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Rita Ma      The artificial warpgate is the same as ever. Indoor red emergency lights give the rust of the patched-together ship a near-black hue. Hurrying out onto the Union Busan's deck, the mood is- bright??

     Harpoonists are cheering, laughing, waving over the railing, elbowing each other for room. Binoculars hotly trade hands. It isn't hard to find an explanation, given only a moment or two to find a vantage point and peer out through the thick fog:

     It's "land". Of a sort.

     Floating garbage, from ancient milk cartons to whole shipping containers, has accreted here in something halfway between an island and a raft. The biggest pieces are deliberately lashed together with cable. If you're very lucky, you might spot figures moving around on it- people, just as excited to see the Union Busan as it is to see them.

     The ship is close enough that you could just jump down fifty feet onto a shipping container if you're brave or agile enough; if you're not, smaller boats are ferrying people from the assorted ships of the task force to the island.

     Either way, your contacts Bota and Kana are already on the 'ground', talking to the locals. Sonia, Brune, and that mysterious helmeted harpoonist aren't far behind. Unsurprisingly, all of them look haggard and of desperate means, given that they're living on trash. Surprisingly, there aren't any young faces among them at all. And even more surprisingly, about a third of them have golden-brown 'veins' or cracks across some portion of their skin.

     Anyone who's dug into it will remember that as pathognomic of the Fish Disease. These people are dying.

     "--understand," Kana continues to someone who appears to be an elder, after glancing back over her shoulder and nodding at the Elites. "What we can spare, we'll trade you. But if we can't get to the Queen..."
     "That's the damndest thing. You say that, but these last few years we haven't been having much monster trouble," the stooped old woman says.
     "I can't guess why they wouldn't..."

     Bota splits off from the conversation to greet you properly. He waves with one hand (while holding a bottle of something dark) and smiles awkwardly while rubbing the back of his neck with the other. "Hey. Sorry to call you out on a false alarm, but it's a whole situation anyway. We're stopping here to restock and boost morale, but these people are in a bad way. We might as well help out while we're here. All the way out here in the Pacific desert, nobody else even knew they existed..."

     It doesn't look like a desert. But words find new meanings in a world without land.

     A certain blue-haired woman ambles over and slumps against his side, to his immediate weariness. She drapes an empty-bottle-carrying arm around his shoulders. "Heyyyyy. You guys have *got* to try this seaweed wine! It's, like, kind of sweet actually? Come on!" "Sonia, get off me. Wait, don't you have a real boyfriend now?!" "He's busyyyyy. And standing's hard!"

     The local rags-wearing grandma smiles benevolently upon disorderly behavior. She peeks around Kana to add: "That's *one* thing we aren't short of. Care for seconds, honey?" "Yeahhh." She saunters over to pluck one from the offering arms of another nearby islander.
Angela Nonon and Shajo have been excitedly exchanging stories of the battle while Gebura and #-1 FUNCTION (ANS) NOT FOUND seem meditative on their respective video pads. Shajo is in a better mood from when he punched Stanley in the face, possibly BECAUSE he punched Stanley in the face, and seems to be the sort to have that punch say everything he wanted to say about that whole situation.

They've been stationed here so they didn't really need to go through a Warpgate to arrive but the two Fixers seem content to let Bota and the locals to take the lead. As similar as this world is to home sometimes, they're certainly still the visitors and the locals are the ones to trust as to knowing what the fuck they're talking about.

Shajo is cheered by Bota's suggestion of solidarity. "Better to have some solidarity with the folks watching our ass. But we probably shouldn't linger if they haven't had leviathan trouble in a while, wouldn't want to lure some over." Granted, the Queen's target doesn't seem to be here but Shajo doesn't feel like that alone will be a deterrent. A queen of the sea almost certainly knows what they're about right?

Nonon stretches in a way that almost certainly intentionally shows off her muscles. "Well I can certainly help with heavy liftin'. If there's no monsters, not like the Harpoon will do any good."

Gebura, of course, is the one to actually ask the old woman, "Anything you need?" bluntly enough. She is skeptical of the idea of money being useful here, squinting faintly at the veins.

And Angela of course is the one who actually asks about them. "They seem ill. What is the matter?" Angela asks, of the woman but Shajo has heard enough by now to inform her.

"Oh it's the Fish Disease. Don't know much about it but--generally fatal I think?" Shajo scratches as his cheek with his fingernail. He seems uncertain much CAN be done. Surely someone offered to take them to a place that isn't, literally, trash? He doesn't want to be the one to ask about that though, figuring Nonon will blurt something out eventually.
Ishirou Ishirou is through to the other side and is expecting a huge firefight... but when things are peaceful he's not sure what to make out of things.  However, things start to make sense when it's revealed that it's an ancient garbage patch.  He takes a breath, grateful for the break but also somewhat off guard by the fact that such a place exists... And they're not being assaulted by the monsters.  

His train of thought is derailed by Sonia, who is already drunk off the new wine they have here.  Well, that's... impressive.  He scratches the back of his head and shakes his head.  Well, some people are going to cope with what's happening in any way they can.  However, he considers the people, their advanced fish disease...

Simply put, without medicine... well they're on borrowed time.  Did the queen simply think they were not worth the effort?  Or... do the monsters consider them their own?  He's not sure, but it's at least worth trying to make their lives easier and give the people on the ships some much-needed shore leave.  

"So what...do you all need help with?  I mean, I could start scanning and finding issues, but I'd prefer to start with what you feel is important to your survival first," Ishirou says.  He is curious how this collective both governs themselves and gets food.  

To Angela, he explains, "It's an autoimmune disease... in the sea life, it turns them into monsters, in humans, it's more like you see here," he says, trying to keep things quiet.  There are SOME he knows who would probably cause a problem.  
Dysnomia     It took about forty-five seconds for Mia to reach the deck.

    The moment she stepped through the warpgate, she was diving through the side of the wall, momentary slipping out of solidity to avoid the twists and turns of navigating the amputated Union Buson, ready to find carnage--

    --But cheers were what she found instead. She paused on the deck, long enough to lean over the side, squinting at the odd 'island' enough to get her bearings, and process what she's seeing.

    When she picked Bota and Kana out of the crowd, she vaulted over the side, her plummet slowing to a gentle touchdown at the last moment.

    She approached Bota and Kana, the questions on the tip of her tongue ambushed and anticipated by Bota before she could vocalize them.

    "I'm surprised that they could even survive out here, on these." She kicked the shipping container she was standing on, with a dull, resonant thud. In spite of Bota's optimism, Dysnomia was frowning, arms crossed, eyes scanning the elderly native to this wreck. "How do you think they made it?"
Candy      A fifty foot drop is a tall ask for Candy at the moment. The fight, or, perhaps 'river crossing' from before took a lot out of him. As it happens, a boat ride is a little too long to wait (for him), and so he simply appears on the 'ground,' with no suggestion of motion or inertia between there and the deck of the Busan.

     As he approaches Kana and Bota across the floating, haphazardly assembled mass, there is the occasional wince. He pushed himself during that engagement--harder than perhaps was wise. Still, he wears a brave face, with his hands in the pockets of his navy peacoat.

     One hand is snaked loose of his coat pocket to offer Bota a firm handshake. "That's probably because people try not to think about what happens when you throw somebody out on their ass, ah? Nobody knew because nobody went looking." He shrugs his shoulders. "Anyway, it's no trouble."

     Candy waves and smiles brightly at the local grandma. "What -are- you short of?" he asks. The farmer points a finger over the horizon. "I know you said the monsters leave you alone, these past few years, but..." His hand falls, and he frowns slightly.

     "They're not the only problem, just the biggest one, I guess."
Kukuru It's land enough, and yet not. It's safe, but not. Considering what everyone had just gone through, though, Kukuru can't blame anyone for celebrating at the sight of this massive floating garbage heap. She hasn't had much time to rest or mingle, though, having focused on fulfilling her promise to spread that healing power of hers after the conclusion of that last skirmish, even restoring those from the brink of death or already dead with all the confusion and unholy implications that might imply.

It's only when Bota's finally going to greet everyone that she finally shows up a minute later, still drenched, still smelling like seawater and blood, and still looking as sleepy as ever. The bags under her eyes are heavier than usual, though, and she doesn't even respond right away at first when he lays out the situation.

It's not as though she doesn't hear him, of course. Strange situation with people nobody knew about, somehow still standing after all this time. It's only after Nonon and Shajo mention lending their aid that she snaps out of her light daze, covering her mouth to unsubtly hide a yawn before nodding.

"Good idea...! Oh. Um... Yeah. I can do heavy stuff as long as I don't gotta move too much." She offers with yet another exhausted yawn, nodding slowly at Dysnomia's comment as well. "I bet people that were out here for so long must have... A lot of stuff that needs moving. Maybe in a neat pile somewhere so I only gotta push it once? Or... Food?" She looks hopeful at that last part, reminded about food when Candy brings up a potential shortage of things. "Maybe... We can make something tasty, and have a bit on the side to get everyone all on the same page."
Lilian Rook     'How do you think they survived?'

    "Likely by god knows what accumulating here from the currents." says Lilian. Her just being there already is only jarringly threatening for people who have a reason to be tense about her, which is probably half or more. Being armed and armoured, at least, shouldn't be surprising. The stiffness in her walk is a good enough reminder of how hard she exerted herself before; the clunky half-gingerness of her movements is a matter of her trying grinding hard against the habit of effortlessly hiding pain.

    "Perhaps if I'm being more generous, the same way everyone has. The sea." she says. "Look around. It's not as if they're thriving. Well-aged, no children, and now an outbreak of disease. Their survival is a matter of collective effort, and a temporary miracle. Entropy hates it when you do that. Try to survive. To be." The mention of wine pops an eyebrow up for her, but Lilian soon says "Well, how else do you cope with it, I suppose." low under her breath."

    'Sonia, get off me. Wait, don't you have a real boyfriend now?!'

    "Does she?" Lilian says, archly. "Apologies, Bota, but you have the curse of good looks, strong arms, a warm personality, and a fantastic reputation. You might have to hide, at this rate, if the wine starts circulating broadly."

    'I can't guess why they wouldn't...'

    Kana is someone Lilian wants to speak to, just because she's the woman she imagines is the least likely to ever get drunk and flirt around here. "Inside the 'territory' of the Queen, perhaps, rather than one of the Seven Devils." Lilian offers. "I imagine you're sparing what will tide them over until one of our ships come back for them, yes?" There are layers of meaning to this, all but which of one are readily apparent.
Petra Soroka     Petra is here this time.

    Of course, she already wasn't inclined to fail Rita's homeworld in any case-- missing the previous battle was an exception, by accident, rather than the start of a continuous trend. Rita's thanks in the radio reinforced that considerably, even beyond enthusiasm (having abruptly conceptualized the fact that she's been on multiple dates with Rita during a phone call with Lilian some time ago, being effusively praised for helping save her family and world hit especially hard in a way that Petra isn't quite willing to interrogate). The simple ability to go somewhere and fight for doing something good for someone she cares about is, as much as Petra insists she isn't a hero, incredibly appealing.

    The bigger reason, and the reason why Petra is more anxiously determined than heroically helpful, comes from a much more recent conversation with Lilian, shortly after the encounter with the Ekanamsha S2.

PHONE: Lilian Rook says, stiffly, coldly, "It's fine. You don't have to say anything more. A reminder of how pathetic you really are, every now and again, helps keep me from falling into the wrong idea about our relationship."
. . .
PHONE: Lilian Rook says, "It's nothing. It's only that it's tempting to think of you as a wonderful friend with a rocky start, rather than a human detriment who is attempting to make amends for her existence."

    Petra insists she isn't a hero for a reason. She's much more driven by loyalty and *penitence*, and slipping up on either of those things feels like a clanking chain ratcheting closer to dropping the guillotine across her neck. Lilian, and therefore Rita and Angela, require unwavering perfection from her, or she might as well be useless, which means she might as well be dead. The effects of being hit by that cannon haven't entirely faded.

<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Kana says crisply, "There's a mass on the horizon."
<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Kana says, "There is no land here."
<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Kana says, "Get in."

    So Petra is there, as quickly as she can be. She hops off her electric bike the moment she gets through the warpgate, letting it fall and slide across the ground with Pillar of Creation tightly squeezed in her hand. When Bota explains it's a false alarm, she blinks, mutters, 'oh,' and wanders over to pick her bike up and lean it against the wall.

"It's an autoimmune disease..."

    Hopping down to the 'island', spear still in hand, Petra nods in understanding without actually looking at Ishirou. "It's like fish AIDS." Having only subtracted from the conversation so far, Petra finally takes a moment to think and look over the island and its inhabitants. "There's really not a lot here. I kind of feel stupid bringing a weapon instead of, like, food, or something. Do you all really get enough just from fishing along the edges?"

    Petra will not accept the seaweed wine, because she's underage! It does pique her interest in another way, and she wanders over to the old woman with earnest curiosity. "Is the seaweed, like, something you farm? Or do you just harvest it naturally? Are your homes just inside of whichever shipping containers are most horizontal? How long have you all been living on this island? Is it, like, generations?" The exotic-familiarity of the setting is entrancing to Petra for some reason, and she bombards the woman with questions about the most mundane aspects of life on the island.
Hibiki Tachibana <J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Kana says crisply, "There's a mass on the horizon."
<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Kana says, "There is no land here."
<J-IC-Scene> (NPC) Kana says, "Get in."
<J-IC-Scene> Hibiki Tachibana blearily, "--I'm coming..."

    The last couple days have passed by in a haze. Skipped school, constant ongoing relief efforts in the wake of what happened, and restless sleep filled with an uncomfortable amount of nightmares she doesn't want to repeat, that she jolts awake from in a cold sweat. She hasn't really been listening in on the radio that much, but at least picking up that is something to be glad about. She has to get it together.

...

    Stepping out onto the Union Busan's deck, there's no telling what to expect - although from the cheering coming from every Harpoonist she can hear, there's no way Hibiki can assume it's a bad thing. She goes from being tense and entirely on-edge for another attack to sagging shoulders and a hanging head within seconds, a shaky exhale slinking its way out. She walks up to the railing and looks out over the 'mass' that Kana had mentioned.

    "No way," she murmurs. "People...? This close to where the Queen is?"

    She knew that there were non-ship settlements - one of her first experiences on Rita's world was a shantytown on the waves being attacked, after all - but this situation in particular isn't right. Hibiki leans forward, briefly pondering just doing her usual and jumping right off for one of the containers... but ends up pushing away and quietly taking one of the skiffs over to it instead.

    Which means she's stepping up to the scene a bit later than some others, giving Bota a wave but not quite a smile as she gets the fill-in...and he has Sonia draped right on over him. Her finger comes up to rub at her cheek, then scans around before her eyes settle on the old woman.

    The first thing she notices is... the Fish Disease. Those now-familiar, brownish cracks running across some of them. She swallows. "If it was /everyone/, maybe that'd explain why they were left alone...but..."

    Hibiki paces over, ostensibly behind Candy, as he approaches the elderly woman to ask her own questions after his. "How long have you all been living here, miss...? It's been years since you've had trouble with any of the sea monsters?" The Queen only started recalling her flock recently...

    "...Are we the first group you've ever seen come here?"
Redshift Operators     "No monster trouble? Christ. Maybe this is all under the radar. Hope we don't bring anything to you. Makes a bit of sense though. Those fucking monsters are working on breaking humanity as a species. Not a lot of hope in humanity continuing out here." The gunman leader of the Redshift Operators mutters. "I'd say we should figure out a way to get you people out of here, but I don't known how we would. Whole lot of you. Hope we didn't bring any tails that want to go for a high-effort low-calorie snack on their way to catching up to us." He nods to Shajo, pondering the discussion with Bota.

    "Not enough coherence to tow. Not enough material to move on its own. Not enough height for easy gate evacuation within weeks. Not enough medicine to medicate the sick. Right?" The astronaut looks back up at the Union Busan Minor that has shed its Union Busan Major constellation. Where all the civilian resources were... "Right. Need to mark this place to return in the future. Return when a real objective can be found." In the middle of the conversation, they squat onto the ground, getting some electronics out of their duffel bag and noting coordinates silently.

    The surgeon of the group looks aside at Petra, glancing up from her ad-hoc examination of one of the afflicted fish-sick. "I think it is more of a fish *curse*, the association implies more about its mechanism of transmission than its mechanism of harming the body. Besides, this is an autoimmune disease, not an immunodeficiency disease." She seeks, through a thousand futures, the worst words to speak, and so she says: "It has been some time since I last encountered an HIV-plus headcanon, however. I wasn't aware you still had an active fandom."

    She's frowning under her mask, though, you can see it in her posture. "I doubt we have many immunosuppressants to spare, and what I *can* spare is entirely surgical. I think there's little I can do to help these people."
Meika Kirenai     Better next time. Is this going to be that 'next time'? Is this going to be just as bad? The scant transmissions warning of an island that ought not exist doesn't offer much certainty, flickering over the radio reciever she's stuck in her schoolbag. It's easy enough for her to listen in on, if she keeps it just barely audible, stuffed down beneath papers and notebooks, even in the midst of classes. Acting on it's easy, too- nobody in school even questions her just slipping out between classes anymore, anyways- mutter something about a smoke under your breath, keep a scowl visible, hunch right, and the only consequences come when you next show back up, if at all.

    This time, it's still Meika who steps through the artificial gate, and into the chambers bathed in harsh red lighting. Her notebook is clutched tight in hand, and- well, her mutterings about smokes weren't for nothing. A cigarette box is peeking out of her jacket's pocket, and a lit one rests between her knuckles. It's softly juxtaposed by her hair still being done up nearly the same way it's done as Chevalier Vermillion, the half-up ponytail, the off-red ribbon.

    Unfortunately, coming in as Meika means fifty-foot drops are not particularly safe to attempt. She shoves her notebook away in her bag, the priciness of wasting material on a transformation right now being just a little higher than worth it for the stunt. Ferry skiffs will have to do. Setting foot on the floating debris-islend, and the slight motion it has, different than a boat, and far different than the massive Union Busan, elicits a little giggle.

    Meika quiets up quickly, though, when she starts to look around at the islanders, and the noticeable lack of youth amongst them. It's not the place for that, around oh so many adults. The cigarette pack makes its way back out of her pocket, to be fidgeted with- and offered out to locals. It's only polite. Old people smoke, don't they?

'I can't guess why they wouldn't...'

    "What's your guess why not?" Meika only looks Kana's way for a short moment in the asking, quickly turning half-away, and inhaling through a small cough.

'Inside the 'territory' of the Queen, perhaps, rather than one of the Seven Devils.'

    "Oh. Aha... right. F-forget I asked anything, Miss Kana." For the teeniest of split seconds, there's a tug to try and clean her previous question from the forefront of thought and memory- abandoned, quickly, though, by some combination of resignation or better judgement.

    "Seaweed wine..? That's a thing?" The magical girl blinks. "What's it... even *like*?" Eventually, through combination of wondering how Horrifically Grassy something like that could be, or simply the blue-haired girl's slightly-silly intoxicatedness, Meika starts to giggle once again.
Rita Ma      "I do so have a boyfriend! It's Brune! You've seen him, I knowwww you have, he's got those dreamy shoulders and the grumpy little face and-" Bota squirms away and groans, beleaguered. "I don't *want* to have to hide," he whines to Lilian while rubbing his face. "What do you do about it? You've gotta have tips, right?"

     "Anything you need?"
     "Oh!" the old woman says, startling. She points at the Gebura-tablet. "Oh, what is that? My goodness, how are you..." "Don't worry about it." "Well, ah, we always need better shelter. The leaks, the rust, which boxes are going under... nets, too. I don't suppose you have any medicine?"

     Kana looks at her, then at the short helmeted harpoonist, then at the Elites. "For the Fish Disease? Some. We can only spare a little." "Oh, is that what it's called? This last year, it's just been awful..."

     "They seem ill. What is the matter?"
     "Oh, thaaa-" "You mean the Fish-" "Autoimmune disease. Fatal without special suppressants." Voices supersede each other in order of confidence, and surprisingly, the usually-taciturn helmeted harpoonist comes out on top while passing by with an armful of building materials. Their voice is vaguely feminine but heavily filtered.

     "Waterborne virus that comes from 'stone eggs'. Probably one on the seafloor around here. It's what turns fish into monsters. Humans are fine, but your immune system rejects infected tissue. There's special immunosuppressants in some pre-submergence medical kits; you stay on those for life or you die. They're scarce. Just curing the virus won't help." Everyone but Kana seems mildly startled by them suddenly getting so verbose. They just shrug at the reaction and carry on carrying supplies 'inland'.

     The old woman is blinking and wordless in the helmeted harpoonist's wake, and then moreso when people start to press her with questions. She puts up both hands and laughs. "Oh, my... a 'stone egg'. But it's too late for most of us, I'm afraid." When she turns to move, those gold-brown 'cracks' are visible on the back of her neck, too.

     She turns and gestures for everyone to follow her, across a series of precarious walkways and relatively-level shipping containers. Kana and Bota do. Sonia trails along at the back.

     "All of us are castaways or refugees," she says over her shoulder, with the patient cadence of an often-told story. "We just washed up here on the same currents that bring the trash. Trash Island isn't a fit place to have children, anyway. I've been here twenty years, which is more than most. We get by-" she nods in Lilian's vague direction, then smiles charmingly at Petra- "-on fishing, salvage, 'farming' seaweed... the monsters used to be worse. That's why it's mostly us old folks left." She shakes her head.

     "It's really not all that bad at all," Sonia drawls from her spot near Meika. "I guess they make it from, like, fruits? Seaweed has fruits sometimes, right? Here, have some of mine!" She leans over amiably to foist the bottle onto her.

     The old woman nods to Hibiki. "Always more castaways washing up, but yours are the only ships to ever come here." The locals all look baffled by Meika's cigarettes, and when the old woman comes to a stop to open an upright shipping container's door, she does too. The innocent confusion in her eyes is heartbreaking, in a way. "Oh, darling... thank you? Are those 'cigarettes'? You light them on fire, don't you?"

     Those wouldn't keep when the world flooded, after all.
Rita Ma      The container-building she takes everyone into is built like a bar, or a community hall. Sheltered holes in the walls let in light, and ample furniture is clearly repurposed from barnacled wood or hollow metal or whatever else floated. In a corner behind the counter, people are roasting fish over a scrap-metal stove; locals are pouring out the greenish wine for harpoonists from the Union Busan, Floating City New York, and more.

     The old woman herself hobbles over to a corner table. Kana follows; Bota lingers by the bar to sip from a cup of the green stuff. His face scrunches like he expects it to be terrible, but then falls, and his eyebrows arch in an archetypical 'not bad' look. He shrugs to everyone else.

     "If you'd like to help cook, darling," she says to Kukuru, "I know Ben and Antonio'd more than like your help over there. Starvation won't be what kills us, but the more food the merrier, isn't that right?" She winks. "... Especially not if they're telling the truth about a 'Queen'. Not that I'm quite certain they are."

     Kana doesn't answer that, seeming evidently unconcerned about whether they believe her or not. She doesn't hesitate to answer Lilian, though: "We're leaving them whatever we can spare. In case we *can't* come back. It's well and good to hope for the best, but you should plan for the worst, too."
Dysnomia     "Likely by god knows what accumulating here from the currents."

    Shocked is too strong a word to describe Mia's reaction, 'alarmed' still too intense. Surprised, maybe? "Stars," she breathed, her body untensing as she registered the unexpected arrival as another friendly. "You come out of nowhere."

    "You're right, of course." She muttered, trying not to think of Lilian's scolding last they crossed paths. "I wonder if that's really all of it, though. They should be an easy snack, but something's been keeping these monsters away all this time."

    "A stone egg." She mused, not knowing how odd taciturn harpoonist's speech was. ""That doesn't sound like a natural virus. I wonder where those eggs are from.""

    She held up her wrist, tracing her hand across a holographic display and let her fingers dance across a series of 'buttons.' Then, she reached into it, pulling out a heavy-looking tool with alien warning labels on the side. "Tell me the most unstable places, and I'll see if I can't keep them steadier. A little reinforcement can go a long way."

    "In return, how about you tell me what happened when the monsters stopped attacking? It's not like you have any young harpoonists to help ward them away."
Ishirou "Structural integrity... I can probably help find the places worse off, if someone or a group of people has welding experience, I can easily point it out," In fact, as they move, Ishirou is already reaching out and scanning the wider area.  He's looking for holes or structural problems.  Places where they can make 'Trash Island' more stable.  

Even with the best-case scenario, they'd have to survive out here a while.  Ishirou considers this, and they'd have to spend their time efficiently.  He's already making a checklist of places they can go, and things they can fix before they move on.  If they don't come back...

He doesn't want to think about that.  He follows the main group, all of this talking and thinking has made him a little downcast, but at least they're here.  

'...isn't a place for children...'

That's a sad thought, because even if the end wasn't coming... there would probably be an end to this community.  Maybe not tomorrow, but... eventually.  Ishirou takes a deep breath, "Maybe it can be in the future..." he says, about that, and sits down.

Dysnomia speaks up about helping with the weak sections, "I can help with that," Ishirou offers, still searching.  
Lilian Rook     "And where is he now~?" Lilian replies to Sofia, knowing exactly what she's doing. "Leaving you to lean on Bota like that; he must be terribly . . . busy."

    'What do you do about it? You've gotta have tips, right?'

    Lilian spaces out as the sheer psychic pressure of recalling everything from hospitalizing her first boyfriend up to Petra's solitary confinement cell in lightning fast forward briefly obliterates all other capacity for thought.

    "No." says Lilian. "I'm normal."

    'Waterborne virus that comes from 'stone eggs. Probably...'

    Halfway into the explanation, Lilian blinks fast enough and in the right pattern to regain ensouled cognition, and re-develops the capacity to be astonished by the helmeted person too. "Ah, is there a cure-- H-harpoonist?" she says, leadingly, still at the tail end of her stagger animation and thus making clear where she'd sweved away from a presumptuous 'miss'. "Seeing as you said 'just'." Shaking her head as a clearing ritual, Lilian breathes in, and says more professionally, "I'm very sorry to hear that, ma'am. I wish the others could have lived to see the day you'd be rescued like this. I hope all of you can hold on for the little bit longer it will take us to come back."

    'Here, have some of mine!'

    Lilian immediately leans over to snag the bottle en-route, and shoves it into Petra's arms instead.

    'Are those 'cigarettes'?'

    She then looks right back at Meika, staring, patiently, implicitly expecting an immediate explanation.
Angela Shajo nods grimly to Red Dwarf. He, and to a lesser extent Nonon, tend to just feel automatically inclined to assist others they read as 'blue collar'. Actually being blue collar is irrelevent so long as they 'kind of have that vibe'.

Angela asks about AIDS and the topic of eating fish happens and needless to say this preoccupies her for the entire length of this pose. Her expression is as unreadable as ever but by the end of it even she can only keep it at 'mild bafflement'.

Ultimately it's the short helmeted harpoonist that draws Angela's attention by giving an answer that sounds the most complete answer.

Gebura is even more unreadable until Angela brings upe eating fish and she exhales and rubs at her forehead in a 'so done with it' gesture. "Well, Shajo, Nonon. Yuo have the HP Bullets. They'll be of limited use against a chronic condition but some alleviation should still help. Get to it."

Shajo exhales and looks to the old lady, "It looks more alarming than it is." He says, not entirely aware that it is actually more alarming than it looks. "Could provide some relief."
Meika Kirenai 'It's like fish AIDS.'

    Even just overhearing from this, Meika's face pales from the course of thoughts that flicker through her traitorous grey matter.

<J-IC-Scene> Meika Kirenai says, quietly, "...You don't get it from..."
<J-IC-Scene> Meika Kirenai says, even quieter, "...Right?"
<J-IC-Scene> Redshift Operators | White Dwarf says, "You do not."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "The ongoing theory it's from eating something infected with the disease."
<J-IC-Scene> Meika Kirenai says, "Oh thank goodness."

    A bit of relief creeps into Meika's shoulders as her eyes scan the stricken island inhabitants, some of the bitter, guilty judgement she'd unconciously leveled their way leaving the back of her mind. That relief doesn't get to last long.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, with dread haltingness, "Beg pardon? 'Thank goodness'?"
<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook disbelievingly, "Did you have plans?"

    Meika immediately freezes, like a deer in a train's headlights. Fear and disgust and embarrassment muddle together, as she tries to put together words and stammer out a... A defence? What did I even do wrong? Meika fidgets with the lit cigarette in her fingers, until a little piece of ash falls off, burning only for a split second against her hand. It's barely noticed, not even seen through now-teary and scattered eyes, as her chaotic ramblings get worse and worse.

<J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook audibly baffled, but trying her very best to be soothing, "You're a good girl, Meika. I know you wouldn't do anything silly, at a time like this. It's hard for me to follow, when you're not saying a lot of what you mean."

    In a panic, Meika nearly- just nearly- forgets to paint her words with her magic, turning them into a whisper directed only towards Lilian. It just takes a moment and a deep breath for Meika to catch her near-mistake, and steady herself to explain. {"I- I must have gotten confused, I'm sorry. I'm s-sorry. I- I was just... thankful it wasn't spread through people here having unsanctioned relations with... Y-you know. That's- that's all. No plans."}

    She winces, once she's finished talking- that it's misunderstandings all the way down makes her wish she'd just shriveled up into a silent little sponge on the spot, unable to continue talking or thinking. Better yet if I was just born as one. Or not born at all. Just shut up, Vermillion.
Petra Soroka "I wasn't aware you still had an active fandom."

    Petra recoils as if she was hit, mouth opening automatically to respond. "F-fandom?" Dripping with the kind of indignant horror at the accusation that could only come from full awareness of such a thing. "Absolutely *not*, excuse me?! Are you just making fun of me! I'm not in any kind of *fandom*, especially not something like *that*!"

    After some discussion in the radio, "I'm sorry I don't know my fucking immune disease lore." Petra hadn't actually realized the difference between an autoimmune and an immunodeficient disease before, though, so no matter how much she's getting bullied in the radio, she makes a mental note of it.

"We just washed up here on the same currents that bring the trash."

    This continues to inordinately interest Petra, as she follows along with the group. Being smiled at and regaled with information by a friendly old woman dissolves her simmering expression of animosity, and she nods earnestly at appropriate timings and peppers her with more questions, in between getting fascinated by the walkways and little marks of civilization built up on the island. "We have something like this in my world. I mean, no one lives there, but the currents bring all the trash in the ocean into a big island like this. Oh-- I'm from offworld, I'm Petra, by the way."

    "I just think it's cool, because, like, there must be all kinds of stuff from before the flooding, all over the world, that ends up here, right? I mean, you've always got to think about survival first, I guess, but those kinds of-- of relics, almost, even for the mundane things, could be super interesting, right? Learning what you can from the pieces of people's everyday lives that end up on your-- your shores, I guess. The stuff you can fish up. There's probably all kinds of, like, art, or furniture, or even, like, toys, that you could use to learn about people around the world."

    It's sort of jarring to see Petra this enthusiastic about a world. She tip-taps her way with light bootsteps across the wooden entryway into the community hall, looking around in every direction. "It's, like... mixing the industrial bits with the natural bits to find a middle ground that works as 'home'. I like that.

. . . shoves it into Petra's arms instead.

    Petra takes the wine and holds it, unquestioningly accepting anything Lilian hands over to her. She doesn't do anything with it, instead just holding it with both arms to her chest as if it's a precious item, but not acknowledging it in any way. "Oh, I can help with the cooking? Or cleaning?"

    Petra also looks disapprovingly at Meika offering the islanders cigarettes, but for the opposite reason that Lilian does. "Meika... those are definitely harder to get for you than they are for me. You shouldn't just give them away; if someone actually wanted any them I could give them mine."
Candy      "Better shelter," says Candy, mostly to himself, scribbling it down on a little notepad with a pencil. "Nets. ...Medicine." He tries not to leave such an audible pause for 'medicine,' and, realizing that he has, lets his vision bore into the little notepad, as if there were something there demanding his attention. He only looks up when the old lady motions for everyone to follow.

*Medicine... like, to cure them?*
Out of the question.
*What about the thing the harpoonist said? Suppressants?*
With time--which does seem in short supply at present.
Mossst here are old. 'Too late.'
*Yeah. I heard her the first time.*

     Stepping into the bar with a tight-lipped frown, Candy takes a look around to get an idea of how these shipping containers have held up against the elements over the years. He ends up trailing a hand across the interior wall without realizing it. Pausing in front of the table the old woman has picked out, he asks, "About how many people live here?" *Be good to get an idea before I start work on anything. 'Shelter,' that's easy. Nets, even easier.*
Kukuru 'People...? This close to where the Queen is?'

"It's a nice change of pace, right? Being able to slip by even with all the craziness going on.." Kukuru replies to Hibiki with a hopeful, if drowsy smile. "It's not the best, but.. It's better than fighting all the time, right?"

The talk of whether or not it's fish aids goes right over Kukuru's head, although she does listen to it with wide-eyed wonder at Petra and White Dwarf. Her thoughts turn back to the old woman and helmeted harpoonist, though, when information about the actual disease starts coming out. It's a somewhat horrifying thought that actually gets her on edge, and she frowns when the old woman talks of how most of the people here are already terminal.

Instead of talking about food (immediately), Kukuru steps over to holds her hands out to the old woman. "Maybe before, but... I'm gonna try something, okaaay?" She waits until/if the old woman takes her hands, and if she does, Kukuru starts sharing some of those nanites with her in an attempt to see if that technology she doesn't personally understand can do anything about it.

... And then she perks right back up at the thought about cooking. "Ben and Anty? Sounds good to me.  I bet we could make all sorts of good stuff if we all put our heads together~" She chimes in with a cheerful lilt in her voice, almost as though she hadn't just talked heard about a terminal autoimmune disease. Kukuru's even prepared with refrigerated (if not necessarily fresh) ingredients from her pockets, too, once she heads over to join the indicated cooks for this ship.
Rita Ma      A MOMENT EARLIER:
     "Ah, is there a cure-- H-harpoonist?"

     The helmeted harpoonist slows to a stop, looks back over their shoulder, and shifts their salvage under one arm to reach up to their neck. Their bubble helmet, dark-tinted, turns clear.

     They're a quite beautiful young woman(?) with red twintails. But their neck, shoulders, and at least half their face are shot through by those shattered-glass cracks, laced delicately with pink inflammation. Their body is a fractal battleground between human and only nearly-human.

     "If you find one," they say, "Tell me." Their helmet clicks opaque again, and they turn and walk away.
Hibiki Tachibana     [ansi(#8C8C8C,It's not the best, but.. It's better than fighting all the time, right?)]

    "Ah...yeah. You're right, Kukuru. I'm just glad...we found people still living on, even somewhere like this. I should just be thankful it's been peaceful for them, huh...?" Hibiki attempts to return to tired smile, although it doesn't last long on her face after she turns back away.

    Trash Island isn't a fit place to have children, anyway. I've been here twenty years, which is more than most.

    Her tired eyes drop a bit, then shift to the side.

    Always more castaways washing up, but yours are the only ships to ever come here.

    "You've been alone here all the time, other than more people in your same situation, huh..." Hibiki's voice is low, following after the old woman as she leads them along. She shouldn't be surprised to see that there's plenty of communal 'buildings' here for recreational purposes, but as they walk into where they've been lead, she still takes a long moment to appreciate the interior. And...

    ...well, she shouldn't be surprised at the kindness either, when they've never had legitimate visitors before. But somehow, she is. This time, the faint but definitely there smile on her face lasts a little bit longer. "...I'll help out with the cooking, too. Although I'm not very good at it. I think I can at least help the people who are."

    Although she stops, briefly, when the helmet-wearing harpoonist takes a moment to reveal themselves. Compared to even the 'islanders' here, that level of Fish Disease is...

    Hibiki swallows - again - as a fist clenches tight at her side. It takes her another moment longer to find words again. "It won't be as simple as just beating the Queen, will it...? ...That'll just be the start of making things better..." She sounds like she's talking to herself, before moving onward.
Redshift Operators     The ninja's posture shows off just a tiny bit of smugness, enjoying successfully doing what she needed to with Petra. It's simply enrichment to cause her a little bit of trouble. And Petra is the only one who had to understand those words she said, and clearly she did.

    Everyone's convening at the big... old tavern? Meeting space? Great hall? Well, it's not much space, it's not very great, and structures here probably fall down after a year, so it's definitely not any of those, but it's something.

    The gunman passes by Dysnomia. "Gotta bet it came from that crashed comet. Or they were sealed up somewhere on earth and the comet knocked them loose. Ancient curse stuff. All I know is, from the sound of it, it never was happening before this place flooded like hell from the comet."

    The Redshifts find somewhere to sit in the community hall, and collectively get some of that wine. How in god's name are they drinking through their helmets? They don't even have ports or anything. Try as you might, you could *record them* on a *camera feed* and not get a good look at how they wind up imbibing that stuff. It's just there in the glass one moment and gone the next.

    "Mmmm, don't think so." The ninja shakes her head at Ishirou. "This place is not meant to host a community. But the community it has may move somewhere and keep their cohesion. I'm sure that, someday in the future of this world, there will be a wonderfully unified Little Trashpatch District in a city somewh--" She puts the glass down and stands up instantly.

"Where are they?"
"What?"
"I can... *detect* it."
"Detect what? The hell are you talking about?"
"A girl hiding a dark curse revealed her deep secret."
"You're fucking unhinged. Sit down and get back to drinking."
"Hmmm..."

    The giant hasn't spoken the entire time. His itty bitty glass of the wine is surely not nearly enough to get him even buzzed off this seaweed wine, isn't it? But it's nice socialization! He loves to do that, coincidentally right near the most significant light-providing openings in the structure so that his looming shadow influences the entire space darkly and ominously.
Lilian Rook     'I- I was just... thankful it wasn't spread through people here having unsanctioned relations with... Y-you know.'

    Lilian narrows her eyes at Meika, but the subtle tilt of her head makes it somewhat clear that she's more lost and concerned than she is anything else. Opening her mouth, she thinks twice, and quickly taps over to private comms instead, turning 'to take a call' and speaking into her earpiece instead.

    "My apologies, Meika, but I still don't quite understand. Sanctioned by whom? To what are you giving your thanks?" says Lilian, who has and never been to church or a Catholic school, where she might have learned this shorthand. "We can't do with hiding private concerns at this stage, and I don't see-- I don't understand why you're so optimistic about the nature of the disease. Did you get an idea?" Her Kana-esque professional purity is entirely accidental.

    'You shouldn't just give them away'

    Now it's Petra's turn to distract her; unfortunately, not early enough for Meika to be saved by the buzzer. "What in god's name are you even saying?" says Lilian, accruing deep karmic debt for how often she invokes the lord's name each year without actually being Christian. "She doesn't smoke them. Obviously. Why don't you sit down with the others, perhaps. Have a drink, or help them serve." The European drinking age thing at least came up before. Cool Foreign Student Lilian wins (tempts fate) again.

    'If you find one, tell me.'

    The intensity of that answer, more than the pretty face, is what gives Lilian enough pause to look composed again. "I see." she says, cautiously. "That answers my question, then. I'm sorry if you felt the need to answer any more." Her lip quirks, realizing she didn't get a name. "Pardon, but I don't believe we're acquainted. May I ask your name, m-- How may I address you?" The clumsy verbal motions, at least, aren't anything tense. The seriousness with which she tries a second time sounds more like how she is when focusing very hard on practicing something. "Will you be joining us?" she asks, still following the old woman, desperate to get the last few seconds to the community center, so that--

    'I can... *detect* it. A girl hiding a dark curse revealed her deep secret.'

    Lilian stiffens and pauses in mid-step. "Ah. Perhaps we should. Leave those more sorely in need of morale. The first round." she says. "I may take mine with me, actually."
Meika Kirenai 'But yours are the only ships to ever come here.'

    "Is it too dangerous for other ones? If... it's similar currents... I guess that's.." A short pause. "Living here must be lonely, isn't it..?"

'Oh, darling... thank you? Are those 'cigarettes'? You light them on fire, don't you?'

    Forcing a smile back on her face, Meika gives a small 'Mhm!', and fishes out her lighter. "Yes, ma'am, I just got 'em this morning, so they're... as new as they can be, I guess? Maybe that's not that new, actually, I don't know how they're made..." A pang of guilt comes along when Meika gives gestured offer to light them for the others, that they *aren't* familiar- Smoking is bad, after all. That's part of why she does it. They're supposed to be allowed that, though. It's normal for them, it's just a thing... so this is...

    Her efforts to keep the lighter's flame up, though, falter the moment she realizes Lilian is staring her way. Slowly, she lowers both the pack and her lighter to her sides, a slump coming over her shoulders. "I... guess it's something you wouldn't really have here anymore. Maybe that's a good thing?"

    "You can keep the box and lighter, if you want. I can just get more."

'Meika... those are definitely harder to get for you than they are for me.'

    "I just get them from vending machines. It's not that hard. Do... you need some?"

'She doesn't smoke them. Obviously.'

    The mostly-burnt-out cigarette Meika's been holding between her knuckles quickly gets tossed off into the distance. "R-right. Yeah."

'My apologies, Meika, but I still don't quite understand. Sanctioned by whom?'

    "I- I- I'm glad they didn't get sick from trying to- to sodomize fish! Okay? It's *gross*! A-and I'm glad that's not it!" The same shaky fear comes back in her voice, and eyes that'd *just* started to dry, *just* started to be able to focus on other things, cloud up again. Are there clouds in the sky? Could lightning please just hit me somehow? Please? Meika's hands cross over her chest, and fingernails dig into her upper arms through the wrinkled white fabric of her uniform shirt, hard enough to crease. Anytime will do. Or even a wall outlet...

'Waterborne virus that comes from 'stone eggs'.'

    Hearing this proper, clean explanation of the disease almost puts Meika at an actual bit of ease, finally (not that it looks it with the tears starting to leak down her face)- until the helmet-veiled harpoonist flashes their face, and Meika bites at her own tongue. So is that even true? Wouldn't someone afflicted want to excuse it somehow as- She cuts the thought off as she tastes iron, sharp amongst the gross feeling. Quietly, she steps a few feet further away from the helmeted harpoonist.

    Once inside the hall, and annoyed at having to say words and think thoughts that only feel bitterer and uglier the more she has to do either, Meika wanders near to the bar, and ask whoever tends it for that apparently-plentiful local alcohol. I could have brought some from home, if- No, that's silly. It sounded like danger. Wouldn't have been time. And Kayoko would've seen, wouldn't she.

    If the town's bar seems against a teenager procuring alcohol by *request*, Meika is perfectly happy to pick up any discarded still-full bottles. She's resourceful! And a little desperate! And curious, if morbidly so, at how gross seaweed booze must be. Especially if it's *sweet*.
Petra Soroka "What in god's name are you even saying?"

    Petra, having forgotten about European drinking ages, blinks at Lilian in confusion, interpreting this series of commands as 'of course Meika shouldn't be smoking, she's underage' followed by 'but you, who I know to be underage, should sit down and drink'. Her attempts to process the dissonance are read clearly on her face, machinery slowly grinding behind her eyes to work out the proper response that's expected of her.

    Despite not coming up with a solution, though, the course of action is obvious. Whether Lilian is trying to save Meika the embarrassment of having done something nominally illegal but that thinks fine for Petra to drink because she's an adult, or if she thinks Meika shouldn't smoke but arbitrarily assigns Petra to do irresponsible things that others shouldn't, Petra comes to the conclusion that she's overthinking it and only needs to follow the words of Lilian's directions rather than trying to read intent.

    "Okay. Yeah. Forget I said anything, Meika." Petra finally looks down at the seaweed wine bottle that she's practically been hugging ever since Lilian handed it to her, and nods. "I can help serve people. I won't drink, though; I'm underage."

"I- I- I'm glad they didn't get sick from trying to- to sodomize fish!"

    Petra, in the middle of pouring out wine for someone seated nearby White Dwarf, quietly closes her eyes. White Dwarf is close enough to hear her muttering a solemn apology directed at no one in particular.
Angela ''I- I- I'm glad they didn't get sick from trying to- to sodomize fish!''

Angela stares into the distance as she replays the last like hour of conversation in her head, never able to forget it no matter what she does because she is not allowed to forget. Additional context from readings she's memorized but hasn't really adopted into her day to day parlance steps forward in her mind as well, in the moment.

She reaches forward and turns off her comms without a word.
Ishirou 'Mmmm, don't think so.'

Ishirou turns his head to the ninja, listening to her.  He frowns at it, but he can't refute her position.  It's sad, but if they can keep the community together, and bring them somewhere safe after they stop the world from ending...

Well, that's better.  "I suppose your right, it's just... such a bleak thing to say," he admits.  "I guess we have to work with what will work here and what is best for the future first... but I guess we also have to make sure a future is possible..." he sighs.  "Sorry, don't mind me."

'I- I- I'm glad they didn't get sick from trying to- to sodomize fish!'

Ishirou just... looks down at a cup that hasn't been filled with drink yet.  He looks to the door uncomfortably, and then back at the cup.  He isn't sure what he should do now.  He decides to look towards Mia and Candy.  "So... we could work together to make sure this place stays afloat, and fix anything else we find?" he says, trying to /desperately/ shift topics.  
Lilian Rook     'R-right. Yeah.'

    Lilian carefully watches the burning cigarette remains sailing through the air and plopping into the ocean, then turns her gaze back on Meika, tensely sympathetic. "To get out of class, isn't it? I can't imagine having to . . . You shouldn't be forced to sacrifice your reputation like that to cover for all of this."

    'Okay? It's *gross*! A-and I'm glad that's not it!'

    Lilian places her hand on Meika's shoulder with a touch as gentle as spring rain and so crushingly heavy with disappointment it feels like the crate should sink under the both of them. "I'm very tired of this prank, Chevalier Vermillion." Lilian says. "I don't know who began it, but it absolutely has to stop. Understood?" She's doing her very best to not look at the helmeted Harpoonist. "I'm not angry, but this isn't the time, and it's in very poor taste."

    A sufferingly patient sigh follows, her voice tightening with the inescapable compulsion to do her very best. "I'll explain something to you later. And you can tell me who told you something like that. Okay?"

    The way her look changes as she looks over her shoulder again is menacingly swift. The stare she casts is daring anyone to keep bringing it up any more.
Kukuru 'Ah...yeah. You're right, Kukuru. I'm just glad...we found people still living on, even somewhere like this. I should just be thankful it's been peaceful for them, huh...?'

"Mhm! And when all our work here's done, then everyone can relax for real." Kukuru affirms with a confident, yet still groggy nod. "And then nobody has to stay away, either, so they can all be together, too. Just like..."

Although she yawns, it's probably fairly obvious who Kukuru's talking about. Her tone is certainly fond, too, as is the vacant smile slowly returning to her face.

'I- I- I'm glad they didn't get sick from trying to- to sodomize fish!'

Kukuru might very well be the only one that doesn't seem to get it right away. It doesn't even faze her at first, either, since she's only hearing half of a quarter of a conversation, and not even particularly well at that. She's still got her attention on the older woman, after all! When Angela turns off her comms, though, then Kukuru knows there's something she's really missing here.

"Is that bad? Unless... Do humans not do that?"
Redshift Operators     The ninja cyborg gets involved in the rambunctious outrage. She picks up her glass again, with her robotic arm, then firmly jams it onto the table she's standing at, splashing a little bit of the seaweed wine around as she does. "Everyone's talking about sex!" She declares. "But *nobody's* talking about *girl anguish*!!" Her tone is as if describing and mourning three nine-elevens worth of ignored tragedy.
Petra Soroka "Is that bad? Unless... Do humans not do that?"

    Petra freezes in the middle of serving, plate hovering midair from how suddenly she stopped moving, and turns to glare at Kukuru. "She *said*, shut *up*, Kukuru! Excuse me! You *too*, White Dwarf! This is half your fault anyways!"

    "And besides! There's plenty of girl anguish, we're just not *talking* about it right now! Lilian said it's not the *time*."
Rita Ma      "I'm normal."
     "Uh-huh?" Bota, raised by Lead Harpoonist Kana, sees nothing wrong with the assertion that Dame Commander Rook is abnormal. Only her flat tone makes him arch an eyebrow before another sip of his wine makes him forget it.

     The old woman takes Kukuru's hands with some surprise, but no objection. "Oh, of course, dear." Kukuru discovers that her nanites can destroy the alien retrovirus just fine, which prevents the disease from spreading further in the old woman's body- but that doesn't restore the 'cracked' tissue already compromised, or stop the immune system rejecting them. Any permanent cure would have to involve extremely precisely annihilating only those 'converted' cells, then regenerating the body with what's left... which would probably mean killing and resurrecting them, for the severe cases.

     "That'll just be the start of making things better..."
     Kana, unusually, quaffs some of the wine too after a villager foists it on her. She nods at Hibiki, but then looks off to the side in thought. "You come from a green world, don't you? By your standard, there's a lot of work to do here. But that must be true of every other world, too. People could always be living better lives, with a bit more work. For us, it's normal."

     "I wonder where those eggs are from."
     "Space," Kana says matter-of-factly. Bota nods. Nobody else objects.

     "... how about you tell me what happened when the monsters stopped attacking?"
     "Oh," the old woman says, looking mildly surprised by Dysnomia's question. "I don't think anything happened. The monsters just stopped coming a year or two ago, and then a few months later, we saw more of the plague- what they call the 'Fish Disease'."

     "How many people live here?"
     "About two hundred," the old woman says with a forbearing smile. Candy seems to have charmed her immediately with his attitude, though there's something wistful in her face. In the whole environment, really. "It goes up and down. Mostly down, now. Why?"
Rita Ma      Ishirou can scan for weak points- the mass floats on its own, but there are a few critical cables under high stress holding the whole thing together- and pass them along to Dysnomia easily enough. But he discovers that either his instruments are faulty, or that isn't quite true. There are about three hundred people here, a large cluster of them 'below decks' in other containers. That's strange.

     Petra and Kukuru can both pitch in with the cooking, but 'Antonio' and 'Ben' both seem... pityingly uncomfortable, around them. It's hard to guess why, but they are quite grateful.

     Around that time, something odd starts to happen.

     Bota has been resting his head on his arms for a little while. The alcohol hits hard- like, really hard. Even people who've only had a cup are liable feel their limbs get heavy, then the room grow unsteady as if it were rocking more than it is, and then their vision blur.

     This includes virtually all the harpoonists, and zero of the locals. The old woman stays conversational, but she gets a little more nervous, a little more withdrawn.

     Then- just as Candy, Ishirou, and Dysnomia might be heading out of the community hall- a woman passes them by, heading in. She looks remarkably like Rita, but she's eight inches too tall and a decade too old, and strangely well-dressed compared to everyone else.

     "Excuse me? Bota? Could you step outside with me?"

     He bolts upright even despite his drowsiness, looking like he's seen a ghost. Kana does too; she grabs at his arm in alarm.

     "M-mom?" "Lisa...?!" "That's right~ Just a moment of your time." "But you're-!!" Then she turns and steps back out. He sprints after her, nearly falling down. "WAIT!!"
Meika Kirenai 'I'm very tired of this prank, Chevalier Vermillion.'

    Animal fear comes across Meika's face.

    "Prank? No. N-no. Forget I said that. I didn't say anything like that. That's- that's silly. I don't know what you're talking about..." It's that same rancid tug lacing her words as earlier, only far, far stronger- An active, hostile attempt to rip out even the memory of her own words from all those that heard them. Fuck up, and fix it. That's how it goes. You're supposed to fix your mistakes. This is one. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

    "Someone else m-must have said that..." At her continuation, for those she's able to wrench at the memories of, it's oh so much easier to remember some faceless harpoonist, or deckhand, or islander's voice saying those dreaded words- even Meika's defensive pleas start to melt away, as she stands there, muscles frozen and teary-eyed.
Ishirou Meika's power goes out to erase the fact that she said anything off-putting.  There is a moment, perhaps Ishirou's eyes dull, but for him, the information slips right out of his head.  Someone else said it, but he's not sure /who/.  Maybe a deckhand?  He doesn't know...

However, his mind works over something else.  A hundred more people live here than the old woman said, and as he's walking out with the others to start work on the structure...

His eyes catch the older version of Rita.  It shouldn't be possible, but he freezes mid-step.  He starts to analyze her but pauses.  Is this crossing the line..?  She wants to appear this way, is it right to go against that..?  Realizing, it could be their lives on the line he pushes through.  Uncomfortable, he tries to ID if she is a human or not.  

Worse, he can't tell if it is better or not if she is or isn't.  But they know the real Lisa Ma is the queen, right..?  Once Bota runs after her, he follows, breaking out of his freeze, and follows Bota after the woman.  
Dysnomia     Dysnomia stared open-mouthed, as calculations running through her mind, and found herself fighting the overwhelming urge to sink through her chair and into the crates beneath where the sea monsters could put her out of her misery.

    She hadn't touched her drink, but she grabbed for it, now, becoming suddenly very interested in its contents, pressing a hand into her forehead, taking deep, steady breaths. Oh, mother, spare me... She stood, suddenly, glad for the excuse to get OUT of there, passing through the door, and almost missed...

    "...Rita?" Dysnomia paused, turning to watch the familiar face even as her memories twisted and fell away from under her. No, it's not. But she looks so...

    She doesn't understand any of what's happening, just Bota and Kana's shock, and that was enough reason to follow.
Redshift Operators     The ninja cyborg blinks her eyes, flicking the optics as she does. What's going on with her head? Ugh. "The wine of a foreign land always has a certain kick." She mutters, shaking her head. The astronaut is already either asleep or in a position of total stillness -- there's no way to distinguish the two. The gunman seems to be struggling just a little with it. Only the giant demonstrates a mostly decent handling of things, sipping his tiny little cup that looks all the tiner against his massive body.

    But the ninja cyborg specifically, who is the team's medic, shakes her head to try to clear it a bit. She's hearing spooky things about Bota's mom, over the radio and echoing through the community hall. Worth projecting herself into the future, while she runs a high-tech medical scanner against her torso. She scans and scans using her healing expertise, and projects possible futures where she forces herself to stumble out there, or just stumble around the place. No major dangers looming in the future, right? Still, in those possible futures, she's now hit quite hard by some disorienting alcohol, so they'll be a bit unclear in the rewinds.
Angela Angela is forced to reconnect--or maybe she just needed a moment to scream into that bear that Solty got her. Either way, her expression is as carefully neutral as it always is forever when she reconnects.

"After him."

Nonon and Shajo were already on the way to start offering medical aid but break off suddenly to chase after Bota, Nonon drawing out her harpoon and Shajo's hand on his axe immediately, his expression going from jovial to murderous in an instant. Since they are carrying both video pads of Gebura AND Angela, that means they're rushing off after Bota as well.

"Bota! Wait up!" Shajo shouts.

Nonon says, "Shajo, don't run into the trap just because Bota is!" as she also ends up chasing after Shajo into the 'trap' as well.

"We ate a meal together!" Shajo shouts back.
Petra Soroka "Forget I said that."

    Petra has no problem accepting this as given, since she was already told to drop it by Lilian. If Petra had the only say in it, then she would never bring it up again, and the entire topic would disappear except for those two scheduled reminders that she noted down for Lilian.

    Her aura isn't nearly as kind. Not only is Meika inflicted with that stinging tinnitus backlash that she's become familiar with, but the prickling, painful itch of psychic negation swells out from her to hiss on the skin of everyone nearby her, blurring Meika's memory alteration whispers into patchy static. The sphere of discomfort shifts in needlepoints across skin as she turns and looks at Meika apologetically, scratching idly at her arm.

    Petra is in the middle of handing out a plate to a Harpoonist, when his head droops and falls forehead-to-table. She hesitates, before setting the plate down next to his head, then looks up at the rest of the scene. Drunk people just do that, right? Much more pressing, to her, is the figure that walks into the hall, and Petra gapes with confusion at the woman, coming to the different wrong conclusion entirely.

    "Milf Rita...?" This whole conversation, from even before stepping foot onto the Union Busan, has seared Petra's mind with some kind of unacceptable radiation. White Dwarf's harm-maxxed future still wreaks havoc on her thought processes. Petra shakes her head, snapping herself out of it, and the comments in the radio remind her that mothers exist, for real.

    "Er-- wait, is that a bad thing? Should she not be here?" Everyone's panicked reactions slowly bring Petra to the conclusion that something might be wrong, but even if it isn't-- she's very invested in Rita's family. She doesn't *remember* Rita ever mentioning her mom, but... she follows Bota and Kana out, a little behind, and at a short distance in case there's something private happening.
Kukuru 'Everyone's talking about sex!' 'But *nobody's* talking about *girl anguish*!!'

'She *said*, shut *up*, Kukuru! Excuse me! You *too*, White Dwarf! This is half your fault anyways!'

Pouting slightly at Petra, Kukuru starts to say something, then sighs a moment later. It /would/ make sense to not bring it up again if that's what's wanted, at least, and she actually relents with a tired nod and a confused look towards White Dwarf, as if trying to glean an answer from just staring at her mask.

There are no answers, of course, because White Dwarf's talking about sex and anguish for some reason. Kukuru's not sure how any of that relates to salting and icing fish, and the confusion just keeps growing, but-

'I didn't say anything like that.' 'Someone else m-must have said that...'

Kukuru's mind, strangely enough, proves to be weirdly difficult to convince by force when Meika tries to wrench at her memories of who said what. It's as though there's some kind of unseen force keeping that memory held in place, protecting it from being forcefully changed to some other person. It can't stop Meika forever, though, especially because-

"Oh! Okaaay~" Kukuru does it for her, chiming in with her usual cheerfully sleepy tone. Why wouldn't she believe Meika when she said it was someone else? With that little correction made, Kukuru still has other things to keep her mind occupied instead of wondering about fish preservation techniques. The partial cure, for starters! She does her best with the old woman and pays close attention to what's going on inside her as the nanites do their thing, but she's not going to push for going any further than that just yet.

She'll just have to remember to bring it up to Bota and Kana later, when there's a quieter moment with less things on everyone's plates.

When Kukuru's with Petra, 'Anyonio', and 'Ben', meanwhile, she's eager to help out with the cooking despite her visible drowsiness. It actually seems to perk her up, too, like she's actually doing something fun again instead of just going through the motions at work or something. Her technique is a little on the slower side, but she's surprisingly meticulous about actually getting the ingredient prepared correctly even with so many mouths to feed. And when there's a lull in the work.

When the odd things start to happen, though, Kukuru doesn't catch on right away. People are partying, after all, so of course they'd get sleepy. Her job's just to make sure everyone's comfortable and fed, especially Rita's family. She even looks a little more excited when she hears about Rita's mother being here, but it takes more suspicion to be raised by everyone else for her to finally take a breather from cooking.

'Milf Rita...?' 'Should she not be here?'

"Maaaybe. But it should be happy if they can reunite, right?" Bota running off with so many people chasing her and Nonon calling it a trap for some reason is enough to get Kukuru to finally move quickly. She watches where Bota's going, then glances over at Petra and starts tailing her, relying on Petra's judgment and staying further behind so as to not blow their cover!
Lilian Rook     Meika's stammering attempts to magically gaslight Lilian are, at least, blessedly interrupted by drunk White Dwarf jumping up on a table and yelling. Meika can see the exact instant that the last thread of give that Lilian's long patience has to spare finally snaps; its all in the flash of her eyes.

    "There are like eight anguished girls here and six of them certainly aren't having sex." Lilian snaps at the crowd. Rather than being harsh and testy, which would be honestly relieving, it's smoulderingly carefree. She flips her hair back over her shoulder saying it, even. She leans back by degrees, casting an antipathetic eye out to Kukuru, and then slices her gaze over the crowd as if imagining cutting them in half with it.

    "Leave it be already, you fucking freaks. You can't make it better and nobody wants to hear you taking turns trying to be funny, so shut the fuck up before you taint this poor girl with your bullshit any more than this."

    Past her social limit in a situation like this, Lilian at least has the blurry presence of mind to try and correct it. Petra, her ever dutiful caddy, feels the bottle snatched from her grip, sees Lilian open the top with her teeth, and begin slamming it back in a risky but well-reasoned gamble of what will happen when it de-stresses her.

    Not only does it seem the suggestion didn't take, to the one person it needed to, Meika is the unequal and opposite recipient of her own. One that doesn't reach her ears, blindly ghosts past her brain, and registers with something deeper that she can't define. A message that wasn't spoken; words without sound and meaning without voice.

    But the mere impression of them is like the devil herself stroking Meika's face, and dripping hot wax down the full length of her spine.

    §<<You are <Precious>. Aren't you~? And a <pike and shield> at that. 'Lilian Rook' can be trusted to <bring salvation> to you, but not the parts she need save? How do you <hope/expect/demand> she will <have faith> you, if she can't even <believe/reconcile> what you say~?>>§

    §<<Oh, you're so <amusing/tragic> that 'I' will give you one warning. Yes? <Learn to fear flame> or she will soon know exactly <what you make her do in your mind>~ Do not tempt 'me'.>>§

    The only good fortune amongst all the bad in this is that Lilian only gets two swallows in before the impossible disturbance causes her to gag and spit the third. Wiping her mouth only by habit, Lilian has enough lucid time remaining to yell "Are you blind or stupid?!" at Petra, and start running out after, before starting to slow to a stagger from the kick.

    "You fucking-- The one time I try to give you any dignity-- It's always like this!" Lilian seethes raggedly between nauseous huffs. "See what I get for thinking it might be fine to save a few extra people, after someone made it a happy thing for once--!"
Candy About two hundred. Why?

     Candy smiles back, instinctively reaching up to brush aside his hair before remembering that it's bound neatly in a bow. "So I can make sure everybody has enough, once I roll up my sleeves and get to it," he answers.

     "It sounds like those two are gonna do 'better shelter,'" he says, motioning with a nod of his head towards Dysnomia and Ishirou. "So I'll do nets and medicine. Even if the Busan don't have much of the second... I can, ah, stretch it out, you know?"

     Frankly, Candy had already forgotten all of the back-and-forth about fish and relations therewith> The farmer had silently written it off as 'egghead shit' at the first sign of a suitably clinical word, to put his focus on work.

     Pushing off of the wall, he adds, for the old woman's benefit, "I'll be back later, okay?" He stops dead in his tracks, and his eye twitches.

     "BOTA! That's--goddammit."

     Time stops.

*Because I need a minute.*

    The old woman's wistful smile is still there, just faintly--likely on the cusp of changing to something else, given the abrupt change in atmosphere.

*Couldn't be her, could it? Too obvious. A fake, right? Like last time. So what the fuck does she want? Get me something to fight with. Something she won't know to look out for.*

    Time resumes, as Candy exhales a steadying breath and makes a collected, but brisk walk out of the little community center. "First of all, don't say that just because we were all thinking it. Second, no. She shouldn't."

     A simultaneous pitter-patter of footsteps on metal sounds--he'd been pacing. during that stretched-out instant. His hands cut a newly printed deck of playing cards, shuffling as he walks.
Hibiki Tachibana     People could always be living better lives, with a bit more work. For us, it's normal.

    "...Yeah. I don't know if I'll be ready for that. When the time comes, here." Hibiki says, just loud enough to hear back towards Kana. Despite the whole mess that someone got everyone all weird about, she's a combination of too lost in her own head and assuming that something else is being meant entirely.

    Sodium? Salt the fish? Why is everyone acting so weird about fish being salted...? She was barely following whatever was going on in the first place.

    It's at that point, that... she notices, even though she hasn't touched any of the alcohol, she can still tell everyone /else/ who partook is acting off. There's no way that stuff is that strong, right? At least not strong enough that so many people would have the effects be hitting all at once. Ishirou's talk of more people than they thought being below decks is weird, too. And coming in...

    "Ri--" Hibiki whirls around, wide-eyed. Maybe just as much as Bota and Kana. The former's outright declaration of who the woman is confirms it, even if the resemblance wasn't so ridiculously uncanny. She's still processing it, even as she leads Bota out and he goes running. Huh? Why is she--

Shajo, don't run into the trap just because Bota is!
    ...Bad vibes.
        BOTA! That's--goddammit.

But it should be happy if they can reunite, right?

    "Bot--hey, wait, Bota! BOTA--!!" The words come to Hibiki's mouth without even realizing why she's running, or why she's suddenly so worried. All she knows is that she's joining the ones hurrying out of the 'building' at full speed, thankful somewhere in the corner of her mind that she didn't touch any of that wine, desperate to not let either of the Ma's out of her sight.

    There's a sharp feeling sitting somewhere between her chest and her stomach.
Petra Soroka "There are like eight anguished girls here and six of them certainly aren't having sex."

    Petra briefly runs through calculations to consider whether she checks both boxes of 'anguished' and 'having sex'. Lilian checks both, of course, which means there's only one other anguished girl present who has sex. Kukuru? Sex, no anguish. Meika? Anguish, no sex. Kana? Same thing. Same goes for Angela. Petra feels weird about considering whether Hibiki has sex with Miku, so she tentatively sorts her into that same category. Dysnomia is briefly forgotten, which leaves Petra wondering who the eighth is.

    The contest is between White Dwarf and Petra, then. Petra stares at her for a second, performing some insane calculations, before becoming mentally satisfied with something and bringing the train of thought to a closing station. White Dwarf feels weakened. The harm she can deal to Petra in hypothetical futures is reduced tangibly.

"Are you blind or stupid?!"

    Hearing the words that came out of her mouth only after Lilian and Candy react to them, Petra's face turns slightly pink and she picks up the pace in running out to follow. When Lilian staggers, she wavers, wobbling back to wordlessly offer her a shoulder to lean on. If it's rejected, she redoubles her pace instead, pulling the black-gold EGO spear off her back like Lilian's weakness means she needs to be twice as prepared. Prosthetic.
Meika Kirenai 'Leave it be already, you fucking freaks.'

    Bitter guilt washes over Meika, that there'd be some defense to clean it all up, the right and proper way, from Lilian. It's made so, so much worse by her attempt not even having worked. Her eyes fix to the floor, and her hands stay imprisoned in jacket pockets, stock still, and perfectly quiet. Even if she's sniffling.

'<<Oh, you're so <amusing/tragic> that 'I' will give you one warning. Yes?>>'

    Still silently, Meika nods- uncertain as to what *at*, or if it's even noticed, but everything feels too pliable right now not to, under the fear, intangible pain, and horrifying tenderness. Her eyes shut tight, as if that'd help anything, as if it ever does, as if the world really can just stop seeing you the moment you can't see it. The only sound that comes out at all, not breaths, not the motion of boots against old metal, nor shifting fabric clothes or fidgeting hands, is a hushed "I'm sorry..."

    In all the parables, it's the devil that is meant to tempt you. The other way around is so much scarier. Meika wears her nearly-mouthed prayers against that on her tear-flushed face.

    The moment Meika gets her hands on alcohol, she's already begun to chug it. Sobriety is beyond unacceptable at this point. The horrible ear-ringing, the gross skin-itching- It just seems fair. That it takes a long time to fade, even coupled with the strength of the booze, also seems deserved. But fade it does, along with most of her perception, until she's face-first on a table an indeterminate amount of time later, to only stir when fragments of exciteable chatter gets louder and louder. Hearing whispers about 'moms' in general pings half-functional neural pathways, and ingrained habits.

    Meika silences her bleary murmuring halfway between parroting 'Mom?' and rambling about being up and alert and okay and ready for school, the sound's cutoff is razor-sharp and leaves her lips moving for another second. She tries to sit back up straight, aware just enough to be morbidly embarrassed at what she's drunkely blurted out. She's not sure when she'd wound up collapsed, as the whole room spins and moves in her intoxicated perception, and while bracing on the table and keeping a slightly wider stance when trying to stand may not really help her balance, it feels right to do.

    Turns out, it doesn't help! Previous practice being roused to emergency while intoxicated doesn't actually account for much, even if she's had more experience with that than anyone ought to. She has to keep a hand on the table, or, with reluctance, the backs of passed out or nigh-passed out harpoonists, to struggle-- the magical girl can't run, at all, not right now --towards the chamber's door. Her head spins enough to want to spew, but a lingering, oppressive weight of embarrassment hangs over that if she manage something like that, on top of everything else, she may as well just see how well she can swim with whatever's coursing its way through her bloodstream.
Rita Ma      Inside, Sonia is passed out and drooling over a table. The rank-and-file harpoonists aren't doing much better; they're all laid out, immobile or barely so. The elderly islanders look nervously at the teetotalers who are still awake; most start edging for the exits.

     Out there, she's ethereal; like a vision, like a dream. To the intoxicated, the world seems to swim with her as the only focal point. The dense fog outside, the drugs, and her radiant beauty all blur together into an almost literal glow. When she beckons over her shoulder, it's hard to look at anything but that gesture.

     But she's solid. Very solid. Ishirou finds pure flesh and blood, but not even a brain. It's a human-shaped living puppet.

     Bota, staggering out after her, looks like he can barely stand now. Kana has to lean on the doorframe for support staying upright. She looks back at the people pursuing and delivering warnings, and fumbles for the gun at her hip even if she's confused. But Bota's understandably transfixed- the most attention he gives to the warnings is a dazed backwards glance before looking forward at his 'mother' again.

     "I don't remember inviting the rest of you! Why don't you get back inside, hm~?" She smiles the sunny smile that Rita does, but her eyes don't quite shut. That transfigures the entire expression into something smugly unwholesome.
     "Mom-- Lisa! How did you...? I *saw* you die..."
     "Awww. And my body went overboard, right? But don't worry. We have all the time in the world to catch up, don't we?"
     "No, but- all this time, where've you *been*, I..."

     He tries to approach her, another question on his lips, but stumbles and falls to his knees instead. She walks forward and tenderly lays a hand on his shoulder.

     Mechanical clack-hiss noises are audible from all around, then. Kana's head whips up in recognition: gas guns being readied. Dozens of armed figures are faintly visible moving through the fog, surrounding the community center from the ground and high container perches; younger than the islanders you've seen so far, but most of them diseased anyway. Half have pneumatic firearms. Half have little better than fishing spears.

     The old woman hobbles to the doorway. "Bring him back inside," she demands of 'Lisa'. "We can't have the hostages getting hurt." 'Lisa' smiles ingratiatingly. "Mmmm! Nothing could be further from my mind."

     Her eyes fall to the outsiders in front of her. "But if they cause trouble, you'll kill them, right?"