Welcome to Gaia! ::

Things had been quiet, for a while. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was off. The Negaverse had been laying low, and while this might have been reassuring to some, there was no guarantee that the faction had been significantly crippled. Apatite was gone. Laurelite was badly wounded—if not outright dead. Youma were appearing in smaller numbers, agents in less.

Which meant the Knights finally had time to worry about something else.

A strange, pulling sensation—not unlike the one they might feel when summoned to Olympus—covered all Knights, powered or unpowered. It was an invitation to teleportation—and was one they had the option to accept, if they liked.

If they agreed to be teleported, they would find themselves in a safe room on the moon; there was a door, though age had sealed it shut. The room was large, and full of seating. The air seemed stagnant, but there was no dust. There were great windows that allowed light to filter through.

It felt safe.

Even with the recovered piece of the Code, bright and pulsing with weak spurts of Chaos hovering over a table at the front of the room.

Now that they had time to recover—now that they had time to think, and calm themselves—they had to deal with one more problem: what do you do with the Code Piece?

Should it be sealed away, permanently? Destroyed, so the Chaos cannot touch any of them? Should they attempt to purge the Chaos—despite not knowing what that might do the them—or the rest of the Code?

All voices matter in this decision. This is for the betterment of the Knight faction…share your ideas, discuss amongst yourselves. The Code Piece is silent, menacing, and offers no aid.

It was more than a bit unusual to be called somewhere that wasn't Olympus. Time and time again, Hvergelmir had felt the call of the Code, and found herself standing in that now-familiar amphitheater, Mars's red dust faintly sparkling on every surface, windswept in her hair and her shoes.

Today she was here, and the Code was here, but . . . it wasn't Olympus, with its familiar Code piece. This Code piece was different, if she wasn't mistaken -- and so was the room.

She knew vaguely, through the grapevine of gossip, what things had transpired in the Rift -- the battles, the recovered starseeds, what might have been the ruins of the Academy itself . . . and the Code piece that they'd apparently liberated, that Kairatos had carried back.

Kairatos . . .

He was there, the only other knight currently in the room, and as much a presence as he always was. Her heart thumped.

She stood behind him, arms wrapped around her cloak to hold it close.

"Are you sure that's how it happened?" she asked softly. "It wasn't the Code that sent you all through that portal."

This was new, being summoned to various places, and she honestly wasn't sure what she thought about it aside from a damn inconvenience. She had plans for the day, not that it was anything new for her to have plans, and this was interfering but she knew better than to avoid this also. She had spoken with both of her cousins and knew these sorts of things were important, rock climbing and yoga would have to wait - damn it.

The red hair from not too long ago was gone and in it's place slightly shorter off white hair, her natural color, she had finally decided a week ago that enough was enough and her hair needed to return to it's natural color. She'd booked an appointment at the hair salon, the same one who had dyed it red to start with, and had it dyed back to it's normal color. Yes, the color would fade but when it did it wouldn't be noticeable due to it being the same as her natural color.

Fingers ran through the shorter, somewhat choppy, locks of hair as she looked about the room she'd been brought to. Already two knights were here, both as opposite in looks as one could get. She knew neither of them but she already was sure that both had a good amount of experience, and knowledge, behind them. She felt...small and so kept quiet for the moment and simply went to find a corner to stand in and observe from - not at all like her normally.

Newgrange had been in the Academy when the Code was recovered, but he had not been anywhere near it. He'd been too busy falling through holes and trying to think of a way out. The chaos of the battle afterwards had meant that he had no idea what ever happened to it—or really even knew anything about it, anyway.

Newgrange was the sort who liked a little follow up—or, at least, wasn't going to ignore anything that could give him more answers.

He had a lot of questions, and even if he usually sat in the back and listened, it was the best way to learn.

Except, when he showed up, he expected more than just four Knights there. He felt out of place and didn't want to interrupt them so he stood there for a hesitant moment and then offered a silent wave before distracting himself with a good long look around the room.

He had spent next to no time on the moon, and while the Knights there were interesting—the polluted piece of the Code stole his attention quickly.

Looking at it made his stomach run cold.

"Sorry none of us had an idea?" Kai breathed out in a huff, (an ironic noise given the bulls on his armor.) "I told you and Babylon there was something wrong. I told you what it sounded like."

He folded his arms defensively, green eyes wandering across the room to the others as they arrived, colored, in spite of his set jaw, and nodded to them in greeting.

"I'm pissed at Laurelite too but the last I knew the b***h had a Greater Youma parked on her head." He allowed a thin, grim smile at this, though there was very little humor in it. "I'm not mad at the code. I'm mad that there wasn't... something... somewhere... to help prevent this. I'm mad people died to get it back. I will always be mad when we loose people, especially that... horribly. I don't like being..." He made a frustrated, strangled noise, raw with old pain. "Helpless"

Some good had come of it though, not just the code. Having strangers reach out to him in a dark place when he'd needed help...

That was the kind of thing that gave you back hope when you were otherwise hopeless with frustration.

Hvergelmir tucked in on herself, struggling with the need to stand her ground when Kairatos had never particularly turned his short fuse on her before. Age and experience didn't make it much easier. "You didn't go down there to rescue a sick Code piece," she insisted, more quietly. "I watched the whole group of you go down into that portal for nothing more than the scant opportunity to punch Queen Metallia in the nose. You're fortunate you were able to recover a piece of the Code, or all those starseeds -- but you can't just retroactively ennoble your mission. The people who died down in the Rift died because you all decided together to go on a suicide mission, knowing full well how unprepared you were. I'm sorry."

She moved closer to the Code piece, wondering at its troubling silence. Was it struggling, now, with its Chaos, and unable to connect to them at the same time? Or had it simply lost its strength to communicate, so far from the land it was tied to?

"This one piece of the Code managed to hold on to its light for a thousand years until now, alone down in the darkness of the Rift, of Metallia's Chaos. It bore on -- it protected itself -- as well as it could, for as long as it could. You're seeing it after its precautions all failed, and wondering why there weren't any. But this Code piece kept itself safe for a thousand years under the worst conditions. Don't you think that makes it incredibly strong?"

She sighed, looking now to the growing number of knights assembled. "Our Code is sick. I think we should try to find a way to heal it."

"I don't know what anyone else went down there but I was hoping to find the goddamn code. I'm glad we did. It was a coincidence that I was in the group that found it but we found it."

He retorted through clenched teeth. Well... so much apparently for I missed you and It's nice to see you. Nope, it was 'enobleing your mission whatver the hell that was supposed to mean.. but there were other matters.

"To Clarify. The Code piece we were able to retrieve from the Academy in the Rift has been infected by chaos. A group of us found it together, and were able to remove it safely, but there was evidence that someone had been... looking. Someone knew, or had some idea, what to look for, had an idea what it was, and fed it chaos. You may have felt some impact of this at your own Wonders, or at Olympus. I believe it's the reason that it's been talking strangely, and in favor of the actions of Beryl and Metalia. The question is what do we do about it, and if we can purify it... and if we can't... what then? But I agree with Hvergelmer, I'd like to at least try."

He forced his attention away from the woman he cared about, who's opinion he respected... and looked to Venice.

Now there was a familiar face. It was tempting to reach out, grab him, and tousle his hair, something to break the tension that was slowly turning his shoulders into knots, making muscles still tender from their assaults in the rift start to hiss and grumble with a promise of future, greater pain if he didn't relax his frustrations.

Friendly hands in the dark indeed, though his eyes searching the growing gathering found no sign of who he was hoping for, the one knight he knew had the ability to purify. Camelot. He hadn't talked to him much since purifying, but he would have greatly appreciated seeing that weathered face in his Tin Man armor now.

Erebus

When he had felt the tug he thought at first it was a call to Olympus so when he powered up and teleported he was surprised to find himself not on Mars but on the Moon. Erebus dismissed his weapon, not seeing there being any need for it at a meeting, and looked around to see who had all arrived so far. He spotted the familiar Mars Knight(Kairatos) from the battle as well as Newgrange there at the meeting. Kairatos looked busy talking to another Knight(Hvergelmir) who was there and he wasn't sure if an interruption would be welcome just to say hi while Newgrange was looking out of place.

He was about to go over to the other Squire when he spotted Venice over by Kairatos. He moved over to the Page as everyone started to speak up and try to get the meeting started. When he was standing by Venice he gave him a smile then waved at the Mars Knight. "I agree we should try but, does anyone have any idea's on how we could purify it?"