||Attention, Attention. The following personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. The following personnel please report to the Observation Deck.

Billy Cranston
Jamie McCrimmon
Ron Stoppable
Lash
Kate Bishop
Punchy
Dustin Brooks||

On the Obs Deck, the following mission information was displayed, for any who cared to see:

Planet Designation: Kanpo
Status: Terrestrial, H-class
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna
Semi-sentient life: Yes
Sentient life: Extinct
Water: 70.7% of planet's surface
Climate: Earth-like
Landscape: Landscape at and around landing point is heavily foresred
Air: Normoxic concentration: 31% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 2% xenon, 4% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.
Air Pressure: 93.8 kPa (kilopascals) = 13.6 psi (pounds per square inch)
Sky: Blue.
Sun: Class G yellow star
Warnings: Occasional poisonous plant life.
Mission: Locate jungle temple. Disengage any defense measures temple might have and retrieve artifact.

Gods could be too arrogant. Such was the case of SHODAN, who had turned the Pods into a nightmarish zone where she could freely amuse herself and torture those that had come here.

But arrogance breeds pride which breeds mistakes. Instead of killing everyone off, she had decided to do this more slowly – watch them suffer in a slow agony, and, therefore had not expected them to fight back.

It had been a lucky shot, really, one in a million, But one of the people present that day had accidentally shot a tiny, insignificant object. A tiny little drone, that, once it had been the source of the power damper, had fallen. The tables were turned, and the goddess had been forced to retreat from the pods.

Now she was on a panicked mode, not only because some of the other people on the ship had managed to work their way into her system files, using another AI to send pointless images and sounds to her, distracting her from her task, but they knew how they could defeat her and gain their powers back.

It didn't take long for the message to be sent out, as the word quickly spread. Find the tiny little creatures, and shoot them down. SHODAN couldn't work their shields properly and once they were found, it was only a short matter of time before the powers returned to an area.

It would take time, but, finally, the tide of the battle was turning on the side of the crewmen and women. In vain, she was throwing her all; even more strange robot creatures, attacking in packs, but with hope on their side, they could win this...

[OOC - OKay go for it! NPC players, feel free to NPC as many robots as you like. Players, once your powers return, feel free to make as much scrap metal as you like, no need to have people NPC for you if you just want to write tags of them kicking ass.]

Compared to yesterday where the sensoriums had gotten so much use, Lash was glad that it was mostly quiet as she slipped into a free one. The day had passed relatively quickly thanks to running mazes, but even that hadn't gotten her as joyful as she should be, as strange and exciting as it had been.

The world around her changed as she stood atop a giant mountain overseeing the forest below her. Her army stood closer, as her opponent in the horizon began to prepare to attack her. A typical scenario she liked to play out at least once a week, each time using it to test out new invention ideas and fixes she should make to her existing ones.

But she wasn't there. The spark, the thing that made Lash excited about anything war-related and gave her an almost-worrying macabre yet positive outlook on nearly anything appeared to be extinguished. She'd been thinking a lot. Even now, she didn't raise her arms dramatically as she usually did to get the battle started, but merely an uninterested movement of her fingers as she dismissed it all and sat down, dangling her legs over the edge.

"Good evening Mistress Lash! We await your orders!"

She said nothing.

( So what happens if I'm all alone from my world? )

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.]

This was it. Endgame. The crux of the battle, the turning point, those crucial moments that would decide if the crew won or lost, that would decide if the Ohm would reign victorious or go running with their chitinous tails between their legs.

Did the crew have enough grit to win? Could they defeat a full Ohm fighting force?

With the flagging confidence of the GIA forces, it'd be up to the crew to turn the tide.

And one of the crew would pay the ultimate price to make sure the others walked away alive.

[ooc: everything is up!]

Ron whistled as he walked through the more populated parts of the city with a sheaf of posters in his arm. Oh, he was gonna get Lash good. He was going to make sure she won. And considering his prior experience running elections, even though that had been a total disaster, he was pretty sure he could do it.

"hmmhmm well be walkin' on the sun, hmmhmmhmm, might as well be walkin' on the sun..." he sang to himself as he pasted one of the posters to a wall. Far behind him were several more put up just like it.

( Cut for image )

Down on the city level, right by the Kohaku River and near the imposing castle, a modern-looking white building welcomed one and all to its promise of running water and warmth. Maybe even a little socializing was in order.

The ramp led up to the heated roof level, where one and all could sit down and relax in an almost sauna-like environment. Below, corridors contained plenty of towels, places to leave clothes, quick showers, and the baths, a number of them sized for any and all comers.

The private areas were accessed through separate corridors on the outside, but the busier communal baths were just as warm and welcoming. Anyone of any size or species was welcome here, so long as they behaved themselves.

[ooc: it's mingling party post time! Just start a thread or hop in one, and note if your character's in a single sex bath, co-ed, or the sauna level upstairs. My characters will be here to meet some people too.]

As night fell in the Rom village, the bustling activity began to die down. Even the energetic Rom needed to rest, and so the village soon became quiet and still as the moon rose.

Luminescent alien fungi began to glow once the sun went down, covering the village in a soft, eerie blue glow. It was easy to see why they had to wait till nightfall, now. In the dense forest, it would have been easy to get lost searching for the Tapestry. But the glowing fungi seemed to form a path leading towards edge of the valley the settlement was situated in, likely the way towards the Tapestry.

Loq'hi stood waiting near the outskirts of the town, waiting for the crew to arrive, along with a pair of his men at his side. Cargn stood nearby, having sent out a quick message to the rest of the landing party that it was time to retrieve the Tapestry.

It was time to claim their prize.

The crew had made it to the village where the Tapestry was supposedly hidden, but for now, they had to wait. According to the Rom, the path to where the Tapestry was hidden would only open once night fell.

That left them with a fairly good chunk of time on their hands, as well as a rather large Rom settlement to explore in the meantime.

It was rather hard to believe the expansive village was completely isolated from the outside world, but somehow it still thrived. Many younger Rom could be seen flying to and from the many small buildings built right into the forest. Despite the fairly advanced look of all the technology spread throughout the village, everything appeared to be rather ancient.

Still, there was quite a bit to do to pass the time. The central marketplace of the village was rather active, and the crew could always use more supplies. There were also a number of places to get food and drinks.

Most of all, it would be a good opportunity to learn more about the Tapestry and the Rom--along with their connection with the crew's destiny--by asking around. After all, if they were going through all this trouble for the damn thing, they might as well find out more about it.

Several hours after Cargn's message to the command staff, the crew was summoned to the Obs Deck in Stacy's usual fashion. Upon arrival, they would find a mission briefing much like the ones that came before it.

The hologram next to it would show a rather unusual looking planet, with a single, massive ocean taking up the majority of the surface, and a single, perfectly circular continent taking up the rest. It appeared rather unnatural at first glance.

Planet Designation: Unknown. No records of a system existing at this location can be found. All information is based on preliminary scans.
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Unknown.
Sentient Life: Unknown.
Water: 74.8% of the planet's surface.
Climate: Temperate.
Landscape: Mountainous.
Air: Normoxic concentration. Slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide.
Air Pressure: 101.3 kPa (kilopascals) = 14.7 psi (pounds per square inch)
Sky: Blue. Occasional cloud cover.
Sun: A class G2V, yellow star.
Warnings: No records of this planet exist. Suggest taking extreme caution while planet-side, as dangers that have not shown up on preliminary scans could exist.
Mission: Scout planet's surface and locate artifact known as the Tapestry.

Well. It certainly wasn't much to go on. But the Tapestry seemed to be important enough to the crew, so it might be worth the risk.

Maybe.

Lash was a changed person.

In her own world just a year ago, she had been part of Black Hole's best and brightest - a Commanding Officer that followed orders and worked towards the world-conquering goal with evil glee. She was feared, respected and loathed by her enemies. That had changed when she had escaped with Hawke due to treason for finding out Von Bolt's real plan - draining the world's resources so he could achieve immortality. In the end, they had teamed up with Orange Star and both became heroes for it. It gave her a taste of many things. Caring about others, even if she never outright said it, teaming up, even learning about how to eat properly. They had emerged victorious.

The year or so since she had awoken in Stacy had enforced that little growing spark which had been carefully fed the last few weeks in her homeworld. While at first hesitant to find people she liked, Lash slowly began to call those around her her friends, even if it was hard to do admit them as such. You couldn't just become nice or care overnight. But they had worked really well at it, bringing her out of her shell and accepting Lash for who she was. Heck, she even seemed worthy enough to be part of a Ranger group and defending the universe. Who would have thought all of that from someone who had such a dark history?

Then it all came crashing down. After the battle last week, the morpher started to malfunction and she could barely transform for her training. No one else seemed to have this problem, so Lash assumed it simply was a result of what had happened - she had overworked herself that day and it simply might have used up more juice than the others or had badly reacted to the CO powers. Nothing seemed wrong with it, so obviously the problem was herself. Just give it a few more days and it would be fine!

Maybe if she had told her friends her history in more detail, they might have noticed was wrong. The effects of the clock were a little more subdued on her at first, and instead of years, just days at a time. And she didn't question the fact that she didn't remember their victory over Von Bolt, only the tension at the final battle. Memories slowly started to leave, but she didn't remember them, only a small nagging feeling that something was wrong. The morpher, on the other hand, worked when someone was good and pure and as the clock receded, Lash was becoming less and less so. The memories inside Stacy stayed in her head, which caused her to become confused at some of the things she had said. Maybe she had become nicer because she had been here? Just what was going on?

A few days ago it had completely ceased to function. Maybe it knew something terrible was about to happen and the last thing the crew needed was psycho ranger. Lash obviously didn't know what was going on, except it made her nervous. Like when she...wait. What was she nervous about, again? She couldn't remember that too. She'd been running with Hawke for some reason. Lash had looked at her morpher with an odd curiosity, wondering if her mind had been playing tricks on her. After all, why would she be good? After all she...she..

She'd always worked for Black Hole.

And who knew what fake and false memories Stacy could implant inside her. Maybe..no, that was it! All these memories had to be false. Fake! Tricking her into thinking she had turned good! That she, pffft actually cared about people! What a load of crap. She was Lash, Black Hole Wunderkind Genius. And she wasn't going to let all those stupid, so-called friends try to tricking her that she was nice.

Today, she'd take back her mind. Things were definitely about to get really complicated.

[[OOC - Lash can be found all over the ship in the next couple of days. Just tell me where you character runs into them, and we can work from there. Just remember, she will probably not be very nice anymore. 8D]]

After everyone and all of their ships were properly loaded the Quarter had launched successfully. The journey from Stacy to the Trojan Asteroid field trailing NiSaris took several hours, but they managed to approach the field with the people of the nearby world being none the wiser.

The problem was that the NiSarians weren't the only ones watching the skies.

As the Quarter approached and entered the asteroid field, all was quiet. But it was only going to be a matter of moments before that would change.


((ooc: See this post for instructions, but otherwise, have at it, and have fun.))

It was just for practice, and also something to distract himself and pass the time. It was almost meditative, after all.

Not that he was feeling as sad anymore. Life happened, there were hurts that were just part of it all. He was human so he could feel them and understand them, so he could know heartbreak just as well as love, calm just as well as anger, sadness just as well as happiness. He was human so he'd make choices he wasn't sure were right that he had to live with, so he could be hurt and wonder if it was right to feel that way.

Aang had come to accept that, so now he was just distracting himself. He'd managed to find paper--real paper--from Weapons and Possessions. It was rice paper, in a wide variety of colors, and he sitting against Appa in his Sensorium and folding it into a wide variety of animals.

Some were pretty good, depending on how long he'd actually bothered to practice doing that kind of animals. Others...well they were almost recognizably animals.

"What do you think, Appa? What does it look like to you?"

Appa grunted a long groaning sound, and Aang scratched his head.

"Actually, it's supposed to be a bison like you, not a boarcupine. But I guess it's a boarcupine now!"

He smiled and placed it down with the others and picked up his birds (most of them cranes) and started making them dance in the air over his head, which was the real point of all this. Airbending practice. Fine control was something he could always use work on and making the little paper birds fly overheard was fun.

It was once again time for Billy to assess the progress being made in this seemingly endless war with tasks and deadlines. So far, reorganization of the Engineering department was about 25% complete. Not terrible for a day's work, but he could certainly do better. Several projects were stalled pending discussion from the involved parties. His social time and interactions with the Rangers had taken a hit due to all of this.
( Time for the grind again! )
As Billy wandered back and forth throughout the day, a stuffed backpack always accompanied him. Throughout the day, the loaded-down teenager made trips between a number of places on the upper levels and a particular house in the City. Distracted as he was with the constant juggling of omnicom, comm ring, tools, and items, he eventually wore himself out.

Where he ended up shouldn't be a surprise: in the city park, fast asleep, sprawled across an assortment of odd items. Somehow, he'd note when he woke up, he doubted this was what had been meant by the recommendation for 'personal time'.

((ooc: The two location tags basically mean you can catch him anywhere: asleep with shiny stuff to steal or rushing back and forth between the different areas of the ship. Just make a note of where you found him.))

Ron, with his ever-present naked mole rat buddy on his shoulder, stood outside the sensoriums. Multiple turkeys, along with many other traditional Thanksgiving foods, were held inside, and now all that was needed for the cooking to begin was wait here for the rest of the Ranger team to show. He'd even managed to dig up color-coded aprons for all of them.

Unfortunately, Billy knew, there was no sufficiently large space on the ship for Stacy to allow a true test of the bright and colorful death mecha the Power Rangers knew as the Thunderzords. With some help from Lash he'd run repairs and diagnostics on each one, and he was reasonably sure that they would be in working order when the need to use them arose, but there was no way to get around this first test's artificial nature.

Zord usage wasn't particularly dangerous, but it might make a decent safety precaution. Billy took solace in that much as he morphed and prepared.

Once the Sensorium was his for the next hour or two, Billy set about the preparations. The scenery changed to a dusty California desert, much like the one that hid the Command Center on his world. In a wide circle around the meeting place, the six Thunderzords rose up in all their intimidating height. Behind the Tigerzord was Dustin's Lionzord, which would serve as a model during the lesson if the Wind Ranger was willing. Raised about two stories off the ground was a round desert platform for audience members, which would elevate and move to follow the battle's actions as needed.

Billy had a monstrous opponent in mind, one that he hoped would be a good preliminary challenge. Now it was his time to roll his helmet in his hands, stand, and wait, hoping that this lesson wouldn't end in disaster.

((The main part of the log is closed to the Rangers, but audience participation and mocking is encouraged! Billy deliberately left the door open so the other crew members could see what they can do and maybe offer advice.))

[PLOT POST HERE. Read it!]

As quickly as it had begun, the Tyrant's rampage down in the City was over. He was last seen disappearing into the alleys around Religion Row, where any pursuers were thrown off in the maze of temples and shrines. It was probably better they leave him alone in any case... seeing what had happened to those who didn't.

It had been a few hours. The City was once again quiet, dotted by small areas of destruction and trails of blood where the Tyrant had brawled with crew members. The injured had been gathered and shipped to the Outsider's hotel until they could be moved to medical proper. And though the situation was not over, it was safe enough to go down, survey the damage and start cleaning up.

...Maybe.



A few blocks from the hotel, something was quietly growing in the darkness of a rubble pile.

Having posted his call for the Rangers to report to the Command Center immediately whenever they had time, there was little Billy could do but stand in the circle of consoles and wait. With dim blue lights twinkling along the walls, he could just about see his hand in front of his face.

Maybe he should have asked someone to bring a flashlight.

Shaking that thought off, he started preparing a speech for the others in his head, reminding himself of all the rules and ideals. The threshold of a new beginning. What an exciting and nerve-wracking place to be.

I wish you were here, Billy thought as the light reflected off the empty glass tube. But wishing wouldn't bring anyone back, as the past year had proven. The Rangers were his responsibility now, and he'd have to improvise.

Starting with the first few Rangers. He hoped they would make it through the door safely, and further that they wouldn't trip.

((A guest will be dropping in already, but depending on how the conversation goes others might be asked to come by later. Let's go!))

Either Big Zero's soul (who knew she had one) was especially prone to falling out or it was exceedingly difficult to determine if it was in danger, considering the signs of insanity were- well- basically how she normally acted.

Whatever was the case, GLaDOS unceremoniously spat Big Zero out in the middle of the City. Of course, the first thing she did was to scream obscenities.

[[OOC: Big Zero post, standard warnings apply. There will be a lull of tagging on Monday when comes frantic studying but until then and after then, go have fun.]]

The sensoriums had taken up the appearance of a fairly well-stocked kitchen, though the Occupant had mostly finished cooking his meal. The counter was covered in the major ingredients of most tex-mex food, though the meal in question was sitting somewhat apart from the pots and pans. Two soft tortillas, stuffed with meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes, and then additionally stuffed with chips and nacho cheese, were resting on two plates as Ron simultaneously rustled up a soda and watched Rufus to make sure the naked mole rat didn't try to eat BOTH of the Nacos.