Vega went looking for Sherry after a brief conversation over the omnicomm. He still wasn't entirely sure what good a giant maze in the city was, but anything was better than laying around being so boooooored. Or at least, so it seemed to him.

He eyed the structure with curiosity and perhaps a little doubt as he approached.

"Hey Sherry, you here yet?!" he called.

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. 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) and purple 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.]

Vega, like many long-absent crew members, had important things to do when he woke up. Some would have gone to family and friends, inspected their living spaces for tampering, or chased after important ship news.

Vega checked on his Zoid.

He knew it was aware of him from the moment he stepped into the hangar. It was hard to say how he knew, but he felt it. The Berserk Fury had its attention focused on him and it was like a subtle, watching pressure that was difficult to describe. It only gained strength as he approached.

Vega peered up toward the Zoid's head, shadowed in the upper reaches its unlit hangar bay.

"Hi, Fury."

The red "eyes", really windows into the Zoid's cockpit, lit. Vega palmed the nearby control panel to bring up the lights and uncoil the carapaced walkway that would let him get up to the head and examine the consoles there.

The Zoid had missed him. He had been gone, and the Fury had been upset.

"It's okay, I'm back now!"

But he could tell it didn't entirely believe him. What if he left again?

Shortly after the mission to fight GLaDOS, Vega remembered something. A little niggling feeling that had been in the back of his mind for a while finally crept forward. People were missing. People he knew.

Chief among these were Roxie Schreiber and Yuri Otani, two of the best friends he's had on this ship. They've been missing for... he's not sure how long, but it still feels wrong to not have noticed their absence.

But they're not dead or anything, right? Just gone.

It still feels weird. He feels like he needs to do something, if only for the memory. Vega heads down to the city, finding the old path to Roxie's favorite hideout.

Feel free to intercept him on the way, though.

There is only so much one can do by himself before starting to run out of ideas.

Case in point: Lowe's need to build and create had pretty much hit a roadblock as of lately. He's come to realize that, if they were going to fight the Ohm, they would need better gear. Sadly, sitting in the cockpit of the Red Frame for hours at a time in thought wasn't going to cut it. So, he ended up making his way to the Media Library and begin a bit of research there.

What he found was amazing...

"Man, I never knew these sorts of things were around here!" Lowe said, feeding another one of the chips into his Omnicomm, which was pretty much kitbashed onto 8 for better reading and transmitting.

[Agreed. I'd say that this could really give us a leg up on ideas...!] 8 replied as different data and schematics flashed up on its screen. Amongst the scattered chips were different notes Lowe had taken, most of them doodles of Red Frame with different weapons and forms. One had Red Frame with a staff of sorts with a picture of a shape transforming into the staff with the notes "Need to be compact and wieldy. Find Nano Nana Nani Magic Dept. Head for example." Another was a doodle of him in an armor, striking a goofy pose with the note "This is possible. Find Sylia? Master Chef Chief."

"I gotta stop writing in pen." Lowe muttered as he scratched out another small note and corrected it.

Fletcher had just returned from GLaDOS's various tests, and was now in his room in the crew quarters getting reacquainted with the meatship.

Something was strange about it all, though. Somehow, he got the feeling that the room was too big for just him, and emptier than it should be... they were all the same size, though, weren't they? So that was silly.

He sat on his bed, munching on a candy bar he'd picked up while grocery shopping on Zokez II, and waited.

Vega lost a fight. Now that he was back on his feet and more capable of thinking clearly than he was after the battle with the Ohm, the thought hit him like a punch in the face. He'd lost. He'd never lost anything. He was Vega Obscura, The King of Zoid Battles. He was the best pilot there was and ever would be, and the Berserk Fury was the best Zoid. Nothing could stop them.

...Or at least, that's what he thought. But he lost. It wasn't just some battle for a prize, or a tournament, or anything. That would've been okay. It might even have been fun, to be challenged like that for once. But this was... different. Horribly different. When it had really, really counted, he'd failed.

What did that make him now?

Vega was down in the hangar, brow furrowed as he went over the Fury's diagnostics and tried to put this minor identity crisis out of his thoughts. He already had enough work ahead of him, and the bio-plasma spattered left side of the Berserk Fury was a daunting task. He was going to need help with this, he knew that and he was dreading it. But for now, just looking over it and feeling the frustration and anger radiating off the Zoid was enough to clear his mind some and get him to focus on what was happening now.

By this point, the Ohm had spread all across the planet.

Destruction spread throughout the cities of Zokez II. There were evacuees that still needed to escape. People that needed saving.

It was time for the crew to do what they did best.

[ooc: Sub-plots! Check here before tagging.]

Vega Obscura is eleven years old. Apparently, this qualifies him to be the pilot of a vicious multi-ton tyrannosaur robot with a death beam. It does not, however, qualify him to legally drive a golf kart.

This makes absolutely zero sense to Vega, so he's not letting it keep him from enjoying himself.

As a result he'll be puttering around in a little rental golf kart with a solar panel roof, the whine of the little electric motor audible from a distance as he darts up and down streets and sidewalks. He's still figuring out the controls and the steering's jittery, but he's getting it. And going entirely too fast.

"Oh..."

"...my..."

"...god!"

Lowe's exclamation could be heard as it echoed throughout the hangar. It was like being 8 again and waking up Christmas morning. Inside was nothing but vehicles of all types. It was like a melting pot of hundreds of thousands of civilizations' technologies. Many of them a lot more advanced than what ZAFT, the Earth Alliance and Orb could EVER make.

[There's a lot of machines in here. It's almost impossible to count...!] 8 chirped in.

"I know! Ah, man...! I gotta see, I gotta see...!" Lowe said, making his way over to the first thing he saw: an X-Wing. "Man, look at this! This is too sleek of a machine to be a normal Mobile Armor! A-And those guns... they have to be beam weaponry!" He pulled himself away and made his way to the next machine he saw - the Unicorn Thunderzord. "Man, look at this thing! Such an odd design! There has to be something more to it, though: there's no way it could JUST be like this!"

[Perhaps it's a component of something!] 8 said.

"It has to be!" Lowe said. The next thing he gazed at: the Unit 2. "Wow... that thing's HUMONGOUS! There's no way that's a Mobile Suit - Mobile Suits that big is just ASKING to get it's butt kicked!"

[We're dealing with a melting pot here. What may be a sitting duck in our world may be... Hold on!] 8 chirped before being stopped. [I think... 20 meters in front of us!]

"Twenty meters...?" Lowe repeated, confused. He made his way forward and gasped. In front of him was a VERY familiar machine. "It's... it's Red Frame! But, it's different!"

[Perhaps it's a gift from our saviors!] 8 said.

"It has to be... I-I gotta check it out!" Lowe said, making his way into the cockpit.

In between his time spent helping clean up the city and his work with Rogue Squadron, Jamie hadn't been able to dedicate as much time to his Zoid as he was accustomed to doing. He didn't mind his newer duties, but he missed the familiar routine of working on the Geno Saurer and keeping her tuned up - and, if he were to be perfectly honest, he felt a little guilty, too, as though he were neglecting her.

So today, Jamie'd made it a point to set aside a chunk of time to spend in the hangar. He doubted the Geno would require a great deal of maintenance, but it would be nice simply to be with her; the last few weeks had been stressful and upsetting, and the Geno was a soothing presence that made him feel grounded and settled.

As always, he could feel her focusing on him as he approached, an eerie sort of eyes-on-the-back-of-the-head feeling that he'd found unnerving the first few times he'd experienced it, but now was as much a part of her - and thus, as reassuringly familiar - as anything else about the blue tyrannosaurus Zoid. He smiled and laid a hand on her huge silver claw, murmuring affectionately as he looked her over and contemplated where to start.

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.]

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Caelestine, Fletcher, Sherry, Vega, Doc, Asuka]}

Being unable to sleep, to put it in layman's terms, sucked. Unlike her parents, Sherry wasn't used to not being able to sleep peacefully, and found herself waking up frequently, clutching whatever was available - the pillow, Claire, Bandit. It was making her cranky, and she could hear herself making snippy remarks in the back of her mind about anything and everything.

Tiredly, she pushed her hair out of her face (it was getting too, too long, time to ask her mother for a haircut) and rolled her shoulders as she stepped into the sensoriums, a hand rustling through the leather bag to reach for her reader. Sherry knew she was supposed to be studying. After all, that's how she spent 90% of her time on the ship when not with the other kidlets.

The scene around her warbled and changed, while Sherry put her bag on a chair and stepped up onto a little pedestal. Not Raccoon City today, or some nameless park in some place somewhere, but the science deck of the Jupiter II from the Lost in Space movie. Technically this was studying, and training, too? Right?

The red and blue hologram of Robot settled over her little body. On a screen, the silicon-based cannibalistic spiders slowly chewed their way through a steel door. "Heart Rate Monitor on, please. Stop it when I get too scared," Sherry told the machine. She flexed her fingers a few times, testing out the claws as the large metal robot on another screen wheeled into view. The claws clanked together and when she leaned forward, Robot moved forward the door. Sherry opened her hands and pushed them forward one at a time, pumping the air and firing shots at the spiders as they came through the hole. Many of the shots went wide, but as she got used to it, they slowly started getting better.

The little girl smiled. Pew pew pew!

How long was it since she was released? A week, maybe more? For Vivio, it felt like an eternity. While she missed home and everyone around, having her mothers and Reinforce around made things seem less empty.

Even if she was from their future.

But, at the moment, she wanted to put everything behind her and have some fun. To that end, she took over one of the Sensoriums and pretty much had it recreate a large playground: just because they're on a ship didn't mean she couldn't act like a child!

Letting out a giggle, she ran over to one of the swings and hopped on, pushing herself to start swinging.

(OoC: It's open to all, but the children here are more than welcome to come in and join Vivio! o/)

Vega has missed the meet and greet, and the sensoriums are up. These two things, naturally, are related. If you step inside, you'll find yourself in a long room stretching off to each side with the wall across from you completely windowed, looking out into a massive arena. There's some kind of equipment off at one end, apparently a communication system of some kind. The lights are on but the screens are dark.

But what's most interesting is out on the field.

( This cut contains MECHA FIGHTING. But it's mostly just long. :P )

[OOC: Feel free to come in whenever during the course of the battle/before it/after it, but Vega can't talk until he's finished his fight.]

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."

Between the medical staff among the crew and Stacy’s highly-advanced technology, it wasn’t very long before Paco was well enough to cut back on his meds. That meant that it wasn’t very long before Paco could actually hold a coherent conversation with someone without accusing them of wearing a variety of live animals as hats as he slipped in and out of unconsciousness. Finally, he reached a point where he could actually get a message out requesting that someone come visit him.

That was what he was waiting on at the moment. He hoped that someone would see his message on the comms and swing by soon, he could use the distraction. He was currently engaged in a staring contest with his stump in an attempt to convince his brain that his right forearm did not itch.

Why the hell did “mind over matter” only work when it wasn’t helpful?

Something's been moved down to the hangar.

Something big and foreboding, with glowing red eyes cutting through the dimness of its bay.

And it's watching you.

Incidentally, has anyone seen Vega today? Spoiler: He's curled up on top of one of this thing's feet.

The undead were pounding at the doors -- all of them, and the windows, and the walls in general for that matter.

The front doors were going to be a problem, though. They zombies were actually breaking through there.

Battle stations everyone!