This still was not enough.

Sadness and depression continued, and now confusion had entered the mix. Nezaitben grew desperate that night, for the need was too great and the souls of those in the pods could not be taken. That could possibly kill them. But she still needed more followers.

There was, she thought, no other choice but to allow fate to pick for her.

That night, or what passed as a night for in the ship, Nezaitben took to the 'sky' once again, this time passing over everything she could, sending even more 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 for a second day, she searched their dreams. The dreamcatchers of those who did not have connections were harder to weave together but it was still a skill she could do, and carefully, she did.

New empty husks of the bodies that weren't being used showed up at her palace, making the mass somewhat larger. With a heavy sigh, she began to dress them up, hoping this would be enough.

That morning, some of the crewmen would wake up to a strange surprise...and this time it wasn't just because their souls fit. In fact it was much worse, considering.

Beward of young, naive gods bearing gifts.

[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!]

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.]

The City didn't have weather as most people knew it, but it was nonetheless a beautiful day - warm weather with a nice breeze, Stacy's sun-equivalent shining in the sky... almost as if it was reflecting the emotions of at least one of the ship's crew. In the middle of the Park, someone had set up a little white lattice archway amongst the hedgerows, decorated with ivy and roses and lilies that looked remarkably real (if they were, in fact, synthetic). In front of the arch were several rows of white chairs, more than enough for anyone who cared to show up.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding.

And frankly, Nanoha needed it. After the chaos and confusion; the rage and terror on Galilee... she didn't think she could ever forget that horrible sense of loss and emptiness when she'd thought that Fate was gone, if only for a day or so. But this would go a long way toward exorcising those demons - a day that she'd dreamed of for years.

Of course, she couldn't go greet anyone yet. She was in her wedding dress, after all! These things needed to be proper.

(ooc: Tag the respective subthreads, please! Mingling is highly encouraged.)

Deep in the ship, a winged shape moved. 'Reinforce' she was called by the rest of the ship, but she no longer knew that name as anything but an anomalous detail of her incomplete recollections of her time on the ship, too inconsequential - or too confusing - to dwell on. She was of the time, not very long ago at all, before she had been given that name. By design she was the administrative layer and user interface of the Tome of the Night Sky, but she was more than that: she was its will, its identity, so its name was hers as well.

And if she was its will, it was her body, no less than her human form. She had been content to leave it dormant in the ship's care until now, in the hopes that it might delay this day a little longer - or at least, this was the mold she now made the fragmentary memories fit - but now that the end was upon her there was no point in leaving it be. It was right that it be at her side... and she wanted the powers that lay with the tome proper, to grant Hayate's wish as best she could.

It did not take her long to find once she had set herself to it. Confusing as the ship was, the Tome was a part of her, and when she drew near it stirred, shrugged off its bindings, and flitted through the fabric of space to her side. And then she was back in transfer, heading back towards the City. To the traitor...

There was a flash of dissonance at that: she knew where to look for Nanoha because she had lived alongside her, hadn't she? She had betrayed Hayate, Hayate had wished...

It should have been a simple thought, 'the wish came first', before this chaos of other memories, but she could not form it. The wish was all she had, all she could do for Hayate before the end. It couldn't be dismissed so easily.

She shook her head as though to clear it, and there was a soft pulse of violet light that stole the color from the world as she neatly peeled a thin layer of reality away for her own. She had to work quickly, while she still had her mind...

[[So Rein's putting up a barrier space per her usual MO so she can have Nanoha (mostly) to herself. This takes place just after her ranting on the comms and is open to the Nanoha cast. Since the barrier is pretty big it'll just hit people wherever they are; she'll go find Nanoha and other people can look for them, if that sounds good to everyone.]]

It had not taken long for Reinforce to realize Hayate had been taken. The interference in their connection was subtle - Hayate was still near and healthy - but she was sensitive to such things, and it had not taken much time to confirm that she could not physically locate her.

Less certain was what she might do about it. She had always felt that those who railed against the AI overreacted; those it took were always returned unharmed, and while their absence could be inconvenient that was all it was. A passing hardship to be endured. Not worthy of a crusade, not in such a time and place as this.

But when it was Hayate... it stirred her, a deep feeling of restlessness that might have been mere discomfort at her absence... and might have been buried anger. She was her master's device, and for her before all others, so she almost expected this hypocrisy of herself... but there was more to it than that. She knew Hayate would return as all those who had gone before had, knew she would not fail Hayate if she only waited patiently... and still the feeling persisted.

She... needed some time to think on it. It was not as though she lacked for time to think usually; much of her free time she spent roaming the ship doing nothing much but thinking. But... right now she needed it specifically. For this.

So she sat, off to the side on the broad stair that led up to the entrance to the temple, and thought.

Even with Hayate to look after, certain new neighbors who were prone to violently explosive magical experiments, and her nascent information-gathering project Reinforce was still a Device with a good deal more free time than she really liked to have. Until she closed her self-imposed review process and the 'magic census' got into full swing it took little of her time... and with comments dropping off and Aibghalien's lab mostly squared away she was if anything in a bit of a lull. Hayate was always there... but she wanted the girl to find her own place on the ship and not cling too closely to her.

That left her with time to dispose of as she wished... what slightly less stoic individuals called 'leisure.' It was, unfortunately, a concept the Book had little experience with; even joyful Hayate had always been a busy girl faced with the imposing tasks of first living alone and then making a functioning family out of the Wolkenritter.

Still, she had a curious nature that made it easy to find things to do even if they weren't exactly traditional recreation. She'd long since created all the rooms she had any serious intention of using consistently, like the observatory Matt had helped her with, but she still enjoyed generating new rooms in the WITCH Bus. Matt had been able to create the room quite easily but she preferred to leave objects in empty spaces and come back later to see what had been created, a process she thought of as 'growing' the rooms. The hobby had taken on an experimental side - she liked to vary the strength and consistency of the cues she gave and study the common design elements of the various rooms in what was admittedly a mostly-fruitless but to her entertaining attempt to evaluate the Bus's governing intelligences.

She had been experimenting with natural spaces lately, and today she'd brought several that suggested an arid environment; a hardy cactuslike plant from the hydroponics section, salt, and, in a more symbolic gesture, an empty drinking-glass. She was particularly interested in whether the Bus was responsive to such elements, and had prepared another otherwise identical room without it for comparison.

Now, to wait...!

Reinforce, in her own humble-in-expression-but-not-content opinion, did not do nearly enough around the ship. The only real duties she had here were the shifts handling internal comms traffic and her time spent attending to Hayate, and the former was split with her sister while the latter was little different in form from an especially close friendship now that Hayate was grown and less dependent on her attendants for both help at home and company (and really, it had always been Hayate taking care of them as much or more than the reverse, hadn't it?). She did other things, yes, modeled for her sister and learned foreign magic with Matt and made surveys of the city and ship at large, but those amounted to little more than hobbies.

As a device her inclination was to wait for orders, but inevitably her propensity for spending large amounts of time alone spinning her proverbial wheels had resulted in her coming up with something useful she could actually do.

Still, old programming died hard (sometimes literally, as several mages on the ship could well attest) and she'd decided to at least find someone to run her idea by before she started working on it. To this end she know stood outside one Takamachi Nanoha's office, staring at her and waiting to be invited in in a not terribly subtle fashion.

Flitting around to another soundtrack that she had managed to find for her music player, Rein was setting down tea and cookies in her shop and waiting for her big sister to arrive. Her bigger sister in more ways than one, which made Rein a little envious for her sweater puppies.

But no matter. Today, Rein was going to have fun and the tiny little woman flitted from side to side, tapping her fingers in a most sinister way which would have matched Hayate on a good day.

"Fufufufufufufufu desu-ka ne," giggled Rein diabolically.

There were many strange things about the WITCH bus, but from Reinforce's perspective the most intriguing was the way, described by Matt and confirmed by a few experiments of her own, that it expanded to suit the demonstrated needs of its inhabitants. It was not unlike the dream realm within the Tome of the Night sky, and at first she thought it must be created by a similar effect, but the more she investigated the more apparent it became that it worked as advertised and simply generated new, physical architecture.

It was only a matter of time before she decided to see if she could have the strange bus create rooms she would enjoy. Anyone who wandered into the deeper reaches of the bus might come across her, hauling a telescope, star charts, and every paper or electronic book she'd been able to borrow down to the unformed rooms furthest from the entrance. Hopefully whatever intelligence or logic engine governed the bus' structure would take her hint.

The reactor may have been saved, but the Ohm's primary purpose in overloading it had been achieved: the planetary defense network on Zokez II was now deactivated.

It was now the true invasion could begin.

A matter of minutes after the reactor had been saved, a number of vast, Ohm Leviathans appeared in orbit above the planet, some of them devouring those fleeing ships they could get their hands on.

Across all of the islands on the planet below, numerous shimmering lights appeared, and out of them poured hordes of Grunts, Grenadiers, Tanks, and all manner of other Ohm types. They swarmed over the cities, destroying everything in their path, and slaughtering anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in their way.

Wherever they went, destruction followed. Left unopposed, they would raze the entire planet without any effort.

But they are not unopposed.

It was time for the crew to finally do what they were Chosen to do.

[ooc: General Ohm fightyness! Check here before posting.]

The past few days had been mind-wracking for the Man of Steel. There were chunks of his memories missing - a lot of them he knew felt wrong. Something was wrong and he couldn't put his finger on it. At the same time, those missing memories were screwing around with something else - things he wanted to do.

Upon seeing the ravaged City after... something tore through it, well, someone had to clean it up.

The artificial sun's bright and warm... yet, it's not enough to actually put me back at full power. At the same time, though... Superman mused. ...this place isn't going to clean itself up. Better get to work...

With that, the hero began a long and tiring task of attempting to repair the City.

Rein was in a state of semi-panic as she flitted around, straightening up the familiar view of the Yagami household. Cookies were baking to clear her mind, a sharp contrast to the Jonathan Coulton that she was listening to.

Chiron Beta Prime was not good relaxing music.

Still, the little device was preparing to meet her original self. Would she be receptive to her? Did she like the idea of a little sister?

If Rein was prone to it, she'd be nibbling her thumbnail.

There had been plenty of time to rest and recuperate following the defeat of the Nightmare King (crew arguing on the omnicomms aside), but Nanoha was never one to let herself relax for too long. Even if there wasn't anything immediate that needed dealing with, she was back in her office in the Jedi Temple to review the events to try and better understand them.

But her thoughts kept returning to the cryptic comm conversation she'd had with Rein. Why had the cheerful little Unison Device suddenly acted so formal? She couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong.

Elsewhere on this ship, a war was being waged. A war for the hearts and minds, the souls and very sanity of this crew.

A war that Stacy wasn't certain that all would survive, hence why she released you. Replacements would be needed.

But that war is miles away from where you are. Or at least, so it seems. There are no screams of agony to greet you, no monsters trying to claw at you.

But that doesn't mean the Nightmare King can't reach you.

Prior to your arrival here on the Obs deck, reality had been shifted. Constructs of the current crew grew out of nothing. All of them look, sound, feel, behave, and scan as the crew member they're copying. They're as real as you are. And with smiling faces, they await your arrival.

They can't wait to welcome you. To your doom.

Won't you say hi?

[ooc: Nightmare plot is still on, people, and this is the newbie portion. For all current players, as stated above, the Nightmare King made copies of your guys, who are still stuck fighting nightmares elsewhere in the plot. You can tag in as the copy of your character, have them be friendly, get the newbies to let their guard down, and then the real nightmare can begin. Newbies, you can tag in, have fun, and suspect nothing until its too late.]

[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 the copies of 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... )