TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[freezers]

TEST DRIVE #1

The universe is fading into a bitter, cold blackness. Planet by planet, star by star, life is disappearing. For the good ship Koska IV there is no return voyage, there is no home, there is only forward. Behind it is the devastating emptiness of a life devoured, and the threat of an unseen enemy always at its heels. It can be argued perhaps that where the Kostka goes death follows, that it leaves ruin in its wake. If you ask Ripley, though, she'll say that they're only just managing to outrun the inevitable. Waking up aboard the ship feels strangely like waking up in a mausoleum. You emerge from your cryo pod like climbing out from a tomb, born new into a world long gone silent and still. The monolithic vessel now exists as a ghost town, halls dimly lit with emergency power, the only sounds being the mechanical ticking and groaning metal of the Kostka, laboring on like a wounded, burdened beast. Don’t mind the dust, the grime or the occasional blood splatter; cleaning is a nonessential function the droids don’t have energy to waste on. Kostka IV, once a transport designed for leisure cruises to and from new colonies, hobbles along on her last leg, urged on and on by the AI left to command her - R.I.P., affectionately termed ‘Ripley’ by her now absent crew. The sprawling, shadowy halls are only trafficked by Ripley’s minimal team of droids, the least that she can spare in straining her corrupted processes, much of both the ship and her systems in dire disrepair. Preserve organic life: Ripley’s primary, core directive and singular focus, the one goal above all else, which must be met, no matter the cost. And now, your goal too, as on Kostka IV, though crippled, Ripley is God, and the body your consciousness inhabits now is not your own - a semi-organic, synthetic host that morphs to fit the form you left, rather than the skin you were born to. You were saved from what is coming (for her, for you, for everyone), because Ripley needs more hands to keep this last ark of humanity afloat, as the ship struggles to find safe harbor, making stops along the way to pick up resources, to search for life. To find a home, and a future, for us all. ( Kostka is a panfandom, scifi, survival/horror jamjar, with elements of psychological and body horror (in varying, opt-out-able levels) peppered along with your general monster movie fair, driven by character interaction and influence with heavy meta-plot guided by regular mod events. Set on a mobile ship traversing through differing dimensions, characters are transported into semi-organic, synthetic bodies that replicate their canon form, able to be upgraded with powers through bonus AC rewards, and brought onto the crew to assist a debilitated AI in escaping a force destroying the multiverse, while they seek to salvage what remains of life. Events will feature some known canon worlds (like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Bioshock, etc), along with some uniquely built between mods and player world-building. This game is invite-only, and we have a player cap of 30, with two character slots available for each player. The game has been inspired by: Battlestar Galactica, SOMA, Altered Carbon, Mass Effect, Passengers, Black Mirror, and various others. ) GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE ⬡ AKA; waking up naked with tubes/cables in half ur orifices probably, gross A spark of electricity convulses through your body, and you jolt awake - underwater. Or, at least, that's most peoples' first guess. The color is more vibrant than water should be, and heavier, your body feeling sluggish against the weight and drag of it. Or perhaps you're just slower to respond, distant, limbs and mind still drowsy and reeling. The bright fluid doesn't sting when you blink, if anything, it's soothing, healing, calming. Fortunate, that, because you're going to need it. As the pod-like chamber you're held in starts to drain of the liquid, your senses start to flood back in. Awareness filters in like a window curtain holding back the morning sun, gradually easing away with each inch the water line lowers. There's something on your face - a mask, strapped around the back of your head, and other thinner tendrils against your cheeks, your ears, your neck. Narrow tubes are channeled through in your nostrils, and cables have slithered in through your ears, plugging into God knows what on the inside of your skull. There's a click that you feel more than hear, and the tension on them slacks, disconnected from somewhere inside you. Pull - up, back, to the side, whichever way you want - and they start to drag free. Far from the most pleasant feeling (likely leaves you wanting to crawl right out of your skin), but it doesn't quite hurt or burn, yet. That's for the inch wide tube shoved down your throat and held in place by the mask. It's also what's keeping you breathing underneath this blue space-goo though, so maybe don't go yanking it off until the lid of your pod opens. As the fluid drains, a voice crackles in over the sound of water oscillating around your ears. Not something played from a speaker anywhere, nothing projected on a screen, and whether the cables are still in your ears or not, you hear her all the same, as if she's more inside your head than she is broadcasting over a speaker inside the pod or coming muffled from outside. Even still, it's stuttered and interrupted, like the connection is weak, interference like static white noise buzzing through and covering up parts of sentences. ❝ I don’t have a lot of tim— RIP can’t spare the power to run this more t—, so pay attention. No one knows where it came fr— out of radio contact when it happened, whatever it w— Everything in its path. There is no fighting it. Only surviv— Droids handle most of the maintenance, but she’s getting wor— Take the load off. Whatever happe— just keep Ripley running. If the ship stops, we’re all dea— —’re bodies are new, still adjusting. You’ll be on unsteady legs for a while, so take it slo— might end up face-planting, and there’s only so many replacemen— Mess hall’s lock— so make do. The cryo pod fluid’s the most nutritious thing around, just don’t think about wh— —’s all I can tell you. Good luck. ❞ » » » READ MORE HERE « « « At the end of the long lines of cryo pods, the halls meet at a small medbay. It seems some merciful someone has left a stack of thin, cloth sheets on one of the medbay tables, so it's best you pick one up, towel off a bit, and then toga it, until you find something more durable. Hopefully, at some point, someone will discover a door leading to a storage room is unlocked. There, you'll find some very stylish, bright orange jumpsuits. With luck, you'll make it there before you freeze. NETWORK ⬡ AKA; welcome to Kostka IV, Have Some K-Pop While Projection is not yet available, all HOST bodies share free access to a neural network through which they can communicate via text, audio, or video. One of the first things the HOST platform will prompt the new mind housed inside it will be to set up a sequence of finger taps to open up the network HUD. The system is fairly intuitive, and all one need do is reach up a hand to touch the option they wish to select. For text, a keyboard overlay will appear in the HOST's visual perception, and, dy default, all messages will show: a name, a username, and an ID code. Feel free to make these up as you like. These can be adjusted, and a HOST can post anonymously to the network as well (no guarantees Ripley can't trace it back to the origin, but she's not going to tell). There are no real rules on the usage of this network, aside from don't try to hack your friends, or your not-friends (just don't hack anyone, okay, it's rude). Ripley does understand the human need to socialize, especially in trying and stressful circumstances, so have at it kids. Ripley, however, will be making one quick announcement that she will not be capable of replying to just yet - waking you jerks up took a lot out of her, so give her some time. The voice that you hear doesn't come through any speaker or intercom around you, nor is it originating from any of the bodies or droids nearby. You hear what sounds like a young girl speaking as if inside your head, and she sounds exhausted: ❝ ATTENTION ALL CREW: This is Ripley. While I realize abduction and consciousness displacement is frowned upon in many human societies, please understand this was an emergency protocol enacted at the last possible moment. You have questions. I will answer as best as I'm able, as much as I'm able, but much of the data you're looking for has suffered massive corruption, held in a type of quarantine. The most important thing you need to know is that you, and all organic life within the multiverse, are being hunted. The mission of this vessel is to protect and preserve what remains of that life. Take time to acclimate to your new platforms. We'll talk more later. Ripley out. ❞ MAINTENANCE ⬡ AKA; get that human skull out of the filtration tank pls, or u stepped on a droid and now it's mad. We're hoping you had time to get over the Bambi legs and get your space legs under you (as well as some space pants onto your body), because Ripley expended a lot of processing power to waking you up. That means it's up to you to make up the difference and get to work cleaning this place up to make it habitable for you and your new crewmates. It's been nothing but RIP and her droids for the last who knows how long, so those things that need to be functioning for the continued survival of organic bodies need to get working. Here's the chores on the docket: ⬡ Water Filtration; Hydration - always a must for you squishy, fleshy things, isn't it? The canal that runs through the Ring atrium is a large part of the reserves, and at one dark innocuous end an uncomfortable grinding noise can be heard. Beneath the surface of the water where there should be wall, there is instead an enormous fan about ten feet in diameter. It's grinding so loud the sound escapes the water barrier, and the cause is pretty clear. There's something wedged between one of the fan blades and the circular housing it's contained in. Someone will need to dive down ten or twelve feet and unstick the human skull stopping the filtration system from running. Beware, though — the second it's free the fan blades will begin spinning, sucking gallons upon gallons of water down into the depths. Hope you can swim! ⬡ O2 Garden; Oxygen - another must. The up-side here is that the facility has been virtually untouched, yielding unchecked growth for the time no one's been tending to it. The bad part is more about the chaos that's left behind. The garden is nearly a jungle at this point, and if crew is to make their way around easily, manage the hydroponics, and set up the vegetable gardens again to provide food outside of the cryo soup, there's some major work to be done. It likely doesn't help that some of the more volatile samples have broken free from containment and mixed in with the rest of the garden. One hostile species will spit acidic venom at things wandering close to its roots while others just chomp down on anything that ventures within reach. Riply advises boots and protective gear when taking on this task, but getting rid of those weeds is up to you. ⬡ Assist the Droids; The won't talk, but they do beep and boop and shove things at your person to hold. If you're unwilling to help with anything else going on, you'll be assigned as a glorified pack-mule. Hold whatever the droids give you, hold it right there, hold it steady, and if you get shocked because you moved too much to the left, well, you really only have yourself to blame. Keep a mind to where your feet are falling as well - stepping on a droid zooming past will not only be likely to get you knocked on your ass, but probably earn you an short, sharp, electric shock from them as well. Good luck, have fun, try not to die because Ripley's exhausted from waking you up, and the droids suck at first aid— not to mention, very stiff bedside manner. VR / SAFETY TRAINING ⬡ AKA; ur gonna die a lot because space sucks. Let's face it, we weren't all born ready to space labor, or even space living. Loath as Ripley is to expend the power reserves on VR, the lot of you need to be trained up and the droids lack that personal touch that inspires excellence. RIP will be taking point on this assignment. It's a One Time Offer (well, we're calling it that now): the crew working away has freed up some CPU for Ripley, and because positive reinforcement is proven to work well on new puppies, she is rewarding you with Brain Stimulating Activities (aka safety training (or not)). This ship, especially dilapidated and running on emergency power as it is, is a dangerous place to be, even without the endless vacuum of space waiting outside to murder the absolute shit out of you. Characters will be given a VR visor, droids tapping a few buttons on a nearby console, and zipping away. Which, regretfully, means you won't be getting a warning or a say in what you're walking into, but walking into it you are, none-the-less. Sort of. Virtual walking. ⬡ Space walk; The Kostka IV has seen her fair share of daring battles and random asteroid clusters, leaving the frame of the beast of a ship pock-marked with damage. There's weakened structure, thermal panels missing, guns that don't want to get un-stuck and retract back into their housing. All kinds of nonsense. It's your job to tend to all that. Instructional videos will crop up on your HUD, walking you through your repairs, but that's assuming you can get to your spot at all, rather drift off into the sparkling black nether of the universe. Keep a good grip on the handrails outside. Now and again, something might give a quick, sharp shove, like hands against your side or your arm, attempting to dislodge you. Hold on tight, don't be tricked, and don't get lost. ⬡ Planet-Side; Suit up, it's time for a (practice) deployment, onto a little planet that doesn't exist in reality. The objective in this mission is resource retrieval, with taking samples of life forms as secondary. Some of the life forms, however, are not feeling that friendly. Depending on how the VR roulette spins you, it could be a dry planet, with deserts bordered by harsh mountain ranges, low on vegetation but populated by carnivorous dinosaur looking, that burrow deep, deep underground for water, and sometimes reach up to grab onto an ankle, pulling prey down into the sands to finish them off. It might be a thickly forested planet, humid and crowded with exotic flora. Ripley will tell you to collect water and samples of plants, perhaps bring a couple of fauna with. The smaller ones look cute and harmless, until they open their maws and you see rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth. Once you've been in there for a while, though, you start to feel a little paranoid, a little like you're being watched. Remain too oblivious, or just happen on bad luck, and your new stalker will be leaping out to make a meal of you. Or, maybe you end up somewhere completely different. Players are free to get creative with the setting as much as they like! Remember, this is VR, so they can (and likely will) die as much as you wish. Ripley will just spin the VR program back up for them to start again. ⬡ Crew Bonding: It's time to learn CPR! These kinds of first aid basics are necessary when having little fleshy people running amok, and Ripley would rather the crew be responsible for resuscitating their peers than having to grab a droid every time someone needs a shock back to life. An explanation will be given, and crew will asked to pair up and practice either on each other or a few spare HOST bodies not yet filled with a mind save. But, when it comes time for a test, one of the new crew will have to play the victim. Ripley's always been one with a vested interest in authenticity, so she takes control of victim's HOST platform - they stop breathing, their heart stops beating. It’s been a while since she’s People’d, okay? Anyway, the pressure is on, and your crewmates are counting on you to keep them alive. If you fail, she'll... probably turn their hearts back on before they're well and truly dead. We hope. » NAVIGATION « General questions about the game can be directed to the FAQ, while TDM questions can be answered on the comment header below! Awakening threads for GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE, MAINTENANCE and NETWORK can be used as game canon so long as all parties agree. Arrivals are on Day 1, while the other two prompts can take place any time during the first 5 IC days of the game timeline. The VR PROMPTS diverge a bit from what we have planned for the opening and cannot be used to game canon, so please feel free to get creative with those! Reserves will open on: March 1st @ 8PM EST Applications will open on: March 5th @ 8PM EST

Comments

QUESTIONS;

[freezers]

If it's questions about the TDM, ask them here! If they're general game questions, please visit the FAQ page.

Bucky Barnes | MCU

[freightcars]

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE

[At first his eyes only open half way and the world around him sways, lazy and still like a womb. Like the bottom of a still lake, deep water, lines of seaweed reaching in tendrils up toward the surface looking for light. He watches them oscillate back and forth for minutes, calm and dreamy, and his eyes want to fall shut again so he can enjoy the momentary serene, sweetly empty bliss of a blank mind and no gravity.

A little awareness trickles in before he can drift off, though, and his eyes focus on a tendril of that weed properly, taking in the rigidness, the straight lines found only in the artificial. The inorganic. It's not a weed, it's a cable. He tracks it with his eyes first, until it dips below his range of vision and ducking his head a little doesn't reveal it. He tracks it with his fingers next, reaching out slowly, curling them around the thing, chasing it up inch by inch until he reaches his face.

There's a mask on it. There's a mask covering his mouth, and he can feel suddenly the tube going down his throat. The swaying of the cables becomes inadvertently menacing as he begins to writhe, tugging at it in disbelief and the first trappings of fear.

This is hardly the first time he's woken up bound in cables with a mask strapped across his mouth, trapped and confined to clear glass, a tube in his throat, limbs heavy, lethargic. Soon someone will come release him, he knows, and he'll collapse under the weight of gravity. He knows two handlers will wedge themselves beneath his arms and drag him toward a chair, where he will drip as they strap him in. They'll lower the halo down upon his head and shoot a thousand volts straight into his brain, and they'll take everything.

Everything. Again.

His panic becomes a proper sensation, a real and physical dread. The floundering becomes chaotic and wild, ripping at the cords around him, digging his fingernails into the glass above his face, flailing even as they retract. In his haste and his panic, he rips the tube from his throat and holds his breath at the sudden onslaught of fluid. He doesn't catch the whispered words in his mind, they're lost on him.

Before the fluid is even drained, before the lid is even completely off, Barnes is dragging himself out of the thing limb over limb like some kind of sopping wet naked spider, gasping hoarsely, nearly hyperventilating. His legs don't work quite right but that doesn't seem to stop him, it just means that rather than standing or slowly lowering he rolls out of the pod and gravity drops him heavily onto the ground flat on his back. He's a damn mess in the process, dragging nutrient fluid with him, hair matted, skin slick and shiny, hand groping for the lid of the pod above him to try and drag himself to his feet.

There are no coherent thoughts in his head, only a sentiment: run, run, run-

Fight or flight begins with the latter, but have you ever been half-tackled by a naked bambi-legged two hundred pound man? The first person that tries to approach him will earn that experience first hand.]

MAINTENANCE

[Day two, and Barnes sort of has his shit together. Don't get him wrong, it took hours for the panic to fade and for his mind to wrap around the whole I'm in goddamn space thing. He's still working on that part, but at least he's dressed and sort of walking (ish. mostly. for a few minutes at a time). It's on the path down an unfamiliar hallway that the first droid catches him, dropping a big square block of something into his arms. He freezes beneath it, wide-eyed, watching it zip off. He doesn't get the chance to react before a second droid shows up, depositing another rounder bundle of something on top of the first that he's got to dip to stabilize, muttering an incredulous: ]

What the hell?

[ Evidently he has been elected the Supreme Stuff Holder by a half dozen droids, because a small army of them comes one after the other, beeping and depositing their load into his overburdened arms. When they're full, droids start dropping something on his shoulders, the top of his head, hanging things out of his pockets and off his belt loops.

Within minutes he's decked out like some kind of space themed Christmas tree, afraid to move, stone faced. ]

AIRLOCK

[ It took him three days to find it, and two more days of safety training to get permission to use it. Bucky Barnes has officially figured out how to work the airlock. Anyone wandering by may catch him in the act, and his process is as follows:

Ensure the outer door is closed.
Ask Rip if the room is pressurized.
Ask her again to make sure she's sure.
Disengage the safety lock to the inner door.
Open the inner door.
Stick a piece of garbage, scrap metal, or junk in the middle of the room.
Leave the room.
Shut the door
Engage the safety lock.
Ask Rip if the safety lock is engaged.
Ask if she's sure.
Smack the red button.

Process complete, a little red light switches on, a warning tone sounds, and then the outer door opens up sucking whatever he placed in the room out into space. Judging by the junk floating just outside the door visible through the glass, he's been doing this for a while. If you shoot him a judgmental look he'll just shrug and flatly say: ]

Never gets old.

[ Space. ]

good morning, starshine

[redweb]

[This is not her first time being half tackled by a two hundred pound man, not even one that responds to the monicker of winter soldier, but she does not remember this.

Natasha is not in a good space herself, either. Too much of this is familiar in the worst sort of way. Tubes and fluid, and being strapped down, and it makes her feel fragmented, in that way that her memories overlap on themselves. So when she approaches the man and that quiet, unsure call of winter soldier? gets her a body tackling her own, it's like her brain turns off.

She curls up as she goes down, so she can get her legs up against her torso, protect the soft space under her ribs. It also gives her the ability to try and use her leg muscles to try and put space between them, but she still gasps when her back hits the floor, red hair falling around her face as she looks up with blue eyes. She tries to shift so that she can roll their tangled limbs to the side, slide out from under his weight.

Her body feels slower than it should, almost lethargic, but she's fought while drugged before, so it's not a sensation that she's unaccustomed to. They're in too close for her to really throw a punch, but not for an elbow to the throat.]

Jack Benjamin | Kings

[cicatrize]

ARRIVAL;

[ some people may rouse gradually, coming into awareness gently, keeping their calm about the mask on their face, the fluid around them, and the enclosed space they’re held in.

Jack Benjamin is not one of those people.

He freaks pretty much immediately, once underwater registers, only made worse and worse with the passing of mask, and peaking with hands lifting to slap violently against the plexi-glass sides of the pod when closed coffin-like space sinks in. it’s not okay. None of it is okay, and this isn’t really Duplicity’s style, but considering he just watched them execute and torture some people the last week or so? It’s hard to say for certain what is anymore.

The cables and nodes pull from his face and torso as he arches up when the pod lid finally gives, the fluid at about halfway drained, and Jack lets out a muffled gag when he tries to leap from the device, only to be pulled back by the tube still lodged down his throat. Pulling it free is a mess of croaking, wailing sounds, leaving him a coughing, hacking mess, but free from the tentacle monster of a space-tube he’d just been buried in. hauling himself over the edge of the pod, he hits the ground like a newborn foal - ungraceful, covered in nasty fluids, flailing, and severely unhappy to conscious right now.

A droid hovers by, and Jack stretches out an open palm towards it, as if he’s expecting the droid to just… levitate on over to him. When nothing happens, he frowns, shakes his hand, tries it again. Nothing? Nothing. He's broke. ]

That’s fine. That’s great. [ he’ll just lay right here, thanks. Flopping his head back, Jack breathes out slowly, before calling out louder, voice raspy from the tube: ] Management should be informed: this is not the right way to encourage more oral.

VR;

[ you know what doesn’t feel great? Having a giant slug-dino playing sandworm chomping down on your leg as you inhale sand while trying to scream. That’s what jack comes rocketing out of his VR simulation from, yanking the metal visor from his head and throwing it to the side (where a droid skitters after it, frantically). ]

Holy God— [ Jack’s gasping, hand to his chest as his heart pounds and his skin crawls, trying to sear that memory from his mind. Yes, it wasn’t real, yes, he’s been in VR before and he knows the difference, but this body and how it interacts with the fabricated reality seamlessly is just… entirely too much. The droid that scampered off for the visor comes wheeling itself back to jack a second later, holding out the discarded visor with skinny, robo-arms. Jack stares at it, flat. ] You cannot be serious.

[ it’s a robot, of course it’s serious. But come on, he’s still calming down from the panic attack the last session caused, give him a fucking break? Jack waves a hand dismissively, pacing away to go sit against a wall with someone else either not participating, or taking a break like him. ]

I thought we were brought here to run the ship, not volunteer for torture.

NETWORK (TEXT);

NAME: Benjamin, Jonathan
USERNAME: jbenjamin
ID: IV 01-738-84739

Is anyone else concerned about our fearless leader being a twelve-year-old?

WILDCARD;

[ hit me with whatever o7 ]

arrival;

[freightcars]

[ They haven't found the supply closet yet, or at least Bucky hasn't. He did, however, find the stack of sheets nearby and has affixed one to his waist. The bottom of it drags the ground a little, it's soaked with cryofluid people have been dragging out with their limp bodies, splashed down the front and otherwise tainted with signs of use.

His hair is mostly dry too, though it's clumped in strands. Hairbrushes are another thing he hasn't gotten around to finding yet.

All these signs point to Bucky having been out of the pod for a fair shake longer than Jack by now, a couple hours maybe, enough to get over the initial panic and start helping out the others trying to get their bearings. It's by sheer luck he spots Jack trying to levitate a droid, and he's at the guy's side a beat later reaching a hand out to wrap around his wrist.

He does not, however, try and haul him to his feet.

For... Reasons Jack will soon discover, if he hasn't already. No, instead he goes down, hitting one knee maybe a little too quick and a little too hard. It zings, but it's hardly important right now.

His voice is raw and raspy from the tube, from the rough job he gave himself ripping the thing out and the subsequent elbow to the throat he took right after. ]

Hey- hey- you okay?

steve rogers | marvel cinematic universe

[accountability]

a. GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE

[ The impact jars him. Hit the water's surface too fast. His brain tells him that he's drowning, suffocating, choking —

— sucks in a breath, arms and legs thrashing —

"Breathe. Easy — in and out. Just like that — " a hand on his back, slender fingers so much like his own,

The water pulls away like a tide. The mask and the tubes recede with his clumsy grasp and sluggish movements, a miscellany of wires along with them. Someone's talking over comms (from where? too close, sounds more like in his head), over static, and not making a hell of a lot of sense. Pay attention. He's trying. Not a voice he recognizes. Not a place he recognizes either, but neither does he remember crawling into goop filled pod.

Sam and Natasha. The three of them were boarding the quinjet, getting ready to head out again.

Then — here.

He hits the floor on hands and knees, tumbling over the side of — a tub? Some kind of pod. Eyes are still adjusting. His body is exhausted or drugged somehow or both, and though his lungs are working fine there's that burning down his throat, an itch in each ear. He tries to get on his feet. Ends up sliding back down the side of the pod. Grimaces. The woman said something about new bodies. A chill runs down his spine, stomach lurching. A hand reaching over to press into a thigh muscle. Fleshy, solid.

Someone else, multiple someones are moving. He's not the only one here, or the only one having a problem. ]

Sam, Nat —

b. MAINTENANCE (WATER FILTRATION)

Doesn't look that far down.

[ He's standing on the water's edge, watching the filtration fan struggle against whatever it is wedged between its blades. Swimming's not usually a problem for him. Walking's not usually either, but after the trouble everyone had upon waking up earlier — well, at least he can say it's not the first time his body's gone through some abrupt changes.

Keeps that thought to himself.

He starts stripping out of the standard issue jumpsuit they've all been giving, down to his underthings. ]

Better check something first. [ Clothes off, he sits on the edge of the canal, legs in the water. Waits a second before sliding in, treading up to his neck.

Better check how long he can actually hold his breath now. ]

c. VR TRAINING (DESERT PLANET)

[ The system drops him on a rocky outcropping in the middle of the desert under a cloudless, yellow-orange sky. His skin is covered, wrapped in a dark brown suit that's nearly skin tight, visor goggles over his eyes. He's tempted to take them off, feel the simulation's approximation of the sun. It's been a few too many days under the artificial lighting of the ship.

Resource retrieval is the mission. At a glance, there's not much besides sand, sand, and more sand. In the near distance the ground shimmers, either a trick of the light or something moving, too hard to tell. To the east is another outcropping, larger than the on they're standing on - and what appears to be man-made openings dug into the side. Well, it's a direction.

The simulation hasn't bothered to give them much in the way of supplies. There's a plasma pistol at his side, limited energy rounds, and a multi-tool with a plasma knife. The rocks he's standing on start to shake under their feet. That shimmer in the near distance? It's now a rumble, and a dark shape bursts from the sand about a hundred meters behind where he's standing. A truck sized, fish-like creature rears its maw, scattering a flock of vulture-lizards.

Probably should avoid that. ]

( OOC: Taking him from a few days before the start of Infinity War! VR prompt is a general set up, so feel free to place your dude into the simulation however you want! )

VR

[bordersystem]

[ Deserts are not her specialty. She had a special fondness for places luscious and wet, so overabundant that nature hardly knew what to do with itself besides whisper. Wind howls across the dunes in a voice she does not recognize and it fills her with a pang of something that must be homesickness. She is still thinking on this, when a creature that should not belong pops out into the open air.

It must not spend much time aboveground, or all those delicate fins and flesh would dry out... She would rather not kill it, even knowing it is the furthers thing from actually alive. Knowing it can't really hurt her. She takes out the pistol anyway. She very precisely only shoots once, hoping that might scare the creature away and let them carry on with something else. ]

Sam Winchester | Supernatural

[familybusiness]

Good Morning, Sunshine

[Well, this is a new one.

In his short, but also far too long, time in the Cage with the Devil himself, Lucifer has devised all sorts of scenarios, each more horrifying and debilitating than the last. He's experienced pain, trauma, manipulations beyond anything anyone can really comprehend, but he's never opened his eyes to anything like this.

It looked like something straight out of a sci-fi horror movie.

He wrenches the tube from his throat (so long, too long) and crumples to the cold floor, shaken and terrified, his head turning from one side to the other as if he keep seeing ghosts out of the corner of his eye.

With or without help, Sam eventually makes it down to the medbay where he silently shoves himself into one of the orange jumpsuits. Hopefully, it's big enough. He's pretty tall.]

Water Filtration

[A day or two later and Sam is starting to think this isn't in his head after all. He hasn't seen or heard from Lucifer at all, and while everything about this screams Alien, nothing has jumped out of the shadows at him.

Yet.

Still, there's things that need to be fixed, and if he's working on that he's not thinking about...everything else, so here he is, staring down at the underwater fan making that horrible noise.]

Well, there's our problem.

[He points toward where he can see the object keeping it stuck.]

Water Filtration

[righteously]

[ Dean stands beside him, face unimpressed, jumpsuit on up to the pants but he's got the top half hanging sort of off with the arms tied around his waist like a belt. Too prison-y, and he's already made or heard at least three jokes about dropping the space-soap since he got here. No thanks.

Also, no thanks to the pool of death beneath them. Double no thanks to Captain Obvious to his right, who he flashes an unimpressed look and flatly says: ]

You think?

[ The better question is how they're gonna get it out, because... ]

Well, I'm just gonna say it- I'm not diving down in there and getting chopped up by a death fan.

zoya nazyalensky ( grishaverse ) potential spoilers for King of Scars

[tempestes]

( a ) - ＧＯＯＤ  ＭＯＲＮＩＮＧ  ＳＵＮＳＨＩＮＥ ( spoilers for King of Scars in this prompt )

( she's choking.

she's fucking choking.

consciousness barely registers a second before the tube down her throat has the girl nearly thrashing in her pod. she has no idea what's been shoved down her throat, but she's almost certain Elizaveta is behind some new, unimaginable, ridiculously over the top torture that makes Zoya want to strangle her all over again. she's too busy trying to swallow around a tube lodged down her esophagus to notice that she's not trapped in a casing of amber, a way too familiar sensation. she just registers her body is in something thick.

and the thing down her throat is really unbearable.

the pod pops open and Zoya's spilling out onto the floor. the tube is roughly jerked from her throat as her body lands far enough that it can no longer stay completely lodged. it was coming out anyway. she's gasping for air as if she had been drowning, but realizes that she doesn't have the same sensation of drowning. she feels... mostly fine. ish. as much as can be expected.

it's now that she looks up through slime slicked bangs at her metallic tomb. her fingers grip the edge of the pod she's sprawled next to so tightly her knuckles turn white. where is she now...? how did she get here? she recalls the voice now, it had been buried in her panic but her clearer mind clings to the wisps of memory.
good luck.

instinctively the young woman pulls for the comforting embrace of a gentle breeze. anything to make this death box less of a nightmare.

nothing answers.

she flicks her fingers again. she reaches and pulls. she searches out moisture to grab at. fire. anything. panic starts to flood her mind and she's starting to hyperventilate. she makes wide gesture as she tries to summon the winds or lightning or anything to her side.

then she howls.

her screams are full of anguish and pain. a feeling so raw that she falls back to the floor, shoulders heaving. she's not quite sobbing, but she's close to it. )

It's gone. It's gone. It can't be gone. ( she murmurs to herself over and over again. )

( b ) - ＭＡＩＮＴＥＮＡＮＣＥ ( O2 Gardens )

( she does not wallow. she does not waste. Zoya will not have it said that she doesn't do her part for the ship.

even if she never asked to be here or be a part of any of this, but whatever. she's still alive at least, and she's not about to let others suffer from her weakness.

so she suits up ( orange is absolutely hideous ), and grabs extra gloves and boots before making her way to the gardens. it's harder labor than she'd prefer, but it's absolutely horrid in there. she would like to see it fully restored. she manages to find a bucket and begins the only way she can, ripping out the easily identifiable weeds. "easily identifiable" being the key phrase here.

some plants don't seem to take kindly to her cleaning. she barely moves her foot in time when one snaps at it. then promptly slams her boot down on the root, digging it in until the thing relents. )

I think this place may be in need of a different kind of taming than expected. ( she shrugs with a straight face. ah well. she still presses on. )

( c ) - ＶＲ  ＴＲＡＩＮＩＮＧ ( water planet )

( the water world is phenomenal, really. even if it is artificial, Zoya becomes enraptured by everything she sees. plants alight with their own natural techniques, creatures of such unique design that they survive pressures only made possible by the suits Zoya and her crew wear in the simulation.

this mission is simple, retrieve samples of resources that can be used for... something sciencey. Nikolai would understand better than her, and she doesn't care as much as he would to figure out the science of the request. all she knows is they have coordinates to follow to a location that... )

It's moving. ( zoya ponders as they near the dot. she had thought it a trick of her mind, until they got close enough that ever edge of the map was clear enough to note the thing slowly drifting through the abyssal oceans. )

We can still catch it. ( she sets off after the dot, closer and closer, just around a corner and...

the behemoth of a... she has no idea what it is, but she stops short suddenly. she checks the map again, then looks back to the creature. )

It's either on that thing... or it's inside of it.

Who's first?

( a ) - ＷＩＬＤＣＡＲＤ

( open to any and all other prompts! pm or pp magickal if you have any questions )

( ooc; zoya is from the end of king of scars, so please be warned for probable spoilers if you mind. )

b

[accountability]

[ Digging in the dirt some feet away is a bearded man in the same orange jumpsuit. The fabric's sporting a few battle scars from a recent encounter with one of those acid spitting monstrosities. Been a while since Steve had any use for a green thumb. When he was a kid he briefly cared for a tiny tomato plot once, under the supervision of the elderly neighbor that had seeded it.

Tomatoes would be nice right now. ]

Looks like you've got a handle on it.

[ His head cants to one side, giving her an amiable enough look before raising an eyebrow at the weed under her boot.

He's been trying to avoid the volatile specimens while looking around for something to contain them in, but he's starting to think she might have the right idea. ]

ghost bird | southern reach -- is a spoiler

[bordersystem]

ENTIRELY FLAVOR TEXT

[ The awakening is unpleasant, she can't really deny that, but then... birth always is traumatic. One cannot go from swaddled babe floating in nothing and then out into the cold unpleasant world without that first moment of struggle. Struggle, she thinks, might be the true spark of life-- the pull and resistance of space and density leading to collapse or to ruin.

For all her romanticizing, there is still something particularly unpleasant to being born with a fully functioning mind. There was a reason Area X had sent her out all but an amnesiac. A reason the exploration teams had been sent in to the maddening womb with their minds numbed with hypnosis. There was entirely too much stimuli for a fully grown mind to really take calmly.

She doesn't like it, but she throws up as soon as the tube has been wound out of her throat, trembling in all quarters. She is bereft, naked, new. Wildly disorienting, and Area X is not there to comfort her as to her place in the world. She is alone, somewhere vast and dark.

That's fine. She can be this organism. She can be. ]

KEEP HER FLYING

[ There is an inherent organization to such facilities. She knows this from her own time at the Reach, and from the Biologist's life as their pet scientist. She finds the towels, and wraps it around herself for warmth, leaving her dark hair wet as she continues to search for clothes. She was not the only thing being birthed today; there would be clothes. She finds the jumpsuit and determines from the colors there is not a great deal of emphasis on camouflage. She puts it on. She finds the boots inadequate and dislikes them immediately. She puts them on.

She looks for more. For tools, for weapons, for case files. Instead she reads: “KEEP HER FLYING” ]

I've always wondered why people feel the need to anthropomorphize ships. Unless she is sentient, after all.

[ She takes that idea seriously, gazing around thoughtfully. ]

That would be interesting.

wildcard
hit me

keep her flying.

[artifica]

[ How strange to think that she has a body. Make no mistake, Ava has always had appendages that she can manipulate to manifest her will upon the world around her. To open a door, to slice open skin, to sense the change in temperature as the sunlight hits her surfaces. But a set of tools does not constitute a body. A body is an extension of self.

See, how she has dried herself with the thin cloth now folded neatly by her bare feet. How she has tried on the boots and the jumpsuit and found them unsuitable for her form, so left them there by the other side of her feet. How she, no longer merely a collection of appendages, herself stands stark naked before a metal surface that might once have been a mirror. How she is seeing herself suddenly interrupted by the woman walking into view, speaking of of sentience and ships. It occurs to her that this mirror could be something of an eye of the ship -- a sensor or an eye. ]

How would we know? If she tells us that she is?

petra parbridge | original character

[halts]

good morning, starshine

[ It's like waking up. Calm, if only for a second. Then the panic sets in.

It's brief, it's small, but oh god is it panic, threatening to curl up inside her chest and smother her with it. It feels like she's been drugged, or intubated or had her stomach pumped — her vision blurs and Petra thinks not again, not again, please, not again. Fingers scrabble at the edges of her mask, limbs sluggish and slow through the water, all clumsy in a way that only increases her panic. She doesn't even hear all the words. Pay attention— surviv— bodies are new—

She can't be here. She just can't be here.

The pod spits her out. Petra's red hair clings in pathetic, goopy strands near the sides of her face. She stays there, on her hands and knees, coughing with her throat sore and wretching and wretching, nausea that's psychosomatic more than physical piercing through her in waves. But even that doesn't seem to dull the urgency in her— she gets up and her knee buckles once, then twice, slamming hard into the slippery floor. It's not much of a yell, not when she's like this, but she tries anyway— ]

Pavel!

[ She doesn't even seem to be completely aware she's naked right now. Petra's just trying to stand up, she's scared and she's nauseous and she doesn't know where she is but he can't be far, he's always there, he— ]

Pavel!

maintenance: o2 garden

[ Petra's bad at this. At... whatever this is. The O2 garden is beautiful, in its own way, and she tugs at the sleeves of her orange jumpsuit, already starting to fray from the sheer anxiety in that physical tic.

Still. She's here. It's been two, maybe three days, and Petra stays near the entrance, frowning lightly at the plant nearest to her; some sort of leafy thing with small, orange buds. ]

Sorry. I don't, um. Know a lot about plants.

[ But she'd volunteered for, uh. This part anyway. ]

maintenance

[ahinsa]

Neither do I.

[ But there is no resignation in her voice, only a statement of fact.

Yue has her boot planted on the stem of a sabre-toothed plant that writhes and struggles to free itself to no use. Her surefootedness gives her the appearance of someone at ease with gardening, though anxiety curdles the blood in her belly each time she reaches out to uproot the weed, or what she hopes is weed. ]

I think -- it is killing the ones you don't need and feeding the ones you do. Do you need that?

[ She points at the orange buds near Petra. ]

Cable | XMCU (CRAU)

[morepouches]

Waking Up
[ Everything is a little murky, but then Cable's been through enough weird fucking shit in his life that he just takes waking up in a vat of liquid relatively in stride.

His eye twitches as the liquid drains away and the cables disconnect from him. There's a grunt, low and gravely, as he struggles out of the tube and then he takes one step and then another, looking around. ]

I'm going to fuck you with your own arm when I find you.

[ He falls to his knees with a loud, bruising thud, ruining whatever effect the words might have had. ]

Water Filtration
[ Cable stares at the stuck fan in the water like it's personally offended him. Maybe it has, because if he had his telekinesis, this would be done already. Instead he's got to climb in there and do it manually. He's not afraid of hard work, but this seems to be rubbing in his lack of powers. ]

If I tie something to it, we can pull it out from above without losing an arm in there.

[ This really seems like something one of the droids should do, but here he is. Fuck this place. ]


[ Feel free to wildcard me or hit me up at blauren ]

water filtration

[shuckit]

[ this is not work thomas wants to be doing, either. he'd rather be stalking the droids, watching what they get up to, and trying to figure out more about this ship and what the hell happened on it. instead, we have this. nasty stuck fan in nasty still water in creepy huge canal thing. at least cable's the one talking about going in there instead. ]

Or poke it with a stick.

[ jussayin. ]

You sure that water's safe to go in?

[ that's kind of his bigger concern, but you don't see thomas volunteering to jump in there. ]

Bruce Banner | MCU

[hugedork]

Waking Up
[ Bruce would like to say that waking up like this feels entirely foreign, but waking up naked and disoriented isn't really a new thing for him. The liquid is new, though. The liquid and the tubes. How did he get here? Who brought him here? Was someone dumb enough to--

His heart rate is picking up. He tries to breath deep and calm himself, but he chokes instead, nostrils fighting against the tubes as he tries to flail in vain. He needs to get out of here before the big guy shows up.

Except something is wrong. His heart is racing, but he's all alone in here as the liquid drains and he feels his legs turn to jello under him.

He barely catches himself on the side of the tube as it opens and then it's a struggle just to walk a few steps, so he takes them slow. ]

Hello? Thor?

O2 Garden
[ Bruce has been taking stock of the vegetation. Maybe this isn't his area of expertise, but it's the best help he think he can offer here, so he's doing what he can. Well, he was taking stock of the vegetation, but he'd made the mistake of taking off his glove to get a better look at something and it bit him, so now he's siting by the door with some simple first aid supplies wrapping his right hand and trying to figure out if he's happy to be free of the Hulk or not right now.

He hears the door open, but doesn't look up. ]

I'd be careful if I were you.


[ Feel free to wildcard me or hit me up at blauren ]

[redweb]

[The woman that walks up to him has a sheet very skillfully wrapped into a makeshift toga dress, and seems rather calm despite the circumstances. It's a lie, she'd had her own dose of panic upon extricating herself from the tube that had reminded her too much of something that she couldn't put her fingers on.

It's the name Thor that gets her attention, and so she grabs an extra sheet and follows the sound of the voice to where a dark-haired naked man leans against a tube.]

Here. It's cold; you'll freeze.

[She holds out the folded sheet, her eyes sliding over his body in a way that's more curiosity than pointed interest. Her red hair is still wet as it falls over her shoulders, but her features are likely familiar. There's a lift of an eyebrow and in most situations she might have waited to push the point, but--]

Thor- is he here?

Thomas | The Maze Runner

[shuckit]

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE;

[ his first instinct is panic - thomas's still limbs wanting to jerk and thrash and pound at the glass above his head - but that isn't the first action. he's rigid, eyes wide in the tinted fluid as they skim from one side to the other. fear screams through his mind, but if thomas has learned anything in the three or four months worth of memory he has, it's that losing it always makes it worse. the woman speaks up inside his head, and thomas pays rapt attention as the fluid drains, trying to memorize every syllable of it. it'll be important later.

they always start like this. they make you bleary, confused, and afraid, and throw you out into hell to see if you're one of the ones that can get their wits around them, adapt and recover quick enough to survive. anger burns in thomas, hot and fierce, because he'd told them - that's enough, no more, and yet, here he is.

But Ripley? They never added in sob stories before. not really, not so directly.

the pod cracks open, and thomas goes from still to near punching it the rest of the way open, yanking at cables and the mask on his face, gagging as it comes up his throat (maybe throwing up a little, ew). there's not much room for dignity here, and thomas doesn't seek it, going straight into attempts to walk, only to have his knees go out and face-plant onto the floor again. somewhere down a long hall, he can see a brighter light, and people milling around.

so, here's this bare-assed teenager, army crawling his lame ass across a gross, fluid slick floor, calling out in a raspy voice: ]

Pen— [ for a writing utensil. ] Anybody got a pen?

[ he has needs, and they're called data integrity. he'll only remember that message he heard for so long, and he needs to get it written down before it's gone, someone get him a goddamn pen and some paper. or, you know, a sheet. to cover up his naked ass while he worms across the floor.]

VR - SPACE WALK;

[ space.

s p a c e .

as much as thomas wants to be annoyed at the whole abduction and body swapping thing, space is so, so incredible. it's really hard to stay mad, even in a virtual environment, knowing he'll get to go out into the real thing soon enough. during the training mission to get some repairs done near the cannons, Thomas pauses half way into shuffling along the side of the ship, straightening up and he breathes out slow, murmuring to himself with an open mic. ]

Shuck me, this is so cool.

[ Newt would've loved this, he thinks immediately, and the thought is a lead brick in his chest, crushing and sinking. distracting enough that when another invisible force gives him a shove, thomas loses his grip on the railing, about to float off into VR space. catch his dumb ass, please? ]

NETWORK;

un: thomas

You know, if we're in synthetic bodies, with a shared neural network like this, how do we know what we're seeing is actually what's real? Or if what we're thinking isn't just coded?

Guess it's not that different from normal life. Synth body or not, what colors and klunk our eyes take in from the world around us isn't necessarily what the world actually looks like, anyway.

WILDCARD;

[ thomas can probably be found tinkering with any part of technology or anything vaguely scientific looking, or taking a jog around the Ring, or putting his nose in literally anything, he's so goddamn curious, it's obnoxious. feel free to put him anywhere that seems fun!! ]

space walk;

[halts]

[ She hates this. She hates this.

Petra's not a fan of any of this. Of heights, of the endless black before her, of— doing space repairs. But she can hear the voice of her sister telling her to be useful, to live up to something, and it's not like there's anything to do if you're going to sit around and be helpless.

Her magic doesn't work here, either. Everything about her eidos is silent. But that's the kind of thing you process in your own time, with your own anxiety attack, away from the reaches of infinite blackness.

She's been crawling along the sides with him, breathing slightly quicker and a few paces behind, but otherwise okay. She's this close to saying Shuck what? before there's a stumble, and Petra flings herself towards him, reaching out for his wrist.

Her fingers catch, but only just. ]

This doesn't feel cool!

[ She says, because!!! It doesn't!! ]

Tony Stark | MCU

[nonstopnarcissist]

Good Morning, Sunshine

[ Waking up is usually some kind of unpleasant- the shitty mattress in his shitty motel, his shitty bedroll in the equally shitty camp- but this? This is a new level of horrifically disconcerting. The only thing that keeps him from choking as soon as the sensation of liquid surrounding him kicks in. Underwater, in a tube- if not for the tube in his throat and the oddly insistent chemical lassitude keeping him calm as everything cracks open and his windows startup lecture from hell plays through his mind which: No? No thank you? He didn't ask for creepy AI telepathy, didn't ask to wake up covered in a thick goop naked, marked, and gagging as he pulls the tubes out of his nose and mouth.

He sure as hell didn't ask to be forced to slurp down this semi-gelatinous nutrient strong fluid he'd been floating in since standing is right out not a thing.

Still. No more cuffs, gags, or collars. No more bullshit social dynamics. So- he'll have to consider this a step up. Or he will when he can start stepping again. For the first hour or so he breaths, slurps some of the nutrient-rich broth he'd been cooked in and tries to not think about how he's drinking Stark Soup. There are other pods, other considerations, but dignity and anything that isn't leveling out from the shudders wracking his body is going to have to wait. Soon what's on him starts to get tacky and- uncomfortable? Highly. Staggering as he looks for a towel or a suit or something. ]

Hey- [ raw, ragged- (That's what happens when you've got a tube down your throat for fuck knows how long while you're cooked into a new body), Tony holds his head up and looks around, bleary-eyed, trying to find...anything? Anyone. ] Anyone got the number for the complaints department? I'd like to submit a few hundred.

Maintenence: O₂ Garden

[ Prison chic isn't his first choice, it's not even in his top ten but- it's warm, it covers him, and it keeps him from getting covered in acid as he pokes through the garden of satan. Not eden, eden's theoretically not so...murdery. He's had to dodge three drones and five plants that tried to take a bite out of him, gotten his jumpsuit singed twice by the spitters. Using the more violent plants as a means of disposing the leftover weeds, though-

Weaponizing nature is probably not something he should be doing to clear the area, but if it works? It works. Repotting one of the toothy bitches and dragging it around on a wheeled platform like the pet from hell? Definitely shouldn't be doing that but- he's testing the idea of training it to clear things at the ankle level. Working out a reward system via food is...

It's carnivorous, so he doesn't have anything to feed it, so it's slow going. Very slow. Slow enough that he's developed something of a semi-coherent conversational rapport. ] Look it's simple. You chew up the weeds, I get you...something to eat. Something vaguely nutritious. I'm pretty sure the weeds count, bitey.

maintenance;

[freightcars]

[ James Barnes has approximately 0 useful skills to contribute to this vessel. He isn't an engineer, he isn't a mechanic, there's nobody to fight and nothing to shoot (or to shoot it with) so he's been assigned the glamorous role of Space Janitor. It's not so bad, really, considering that's how he made enough cash to survive during his year and a half or so on the run (aside from stealing and odd jobs).

He's also not having weird semi consensual sex to keep his brains on straight, so. You know. Yay, space or whatever.

What this means for him right now is pushing around a Space Wheelbarrow gathering up Space Weeds that have been plucked from the Space Garden so he can shoot them out the Space Airlock.

Which, by the way, is actually a perk of the job. It's cathartic. He's a big airlock fan.

It also means he gets a backstage view of Stark trying to train a plant to eat plants by feeding it... presumably plants. After a while of this, amusement rising to an almost new height since he's been aboard, he dryly comments: ]

Maybe try offering it a finger.

Takeshi Kovacs | Altered Carbon

[dhf]

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE;

[ while Kovacs isn't any more graceful than any of the others in the room when he comes tumbling out of his pod, he is, at least, less freaked out. he'd taken the time during the fluid drain to calm himself the fuck down and put his brain back together. the last thing was: falling, rei, a goodbye, a peace that ached like a raw wound still. he wasn't supposed to live. maybe didn't want to. maybe doesn't know what to do in a world without her, maybe doesn't want to.

not his fucking call, apparently.

after a minute or two of breathing on the floor, Takeshi reaches out, snatching at a passing droid's little mechanical leg-arm thing. ]

Come here, Chrome Dome.

[ look, he just needs the side of your shiny, shiny head for a second, just let him look. squinting, tak can barely make his reflection out on the polished metal, but it's well enough to see Ryker's face still staring back at him. so, they haven't given him his sleeve back yet, and kristen's still stuck with this asshole, rather than the one she's waiting on. ]

Shit.

[ fuck this. he's tired. just gonna sprawl here and maybe nap or something. call him when god decides he can finally die, thanks. ]

NETWORK | AUDIO (un: tak) ;

Pop quiz - who has any idea what the hell they're doing here?

[ not in the sense of why you are here, or for what purpose, he means literally: do you know what you're doing with this work? not a bigger picture question. ]

Any of you even been on a spaceship before? [ some of you looked like alice in fucking wonderland, jesus christ. ] If you're one of those in the 'no' category, how about you maybe don't... touch anything yet?

WILDCARD;

[ sup fam hit me ]

network/audio ( un: reed )

[coldnight]

I've spent more of my life on board a ship than off.

I get the impression you have your fair share of experience too, then.

natasha romanoff | mcu

[lie]

GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE

[ She comes to in waves. There's a sweetness to it, at first, the observation mild and floating up between her lapses in focus. In the next beat, it sharpens: the tubes, the mask over her mouth, the intubation she initially fights and has to force herself to remember to relax around. Physical discomfort isn't anything new, but it's not something she enjoys tolerating.

When the fluid drains, the tubes gone, Natasha takes a singular, deep breath. Too-blue ooze drips from her lashes, and she wipes it unsteadily from her face.

—bodies are new, still adjusting. Great. Sounds fun.

By the time she's up and dressed in a violently orange jumpsuit, things aren't much clearer. It's as disconcerting as anything else. Her paranoia is firing on high alert, and there's a deep fissure of frustration accompanying the fact her limbs aren't responding as quickly as she remembers. There's a whole thing to think about — Theseus and his ship is a nice example — but Natasha also doesn't give enough of a fuck to spend valuable time philosophizing.

Instead, she frowns thoughtfully, pulling her tacky hair out of the collar of the jumpsuit, staring out at the halls of pods from the small medbay. Cataloging information, hearing snatches of conversation. It doesn't take her long to decide to move on, though when her knee buckles mid-step she has to make a grab for the nearest person around.

It's a little humiliating. Natasha stares down at her legs. ]

Traitor.

VR: PLANET-SIDE (ROCKS??)

[ It's practically inhospitable, this place. The entire environment is a conduit for some kind of electrical field; science too-advanced for Natasha to parse, let alone take a relaxed interest in. The nights here are warm, almost humid in temperature, and the occasional forks of energy make rocks levitate and particles glow in the air, as if everything on the planet is touched by some spores of glowing, invisible fungi. There's the screech of something inhuman and terrified in the distance. Once, and only once, before it's never heard again.

There's not much life before them. Just more fungi, more rock, deep crevasses cut into the earth like the grand canyon. Natasha waves a hand in front of her face, clearing some of the glowing spores from her vision. ]

Think we should climb down?

[ Below, deep in the canyon, there's something that might be a stream— too high up to tell. But there is a noticeable band of glowing spores thickening in that direction, floating in loose waves from what might be an origin point.

Natasha raises her brow, but otherwise doesn't say much. ]

good morning;

[freightcars]

Depends- on who you ask.

[ Sorry, were you talking to yourself or to the asshole who'd been on his way to you? It's not a coincidence that he's there in time to catch her, and he does so with a metal arm shooting out to grip her by the waist.

Except... he's not exactly much better off than she is, and they both almost go down for a second there before they manage to somehow split the difference and find stability again. Good thing, or his Manly Pride might take a hit. Not like waking up covered in goo almost pissing yourself over bad nightmares didn't do enough of the job already.

Either way, the ordeal means his deadpan line gets a little stilted, the delivery goes a bit less than smoothly when he has to grunt midway through it out of sheer effort. ]

dorothy gale | emerald city

[tornadoed]

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE

[ dorothy wakes up.

at first, she thinks she's back in oz, that she's back being strapped to wood and dunked into water over and over again while they ask her if she killed the witch, how she killed the witch —but she can breathe and the fluid surrounding her isn't water. she forces the panic down. get up. get out.

there's a voice inside her head, the water receding, and dorothy stumbles from her pot, her knees giving out. she lands on one, grunting briefly as she forces herself to absorb the impact, to take stock of her surroundings. she has no idea where she is. she's naked and there's still goo clinging to her skin, but she's otherwise all right. she's not in oz or on earth, as far as she can tell. some sort of building, something industrial and futuristic?

none of this makes sense, but travelling through a tornado into oz didn't make any sense, either. there are people around her, others stumbling from pods like the one she's just come from, too, and somehow, that helps steady her. she manages to get her feet under her, to stand, to move to the person closest to her. ]

Hey. I'm Dorothy. Can you stand? —It's all right, I'm a nurse, I can help.

[ that last part is definitely a lie, she has no idea what she's doing and she's still naked and shaky, but it helps to say it. it helps her. maybe it'll help the other person, too. ]

NETWORK (id: gale)

i've never been in space before, but i've woken up in a strange place before. thought i'd left that behind me
do any of you have experience with space?

anyway, hi
i'm dorothy
i'm a nurse, so if anyone's hurt, come to me? i'm still trying to figure out all of this, but i can help

WILDCARD

[ have her resuscitating your character, come to her with minor or major injuries, join her in search of medical facilities, etc.! ]

id: thomas

[shuckit]

i feel like ive made a career out of waking up in strange places
first time in space, though

hi dorothy
im thomas

dick grayson | titans

[rumored]

GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE

[ it's been some ten minutes since he's woken up, since he's stumbled from a pod and looked around and muttered what the fuck? under his breath —and he's not really over that sentiment yet.

at least he's found a towel, so he's currently trying to get cryo fluid out of his hair, leaving various scars and bruises on display. when someone else enters the room, he'll look up, angling his body so his nudity is not entirely obvious, some piece of apparatus or a bed obscuring some of the view. ]

You don't look like you've got any more of an idea what's going on than I do. [ comes the grim assessment. ]

O2 GARDENS

[ it's a jungle. it's a jungle and dick figures there's a good reason for plants on a spaceship. plants produce oxygen and they've all got to eat something, but this jungle is definitely out of control. ]

I know someone who'd love this.

[ "know". how well does a hero ever know a villain? —anyway, he shakes his head, pushing aside thoughts of gotham. he's been trying to get away from gotham, to leave the past and all the violence it's brought out in him behind for a long time now, but this isn't what he had in mind.

he lifts a hand, runs it through his hair. ]

I don't even know where to start.

[ anyone got an idea? ]

NETWORK (id: grayson)

Why us?

I'm not saying that to be whiny, I'm honestly wondering. If this was some kind of emergency protocol, were we selected at random, or is there some rhyme and reason to it? Something each and every one of us can contribute?

I'll go first: I'm a police officer back home. I can handle a weapon and I've got some first aid training.

[ he's a lot more than a police officer. ]

WILDCARD

[ anything goes! ]

gardens.

[nightlife]

Stepping slightly to the left.

[ Where to begin is not onto the puddle of venom, nearly invisible. Just out of range is a plant holding itself still, hoping for this young man - who looks unnervingly familiar - to fuck up. ]

'Dunno what the acid does. [ His deep voice is flat, dry humor only barely detectable like someone's scraped a burnt edge off of toast. Gross, stale toast. With a hint of American east coast. ] Turns you into people soup, probably.

[ Perhaps it's surprising to have been effectively (accidentally) sneaked up on by a six-foot-four brick shithouse of a guy in neon orange, but thems the breaks. ]

bruce wayne | dceu

[nightlife]

█ good morning

[ Like the Centralia mine fire, burning horrifically beneath the surface, never to be extinguished but looking oh-so-innocuous on the surface, Bruce is perhaps in like - ballparkish - top five worst moods, ever. Maybe sixth. Enough infuriating, insane shit has happened to him that this might not rank, but it would be a close call.

Orienting almost too quickly, stoically scraping goo off himself, unabashed at being observed nude and sticky and scar-covered, he Seems Fine. (Not unlike the remaining reinforced homes in rural Pennsylvania.) He inspects the pod he awoke in, the cables, the texture of the containment fluid.

He does not look great in orange. He also does not really fit well into the jumpsuits, but they're less embarrassing than dressing up like a flying rodent because of untreated childhood trauma utilitarian, at least. He assumes the color is for safety purposes and not ... space abductee shame. Perhaps.

Anyway let's hang out and get sodas or something. ]


█ sad beep

[ Exactly one droid gets in a good zap to Bruce's knee before he kickflips the next passing busybody up into his ninja paws. He's not from The Future, but he's a hell of a mechanic, and kind of unnervingly intuitive about machines and science. So perhaps this droid would like an after-market balancing tray. No? Well. It's getting one.

There's an open panel on the wall nearby where Bruce has set up temporary shop. He'll get to that in a second - or rather, the interfered-with droid will, and he'll observe and absorb its knowledge. Until then he's going to hopefully find the mute button on this thing so it stops making noises at him while he works. ]


█ network
(id: anthony.faro)

Marco.

network (id: latrodectus)

[lie]

Polo.
In all the gin joints in all the towns.

[ Look, maybe they can just pretend like they're the type of people who trade pop culture call and response quips until they die? ]

scott lang ⇉ mcu

[microscopically]

I ➣ ➣ ➣ GOOD MORNING

[ gross.

that's the first thought that enters his mind when awareness filters back in. gross gross gross GROSS. where is he? had he fallen asleep in the bathtub again? usually, he wakes up to gurgling and flailing. this is not like that.

when he opens his eyes, he realizes that this is not his bathtub. the complete absence of his puppy dog shower curtain tells him that wherever he is isn't good. there's also the manner of the freaking gross goo that he's floating in.

okay so. he's in a science fiction movie and he's been kidnapped by a brain eating alien. that's all this could be. he'd dreamed about this in high school and now it was coming true. god, he shouldn't have turned in that one science assignment late. this is payback.

he floats there for awhile, trying to figure out what to do when the blue sludge starts to drain out. scott reaches up, fingers skimming over the gas mask like attachment over his mouth. god, this is not good.

not good not good not good.

when the pod opens, scott doesn't move. surely, there's an alarm or something that's going to go off. he stands stock still for way too long and only moves when the arch of his foot starts to itch. he shifts, slips and tumbles out of the pod and onto the floor.

that propels him into action and he rips off the mask, breathing hard and laying flat on his back on the floor. no aliens yet. but he's covered in blue (not really his color) goo and he has no idea where he is. ]

Not good.

II ➣ ➣ ➣ NETWORK

un: slang

so, if i swallowed some of that blue goo, should i be concerned?

III ➣ ➣ ➣ MAINTENANCE (DROIDS)

Am I really holding your purse right now?

[ the little robots don't answer. sure, they beep and boop and they're adorable but they're really not doing anything but making him hold things and surely he's more capable of that.

but, when he'd tried to help, the droid had actually run into his shin hard enough that he thinks there's going to be a bruise and isn't that just what he needs? death by shin bruise. he hopes it doesn't get freaking infected. ]

Is it okay if I name you?

[ the droid beeps. scott's not sure if that means yes or not. ]

Great, you're Ferdinand.

[ sorted. ]

IV ➣ ➣ ➣ WILDCARD

[ for anything else you wanna do! ]

network

[accountability]

un: srogers

Apparently it's edible, if you trust voices in your head.

[ so he's 50/50 on it so far ]

Reileen Kawahara | Altered Carbon

[autophagy]

good morning

[ Rei remains perfectly unflappable thorough the entire process of getting unplugged and ungooed, although she can't help to wobble a bit the moment her legs touch the cold floor. So much for being a big bad envoy, huh? The towel comes in handy at first, but that makes little to fix her clotheless situation. Not that she doesn't care too much about being in the naked, but the temperature doesn't lent itself to it.

The jumpsuits aren't a big improvement, but Reileen knows she'll have to make do for the time being. No weapons though. Talk about feeling safe. ]

If this is hell, I'll need to have a word with whoever designed it.

network

show of hands

how many of you were positively dead before ending up here?

asking for a friend

wildcard

[ go on

make her day ]

good morning

[microscopically]

Isn't Hell supposed to be a lot hotter?

[ had all the books and early sunday morning televangelists told him wrong? wasn't he supposed to be tied to some wall, burning and crying about all the things he'd do differently?

okay true, the whole face eating monster mask thing was pretty hellish but this doesn't feel too bad to him. ]

Plus, I don't remember dying either. I'd have to die before going to Hell. Sure, that'd make a lot of people happy but I'm like a bad penny. I stick around.

Nikolai Lantsov (Sturmhond) | Grishaverse (spoilers for King of Scars)

[sturmhond]

i. ILL-ADVISED ENTHUSIASM

---

[ He's on the floor. Cross-legged, dressed in the horrific orange jumpsuit which clashes horribly with his hair, he is hard at work. There's a droid in his grasp, struggling to get away from him while he pins his legs around it and tries to get its top off. That's the scene for approximately three seconds, before it lets off a small EMP to knock him flat to the ground. Then it darts off, thoroughly glad to be rid of him.

He's twenty-something, attractive if you enjoy the golden blond, chiseled cheekbones, improbably tidy despite being sprawled on the floor, sort of look. He's entirely still for a few brief moments, and then with a gasp, he's waking up. He looks around in confusion, then clambers to his feet, sharp hazel eyes scouring the corridor. ]

Blasted thing. [ Despite that, he sounds delighted. And he's grinning. ] I almost had its head off.

[ This is the third time today. One might imagine Nikolai would learn from these experiences, and he has. He has learned that the little brats are faster than they've any right to be, and also that this new body has vulnerabilities his old one did not. It's still an upgrade, given his circumstances, but still. He flicks dust off his shoulder. ]

Which way did it go?

ii. ANYTHING WORTH DOING ALWAYS STARTS AS A BAD IDEA

---

[ That it might not be the best idea to take a stroll outside while one is on a spacecraft had not occurred to Nikolai. He'd jumped at the chance. Physically, he'd leapt up to volunteer at once. Besides, he'd reasoned, what better place can there be for him than repairing the ship? Of course he's never seen a ship quite like this, nor has he ever dealt with technology remotely this advanced, but quite honestly, that's part of the fun. He'll learn all he can about it, glean all that he can from it.

In the meantime, he's taking a step closer to the stars.

Outside he goes, and even though there's a job to do, and a thirteen year old voice rabbiting in his ear, he looks up. The universe is vast and wild above them, and for this brief moment, that's all he cares about. ]

Now, that is something. We really must see more.

[ Speaking of more, another tinny complaint sounds in his ears and a complex set of instructions waves across his visor. ]

Yes, all right. You there, can you help me with this gun? It's jammed.

[ He waves off the instructional video. Advanced technology or not, Nikolai has spent half his career building ships and guns. He's in his element here; he's all too keen to get an up close and personal view of that mechanism. ]

The housing panel seems damaged. I'm taking it off.

iii. CREATE YOUR OWN

---

[ Prompt Nikolai! I'm available on plurk for plotting at halfbloodly ]

i

[solnechnyy]

( when you wake up on a spaceship careening endlessly into the depths of space the last thing you expect to see is the king of your country getting knocked flat on his ass by a little droid that scurries off for safety after.

but you know. apparently these things happen to Alina.

she just leans against the walls, her legs feeling too tired to hold herself up long enough to judge him without the support of the wall. )

You know, there are easier ways to hurt yourself if you're really curious. ( she waves her hand idly. ) Getting launched into space, fighting the monsters in the garden, the list goes on.

You should let the robots live in peace.

jack | bioshock

[unkindly]

good morning starshine

[it’s not a pleasant way to wake up. jack is disoriented, confused.... but that’s not really anything new. the design of the ship is not what he’s used to, but the small spaces are familiar. he crawls out of his pod and lowers himself to the floor when he realizes just how little strength he has. he flexes his hands, fingers, works through his muscles and gets them warm and awake before he looks over his left hand and snaps his fingers once.

nothing happens.

he lets out a heavy sigh and goes through the slow and painful process of getting to his feet.

after a moment’s realization, heputs a hand to his throat in surprise and makes a couple of sounds. it’s rusty, but he looks shocked as what comes out is... completely normal.]

Huh.

network

i’m jack

quick question does the name atlas mean anything to you

o2 gardens

[now this is riht up jack’s alley. not the gardening bit, but whacking hostiles, that’s what jack was made for.

well. the first time, anyway. hell, second time too, looks like.

he’s found a huge, heavy wrench, and while that’s absolutely no good for gardeing, it seems to be doing the job when he uses it to smash the plants that are trying to kill him into pasty bits.

he keeps rolling his shoulder like he expects it to be easier, though. damn, this thing is heavy. sure sucks not having the muscles he’s used to having.]


wildcard

[accountability]

( un: srogers )

Just the one from mythology.

Kenzi Malikov || Lost Girl

[morethanasidekick]

a || мornιng ѕтarѕнιne

[ There are worse things than finding yourself kidnapped, naked and covered in goop. As somebody who has experienced all three of these things before, Kenzi could be considered something of an expert on the matter. The sense of déjà vu did little to ease her immediate panic, however. Wide eyes that are the color of arctic ice, fly open as she beats uselessly at the inside of her cryo chamber. Kenzi's weak, ineffectual fists only managing to pull at the various tubes that are sustaining her new body. Getting abducted, stripped bare and stolen halfway across the unknown multiverse, that she could take in her stride but confined spaces are harder to deal with, not in spite of her experiences, but because of them.

The second the lid pulls back, she scrambles to get free from the pod, the tube that's forced down her throat ripping at the inside as gravity sends her crashing to the ground. Her hip and shoulder throb with pain from the fall, a shudder running through her body as it curls in on itself. Morphing herself into a protective ball as if preparing for the blows from an unseen assailant.

Like this, Kenzi looks much smaller and far younger than her twenty-something years should suggest. The petite female, struggling to force her hands to cooperate enough to push her long, black hair from her face. In spite of her rude re-entry into the world, she can breathe a little easier now. The panic slowly subsiding as her awareness kicks in and the ghosts of her past retreat into the deepest recesses of her mind. ]

Hey... Ripley. [ Her voice cracking as she tries to squeeze the words out. ] If this is your idea of protection.... Remind me not to piss you off.

в || aѕѕιѕтιng тнe droιdѕ

[ It's been a few days since they'd all arrived, and while many of their merry band of misfits had found ways to make themselves useful? Kenzi... well, short of being small enough to fit through air vents, didn't exactly excel in situations such as these. Being light-fingered and possessing the innate ability to sniff out alcohol hardly made her the most productive member of this crew. Especially when there was no alcohol to be found, because trust... she'd tried to find. The only thing she'd managed to do since she'd regained her senses, was try to find something to help her lose them again.

Unfortunately for Kenzi, the droids don't seem to appreciate her brand of effort and while they'd be content to pester her a little the previous day, today they weren't taking no for an answer. Not that Kenzi was going to let a thing like that get in her way...]

Hey! [ Calling out to the first person she'd seen in the last hour or more. ] Favor - could you, just.. put your finger right here?

[ The here in question being the insulated wire she's holding down for the droid who's soldering it in place. ]

c || neтworĸ || υn: ѕcoυт

[ If you accept the communication, it starts with just a voice. A woman who seems rather calm despite the situation you all find yourselves in. ]

Anyone else finding the whole 'Ripley' thing a little ominous?

[ Without much warning, a video feed flickers to life and those tuned in are treated to the same view Kenzi has, the corridors of the ship as she does a little exploring, while figuring out how the neural link works. ]

I've seen Aliens, okay. It didn't exactly end well for the crew of that ship.

network (un: latrodectus)

[lie]

I hated the chestbursters. :(
Where are you going?

[ Sorry Kenzi, get prepared for what is mostly going to be a commentary on your broadcasted video Twitch feed. ]

Bucky Barnes | Marvel Comics + CRAU

[carrytheshield]

O2 Garden

[Bucky's got his jumpsuit unzipped, the top hanging down from his waist, and he's fucking sweating as ge makes his way through the weight fucking jungle that someone thought was a garden. He went for the boots, but the protective gear got shucked early on, because as deep into the weeds as he is, it's too goddamn hot. And Bucky's sort of an idiot like that. He has two flesh arms, two working arms like a normal person, and it reminds him that this body isn't really his. But at the same time, it puts a bit of a skip in his step, because he hasn't felt like this since he was nineteen.

This place is so many worlds away from Duplicity, from the Camp and just-- the rules there, the way it was pain and suffering. This place had reminded him of the KGB too, but then they'd been in space like one of his goddamn pulp novels and he doesn't really know what to do with himself. So he's doing his best, trying to help, and there's a goddamn grin on his face, a sparkle in his blue eyes.

There's also a vine that seems to be hunting him, almost like it wants to take a bite out of him. It's slowly looping itself around his left boot as Bucky continues trying to bring some kind of order to this mess. Hopefully someone else can help him out, cause it looks like he's about to have a real bad time.]


Dinnertime?

You gotta be fuckin' kidding me. We're really supposed to eat this crap?

[Says one disgruntled man in an orange jumpsuit, sitting on the edge of a pod, dipping his fingers rather uncertainly into the bright blue fluid. It's still sticky and decidedly unappetizing, and sure, he's had worse. Done a lot of shitty things in the name of survival, put up with military rations, weird space age vitamin cubes and a whole lot of other questionable things when it comes to what counts as food. But this is... well.

It's blue.]

What are we supposed to do anyhow, stick our faces in and drink?

[He's probably talking to YOU, convenient person standing nearby. This is all kinds of fucked up.]


NETWORK -- TEXT; un: bbarnes

Alright, so I gotta ask: Fort Harmony mean anything to anyone else here?

If not, well. Where are you all from, fellow kidnappees?


[ooc: Bucky is facetwins with MCU Bucky, save he's shy about ten pounds of muscle, and has short hair. Approximate reference here. And he's from Duplicity, for maximum confusion. Hit me up at natalia_vdova#0150 on Discord if you wanna chat.]

[Voice] UN: redshirt

[morethanasidekick]

[ Text to your heart's content, Bucky. Kenzi will be going the voice route because, frankly? Less effort. ]

You were hoping for a summer camp reunion?

Alicia Clark || Fear The Walking Dead

[continuable]

O2 GARDEN

[ Alicia has hardly been the most sociable person aboard since she clawed her way out of the pod. Shellshocked, some might have said but she looked too present for that to be true. She didn’t seem afraid or even lost. It was as if she’d accepted the latest twist her life had taken and had wrapped herself in a quiet determination as she set herself the task of doing what needed to be done. She cleaned up. She got dressed. She salvaged anything that looked useful, all the while observing the others in their varying states of shock and resolve. Panicking was a liberty she’d lost some time over the last few years. The main thing that drove her these days, was survival.

The first day she’d found the garden, it had seemed like a good distraction. A task she could focus on that would eventually bear fruit. She had no clue if anything in here was actually edible, but there was a catharsis to be found in the act of hacking away at overgrown greenery. She could see the progress she was making, little by little and for once she had the hope that maybe this time? It wouldn’t be destroyed. That all this effort, all her blood, sweat, and eventual tears wouldn’t be for nothing.

For the most part, she doesn’t seem all that aware of the other people who come and go, content to keep at it until her body will eventually force her to stop but there’s a moment when she seems to realize something important and it’s enough to halt her silent progress. ]

You smell that? [ Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, the scent of foliage and soil filling her head. It’s nothing out of the ordinary considering they’re in a garden. There’s no death or decay, though, and it reminds her of how the world used to be... before it all went to shit. ]

TEXT UN: CLARK

[ It takes her a few days of being here to access her neural device. Happy enough to hear what others have to say until now, but rarely having anything to offer or ask in return.

She’s been the quiet member of their would-be crew. The one who appears happy to quietly put in her time to get things done, but doesn’t say much unless somebody actively seeks her out. Until now. ]

Whats it like? The place you were before here.
World I guess?
Its pretty obvious we’re not all from the same one.

WILDCARD

[ She's not antisocial, just a little more reserved in the early days as she gets a feel for people. Feel free to come at me with anything, from Alicia heading out to The Ring to sleep, forcing down blue goop at 'mealtime' or simply trying to clean some of that blood off the walls. ]

[ text ]

[weblined]

[ his username is b.parker ]

a lot bigger.

you?

Will Graham | Hannibal | CRAU

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

Good Morning Starshine - cw: mental instability, PTSD, violent hallucinations, visions of murder, gore

[ Will Graham had been dreaming, and for Will Graham dreaming meant violence.

He had been dreaming of people on their knees, heads together. Except these people had not been frightened innocents; there was nothing innocent about these people. Hannibal had been the first in line, Hobbs next to him. Dolarhyde had knelt with Mason Verger, and Elton Stammets genuflect in partnership with Clark Ingram.

Will held a gun in his hand, the same gun that had been held by the Veracity spokesman. He felt no anxiety about the weapon, if anything he felt derision; it was so inelegant. The itch he felt in his palms was the desire to destroy each of these men with his bare hands. To enjoy the intimacy of their deaths and allow it to fuel the burn of his righteous violence.

Except Ingram. Ingram didn't deserve elegance, though Will already envisioned the art work he could make out of the man's clay. It would be more than the abuser's life was worth.

Priming the weapon, Will stepped up and set it against Hannibal's head. The doctor looked up at him with no more than mild curiosity. No. Actually he looked up at him with contempt. The gun was cowardly. It was impersonal and dare one say; gross. This wasn't right. Will didn't want to kill Hannibal Lecter with a gun, he wanted to use his hands.

something was down his throat

He wanted to feel skin split beneath his knuckles. He wanted the ache that came from trying to break bone with his fists.

there was something over his mouth and nose. it stank

Hannibal continued to watch him, challenge him. Would he use that inelegant weapon in his hand? Was he going to allow his fear to rule him or was he going to embrace his nature?

he tried to swallow but he couldn't.

Throwing the gun away, Will stepped forward to beat the smug arrogance off Hannibal's face.

Throwing the gun away, Will felt himself in a straight backed chair. He was burning up, soaked in sweat and moaning ineffectively. Plastic hands moved over his face, over his nose and his mouth, forcing his lips open for a tube that went across his tongue, down his throat ...

he tried to fight but it was like his limbs were moving through water, he couldn't get any momentum.

Consciousness came, but reality was less obliging.

I don’t have a lot of tim— RIP can’t spare the power to run this more t—, so pay attention.

They were words. Will's mind connected them as English but they may as well have been in RIP's original language for all that they made any impression on him. The liquid was draining and Will had no awareness of his nakedness, only that his limbs could suddenly move.

The mask and tube were violently ripped out of his throat -he'll regret that later- though for Will he was lunging up off the chair, overpowering Hannibal's attempt to shove Abigail's ear down his throat. Will was used to functioning with his limbs only casually interested in listening to his demands for them. He tore more tubes and wires, the fluid he'd been suspended in mixing with whatever fluid came from beneath his flesh. Lunging free of the tank, he slammed onto the floor with a wet, naked splat.

Scrambling to his hands and feet, he crouched (thank you Abel Gideon) with his arms spread and a maniacal look on his face.

The good news is that Will was small, wet, hallucinating and could be uncoordinated even when in his right mind. The bad news was, Will was small, wet, hallucinating and ready to rip the throat out of the first individual he saw.

It was nothing personal, just that it was highly unlikely that he would see your face.]


Maintenance

[ One of two things happened.

Either someone tackled his reality fuzzy ass, got him cleaned up and into clothes. Or Will had spent some time running around naked, hiding in any nook or cranny he could fit into, until eventually he decided to get himself cleaned up and into clothes.

Whether it was option A or option B he then bolted for a spot as far away from the others as he could get. This was where boredom eventually set it. He still wasn't interested in conversations (his throat was too sore for it and his mind too unstable) but he needed to do something with his hands.

Droids, Will decided, were like dogs. Actually they were more like cats, with their aloof attitude and cranky quickness to give you a rebuke if you stepped on their tails. But they were doing something interesting, they didn't require sociable interaction and they proved to be useful in giving him directions.

In their own droid way.

Directions were good. Routine was good and Will embraced both. More and more he came out of hiding through helping the droids in their work. Grunt manual labor; perfect. Except eventually Will reached the point where he couldn't help trying to help. His voice was wrecked, barely above a whisper, but someone with good ears might hear him talking. ]

That's not going to last long like th-awwoww!

[ There was the sound of static before the rough yelp. Apparently the droids did not appreciate back-seat mechanics. ]

Good Morning Starshine

[carrytheshield]

[James knows what trauma looks like, and that's what draws him to Will. He's looked his own face in the mirror in the wake of nightmares too many times, when his mind is still fuzzy and his face doesn't quite look like his own. So he might not know the specifics, but he knows that he's not seeing the world around him.

He had been handing out sheets and jumpsuits, doing what he could to help people get situated in this strange fucking place. But he sees Will, and that switches to damage control. Get the people away as best he can, hope no one new comes to and erupts bursting onto the floor with the gasps and screams that so often accompanied waking.

James, well. He's used to people attempting to kill him, and this body might still be a little wobbly (it's the left arm- the flesh left arm, he can't get to move quite right. But that's one of the few things here that makes any kind of sense. He hasn't had one for so long he figures it'll take a while for his body to know what to do with it.

But the man seems to have just woken up, but he's never one to underestimate the side-effects of terror, of the demons that live deep, of the things that you never talk about.

He approaches slowly, his steps careful. Someone else might attempt to pacify, but he'd have to know the right words, the right touches for a stranger, and that was one of those things where a failed attempt would make everything so, so much worse. So instead he just takes a breath, rolling his shoulders, and accepts that this is probably gonna suck. His posture is defensive, not offensive, and that's the best he can offer.]

Hey. Are you okay?

[There will probably eventually be tackling, but James is considerate enough to give Will the opportunity to go for his throat, first.]