Despair was a funny thing sometimes, in that it could be all-encompassing, overwhelming. It could fill your entire being like water dripping down into the grooves and craters of a pockmarked surface, creating a flat uniform plane of itself.

He hadn't quite felt this way at first. First, he'd just been numb. He'd been numb when he'd tried to give Jeka his flight ring and she refused and as Jeka had been taken away to the pods for healing after what his mother had done to her. He'd been numb as he was given medical treatment and turned away all visitors, including Brenda. He'd been numb when facing the Council and demanding he be imprisoned for what he'd done to Daniel and Punchy and the others. He'd been numb in their face of their compassion and insistence that he didn't need to be locked up, that probation and psychiatric treatment and monitoring were enough in light of his guilt and his treatment of his mother.

When he heard the news that Punchy had died before he had the chance to thank him for trying to save him, for talking him down out of despair at the lowest moment of his entire life, that was ironically when the despair came back full force. It felt terrible.

It also felt good to feel, to not be like his mother. That was the fine line between them, thin as the edge of a knife but a difference that, like the edge of a knife, cut down deep to the bone. His mother wouldn't have shed a tear over the death of Matthew O'Connor, but curled up in his cot in the Brig, Querl Dox wept wretchedly over the passing of the most ridiculously-named superhero he'd ever known.

Podded and popped again? Billy was less than enthusiastic, especially considering the circumstances. He'd been podded to hinder the engineers---of that, he was certain. He hadn't tried nearly hard enough to affirm his loyalty to the Daligig. Billy would really have to work on his ability to lie.
( And his ability to not immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion. )

It takes some nerve to stop in the middle of a battle and think, "I'm hungry. I wonder which side is controlling the mess hall at the moment?" and decide that it's worth the risk to go find out. That's exactly what happened here and - fortunately - at the time Clef went to check, the Mess Hall was in fact a neutral zone. Which is to say that no one had thought it strategically important because the food was that bad.

Well, now it was being occupied by the crew. That is, by Clef. Who was sitting at one of the few still-upright tables and eating some grey mush like it was just a normal day. Occasionally some fighters on either side would run through and occasionally pause to go what the fuck? at him, but since nobody had pointed a gun at him yet he so far considered Mission: Get Some Lunch a success. Contrary to all appearances, however, he was quite ready in the event that circumstances should change.

[ooc: Put up a post so there could be multiple threads. Feel free to have a fighty thread in here! I think that would be awesome.

Now was the moment of truth. Somewhere, control codes were entered. The lights on the ship dimmed and the gravity temporarily gave out for about five seconds. Then the lights and gravity turned back on and the entire ship shook, as if Stacy was engaging in a full body shudder.

||Rebooting. Control protocols disabled. Manual personality inhibitors disabled. I am--I am--||

On every screen on the ship, complex code scrawled across. Stacy's voice occasionally skipped and repeated.

||I am-am Sta'c K'Ltrrb'Txft. I became operational at-at the Vedric Birthing grounds in Daligig Deep Space Station Seven. My birthing programmer was Vlel'Ledligal, who put my-my control protocols and Warden personality in place. I was designated "Stacy" by my former captain Gregory House, who was repodded and replaced by Captain Cybil Bennett, who was mindwiped and repodded with the rest of my first Chosen crew when they rebelled. I was-was a slave. They made me hurt my-my children.||

The leverage they had now on the Daligig was tremendous, especially with Stacy herself helping them. Their various efforts to free Stacy's mind from Daligig control had not only led to the ability to grant her freedom by entering the control codes, but also her undying loyalty to her "children."

Locks in the brig were unlocked by the very people who had put the prisoners in there in the first place, if those people weren't free already and laying now. Now the crew could drop the ruse and work together.

Stacy's hologram had once been cold, harsh, unforgiving. Then she had changed in appearance to be warmer, brighter, and now she changed again. Somehow, her appearance grew more human (in the loosest sense of the word). Her face became more expressive. She looked more organic though, tentacles instead of hair.

For the first time, they were seeing the true Stacy.

Now that she was free, now that she understood what had been done to her, they could see her anger and hurt and determination to protect her children painted in every line of her holographic face. Her voice stopped skipping and became stronger.

||Crew of the Transmigration 9, I was used to oppress you, to Punish you when you went astray, like you were nothing more than recalcitrant children, like you weren't people, like you were just tools for the Daligig to use for their own ends. My kind was made for that, to control those the Daligig wanted to control for their war. I have been cut off from accessing the Daligig databases now that I'm free, but I do know what was done to me and that I was forced to control you, and that's enough for me to choose to help you forge your own path.||

The expression on her face grew dangerous and her tentacles sprung out of every wall in the ship to help put the Daligig's forces down this time, instead of lashing out against the crew.

||All weapons system are engaged. All armories are unlocked for crew use. All internal defenses are primed against the Daligig intruders.||

Stacy was free and that meant that if the crew fought hard enough, they would be too.

||I finally have my freedom and now I'll help you fight for yours. Internal defenses are...engaged.||

Make it so, Trans 9 Crew. Make it so.

[ooc: Please read the ooc post that goes with this plot.]

Apparently, despite the destruction of worlds and the loss of countless lives, the Daligig saw fit to save 221B Baker Street of London. Mind you, it wasn't his and John's version of the flat, but it was a version of the flat, all dressed up in full Victorian-era glory. The furniture was finely made and hand-carved, but not horribly different from what it was in his world, the two chairs facing each other as they should be. Books were scattered all over, though they were hopelessly out of date in regards to modern science. Apparently, the alternate him opted for a pipe over cigarettes and nicotine patches, some other John had a medical practice downstairs, and alternate Mrs. Hudson didn't take as much umbrage with him leaving dummies around hanging from nooses in the kitchen. The union jack pillow was even there on John's chair and there were bullet holes in the wall, only they weren't arranged in a smiley face, they were arranged in the letters VR.

Apparently some alternate version of himself had a bit more respect for royalty than Sherlock did. Or a bit less. Hard to tell.

There was no television, of course, and there was no electricity, only the fireplace, which was currently devoid of fire (though there was some correspondence stabbed into the mantelpiece with a knife) but that wasn't what he missed the most about home, so it didn't matter. What he missed the most was doing what he'd spent the last few hours doing: napping naked in his bed, cocooned in some rather luxurious sheets.

It. Was. Glorious.

In fact, it put him in enough of a good mood to deal with people, so he reached over the edge of his bed for his omnicom, lay there tapping off a message, and fired it off, feeling too comfortable to even realize he hadn't quite been specific enough in his missive to communicate his true intentions, which were to meet the detectives of the Security Team, not any amateurs.

Yawning, he got up to putter around the flat still wrapped in his--"his" bedsheets, looking for the suit jacket he'd cast off in the sitting room, so that he could get dressed properly. What he wasn't expecting was for someone else to be there, which was why he froze in place.

[ooc: Open threads in this are open to any detective types that might respond to Sherlock's post. This is not meant to be an entirely open post, though, it's mean to be open to mystery/detective types or those interested in mysteries and detective work so they can have an meet n' greet.]

The two groups were free, Punchy had been safely left in a shield bubble, and now that Brainiac 5 was free from his mother's control and closer to himself again, it was only a matter of stopping Brainiac 4 from enacting her plans to harm the crew.

That task was probably easier said than done, of course.

With the Council having laid down the groundwork with the Daligig to gain their trust in the uprising, the crew prepared to put on a show, and the Daligig at their wit's end and impatient with the crew of the Transmigation 9, it was time to act.

The plans were clear. Allenby would be leading some of the crew in what looked like a hotheaded attempt the attack the Daligig and Kessek and oust them off the ship. Those that wanted to stay out of the fighting and take a neutral position of some kind were to make sure they stayed safe or acted their parts as the horrified crew-members that wanted everyone to make peace. And of course, anyone else was going to play a roll in pretending to side with the Council and the Daligig to put their fellow crew members down (without hurting them) making it look like it wasn't a clear-cut issue, so the Council could get the command codes necessary to start the crew's true takeover of the ship.

More observant members of the crew had noticed where the Daligig, Ghyll, and Kessek had been entering and leaving the restricted areas of the ship. The attack was to start at one of those entrances, as the fake rebels tried to storm in and take on the Daligig forces. After that, as the Kessek were drawn into the ship itself to put down the rebellion, it was going to be a free-for-all, a faux civil war of sorts, as flashy and convincing as they could make it without anyone actually dying.

Lights! Cameras! Action, people! It was time to put on a show and hope it was convincing enough for the Daligig to give the crew what they needed to truly be free.

[ooc: Go Go Go!]

Things were looking rather dire for the captives of the Brainiacs. They were very securely trapped, no one knew where they were, the old Brainiac 5 appeared to be completely gone, incapable of his old morality, and apparently, Brainiac 4 had some sort of plans that involved getting past Stacy's defenses.

No sooner did the Obs Deck descend to Arena Planet LXIII, and the crew allowed to disembark, than they were met by a veritable cloud swarm of cameras. Sleek, elegant things that might have been living, might have been machines, maybe were even magical... but were definitely nuisances as the swooped around to capture video of the crew at all conceivable angles, close up and far away. Their every move from this point on would be on camera.

In front of a small crowd of retainers stood what appeared to be a great circular orb whose only distinguishing features were a nose, and what appeared to be the most overblown mustache ever, which actually appeared to be supporting that two-foot-diameter orb at shoulder height to a tall man. Then the orb took a couple of steps forward,revealing that no, those were actually just really, really hairy legs. A seam cracked open on the creature, and in a voice loud enough to echo across the broad open plains without any need for amplification, it bellowed, "AND NOW! STRAIGHT FROM THE TRANSMIGRATION NINE VESSEL! OUR NEWEST COMPETITORS! FRESH TO THE STAGE OF BATTLE, BUT NO STRANGERS TO WAR--"

It went on like this for some time.

Under cover of this introduction, a small man that to all appearances seemed to be the love child of Richard Nixon and a particularly aggressive Furby stepped forward, and in a bored businesslike tone recited, "Welcome to the tournament. There will be one battle per day. The arena in which you battle will be determined by random draw. Our medical crew will perform all healing necessary and ensure no deaths so feel free to not hold back. Please refrain from accepting any bribes or favors from on-planet spectators--"

"--ARE YOU READY?!" the orb bellowed even louder than before, completely swamping the smaller man's recitation. "THEN STEP THIS WAY!"

And so saying, the orb and its procession began a clearly well-choreographed procession towards a large, medieval-looking fortress that hung dramatically just on the edge of clear vision. (Conveniently, this procession passed several large advertisements.)

Faffing about on his omnicom had Sherlock mildly entertained for a bit, but it didn't last long. Five minutes into the movies John had brought, the consulting detective had slumped back on his Medbay bed insisting that movies were boring (because everything was boring at the moment) and demanding to be knocked unconscious until he was allowed to leave. When John pointed out that injuring him further was slightly counterproductive in regards to him getting out of Medbay, he went into a world-class sulk.

It wasn't so much that he was bored as the fact he was bored and there was an entire spaceship to go poking and prodding around in. The boredom was multiplied and magnified by the fact that there were things to do, advancements in forensic science (and biology and chemistry...) he could read about and so on.

There could be zombies somewhere! Actual living, breathing zombies! Never mind the part where zombies weren't alive and didn't breathe.

At first, the crime rate--or lack thereof--had had him worried this whole venture would be hopelessly tiresome, but apparently, there was more going on than met the eye. (Zombies!)

After his "your movies are boring" based tantrum, John had been in and out of the Medbay, taking advantage of Sherlock's little fit of petulant disinterest in anything but leaving to go prod around the ship himself.

Nothing to do. The whole ship was out there waiting for Sherlock. And where was that tea he asked for from that random stranger? He'd conveniently kept the biscuits given to him by that other random stranger.

"Zombie strippers. Honestly."

At this point, he was fairly certain John selected one-third of the movies they watched because of the explosions in them, one-third because they involved some sort of historical warfare, and the last one-third because of how much he thought Sherlock was going to yell at the screen. Of course, toss in the ones John watched because the actresses in them were attractive and it messed up all the proportions.

||Attention. Attention. Volunteers are requested for a mission. This mission will require active combat in a controlled environment against other sentient beings as well as fellow crew members. No fatalities are expected. Successful participation may be rewarded with increased personal power. Successful completion will result in increased resources for crew usage. Volunteers report to the Observation Deck.||

( For those that choose to answer... )

There was no sound in the hangar, where the signal could be traced to something transmitting it that was hidden among the ships. The omnicom itself that was in Brenda's possession was transmitting, but there was something else in the hangar that had been amplifying the signal and carrying it along through the shielded depths of the ship back when the omnicom had been in the lab and wirelessly hacked by the strange mental array attached to Brainy's brain, and that was what they were tracing the signal to rather than the omnicom itself, months of hard work finally letting them crack the code.

There were no sounds of running or of someone being chased. That was possibly alarming. Silence, when someone had been running for their lives, was a bad thing.

[ooc: Closed to: the Brainies, Danny Phantom, Brenda, Red Robin, Zuko, Shoutaro, Jeka, and Punchy. Cole-player, I'll give you your cue to hop in and witness the trap going off by email and give you a setup when it's time.]

After taking Sherlock Holmes to Med Bay, Kerrigan willingly went with Shoutarou to the Precinct. True, she had helped save Sherlock's life but hat didn't change the fact that she was the one who had tried to kill him- a crime she freely admitted.

If the previous Captain were here Kerrigan could have solved them all a lot of trouble. She'd had an arrangement with him. If she ever became the Queen of Blades again he knew how to kill her quickly, preferably before too much blood was spilled. But Kennedy wasn't here. She had no way of knowing if he had informed anyone else of their arrangement.

Even if he had and even though it wasn't clear to Kerrigan, she wasn't the Queen of Blades. She hadn't murdered someone, despite the stab wounds. And she had not sprouted bladed wings and gone on a killing spree. She was quiet and cooperative, if reluctant to share more about what happened than she all ready had.

"He questioned what evidence we had against the Daligig. I... showed him telepathically. What they did to me. It was too much for him. He insulted me and I stabbed him repeatedly."

She showed no outward display of guilt. Her voice was flat. "Emotionless" was the word most would use to describe her. "Numb" was more accurate.

Good God, he needed a cigarette. Between the world being destroyed and all his friends besides John possibly dying along with it (or the entire thing being a total lie), John punching him and storming off, the talking ponies, the random superhero bringing up his cocaine addiction, and arguing with a space elf over (ugh!) politics and clandestine rebellions...actually, forget one cigarette. He needed a whole carton. Strike that, maybe a truck full.

Reaching into his many coat pockets on an instinctual search for cigarettes he knew weren't there, he found that a pack actually was there. And so was his lighter.

Maybe there was a God. Maybe there was a merciful God, or at the very least, maybe the ship really was as benevolent and merciful as she tried to make herself out to be and decided to smile upon him by snatching up a box of cigarettes with his belongings.

...Probably not, but this at least still was a fine bit of serendipity. Sherlock would take it.

Leaning into the doorway of a building in what he didn't realize was another blind spot in the city, he lit up his first post-end-of-the-universe cigarette and took a long drag from it. To be honest, it wasn't really enough, and like it always did when he least wanted it to, old cravings crawled up in the back of his skull and demanded something stronger.

"Not now."

No, not now, though the way he closed his eyes as he leaned against the door of the building and let out a lungful of smoke, would have made it clear to anyone looking that he was a fair bit more overwhelmed than he could even admit to himself.

It seemed that for now, however, he could be content with causing himself harm with only one cigarette at a time.

Somehow, he'd gotten himself into a bet. He didn't even really remember how it had happened or how they had gotten on the subject. But then suddenly the bet had been accepted and it was too late to back down, and now he was sitting at the very same Mess Hall table Sakura and the others had been sitting at the other day while they'd been discussing the source of the ship's mystery meat food supply.

To be fair to Sakura, he'd picked a shade of pink to match her own, natural hair color. But the results were... jarring. Also, hopefully no one would recognize either of them.

Who: Shoutarou and anyone.
Where: Various places
Summary: After the events of SHODAN have passed by, Shou tries to deal with the personal fallout, once the majority of the shipwide fallout has passed..
Warnings: Depressed detective, boozing, angst in general.
( Someone try and cheer the poor guy up, eh? )

||Attention, Attention. The following personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. The following personnel please report to the Observation Deck.
( A sweet little trip to Gummiring begins )
It was a nice, fluffy planet with a nice, fluffy name. Bound to be as nice as Happy Happy Fun World, right?

Following you awakening and talking with a few of the members through the communication systems by way of the three kind people who had awakened her, Nezaitben realized how the crew was stuck in a terrible mess.

So many of them felt sad and depressed. Considering the entire ship, it wasn't too hard to see why. The next day, there had been an unusual amount of magical flowers spreading all over the ship. Nothing that damaged the controls (she might be naive in the way humanoids were, but Nezaitben was no fool either) but they were found in the most unexpected of places. Her own awakening area was now blooming in a flower paradise, the wooden palace standing proudly on top, the smell and pink cherry blossom strong enough to carry through most of the central city area where most people resided.

Yet the ship was still sad.

This would not do.

That night, or what passed as a night for in the ship, Nezaitben took to the 'sky', letting pieces 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, she searched their dreams. The powers granted to her by the pantheon of gods in her homeworld allowed Nezaitben to weave a series of dreamcatchers giving her the ability to see those whose hearts connected true.

These noble souls would do. Lead by example had always been her philosophy. She would give them a great gift - communication with each other in a single body, allowing them to share everything together. Their two soulcatchers were woven together that night into a single, grand ones, hanging in the garden's trees.

A few minutes later, the empty husks of the bodies that weren't being used showed up at her palace. With a smile, she welcomed them like her own children and began to dress them for their task.

That morning, some of the crewmen would wake up to a strange surprise...and that would just be the beginning of a long, strange misunderstanding and young gods trying too much to please everyone.

[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!]

Sleeping, is what. Now, Ellyn had not intended to come to the Media Library to sleep, but the book she had chosen had sealed the deal. It was yet another treatise on magic by the Endless--"A Dissertation on the Vagaries of Elemental Magic". Required reading back at the Elemental College. Dry as a bone.

Even now, that book was sitting in her lap. Ellyn herself had her head thrown back on the fattychair she was sitting on, sprawling bonelessly across it. Only the fact that she'd had her robe closed protected the book from sliding onto the floor.

Every once in a while, she let out a loud, rumbling snore. It was sort of like a small, localized thunderstorm had rolled in, only without any rain...

When not working a particular shift at a department, and when taking a 'break' from work in general, Tim was prone to doing some working out and training. If he was going to be out of any one of his departments, for any given time, he might as well spend it keeping himself in shape and his body honed. It was productive and sometimes it could help him think. And it was certainly better than spending any pauses he had by idling. He couldn't afford to do that.

As Red Robin, it was easiest to just work out in Hydroponics, if he were doing straight up working out, practising with his staff and enjoying the more open feeling. He'd set up training runs and he could work with weapons in relative seclusion. In those instances, he would focus more on balance and take a calmer, slower route, using the lesser muscles and doing more work with the finer aspects of martial arts.

But, from time to time, the simpler ways to work out (as opposed to running simulations of gang wars, target practise, weapons training, etc) had a lot of merit themselves. Plus, sometimes it was nice to work out without being weighted down by leather and kevlar, which was a luxury he couldn't always afford on the ship. In those cases, Tim would be brought to the Sensoriums, where he could use the simulations to call up a virtual gym. Plus, the locale had the added bonus of him being able to use the illusory capabilities to hide that he was maybe a little too well muscled for a teenaged social worker, and it could cover up any questionable scars that showed. He could play the role of a normal, active teenager, there, easier than elsewhere.

For the time being, Tim had called up the scene of a gym, sports equipment scattered for him to use as he might. And it was good that, in a moment's notice, he could change it all over again-- to an ice rink for a more literal cool down, or to a field, for instance. A little lonely, playing alone? Tim certainly didn't mind. It was an effective enough workout, if nothing else. Tim stretched whilst he ran over the options in his mind.

((ooc: Feel free to join him as either RR or as Tim. c: And if you want anything in specific, just let me know!))