Somewhere near the hub, GLaDoS is returning crew members to the main portion of the ship.

“For your participation, cake and therapy may be obtained in the lobby.”

Mulan springs to her feet. “What lobby?”

Zuko, who looks the most singed of the group, picks himself up and brushes off the front of his plantsuit. “I never want to hear a word about cake again as long as I live.”

“Really?” Biff is adjusting his kilt, which, unfortunately for the rest of the group, has had more than a few wardrobe slips during their runs through the mazes. “Because I’m going to the Sensoriums right now to find out what it is.”

No one shows any signs of accompanying him. Allen, frantically checking his Omnicom, has gone paler than usual. “Motherfuck. I need to talk to Chief, like right now.”

“Why, what day is it?” Will starts to ask, but he has already taken off. She calls after him, brow knitted with confusion. “How long were we in there?”

“Too long.” Goliath leans against the wall, looking more irritated than usual. This may have something to do with the fact that he appears to have been functioning as the group’s meat-shield, judging by the amount of injuries he’s sustained, all hastily bandaged with the remnants of Mulan’s oversized men’s shirt. “I think –”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before he turns to stone.

Will looks relieved. The remaining two just look confused. “Good. He said sleep would make him feel better.” She yawns . “Speaking of sleep, it would probably make us all feel better.”

“Uh –“ Mulan is still staring at the stone gargoyle. “Maybe we should move him first?”
“He should be all right.” Will tucks her hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to accidently break him or anything.”

“Then I’m going to find out what’s been going on. And how long we were gone.” Zuko stalks away from the girls, swords still drawn.

Will looks at Mulan again. “So . . . that’s probably a good idea. Do you want to go to the cafeteria first? I’m hungry, even for slop.”

“That does sound good.” She looks down at her exposed plantsuit – “maybe I can find someone who’ll let me have another shirt on the way.”

There was a time to get sick. There was a time to bemoan the things that seemed like empty spots in her head. and there was time to sleep and dream of times that were better (or have nightmares of worse times too). But when these times passed, and eventually that was the case, there was nothing left to do but go back to what you were best at, and refine it to make it your own. Going to the podpop had been a start, and Katara capitalized on it the next day. A visit to the Sensorium and the scenery changed: she was at the desert lands they'd been left to brave after the library sunk and Appa had been captured. There was no gang here though, just miles and miles of sand and heat bearing down on her. To Toph and Aang, she was sure these circumstances were unpleasant, but to her and Sokka specifically, it had been alien and frustrating (it had helped Sokka that he was strung out on Cactus juice and she was fixated on keeping the group together at the time). She had also made sure there would be no water nearby, and so her pouch was also gone.

The morning was spent in quiet meditation on the sands. Her mind was full of questions and brimming with thoughts, but she momentarily displaced them from her mind. She was uncomfortable, sweaty and hot, but stayed in deep meditation, moving from time to time so she wouldn't cramp up. Once she'd seen the sun position itself to indicate noontime, Katara rose, and her attire was that of her firebending disguise: she would need it.

The exercising in the Weirding way, however, required targets, so the desert was now strewn with several dummies. Here Katara incorporated her Bene Gesserit martial art with that of the training she'd practiced in Will's gym: she catapulted herself upward, struck with deadly precision and then rolled into a new defensive stance, ready for the next attack. It had been awhile since Katara incorporated her waterbending flexibility with the Weirding way, and truthfully it was seldom Katara practiced the art, fully aware (thanks to deadly robots) how damaging it could be. She bent her legs a bit and brought her arms up again, using her force against the dummy and knocking it backward with what looked like minimal effort. She knew it would be awhile before she was an expert in the Weirding Way, but that was more than reason to practice, with all they had encountered.

When she had worked up a definite sweat, she went back to the flexibility part: she flipped, jumped, turned several times in the air and, on her back, curled her legs upward and leapt back to position. She was stinky and definitely perspiring, but that was easily taken care of if she decided to turn the Sensorium into a spa, not that she was in a big hurry to do so.

Mulan is early to bed and early to wake, and just as early to get to the Sensoriums for practice. A strictly military woman, she's not much for meditation. Quiet reflection is for when you're on the march, and sitting around has no place in the middle of a war. Not the one she fought, anyway.

Her kung-fu reflects this. Her style is a model of efficiency, the sort of fighting that results when an experienced warrior takes a young, underpowered farmhand and trains her to hit for the maximum amount of damage that can be dealt out with the shortest amount of training time. It's not flashy. It's not refined. There's not a lot of spirituality involved. There's just Mulan, and imaginary enemies needing to be hit, and muscles in the process of being kept up.

After her encounter with Sawyer, she's more thoroughly maintaining her gender-neutral garb, still pulling her hair back, still wearing her roomy men's shirt and loose yoga pants with the plantsuit underneath. She flows through the movements of her agressive, active katas, as the sun rises over a simulation of her original training field, illuminating dew and mist over the green grass, and the sound of a rushing river somewhere in the background, out of sight in the forest behind her. A tree hung with ripe lychees shades her as she strikes, evades, and flows. In a few minutes, some of them will be breakfast.

Several buildings in the City had been completely destroyed during Aang's rampage, but a few had survived relatively unscathed. It had only taken Kang two days to repair the Drunken Dragon; he'd done so by himself, not even waiting for his leg to heal up a bit first.

Usually, he didn't bother lighting any candles or using the fireplace in the tavern unless it was a period when the artificial sun had set. He could see perfectly fine in the dim light. For the celebration, though, he'd thrown the windows open wide, scrounged up every candle he could find, and started up a fire, knowing that human vision wasn't as good as his own. The tables surrounding the stage had been cleaned, as well as the tankards, and the door was propped open. The bozak had even wrestled two of the 60-gallon barrels from the back room into a corner of the main room for easier access, one of cactus juice and one of ale. If more was needed, he was sure he could get someone to help bring out another.

Tess had commandeered the kitchen to make her food, bringing in her own equipment. Kang had been slightly afraid at first that she was going to burn the place down, but nothing had happened yet. She seemed to know what she was doing, even if she'd given him a few scares.

The sunlight glistened on the old sword blade teeth and dinnerplate eyes of the comical-looking wooden dragon grinning above the entrance. Come in, relax, have a drink and a bite to eat!

[OOC note: Both drinks are alcoholic, and the cactus juice has twice the kick of the ale. :D;]

There was a problem with having big, massive battles that encompassed the entire ship, aside from the whole 'OMG We're Gonna DIE!' thing. The problem: Someone had to clean up after it.

After the battlefields of World War II had disappeared, after the Nightmare King had been destroyed, and after the pissed off bald kid had dropped a damn hurricane into the ship, the city was littered with rubble and debris. Broken sections of buildings lay on the ground, blocking entire streets. Shattered glass threatened to cut open the plant suits--of those still wearing them--and lodge themselves in people's feet. And then there was the dust that had been kicked up by the winds and still hadn't come down. It was a disaster.

But someone had to clean it up--or at least try--and someone was. Sawyer, equipped with shovels, some brooms, rakes, and a couple of wheelbarrows that he'd found in a garden shed in the Vatican, was down in the city getting to the business of cleaning up the mess. With the heat of the city coupled with the physical exertion and the dust in the air, he'd long ago ripped off the top of his plant suit and wrapped it around his nose and mouth in an effort to keep the dust particles from getting into his lungs.

It was a dirty business, but someone had to do it. Although, some help wouldn't hurt.

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Luke Skywalker, Haku, Han Solo, Hisk, Mulan]}

The Nightmare King had been, more or less, taking it easy on Leon. Not that he had to do much. All he had to do was let Leon know that he was in his head. Considering that he never really recovered from being possessed by a plaga, just knowing that he wasn't alone in his own head was more than enough to get to him. For Leon, an occasional flash of something dark moving through the veins just under his skin, or glancing at his reflection only to see a pair of red eyes looking back at him, was more effective than any elaborate nightmare. Even the feeling that his clothes were contracting against him despite his having gotten rid of that godforsaken plant suit, or that damned itch on the inside of his chest were starting to get to him.

At first, he just resorted to ignoring and pushing past the sensations, going colder to get himself through the day. Slowly, though, the Nightmare King was chipping away at that defense.

But Leon would be damned if he was going to end up helpless against this thing. "Sigmund," the Seer's droid assistant had given him a list of ways to 'bless' and reinforce his weapons to make them more effective against daemons. Leon tried a few, mostly on the weapons he didn't normally carry while back home. It worked, to a minor degree. At the least, it made it so those weapons stood out in his waking dreams. The discontinuity of having them there was usually enough to make him realize that he was dreaming. Well, that, and the fact that he scrawled the words 'WAKE UP' on each of those weapons.

But he was hoping to find a more effective way of taking on the Nightmare King. Which is why, for once, Leon was in the sensoriums.

He usually avoided the sensoriums, only bothering to step in if he had business with someone in there. There was something about a hyper-realistic virtual reality that annoyed him, and he found the way some crew members buried themselves in a false reality to be worrisome. Even more so, considering that not even that was a refuge for them from the Nightmare King. But for right now, the room's ability to conjure up whatever he wanted trumped his discomfort with the place.

His brain was a bit too fried to focus on a list, so he had the room bring interface with the W&P inventory list to bring up the "infinite armory". He stood in the middle of countless rows and racks of weapons and armor, and what could be seen was still only a fraction of what they had on board. He moved them easily and effortlessly, rearranging them with the aid of several holographic screens.

He looked at the specs for several groups of weapons, hoping that somewhere in that haystack, was a needle that he could use to stab the Nightmare King in the eye.

Time to report back to her captain. Mulan and Shang have seen enough of each other since arriving, but with so much reconnaissance to do on Mulan's part and so much research to do on Shang's part, they've been busy warriors indeed. As many new friends as she's made, Mulan is glad for the chance to see her captain-slash-fiancee again.

She knocks smartly on the door to the podroom in the Media Library where he has been doing his studying. "Permission to enter, Captain!"

Sokka had found himself an open spot in the city that seemed it would do perfectly for what he needed it for, and then set to work. He laid his weapons out in the grass and sat, considering them. Sword, spear, knife, war club, boomerang, shotgun, and a newly acquired semi-automatic handgun. He let his hands drift over them a moment before he picked up the spear. It had been a bit too long since he'd really practiced with that, best to stay sharp and focused. He raised the weapon into a guard and set off into a series of lunges, thrusts, parries, and ripostes; advances and retreats against an imaginary opponent. The young man ended with a final thrust, then dropped the weapon back onto the grass, taking in a few deep breaths before picking up his boomerang and jamming it into his belt, then drew his sword. This was good.

When he practiced he didn't have to think about anything. Not Katara and her willing submergence into a strange and foreign culture. Not Aang and the Nightmare King. Not Kelly and...whatever was going on with her. Just the sword and the footwork. He slid forwards into a neat lunge, dropped and turned it into a down downwards slash before it merged into a rising jab with the point, mind focused solely on remembering everything he had been taught. Probably why he didn't hear anyone who approached.

As his mecha's gatling gun cools, Sima Yi finds himself trying, once again, to recall just how long he's been here.

The home he's still infuriated at the thought of having lost seems so near; and yet, he's here amongst innovations that make those of the first seventeen centuries after his death seem like child's play. Up until the first half of the 20th century, the technological advances were based on concepts he could grasp comparatively easily - but the implications of the introduction of the vacuum tube, the foetal stages of the computer era, are a little more than he can take in. He's still trying to wrap his head around the technology he's trying out now.

He'd ended up studying the evolution of war machines over those seventeen centuries - not just that of his own world, but of some similar ones as well. The machine he was trying out now would never exist in his own world, but it had been used in another one's World War II; its design had more in common with the tanks of that era than with his crewmates' mecha - and there were two or three just like it sitting in Weapons and Possessions.

It hadn't taken him long to decide he wanted one, even if the idea had frightened him at first; it had taken him a while to reassure himself that it really was safe to ride in something powered by explosions, but evidently where the machine came from, internal combustion engines were ubiquitous and no one really though twice about them. And even though the cockpit is sitting directly over a massive diesel engine, it's armored well enough to keep the pilot alive if that engine should suddenly become shrapnel.

Before he made a final decision, he was getting a feel for the machine's performance, and gauging whether he could stand being stuck inside it for hours, if necessary, during a mission. So far, the cockpit is more comfortable than he had expected, despite the cramped quarters and lack of ventilation, and the exhaust system designed well enough that the smell of diesel fumes wasn't a problem - and after seeing what the gatling gun could do to the broken-down car he's using as a target, he can definitely see himself getting to like this thing despite its flaws.

Another flaw was the fact that he'd have to get out to disconnect the spent ammo belt from the gun and feed in a new one - he's blown through one already because he was trying to get a sense of how to time his bursts of fire so that they were as short and efficient as possible, he told himself, not because of how enthralling the sight of what had once been a seemingly invulnerable metal vehicle being shredded into scrap by gunfire was. As he shuts off the engine and kicks at the bar securing the hatch until it opens, he reflects again on how many hundreds of moving parts this machine has - and he's going to need to learn how to maintain them all himself. Here, he couldn't expect to be able to enlist anyone to help him, and if the mecha developed problems on a mission, it would be a liability at best and an outright hazard at worst if he couldn't fix it.

He didn't realize how hot it had gotten inside the mecha until he climbs out - it almost seems chilly by comparison outside. As he ducks under the machine's tank gun - mounted on the cockpit - and makes his way over to the gatling gun - mounted on one of the machine's arms - to disconnect the empty ammo belt and feed in the new one, he's too absorbed in the task to notice that he's no longer alone in the sensorium.

Reconnaissance was both a duty to her captain, and a way for Mulan to satisfy her burning curiosity about the new world that fate had brought her to. And so the young Chinese soldier skittered through Stacy's halls, quietly, purposefully, and above all, curiously.

She was glad she'd found her armor, along with her sword, her bow, and her quiver, in the Possessions locker. Her armor would be hot and heavy to wear in this humid environment, but at least it concealed the embarrassingly form-fitting suit the ship had given her. It was much preferable to be slightly uncomfortable at all hours of the day then to be walking around in what would have qualified in her time as nothing but the barest of underclothing. With her armor on and her hair tied back, she looked more like the boy she had become used to pretending to be, the boy she had just been growing accustomed to not having to be back home.

As she explored, she kept her bow, arrow notched and at the ready. She'd heard enough about the dangers that had already beset the crew, though she had the sense not to pull back on the string at the first signs of movement. The people here were abductees, like her, dragged from their strange foreign worlds into an equally strange and foreign one. It would not do to shoot any of them for no reason.

[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... )