.

Master Chief or Captain Kirk would have known what do immediately, but she had only exacerbated the situation. She knew this to be her own fault. The punch had been a predictable consequence of her actions.

She couldn't even curse for fear of spitting more blood.

This particular Sensorium door, today, opens into a strange long room with a padded floor. Tess is waiting there, wearing her suit—form-fitting, slightly iridescent blue-green material that covers all of her but her face (with the faceplate open, split to either side), with slim-fitted panels and segments integrated into that and a slim little 'backpack' unit, like some bizarre offspring of a wetsuit and a science-fiction spacesuit.

She waits for the people who responded to her message, and waves vigorously as they—and anyone else who happens to stop by—come in.

[One thread isn't necessary, but try to keep at least a few people in each thread, please!]

All throughout that day, there had been the figure of Lafiel, a strange, vaguely technological looking gauntlet attached to her thin arm. A cord ran from the tiara on her forehead to the sheath.

And where there had been things to be plugged into, she had plugged it in. All throughout the ship, the little empress had been plugging her brain into things, testing the neural interface that was her people's genetic signature. Cameras swivelled as she saw through their eyes. Escalators stopped, ran the opposite way, then ran the right way again. Maintenance droids were hijacked and made to do spins. She saw through their sensors, felt what they felt, exhilerated in the sensory immersion of the interface.

If you left something technological out, she might have plugged into that too.

Sawyer had been avoiding the city ever since Bella had told him that the Vatican had been all but destroyed during the fighting with the zombies. No one had died, which Sawyer--rather immodestly--accredited to himself and all the work he put in getting the basilica ready for just that kind of occasion. But with the basilica trashed, Sawyer had lost the spot on the ship that he had adopted as his own little castle--even if other, more religious crew members had tried to mosey in on his turf. So, in an effort to familiarize himself with some of the newly opened areas of the ship, Sawyer had been walking around and poking his head into the command deck, engineering, neuropathy, and, eventually, the flight deck.

He spent at least an hour wandering around the deck, looking at all the different fighters, bombers, mechs, frigates, and shuttles before his eyes landed on something that most definitely didn't seem to belong. In one untouched corner of the flight deck stood an object covered up with a protective tarp. It wasn't large, especially in comparison to all the other machines around it. It, in fact, looked rather reminiscent in size to a normal vehicle from Earth.

With furrowed brow, Sawyer wandered over to the "mysterious" vehicle and cautiously took hold of the tarp and gave it a sharp tug only to reveal....

( ZOINKS!!! )

An hour or so later, anyone stopping by the hangar deck would find Sawyer, driving in circles in an empty corner of the hangar at five miles at hour. The windows were rolled up, and a cloud of smoke filled the vehicle as the meatship's resident a$$hole puffed away on something that was not a cigarette.

[OOC: Please keep to one thread. Thank you!!!]

Some cheer was definitely needed on this ship. Whatever chance meeting had brought Kaylee and Claudia together in mechanical mischief had also set their minds to turning over what they could possibly do to get some smiles back on the faces of those onboard.

A costume party.

Claudia had come up with the idea, really. She knew a bit more about it than Kaylee did, but she explained it all in such a way that Kaylee really couldn’t resist wanting to throw one. It’d be a good chance for everyone to let loose and have a good time in the midst of the nightmare madness. Who could resist that?

The sensorium had been melded to an image from Kaylee’s mind, though. A grand ballroom, with marble floors and painted ceiling. A large buffet table stood against one of the walls, covered mostly in fruit, but in some other hors d’oeuvres as well.

[[ OoC: Party style!! Costumes aren't a requirement, but they are fun. If you've got questions about anything, ask Cheryle or Holly. :D ]]

As per the Chief's message, it was training time. Everyone who signed up for training (or was signed up by someone else) was ordered to an open square in the City.

Yes, the City, instead of the sensoriums. That meant that any weapons used would be real. And every bit of damage that they dealt would be real. As would the injuries. Though there didn't seem to be any weapons around, and there were no targets set up.

Interesting, that.

Anyway, in the square was the Chief of Security, who was busy marking off names of people who arrived early or on time. Anyone who figured that they could skip out, though, there is now an unhappy seven foot fully armed and armored Spartan hunting you down.

((ooc: READ THIS BEFORE TAGGING. EDIT: But the first subthread "Early/on time arrivals" is now open for tagging. Training has now begun!))

When he first saw it weeks ago, shortly after the crew had finally caught up him, he thought for certain that he was hallucinating. But there it was, nestled among several other castles. The Luthor Mansion, in all it's glory.

Lex was never a superstitious man, but even he believed that there was more to heaven and earth than what could be proven on paper. The appearance of his home, a reward no other crew member had received (to his knowledge), certainly made him think. He wondered if this was some sort of sign that his decisions so far had indeed been right, or that he was on the right path. Perhaps it was put there as a distraction of sorts, as well, as there were many unpleasant memories that haunted those walls. For the time being, he decided to take it as a reward, however relocating there initially proved to be problematic.

The Mansion wasn't in disarray, but it was clear that no one had walked its halls in quite some time. Not only that, but the last people who had clearly had little regard for the property. There was a layer of dirt and dust everywhere, expensive and priceless paintings had been torn off the walls and trashed, priceless artifacts were just broken pieces of clay or stone, pieces of antique furniture had been smashed, and every vault was empty. Not a single green meteor rock to be found. He counted himself lucky that his pool table, piano, and a handful of family photos managed to survive.

Rather than be dejected, Lex looked at it as project to occupy his time. Since he only worked in Neuropathy whenever he felt like it, and manned the bar in the lounge at his discretion, he did have plenty of time to devote to this project. Which was good, because cleaning up and fixing up a 40 room mansion-- replete with its own library (with real books), well supplied medieval armory and modern armory, pool, wine cellar, gym, and grand ballroom-- took a lot of work.

Work which still hadn't been completed, but he had progressed far enough to not only make it livable, but also presentable. The master bedroom, Lex's office, and most of the common areas had been cleaned up. All the rest was blocked off for the moment, but were in locations that were fairly out of the way.

So, he put out a message on the omnicomms, and invited a few people to check the place out. The ones who weren't already spying on him, at any rate. He laid out a few drinks, and a sampling of some of the fresh fruit and food he picked up while during their last mission to earth. He didn't expect many guests, after all, he had never been the most well liked person, even back when he was a relatively kindhearted kid. Most parties he hosted as an adult, he was usually surrounded by obsequious employees desperate to move up the food chain, business partners who wanted a more favorable deal, business rivals who were trying to find out something about the competition, charity representatives who wanted money, and sycophants who wanted the notoriety of being in the same room as Lex Luthor and access to the connections that alone can bring. Friends were simply a foreign concept, if he ever truly had any to begin with, and he certainly hadn't gone out of his way to make any on the ship. He was curious as to what category his guests, if he had any, would fit in.

((ooc: This is something of a party style post, so feel free to talk to Lex, Lois, or talk to each other while your character looks around.))

Somewhere in the ship's city level, there is a nice little outdoor auditorium. Though empty, it has its folding chairs all laid out neatly for an audience that will never come. Under the half-dome someone's laid out a few of those plastic-wrapped food trays. Someone... who is there, somewhere, lurking about. There's a black utility belt discarded there, too, studded with pockets, and a folded bundle of red cloth.

Maybe if you look closer, you'll find whoever it is.

Something...odd is happening on the ship. Plant-like protrusions are occasionally sprouting in places throughout the ship.

They look like mistletoe, but this is purely coincidental. It's not like it's the holidays on the ship, right? It might be for some people, back home (if they still had a home), but others were grabbed from different times. No, it's just coincidence that these little devices look vaguely like mistletoe, and coincidence what they're being used for.

For you see, when this "mistletoe" is overhead, a crew member will be trapped in an invisible forcefield, and won't be able to escape until someone has kissed them or otherwise showed them some equivalent of affection. (Cheek kisses and sloppy puppy kisses from the canine crew members count). The "mistletoe" spring itself is shielded itself and can't be destroyed, the only way out is a kiss.

Why is this all happening? GLaDoS is performing whacky behavioral experiments, that's why. Each time, it happens, she intones messages like the following.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

"The Transmigration9 AI Complex thanks you for your participation in important research. Unless you don't want to participate, but not participating would make me disappointed. I suppose you just want to disappoint me."

And of course, sometimes she even outright lies.

"There will be cake."

Kelly was in the sensoriums again. It really was the place she felt most at home. But that was probably only because it was the only place on the ship that she could make look like home. Or, as much of a home as she'd ever had anyway. Today, the room had turned into an exact replica of the training rooms in Reach. The high domed, cone shaped ceiling was revolving, whirring faster and faster as the rings it was made up of became smaller, making the gravity in the room at least twice that of a normal atmosphere. This was where she was most like a normal person. Where all her speed and strength were brought down to normal levels.

As it was, she was whaling away on a punching bag, hitting it with enough force to send it swinging far back. As it came swinging back toward her, she moved out of the way, swinging at her imaginary opponent again and again. Her bare fists ached slightly, an ache she hadn't felt in years, but she kept going. In her mind, she ticked off the spots she was aiming for as her fists connected. Kidneys, liver, sternum, ribs.. the list went on and on as she jabbed and swung at the bag over and over.

After awhile, sweat was pouring from her, glistening on the skin that wasn't covered by the skintight plantsuit. She hadn't broken a sweat like this in a long time as well. It felt good. Felt like she was normal. The high gees were a big help. Dropping to a nearby bench, she leaned back against the wall, shutting her eyes before emptying her water bottle over her head. A few minutes rest, then she'd go again. See how fast she could do it this time. And after that maybe she'd run some combat sims.

She felt out of practice. Time to get back in shape.