The story begins with the aftermath of Season 8: Session 174 with Chad being taken to the hospital following being shot by a sniper; Warren and the rest trail behind to see if they can learn anything about the sniper while they also learn about Sera now being a mute. Learning he has been shot near his heart from the doctors, the Warren and Kyouki converse as Warren takes his pain pills, Deciding to rest in a room, the others meet up with Cassandra and go to the cafeteria to eat and recover from the previous 24 hours in Season 8. After some teasing by Cassandra that almost gets the two into a psych ward they drag Warren out who confirms everything they said to Cassandra and more, making the full day hit the two more, especially Fox - though Warren seems incapable of feeling anything. He even seems to gloss over Aya when Sera asks about her worriedly. While Xanatos recovers and is harrassed by doctors, Sera goes and checks on Aya, holding her and singing to the baby, promising to protect her no matter what happens. Fox and Cass take a package from Warren go to his apartment and do missions for him.
The true story begins on the 1.4, Warren stops by to check on Xanatos and insult him and proclaim the only way he'll get on his ship is he marries onto it, leaving Xanatos a gape after being informed he has been kicked out of the military for all his past mistakes. Meanwhile Zephyr checks out Aya into her care to take care of Chad's daughter and takes her to him - Chad still on life support and showing no signs of waking yet. During this John also is checked out of the hospital and meets up with Dias and Hotaru; Hotaru seems glad John is alive and doesn't even mind his womanizing ways - much. John seems interested in getting women's numbers and ignores Dias trying to get in Hotaru's pants, or her apparant affection for him, while the groups seem to converge at the front desk.
John and Sera meet up as Xanatos sneaks off not to be noticed and John continues to be kind of dickish, though the girls don't seem to mind. Complimenting Sera for losing her voice and it making her hotter, much to Hotaru's chargin due to her crush on him - though she does try to call him out a little for his behavior. John though does seem to do a 180 and claim words aren't needed to get things across and offers to buy everyone food. Meanwhile Xanatos finds himself with no means of communication and meets up with Shiva and they discuss how to get onto the ship; she offers him a way on - him marrying her but she will need something in return. Xanatos notes that he wants to talk to Erevis first before he agrees to that deal; during all this John and Dias talk various sex talk with Sera and Hotaru, including things like if they would mate with other women and Hotaru admits she would do it with Em, her pilot.
Stardate: 10-585.1.30
Warren welcomes Kyouki into the military and confirms she has done a great job so far and can take any type of job in it that she desires. He then holds a briefing on the new ship that will be launching in a month called the PAX, named after the station, begins to go over the jobs: John will be the XO and will handle the away missions, Cassandra will be chief of security, Serena will handle engineering, Myria the teleporting systems, and Peacemaker will be the medical officer. He notes that there are still positions to be filled and that people who have head positions should seek out people to work under them, having listed Hotaru and Setsuna as possible candidates to work under Cassandra. Warren goes to Peacekeeper and asks her to lie about his results, knowing he cannot pass his physical in his shape anymore and despite her misgivings, she agrees.
Meanwhile, Xanatos has found Erevis outside on the ice and talks to her, wanting to know how she feels about him and other things. The two discuss and after a bit of talking and opening up, Xanatos notes to her that to get on the ship he needs to marry her. She notes she is incapable of emotions, fearing of becoming the next Wind, but will agree to marrying Xanatos for him to get passage to the ship. Meanwhile Peacekeeper sees the others one by one and begins to pass them, even having to deal with the horny John.
Stardate: 10-585.2.25
Warren and Zephyr argue over bringing Aya onto the PAX, with Zephyr putting her foot down and refusing to leave Aya and Warren pointing out she is not Aya's mother. The two find weaknesses in each other's armor until Warren agrees though he points out Chad will never wake up again. Cheryl joins Zephyr and notes she will be joining Zephyr and Ariel on this mission to show support for the Dragoon Family, deciding it's finally time to do so - though she hopes there will be handsome men to stare at. At the local bar, Ceres and Elayne are getting drunk to space and John and Dias are on about sex like usual. They meet up with Terra and hang out with her with Dias and Terra getting along a bit. Meanwhile Erevis arrives having cut her hair short like Katrina, having lost her extremely long hair, and seems a bit emotionless. Shiva seems to revel in the entire thing and makes fun of being their witness as they get married, asking if they plan to kiss, but seeing Erevis' look Xanatos notes they will save that for later.
Stardate: 10-585.3.25
Warren oversees everyone entering the PAX one by one. Zephyr enters with Aya, having Chad's stretcher pushed onboard with her, much to Warren's annoyance. After they are all cleared, Xanatos entering via the civilians, they all head to the bridge. Erevis for her part seems a bit withdrawn lately and quiet as Warren, John, Cassandra and those chosen power the bridge up. C.H.I.P counts down, designed by the late CHIP, and maintains the computer systems and the Light Engine, as the PAX powers up. The ship does a jump and seems to knock everyone out and when they awaken, they find themselves in an unknown space.
The night shift begins so many of the team go down to Terra's bar to relax and keep each other company. Dias is busy drinking alcohol and being a perv, wanting access to the female quarters cameras which John denies much to Hotaru's approval and the three banter while others pour inside. As Sestuna and Cassandra talk and hit it off, John walks off with Sera to his room, much to Hotaru's dismay, leaving her with Dias. While Hotaru dismisses his advances, Cheryl joins them already a bit drunk having been hitting all the bars on the ship so far. While Setsuna and Cassandra muse on why they are there on the PAX, the other three muse on the fact John and Serena would definitely never have sex - which they are at that moment, and Hotaru admits she is into John and the idea makes her jealous.
Cheryl finally notes Hotaru needs to focus on better men than John and Dias, especially if she wants a man that will settle down and not just want sex. She also notes Hotaru can use her own sex appeal sometimes as she leads her away from Dias, since Hotaru is feeling down, over to the women talking. The group decide they should punish John for banging Serena despite Hotaru saying she likes him and the four head out to find him. During all this, Erevis and Xanatos are awkwardly sharing a room and it's clear there is tension between them when Xanatos is called to see Peacekeeeper. Along the way Warren ambushes him and punches him the nose and the two have words about how he got onto the ship; after getting Xanatos to admit it's a sham he throws it in her face that what is the one thing Erevis hates the most - lies before leaving and letting Peacekeeper patch him up. Returning to Erevis, Xanatos attempts to apologizes but she simply states she married him because he asked but she will have no more words on the subject, pissed at having to do it.
Shiva and Xanatos talk with Shiva poking at him with statistics of failed marriages. Xanatos attempts to shrug it off, while Hotaru finds John's room and begins to wallow over whether she could use the security codes to go into his room or not. Setsuna finally pushes things forward by hacking the door so no one has abused power, Hotaru steps into the room and attempts to feign surprise at finding them there. John, pissed off, mocks her and attempts to explain what they're doing is meaningless sex and Hotaru in her lack of self control is essentially asking for a cheap, meainingless fling. Serena is mostly calm if embarrassed and over the protocol explains to Hotaru that if she actually wants him, she shouldn't force this and should instead give her time. Cheryl extracts Hotaru from the room, giving the couple a stink eye and then also abandons Hotaru when she makes it plain she still wants John despite all of this. Everyone decides to get drunk while John and Serena go to bed early.
Stardate: 10-585.3.26 - Morning -
The next morning is as awkward as it can get... for everyone but Warren. Who enjoys a sandwich before moving to the bridge to begin the day's exploration. John and Serena report on deck fully clothed and business as usual. While the team begins their duties. Xanatos and Erevis wake up fully clothed and still seperate, a marriage unconsumated. While some nurse hangovers, Kiyoku becomes animated enough and John excuses Serena off the deck to go handle Hotaru. The two both talk over the bond and Serena suggests they share John, noting he will never settle for just one woman, but Hotaru simply cannot shake her possession over him. John meanwhile goes to see Arhn and talks to her about Myria, Arhn assuring him that his choice to help her in her time of need was best due to her lack of medication.
Session 177: Buried My Heart In a Temple
Stardate: 10-585.3.30
John and Hotaru sit in a dark, temple like room, the entrance caved in, oxygen running low. John starts to laugh, the air runing short as a small timer counts down two minutes remaining. He jokes about how Hotaru doens't need air, then starts to drift off. She tries to keep him awake. His eyes clothes. The timer runs to zero. He stops breathing, unresponsive to her help.
Stardate: - Several Hours Earlier - Night on PAX
As Evening crawls on for the crew, the bridge begins to pick up strange energy readings down on the planet they are observing. John leads Dias down to a quiet deck to show him a simulator that he's cleared for Dias to train to learn how to do something useful for the ship. After some joking around, Dias appears to take interest. Serena ends her shift and walks onto the observation deck to find Ariel and she begins to sit and talk with her. Warren looks over his reports and when they find a structure, begins to call for an away team. Xanatos continues to deal with his cold, lonely sham of a marriage. Shiva finds Serena and Ariel and begins to try and gossip with them, mostly making little quips at them.
Cassandra, Hotaru, Setsuna and John are called for the away mission, where they head down to the planet to inspect a very old looking temple structure and trace the energy signature within. When they find what they are looking for, a strange hand sized symbol, they hesitate, only because of it's strangeness, but then Setsuna picks it up. The entire Temple begins to shake and the group makes a run for it, however a corridor collapses on John and Hotaru, the two not making it out. As the other two call for help, John and Hotaru are given time to sit alone and start to talk things out.
Meanwhile, on the ship, Shiva has caught up Ariel and Serena in embarrassing talks. While Xanatos stumbles in his love life and chooses to get drunk with Cheryl. Warren, getting the message from the ground crew, calls in Erevis, Kiyoki and Serena, the latter being too distracted to notice she's being messaged, while the former two were contacted by intercomm. Warren takes Kiyoki and Erevis down along with Em who believes she can help with her bond to Hotaru. As they go down, they find the collapse and impossible mess to get through, until Erevis begins to channel her powers and uses Telekenetics to rip through the rock.
They arrive just in time to see John's final breath but not enough time to save him. Erevis gives him scanadlous mouth to mouth.
Stardate: 1 hour later
John is alive, though in need of recovery time, the crew having arrived back on the ship sets him to medical while the rest go to have a good hard drink. Warren's mood reaches an all time low and he shows signs of heavy substance abuse now. Shiva tries to mess with Warren but finds that wall not so simple to penetrate. Everyone continues their downward spirals.
Session 178: Again. And Again. And Again.
Location: PAX -Nearing Day Shift-
The Day Shift begins with people awakening, getting about with their daily lives, and workaholics already up doing their thing. As the crew interact, we see Xanatos struggling with his feelings about Erevis, Seraphna wallowing in depression over her inability to speak and cripples making fun of her for it, and oddest of all is Myria seemingly bewildered by something. While Zephyr sneaks Dias around the ship to go get food, Warren gets the bridge ready for a new day and Hotaru works through things with Serena, who has started going around trying to convince people to learn Sign Language so she has people to talk to.
Cheryl awakens with a hangover and makes her way to work, Terra trying to disguise her own alcoholism and Myria continues to be bewildered as she runs into John. As the bridge crew finally assembles, the team picks up a strange reading, a signal from an EarthGov ship. An impossibility as they should be the only vessel out this far into space. Nevertheless they go to investigate, but just as they approach the ship, finding a strange nebula, they detect an asteroid flying towards their ship. Warren orders and evasion but the asteroid twists in space and hits them from the opposite direction. The ship begins to shatter and---
Stardate: 10-585.4.5
Location: PAX -Nearing Day Shift-
The Day Shift begins with people awakening, getting about with their daily lives, and workaholics already up doing their thing. As the crew interact, we see Xanatos struggling with his feelings about Erevis, Seraphna wallowing in depression over her inability to speak and cripples making fun of her for it, and oddest of all is Myria awakens screaming. While Zephyr sneaks Dias around the ship to go get food, Warren gets the bridge ready for a new day and Hotaru works through things with Serena, who has started going around trying to convince people to learn Sign Language so she has people to talk to.
Cheryl awakens with a hangover and makes her way to work, Terra trying to disguise her own alcoholism and Myria continues to be bewildered as she runs into John. As the bridge crew finally assembles, they are interrupted by Myria running onto the bridge and demanding they ignore the signal, not go, screaming that they need to dodge the other way. Warren has her sent to medical assuming some kind of Erusian breakdown, and the crew resumes their tasks. They pick up a signal in space and find an EarthGov signature, an impossibility as they should be the only vessel out this far into space. At this point Serena starts to question the existence of another EarthGov vessel out here and thinks they are being lured into a trap. Nevertheless they go to investigate, but just as they approach the ship, finding a strange nebula, they detect an asteroid flying towards their ship. Warren orders and evasion, John remembering Myria's words orders they dodge the other way but too late, the asteroid twists in space and hits them from the opposite direction. The ship begins to shatter and---
Stardate: 10-585.4.5
Location: PAX -Nearing Day Shift-
The Day Shift begins with people awakening, getting about with their daily lives, and workaholics already up doing their thing. As the crew interact, we see Xanatos struggling with his feelings about Erevis, Seraphna distracted from her morning work as Montana goes berserk and this forces her to shut him down, and oddest of all is Myria awakens screaming. While Zephyr sneaks Dias around the ship to go get food, Warren gets the bridge ready for a new day and Hotaru and Serena discuss what Myria starts to tell everyone, that something is wrong and that they are about to get a strange signal from an Earth Vessel.
Cheryl awakens with a hangover and makes her way to work, Terra trying to disguise her own alcoholism and Myria continues to be bewildered as she runs into John. As the bridge crew finally assembles, Myria tries to explain the situation but Warren finds it a bit too unbelievable, answering the signal that comes in, they begin to approach while Serena and Hotaru argue about the signal being real. When they detect the Asteroid coming in, John firmly believes in Myria and says they need to dodge, they do but the Asteroid is still too fast and damages the ship. This time is breaks in half and the crew frantically tries to repair the ship before it explod---
Stardate: 10-585.4.5
Location: PAX -Nearing Day Shift-
The Day Shift begins with people awakening, getting about with their daily lives, and workaholics already up doing their thing. As the crew interact, we see Xanatos struggling with his feelings about Erevis, Seraphna distracted from her morning work as Montana goes berserk and this forces her to shut him down, and this time, due to how weird and painful the flip out was, Serena inspects her Beta to find it has somehow had it's memory reset 4 times in a row, causing a system defect error. She reports this as Myria, waking up screaming, goes to directly explain her situation to John and Warren, this time they believe her after they hear the warning and stop the ship short, the meteorite passing by them harmlessly.
After this, they discover the signal is coming from their own ship, caught in the Nebula ahead. They go in and merge with the other ship, then back out, closing the time loop and recovering their course. The group sighs in relief and begins to go about their day again, most unaware anything happened at all.
Xanatos talks with more people about Erevis, while Serena convinces John to take one of her Sign Language discs. He then reveals to Serena that Warren already knows Sign Language and has been teasing her this entire time. They flirt and seem to arrange a date for the next day. Xanatos gets told to stop obsessing over his assumed failure with Erevis and Katrina and move forward. Cheryl resumes her quest to drink the entire ship's supply of rocket fuel. John later jokingly suggests he try dating Serena, who will seemingly take on anyone, and he gets to be a pilot too. Myria finally gets to chill, Dias gets his meal and Zephyr lets him go on his own for a bit, causing him to bump into Warren who takes his ID pass and Dias insults him, and for once, Warren seems hurt! He moves off grumpily and considering his addiction.
As Warren sits in his captain's seat, the crew goes about their day. Seraphna helps Erevis train while Xanatos and Terra watch. Dias is tricked into babysitting Aya and Zephyr gets the day off. Things turn strange quickly when a ship twice the size of the PAX appears in front of them. The crew rushes to positions and the ship matches velocity with the bigger ship. Not answering hails, the ship eventually sends a subsonic frequency noise, which Seraphna is able to determine is coordinates inside the ship. After some debating between the diplomats and security, a combined team is sent over to the ship.
While Dias loses Aya and goes on a hijinx filled adventure to find her, beating on Xanatos in an assumed kidnapping before being beaten by Zephyr for failing to watch Aya, the crew makes first contact. The Ship, a Living Ship, possesses Shiva and uses her for communications. The crew accidentally teaches this thing reproduction and as a reward, the ship attempts to keep Shiva. Ceres attempts to negotiate Shiva back to safety, even offering herself as a replacement, but all attempts fail. Warren teleports the team back and points the ship's weapons at the living ship, giving it an option, give back Shiva or be destroyed. It gives back Shiva and the PAX Crew decides not to stick around while the living ship flies off to get laid.
The Holodeck is finally ready for it's first test run and John selects noneother than brain damaged Xanatos to test the unit. As he straps it on and begins to test it out, the team watches as he chooses, with his amazing new entry intom a third world to... knock on a table. Warren notices a nebula with strange readings they are about to pass and warns John to shut down the machine. John goes to do so, but too late, an electric surge passes through the ship and Xanatos is shocked by the VR equipment, getting fried. After he comes to, they are peeling the suit off of him and getting him checked up in medical.
The strangest thing has happened, Xanatos' brain damage has been reversed and he's even smarter than before. Warren puts him on active duty since he can actively help now and the crew goes to the bar to celebrate. Xan is slowly talked into buying round after round for the team. Noticing Seraphna hanging onto him, he tries to shake her off and ends up flatly stating he doesn't want to be her pilot and she needs to look elsewhere. Heartbroken, Seraphna leaves and with a guilty conscience, he goes after her and lets her down easier. The crew continues to party and eventually Xan goes to his room. Here he finds a naked Erevis ready to consumate their marriage. As things get hot and steamy, Setsuna suddenly breaks into the room and sees Xan on top of Erevis, seeming to assume he's assaulting her, she starts firing.
Before Xan knows it, he's running across the ship in his skivvies, with the entire crew thinking he's gone on a murder rampage. Members of the Security Team and even civilians try to take him down, a vengeful Seraphna coming for him, refusing to stop. Soon things turn even stranger when he finds Erevis and Chad making love, Chad somehow recovered. John seems to stop at nothing to try and kill him when he somehow believes that he's sleeping with Shiva, and even stranger, seems to be sleeping with her too. The crew keeps coming at him and demanding he confess to his murders, after which he finally breaks down, confessing his guilt over lives he's caused to end in the past and his regret over the accident that rendered him this way.
It's then he comes to. The team finally having gotten his suit off, explaining that the shock gave him dellusions and he's been laying there babbling for a while now. John says he first suspected that the sim had gone crazy at the idea of Seraphna wanting to bond with him. Hotaru thinks it's when John was dating Shiva. They all laugh at this, Seraphna growing shy and going to hide somewhere over her feelings and John heads to Shiva's room for the night.
Session 181: Broken Inside and Outside
Arriving at a planet with not only the ability to support, but containing intelligent life, the PAX has stopped on it's mission to get to know other cultures. John brings down a team after getting them disguised of Kyouki and Seraphna, deciding they need no more than that. Setsuna, Xanatos and Cassandra make it a point that they are taking time off. Warren decides to look over the bed ridden Chad, using his life support as a coat rack.
Xanatos goes to see Dominick Cross, or Dom for short, and have his brain picked. Hotaru and Cheryl discuss boys and who Hotaru will be having for bed time. Setsuna joins them for talk about what gets them going in the morning. Meanwhile on the actual mission, John's team meets the villagers and after a few exchanged words, are invited into a hut to share a meal. John spins a tale about how Sera and Kyo are his women. It's then they learn of a special water that can heal any sickness or injury.
They are fed food, which Kyo and Sera both find foul, but John can't seem to get enough of it, even eating their shares. He walks off with the male to go see the water while his wife feeds the girls tea. They both begin to get uncomforterable when John comes back, seemingly alright. He compliments the dish he had by name before insisting they go.
Dom continues to pick Xan's brain as he relays his current romantic woes to the psychiatrist. John and party beam back up and John calls a meeting while nearby, Hotaru takes interest in Dias and Cheryl begins saving her from certain doom. The group discusses who the water could possibly be used to heal and they can't seem to think of anyone. It's Ceres of all people who suggests using the water to heal Chad. Seraphna keeps her head down, but it is Erevis who seems to indicate that they should perhaps reconsider it to restore her voice instead, Seraphna however seems to refuse.
John and Shiva steer the conversation from curing Chad more and Seraphna finally calls attention to herself and signs to Warren to heal Chad first. Warren translates and agrees, Erevis seconding the opinion. The group agrees and breaks up, John voicing to Sera that he really wanted Warren to take the cure, getting their CO off his pain issues, but Seraphna hugs him and shows that she's really glad that Chad will be cured. She herself takes Chad's body down on the stretcher for the water, and when they return, John plays a gag on the team by acting like it didn't work. Chad, in his show of gratitude... completely ignores Sera and moves to Zephyr and Aya. He pulls Zephyr into a hug and thanks her, then moves off with her. Seraphna just seems quietly happy.
Meanwhile on the ship, Dominator drills down on Xan and convinces him to start moving on and making something better of his life. Dias fails harder than ever to seduce a girl, and Cheryl continues to rescue Hotaru from hopeless, certain doom. Badly though, as it appears that Hotaru is actually considering a date with Dias. Warren, who seemed deeply saddened for some reason at the sight of Chad with Aya, moves off and starts taking more pills than ever. Xanatos is left with his thoughts of trying to become a better person and reasoning with his own shame when he comes across Seraphna drinking alone while most of the rest celebrate together. She explains her feelings of guilt over having failed Zephyr and feeling she deserves to have Chad hate her, perhaps reminded of himself, Xan begins to talk it out with her and gives her sympathy. When he asks why Seraphna backed down on Zera, she reveals she feels abandoned, and especially at the time, she was alone in the world and Zera promised her family.
While Xan and Sera begin to flirt with each other and share in their mutual miseries, John works on a new conquest. Chad and Zephyr settle Aya down. Zephyr mentions that she's become worried about Warren, that his habits are spiraling out destructively. Zephyr moves Chad into her place, having already been housing Aya, and everyone settles down for the night.
Session 182: Regaining What You Lost
John finds a map of the west coast and lays into Kane in rage, claiming he told him to search the truck and blames him for needing to torture the guy. He begins his plan to head out to the west coast. Pissed off, he tells Kane and Cel they can remain behind to dispose of the bomb, and Cel attempts to disobey and follow, saying John will just fuck things up. John calls in Hotaru and picks her up to go on the mission with them along with Em, and the four of them along with Angela head out west. Meanwhile, Chad Winters arrives at the hospital to enact his plan to lure the killer into a trap and calls in Setsuna to help him and has Zephyr hide in the room to get ready to take out the killer if he shows up. And Xevil and the other diplomats continue to go at it, with Ceres trying to walk a tight rope and delay the meeting. Finally, Xevil demands Ceres call the President in to settle this matter, which she tries to ignore. Xevil, however, seems content to keep them in the meeting all day for however long it takes. With Ceres about to relent, and allow Xevil to place Shretrav, at the base Kane and Cel learn the bomb is leaking dangerous levels of radiation; they clip the last red wire and it blows up the entire base complex. Chad, who is in the middle of telling Jared Carter that his son will be put in danger, is in informed by the datapad. Warren also gets a message and rushes out, and Xevil finds it disdainful. Xevil allows them a few hours to deal with it - graciously. He speaks with his right hand man, Skaad, and informs them it's going according to plan - sowing seeds of dissent amongst the team. John is stunned when he's commed and looks like his world just shattered, having thought it disabled, and feels torn up with guilt for ordering them to stay behind. At the hospital, Eve suddenly goes into labor and the strain will likely kill her; the doctors take her to surgery and Chad watches them go, collapsing to his knees. It ends with Xevil saying to forget the one target and to target the main target immediately.
Session 183: Opening A Gift Fifteen Years Early - 750th Session after plugging in Web of Deceit and Happy Endings and other TAW1-3 sessions
John has started a training class under Warren to teach some of the team more hand to hand combat abilities. Terra of course shows up instantly, with Dias there to mope while Chad and Warren watch because of the entertainment factor. Myria, Elayne, Hotaru, Erevis, Kyo and Seraphna attend as well. After showing a few moves, the class ends abruptly when John demonstrates a choke hold, causing Erevis to kick his ass and break his nose. Dominick steps in to respond to the incident, but Erevis has already left. He instead gives Myria a pill to help with her stomach and questions Seraphna, whom he calls Serena, about the incident. While others saw a connection to the choking, she did not, and thus doesn't mention it.
While the crew returns to the business of awkwardly attempting to find love in deep space, forming relationships, and Chad learning you can't feed hot dogs to a baby, Kyo's crush on Erevis blossoms. Seraphna makes an appointment with Dom and John cleans himself up, while Cheryl continues to caution Hotaru against destructive relationships to no avail. As everyone gets cleaned up and ready for duty, Hotaru rocking the shortiest skirt ever, Warren calls a security team down to the hangar bay.
The lights are flickering on the ship and Sera tries to fix it. Warren recognizes the readings in the power as similar to when the PAX was caught in a time loop. What they find in the hangar is a 14 year old, red haired girl who clings to John and starts crying. While John struggles against sudden assumptions that he's a pedo, he's saved when the girl identifies herself as his daughter, raising even more questions. Michiru refuses to identify her mother while John has a nice wonderful trip into passing out from shock-land. Erevis, hearing she is from the future, steps forward with an intent to kill, warning them all that her very presence is deadly to them all. They group as a whole stops her and seperates them.
After calming down, Erevis explains to the group that Michiru even being here will cause a Timeline Divergence, which can tear reality asunder. Michiru, for her part, appears to be here to cause one intentionally, to stop some sort of terrible future. Sera brings up the simple logic, that Erevis confirms, it is already too late to stop things, as her very presence has already begun a divergence from the original timeline, the knowledge of every team member has already been significantly altered. Warren and others assume Wind sent her to create a divergence, while others are not so certain, a small rift forms in the crew as some side with Erevis, and others with John on Michiru's fate. John storms out after Peacekeeper tries to call the murder of a 14 year old girl for the greater good and Chad plays the numbers game.
FInally, as things begin to boil over, Seraphna suggests they keep her alive in isolation for now in order to let cooler heads prevail. Warren agrees and John moves to interrogate his supposed daughter. John wiggles Kyo at Michiru to use her mind powers, she confirms the truth behind her words. Michiru finally gives the warning of who she is there to help them stop, and to everyone's surprise it isn't the Dark Ones. The one she fears is Xevil.
The crew winds down for now, keeping Michiru in a secluded room. Some plot to cockblock John to try and undo the future, some plot to help him find love. Seraphna meets Dominick for a date and they hit it off. Erevis comes down from her rage and decides to get her drink on. John does his best to center himself.
Another day on the ship, Warren wakes to his usual routine of downward spiraling with drugs and booze, John continues to try to get to know his new daughter better while Xanatos ducks glares and accusations about Erevis. Meanwhile, the tension between John and Erevis is so high that half the crew is watching them for equal protection. All that said, the group eventually meets on the bridge for their daily duties when they come across a derelict in space.
Xanatos, John, Hotaru, Chad, Erevis, and Terra accompany Seraphna over to the ship to harvest it's databanks to find out what happened. The ship, apparently cut open like swiss cheese, is oddly still operational though no survivors are found. As the team makes their way through the ship, the darkness of the ship seems to press in all around them. When Seraphna recovers the ship's data crystals, the ship begins to suddenly dissolve, darkness pressing around them more and glass cutting through Xanatos' space suit. Seraphna and Erevis work to preserve his suit and oxygen as the group makes their way to the shuttle for safety.
In the struggle, something whips the Rune out of Chad's hand, he seems to lose it, and is nearly taken himself but Seraphna pulls him to safety. The shuttle is able to break free tha the crew returns to the ship.
Once aboard, Warren and Sera are able to piece through the data and find video of the attack. A darkness out in space with tendrils that blocks out the stars tears through the ship that became the derelict. There's the sound of screaming that Terra swears she heard while they were trying to escape, something trying to invade her mind. Arhn reasons that this may be the Darkness, a leftover weapon of the Progenitors that was once forgotten to time. The crew continues on with ill ease, knowing the area they explore now may contain an ancient and terrible threat.
Session 185: Through the Looking Glass Part 1
Warren and Zephyr are having a fight over her relationship with Chad. He tries to warn her about his bad influence and how she's falling into his personality rut. She counters by demanding he leave and makes a very hurtful quip about his ability to lead the crew just as he goes to. He turns as if to hit her and she grabs him in a Chad style lock. When he points this out, calling bullshit on the claim they've broken their bond, Zephyr pushes him out.
Meanwhile, the crew gets ready for a ground excursion, the planet below them in the middle of a space storm that is preventing them from going down having a window of opening. The team gets ready to go down, the first attempt does not go so well, in fact, the storm's interference sends the crew back onto the teleporter pods... except that Erevis has become two people. Sure enough, it seems Erevis and Katrina have been split, Katrina given her freedom and Erevis no longer having her human component.
Warren goes ahead and sends Setsuna and Cassandra down as the new away team while the others deal with what they do best, DRAMA! Setsuna and Cassandra encounter a shadowy beast on the surface and must work together and begin their bond together to survive until they can beam back up. While that harrowing and interesting tale is happening, the crew bickers over what to do with the returned Katrina and worries over an inhuman Erevis going ballistic on everyone. In truth nothing really bad happens, Xanatos must face the fact that he effectively betrayed and cheated on Katrina with her body snatcher and John chills a little in his hatred over Erevis with his sister returned.
Many try to spend time with Katrina and grow close to her again, but ultimately she plays keep away. Meanwhile, Zephyr seems to be more attached to Chad than ever, showing an interest in him that's almost romantic, much to the growing worry of Warren.
Session 186: Through the Looking Glass Part 2
John and Katrina catch up on old times, now that Katrina has regained her body from Erevis, while Ceres and Elayne talk about some unknown mistake. Warren is detoxing harder than planned, due to Chad tampering with the dosage, but the tampering was detected, leading to Warren confronting and picking a fight with Chad. The group refuse to arrest Chad without evidence, even on Warren's orders, but agree to watch him further.
Montana is infected with a virus and attacks Seraphna, Erevis is injured in a sparring match with Katrina and isn't healing, Michiru is growing increasingly concerned about things being wrong, and Dominick has gone missing. One of these is more serious than the others, and it's not Montana being infected, since Erevis is found to not be healing and the infected Beta is quickly dealt with.
As Xanatos reveals to Katrina that he caused her mother's death, and Michiru reveals to Erevis that she is the "Aunt Kat" she remembers, Warren reveals the more immediately relevant piece of information. Chad is actually Id.
Session 187: Through the Looking Glass Part 3
Warren and Id hold something of a mexican standoff as they face each other, weapons ready. Chad, who is currently Id, attempts to diffuse the situation by convincing Warren that he can't prove anything about what's going on. Warren, having none of it, gives a simple ultimatum that Id break his bond with Zephyr or die. The stand off is ended when Zephyr herself attempts to take down Warren, Warren gets his shot off and then slams his gun into Zephyr to stun them both. He gets out a warning to Seraphna to run for it, knowing Zephyr's next move will be to come for her. As the fight with Id is joined by several other team members including Erevis, Zephyr goes after Angela as predicted and attacks her in her room. Seraphna is ready however the the two go into a tumbling fight into the hallways. As they both take damage, and Seraphna lands a blow that should put Zephyr under, Zephyr rises like the terminator and comes at her again. Seraphna blows up a steam pipe and makes a run for the hangar when she finds she cannot access Montana for help.
Warren, Erevis, Michiru and Xanatos face off against Id, who dodges their attacks with force and Id naturally puts the cripple down first then goes after the less capable Michiru and Xan. Erevis tosses them out of the room for their own safety and goes at Id herself. As this fight continues, Seraphna reaches out for help in the Alpha Protocol and calls Hotaru and Cheryl into the fight. While it's 3 against 1, and the odds jumping even higher when Warren joins the fight, everyone is trying their best to simply keep Zephyr at bay and talk her down instead of fighting. Seraphna tries to reason with her that murdering her won't make anything better, and Zephyr seems purely driven by an insane desire to end her. When it becomes clear that Zephyr won't win on her own, she begins to overload herself and says she'll take them all down with her. Seraphna, Cheryl and Hotaru each try to take her down and stop it in their own way, Seraphna trying to hack the Alpha Protocol, Hotaru attempting but failing to knock her out and Cheryl trying to break reason into her head.
As it becomes clear that Id and Erevis are at a stalemate, Seraphna detects that Id has pushed the self destruct to go faster and with only seconds left on the clock, she finds she has no choice but to use an arm loader to thrust Zephyr outside the hangar shield. She explodes, but the lives of the hangar crew, Seraphna, Hotaru, Cheryl and Warren are all spared in the process. While they level hateful stares at Seraphna's decision to choose Zephyr's life over the others, they all head together after Chad for revenge.
Id takes down Erevis just as the rest join the scene. In a rage they explain the explosion was Zephyr, and Chad/Id seems nonplussed about it. While this should anger them more, Seraphna instantly sees a fault in Id's response. Having felt a bonded die in the past, she knows the incredible pain of the act and Id simply isn't feeling it. Which can only mean Zephyr is still alive. She and Hotaru race back to the Hangar as the rest deal with Id this time. Upon returning to the hangar, Zephyr hurls a grenade at Seraphna who narrowly dodged, but still takes a heavy blow. The two soon set on each other, exchanging hard punches and heavy comments. Zephyr presses on that all she wants in life is to kill Seraphna, and Seraphna takes the blame for her actions, but makes it clear she intends to protect herself no matter what guilt she feels.
The fight starts to turn in Zephyr's favor when she suddenly shuts down. For at that same moment, Warren fires his gun into the back of Id's head. Thankfully for Chad, it was just a loaded stun shot, but it succeeds in taking both down. The group begins the massive cleanup they need to deal with. Zephyr, Seraphna, and Erevis sent to medical, while Chad is sent to the brig. However, when they all go to check in, Erevis doesn't turn up. It soon becomes apparent that in the confusion, John has kidnapped Erevis and intends to get Katrina back. As the two fight on an elevator, Seraphna is dragged out of bed to get the elevators back on line so the others can help.
In the fight, John's anger finally cause Erevis to let go and let Katrina out for a bit, Katrina expresses anger and disgust however, over how everyone has been acting. The elevator crashes and into an irradiated part of the ship and despite Warren trying his best to get everyone to hang back and wait for it to clear, they rush in to save Erevis... and maybe John too. Seraphna thankfully is able to cut off the radiation and vent it, sparing people from mutations and early fried death. However, everyone who goes in gets sick.
Stardate: 10-585.5.21
Warren holds a conference once everyone is recovered enough and implores his team to let go of old grudges. He proposes a clean slate and even frees Chad? from his bonds at Zephyr's choice. The team largely agrees to try and forgive each other and move on, except for Chad who naturally as is his way, refuses to forgive Seraphna. His continued use of the name Serena however clues her in and in private she confronts Id, demanding he let Chad go. The two hold a deep conversation in which Id tries to twist every little thing she's done to the negative and Seraphna for once refuses to have any of that nonsense. She warns him he'll face consequences for this, and Id retaliates with a mind bomb on Seraphna, revealing she had a human mother. Seraphna, shaken, ends the conversation, and runs into Erevis. The two awkward women become fast companions after sharing their troubles fitting in.
Session 188: Pick Up The Pieces
This time, on Days of Our TAWs...
Aya is moody as Chad has a bad day, seemingly being difficult because she misses having Zephyr around. Still alienated due to Id, who is actually controlling Chad, having used her as a murder puppet. Dias meanwhile gets angry at a simulator and picks a fight with a technician. Dominick stops by Engineering to check on Seraphna who shows off the Beta system she's integrating into the ship. Dominick attempts to talk to her about her feelings over the incident, but Seraphna seems uninterested in that subject and instead proposes a date, which he puts off.
Id attempts to talk to Zephyr who slams the door in his face, while John winds up on an impromptu family day with Michiru. Id then attempts to move onto Cheryl who puts him down flatly and doesn't engage in his attempts to cast guilt on her. While he continues to try to discover what reason Aya might be upset, in total denial that it could possibly be himself, he moves on looking for his next target.
John takes Michiru to a bar and after sharing a drink, John goes on duty. Michiru runs into Seraphna who attempts to spend some time with her, but Michiru wriggles her way out of it, having some reason to avoid Seraphna too much. Shiva and Warren exchange witty blows as per usual, Warren going after her relationship with John while Shiva goes after his pill addiction, fun times are had by both. Id moves onto Erevis, who finds Aya's attempts at guilting Id to be amusing, but also doesn't appear to fully understand what's wrong with the dynamic. This causes Id to move on, unsure of how to get to her.
Kyo and John have a little heart to heart, mostly about how Kyo can't seem to read John's mind. Id finally lands on a target that will take time to listen to him with Seraphna. He starts to needle at her need for company and a pilot. However, she doesn't take the offense, instead jabbing at him for keeping Chad's body and what he's done. He attempts to push her guilt, she somehow manages to compare him to Spade and finds Spade actually the better person, simply because he was honest with her and paid for his crimes instead of hiding from them.
The two keep exchanging blows, especially since Id doesn't seem to have the ability Chad does to make her feel bad. This ends however when Erevis shows up to meet Seraphna for dinner. Excusing herself from Id, she gets up to leave with Erevis and Id follows them with Aya. He continues to attempt to get to both of them, now using Aya as a prop, a subtle way of reminding Seraphna she is barren and also because Aya seems to make Erevis uncomforterable. After four atttempts to get rid of him, they finally do and are able to spend time together.
Shiva and Warren continue to chat, Warren excusing his pills as radiation sickness treatment and Shiva asking if Chad really crossed that final line. John and Kyo talk about how Kyo is interested in Erevis, Kyo's thoughts being on how she and Erevis are psionic entities. This conversation goes south when John brings it around to Katrina. Kyo attempts to defend Erevis and the conversation becomes awkward when John realizes it's hard to keep accusing her of an involuntary act. They then discuss the runes, and the need to keep Chad away from them.
As Cassandra sits down to have a session with Dominick, Seraphna and Erevis enjoy a pizza and Sera tries to discuss Erevis' past. She's closed on this subject so Sera moves on to interests. At nearly the same time, Cassandra explores her own interests with Dominick, then admits she's had issues sleeping due to bad dreams. Cassandra questions whether she is alive or an android of herself, and Dominick perscribes that she decide that for herself and settle on it, and that she should take dreaming as a sign of her being a person.
Cheryl returns to drinking while Dias joins her in the bar. A man dies when he touches Cheryl's ass and Dias takes this as a challenge to see how far he can go hitting on her. After a long, painful moment as Cheryl slowly breaks his bones, Dias shows quite the resilience but loses the battle overall. Cheryl eventually walks off in disgust and Dias drinks again. Terra finding them all crazy.
Kyo and Dominick sit down next and explore Kyo's feelings for Erevis, showing she deeply admires the woman and her attraction is on a next level basis, loving her mind more than anything. Dominick suggests she pace herself and not come on too strong. After the discussion she steps out and meets John, who asks if she read his mind, she says she restrained herself and he seems disappointed. Id goes to Cassandra to ask for his job back, but she asks him to take a psyche evaluation. He seems to either want to work with the runes, or take Seraphna's job has chief engineer. He then begins to inform Cassandra on information about the explosions.
Session 189: The Words I Would Say
John and Cassandra are preparing to turn over the ship's functions to Cassandra's voice patterns and code, in order to lock out the hacker from controlling the ship. Warren submits himself for a specialized surgery to disconnect his pain receptors, hoping to get back into the field with such a dangerous means of overcoming his disability. As Cassandra inputs her code however, something goes wrong and a spacial anomoly seems to cause the entire ship to go Mute. All except for the ship's resident Mute as Seraphna discovers she suddenly has the ability to speak again. As the crew learns firsthand the struggles to communicate, they also realize a problem, control of the ship is locked to the voice of a woman who can no longer speak.
Cheryl chooses to keep getting drunk while the rest of the crew panicks. Terra joins her, and the team starts to tryu and figure out a way to overcome this issue. Seraphna contacts everyone and for once gets to have the one-sided conversation, seeing no one voicing a protest, she decides to hack the hacked ship, uploading a takeover virus called the Sigma virus into the ship. This turns out poorly as it interacts with whatever the hacker has done in the system and tries to take over for itself. Seraphna continues the terrible references by uploading the X Antivirus into the system to isolate Sigma.
Sigma is eventually pushed into a welder mech who then starts attacking the hangar bay. Seraphna sends Hotaru to go mech to mech with the mad bot while Xanatos bravely attempts to hold it off by not getting welded to death. Hotaru sends the bot out into space where it must drift eternally, as the welder has no propulsion system. That is, until Hotaru shoots and blows it up. The isolated viruses gone, Seraphna is able to restore the ship and give access back to the crew. Right after the explosion, the crews voices come back and Seraphna is returned to being a mute, though she doesn't seem upset about it at all.
The injured join Warren in medical, the man having survived his operation, and everything seems to be going fine. His voice returned, Id decides to use it to attempt to get under Cheryl's skin and finds her reactions far different from others. When he finally goes too far she grabs him and slams his face into the bar several times, nearly killing him. Id tries to fight back but Cheryl locks onto him and goes for a kill, nearly busting the bar as badly as she busts him. She's eventually held back and Id sent to medical.
Cassandra is left to the task of deciding how to handle Cheryl, and starts to research her. She finds that Cheryl's degredation started many years ago, when she caused the death of Warren's fiance. She asks Warren for his opinion and while he is blunt, does speak in her defense. Ultimately, her judgement is left in Ariel's hands, who has to consider what to do with Cheryl and her confirmed PTSD making her this dangerous. Seraphna lends herself to Cheryl's defense, pointing out that Id is the only party with actual ill intent towards everyone else, John agrees they have to treat all parties equally, and Id can't just be allowed to get people in trouble and escape judgement. The team is left to think.
The crew goes about a usual day shift. Xanatos finds himself handed a task from Cassandra handed to her from Chad to get some power couplings. Seraphna seems to get into an argument with one of the fighter pilots, Pope, but at the end she seems to have enjoyed it, possibly flirting. John tries to open Dias' eyes on how Id is hurting everyone, showing him the files on what Id has done, especially to Zephyr. Warren and Zephyr have a sit down and seem to agree to try and get better.
Erevis goes to confront Id, the two begin to trade spurring comments but Id fails to phase Erevis this time, she has seen too much of his evil to be foiled. Cheryl goes into a shower and somehow escapes her security detail, who also report that her weapon is missing from storage. No one seems too rushed to stop her from what they all know she plans to do, kill Id.
Chad turns the tables on Erevis in the only way he has left, attacking her body, attempting to cut her down with pressure points. She in turn does the only thing she can in this situation and psionically attacks his mind. While they are locked into this struggle, Cheryl comes to Erevis rescue with a good old fashioned beat down. Id and Cheryl fight, eventually Cheryl seems to beat a bit of sense into him when Warren guns him down. The two are taken to the hospital, along with Erevis, who seems to have taken an immense social trauma.
It is revealed that the combination of a psionic attack and Cheryl's pounding allowed Chad to regain control of his body from Id, leaving Id the mental prisoner, for now. The rest of the team does that best to recuperate, Zephyr and Warren finally fully make up, Zephyr saying Warren has opened his heart to someone, that being Cheryl.
Seraphna gets the date she was trying to get with Dominator the entire time and spends time with him. As they talk, Seraphna starts to talk about Spade and how much Dom reminds her of him.
While the group is getting over the efforts of freeing Chad from Id, Erevis lays in medical recovering, okay but weak. Warren is going over her records and seems very displeased with the risk to Erevis that was place on her to destroy Id. Dias ambuses Xanatos in his own room and challenge him to a fighting match. John and Shiva are enjoying a moment of calm in their relationship. And Chad is put down hard by Zephyr who asks him to get away from her. He does, leaving Aya with her for now.
Terra checks on an engineer stating he's found a very strange issue. One of the sensors is reporting that it's detecting something, but the scans are only coming back showing the vast blackness of space. Terra realizes the problem quickly when she realizes that blackness is the ONLY thing they are seeing, no stars, and that's when the Dark One Ship makes it's presence known by moving, surrounding the PAX with tendrils.
It's all hands on deck as the crew struggles to escape, tendrils blast into the ship and deposit creatures that resemble black, rotting flesh who in turns shoot tendrils of their own. In the ambassadors wing, Elayne and Ceres are fleeing to safety with an escort when one of these creatures impales and kills Ceres right before Elayne's eyes, and her guards drag her to safety, leaving Ceres for dead. All over the ship, each section is systematically hit and both crew and civilians alike are being killed. John rushes out to help and finds that the creatures run right past him, going for Terra.
On the bridge, a tendril slams in just as Warren realizes the attack pattern and warns everyone to take cover. The team faces off against several who go for Kyouki and Erevis, who has shown up to help. Setsuna sets fire to several and the crew does their best to keep the monsters off their allies, and their strange fixation on a few of them. Cassandra seems to freeze up in a plan to win, so Warren advises and the ship does multiple blind jumps. Sweeping up the surviving darkness creatures, who's screams appear to weaken psions, the crew is left to count over 256 dead, crew and civilian alike, and their EarthGov representative amongst that number.
Damaged, alone in space, viciously reduced in numbers, Warren stresses they must continue their mission, because heading back to Earth now could lead these strange dark aliens right back home. In a meeting, they conclude that the attack was meant to strip the crew of their psions, and this must mean that psions are a threat to them. Everyone notices slowly that the dark creatures only attacked non-psions if they made their presence known in the fight.
The crew winds down, licking their wounds, starting repairs, and preparing for their next eventual run in with these monsters.
Cassandra awakens in bed in a pool of blood, a dead man in bed next to her with a dagger through his heart. Unable to remember the previous evening, she calls security herself and recuses command while they investigage. John puts Chad and Warren on the case, and before he can argue, orders Warren back into the military and to retake his position on the crew. Warren at a loss of words, accepts the demands.
The evidence is stacked against her, no drugs in McCullen's system, no signs of a struggle, and the knife only has Cassandra's prints. Warren however, continues to persue leads, finding out that Cassandra was seeing Dominick for therapy and that he recommended she start dating. He decides to bring him in for questioning, and he suggests a mental trip, in which Erevis and Setsuna explore Cassandra's mind for clues.
Meanwhile, the Dork Brigade spends time in the training sims thanks to some taunting between Dias and Xanatos. After testing themnselves in some flight sims, Sera manages to lure Xanatos to the side for a getting to know each other session that is totally not a date. Meanwhile, Dias and Terra duke it out in a sparring match and Dias finds he bit off more than he can chew with the scrappy lady who gives as good as she gets.
The clues begin to fall into place, Chad is tasked to get Elayne to help detect if nanotech was involved in destroying evidence or controlling Cassandra, while Erevis and Setsuna are able to confirm she was clearly controlled the night before due to personality changes in her very much locked down memories stashed in her deep psyche.
Elayne's scanning tech shows a dosage of elements in her body that shouldn't be there, evidence of nanotech used at least in terms of erasing evidence. Altogether it is enough to clear Cassandra on a case of mental tampering, her name cleared, but the perpetrator still at large.
Chad's Rune Detection system is in place and getting ready for a test run as John welcomes 30 new recruits including Dias and Xanatos, onto the official crew. John does is best to heckle the new troops, and when Dias messes up, Serena oddly seems to help him out of a jam while getting in a silly insult. However, her goofing off allows John to slam Xan in the brig when he laughs and jokes about the situation.
As the crew reports to the bridge for the test, Cheryl meets Marcus for the first time, a waiter on the ship who seems quite bold in his advances. The Detection System is run and the most interesting read out comes back, not one, but 6 Runes are in a single location. While this screams trap, the crew has no choice but to investigate the situation. John takes a group down with Erevis as the sole Psionic, as both protection and a precaution. When they arrive they find the runes, but also an old foe waiting for them. The Dragoon Hunter Avalon is there and he wants Ariel, but he settles for a fight with Erevis as the others try to escape with the runes.
Warren attempts to keep this fact from Ariel, but with Hotaru and Erevis down there, Cheryl is more than happy to inform her mother and Ariel teleports down to the fight to take on Avalon. It is here that she discovers there is a seventh rune, the eigth in total which was masked by the six. The power of the Holy Rune unleashed, Ariel is able to defeat Avalon, at least taking him down for the count so everyone can flee, Chad using the Runes to break through beam jamming to get them all on board and allows the team to flee.
Able to lick their wounds, including a rather terrible gut wound on Hotaru thanks to Avalon, the team now has a full set of elemental runes and they make their way deeper into the system.
---
Afterwards, Cheryl and Terra are hanging in the bar when Chad starts chiding her into drinking more. Xanatos joins them for a time but his artificial liver loses the fight and he's sent to medical. Airier tries to get to know her and winds up being her escort for the evening, Chad, who suggests he'd take advantage of her ends up being the one to take advantage of her state, getting her to drink even more. Eventually he buggers off and Airier escorts her safely back to her rooms. Terra spends the night on Cheryl's couch.
Serena ends up spending an evening with Marcus, the bold waiter having charmed her into a night out. It goes smoothly, all things considered as he isn't even put off at her needing to talk to him though a comms.
Warren interviews Xanatos at what he deems a suicide attempt, learning that Erevis rejected Xanatos again after the Katrina incident. John later takes him to find a new girl and promises to set him up with the next woman they see. Of course, after Elayne and Michiru both walk by, much to John's horror, he lucks out in getting Kyo to walk by, but we suspect she might be into someone else. John ends up ensuring Xan's death by setting him up to give Cheryl a King's Red Fruit. Certain wrath ends up coming from Warren, but not before Cheryl and Warren share a very interesting moment in her room.
Session 194: The Defining Moments Part 1
The day starts out with many consequences to the previous evening. Xanatos makes his way through a gauntlet of people giving him what he deserves for feeding Cheryl the Red Fruit. Cheryl herself does her best to walk things off and move past it, but everyone seems reluctant to let her. John faces the wrath of Shiva as she teases him with a possible taste of his own medicine. Finally, Cassandra calls the two men in to give them a well deserved lecture.
That's when the ship suddenly shudders from multiple explosions and as the crew races to see if they can save the ship, Cassandra, Setsuna, Ariel, Hotaru, Chad, Seraphna, Xanatos, Warren, and John suddenly find themselves in a completely white room, voices all around them. They quickly learn they are being probed by some kind of elitist, higher life form that wishes to study them. The evolved beings casually mention their ship was destroyed, but after the crew protests, they offer the group a challenge, to go back to the beginning and change their fates.
They are sent back in time to witness various events, choosing first not to interfere in the moment Venerator and Cran discovered Wind and Ariel, for just about any outcome they can think of results in the erasure of the Dragoons and the Weapons. They are then given a chance to stop Adam and Cassandra from going on the mission that destroyed them both and turned them into Cyborgs. Cassandra calls off the mission and they see the trap as it was meant to be. They then witness the Pegasus Incident, and Warren, the only one present who can make changes, steps into his body.
To the shock of the others he doesn't stop the incident, but runs to a woman crushed by a building. His fiance carrying his daughter. He takes this moment to say goodbye to her as she dies and he relives the loss of the love of his life and his unborn child. They then are moved to the time Chad and Ariel battled it out on PAX Station. Chad decides not to change the outcome of events, convinced that if he stood down, Ariel would kill him. The moment of change passes.
They are then brought to the height of the Dragoon War, when Serena and Spade battled the Alphas. They look on her in pressure to do the right thing and she occupies her own body. This causes her Sync with Spade to disrupt and brings her out of Mech form. Serena uses Betas to hold the Alphas, especially Cheryl at bay while she calls for a ceasefire. Too late do they all see the result of her good intentions. While four less Alphas die in the battle, Ariel never takes the drug that allows her to act as a balance between the Alphas and the Omega.
Before they can do anything, they are sent to one more event, the birth of Erevis. Where Xanatos may have the chance to save Katrina, at the cost of Erevis.
Session 195: The Defining Moments Part 2
Xanatos of course does what Xanatos does and instantly rushes to stop the ceremony. Warren reminds everyone that without Erevis, Wind would destroy them all in 5 years time. So the group naturally rushes after him. This results in a melee when Darien and those not possessed by their past selves realize Katrina's life is in danger. However, time seems to have some elasticity and with the help of Erevis, is able to prevent her loss.
The team then experiences the time Adam attempted to kidnap Cassandra, but things play out VERY differently when, annoyed with Adam, Cassandra lists out the names of all of the VI Leadership they have not yet discovered, drastically altering the events of the entire VI incidents.
This leads the team to the moment of Wind's awakening. Serena possesses her body and tries to play things safe by warning Spade to guard his head during the fight coming. Then despite running after the others almost immediately, is left behind and therefore must take part in the battle that was previously just Spade, Warren and Wind. This results in Warren dying instead of Spade when Serena tries to stop Wind's attacks. Wind then taunts her before heading after Ariel. Things go wrong with the Light Engine because Serena is not there to finish the design. Wind ends up being warped, but several moments later, while he has Ariel in his arms.
With Warren dead and Ariel gone, the future is going to play out much differently, and the team all awakens in a new reality. Darien is still running his team on Earth. Adam is not a psychotic cyborg and working with the team. Serena is married to Spade and seems to be living with several of the Alphas as well, Cheryl and Hotaru included. Erevis seems to be living with Xan, who is dealing with the shell shock of having sort of gotten what he wanted. All of them however, are starting to forget their past lives. Back on Earth, and completely unaware of the Dark Ones or anything from the other Galaxy, because they never left.
Session 196: The Defining Moments Part 3
While Serena enjoys a day with her fellow Dragoons with Spade, the rest of the group is having quite a different time. Xanatos continues to reel over the idea that he and Erevis wound up together. Chad tries to process things while he takes Eve and Aya out for a drive. And Darien signals his group to meet up after gathering some new information.
It's then when everything seems to hit the fan. Chad and Eve are suddenly in a car accident, Eve pinned into then car. Chad gets Aya out and goes back to try and get Eve, but reacts too late to the sound of a beeping bomb in the car before it explodes. Aya is taken to Spade's mansion for Serena to care for.
Darien, seeming to know something is up, begins to make his move, taking his shuttle to meet up with others when a Dragoon attacks the Shuttle in mech form. Darien manages to escape before the shuttle explodes, but as a result the Dragoon, Dakota, is destroyed.
Chad, Eve and Darien find they have been saved by John aboard the Aquarius II, and he seems to have retained his memories of the past. Speeding the ship through the city he races to meet up with the rest of Darien's team while Serena reels from the death of Dakota and mobilizes the Alphas and Betas, having been led to believe that Darien is starting a coup attempt.
The two groups clash, Alphas against Darien's Team, Betas shielding them and Serena while Spade takes on several of their best. However, the group is able to appeal to Serena's good nature and she eventually attempts to put the Dragoons on defense to stand down. However, she finds her power has been co-opted by her Pilot who continues the assault. After a life and death struggle, Spade is killed and Serena freed to pull the Dragoons back to sanity.
All is not sane however because the moment of peace is marked by Xanatos reeling from the death of Erevis, one of the few casualties in the battle. He attempts to kill Serena in revenge but she and Hotaru resist. Right up until Zephyr kills Serena with a blow to the back of the skull, destroying her. The group is finally able to calm, Ariel stepping in to keep the Alphas from destroying the others over the deaths of their sister and brother. That is, until Dark One ships fill the sky and begin to invade...
And then they all wake up, seeing that they could not change their fate. While some are mad at each other, the one most closed off is Serena who withdraws from the group after the ancient beings agree their mission is too vital to allow the fate of the PAX to continue, restoring the ship and everyone in it. People break off to reel, recover, and reflect. Seraphna finds herself up a stream without a paddle while Dominick leads her away to cheer her up and inform her of the fact that she has a blood relative on the ship. Erevis scolds Xanatos over his selfish intentions and his lack of control. Warren decides to take more pills.
Session 197: The Girl in Question
Dias is up to his usual antics when he and Xanatos run into each other and get into another one of their seemingly random fist fights. Frustrated, Xan walks on and finds Erevis, who sets him straight on what she thinks about him and his selfish attitude of late. The two end up arguing and it becomes very clear the Erevis has lost all interest in him and worse, her respect for him. Cheryl meanwhile is in the bar trying to relax when Dias ticks her off, and when Sera comes into the bar there to meet Marcus, Cheryl snakes her date off of her.
Two depressed people, Xanatos and Seraphna then bump into each other in the halls and begin to talk, sharing condolences with each other with their problems. They remarkably apologize to each other for the previous day's incidents, and begin to form a stronger friendship when Xanatos kisses Seraphna. This leads to them discussing trying to get to know each other more intimately, with both having their hang ups and reservations.
Cheryl, Marcus and Terra pass the time in the bar, and a passing Hotaru learns what happened to Seraphna and reaches out to comfort her. The two have a heart to heart after Xanatos leaves to give Seraphna some breathing room.
Later, Dias bumps into Xanatos again and this time learning of what he's doing with Seraphna, seems to try to poison the well between them. Of course, he's so obtuse about it it doesn't really stick. John and Shiva continue to develop their relationship. Erevis bumps into Saiwase and an epic friendship is formed. Arhn eats Pancakes. Seraphna and Xan meet back up and they continue to see if they can find a common ground, neither very willing to open themselves fully again.
Stardate: 10-585.7.1
A normal day like any other... on Earth? John and Michiru are cruising while John attempts an impossible jump nearly killing them, if not for the fact that they are in a simulation. It ends and Sera picks Michiru up for a day out. While everyone gets ready for the day and John invites Dias out to ask him to be his best man, some sort of engineering disturbance calls Chad and Sera down to fix the issue. Sera breaks her day plans with Michi early to join Chad and they go into a chamber to fix a broken teleportation cufflink.
Something goes wrong and the two are zapped, switching bodies. Hijinks ensue as Seraphna freaks out in Chad's body while Chad instantly moves into a self destructive (or Sera-Distructive) mode in her body. It takes some time for the two to convince others that they've swapped, much to the delight of Warren who has no qualms about teasing Chad.
During all this, Michiru ends up letting it slip that John is her adopted father, not her actual father. In her panick to cover up the identity of her true parents, she lets slip that she is in fact biologically a McCormick, and the crew figures out that Erevis is the actual mother, the father still unknown.
Chad as Sera and Sera as Chad end up going toe to toe when Myria comes up with a fix for their solution and Chad tries to see how far he can stretch Sera's patience before getting to the teleporters. During this time he drinks hard in her body, kisses Cheryl and hits on several of her friends, while kneeing Xanatos in the crotch. Eventually he takes her body to the teleporter room and Myria is able to correct the anomoly.
Seraphna, restored and appreciating herself fully for the first time quickly forgets the trauma in a need to go attend to poor Michiru, who has seemingly been discarded by her future adopted father. Chad goes off to be Chad, probably glad Seraphna didn't mess with his body like he did hers, and goes to see his kid.
Later, Seraphna makes another unsuccessful attempt to bridge the gap with Zephyr, then goes to drink her sorrows away while Hotaru seems distracted with something or someone she won't disclose. Chad and Erevis talk and Chad claims that he doesn't hate on people, he simply dislikes them and thinks he has to be tough on them to make them better, ironically claiming he never turns his back on others like they do to him.
Shiva plans her wedding and noticing Serena getting drunk, starts to egg on her, causing Serena to drink more. Shiva tries to convince Cheryl to play bridesmaid, but she leaves when Serena becomes too depressing to be around. Shiva digs further into Serena who for once bites back just as hard, pointing out that Shiva is such a bitch that she doesn't have any real friends to ask to attend her wedding. The two turn their backs on each other and Shiva marches out. After which Serena sobers herself up with a pill and tells Terra she was only drinking hard to be able to bear being around Shiva.
Warren pours over the data, as they are attempting to find the elements that have been plaguing the ship from the inside. As he is starting to reach conclusions, Dominick presents one of his own: Cornelius "Weindigo" Phaeton. The man's skillset and planning and the fact that he matches someone on board lead even Warren to agree, however he is bothered by another element, convinced there is more. It's then that the hacker makes his proclaimation.
Making public all the strange and confusing incidents of late, he charges most of the command crew with crimes and states the people will be taking the ship if they do not turn back and head home. Of course, refusal or no, the other element strikes as explosives begin to go off while the team tries to secure the diplomats. Ariel and Erevis are caught in a blast, while Serena and Elayne are nearly waylaid, only for the thugs to find Serena has taken Elayne through a route only the Head Engineer would know.
When a blast takes out most of the bridge, Cheryl and Serena are sent to Engineering to try and take back control of the ship after Serena identifies that the chief engineers console would be the next best place to do so. As thugs continue to storm the command deck, Hotaru and Em become seperated from the rest as Thomas Garland makes his presence known as well. Hotaru's former pilot is the brazen, crazed element Warren was trying to identify and he seems to believe he can restore his bond with Hotaru.
Cheryl and Serena meet heavy resistance in Engineering, Cheryl fighting off a group of thugs while Serena makes her break for the control room. Koyuki, Xanatos and Warren begin to win back the command deck while Erevis, with a near fatal injury, does all she can to keep Ariel safe and alive during the struggle. Serena comes face to face with Phaeton and while stunned, Phaeton begins to reveal things she didn't know, such as Cheryl being he sister by blood and the blood on her hands. Cheryl interjects long enough to shut him up for a bit, before John and Setsuna add to the conversation by subduing him. Serena is given the chance to kill him but instead shoots him in the leg and orders him restrained.
During this, Hotaru resists Garland who proves to be as jaded and insane as she always thought he was. His molestation of her however is cut short by Em, who comes at him with a wrench. The two overcome him and in the ensuing fight overpower him. On his knees, Garland insists that Hotaru kill him. However, Hotaru seems to share the same feeligns as Serena when she argues mercy and refuses. Em however, feels no such feelings and stabs him in the back of the head, ending his life.
During all of this, Warren and the rest of the team have taken out most of the thugs and freed most of the hostages. Ariel, bringing herself to medical to get her and Erevis help, frees Peacekeeper who is also being held hostage through agressive, sword based negotiations. With the ship relatively under control again and the ringleaders captured, the fighting ceases. The team is left to lick woulds, both physical and mental, and recover from this disaster. And the poor Engineering team left to rebuild half the damn ship.
Later on, Serena confronts Cheryl about their relative relationship and Serena ends up pushing buttons she didn't know Cheryl had. Cheryl does her best to drive Serena away, and once she's gone shows that she was struggling herself, not with anger, but some extreme guilt. Serena starts to grow angry from all of this herself, and Xanatos and John have to spend time keeping her from self harm. Xanatos deciding to stop keeping his distance and let the relationship between himself and Sera play out. Terra and Marcus continue to go on dates. Cheryl drinks more.
Detecting another Temple, the PAX stops and Warren sets up a new mission. Chad's machine to detect elemental affilitions is ready, and with it they identify most of the crew's elements, as well as how well each would benefit from the use of the smaller "servant" runes which increase ones latent abilities. As they are given out, the team forms up and heads down to the planet.
This time they find the seal on the Temple is intact and after Chad does some translating they learn the door will only open for a "pure being". After some degree of interpretation, they conclude that this may mean a virgin soul. Setsuna touches the door and vanishes through it, but it lets no one else through. The group starts to test each member as Cheryl stand away looking about and trying to ignore the situation. However once everyone else in the party tries the door and fails, Cheryl is left with no other choice. Still denying the possibility right up until she touches the door, she is sent through leaving everyone to reel at learning that Cheryl is indeed a virgin.
Their denials and shock are short lived however as Dark Ones rise from the ground and Avalon makes his appearance. Desaeus himself rises up and instruction Avalon to attack Ariel, calling her the "anchor". The two begin to fight and the rest are left to fight the Dark Ones. Things quickly go from bad to worse as Desaeus steals the Fire Rune during the battle and John radios in for a beam up to get them out of there. When Cheryl emerges with the new rune, Warren beams them up. During the struggle most took some degree of hard injury, but they managed to get in some heavy blows on Deseaus and Avalon.
As the group recuperates, Warren actually seems pleased that the Fire Rune was lost for some reason, and the crew goes to get their wounds fixed up. Kyo begins to wage her campaign of loathing for Dias, while also showing signs of liking Ariel. Serena finally gets into a talk with Warren and reveals her massive insecurities, but Warren leaves her with a lot to think about.
We open with John reminicing on all those who have been lost. He looks to his daughter, Michiru, telling her what great people they were and how much she would like them. He tells her that when the time comes, she should trust in them.
Timeline: Another Time, Distant Future
Erevis clutches Michiru, looking at her with care even as blood leaks from her head. She tells her she loves her, her most beloved daughter, and apologizes for the risk she is about to take by sending her back into the past, to purposely fracture the timeline and leave room for a future full of hope. She warns to not underestimate their enemy, but to remember that the power of human will is stronger than him.
Stardate: 10-585.7.14
After their next jump, the PAX is waylaid by a Dark One ship. Warren orders several jumps but their enemy continues to follow them with perfect accuracy. Seeing no other choice, Warren calls for battlestations and launches ship. At first the enemy seems invulnerable, however, they identify that nukes both slow the enemy ship down and destroys all their formed tendrils.
The fighter wings soon find that if they attack in tandem, the enemy fighters cannot maintain defenses and are destroyed. The tide of battle quickly turns. Just as they are breathing a sigh of relief, 5 more enemy ships appear and disable the PAX's main drives. Warren makes a quick call, and recalls all fighters. He orders the Light Drive be used once more. They fire it up despite the risk, as the alternative is death.
Stardate: ????
They come out in the pitch black, a sea of darkness with only a single star, a huge yellow sun visible. Before them is a planet which seems barren, except for it's southern central continent which is covered in rain forest and after running a scan, 1000 human lifesigns. After some confusion and working out of the team: Kiyo, John, Michiru, Seraphna, Setsuna, Xanatos, Cassandra, Ariel and Dias head down to the planet, starting with the anomoly they find of a single human life seperate from the rest.
As they land they encounter a giant sand worm, and the creature is laid low by a man with a staff. Hopping down to greet them, they find none other than Darien Starr, last seen sucked into the Light Engine. He reveals he's only been there for 6 days, establishing a significant time difference in what he calls an alternate reality. He leads them to the rest of the people, informing them that the natives here eschew clothing and have a strong faith in being truthful no matter what, so much so that the city is said to compulse the Truth from all.
The team enters, recuperates and feasts. John and Dias conspire to make this clothing policy a ship policy, and everyone begins to share their feelings. Feeling loads off their minds, shoulders and hearts, they are able to strengthen their friendships and bonds a little more that day.
Stardate: 7 Hours Later
Watching the hours pass, the ship is just starting to get to running capacity again when a Dark One ship appears. It tears into the PAX and the crew works doggedly to get people to safety and hold on, activating last chance defenses and even begining to say their final goodbyes. Chad calls Warren a dick. He will remember this.
Stardate: Same time.
From their view, it seems the PAX is destroyed in space. Knowing what's coming next, Darien urges them into the woods after grabbing a brown colored Rune. They team rushes through the trees to the trunk of a gigantic one in the center of the jungle. Here Darien opens a door in the trunk with the Rune and everyone gets in. Everyone except John, who takes the rune and tosses it after them, closing the door. John McCormick tells them all they have the power to Protect, and this is his time. He faces the approaching Dark Ones and detonates a back of explosives, taking out himself and a sizeable chunk of their forces.
The others head deeper into the tree where they find the Rune Blade, and Wind there to claim it and Ariel. The team resists but during the fight they are all thrown into the blood red waters of the Blade's chamber and sink...
Ariel sees the death of a robotic Darien... DeathStar, and Darien guides her away from this past life.
Kyouki sees herself side with Wind against the others, and in a chain of events, give her life to revive Wind, who then gives his life to revive Ariel. No one seems to care for her.
Michiru is spared an illusion, instead the fading memory of John comforts her in this trapped space.
*Summaries done by Sera (majority), Alicia, and Death Star