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"Well my first guess would be the usual go to for purifying anything..." Kairatos suggested at Erebus' suggestion. "But unless Camelot is here we'll have to seek out one of the Senshi, and since this is different than their magic, it might not work. Cosmos suggested there are... abilities that come with the formation of Senshi Courts and Knight Brigades, but she was too tired to give us details. Can't blame her, she pulled out assess out of the frying pan when we weren't able to make it back to the Portal before it collapsed. The negaverse intercepted us before we could reach it, unfortunately, so without her, none of us would have made it out, let alone the code, or the Senshi and Knights who carried literally buckets of star-seeds from down there."

It wasn't the best answer but it was all he had. find a Royal. It had always been their go to, it seemed reasonable it would be the first thing they tried here as well.

Hvergelmir studied the faces of the knights who'd spoken and the ones who hadn't, wondering how many of them had gone through the portal into the Rift. She wondered what they'd imagined on the other side, what sort of outcome they'd foreseen for themselves. Had any of them expected to lose? Had they expected to die? Had they imagined the reality where they were the last person left, running through a mass of dead, bloodied bodies to escape through the portal, the only survivor?

They were lucky Cosmos had saved them from the slaughter. She'd watched the portal wink out as the last of Caedus's energy to maintain it died. Code or no Code, starseeds or no starseeds, not one of them would have lived. Yet none of them seemed to regret their decision.

She felt farther from her fellow knights than ever. Maybe she truly didn't belong.

Or maybe she, too, was angry, and was just looking for someone to vent her anger on. Hvergelmir held her breath, counted to ten, let herself process her feelings -- and then tried to let them go. Nurturing anger wouldn't help anyone, and certainly wouldn't help this situation. She was letting stress get to her. She wasn't being a knight that Teide could be proud of.

When she'd settled her mind again, she looked back to the Code.

"I think Kai's right," she said. "Purification's our most obvious first step. If that doesn't work, there's always more we can do. We ask three Royals, we ask five -- we ask all of them. We can try feeding it energy, or we start searching all our own Wonders for whatever we can learn about how new Wonders are created, how Code pieces are made -- some piece of lore will have survived somewhere. Or, if that fails, we . . . " She looked off to the side, avoiding eye contact with anyone. "We can try transferring the Chaos into something else."

Celsus Knight of Chronos and Emrys Squire of Neptune


He stood near the back of the gathering, idly running his good hand along the back of his neck and still getting used to the feel of there being no hair to cover it up anymore. Celsus let his eyes move from one person to the next, trying to ignore the consistent throbbing in his head, and shifted his other arm, his casted hand itching. It currently lay across the shoulders of a redheaded man identical in face to him, but little else - a man who was clutching his staff so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"Welcome to Olympus," Celsus murmured and then frowned, reaching out to drag fingers from the staff. "Stop that, you're going to poke your eye out."

"Or yours," Emrys mumbled. He looked terrified. "I don't know why I'm here."

Celsus let his arm drop, but remained standing beside his brother, his gaze flickering to Kairatos, listening as the knight spoke. A fair few had already gathered around, but Celsus stayed back, feeling wearied and exhausted as he leaned against a pillar.

"The Code has said a few things to me," he said quietly. "And now it seems I have a reason why."

Though the possibility of the Code having somehow malfunctioned instead of actually meaning what it had said about him being inadequate...

It was almost too much.

"There has to be some other solution than simply finding a Royal," said Celsus to no one in particular, a touch of dryness in his voice as he folded his arms tiredly across his chest, dark circles beneath his eyes indicating he still wasn't getting enough sleep. "Those are in rather short supply; we would do well, I think, to find solutions that don't always cause us to rely on them for answers."

Well I tried shaking it but it's a shitty snowglobe... Kairatos joked to Celsus but the smile was forced. "They are in short supply, but maybe that's so we don't forget what we can do without them." He'd certainly seen what the dedicated effort of many could accomplish in the Rift, even if he'd been to floored with pain for much of it to do more than observe. "Do you think that would work? That we could somehow drive the chaos from it? It's not a person... it might be different than trying to remove the chaos from a Starseed. The worst thing that happens is nothing, right?"

And the best was that they might succeed. A fraction of their total numbers had taken down a Elder Youma. Not without cost, not without pain, but they'd done it.

"Seriously if you've got something you want to try come up here and try it. We need ideas.".

Maybe it was like Caedus' crystals, or... or the energy of a Trancendent. Maybe it needed clean energy to replace the warped energy, and Celsus' idea sounded no stranger than the idea of an artificial world or crystals that could let any of them donate energy to a cause without it being Chaos.

Aokigahara felt the tug of a summons, and let himself be whisked off. It was better, he had found so far, to follow these things, at least in terms of acquiring further information.

Of course, he was also watching things dissolve into yet another fruitless argument. He settled himself into a chair and got comfortable, dismissing his weapon to keep it out of the way. He expected this to be a disaster, and part of him wished there were refreshments of some kind so he could really properly enjoy it, but alas, that was not to be.

And it seemed he had one important answer - the Code's recent behavior was because it was corrupted, bled into by Chaos. So that at least told him it wasn't normally an absolute insulting b*****d. Perhaps, too, that was a clue for the strangeness on his Wonder. Not a pleasant explanation, but a possibility. He would have to speak to Scholomance again, present that as an option. If they determined a way to fix the Code here, perhaps he could attempt it on his Wonder too.

Baikal, Page of Mercury

As Babylon slid into place beside him Baikal offered the knight a nod in greeting, and maybe even a small shadow of a smile. There weren't many among their ranks the page could call friend, but Babylon was right up there near the top of the very short list.

And as the knight spoke up, Baikal found he actually did have something to contribute to discussion. If only a very minor something. "Isn't there a royal knight?" His voice rose loud enough to be heard, though he wasn't sure if what he had to say merited much attention. New as he was, there was a very good chance he didn't really know what he was talking about. "If the Code is something specific to us, maybe he'd have more luck getting rid of the chaos than a princess?"

What was the knight's name again? Older guy...

Trancendents share energy, we could try having some of them try and put some non chaos energy into it... " Kairatos pondered, at the suggestions being offered rapid fire.

It was... actually... kind of going better than he had expected.

"There is a Royal Knight, Camelot. But I haven't talked to him for a while. If he's not here I'm sure he has his reasons, but if we seek out a Royal he'd be my go to for this I think... but Celsus's idea is worth trying. We should make a list..." He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck and flashing a more sincere grin at Celsus.

Joking helped. He could feel the painful knot in his injured shoulder unwinding just a hair.

If we absolutely can't purify it I think we almost have to leave destroying it as an option... the way the other code pieces have been behaving seems to imply they're connected. It's why I asked to leave it here, instead of bringing it to Olympus. I was a bit afraid it might act like a Virus and spread... but honestly I've got no damn idea what it would do if we put them next to each other."

He nodded to Slievenamon as well, feeling a bit awkward, ill suited to be trying to organize this sort of thing. Did she have notebooks? Oh man if she had notebooks...

Also a good idea. Why don't we perhaps try using what resources we have here, like Celsus suggested... all of us or just the transcended can try and get somewhere, then we step up the intensity? Move up to Caedus or Camelot or... Camelot and the first Senshi we can grab. Cosmos is probably still down for the count, Ganymede probably too."

Castor he had no idea about, and wouldn't be able to answer even if people asked.

"Does that sound reasonable?"

He almost said Fair, but Fair probably had very little place in this discussion, which he was still worried would break down into arguments. He was shocked they hadn't broken down into factions on destroying or preserving it, instead he had ideas. GOOD ideas. Ideas they could go to in turn, if needed.

Slievenamon, Squire of Neptune

The squire drew a small breath. She didn't think it was that great of an idea, but if it opened up a path to possibility, that was enough for her. Her experience with Caedus's crystals began and end with the few chances she used it on herself. She was unsure how it could go about something like Chaos energy.

Glancing between Celsus and Kairaitos, she scribbled her objective and underlined it twice: Seek out Caedus and his crystals. The rest—finding this Camelot person and reaching out to other Transcendents and Royal senshi—became secondary objectives. She didn't have a lot of connections, but if she crossed paths with any of them, she'd be sure to speak up. The Code piece depended on it.

"I can assist in finding and asking Caedus," she said, not looking up from her memo pad. She was trying to put some logical continuity between her notes. "The meetings he called for were on the same hill both times. He must still be here."

I hope, she mentally sighed. I wouldn't be surprised if he booked it after we were teleported to the moon by Cosmos.

Ryuthulhu

kuropeco

litian

so many people kgjdkfg