Welcome to Gaia! ::

Next to Sailor Pyxis, Sailor Europa was practically shaking from how high she was trying to raise her hand. Apparently she was under the impression that this meeting functioned like a fifth grade science classroom. After Pyxis's question, it was up to the other member of Team Anglerfish to make their duo not look totally stupid, so when Luna nodded in her direction, she hopped to her feet and blurted, "My question is not dumb or about cell phones."

"The negaverse don't fight fair," she prefaced, nodding to Sailor Libra. Her friend knew what she was talking about. "They attack to kill, and I was wondering, are we to attack to kill as well? What's the appropriate amount of force to use in fighting them?"

She, personally, was not sure how she felt about killing people. Wasn't that what they were trying to prevent from happening? Well, at least it wasn't a question about cell phones.

There was a moment of silence as Kunzite's pale-shod feet crossed the distance between her chair and the whiteboard, silver sword at her side. This meeting was the first time most, the vast majority of them, had seen the Cavalier, though it was not the first time many had heard of her: word of Sidra Winters' death had traveled, as had word of the peculiar senshi (or not-senshi?) who looked like a general of the Negaverse. She looked impassive, but she took the pen from Astraea's hand without hesitation and wrote under it:

The people of Earth, in dozens, hundreds and millions

"I wasn't aware you were running a nursery school here, Luna."

She turned to face the crowd.

"Or perhaps just a gaggle of spoiled lackwits who wouldn't know the value of human life if you murdered their own mothers in front of their slackjawed faces."

Now she underlined Usagi Tsukino; after that, Rei Mizuno; and each name on the list, until she reached The people of Earth and that she underlined once, twice, three or four or five times, and then circled it.

"Perhaps you are not aware. Perhaps you are not aware of what they did to your Prince, the Prince of Earth. Or his bride, the Princess. Or their soldiers. Or your own soldiers. I'll grant that that's true," she sounded icy cool at the moment, a poised mezzo, "and perhaps it is. I wouldn't put it past your current level of perceptiveness, soldiers."

Then her words came thundering out, like a drill sergeant, in what had to be mostly a snarl: "There is no excuse to be unaware of the people they murder every day. Force? You're asking about force? You're asking about force when they rip the life out of the men, women, and children of Destiny City? When their precursors murdered the Moon Court wherever they found it? When their precursors slaughtered the kingdom of Earth on the strength of a betrayal? To hell even with what you have to avenge," she spat, smacking her hand down hard on the whiteboard with a loud crack, "think of what you have to protect. Consider this. Every time you fail to kill a soldier of the Negaverse, they will murder ten more. Every time you let them go again, they will murder another ten. Do you feel a sense of responsibility to your fellow human beings? Or are you more concerned with getting blood on your hands?"

There was an even louder thunk as Kunzite brought her fist down on the desk of the first unlucky senshi she passed in her pacing. "You will use all the force that you have," she said, now back to coldness: "You will use the strongest force you have. You will use the deadliest force you have. You will make them bleed into the pavement, you will rip out their throats, you will run them through and nail them to the walls. You do anything less and more people will die. I never thought I would have to explain this. Have I made myself absolutely clear?"

This was possibly the most words anyone had heard Kunzite say at one time. She stepped back, pale eyes glaring out at the crowd, mouth in a thin line.

"It has never been any different for the Cavaliers," she said in a more even voice. "Nor the senshi, lest you think you can exempt yourselves by thinking me bloodthirsty. That is the force the Moon Court showed me when I was a General of the Negaverse. That is the force you will show them unless you intend to be an utter disgrace. Like I said," she folded her arms and stepped next to Astraea again, like a marble soldier in a chess set, "I had no idea this was up for discussion."

It didn't look like she was taking questions.

Bellatrix could live with being called inarticulate. She could barely stand, however, finally knowing the facts behind this Negaforce they were warring against. And to think she had ever once wondered why she fought, or whether she was on the right side.
A part of her felt like she should have known - the same part of her that had always known. Bell still considered herself and Bellatrix to be two different people in the same body. The more she learned though..the more she saw and the more she fought the more that Bell knew that they were, indeed, one in the same. Bell was Bellatrix - Bellatrix was Bell. This wasn't just a role for a play. And there was no running from this fate that she had tried to deny since being awakened.

For once the Senshi of Fortitude had what she needed to go forth and accept her duty. She was one with herself and her sphere. Though her pale blue eyes held tears, the look in them was steadfast, and ready for any challenge. Bellatrix would never...never more..disgrace those fallen in this longstanding war. She'd no longer disgrace...their memory.

"Your attacks are devastating magical attacks," said Luna, though now she sounded wearily as though the world was too much with her rather than ready to throw Alcyone into the cornfield. "They are your offensive energy. These cellphones are made of plastic with a few magical defenses. If your cellphone gets in the way of an attack, it will break. If anyone comes up with a magical substance that can block attacks, they can come to me and I will give them a lollipop."

Another hand had risen, without embarrassment or shame. The guardian cat inclined her grey-tressed head towards a girl dressed mostly in near-blacks. "Sailor Corvus. If anyone else asks about cellphones I will have the person sitting next to them hit them with one."

"You have three options there, Corvus," said Luna, who was smoothing out the daffodil-yellow folds of her pretty dress and looking irascible about having it in the first place. "The first option is that you become so amazingly super-powered that you can face down the General-King in one-to-one combat, floss your teeth with his dreadlocks and declare yourself God-Emperor of Earth." She had taken the whiteboard marker again to point it at the pretty, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, whose face was marred by that arrogant twist to her mouth. "The second option is that you die. The third option is that you suck it down and learn to work together. Find someone who doesn't make you completely nauseated. Ask around. If anyone thinks they would like to work with the, ahem, goddamned Batman over there, go and talk to her after the meeting."

The marker swung to the others. "That goes for anyone thinking that they're hot s**t. There's a fate worse than death, you know. Charonite can corrupt senshi. Charonite can turn you into one of his own. He turned two of our most powerful senshi to his side, and it took Kunzite to bring one down. We're still after Tisiphone.

"You're going to be traced. You'll probably thank the phone one day."

Corvus did not look as though she felt this would happen any time this century.

The pen swung around to a green-haired girl. "Sailor Saiph."

"So the dumbass parade has reached its zenith," said Astraea. "Zodiacs, here's one for you. Do you want it? Are you sure? All right."

Aries had not in fact said anything, face stony, but the blue-eyed catgirl put her hands on her hips as she squinted over at the Primordial senshi in the bleachers. Her voice started out softly -- "The Zodiacs do not get your cellphones because they can't use them, Einstein. Your phones are connected to your senshi identity. They are a different faction. They are the Zodiac Guard. You are the Moon Court. It took me three, that's three, hours of my life just to get Captain Kunzite's phone to sync with him and it still doesn't work properly! That is three hours of my life I want back."

Ophelia was edging closer and closer, perhaps with a tranquilizer. Luna's tail was lashing. "If you have a magical solution to how we can streamline the Zodiac power with our own, I will hail you as the most unlikely genius to have ever lived."

Now the golden-haired cat was gently easing the marker out of Astraea's clamped fingers, which was apparently difficult job. She herself wiped beads of sweat off her forehead again. "I'll let the Zodiacs introduce themselves at this point. Aries."

Captain Aries stepped off of the bleachers and walked to the guardian cat, giving Kunzite a remarkably chill nod as her red cape fluttered behind her like a banner. You could never accuse Aries of not looking the part. She said: "I am Aries, captain of the Zodiac Guard. This is our princess, Chronos."

Heads turned towards the smallest princess ever.

"We are a different faction, related to the Moon Court by blood," she said. "We have been your distant allies in the past. Traditionally, the Zodiacs have worked alone. I am not talking in arrogance when I say that the Zodiacs are all more powerful than a normal senshi -- but the way this war is being fought means we can't draw the lines so cleanly between Zodiac and Moon Court."

She drew one knifebound hand out to gesture at the Zodiacs again. "These are the Soldiers," she said. "We're the survivors of Barren Pines. Most of us have already died once. We're thirteen strong plus our guardian, Zue. We're down one man from a sneak attack by Captain Obsidian, who you probably already know as a psychotic killer! We do not let this stand!" The hand was dropped. "But we are your allies. And I'm ending our isolation here. If you want to -- patrol -- with us -- " It sounded as though it was a little difficult to get out. "Talk to me. Talk to the Princess. Don't know how to fight? We'll teach you. But I will not lose anyone else through isolation."

Her gaze swung around to Corvus. "Fight alone and you'll die," she said bluntly. "It's the stupidest thing you could possibly do. The Dark Kingdom's more organised. The Dark Kingdom knows how to coordinate. Look at you! Look at all of you! Around fifty strong and you're dithering about working in groups? You are a brotherhood. A sisterhood. So act like one, not a damned collection of ego-ridden superheroes."

She turned away. "I won't say more. If you want to die and waste your chance of doing something, of saving the world, go out alone. If you don't, start doing what the Negaverse are doing: working together and planning an offensive."

It was one of the Zodiac's own hands who had started to raise now. Aries said, ignoring an eyeroll from Luna: "Soldier Virgo. Go ahead."

"Oh, for Serenity's sake, I can introduce myself," snapped Astraea as Aries opened her mouth. "I am -- I will be -- I was -- I am again -- Luna, the advisor to Queen Serenity of the Kingdom of the Moon. I am the guardian of Sailor Moon, the Moon Princess, and the future Moon Queen. I am -- "

Her voice took on that odd, not-Astraea quality again, though it seemed that Astraea knew what she was doing. In a tone less filled with the wrathful implication that she would enjoy sticking all of their heads in ovens, she said: "I served Sailor Moon in Japan, in the 1980s. I am now reborn in Astraea -- me -- to find her again. In the Silver Millennium I guarded her mother. I am sworn to the Moon Kingdom. I'm your guide. Bunny would have wanted it this way."

After a moment she said, in a more normal voice: "That is, Sailor Moon." And she seemed awkward as hell, glad to fill it with: "Sailor Foramen, you've got a question?"

(Aries was now standing next to Kunzite, both of them assiduously staring straight ahead.)

"It's life energy, you dipshit," said Luna succinctly, having reverted to form. "I thought you had a quarter of a brain, considering you've zomg worked things out. What do you think they power themselves and their youma on? Five vegetables a day?"

She had taken the marker pen back from Ophelia, and now she jabbed it over in the direction of Miriam Jacobs. "If everybody is so lost as to what the plot is," she said, "I think it's time to explain the cavaliers, Captain. Floor's yours. Stab anyone you don't like if it's not in their vitals."

(She didn't sound like she was joking.)