It's shaping up to be another average day on the Transmigration 9. Crew members are going about their business as usual and all is (to most appearances, at least) about as "well" as things ever are on the ship.

Some crew members are going to be stopped out of the blue by impact with a force field.

"Attention Crewmen: You have been chosen to participate in an experiment!" GLaDOS's voice informs. They're not alone, someone else that was nearby is also caught within the same narrow radius. "Participation is mandatory. Please try to relax and enjoy the experience, as this will improve the quality of the test results."

Clearly this is going to be a wonderful day for science.

"You and your new scientific partner are now on a date," GLaDOS goes on. "As it would be detrimental to our study of the date experience if you were to be separated, you must remain close to your partner for the duration of the experiment. This will be enforced with the Transmigration 9 Crewman Containment Field. Prolonged exposure to the Transmigration 9 Crewman Containment Field may have unexpected side-effects. While any side-effects encountered will be documented and your desire to offer yourself to science is commendable, it is not a necessary part of this experiment."

"You will be informed when the test has been completed. We would like to thank you in advance for your full cooperation in the experiment and failure to attempt to foil it in any way."

"The experiment has begun, so you may begin dating."

( OOC Notes Below Cut! )

Three attempts in and this had not been going well.

Outside the transport tubes in the city hovered one pegasus pony, staring in irritation at said tubes. One hoof rested on what was unmistakably a cloud -- a puffy, friendly-looking white cloud, just the right size to make a comfy napping spot for a pegasus who, well, really liked napping.

"You stupid tube tentacle... things!" she said, expecting that the ship would somehow respond. "Let me take the cloud up to that Hydro-whatsit place!"

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the battle with SHODAN the place looks a little worst for wear, but the crew and even Stacy are trying to be in good spirits. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, and the little stunt in trying to kill off the people in the pods, many are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. They are also told they must read information about their current situation and a survival guide with their new omnicom. New crew-mates might see a tall dragonish guy with wings (but don't call him that), a large afro attached to a smaller girl, and talking ponies among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in. But thankfully this time, there's a system that was set up to aid the new crew members with a few more experienced ones.

[ooc: 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 your guys greet the newbies. Big brother/sister, there will be a thread for you as well!]

Not all parts of the city had been explored, that much was true. On to a far corner of the northern side, what was once a beautiful garden was now pieces of cracked paintings and petrified wood. Whatever temperature happened here, the rain seemed to turn to snow once it entered the area, and judging from the amount, the place had not been perturbed for quite a while.

Nestled in the center, a figure stood there, looking like a giant frozen statue in mid-walk. The clothing seemed to be of Japanese-like origin, a bright pink kimono with floral patterns, which was hard to spot in the cold weather.

No one had ventured here. The path leading to it was dark and while not filled with anything particularly dangerous, only those brave...or crazy would want to come here...until now.

[OOC - this is the startup post for the three to find and rescue her. Results for the randomization is coming soon!]

"Welcome-a to Videoland!" tells you an animatronic, rusted and chipping man. "My name is-a Somari the Spaceman! It's-a very good to see you, woohoo, ha ha!!" Next to him a green (also chipped and rusted) fat Hedgehog statue dressed in green and with a leather outfit stands close doing a peace sign. "And I'm his good buddy, Scory the Porcupine! Welcome to Videolang Buddy!"

Ahh Videoland! Popular no less than ten years ago, it has began a recent decline compared to the other parts of Happy Happy Land due to most of their clientele simply growing too old for it and going off to the other parts of the planet. Still waiting for a new deal with a game provider to use their licenses, it becomes older and more jaded, still trying to have the same magic as a while ago, but the dream being long gone. The world is now a dangerous combination of video games bordering bootleg and strange creatures and things that are just the right amount off not to be written as simple copied parodies. Costumed men and women wear the suits of the mascots, and a few pretty girls wearing the Princess Lana, Ruler of Videoland™ costume don't look as bright and cheerful as they should be. Every four hours, there's a Captain N: The Gamemaster show, with the typical theme park overacting and asking kids questions as anagrammatic versions of Mother Brains, Eggplant Wizard & King D'ippo capture her and have to be saved by Rock N' Rollman, Solomon Belmont, Kid Icarus and, of course, Captain N, the Game Master.

Everything seems sort of wrong. Like a marketing gimmick that caught on. The annoying young kids seem to like the show, mind you.

However if you're not here to watch terrible theater productions, the park is divided into six subsections, accessible by a monorail. Well, when the monorail is working anyway (and it is today! LUCKY YOU!) When you arrive you are standing near the Palace of Power, large, impressive (and pink) castle that apparently belongs to Princess Lana.

( KONGOLAND! Where arcades and tropical food reigns. )

( SPACEPIRATE LAND! Your Horror XTREME!!! COME GET YOUR HOROSCOPE. )

( MEGALAND, Futuristic theme part of rides and booths...available TODAY! )

( MOUNT ICARUS....LAND! It's where the kids go while their parents go elsewhere )

( CASTLEVANIALAND! The medieval land of horror, magic and the biggest coaster! )

With all these sections it might take a while! Or you'll just run off in horror to another park and never, ever look back.

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!]

God knows where she'd gotten the blades.

They hovered in the air, little menacing antigravity buzzsaw shuriken. Violence lay coiled within them, not directed outward but in, at Sheeana who stood poised with her arms spread. This was the attitude with which she called the great worm. Her toes curled in, feeling the strange, unfamiliar grass (coarse, yes, like the rare poverty grasses that sometimes grew on the leeward side of the dunes but still far too thick for her liking and multicolored). She opened her awareness, allowing herself to become part of the place and her of it.

Seven, a warm up. Their timer finished counting down, they converged in on her

There was a series of contortions that blurred in and out of visibility. She leapt. She hugged the ground. At one point she found herself poised on one hand, feet thrown up into the air like a Minoan athlete over the bull.

For practicing the Weirding Way, no artificial lightshow would do, no matter how real feeling.

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."

Tora Olafsdotter was new to the ship and it's people but she made finding her way around a top priority. She wandered the streets and began to familiarize herself with the twists and turns of this odd cityship. It was not completely unlike the Watchtower really, there were similarities.

Gently Tora's fingers ran over the living walls of the ship, if she tried hard enough she could feel the life in them, feel all around her that the ship was a living being as much as a technological entity. Such was common for those connected to nature, and being essentially a spirit of nature herself that was innate in her.

Her wanderings lead her down through the tall buildings to where things grew open, a wide space as Arha had told her there would be. Moving to the center of this open square Tora took the chance to center herself as well. Her eyes slid closed and her hands drifted up from her sides, fingers uncurling to free her upward facing palms. She thought of home, her real home, her family and all those who she now knew to be lost. So many she would miss, so much unnecessary death, yet there was hope.

In everything there was at least the smallest ray of hope, and that was what Tora focused on. She had lived through a crisis before, and now she was needed to aid in helping others put things in many universes to right. Hope was a powerful thing, and hope was the shining force behind the gentle fall of clean white snow that fell around her, covering the entire open area in a slowly deepening blanket of fluffy white powder.

Sonic had his own way of dealing with things usually. For once he decided to vent in Knuckles' way: beating the crap out of anything in sight. In his own case, "anything in sight" was a green hedgehog standing not far from him. The two hedgehogs were moving at speeds possibly unimaginable by anyone save the Flashes, charging into each other and exchanging kicks and punches.



The fight went on for what seemed like hours, and both hedgehogs were even matched. Sonic's blows racked the green hedgehog back with each blow, but he certainly was feeling every hit as well. One particularly well-placed hit ended up slamming him down from a building top into the simulated ground. The crash was hard enough to actually hurt, and when Sonic pulled himself out of the crater he'd made, he heard Stacy's 'voice' speak up to him.

||Sonic, you have trained enough. Any further training will only lead to more harm than good.||

Sonic dismissed her with a wave of his hand and turned back to the other hedgehog. "Come on!" he yelled. "I can take anything you can bring! What else have you got?!" As if in reply, the simulated hedgehog sneered, glowed, then changed color in a flash of light.



Sonic just stared. "Oh, come on! This is just unfair!" he argued, grunting when he took a punch from the now Super hedgehog.

From his new crater in the ground, Sonic raised one hand blearily. "Then again," he began weakly, "there's something to be said for rest and relaxation."

Sonic had been running almost since the run with Shadow. He wanted to see everything the ship had, and he wanted to see if there were any other Mobians aboard. Shadow was cool, but he wasn'y anyone from Sonic's home, and that still left the hedgehog feeling extremely lonely. That feeling also left him feeling extremely guilty, because what kind of selfish 'hog did he have to be to be capable of wishing such a fate upon his family and loved ones?

So he started running through the hangar, dashing over, under and through the ships, vehicles and robots there. It was easy to do, really. He wasn't really interested in pushing himself. As he was running, however, he saw something familiar out of the corner of his eyes. He had to circle back around to it because of his speed. The familiarity of it took a moment to dawn upon him, mostly because he hadn't seen it used in quite some time.

"No," Sonic said, "no freaking way." The device appeared to be several consoles hooked up to and surrounding a very large central pad. A plastic-like tube hung over the platform, ready to come down and surround it.

With haste, he grabbed his omnicom and the communication ring he'd been given, practically yelling into the latter device.

<< Hey! If there's some kind of machine geeks on this ships, get your butts down to the hangar yesterday! >>

Many things have been on the minds of the crew lately, and many things have happened.

There is, however, one happening which might go completely unnoticed by all but the most astute members of the crew.

Lately, all across the ship, in different rooms at different times, there is a strange feeling of unnaturalness. It happens slowly, so slowly one could hardly notice the change until it was entirely there.

The air, normally temperate and vaguely humid, begins to become chilled and dry.

The faint sounds of voices can be heard, whispering as if conspiring together, just far off enough to be unintelligible.

The shapes of objects in the area seem to subtly change, forming almost impossible angles if one watches long enough.

The last, and perhaps most noticeable to some, is the feeling of being observed. Not in the same way Stacy watches over the crew, but rather as if something is looking directly into you, straight into your soul.

Eventually, these feelings will fade, moving on to some other part of the ship.

However, they do seem to last long enough for one to attempt to investigate, should someone manage to work up the will to remain in the area long enough.

It had only been a short while since the revelation that the worlds that everyone had came from was gone. For Shadow, that didn't mean much. He knew that those who were part of his world were here, though the revelation that the Sonic that had appeared with him was from another world altogether was a bit surprising, to say the least.

If there was anything that unnerved him about that revelation? It was that he had failed on his promise to Maria. The people on this ship were hurting and he, who had made a promise to give everyone a chance to be happy, couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Not yet, at least.

For the time, though, he hid himself away in one of the sensoriums, needing the time to relax. When he arrived, he initially set the place to be like the ARK, the space station he was created. But, he got tired of that quickly and changed it to something more... relaxing.

The Green Hill Zone. His Sonic's first romping grounds.

With the grassy areas swaying in the breeze, the various waterfalls flowing and the sights of loop-de-loops all over the place, Shadow felt a bit more at home... or tried to, at least. At the moment, though, Shadow opted to stay under the shade of a palm tree...

...and briefly wondered if he turned off the option for attacking Badniks.

 Between nearly killing himself trying to help people and his talk with Nathan, Peter was exhausted. Even with his upbeat demeanor, it was hard to not say he felt stressed. His flight-breaks no longer helping, he decided he needed to take a few hours. He found himself at the sensoriums, a place he had heard talked about like the holodeck from Star Trek. As he walked in, it was a blank room. He closed his eyes and thought to himself. 

I just need a way to relax.

He suddenly heard music, and opened his eyes to what appeared to be a high class nightclub, but filled with the strangest creatures he had ever seen, even since arriving on the ship. Behind the bar, a green-skinned redhead with horns, more conspicuous for his paisley shirt and purple ascot, was trying to get his attention.  

"Hey, kiddo, didn't you hear them call your name?" The demon said, smiling. "You're up, bubbulah. Don't worry, I picked a good song for you." Peter eyed him warily. Wherever this place had come from, it was not his head. But decided not to question it, and went to stand in front of a karaoke machine on stage. He picked up the mike and saw the song, and smiled. He loved this song. EVERYONE loved this song. Luckily, a few years in boy's choir had given him a sense of tune, and puberty had left him with a decent tenor. So, he began to sing. 

o/` I can't fight this feeling any longer,
      And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow... o/` 

That was all it took. As if suddenly injected with 100 ccs of pure rock ballad awesome, Peter closed his eyes and began letting the music take him, eventually rocking out. He had forgotten what it was like, honestly. Forgotten the fun of just letting go and having fun. And as he finished up the REO Speedwagon classic, breathing heavily and feeling alive, he wished he hadn't. 

But then he opened his eyes to notice more than just his holographic audience had filtered into the "club". 

"Uh... Next?" He said as he hastily replaced the mike and went to get a holo-beer. 

That was embarrassing.  He could only hope someone would follow him up and make it slightly less so.

[ooc: Start a subthread with your character approaching the stage and singing a song. Characters can react to other's performances even if they aren't singing themselves. And any song you'd like, Lorne has the entire mutliverse on karaoke. I'm not asking, and neither should you.]

Not too long after his introduction to the rest of the crew, Lex slipped away to head back to the Lounge area. That particular part of the ship had been his main workspace for several months now. He knew he would have to share that space one day, and he was certainly prepared for it.

Lex was, at the end of the day, a businessman. As any good businessman would tell you, the biggest deals are never negotiated in the board room. They're done on the golf course, the tennis courts, but more often than not, in the smoke filled backroom of a high end bar. Alcohol was always good for soothing frayed nerves, loosening tongues, and getting people to agree on things they normally wouldn't.

And now Lex had his own bar to conduct business. Actually, he had his own bar and lounge as a business now. Yes, a business. That meant that the booze and smokes that he had were not free anymore.

This is Lex Luthor here, did you think he'd give away all his booze for nothing?

Luckily, he was aware that people are running low on cash, but money isn't the only thing of value around here. His asking price was simple. He'd make any drink you want, even non-alcoholic ones (and given that he had spent some time mixing and matching liquor and juices from different universes, he can mix dozens drinks you never even thought of), and all you have to do...

"So, tell me about yourself."

...is have a conversation with him.

The crew meeting doesn't take place in the Obs Deck like it usually does. It takes place in the Medbay, because that's where most of the crew is gathered, and it's plenty large enough. Those that are still getting treated can sit on the beds, and those that just need to sit can sit on the beds.

When the last stragglers rejoin the others in the MedBay, when almost all the injuries have been treated, the Bridge Team finally returns, but they do not return triumphant. Most of their expressions are somber. One of their number, Paco, has come back missing an arm, and quite a few have rather nasty injuries, black eyes, burns, and so on. Jaime Reyes' armor is healed over his eye, and though said eye isn't gone (well, at least it won't be for long), it looks as if it is.

But their greatest casualty is being carried by Brainiac 5 with a flat pane of yellow shielding like an impromptu stretcher. Robin lent his cape to cover the body out of respect, but the green hand of the robot Brainiac is visible despite it.

The organic Brainy peels off from the group to silently carry the body into Special Weapons Division, to place it on one of the work-tables, as if the room is now an impromptu mortuary. An autopsy of sorts needs to be performed, after all, to ensure with absolute certainty what he already knows--that there is no way to repair their lost comrade. He will be absent from the reunion, and most likely chase out anyone that comes in.

As for the rest of them, they need medical care, probably need hugs, and mostly just need to see that the rest of the group is okay. They also need to meet the new people--who need to properly meet everyone in general, really.

[ooc: MEETING THREAD. Everybody, start subthreads and tag subthreads. This is for new people to meet folks and get a few more explanations, and also folks from the different teams just to reunite with people and see if they're okay, and all that. After the reunions and all that, free threading will resume. EVERYONE would be here, most likely. By this time, most folks would probably have joined the others.]

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.]

Down below the Pod Caverns was the Medbay. Most of the crew had been down there before, for one reason or another. The parts of it they had access to were currently empty of life -- and, as a matter of fact, empty of undeath as well.

They might be able to find something down here that would help them. Hey, it couldn't hurt. This was the Medbay, wasn't it?

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: First, read *HERE*. Then, once you've read the overall plan, post your character into the main thread establishing them as being podpopped, and reacting to the oncoming zombie horde (since there is no Stacy replies to comment to, it will all be one thread, instead of individual threads). This can include fighting and/or fleeing if you want. Eventually, volunteers from Team Left Behind will rush in and save the day. Obviously, since there's no time for it while fighting for your lives against zombies, this podpop won't get the whole ||You have been Chosen|| speech from Stacy, so they'll have to get their answers (and pants) later.]


||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.

--
( And this was the moment everything went to hell )