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Page Scamander of Jupiter


Scamander had no idea what was going on.

He wasn't even sure if he was supposed to be here or not, but he was here anyway, and he was sitting somewhere in the back of the place looking quite calm for someone who had no idea what was happening.

Hvergelmir's attention turned first to the squire in blue, looking so uncomfortable. She wasn't sure what order she might belong to -- her uniform had a Greco-Roman feel to it, but not in the bold scarlet she associated so keenly with the knights of Mars. This one was a deep blue, like turbulent water. There were one or two other people in the room dressed similarly . . . something to take note of.

Her heart went out to the squire, though; the question she asked was a painful one. Hvergelmir was reminded, as she always was, that none of them were raised to be soldiers, and few of them were anything past children, really. Who among them was really prepared to face a life like theirs -- or the weight of a lifetime suddenly remembered, full of all the troubles and mistakes that could be fit into one lifespan? What kind of 20-year-old was prepared to cope with memories of being 40, being 60? How could a person not be disturbed, at least a little? It wasn't all bound to be good.

"My memories of the person I was in my last life aren't all pleasant," she answered. "I struggle to make peace with who I was in that lifetime, and the decisions I made -- or the things that I can remember happening in that lifetime that I don't feel prepared to handle right now. But whatever memories are waiting for you, if this war has taught me anything, it's this:

"The person you were yesterday doesn't have to be the person you are today, or tomorrow. That's even truer of the person you were a thousand years ago. The lives we've lived and the experiences we've had shape the way we see the world -- but we decide how we move forward from that. Every day we make that choice over again. The suggestion to take someone with you to your Wonder is a fantastic one. And talk to someone -- whether it's a friend, or just an ally. Don't carry your burdens by yourself. You can find me at the gazebo in Fishtown Park on Monday and Thursday nights, if that's what you choose. I keep a vigil just for people who need to talk to somebody about what's on their mind, and I have a lot of free time. If you're facing something difficult, please reach out where you can. We all benefit from a stronger community -- from looking out for each other."

The other question was harder. Not because it was weightier, but because there was a gap in her knowledge, there. She hadn't been present for any dramatic events, recently, and knew little about them. She looked at the page who'd asked -- again, a blue uniform she couldn't quite place -- and addressed the only part of the question she could personally speak to.

"While it's hard to know much about the motives of the Negaverse or the Dark Mirror Court -- or any other Chaos beings that might come to our doorstep -- I'll agree we do see more activity in the winter months. Some of that may be sheer practicality: when it's cold out, there are fewer people casually wandering the streets, especially at night. It's easier to try and carry off some kind of a scheme, or just pick off victims, if there aren't any bystanders to serve as witnesses or shout for help. Beyond that, if there's a pattern, I can't say I understand it. But I also wasn't there for this latest event you're describing. Maybe someone else here who was present for it could tell us their impressions?"

She looked around the room hopefully. Something had happened with a congregation of bats and spiders in October, as the page had described, and hopefully someone was in attendance who could tell them all about it.

The arrival at the Colosseum was oft a disconcerting one — one of earthly cold to martian heat, one of earthly overcast to martian full sun. Sands shifted and whisked and caught in bone heels with every step taken. Already a boon of knights, in all manner of garb and power, gathered here. Hvergelmir stood at the fore. Knight Nights, he figured after a moment. She was dispensing all her knowledge, once again, to the knew fold of pages at the ready. Lucky they were to have such information.

Lucky they were to have both arms at their disposal, too. And somewhere in the neighborhood of 28 to 32 teeth.

He waited, listening, through all the information he thought he knew. Most aligned with what he could remember. All the basics were there, including aspects (which he seldom used) and summons. She introduced her own once more. In Babylon's absence, Eikthyrnir was the demonstration. Next came the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror Court. He wondered, then, if her whole speech was canned. Wouldn't that be something? But in all the information dispensed, all the explanations combed over for basic knighthood, she never mentioned the signet ring upgrades he wrestled with on his own. Was she not there to claim one? He couldn't remember clearly; the day was a blur of anxiety and desperation. He concentrated far more on finishing the damnable speech and returning to a life out of the spotlight than he did on the faces present.

Scholomance waved his sole hand about to catch Hvergelmir's attention, even amidst the lukewarm crowd. Hver went on about past lives first, and their own conundrum of shitty feelings, before moving on to a question he could better answer. Well, he could peripherally answer it, and use it as a springboard to express his dejectedness in skipping over his signet upgrade.

"You're talking about the mess of nonsense that went on around Halloween, yes? I can't say I have a lot to say on it, I spent most of that time as drunk as I could get, but… None of it quite struck me as Chaos-affiliated in a traditional sense. What I mean to say is, of all the times the Negaverse decided to strike out at us, they've been forthright about it. There were agents afoot at some point in their operation, because they take a certain amount of pride in their work. But there weren't agents or Dark Mirror senshi dancing about in the background of these little happenstances. So whatever they were, I imagine they had very little to do with our favorite punching bags.

"If anything, it seems related to traditional thought of the holiday. Like the collective excitement over monsters and ghouls for Halloween somehow, I don't know... Culminates in phenomena like this.

"And for you, Hver, I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Mistral isn't the only person to make ring upgrades, though she might have made the most useful ones." Silently he lowered his hand.

For a moment she was surprised to hear someone else answer her question. Though it wasn't an answer she'd have liked it was a good one. Someone else had noticed things and figured it wasn't the Negaverse or the Dark Mirror, neither of which she knew a great deal about and certainly less than a knight.

"I was thinking the same, from what little I do know and have experienced of them. But it is all connected it seems. Perhaps some other chaotic force? And by that I mean something that is neither good nor bad...but just mischief in a sense? Chaos in the innocent - not Negaverse way." If that made sense, which to her it did. She meant chaos in the simplest of ways...in that there was no telling what would happen or when...all manner of things would happen though.

"I'm just wondering if we can't try and figure out the reason behind it all...and maybe stop it or at least lessen it perhaps." Her pale eyes remained, for the moment, focused on the darkly dressed knight, hoping he understood what she meant and was hoping they could do - somehow. She didn't like the idea of the holidays being ruined...or turned into dangerous times to go out and celebrate - it wasn't fair.

It was when Irkalla made her appearance, right at her side, that Gorner moved her pale eyes away from the male and onto the page of Cosmos. "It is. Sit, please, we might be here a while." And speaking of that...she motioned the other knight, Scholomance, to join them as well. Perhaps he could, or would, be interested in helping her with this holiday issue...she could hope at least. At least, she hoped, he understood what she was speaking about and wanted to gather information on.

Scholomance felt reticent to recognize chaos as anything close to innocent. In all its incarnations experienced, chaos had — at best — a mischievous tone. The creature from his wonder's depths had no affiliation with the Negaverse or the Dark Mirror, but it cast about in maliciousness nonetheless. Because what wonder would be complete without a deadly threat lurking somewhere in its confines? Clearly they weren't meant to be safe spaces for knights to visit at need.

To avoid talking across the crowd, Scholomance approached at the beckon. He did not recognize either page sitting together, both lovely as they were (for he had quite a thing for revealing dresses and youthful looks), and tried to remedy this with his own casual introduction. "Scholomace, by the by." He dodged the social awkward of a left-handed handshake by giving a light bow before seating himself at Gorner's side. His lack of right arm stayed hidden from obvious view. Another glance was spared toward Irkalla, clothed in sheer, billowing material not unlike Hver's cloak, before attention returned to Gorner. She looked the more battle hardly of the two with a breastplate at her disposal. That said, her clothing had yet to speak of action-ready. Most knight and senshi uniforms lacked that distinction, however.

Perhaps it was more practical to just fight in the buff.

"Thank you for the invitation. Gets a bit stuffy over there, what with the full sun and all. This uniform doesn't have a lot of breathing room." To make his point, Scholomance lowered his half mask.

With introductions out of the way, he picked up the earlier thread of conversation. "We could make a shot of that solution. If it is chaotic, one would think there's a possibility of barrier magic against it. Wards of some sort." Both complete shots in the dark, he knew, but none collected scientific data on the matter yet to determine a solution. "If we can hypothesize its return this winter, then we can start tracking it. And then, I suppose…" He wante to suggest asking Blaine, but the conniving old man long since departed for the space cauldron. "… Figure something out." He flashed a brief smile, fully aware of the shoddiness of his response.

Siegfried Knight of Neptune

Deja vu hit him like a truck. A force sank its claws into him and ripped him from his bed, curled up next to his love and girlfriend, dropping him unceremoniously onto the sand. Sand? Why was there sand? A string of curse words left his mouth and he pushed himself to his feet, brushing the sand out of his hair.

What the... hell?

Siegfried, who did not remember powering up into Siegfried, looked around in shock. This was... not Earth. At all. Power signatures flared in front of him, at the coliseum, and he moved towards it. Upon entering the space, he was floored by the sheer number of other people here, and the floating scroll in the center. While Siegfried knew he was a knight, and of Neptune, he knew jack else. The last... eleven months had been him laying low and reorganizing his civilian life.

The woman at the center began to speak. Firstly, this was Mars? He was in space?! Something nagged at the back of his head, telling him this was not the first time his body had been in space, though he had no memory of it. She was called Hvergelmir, a knight of Cosmos... Cosmos, the woman who... purged him of the dark, was it? Grey eyes flickered to the Code for a moment, then back to Hver.

He had... a Wonder, and was either a descendant or a reincarnated knight. There was some sort of ring to find at his wonder, and they could be upgraded interesting.

Memories... There could be... memories waiting for him at his wonder. Of the Siegfried before him. He frowned and listened as she went on about aspects, summons, and a primer on the Negaverse. Some of that seemed... loose, and he felt the need to speak up and inform her of more details... not that he had any details to give her.

And talking cats.

Hadn't he been a cat at one point? He could have sworn... no that was silly...



Bifrost Knight of Chronos

She welcomed the call and settled into a seat next to Midgard, a gentle hand on his shoulder to announce her presence. She smiled at him and listened quietly to Hver and the others, taking in information and filing it away for later. For the most part, Bifrost stayed quiet in these meetings. It was better to observe than to make a fuss, in her opinion.




Andronicus Knight of Uranus

The Uranian knight leaned against the back wall, arms loosely crossed, and observed the meeting. Andronicus was an outlier at most of these things, but she went in case things changed. For instance, signet rings got upgraded and improved, and information passed hands. She rolled a shoulder, eyes flicking from Hver to Scholomance, to a Mars Knight in the alcove she didn't recognize for a moment, then back to Hver.

"I honestly couldn't tell ya what happened around Halloween. I still don't understand quite what happened, except I got sucked into a mirror, almost died a few times, and wasn't hungry for most of it. That said, nothin' was on fire this time, so..." said Andronicus with a shrug.

Sessrumnir watched and listened with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face to hopefully keep people from approaching him. He was just there to listen and to hear what these people had to say for his brother’s sake, and that was all. They were all talking about the same stuff they always talked about, and a lot of it he’d figured out on his own when he became a knight, but he supposed others needed a little more help.

Connie wasn’t sure she was where she was supposed to be, but she sat with a small notebook with a kitten printed on the front and a pen with a pink feather puffball on the end to take notes. There was a lot more information than she expected, so she didn’t have enough time to look around to see who might be there that she already knew. She was spending all her time trying to jot down notes!

Hyperborea, Transcended Knight of the Cosmos

Ciel had just finished her homework when she had felt the call of Mars, of the Code that resided there. She was be no means unaccustomed to the code pulling her away from the Earth for whatever reason. So she set her pen down and allowed herself to be pulled away from her room in Destiny City.

She transformed as she was teleported to the familiar Colosseum. The glowing knight of the Cosmos took a seat and listened to her fellow Cosmos knight's speech.

She also listened thoughtfully as the others spoke. The topic of the events of this October came up.

"The spiders and bats were not the only things active, after all of the rain fall turned one of the parks into a variable swamp some hulking creature was seen wandering around it. I tried to investigation it, but it disappeared before I could actually make contact with the creature. But I can say with certainty it was no being of chaos." She spoke up.

"My guess is that it is residual ancient magics that have like Scholomance said taken shape from our collective themes of the holiday. Or perhaps these creatures and others like them are the origin of those themes. Either way there is a definite connection. And not all magic can defined as chaos or order." She stated her own theory.