"Doctor, head to the cargo bay on the double. Could be some new patients for you," the comms unit in the med bay barked at Missy.

"Wǒ yīdìng yào ma?" she asked it plaintively, before holding down the reply button with a quick and cheerful, "On my way, Captain!" and collecting her kit to hurry over to cargo.

"New patients," she huffed under her breath on the way. "Why are there new patients? What's wrong with the patients I already have?"

Shouts rang out as if in answer, too distorted by the echoes of the ship to tell if they were onboard or piped in through a comms somewhere, but still unmistakably belonging to the two crew members Missy had swiftly grown to think of as her Problem Children. "Aaahhghghha buuhhhghhhhh grrrrrhhhhhh!!!!! HAGGHHHH GHRAAAA!!!!! YAHHARRRR!!! YAHHARRRR!!!"

Missy stopped dead in the corridor just outside the cargo bay and pinched the bridge of her nose, wincing at the headache she couldn't actually feel yet but was sure would start any moment. "Apart from everything," she muttered aloud, braced herself, and went into the cargo bay to find out her fate.

"G'day, Alliance Marshals."

Noah projected his voice without quite shouting. The Aussie's booming baritone went momentarily unanswered. He started banging on the door. Loud enough that anybody inside couldn't pretend they didn't hear him.

"ALLIANCE MARSHALS!"

The door finally swung open. Noah forced a smile.

"G'day, Alliance Marshals."

The Fed's eyes darted back and forth, checking the surrounding area, then back to the cop blocking the doorway. Still holding their gaze, fake smile widening he asked:

"You gonna let me in, mate? We've got the last investigator you all were waiting on, and I reckon you want to get this over with as bad as we do."

He motioned with a neck jerk towards Gen, the fictitious inspector. The cover story for Gen's late arrival would be her riding along with the marshals, and getting held up by their duties. Gen had the great idea that their characters don't quite get along and they've gotten on each other's nerves. And she can't stand the smell of horse shit.

There were a lot of similarities between Gen and her character.

While he did not quite understand why William Breene was acting the way he was, Holger did like it. They were having fun. The remaining guards were stuffed into the lavatory and, just as they were being locked in, Holger grinned devilishly at them. "Yum yum." The door was shut and locked and Holger moved behind William Breene in the cockpit.

Holger was glad to see his friend's renewed strength of spirit. There had never been any doubt in his mind that they would see through the day and, not only that, but complete their mission. Yes, a handsome pay day was sorely needed and nothing assured victory like desperation.

And William Breene was yelling again. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Holger joined in, unsure of the reason but not really caring. "YAHHARRRR!!!" It was the pirate way, after all.

It was nice, being lost in the big man's arms, his face planted firmly into his firey red beard. It smelled terrible but that funky beard smell reminded him of his old man. Just swap out the accent and then it's just equal amounts of head trauma. But sweet moments of calm like this could only last a fleeting split second at times like this.

Taking a breath and finally and calming down, he could only watch as Holger ran off, firing wildly. That was, until just like that, white flags were suddenly up and, they'd accomplished their mission. Part of it.

"We surrender!! Please don't eat us!!!"

Eat them?

Willy's eyes went wide. They thought Reavers were attacking them. That's why they fought like mad and armed the cubicle farmers riding as passengers. He looked down at his exposed robotic arm, then ruffled his hair and charged after Holger, and fired off a couple of rounds into the ceiling as he charged toward them. The pirate screamed incoherently.

"Aaahhghghha buuhhhghhhhh grrrrrhhhhhh!!!!!"

Jutting his jaw forward, as if he had an awful underbite and crossing his eyes he continued the grunting and shouting, hoping Holger would match that energy and keep up the act until they got the pilots locked in the bathroom. Handling them rougher than he needed to, he had to sell to these folks he might start gnawing on them, ripping them apart, or something worse any second.

"HAGGHHHH GHRAAAA!!!!!"

Click!

The door latched and Breene let out a sigh of relief.

"Maybe I'm not terrible at this... Yeah. Shit...."

His confidence restored. It was time to check in with Mel.

"Tail vessel secured boss. They think we're reavers! If I'd known I would have just run in here bare assed and screaming. Do reavers fight naked? I think it would have helped sell it."

Glancing over at Holger he shot him a wink at the idea of them running in naked. He knew he'd enjoy the mental image. The man was an ass but the scallywag had been working on those glutes. Then he looked at the controls of the ship. He could hit the brakes and they could take what they've got... or he could give chase... It was no choice at all.

"Well, since my 'au naturel' berserker charge is out of the question for now..."

The "irishman" settled into the pilot's seat of their captured vessel. A genuine smile was back on his face. This was his first time capturing another vessel. It wasn't talk anymore. Not afraid of being on the nose at all, Willy hit the throttle and punctuated his plan of action:

"YAHHARRRR!!!"

Beth and Rose had spent a bit of time together, and has had been hoped, the company and the dried apples and pecan nuts that Rose had shared with her had helped improve her mood. It was a low base by normal standards but not unusual for Beth so 'improved' meant that she was more-or-less able to function, and to respond when the ship docked and the away team was called to the assembly point.

Beth was well equipped with tools, some on a belt, and more in a backpack, because she didn't know what might be needed. She had stopped short of a plasma torch, figuring that if it was that serious they probably wouldn't have time to get it set up anyway. And besides, it was heavy. She also had her anxiety medication; she had taken a dose before going to the assembly point but she had been reasonably sure that one dose would not be enough to carry her through.

When Reinhardt had held the gun out to her, Beth visibly paled. "No," she had said, her voice barely audible above the background hum of the ship, her hands down by her side. If Pool had insisted, she would have put her hands behind her back with further, equally quiet protestations, signalling, she would have hoped, that she was not going to take it. There were multiple reasons that she didn't want the gun; one was that she had never fired one and didn't intend to start now, another was that she knew that she would be constantly and debilitatingly terrified that she would hit a friend rather than a foe, and the third was that she really didn't think that she could actually shoot someone. She knew with utter certainty that she couldn't shoot someone in defence of herself, and she was reasonably certain that she couldn't do it in defence of someone else, even Rose. Not carrying a pistol ensured that she wouldn't have to find out, which was cowardice on her part but then Beth would be the first to admit that she was a coward. Even coming on the away mission had been as much cowardice as anything else; standing up to Pool over the gun was one thing, standing up to him when he said that she might be needed, was another.

"Anybody who shoots me or Junior will get the same in return from me."

And that statement removed any speck of doubt that Beth might have had about refusing the pistol.

That wasn't to say Beth wasn't armed, she had a moderately heavy wrench in her tool belt that was good for giving someone a headache, if she could bring herself to do it, which of course was just as unlikely as using a firearm.

They left the relative safety of Shanghai crossing to the station, and as they did so, Beth's worried frown deepened, defying the experts who said that it couldn't possibly do so. She trailed behind the others, though not too far, not wanting to lose contact with them, or find herself ambushed from behind with the others too far away to help.

"Sidney... I told you. You're cute but there's no map to X in this house- FOX DU LOC... Son of a bitch..."

Despite the soft, almost whispered nature of the voice, Beth still visibly jumped, surprising probably no one. The temptation to hold Rose's hand, for her own comfort, a constant since crossing to the space station, became almost irresistible and she found herself drifting closer to the doctor, her shoulder almost brushing Rose's. By the time the voice had finished, she had returned to her normal state of fear though she didn't move away.

Although wrapped up in her own thoughts and fears, the gist of the conversation made it through to Beth

"Shall I look at this door?" Beth asked, moving towards it on the assumption that someone would say no firmly if they didn't want her to. Of course she wasn't really sure of what she might be looking for other than something that looked out of place or any suggestion of some unusual locking mechanism. Assuming that she had understood what had been said, of course, which was something that she was not at all confident about.

Location: Space Station

Clearing her throat, Rhiannon inched closer to her father, her nose scrunched up in suspicion. The music was grating on her ears, the old hotel looked defunct, and there was a weird smell she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Sidney... I told you. You're cute but there's no map to X in this house- FOX DU LOC... Son of a bitch..."

Junior glanced back at Sidney and frowned curiously. Cute? She guessed he wasn't unattractive, but was he cute? And did he have a thing with the station's mystery person? And did that matter?

She shook her head to rid herself of the questions, but that didn't seem to make her feel any more stable. In fact, now her whole body was moving? No, it's the station, she realized. The younger Pool wobbled and reached out to grab her father's upper arm both to support him and to support herself. Although she didn't bother checking up on the Mechanic, Junior did spare the Doctor a quick look to make sure she was OK.

"...Meet me at the Cuba lounge upstairs if you're not a cop wearing one of those masks, silver-fox...Unless they're not friends of yours in which case... you can take care of yourselves..."

Silver fox? She supposed her dad was the only one present who that might apply to, unless Sid was already greying and was just hiding it with dyes. Although, the person on the speaker had known his name so why would he start giving him a nickname now.

Pool looked at Sid and glared. "Now what, smart guy?"

Smaller Pool's communications device crackled to life in her ear and in the ears of anyone else wearing one, their Captain's voice melting through the connection. "You guys did a lot of puzzles when you were kids, right? You'll be fine."

"I'm guessing this muddles things?" Junior asked the financier. "Don't you have all this figured out? Or did we just get everything reset on us?" she continued, looking around and pursing her lips.

"Oh yeah it muddles AND befuddles."

Sid scratched his temple with the barrel of his pistol before quickly having his hand swatted.

"I mean it's the same puzzle the pieces are just in a new place I guess? Guys a horned up space communist with a thing for pirates. Look for stuff related to that? Worked last time."

"Last time," she muttered, keeping a hand hovering above his gun hand, just in case. "You and him..." she asked, raising and lowering her brows several times and hooking a thumb toward where the voice had come from. "Can't you just...puppy dog eyes and tell him to let us through?" she whispered.

"I tried that AFTER solving all the puzzles last time too, Kiddy Pool. I'm lucky he didn't airlock me! Honestly I think we just gotta get to the author first 'cos that goodnight kiss gang is still in here. What's left of 'em."

He put his gun in his holster and tried to make the current plan sound more fun.

"Let's start in here, Junior, should we try the doors first? Or look for a wacky secret handle for a shortcut because I vote shortcut!"

Sid held up his hand, Junior's hand around the wrist, as a show of support for his own idea.

"And what do we do if we run into the Elephant guy?" she asked her father under her breath, glancing back again toward Beth and Rose, all the while shaking Sid's wrist slightly while she spoke.

"Elephant guy!?" Pool racked his brain trying to think what she meant. Then he remembered his kidnapper's mask. ""Oh! Ximo? He's harmless. And stupid. So that means he dangerous. Shoot him, probably."

With a downward tilt of her lips in understanding, she shrugged and released Sid's hand.

*Dialogue written with Noseatbelts and Humanhyperbole and advised by Axe

Then:

"I want you both checking in with Gen over comms every twenty minutes... Questions, again, talk to Gen."

Gen's gaze met Noah's and she grimaced. She knew he was trying to get under her skin, or to annoy her, and she didn't want to give him that satisfaction. Still, she couldn't help the way her eye twitched.

"Gen, I reckon you're going incognito? Cheap office casual could get you mixed in with the inspectors," Noah asked. Brushing a non-existent speck of dust off the front of her shirt, she nodded.

"Seems the best way to go about it," she answered simply.

Now:

Gen stood behind Noah and Hyde, her hair tied in a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and wearing a simple beige business suit. As far as suits went, it was rather drab and unassuming, which was exactly the point of it. She busied herself with the clipboard in her arms, a briefcase hanging from the crook of her arm. All in all, she blended into the background, as intended.

Her eyes never quite met anyone else's, although she did scan the room and clock each person residing within. A young man, an older gentleman, a woman, a nervous man who she wagered wasn't an inspector, and the Sheriff. Their locations, attire, body language, and personal belongings were categorized and filed away.

Staying in the back of their ranks, she'd let Hyde and Noah be the front facing members of this team.

Eclipse Reborn is a reboot of a once successful Heroes RPG, though we are now veering away from established canon to create our own unique original character Superpowered RP. Taking inspiration from the likes of Heroes, X-Men, The Boys and others, we're looking to carve our own new path. We are an adult roleplay, open to all levels, have no word count and knowledge of fandoms is not required. Our grand re-opening is set for July 1st, 2023, giving all players, both returning and brand new, the opportunity to get in on the ground floor and help us build this story together.