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Sailor Chronos had managed to lose herself in the large crowd, partly due to her petite size and the fact that there were no large pink wings or a significant aura to give her away. It was interesting to observe Princess Polaris, whom she had not known, or could not recall ever knowing in the past. It wasn't easy to deal with accusations of why others should listen just because of their title, and Chronos understood. It was something she had faced many a time ever since she had been awakened, and unlike Polaris, she had never had the chance to be a normal senshi.

"Well, I do vaguely remember some things about Knights." She finally spoke, her voice quiet, but firm. Cerise eyes danced around to alight upon her Knights and Zodiacs present briefly, before she addressed the crowd. "A long time ago, the Zodiacs and my mother, the Queen, were stationed at the Surrounding; their very purpose was to keep Chaos from invading. But the Zodiacs, Handmaidens, Zue, Prince Aeon and my mother only made up a team of roughly twenty people. The Surrounding is a huge place, as some of you might have seen, and it was not an easy task, to have them all spread out at different outposts. So, back then, Earth agreed to send its Knights out to Space, to help protect the various planets and the Surrounding, so that we all may be safe." It wasn't very much, but it was the most she could dredge up from the memories that had awoken once she remembered that she once had Knights and met them in the flesh.

"We all fought together, side by side, to protect the innocents from Chaos. That has always been our purpose, and it is that purpose that unites us." Her meaning was clear. They could follow whoever they wanted, being a Princess didn't mean she had any jurisdiction over them; they did not serve the Zodiac Court. But all she hoped was that they could fight together, instead of rousing conflicts within themselves.

Zirconia grit and ground her teeth together when Tsui threw her hands in the air, not even seeming to listen as she tried to point out how diplomacy didn't need to be a suicide mission. Teenagers. Suck. But she wasn't Tsui's mom, or Hug-Bell's, and she had to count to ten and remember not to act like it and go on another 'in my day...' rant.

When Chronos mentioned knights cam from Earth, though, her hand shot up in an attempt to call attention to herself without raising her voice. No one seemed to want to listen when she said she knew a thing or two about what goes on in a corrupted person's mind, but she figured what she had to offer was worth a shot.

"Where I come from," She started, trying to keep down on the puffery this time when she talked about her far superior universe, "We have soldiers called cavaliers who have a special bond with our senshi. But they serve Earth, and it's Prince," She tried not to show too much overt grief when she suddenly, vividly recalled Alexandros, and all the other cavaliers she'd come to grow fond of just briefly before they died. "From what I can... feel about knights, they're kind of similar. But not. In a way I can't really explain. I don't know, you're universe is weird, we don't have anything really exactly like knights..."

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"That is exactly why I'm resisting the temptation," Eunomia whispered back to Irene. That and she was having a bit of trouble keeping up but she wasn't about to admit that. Plus, being a less experienced senshi there was a certain amount of safety to be hand being surrounded by your very comfortable team.

She nodded fairly enthusiastically when ********* mentioned they could discuss these things later in a less chaotic environment, though.

Sessrumnir crossed his arms, sorely tempted to use his aspect just to be a douche. "Whatever happened to self discovery?" he said, mostly to himself and the few around him with a small snort. "Knight awaken themselves. I'm sure we can figure out the rest, as well if we have need for it."

As for protecting Earth... of course! He wasn't going to be wandering some big a** planet like Jupiter to protect it and its ghosts and awful weather.

"We're all from Earth... knights, I mean," he tried explaining a little more to Tsui now that she had the basic idea down.

It seemed as though Chronos hinted at it as well, and Valhalla kept his eyes averted, not wanting to recall bitter, mournful thoughts of the civilians that had died around them. Maybe it hadn't been because of the delay in moving the mirrors, but her words, saying they were meant to protect the innocents from Chaos... it just seemed hypocritical after ordering the mirrors to be safely transported elsewhere after knowing how the DMC traveled through them. How else would a youma manage to get inside the Surrounding...?

He made sure to keep hold of Ganymede's hand to try and coax him not to say anything about any hypocrisy he saw as well. They were all humans, they all made mistakes... it just happened to be that many people had died... Regardless of whether or not they'd been brought back to life, they still died, and they were still traumatized by the event. "Don't," he said in soft warning, shifting to try and block Ganymede from being able to get a good look at where everyone else might be talking from.

"We were sent to serve the various planets or people attached to our names," he told her, seeming to keep his eyes down even as he glanced over to Tsui. "But my home is Earth. Just as it is yours. The past is the past..."

An adorable little chibi approached her, and it was enough to make Polaris lean down and momentarily away from the conversation. Children were absolutely one of her weakenesses, and it really didn't hurt how absolutely precious the little bee senshi's fuku was.

"Hello there sweetheart."

"To visit your homeworld you need to find a quiet place and focus really hard. If you think about it long enough and focus hard enough you'll hear your star's song calling to you and then you press the middle button on your cellphone and you'll get transported there. You press the same button on your cellphone to come home when you're done."

It was a little bit of a rushed answer, so in the end she added on to it. "If you still aren't sure I'd be happy to walk you through it later. Just give me a call."

Eternal Sailor Taranis wasn't sure why he was even here. His dedication to patrolling had taken a slump in the recent year. So much had happened, and it never really stopped. There were days when this inspired him, when he truly felt like he was making a difference. But recently, that inspiration had dried up. It was so much easier to be motivated patrol when he was surrounded by friends. Even though his relationship with Sailor Magellan had ended more than a year ago, she still crossed his mind far more often than he would like. No amount of dating -- infrequent, still -- or drowning himself in failed attempts at sexual exploit -- almost always a failure -- had changed that. Taranis truly felt like he was destined to be with one person in his life, and when he had offered that person everything he had, she hadn't wanted it.

So why was he here? There were so many new faces. When he had first awoken, there had not been this many. Did that mean that he was a survivor? Sure, whatever helped him sleep at night. He had long ago lost track of the new ones. The database he had helped create and manage was no longer in his hands. As people milled about, Taranis remained leaning against a wall in the back. He fiddled with his senshiphone, gazed down at his booted feet, and then... someone took the stage. A princess someone.

"Polaris," he whispered, more of a breath than a word. It had been ages since he had seen her and apparently quite a bit had happened. In spite of himself, he felt an aura of awe when she began to speak. She annoyed the piss out of him, but standing in her full regalia, even a hard-hearted Taranis had to recognize how beautiful she looked.

When she mentioned his long dead database, the Eternal Senshi of Sand visibly shrunk. Great, the airheaded girl of his past was a leader, and he couldn't even keep up with a goddamn computer program.

People spoke up, identified themselves and their teams. Taranis remained silent. He was really only here to listen.

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Super Sailor Neso was hardly a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but he was more than happy to smile like it was his birthday in a sea of senshi. He waved and greeted pretty much anyone who came into his vicinity before immediately drifting toward Princess Chronos. He didn't say anything though. Just smiled and stayed in her aura. It was the Handmaiden's job, after all.



--

Cimmerian was a little drunk -- but goddamnit, she was there. It was hardly her fault that happy hour had become happy hours after work. When you pulled the night shift, you had to make these sort of sacrifices. It was a wonder she had even managed to make it to this Order-aligned shindig. In any case, she was a creature of habit, and since she was a Page of Pluto, the crass woman did feel a certain pressure to participate in these community mixers.

She just happened to prioritize her job as an assistant producer at DCNN a hell of a lot more.

The petite page was happy to just take it all in -- that was until a blue-haired Knight started insulting the entire room. "Cool story bro," she muttered, flinging her eyes to the side. Cimmerian put little faith in people's ability to organize themselves in mass like this. If they wanted organization, they needed a leader to force them to organize. There was a reason that armies didn't have 400 commanders. At some point, someone just has to choose and everyone else has to deal. Despite her impressive ability to organize the s**t out of life, Cimmerian did not feel a particular urge to throw her gauntlet into the ring.

Instead, she raised an eyebrow and secretly wished she had some popcorn to enjoy the shitshow.

((If you interact with one of my characters, please ping me or I might miss it!))

((Forgot to add this to my other post like a derp xp ))

Only halfway listening to the conversations going on it was actually pretty surprising when the Amazonian girl suddenly spoke up, her low voice wrapped in that thick Brazilian accent.

"Wait. Where are knights of Moon then? Queen Serenity was very much important no? Should not she of all princesses have knights for protecting?"

The question was mostly for Chibimoon or those right in the general vicinity.

Allie, overhearing the question, couldn't help but turn a violent shade of red that clashed horribly with the burgundy on her fuku and the lurid cotton candy of her hair. Off the top of her head the princess knew exactly why there were no current Knights of Moon but whether there had been any in the past the young woman couldn't have commented on. She was pretty certain her mother had never mentioned having any knights on the moon, just having the more normal soldier-y type and then having her senshi protectors.

"Uhm, Juno, I think that's what you are for. Grandmother could protect herself, Mama had the senshi, and I have you and your sisters. Knights were not ever a thing that I knew and I do not know why. Moon knight, Earth knight, we did not have any of them in my time. I do not know about the past though but I guess it is strange." Looking down, a bit ashamed, she looked up again. "Maybe it is because I am not a princess? Not like her." Chibimoon's head jerked towards Chronos but not resentfully. Allie adored her sweet, gentle cousin and though she envied her the close protection of her court would never begrudge her it.

Sailor Zephyr stood on the sidelines, listening from the shadows, having not said anything as of yet to the ongoing discussion. There were many faces, both familiar and unfamiliar. But not unusual considering how far Zephyr had strayed from the scene. Ah well, it couldn't be helped. With the advancement of his career, he had gone on several jobs that had taken him out of Destiny city for quite some time.

And things had changed quite vastly since. There were quite a few of major powers on their side -- new princesses, new cats, new senshi and new knights. He didn't have an idea of what these knights were.. he would have to ask a fellow senshi about them later. At least they were on the same side. But Zephyr didn't fool himself into thinking that the negaverse hadn't gained more than a few valuable agents.

He kept an ear open to listen to the new opinions and information being exchanged, but still remained where he was, closing his eyes, giving the appearance of somebody who had nothing to contribute. He didn't after all.