Welcome to Gaia! ::

Commander Aliez
Action: Being upset. Making desperate suggestions that he knows Vyn will be mad about.

Aliez tensed when Vyn spoke. Not because of the words that fell from his mouth, but because Aliez could feel the emotion radiating from his friend. The helplessness. The desperation. They’d come a long way from the innocent Cadets they once were. The walls they were supposed to put up, to suppress their emotions to help better their society… How could they put up strong walls when it felt like they were using sand?

In many ways, they’d suffered more the longer the mission continued.

Just like Lyndin suffered -- his life connected to that of Velencya.

They’d talked about it before. What they could do with the energy they might be able to collect. What it all meant. The answers were few and far between, with hopes that gathering data and getting in contact with Velencya would help.

He didn’t stop his friend, nor did he chastise him for his outburst. Instead, he lowered his hand from the bracelet and gently brushed his fingers over Vyn’s. He didn’t grab his hand, not wanting to make him feel trapped, but Aliez kept his there, just in case Vyn needed the stability.

Aliez did the same for Andreiya. He kept his hand down by his side. A gentle brush of fingers against his leg to let him know he was there. It was easier to keep himself distracted this way. Maybe then, he wouldn’t break down. Vyn’s impassioned plea already drew tears to his eyes, which he quickly blinked away.

He didn’t look up when Naeria spoke, but he tensed again. It broke his heart knowing how much Lyndin had sacrificed for Velencya. For them. He’d been their hero all their lives. Aliez’ parents told stories of the successful missions Lyndin led, of how he saved their people over and over again.

For anyone in the Vanguard -- the elite of their people -- to question Lyndin’s motives… it made him sick to his stomach. It made him wonder if there was something he was missing. It made him feel crazy, like he was just some child who still believed in the stories and legends told to them by their parents and loved ones.

Their parents and loved ones who were still on Velencya, unaware of their dying world while they, the Vanguard, played with the toys humans created and indulged in things they’d never imagined. Earth was a paradise that the Earthlings took for granted. They destroyed it with greed and corruption. Their world had also suffered from the greed and corruption of others. Their world had been taken from them, but there seemed to be less urgency among some the Vanguard to reclaim it than he had hoped.

He didn’t want to doubt his fellow Vanguard. It hurt him to his very core. He genuinely wanted nothing more than to see them succeed. To see them happy and healthy and pursuing their creative interests.

But what about Lyndin? What about the rest of Velencya? Aliez knew he was also guilty of getting swept up in everything Earth had to offer, and his shoulders slumped with shame as he blinked back more of the tears.

Even Lyndin’s faint smile wasn’t enough to cheer him up. If anything, he felt like his heart was breaking.

“I know it might not mean much,” Aliez forced himself to find his voice once more, as quiet as it was. “But I think this was proof that Caedus hasn’t abandoned Velencya. Or us.”

He knew he might not be making sense. He knew it was likely an ideal speaking from his heart rather than logic from his head. So he cleared his throat from the emotion that threatened to work its way up, and tried to explain.

“Those bags Almadel presented to everyone. They appeared to us, individually. I think if Almadel wanted, he could have given us specific bags. Ones that didn’t have--”

Aliez paused before his voice could crack on the words. The bracelet felt heavy on his wrist. He hadn’t wanted to talk about Caedus, but…

“Is there a chance we could try working with Caedus…? He has a much better understanding of energy than I know I could ever hope to have. If you worked together, Sir…”

He looked hopeful for just a moment, before shrinking back against the wall. He wondered if Vyn would snatch his hand away or glare at him for the suggestion.

“If he wanted, he could have left us there. Then he wouldn’t have anyone trying to hunt him down.”

Commander Vyn
Action: Uncomfortable. Telling Aliez to hush and giving the Commodore sad, sorry eyes.

Vyn wanted to apologize immediately. As soon as Naeria spoke, then when the Commodore answered, Vyn wanted to take back any mention of Caedus, though the topic hung between them all anyway. Vyn had left his own bracelet upstairs with his bloody bodysuit, but he still felt the phantom weight of it around his wrist, the sense of home it seemed to emit.

He hadn’t brought Caedus up so opinions could be offered or judgment could be cast. He’d brought him up to make a point: that they should do whatever it took to ensure the survival of Velencya and the revival of Velenia, regardless of how unpleasant their options might be. He should have known someone might take the opportunity to voice their disapproval again. He should have kept his mouth shut and waited to speak with Lyndin in private. Never when the others shared their objections did they offer workable alternatives. Even the energy from the Calamitous Hollow may not offer them a permanent solution, but it could grant them a little more time to find one.

Then Aliez spoke again.

Vyn snatched his hand away but Aliez kept speaking, hopeful and naive in a way Vyn didn’t know how to be anymore.

His hand returned in seconds, giving Aliez’s fingers a hard, purposeful squeeze.

“Stop,” Vyn hissed at him.

If Aliez kept the topic going, he gave the others permission to do the same. Vyn didn’t trust many of them to approach the subject with level heads. He could barely do so himself, caught between his own discomfort and his desperation to save their people.

The night they’d learned of the Calamitous Hollow’s existence, Vyn had asked if there might be alternatives they hadn’t been able to explore, if attempts to help Caedus had been hampered by a lack of resources. The Commodore had offered to revisit the conversation after the threat posed by the Calamitous Hollow had been dealt with. Vyn shied away from revisiting it at that moment, not because he didn’t want to explore other possibilities, but because discussing Caedus among others left the door open for dissent. Vyn didn’t want hopes raised prematurely. He didn’t want old wounds reopened. He didn’t want the fractures among the Vanguard to widen. He didn’t want the Commodore put in an even worse position.

Heart in his throat, Vyn lifted his apologetic gaze to the Commodore’s face. Through the blur of tears, Vyn couldn’t make out Lyndin’s features, but he didn’t have to. No amount of doubt or disappointment had ever caused Vyn’s faith in him to waver.

Commander Aliez
Action: Realizing how naive he was. Staying quiet this time.

Only seven years? Aliez had stopped speaking and lowered his head in shame when Vyn grabbed his fingers and hissed at him. He still didn’t speak now, but his head lifted to stare at the Commodore in alarm.

Was it really that short of a time for a starseed? Here he was thinking that it would take possibly half a century. He had no basis in understanding how starseeds and their reincarnation worked. Why would he? The children of Velencya were born not just out of love, but very careful planning. They didn’t have the resources to allow their society to flourish.

While he hadn’t been certain about the choice Lyndin had made when they arrived and he attempted to take Caedus’ starseed, Aliez had defended him and supported whatever Lyndin thought was best. He hated the idea of Caedus dying.

But if he would have been reborn in possibly just a few more years?

If it meant Velenia had a chance for thriving again?

If their people could go back to their own world and let Lyndin rest, allowing Velencya to become a moon of Velenia?

Aliez felt sick to his stomach. Both because of the possibilities of what could have happened, and what would have needed to happen for all of that to fall into place.

He could feel his face burn with shame when Lyndin admitted that he knew some of them had already found Caedus, and hadn’t reported it. He wished he could melt into the floor. His eyes were burning, but he blinked back the tears as best he could, not daring to look at Vyn or Andreiya or Lyndin or anyone else.

He kept his mouth shut this time, because somehow, the weight of everything was even more crushing than before.

Velencya is running out of time.

Which meant Lyndin was running out of time.

And they were trapped.

Between not having many Senshi or Knights who were willing to trust them enough to work with them, and the Negaverse who went against every ideal and value most Velencians held, and Lyndin being essentially forced to work for them to guarantee the Vanguard’s safety and protection while they were allowed to freely explore everything Earth had to offer.

How Aliez’s legs didn’t give way, allowing him to crumple to the floor in shame and despair, he would never know. He braced himself against the wall as best he could, wishing the meeting would end and everyone would disperse.

Cadet Rhysi

Listening to Lyndin's gentle admonition and advice, Rhysi decided that what he really meant is be more more diplomatic about it. Make them happy to offer and feel they've gotten something valuable themselves. Which felt rather inefficient, but she supposed it was a better long term plan. Plus, it might put some of her energy studies to good use.

While her nod of agreement wasn't exactly enthusiastic, she was clearly thinking over his words with serious consideration. Her expression remained contemplative as the Commodore spoke of Prince Caedus. She was not familiar with him as an individual who was making choices, and even after landing, he was more of a symbolic figure than anything. He'd always been notable in his absence, rather than his presence. But tonight it was felt by all, bringing him back into their various perspectives while offering new angles.

Others had found him before, so perhaps she should as well. Cowardice and selfishness weren't unknown among Velencians, but they were rare. Even after arriving on Earth, the act of being selfish had taken Rhysi a certain amount of conscious determination. She wondered if his was the same. And if he had any special knowledge of starseeds for that matter. Or of the power of chaos, with its enticingly transformative nature. He'd been on Earth longest of all, hadn't he?

There was so much to research, it felt like an unending challenge going in all directions, and every one of them was exciting! Even with the presence of a doomsday clock hanging over all their heads, she couldn't help but enjoy it.

Feeling more curious and energized than ever, Rhysi looked up and around at her fellow Vanguard members and realized that not everybody found the Commodore's words and suggestion quite so invigorating. Were they sad? After surviving a battle and gaining a powerful new resource? And confirming the prince was still nearby and felt connected to them? And on her birthday?!

Unsure if she should ignore it, offer the Commanders' candy, or start crying herself, Rhysi instead tried very hard to stop smiling when she gave Lyndin a quick, 'Aknowledged, sir." Then gave herself a piece of candy.

Itztenoch
Action: If we need the energy? Then we should take it.

Tenoch was ---

Were there words for it anymore? He found himself sorely missing Fae-Fae -- her intense gase, her cutting gestures. Her brilliant sense. Along with the others he'd made friends with along the way. Those who were, if not dead, than departed on their own missions like Earths winter creatures in deep burrows. It left him feeling exhausted, the daunting list of challenges with no clear path or end. So many things based on the hope that they could be diplomatic enough, or cunning enough, or that they wouldn't be stabbed in the back the second they turned round....

No one owed them, in his mind, anything that they could take without force. Their allies were ---

He couldn't bring himself to call them allies, no matter what colored flags they flew, though calling them *weak* would've been downright disrespectful even by his own purview. The combined masses and factions show of strength had been as awe inspiring as Lyndin's own. But maybe he would catalogue them as being just as selfish as he sometimes felt he was? As desperate for survival as even Rhysi clearly saw they all were.

What did they even have worth giving up at this point --- a couch to crash on -- a world not their own to loiter around until Metallia came crashing in...

Or something worse...

"What about the place that spawned it?" Passively ending his silence with a question as he edged from warm shadows, dressed down, long fingers twisting the tail of his braid in a thoughtful gesture. Glancing to Naeria, because she was on the right track, wasn't she? Surely Metallia and her ilk-mongering-ants had gotten oh so very good at taking what they needed without bleeding the stock to death for their own gains. They knew the hollow could be connected with via the source stones, its energy absorbed, honed, and damn the consequences to the beast and it's precious autonomy! He sympathised with Vyn's exhaustion, the utter indifference to all but their own dwindling plight; a slow penguins march towards an inevitable extinction in which every year added years they maybe didn't have.

"We were able to make use of Archideus--" He hazarded, and however brief a reprieve from the inevitable that failed-to-Tenoch feeling venture had brought them? It was still something. They were no longer so naive as they once were, as council bound, as past obsessed. "If we ultimately can't decide on whether or not to harness the -- assumedly finite energy of the Hollow in some safe to it way? Then what about wherever it came from." Glancing across the room and taking note of suggestions and asks that came up; to pursue resources on another world. To do more research -- still -- endlessly as their lives were long.

"Surely it has a birthplace. A powerful birthplace. The kind that produces world-eaters and who knows what more..."

The being obviously didn't just pop into existence, anymore than he and his own had. All things with an originator.

"Whether Velenia is restored -- or Caedus is reborn as something better is -- well? In the short run it's beyond us in any way we can agree on." He wondered what the Council would say? What they expected of them all, of Lyndin, especially. Aside from asking for Caedus starseed on a silver platter, washed anwe and shinily reborn into a royal body for Velencya's sake. Save how ultimately he found himself not caring for the Councils desires. Earth was a place of freedom and choices, and he would keep choosing as he always had. The one leader, their one people, not the crones who held silent on the sorts of secrets that if known could have...

And he wasn't sure what sort of havoc it would've all wrought if brought to life. Understood that mum was the word. He couldn't imagine places that were fantasies and fairytales to himself but real to others. He lived in the concrete, and the now. Which made it something of a wonder, listening to Lyndin speak on his own views as potentially archaic, of a long gone past that maybe he still lived in, yet they did not necessarily need to fasten themselves to.

"We may not live to see it, and you, Sir? Surely won't if we don't start prioritizing what we're really willing to sacrifice or not in order to secure Velencya's survival." If not Caedus? Then what. If not Order? Then what. If not the Negaverse? Or the Hollow. Or Almadel. Or --

T h e n w h a t --

Where lives the line worth crossing for our own sake!

And Tenochs mental list of what he was willing to debride the solar system of for the sake of his own went on and on and on. A list that only contained what they would risk versus what they wouldn't. For he didn't see any clear way where they could have their cake and eat it. Else smarter minds in longer lived bodies already would have, wouldn't they?

"You explained to us once, after everything went what felt like wrong....How there is no 'Council' here. No higher ups to bend to. No rules of theirs to either skate around or follow to any sort of 'T'." Tenoch shrugged, face dour, mouth thin. If it would take their own sovereign Senshi another amount of time longer than any of them could calculate to become anything like the savior they needed Sailor Velenya to be? If Caedus wouldn't help and all their fetterless research on Earths endless living things came to naught? "There's us -- and there's you -- and Caedus apparently if he's willing and able? Which hardly matters because I only know what I'm willing to risk for our own survival. What I'd be willing to risk for yours. However unpleasant the concept..."

"I really do think we need to start focusing our combined effort in a single direction..." They'd always been best together. They always would be, in his meager opinion. "Or at least use that focus to identify more viable solutions then we have been? Something we could tackle in groups." A mild shrug, but if their combined efforts were good enough to help safeguard Earth from the Hollow? If their technology was good enough?

Then why not their home---

Cadet Daesva

So they could work on creating some satellite scanners to keep around the Calamitous Hollow's prison. Perfect. Her mind was already curling and condensing ideas around it, technology that could be adapted, concerns and secrecies to be minded and addressed in the process of and after they were set in place...

She'd also been thinking a bit lately on the whole... homeworld thing. The one that senshi seemed to have with the worlds their power connected to and hailed from, without them even being born to those worlds--at least for most, not in this lifetime.

She'd seen the information in the database, and still wasn't sure what to think about how the Moon Kingdom had had access to so much of their resources. Considering the history of Velenia, as they'd been taught it and all that had transpired long before their time... she wasn't too fond of the potential sources.

The conversation continued around her, and Daesva kept herself out of the far more sensitive topics. Her own lack of substantial progress on any of her middling or wandering research burned in her throat, keeping her eyes downcast at the water bottle in her hands. It only felt sharper when the Commodore mentioned it could take seven Earth years to have a starseed reawaken....

....but would Caedus have been reborn among the Velencians? Or would he have been reborn among the humans? How would the Council have responded to that? Their own people?

Useless considerations now, but silent questions she tucked away in the back of her mind.

"I believe it would be ideal to utilize the energy from the Calamitous Hollow to assist Velencya. It's an entity that functions purely on destruction of life and planets harboring it. I am not convinced there is a way to neutralize the threat that poses outside of keeping it in the prison, and frankly... I am not convinced there's even enough viable worlds to even sustain it after Earth is consumed, if it were to attempt such again, as it very likely would. How long before it would consume the few worlds awakening with the senshi? How long before it came for whatever energy it could obtain from Velencya?" Forces of destruction were a necessity in the natural world, that much was true. Decay, death... they were all necessary. But the Calamitous Hollow did not seem to function like fungi or insects or bacteria, repurposing the components of life and the energy within to recycle it back into the natural order. At least, not within their universe.

"Beyond that... I'd like to also pursue work with other worlds," she said after a slight exhale, nodding towards Caelyna. "Assisting in the rebuilding efforts could help us not only acquire more resources..." She trailed off, unsure how to word the forming concept in her mind. How did a senshi's starseed facilitate the revival of a world? Or a knight's starseed? Did Velenia need Prince Caedus reborn or... was there a chance the Council missed something in their own research and experiments? Likely that was too hopeful an idea, but... didn't hurt to explore it, right? Might lead to other advancements they could utilize, anyway.

So instead she only shrugged, leaving her vocalizations there for now. She'd need to figure out a better way to voice them anyway if she wanted to bring up questions to the Commodore later.

""

Lyndin listened to each of them as he spoke, and seemed to take all of their perspectives to heart.

“You don’t need to apologize for mentioning him,” Lyndin told Naeria easily. “He is a part of this, too. And if we are making plans, we should be practical.” Even if it meant broaching sensitive topics.

But, one topic seemed consistent.

“I have heard no strong argument for reasons not to make use of the Calamitous Hollow’s energy. We won’t act immediately, I’m sure we’ll all want time to rest and recover. A small break will do us good. I think it’ll be easier to focus on it than where it came from. There’s a lot we don’t yet know about the creature, including how it is able to travel as it does. Even if we could open a path to its birthplace, would we want that door open? If we can pass through, something else might pass out. I think, given the circumstances, we should err on the side of caution.”

For now, at least.

HIs gaze might have lingered apologetically on Aliez and Vyn but he seemed committed to not drawing further attention to them. Tonight had been exhausting. They could formulate the skeleton of a plan and return to it when they’d had time to fully gather their thoughts and recuperate from the evening.

He nodded to Rhysi and respected her enthusiasm, and Caelyna and Daesva both presented a hopeful path forward. “I think there are many answers out there we’ve yet to uncover. It would be useful to pursue further research. There’s much that I don’t know–that we don’t know–but how the Senshi worlds have survived. Or how they are recovering so quickly.”

Would it have been as easy for them if they’d had the Velenian Senshi to help restore their world? Probably.

But there had to be other ways, too.

The Vanguard could search for those while he searched for Caedus. Perhaps he could make time to help them, if they were able to properly utilize the energy emitted from the Calamitous Hollow.

It might buy them time.

Itztenoch reflected again on how little time they had, and Lyndin did not disagree.

“I think tapping into the abundance of energy the Calamitous Hollow can provide is a good first step.” They had been able to make use of Archideus, and the effects of its success might not have been known to most, but he considered it a well-spent effort. Perhaps there would be even more to show once they had completed this task, too.

“I do not think it is entirely necessary for us all to focus our efforts on a single path forward. To put all that energy towards a dead end would set us back to square one. But I think we are stronger together, so we should at least be proceeding forward together. I am sure that many of you are interested in the same topics. Working in groups may present us with paths otherwise unknown to us. Of course, you will all have whatever support you need to succeed. I’ll ensure you have the resources to pursue such studies. I think, Earth has the unique ability to bring people together and to tear them apart. Let us find our differences and make them strengths. You’ve each had time to develop on your own. You will continue to do so. But let us also develop together. There is no future without you. And, make no mistake, I do not intend to be left in the past so easily. I’ve strength in me left, and Velencya does too. But we need to be making progress. Our fate is not written. The path forward is in our hands. I will do everything in my power to see that Velencya not only survives, but thrives.”

They had almost been wiped out once before. Lyndin had no intention of seeing such a thing happen again.

He doubted the Vanguard would allow such a thing, either.