People disappeared all the time.

It was a fact that Mami knew quite well. First it had been Madoka. She had came back, for that one brief day. But she had been taken away from them just as quickly. That first time felt like someone had ripped her still-beating heart straight out of her chest. The second time wasn't much better either. Then it had been Sayaka, in the midst of the confusion with SHODAN. By then the pain had dulled a little, so perhaps Mami was adapting to it. Then Homura was returned to the pods, only a short time after they had established... something. Mami still wasn't sure what it was, but it had been nice.

Then Madoka had returned, right around the time Homura was repodded. It helped dull that pain, and Mami was so happy. But at the same time, she was worried. She had suffered through her friends leaving several times over the months she'd been on the ship, and she didn't want to deal with that again. But she couldn't just stay away from Madoka. Her friend needed her, just like she needed Madoka. So going against her common sense, she proceeded to enjoy the weeks following Madoka's return.

So when she awoke and noticed the bed opposite hers was vacant, and after she spent the entire day reaching out and trying to grasp even a hint of that new yet familiar magical energy... something broke in her. But she didn't cry. She didn't scream. She didn't lash out in pain or frustration or anger, like she might have months ago. It's like she's been submerged under water. Everything is muted; her surroundings, her thoughts... even the pain in her chest - which she's sure should be reaching an unbearable level at this point - is just a dull ache.

She doesn't know how long she wandered the ship after that. She doesn't acknowledge any fellow crew members who might pass by - and should they, it doesn't take much to notice something's... off, about the girl. She moves mechanically, like a puppet slowly being dragged by its strings.

Eventually, Mami ends up in the Obs Deck, slouched over on one of the many chairs scattered throughout it. She's rolling her Soul Gem absently between her fingers, watching the gathering dark blotches in the golden glow. The light from the gem doesn't seem to reflect in her eyes, either, which gives her a bit of an eerie look right now. Do you dare to approach?

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the battle with SHODAN the place looks a little worst for wear, but the crew and even Stacy are trying to be in good spirits. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, and the little stunt in trying to kill off the people in the pods, many 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. They are also told they must read information about their current situation and a survival guide with their new omnicom. New crew-mates might see a tall dragonish guy with wings (but don't call him that), a large afro attached to a smaller girl, and talking ponies 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. But thankfully this time, there's a system that was set up to aid the new crew members with a few more experienced ones.

[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. Big brother/sister, there will be a thread for you as well!]

Chancy as it was to move between levels, it was still quite often a necessity. Especially when there was more to try and get out of Medical and the nearby Science Department, before the cogs and wheels hands of SHODAN ran amuck over everything.

It didn't make for easy transitions, on the otherhand. Those traveling upward found themselves abruptly diverted to the second level, at the hub of the pod caverns. This unintentional side-effect of something the wired fiends were doing made it both necessary to stop off and stay out of a larger group's way, as well as finding immediate progress elsewhere inconvenient. Getting down to the MedBay again would be easiest, and with a safezone set up in Contagion it wasn't a bad bet.

The problem primarily being they still needed some contact and transfer of supplies between safepoints, if that really could have been left in more organized hands. Things the ship needed to work on? Possibly a sense of coherency, but Sakura was admittedly biased. It's what she expected from folks at home, and what she'd been made to act on and with during the war. Her war. Her world's war. Might as well apply it to space.

Whatever poor sods had also gotten the shaft and ended up in the hub to the pod caverns had similar options to what Sakura was facing. "They were headed this way. We need to move." Finding someplace to either be out of the way and line of attention, or to use as a stronghold if they needed to, would be important. If the metal and plastic minions were following them into the caverns, they'd hopefully leave soon afterward. If not...

If not, they had even more of the many problems SHODAN had dropped in their deliciously frail buggy hands.

[ ooc: Any and all who wanted to be around before the Pods were known to be under attack/to witness the Pods coming under attack, get in here! Trudy's rallying for a drive of robots out here -- SHODAN will be killing pods in this log. ]

This was probably the last thing Mami wanted to be doing right now.

Things had been... okay, for a while. Her breakdown had been a surprisingly effective way of removing the almost crushing weight on her shoulders, and ever since then, she spend less and less time cooped up away from the rest of the ship.

Some of that weight had returned, though, when she realized that she and the other puella magi were still the only ones who knew the horrible truth. Mami was so caught up in her own grief and despair that she never told anyone else on the ship the truth - and as much as she hated to spread such information around, someone deserved to be informed. She's still not sure what happened when she herself had nearly turned, but she couldn't assume it might happen again. She wouldn't blame anyone if they decided to monitor her and her friends.

After sending out a simple "meet me here, I have something I need to discuss" message to Nanoha - the one she had originally talked to when that first witch showed up - she made her way over to one of the empty sensoriums immediately. She changed it to something simple, similar to her old apartment's living room, sat down, poured herself a cup of tea, and waited.

Thirteen.

That's how many witches - including the one Mami had finished off moments ago - had been released since they started showing up on-board. Mami honestly wasn't sure how many people knew about this potential threat, and really... she didn't care. This was a problem for the puella magi, not anyone else. It was their duty to find and destroy these witches, and that didn't change just because the territory changed.

She leaned back against the nearby wall, slowly sliding down it until she was sitting. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going like this. She was exhausted, physically and mentally; she was running on maybe three hours of sleep a night, four if she was lucky. She was still helping Homura with her idiotic, futile search for the pod Madoka slept in, and the stress from that "Visitation Day" still hasn't gone away.

And there was the thought that had been nagging at the back of her head ever since her group had gotten together after the Lirath mission. There really was no way to tell just how many witches were left. A thousand? A hundred? Ten? For all Mami knew, the one she had just defeated could have been the last one. There was no way the ship could predict how many witches would be needed to keep them healthy and still-human until they restored their worlds. Mami's own Soul Gem had been draining at an alarming rate, something that honestly scared her - partially because she didn't know why.

She stays hunched over and sitting in that hallway for a while longer - still clad in her puella magi outfit - with the grief seed she won from the defeated witch in one hand and her dim Soul Gem in another. She can't bring herself to cleanse it; if that was the last witch (or really, even if it wasn't!), what was the point? She's only prolonging a fate she has no way of escaping.

[OOC: Edited for trigger warning for possible mentions of suicide.]

Let it never be said that Stacy was not benevolent toward her crew. Truth was, she loved them, to the point of risking her own life. And thus, she'd been busy for quite some time... silently she had worked, trying to get into her own archives and cross-checking references. She was going to help boost morale and give them a gift - show them people they cared about, wake them up for a single day as proof that, yes, they were there, close by. She was going to give them a day to awaken, to see their loved ones again and to go back, knowing that their time would come one day or another...

It sounded so beautiful and poetic on theory. In reality, it could become a true disaster. Spent of most of the energies doing this task, in complete secrecy to keep it as a surprise, Stacy's never-ending work was only stopped by its own Warden program, which pulled the plug on the ship's search to find everyone at least someone they cared about. That, unfortunately, left her not only spent of energy which was dangerous in itself - but it also meant that some of the crew would be deprived of seeing their close ones, no doubt leaving some of them bitter.

The road to hell has always been paved by good intentions.

Stacy's voice was decidedly more cheerful than normal as she spoke to the entire ship.

|| Transmigration Nine crew, please report to the Observation Deck. I have a gift for you. ||

She repeated the request, and waited.

Once most of the crew had made their way there, she continued.

||I have been working on a...|| she couldn't quite find the proper word and settled on the next one, || present for you. While many of your records are locked to even me, I have worked to find the pods which contain people close to you. I...apologize if some of you may end up with no one, it is not my fault I...|| suddenly Stacy's voice seemed a little less cheerful, ||The Warden stopped me before I could finish everything completely. Please do not feel like I targeted you specifically, I really did my best to get as many of your friends and companions awake as possible for today.||

Now was the hardest part to explain.

||And that is, unfortunately, all that can be given to you. Because their avia are not yet ready to be properly awakened, they'll be here for a single day. Please make the most of it, so you can feel better and continue our mission with renewed vigor . I hope that meeting those that care about you will give you a boost of energy that you all need.|| Spoken like a mother who put her children before herself. ||But if you can...look at it this way, it means that they are here, and one day I will proudly awaken them properly when they are ready.||

Her voice was becoming strange as she went on. Not static-like, but raspy, like someone who was running out of breath.

||And I am afraid that I must go offline for a few hours due to the strain this is putting on...me...|| It sounded really painful for her to speak, completely spent and only going because she wanted to at least give them a proper last word. ||I...hope...you...will...be...happy...a...lit--||

For the first time in a long while, Stacy was completely silent.

[OOC: GO FOR IT.]

It has been some time since she first entered the pod caverns. She's lost track of it-- it's hard to tell time in this ship to begin with, and so without any sort of measure here it's especially hard.

Homura can't make out the faces of anyone inside. Just a vague silhouette. She knows she's trying to do something nearly impossible. She could look through these pods her entire life and never find Madoka, but she still looks. She said it herself to the others, didn't she? Giving up is the same as dying. Homura judges from the particulars of these people's bodies, their wrists, their ankles. Their hair. She searches for a glimpse of pink in a sea of green and finds nothing; that's alright, she'll keep looking.

On and on her trek goes, up and down the spiralling walkways and stairs. Pausing at every single pod that holds a glimmer of hope, a human figure of a young girl. Illuminating the insides with the light of her soul gem, she can never get their faces to show. What she can see of their bodies usually shows something Madoka doesn't have. A faint scar, a distinct freckle or mole.

She's started from the bottom and is moving her way gradually up. It's easily been a day since she started looking. She's hungry and she's thirsty and she's tired, so tired. It's nearly too much. But she knows if she moves from this spot to get food or water or sleep she'll lose her place, and she'll have to start all over again. There's no food or water here, but she can at least get some rest.

Exhausted and frustrated, Homura transforms her soul gem back into its compact ring form and sits down. Leaning gently against a pod and feeling the swell of Stacy's breathing, she tries to get some sleep.

The battle is over.

There is happiness and weariness and sadness. Their banners of victory are flown, and the Ohm retreat.

Homura cares little for all of those things; before they even return to the ship, her thoughts are with Madoka. And after throwing off the others, she strides through the many paths of the ship. Searching and searching. But Madoka cannot be found. The ship is huge, so she can't possibly search every nook and cranny. So she takes a brief look through everything but the city; and when Madoka is not found, she carefully combs through it again. And again.

And eventually, she finds her way back to the Obs Deck. She sits on a couch and breathes, trying to keep her composure.

Where could she be?

[ Closed to Sayaka and Mami! Bendytimed to just after they get back from Lirath. ]

 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!]

Life aboard Stacy isn't necessarily bad, she supposes. There are less threats here-- so far-- than in her home world. She can't find witches despite searching for them. And most everyone is friendly, kind, strong; she's yet to meet anyone less than pleasant to deal with. So she feels a lot more hopeful than she might have at home. Circumstances are different, and no longer stacked up completely against her. Madoka will be okay. She'll win this time. She's so very sure of it.

Homura sits in the eating area by her lonesome, picking at the slop. She doesn't like the idea of holograms messing with her perception of things, so she just steels herself and eats it. The food tastes bland and the texture is undesirable but it gives her energy. That's all that matters.

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.]

( Elsewhere! )

Mami Tomoe wasn't normally a night owl. Before she was taken on board Stacy, she was never up at the wee hours of the morning; she needed all the rest she could get, after all, having to keep up with schoolwork and witch hunting. Even now, when she had nothing to occupy her time other than staying by her injured friend's bedside, one would think she would keep up that habit.

But that was far from the truth. Between her restlessness over Madoka's current condition and her frequent nightmares, Mami hasn't been sleeping well the past few days. So here she was, in the nearly vacant Obs Deck, staring at her nearly-dim Soul Gem. The sight greatly unsettled her, even though she didn't know what would happen when it went completely dark.

And then, as if in response to her thoughts, the gem flared to life. Not the healthy golden glow of a fully restored Soul Gem, no, but a dim, sickly glow. The only reason it would glow like this was if...

Damn.

In one fluid motion, Mami jumped off her chair, pulled out her comm, and punched in seven words:

Witch. Meet me in the Obs Deck.

It never seemed like running the mazes and courses would stop, but as soon as Hoshi saw an opening, she took it.

...And, well, she decided to make friends with the ground after coming out of the insane AI. It was a rather comfortable floor, too. She didn't want to get up any time soon, either.

"Stupid AI..." she mumbled under her breath, her voice filled with disdain.

Somewhere inside the vast dome of the City, Signum floated, transformed into her battle gear, eyes closed and mind reaching out to the ship for magical reactions. The presence of Stacy's mind - not magic per se, but still psychically loud - was a constant buzz, but her senses floated to smaller, brighter sparks, aided by what she held in her hands - the "Book of Darkness" that she had taken up last week. She'd been confused, then, but now that the Administration Program was back in her proper place, it was time to start filling the pages again. She'd dawdled too long on this ship, trusting 'Stacy' to keep Hayate safe (ha!), even socializing with the time-displaced Bureau mages who had been trying to stop her before all this...

She reaches out for magical reactions. People she knew - Nanoha and Testarossa (avoid at all costs), Aibghalien (noted), Hayate (...) - and others she didn't, or whom she was merely acquainted with through the Magic Department.

Ha. A Wolkenritter joining such an organization. That was possibly her least thought-out bit of subterfuge here. They had nothing to offer her, unless some bleeding hearts were willing to sacrifice mana...but that clearly wouldn't happen. No, no, it's definitely time to go back to doing this the old-fashioned way. The very old-fashioned way, since her comrades were all still in the pods.

Yes, she'd have to be careful, but the danger was worth it. To live quietly with her Master, even in this besieged cave of a starship...that was what mattered.

She focuses in on a magical signature and swoops quietly towards it, preparing a Barrier to isolate herself with the victim. Hopefully, they'd fall quickly and painlessly...

((Okay friends, reply to this post if you a) have magical powers and want to have a fight with Signum over them or b) spot Signum and want to stop her. Threads will probably take place in skewed pocket dimensions called Barriers for privacy, but these can be broken into if you like. Expect fighting! Signum isn't in the mood to talk. Further details can be found here. If you signed up to get mugged and want to do it in another post, just let me know.))

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.]

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

( There was nothing... )