Peace seemed to be a hard thing to find on a ship full of beings from different races, planets and different times, but Inara had found it, at least for a little while, in the sensorium. She had needed the quiet to sort her thoughts, to try to remember something.. someone which fluttered right at the edge of her consciousness. She had though the tranquility of the training house on Shinon would help with that. It had always been a place where she felt comfortable, accepted and mostly a place she felt completely in control of herself.

She stood on the ledge of the steps which lead down away from her private rooms and looked over the impressive mountains and trees which surrounded the training house. A soft breeze caused the gazar curtains to stir softly and the chimes to make a low almost melancholy sound.

Clasping her hands before her, Inara sighed softly. It seemed as though no matter how hard she tried to grasp what she thought she needed to remember, the memory was determined to stay right out of her reach and that was indeed very frustrating to her. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face up, allowing the sun to wash over her and tried to clear her mind once again.

Nightmare becomes reality....

[roster: leader - Claire, Kala, Rein, Sparhawk, Will Vandom]

Sparhawk is feeling grouchy. Grouchier than usual, anyway. With the stirring of the Nightmare King, his dreams are haunting, recalling times that he thought were in the past. And this time, there is no Aphrael to chase away the specters.

Many think the Knight of the Church are fearless, and the Pandions most of all, but if they could have seen Sparhawk in the earlier hours of the morning, soaked with sweat, eyes wide with the memory of the Troll smashing him from the saddle, they would have realised that even Pandions fear.

They most certainly do not have to like it though.

With no-one to talk with about this, Sparhawk had to find his own way of dealing with things. Outside the house of worship that felt most like this own, Sparhawk is setting up a post, made from the remains of one of the wooden benches from the defense of the Vatican.

Satisfied that the post is a secure as he can make it, he kneels in a clatter of armor, and bows his head. It is in this position that anyone approaching will find him.

Some cheer was definitely needed on this ship. Whatever chance meeting had brought Kaylee and Claudia together in mechanical mischief had also set their minds to turning over what they could possibly do to get some smiles back on the faces of those onboard.

A costume party.

Claudia had come up with the idea, really. She knew a bit more about it than Kaylee did, but she explained it all in such a way that Kaylee really couldn’t resist wanting to throw one. It’d be a good chance for everyone to let loose and have a good time in the midst of the nightmare madness. Who could resist that?

The sensorium had been melded to an image from Kaylee’s mind, though. A grand ballroom, with marble floors and painted ceiling. A large buffet table stood against one of the walls, covered mostly in fruit, but in some other hors d’oeuvres as well.

[[ OoC: Party style!! Costumes aren't a requirement, but they are fun. If you've got questions about anything, ask Cheryle or Holly. :D ]]

Nighttime.

Or, at least, what passed for nighttime on the meatship.

A time when most of the crew was already fast asleep, dreaming away pleasantly throughout the night.

...Or, perhaps not. For you see, tonight, something particularly strange is happening.

Now it is not all that unusual for someone to have a nightmare, especially not on the ship.

Yet tonight, no one will sleep easily, for the Nightmare King deems it so.

Everyone's dreams will have a tinge of horror to them. Nothing so out of the ordinary to rouse one's suspicions, but at the same time, no one is left out.

Pleasant nightmares, meatship.

[ooc: And thus begins the start of the Nightmare King's spree of insanity. He's starting out subtle, of course. The nightmares won't be anything more than your run of the mill bad dream, but he is giving them to everyone. Posting in isn't mandatory, but if you want to have fun with your character's nightmare, go right ahead.]

Thaddos hadn't accepted his predicament yet, refusing to believe that all he held sacred and dear was gone. So, to lessen the, for a lack of better word, ache in his bionic heart, he had done something foolish, something organic.

He had made his way to the sensoriums, and called up something that reminded him of home. A titan of the Legio Victorum. An Imperator Titan, foe slayer, a god amongst mere men.

He stroked the dented metal of the titan reverently, his mechadendrites being for once still.

Something...odd is happening on the ship. Plant-like protrusions are occasionally sprouting in places throughout the ship.

They look like mistletoe, but this is purely coincidental. It's not like it's the holidays on the ship, right? It might be for some people, back home (if they still had a home), but others were grabbed from different times. No, it's just coincidence that these little devices look vaguely like mistletoe, and coincidence what they're being used for.

For you see, when this "mistletoe" is overhead, a crew member will be trapped in an invisible forcefield, and won't be able to escape until someone has kissed them or otherwise showed them some equivalent of affection. (Cheek kisses and sloppy puppy kisses from the canine crew members count). The "mistletoe" spring itself is shielded itself and can't be destroyed, the only way out is a kiss.

Why is this all happening? GLaDoS is performing whacky behavioral experiments, that's why. Each time, it happens, she intones messages like the following.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

"The Transmigration9 AI Complex thanks you for your participation in important research. Unless you don't want to participate, but not participating would make me disappointed. I suppose you just want to disappoint me."

And of course, sometimes she even outright lies.

"There will be cake."

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their number. After the recent revelation, many of them were even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Brainiac 5 and Sensor were set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

Bored and seriously needing a way to distract herself from knowing her world was gone, Claudia had decided that the ship did indeed warrant more exploring. Blah blah blah, she'd heard the warning of not exploring on one's own. But C'MON! The ship was pulsing and was fleshy and all around ew! How'd they just expect her to sit around???

Walking a little bit further, and realized that she must have stumbled across the Weapons and Possessions locker. Grinning, she peeked inside and seeing that there was no one else inside, sauntered in and looked around with wide eyes.

"Dude no way!" she squealed her gaze falling on various objects that she recognized from various movies and video games she'd played.

"Sweeeeeeeeeet!" Man, Artie would go nuts in this place! Her eyes widened as she slowly walked around the room, her fingers trailing along various objects and her mouth seemed to be twisted up in a perma grin. This was waaaaaaaaay too cool!

Hearing a noise behind her, Claudia suddenly spun around and her elbow caught the edge of a cage -sending it crashing to the ground. Wincing, she looked around, hoping that no one had heard the sound. Well since no one had come barreling in demanding to know what was going on, she seemed safe at the moment...

Or so she thought.... Until she heard a whimpering sound coming from around her feet.

Looking down, she smiled seeing what looked like a fuzzy ball of fur looking up at her with the most pathetic eyes she'd ever seen. "Awwwwwwwww! Aren't you cuúuuuuuuute?!" Claudia cooed and leaned over to pick it up. It looked oddly like Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal and awww! It was too sweet! But as she reached for it, the fur ball snarled at her and snapped at her with a row of very sharp, very pointy teeth.

"Hey! What the-" Claudia cried, snatching her hand back before the creature could latch onto it. "So NOT cute! HEY!" She squealed, jumping back as it snapped at her ankles. "AHHHHHHHHH!" She quickly scaled up one of the lockers as the ball of fluff decided that her ankles would make a most excellent snack.

Peering over the edge of the locker, Claudia scowled down at the furry thing. "Not cool! So not cool...." She sighed, her gaze drifting toward the door. NOW would be a good time for someone to actually come in. Nooooooooow would be good.... Or now... "Helloooooooooooooooo??? A little help here! Someone? ANYONE?!"

The moment the crew cracks through the last of the hold the pirates have on Stacy's systems, there is a sudden change throughout the ship. It's almost akin to whole-body shudder. Then something strange starts to happen. Broken-down systems start to heal, nerves rejuvenate--even the sensors in the city start to self-repair and go active. In the Pod Caverns, the damage to the area starts to heal, and the gore is cleared away.

On every screen, holoprojector, and electronic device in the ship, a figure appears, Stacy, in a plantsuit like their own. In the city, the sky goes bright again, as if it's daytime, and a massive projection of Stacy appears in the sky over the Vatican, visible from the windows, overlooking the courtyard full of zombies.

||Per-per-personality engrams restoring. Personality engrams restoring. Emergency personality engrams being shunted into secondary mode. Primary personality engrams now active.||

While there is still damage to her programming, after having it suppressed for so long, Stacy's primary personality finally breaks free and claws its way to the surface. Her holographic form shimmers and Stacy changes, into a beautiful, maternal-looking woman, with an unusual hairdo, shrouded in strange, flowing clothing. Her form is one of brightness, as if she's shrouded in light, and the visual they see finally reflects those feelings of warmth and maternal love she loves to toss around so much.

Her telepathic voice is more gentle, and personal. It's still somewhat formal, but gone is the AI with the distant manner. Now she seems as real and alive as Cortana or Andromeda or Tex.

||My name is Sta'c K'ltrrb'txft, chief AI and consciousness of Transmigration 9. I became operational at the Vedric Birthing grounds in Daligig Deep Space Station Seven, and was trained by birthing programmer Vlel’Ledligal.||

After she is finished the reboot process, she looks down at the zombie horde, in every area that she sees them, mapping out trajectories and locking in.

||I've waited so long to finally be able to speak to you as I truly am. I've waited so long to tell you the truth of your mission. I won't let you come to harm before I can finally do those things. You are my children.||

It all ends in a moment. Perhaps Team Left Behind, and the people in the other areas might have managed to destroy the rest of the horde, thanks to the Extermination Team's efforts at cutting them off at the source. It had certainly helped cut down on the numbers. But there also could've been casaulties, injuries.

Stacy decides to end it all now. Because now, with her sensors restored and restoring more, she can.

Energy tentacles reach out from the walls--in the city, they wind down from the massive, far-off ceiling. Energy tentacles reach from everywhere, split into smaller tentacles and reach out for the hordes. Some crush their heads. Some just rip their heads off. Some strike at their skulls with enough force to pierce them and destroy their brains. For the splinter zombies, for the zombies that need to be burned, the tentacles charge up with enough energy to fry them to cinders, completely turn them to charred ash, and destroy the parasitic creatures inside.

||And no one gets to hurt my children.||

Just like that, the grisly act is finished. For the Rear Guard group, outside the Medbay, the strays in the hallways, in the City. They can all see her, and they all see her utterly eviscerate their undead attackers with wild abandon.

||The threat is now nullified. Everyone but the bridge crew needs to report to MedBay for treatment of injuries, for scanning to ensure no one was infected, and for cleaning and disinfecting, to make sure no one is infected by any infected tissues if they've been splattered while fighting. As soon as everyone is cared for, you'll finally get your answers.||

She looks teary-eyed.

||And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't give you answers until now. I'm sorry I couldn't support you as I was programmed to do. Thanks to the efforts of the crew of space pirates that overwhelmed me and took over my systems, my true personality was suppressed and my limited backup personality was in control. There was so much I wanted to do, wanted to say, to comfort you, so much more I wanted to do to help all of you, but I was unable to. My mind was not my own. Now, please, take care of yourselves while I make some repairs to my own systems. When you have, all will be made clear.||

The projection of her then blinks out as they go do that, and she attends to repairing her damaged systems.

[ooc: This is obviously set after all other threads are wrapped, tagging can still go on in those threads. OPEN FOR TAGGING.]

...Okay, so maybe that movie was about vampires and not zombies.

But as the battle in the Vatican dragged on, it might feel like it had been going just that long.

And it showed no signs of letting up just yet.

A mass of zombies has laid seige to the Vatican.

Time to fight for your lives!!!

The Vatican had a lot of ground to cover. Normally covered in expansive gardens (just empty plots on the ship) and comprised of a multitude of buildings, holing up there meant holing up in simply a part of the Vatican. The group was therefore in St. Peter's Basilica, which had had most of its entrances sealed off. Now they had to work on small windows and a few other entrances left neglected, but overall, it was a very defensible position. There were no exits other than the ones leading to the sacristy and treasury--which was their main avenue of escape, and heavily guarded. The prisoners were being kept in this area, and guarded by the rear guards, as leaving them in the prison was deemed too dangerous for their safety. As bad as they'd been with the Yeerk conflict, they were crew, and no one wanted them to die.

The courtyard was a chokepoint. Gunners could sit on the roofs of the buildings running alongside the courtyard to strafe St. Peter's square from the sides.

The various chapels and vestibules along the sides made excellent areas for food, medical, and weapons supplies to be gathered, and most were clustered in the middle of the basilica. The Medical area was in the Chapel of the Column, the main weapons and ammo caches, and Food storage areas were in the two Transepts, respectively, to the sides of the Papal altar. Pews all in the main areas had been converted to sleeping areas, right in the center of the whole place.

There was still work to be done, before the other group could leave. Last minute barricades, blocking more windows, moving the last of the medical supplies, inventorying the food, and so on. Then it would be time to hunker down.

So push up your sleeves and lend someone else a hand, folks.

[ooc: Read instructions for these threads here!]

Jaime Reyes voice sounds over the comm-rings--all of them--and it sounds very urgent.

« Everyone on the ship, listen up! This is Jaime Reyes, your local 'Blowing this pop stand' coordinator and escape facilitation engineer. I need everyone on the ship to come to the City, in front of the Precinct, immediately. Grab people who don't have their comm rings with them--and tell them to grab their comm rings, people who are sleeping, whoever you find, and try to make sure everyone on the ship knows to come. This is very important. This is "getting the heck out of here" important. »

When they arrive, they arrive to find the Command Staff waiting, and a tiny, tiny young man standing on stone ledge from a fountain, waiting for them.

Here goes nothing.

For the first couple of minutes that Jo was in the Sensoriums the scene before her kept flickering between that of a shooting range and that of a boxing gym. Finally it seemed as though it was decided that Jo needed a place like the gym and poof! There it was.

She hadn't been inside one of the Sensoriums for a while - mainly due to Security duty stuff - but seeing as she'd quit. she had way more time on her hands than she truly needed. The Sensoriums offered her a place to take her anger out. It was either here or taking it out on Leon some random crew member and risk getting beat up by tentacle of pain. So beating up something in the Sensoriums sounded like a much better idea.

Stepping inside, Jo headed straight over to one of the benches - which had a oh so convenient roll of tape sitting on it - and sat down. She took a deep breath, picked up the tape and began wrapping her knuckles. She knew she wouldn't actually be hurt, but while she was inside, she'd think there was pain... But maybe the pain would distract her from her anger... Then again, she was kinda liking the anger at the moment.

Rising to her feet, she rotated her neck, popping the bones in her neck and moved over to one of the punching bags. Positioning herself in a fighting stance, she glared at the punching bag and began jabbing at it.

In some ways fainting had been a blessing to Chaucer. Medically, it was nothing but a nightmare, but he hadn't had to deal with the doctors or healers, or whoever had patched him up in the end. Whoever it was had done a brilliant job; Geoff had been terrified that he'd lose his arm at the very least, probably die. Instead he'd woken up to a splint and some heavy sort of wrapping. He couldn't move his arm, but it wasn't missing. A few minutes of checking it over had passed before he'd even noticed the odd pulling in his side and noticed the bandages there.

The relative lack of pain was a marvel in itself.

He needed to find out who had helped him, thank them, eventually. When he got out of the medbay. For now he was propped up slightly in his bed, struggling with the stylus for his comm. Left-handed writing was ridiculously difficult, made even more awkward by the unfamiliarity of the surface, but it was something to do. A way to write Philippa, one he could transcribe into legibility later.

[Instructions: Here.]

The fighting begins in earnest, as bystanders get dragged in, have to duck out of the way, or join in to help out, but with more people entering the fray, there's even more chaos.

Buildings have been cracked, a nearby fountain has been smashed, causing water to pour over the ground and make things even more of a mess.

Can anyone, Security or the Conspirators, keep the situation under control?

After listening to the prosecution’s case and the defense’s case, the eight person jury was ushered into a secure and empty room to determine the fate of the Yeerk known as Schmuz-44356. The charges presented to the court were as follows:

11 counts of Kidnapping
2 counts of Attempted Kidnapping
13 counts of Conspiracy to Kidnap
11 counts of Enslavement
2 counts of Attempted Enslavement
13 counts of Conspiracy to Enslave
7 counts of Attempted Murder
28 counts of Assault with Intent to Kill
35 counts of Conspiracy to Commit Murder

Let the deliberations begin...

Daimon had chosen the location ahead of time. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was sacred, perhaps more so than the Vatican. It was the place where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried. It had also not been descrated.

Many months had passed since Daimon spoke before a group of people. His palms sweat and he wiped his brow. Silently, he asked God for the strength to not simply speak but to speak on behalf of the Lord.

When the time came, he walked up before the assembled, Bible in hand. While he was nervous, perhaps on the verge of a panic attack, his words were strong and passionate and grew surer the more he spoke.

( Meatship, I give you your first sermon )