As the battle raged outside, those remaining aboard Stacy had their hands full preparing for the incoming flood of refugees.

Positioned near the Bleed-Gate orbiting Lirath, Stacy stood ready to receive the refugees. Ship after ship ascended as quickly as they could, some of them making a break for the Bleed-Gate itself while the smaller ships were forced to dock at Stacy, unloading their cargo of refugees before setting off again for the planet's surface again to take on more passengers.

Several small units of GIA soldiers were also sent up to help the Transmigration crew take in the massive amount of refugees, many of whom were tired, wounded, and scared. It wouldn't take long for the ship to begin filling with people.

With the battle raging outside, and the Ohm clambering outside, trying to get in, it would be a tall order to keep all of the refugees safe and calm, but the crew didn't have much choice.

[ooc: Open!]

 After dropping off some of the crew at Balisair, it was time for the crew to set course for Lirath. The situation greeting them wasn't the most promising.

The cracked surface of the moon called Lirath was one of its most unmistakeable features. One of the three moons of the planet Kehoe, it had been terraformed and served as a settlement for a hundreds of different species, some humanoid, some not. Despite occasional class struggles, environmental issues, and speciesism blocking their way, the darker parts of Lirath's past were largely left behind, and an era of peace and tolerance had reigned for quite some time. The only problems they'd had recently were with a terrorist group whose cause for their actions had been a mystery, but they weren't tied to any particular species or social group and had been likened to a cult and had largely gone quiet in recent years.

Now the peace on the moon of Lirath had been shattered by the invasion of the Ohm.

The capital city had been destroyed. Now, all that was left of the peoples of Lirath was evacuating from one of its smaller cities, one known as Smyteval. A desert city, existing in a valley in between a rocky range of canyons and mountains, even though it was in the low ground, the natural channels of rock served as bottlenecks for any Ohm attacking from the ground.

GIA squadrons patrolled in space, locked in explosive warfare, protecting the Bleed-gate that had been activated to see the evacuated ships to the refugee world, and a shield created by massively-powerful shield generators extended around the city and up into the atmosphere, creating a shielded tunnel so ships could escape.

Word had come that there was a vital weapon to be deployed on Lirath, one that needed to be destroyed, hence why the Transmigration 9 had been called in. Given the diverse crew, and the ships that were in its hangar, there was at least someone or something on board that could blow the weapon up if it did show.

There was no sign of it yet. Right now, there was just chaos, streams of evacuees boarding ships, armies of Ohm engaged with GIA soldiers outside the shields, and forcefields that everyone hoped would hold out just a little bit longer.

The crew would be following Leon's orders but finding themselves fighting side-by-side with GIA platoons, full of various species that were currently all getting their asses kicked severely.

[ooc: STAGE 1 is now open! Please do not tage STAGE 2 until it's announced as open as well.]

[ooc: STAGE 2 is now open!]

The meatship is not a safe place to be on this day. April 1st. Spider-Man's domain. One might wonder what he's been doing with his time in the science department. Well, that anthropomorphic lump of green goo that he's currently hanging out with might tip you off. Turns out they have all kinds of samples in the contagion lab, and it's probably best if the guy in the red and blue onesie isn't allowed anywhere near them.

Trays and chairs in the mess hall. Sofas on the obs deck. Seats of those weird plant-potties in the bathrooms. Terminals in the media library. Floorspaces all over the ship. Everything that a crewmember could conceiveably want to put their hands, feet or posteriors on has been lathered in the aforementioned green goo. And look out for extremely volatile baseballs hurtling through the ship. Nowhere is safe.

Maniacal Dr. Evil-esque laughter echoes through the corridors.

Meatship, you've just been Flubbered.

((ooc: April Fools! For those unfamiliar with the seminal masterpiece Flubber, things that touch the goo he's made of have a tendency to bounce around uncontrollably. A lot.

Open post is open. Feel free to tag each other!))

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader: Nightwing, Ava Ballantyne, Jamie Hemeros, Spider-Man, Œthel, Toph]}

Be afraid, be very afraid. There's a Spider-Man on the loose. He has a camera and he's not afraid to catch you without your make-up on.

Why hadn't he thought of this before? He swings all across the ship, from city to obs deck, pod caverns to medbay, snapping anything and everything that looks vaguely photogenic.

"Aw man, Jolly Jonah's gonna be paying my bills for years!" he chatters to himself exuberantly, "Waitasec! Screw Jameson, I'm National Geographic now, baby! Do the NG guys get dental?"

He snaps the almighty panoramic of the bleed from the obs viewplate, "Maybe a book. I can write. Can I? I don't know, maybe. It doesn't look that difficult. They have word processors, right? I'm gonna need an agent..."

If you can hear him, run.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them 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. New crew-mates might see a green-skinned alien and snake girl 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.

[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.]

Grif's been having a hard time sleeping, but that's not news. Everbody's been having a hard time sleeping. It bothers him, because the more time he spends awake the more time he spends thinking about it and the more geeked up he gets over it, and the more tired he is and the worse the dreams are. It's a vicious cycle, and he can't figure out a way to deal with it. It's hard to not stress out over things that are impossible to ignore.

The simple solution is, of course, to drown out his brain.

If anybody goes into the media library, they'll find Grif in front of a screen playing some kind of first-person shooter. Futuristic from the look of it and familiar in the "this is an FPS screen" sort of way, but not identifiable on sight. Whatever it is, he must have the difficulty cranked fairly high because there are monsters swarming out of everywhere and they're not going down very quickly.

Still, it seems he's actually pretty good at it.

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 ]]

It is that time again, meatship.

Once again, the King of Nightmares has deigned to spread his touch to all of your dreams.

This time, however, he has decided to give them a much more personal touch, sending his very own children to visit each and every one of you, slowly sowing the seeds of madness within all of you.

Such a kind and loving king he is, isn't he?

[ooc: Alright folks, Nightmare King is ramping things up a bit. These nightmares are a good bit more dangerous now, and he's sending in his minions to make things a little more real. The nightmares will be of a much more serious nature this time, designed to start driving the crew slowly insane. Characters are more likely to run into nightmare minions in the guise of someone or something that will tug at the edges of their sanity. Also, this time, the characters can have joint dreams, as these nightmares are of a more mystical nature this time. Once again, tagging in isn't mandatory, but if you want to, go crazy (literally)!]

[Additional Note: Any injuries won't be carrying over to real life at this point in the plot but don't worry, we'll get there eventually!]

Wanda sat before one of the terminals in the media library. She'd come to try and find more information on mystical phenomena and training, after all there were whole new worlds different from her own. The laws had changed, so to speak. Unfortunately whatever she found was too dry for her to focus on. She was used to hands on experience, nothing this esoteric. She sighed and leaned back.

If she were honest with herself, the reason she was having trouble with the reading material wasn't because it was boring (even if it was) or poorly worded. She missed her family. She missed her friends. She missed her home. She even missed her neighbors. Well, some of them. But none of them had deserved to die.

And then there was what Bobby had said.

As hard as she tried not to think about it, the thoughts crept into her mind.

Most of the ship was asleep. He could hear them, tucked away and snoring loudly in their individual compartments, disturbingly comfortable in their meaty prisons. But this was no time to be hypocritical.

Just a few minutes earlier, Dustin had narrowly escaped Yoshimi’s room after falling asleep there, successful only because he happened to wake up while she was out. Perhaps she got bored of watching him. Perhaps she finally decided to call Shitface Kirk on him while he was recovering to take him to the brig—or worse, she could’ve contacted the Major. The Major was a downright scary woman, one that Dustin planned on avoiding even if he was forced to work for her.

Whatever the reason (and whatever the consequences), he was feeling a lot better now that he’d had food and rest and a new goal to accomplish. Said goal was something that he’d noticed when he first visited the Armory to get his primary tools; the genetic identification system not only picked out his personal items, but it also found a certain vehicle down in the hangar that was of extreme interest to its owner. Though Dustin had no intention of going down there until he found Codi, he was starting to…think differently, now that the initial shock had passed. This can be explained later.

He first made a stop at the Weapons and Possessions Locker, rooting around some of the unclaimed items further back. The large, silver thermos that Dustin happened upon surely wouldn’t be missed. With his prize, he then headed up to the Mess Hall, where he received his usual water shot and a tray full of slop. Dustin scooped the pile into his thermos, pocketed the utensil he was given, and crumbled up his crunchy plate into the mixture.

And then he left for the hangar.

A while later (after a brief stop in the City), Dustin was wandering around the huge space and fiddling with his phone. Without proper tools he wouldn’t be able to completely repair it, but for now he’d managed to reprogram and edit the genetic signature grid, which at least allowed for him to detect people that he’d already contacted intimately enough to receive some DNA from. This program was actually something of a prototype; it sounded good when Dustin first thought of it, but upon activation he realized that people spread their DNA around everywhere, either through shed hair or skin flecks or other such biological shavings; therefore it was hardly useful for distinguishing a single person from, say, their hairbrush.

This new program instead concentrated on densities of DNA samples instead of individual flecks, and with a slightly modified interface allowed for a completely different view of objects. It still wouldn’t work in the Pod Caverns because of whatever Stacy had set up in there, but it would work well enough in the hangar for finding the special item in general.

It came up clear as day on the scanner—Dustin’s sweat and blood might as well be essential parts to this machine, after all—and, shortly thereafter, he’d found it.

It was a wireframe skeleton, roughly the size of a large apartment but much more sleekly designed, patched with a rough layer of specialized insulation and plating in areas; everywhere else was coated in a thick sheet of wires. Compartments here and there bulged with tools and materials, thankfully spared from being taken away with the rest of his possessions. Even Dustin’s makeshift work surface remained untouched, surrounded on all sides by clamped wires and a hastily placed welding set.

He was taken aback, unable to do much else but stare for right now. Observers might notice that his dark green eyes are eerily glinting in ways that they probably shouldn’t be.

Peter furtively makes another lap of the bistro, a picture of jitters and apprehension as he checks every last inch of the place. He wants to make sure Stacy has reconstructed it exactly how he remembers it, though since said reconstruction is brick-for-brick captured from his brain patterns it's unlikely that he'll ever notice any discontinuity.

It may not look like much to the outside observer, but this was one of the places on ground level that he felt most alive. A notorious haunt for the newspaper men and women of the Daily Bugle, this was generally the first stop made by a budding photographer in search of the goon who was supposed to be providing the words to go with his pictures. It would only take a handful of people to make it looked cramped, and it certainly hadn't kept with the times. Most of the worn wooden tables come equipped with a typewriter, so that the journalist of yesteryear could muster up that overdue article while gorging on the caffeinated drinks and robust meat dishes that they would need to get through a hard day's press packing.

It was a bizarre experience, the place empty and noiseless. It was usually a clamour of expletives and 'Great Ceasar's Ghost!'s, the waiting staff vainly attempting to cut through the swathe of patrons on the shop floor.

Several times Peter reshuffles the way that his particular table is laid out, the only one with any utensils appropriate for eating with. If he were honest it was a lousy place to conduct what he intended, but it's where he feels comfortable and right now, doing what he can to steady his nerves and not come across like a total idiot is paramount.

Deep breaths, steady hands. Keep it together.

He speaks into his comm ring, <<Carol, you have a couple hours? I could use a hand in the Sensoriums.>>

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.]

[NOTE: This takes place DURING the holiday plot. If your character is involved in that, then they're still on the surface and not on the ship at this time.]

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them 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.

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

[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. The mission is still going on, so if your character is offship, they won't be around for this.]

Those who have seen Peter Parker around lately will know that he didn't take the Daligig's revelation at all well. Hours spent in the sensoriums fawning over the New York panoramic, even more time spent in the media library trawling through records from Skip James to the Smiths, all of which acutely miserable.

But that was then and this is now. Now-- now he walks quietly through Stacy's corridors, a camera slung over his shoulder and a tatty shoebox in his hands. He scans the walls until he finds one that seems to satisfy whatever purpose he has in store for it and drops to one knee so that he can get at the contents of the box.

One by one he takes out the pictures of friends and family both past and... as present as can be. Being the photography nut that he is most were taken by Peter himself, but there are some from other sources. There is Peter as a kid at Coney Island with his aunt and uncle and photobooth snaps of him and Gwen posing ridiculously. Graduation photos with a begrudging Flash Thompson and one of Harry and Norman back when things were good. A photo of his parents that he credits to May. Shots of the Bugle staff. One of Felicia which he'd had to have been very sly to take and of course, the inimitable Mary Jane Watson.

He takes each of these, looks them over fondly, and tacks them up on the wall. It was a start, the beginnings of what he hoped the rest of the crew would add to. There they were, all the people he'd known and loved over the years. All the people that gave him the strength he needed to face each day were laid out in front of him and in that moment he knew that there was no way in hell that any one of them was gone.

Peter walked into the sensoriums once again, after sending out his message to find Lorne's bar had already been set up, as if Stacy had been expecting him. The green-skinned demon barkeep smiled warmly.

"Hey there, eagle scout!" Lorne said, his voice matching the look on his face. "Thanks for bringing me up again! Your first song's cued up. Let's see how big a crowd you can draw this time!" Peter nodded with a sheepish smile and hopped upstage. He hated to admit it, but this was such a stress relief, and nothing could be more embarrassing than the mistletoe incident.

As a slow piano started playing, Peter began singing his slightly sad tune.

o/`City lights are calling
slowly coming back to life
Speeding in the fastlane
Mama let us waste no time

Devil in the doorway selling any knid of hell
We're just coming out to play the game

We never cry for love - we're superheroes
We are back where we belong
We never cry for pain - we're superheroes
Make a stand where we belong

Way too long I've tried to be
what I could never be
For too long you've rolled the dice
but you can't control me
I ain't talking 'bout romance
you may fiddle I may dance
Anyway it's just a game we play..

We never cry for love - we're superheroes
We are back where we belong
We never cry for pain - we're superheroes
Make a stand where we belong

You gotta move to stay alive
We're gonna rock the bash tonight..

Cry for love-we're superheroes
We are back where we belong

We never cry for love... o/`

Peter finished and looked at those who had shuffled in after his comm. He waved to the mic as he got off the stage.

"Mic is free, guys. Go nuts. It's actually a lot of fun..."

[OOC: Same as last time, folks. 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. See that? EXACTLY the same. Almost like I was lazy and copy/pasted.]

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."

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.

There's a familiar sight in the sensoriums. New York stretches out underneath Peter's feet, starting with the Baxter Building. Perched on the roof with a beer and a ghettoblaster playing Strangers, he picks out his old house in Forest Hills with Aunt May and MJ's next door; his inner city apartment with Harry. Out in the Village he can make out ESU, where he met Gwen and the Bugle building where he met his first love and his greatest nemesis. Doc Conners' lab and Ryker's Island.

It was all gone. And despite what his 'saviours' had assured, he feared that those people were gone too.

Being here on this ship, it was too much. He'd exchanged one war for another. He hadn't seen his friends and family in so long, and he'd never had a chance to say goodbye.

S.H.I.E.L.D's helicarrier hums to itself as it hovers above the city. Peter screams and hurls the beer bottle. His augmented strength is enough to pitch it into the carrier's hull, where it shatters and in pieces tumbles into the streets below.

He screams again, his face in his hands, and a voice speaks up. One that he hasn't heard before. One that would send a chill down his spine if it weren't already occupied.

We have each other, Peter.

And the Kinks play on, "Strangers on this road we are on, we are not two; we are one."

 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.]