Welcome to Gaia! ::

After a long night at work, Penny and Kam had gone to Asian Very Good Buffet at the corner of MLK and Fifth. It was her favorite Asian buffet in all of Destiny City -- and she had sampled most, if not all of them -- for one very important reason: the wings. The place was a hole in the wall, and that was how Penny liked it. That, and that you could smoke in the back room after 9PM, and no one would give you s**t about it, city codes or not. The fact that she revealed Asian Very Good Buffet to Kam at all spoke volumes of how she regarded him. Penny was a very resolute person. She liked him when they were sharing tattoo stories and drinking beer. Now that she knew they were both the same kind of bizarre superhero, she planned on fully ingraining him in her life.

So far, it was going pretty well.

Laden with a Big Gulp, a pack of Twizzlers, and two packs of cigarettes, Penny transformed into her powered alter-ego and led Kam to the cross streets where DCNN got the majority of its footage of the terrorists. Standing on the street corner did not seem well-advised, and so the pair took to scaling a building nearby. They sat there now, two pairs of legs dangling over the side. Cimmerian had eaten almost all of her Twizzlers, smoking a fresh cigarette every fifteen minutes.

Her lips would not stop moving. In the few days she had spent apart from Kam, something amazing had happened. Kurma had swooped in from the sky and taken her to Pluto. On the planet, the last Knight in the Cimmerian line had spoken to her -- and now her head would not stop buzzing with questions. She had begun the story over dinner, but with all the hot wings, she had really only covered the part about the fire-breathing youma. On the walk to the building, she had detailed Kurma's appearance, how he could <******** fly, and how he just zipped her off to space! And, more importantly, that she could go without him if she focused hard enough.

Mint eyes glinted with excitement as she neared the most important part of the story. "Gehenna, I went to Pluto. I mean. I was there. And it wasn't all rocks and s**t like the scientists think. There was this one tree and a big crater full of glowing blue water. Like. Think of the s**t you see in the Caribbean? Yeah, that? That is hideous compared to how this stuff looked." Cimmerian lifted her box of cigarettes and plucked one out. She rolled it in her fingers, shaking her head. "I'm not crazy, okay? I have to preface that with this. I am not crazy."

She plopped the cigarette in her lips and lit it, took a long drag. On the exhale, she said: "But the spirit of the last Cimmerian Page appeared to me and tried to give me some perspective on what the ******** it is we do." Exhale.

Cimmerian shook her head. "He said I could just feel my planet calling to me if I concentrated hard enough. I've tried once or twice since then, but no dice. This guy just blipped me over there the first time. It was amazing." There was a hiss of awe in her voice at the mention of Kurma. For all of his calm cool and unreadable smiles, the man who had swooped out of the sky to save her had a special place in her mind now. He had saved her and then showed her the door to her history. It was something she would always be grateful for, even if she wasn't the best at showing it.

The cigarette bounced between her fingertips. She took another drag, trying to find the words to say. "Man, if I were you, I would want to know it all too -- so understand that this is not me just ******** bullshitting you -- but I can barely remember. It was this giant swirl of s**t just being thrown at me, bam-bam-bam-bam. And then she was gone. We were there talking, I turn, she was gone. It was straight out of a movie, I swear it." Her brow furrowed, lungs breathing in another pull of smoke and tar. It was obvious that this strange enouncter had thrown Cimmerian for a loop, even if she was happy to have the information.

"I remember..." Meri squinted in thought. "She told me that every woman born in my direct bloodline is bound to have a daughter. And that that daughter will have the ability to become the Cimmerian Page if the universe needs it, just like every woman in our family before has had the potential. Esabel -- oh, that was her name, I guess -- was the last one. And she was alive, like, a thousand years ago. Until me. So all the females in my family could become what I am... but it only happens when the, I don't know, mojo of the universe falls out of whack and needs us to rise up and whack it back into place." This had been the hardest part for Cimmerian to swallow. Her mother could have done this? Her old grandmother with the bad hip? And did this mean she was bound to have a daughter to keep their line going? Meri had no idea, and it bothered her. She liked being the person with all the answers.

A cool wind whipped over the roof. "But that was all stuff relevant to me, I guess." Well, mostly. The whole 'called when the universe needs us' might have been true for Gehenna. Her cigarette burned slowly between her fingertips. There was more. She just had to keep going. Instead, she took a drag off the cigarette and gave Gehenna time to react to the first spike of knowledge.

Meri turn to Gehenna dramatically, gripping his arm and widening her eyes. Little tears seemed to pool there, her mouth wide. "Kameron?" she said, sighing wistfully. "Oh, darling -- only if it is ours." Grabbing his jaw in her hand, she turned his head to the side and planted a big wet one on his cheek. There may have been a little tongue. Then she straightened up quickly with a laugh and went back to puffing away on her cigarette.

Her laugh faded, but a half-smile stayed on her lips. "It gets worse. More tweests." She rolled her eyes.

With a flick, Cimmerian sent a flurry of ash into the air. It reminded her of the shifting gray rock powder from Pluto. "She said I was sworn to duty based on a pact that Prince Endymion made between the Senshi and the Earth. And because of that pact, way back when, Esabel got shipped off to Pluto for eternity, just like every other woman in the Figgins line has been. Apparently, my, uh, powers and whatnot?" Did Cimmerian have powers? So far, she was pretty certain she just had a perfectly useless bow with terrible arrows. "They come from Cimmerian Shade. I googled it. It means perfect darkness. Like, total black out. And Pluto is 100% darkness, so." She quirked an eyebrow. "That's me -- black as night. Can I get a highfive?" She went for the it -- Kam totally ignored her.

Deflating, Meri tried to keep the tone light, but it was some serious information she was throwing at him. "I googled Prince Endymion too. No dice, just some s**t about mythology." That name had been bothering her. Esabel had spoken it without love or caring, but there was a quiet reverence there. So who was he? And why did he get to make all these calls about her destiny?

Her mouth opened again to say something, but instead, Meri stuck the cigarette up to her lips instead.

Gehenna wanted in her pants, obviously. She really couldn't blame him. Her pants were awesome. The joke got a smirk from her and a muttered, "Maybe if you're lucky!" before they were already moving out of Shootintheshitville and into Serioustown. Her identity as a Page was something that still confused Merian. She had been working with the terrorists stories for over a year now. Not once in all of that time had she felt any connection or bond with the senshi. Could it really just materialize like this, just as her weapon materialized in that bar over two weeks ago?

"You didn't google yourself?" she said suddenly, postponing the much harder discussion of Endymion and purpose. "s**t, the first thing I did was google myself. I googled myself all night." What were they talking about? Googling? "I googled you once, but it didn't have any relation at all to my name so I just... didn't really look into it much. It was something about Hell, destination for the wicked. It was all Biblical stuff."

Despite her swearing and love of premarital sex, Cimmerian was mildly religious. She wore a cross beneath sweaters and said a prayer every time she got on a plane. Her mother had been a devout Catholic, and Meri still fell back on it from time to time. Now that she knew she was some sort of superhero? Well, she had no idea what Jesus would say about that. Probably something inspirational though.

Her magically-sculpted nails were night and day compared to the shaped and split nubs that she usually found herself staring at on the tips of her hands. She took a moment to appreciate the shape of them before popping a finger into her mouth and chewing lightly at the nail. "I dunno about anyone else. Esabel just talked to me about us, Pluto, our family." Our family. It was unsettling to say. "Kurma is sort of flighty. He just told me that I knew the way to get there, that it was inside of me." She snorted. "Apparently it is pretty ******** deep because I haven't even so much as gotten a blip of Pluto since he took me there." He had mentioned something about it being strenuous to go there, a time limit, something else... the details had slipped her mind.

Why would he google himself? Why wouldn't he google himself? Meri was a professional googler. She googled the news, her work, her family, her city, Of course she googled her knighthood! It was the only sensible thing to do in a situation that made little to no sense. Even if this was all off base, Cimmerian thought it was a good place to start. At the very least, it helped her feel a little more in control of the situatio.

Kam's popcorn-covered pointing drew her attention. She took one last drag off her cigarette and then flicked it to the cement. "I don't see anything..." she said at first, squinting in the darkness. Then there was movement, the drag of a thick arm. "Holy s**t!" Meri took a step backward, falling into line beside Gehenna.

The thing was bigger than the one they had fought in the bar weeks ago. From where she was standing, Meri thought it looked tougher too. "Not a lot, no," she said, unslinging her bow from her shoulder and pulling free an arrow. She had spent the weekend practicing her form, watched every scene from Lord of the Rings with Legolas in it at least seven times, but she was still a lousy shot.

Notching a blunt arrow on her bow, Cimmerian grunted and pulled back her weapon into the loaded position. "No way to learn but through doing, am I right?" There was a light whoosh as the arrow sailed through the air. It was unclear where she had been aiming, but the tiny arrow thumped loudly against the flank of the ape youma. It turned, let out a bellowing scream, grew wings, and then soared like a bat out of hell at the rooftop where the two pages were standing.

Whoops?

Cimmerian hit the deck as the youma swooped overhead. "How was I supposed to know the thing was a ******** bat-ape!" she shouted, covering her head with both hands.

Before she could even muster up the courage to stand, the Page of Pluto watched Gehenna go sailing backwards. That could... not be good. For all of her self-perservation, Meri was a girl who believed in her own abilities, and she wasn't one to abandon a friend, definitely not the only superpowered ally she had in this crazy city. The youma was circling high, preparing to make another dive for Gehenna before he had the chance to recover from the first blow.

Nervous fingers pulled another arrow free. She notched it on the bow, took her time to line up the shot. The youma let out a screech and began to dive just as Meri freed her latest assault. There was a thump! and then a chirrup of dismay from the youma as it swerved off course. "Take THAT, you winged b*****d!" she shouted, pumping one fist in the air.

The celebration was short-lived. Within an instant, the youma had whirled around and began to dive toward her. So Cimmerian did the only logical thing she could think of:

She ran really fast in the opposite direction.

Cimmerian skidded to a halt at the crashing sound behind her. She turned wide-eyed to see Gehenna mounting the youma and then tearing its goddamn wing off. If he could do that, why couldn't she? With a defiant tilt in her brow, the Page of Pluto slung her bow over her shoulder and went running back toward the other Page and the youma. It bucked wildly beneath the beefy teen, but she managed to snag a hold of its other wing.

Her face contorted into a mask of concentration. Each tug was accompanied by an angry grunt until she felt the satisfying give of the beast's flesh tearing apart. Once she split the tendon from its body, the remaining hunk of flesh tore away easily, disintegrating in her hands. Meri expected that to be enough to take it down, but the thing continue to snap its jaws and flail wildly.

With a flying leap, Cimmerian threw herself on top of Gehenna, and together, they clung to the back of the youma as it beat itself against the concrete roof over and over again. "WHY. WON'T. IT. DIE," Meri huffed, digging her nails into Ghen's upper arm to stay on. There was a rush of air, and then the sensation of falling as the youma finally met its end.

Both Pages toppled to the ground. Meri was lying on her back on top of Ghen. She laughed for a minute and then patted him on the arm. "You are a good cushion," she said, breathing heavily.

Cimmerian lifted one arm weakly and flexed. "I am ripped like Stallone, you shithead," she said with all the love and grace in her soul.

The tiny Page slipped off of Gehenna like a bead of water rolling down a windshield until she was sitting on the ground. She curled her legs under her, wiping at the sweat that clung to her forehead. "This is a ******** workout," she said, groaning. "And I kickbox five days a week." There was nothing like the pulse of adrenaline to make the normal exercise garner that added punch of exhaustion.

When the Page of Mars mentioned Kurma, Meri stilled. Her encounter with him had been strange. He seemed full of riddles and enigma. Part of that made her want to take the time to painstakingly unwrap each tiny petal until she saw what was hiding underneath; another made her want to beat him until he spoke straight to her. She had a funny feeling that any answers she got out of him would require some decoding. Luckily, Cimmerian was up for the challenge -- she was always up for a challenge.

Slowly, Cimmerian got to her feet, adjusting her bow around her body. "Can we go get beer? Let's just go get beer and talk about this later." Her pack of cigarettes was discarded a few feet away. She crossed to it, took one out, and lit it, savoring the calm.