Welcome to Gaia! ::

Chris laughed softly and awkwardly as the woman he assumed was the “Keren” that Paris had told him about, asked about his last name and the ridiculous nickname Paris decided to use for him. As if they were with a bunch of people who would cause them harm if they knew who each other were. If anything, they should know each others’ names and identities if only to promote trust. But…

“It’s whatever she says,” he said sheepishly with nod to Paris, his hands raised slightly as if to prove that he had no say in the matter in the first place. He was just there to do what she told him to… for the most part.

Maggie, at least, was a delight to listen to. Her enthusiasm reminded him of a young Mercury knight he hadn’t seen in years… and he hoped she had escaped this horrible war and that she was living a peaceful life somewhere. It was all he could do to keep himself from allowing despair to overtake his thoughts. There were too many who’d already been lost… he prayed she wasn’t one of them…

But there were others who had almost died only to come back to full strength — or at least working towards it. And upon seeing Tallulah, Chris’s smile grew twice in size and he stepped forward to give her a quick hug. “Thanks… and you look great,” he beamed, glad to see her healthy and, well, alive, before turning his attention to the fiance, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “Well, if you’re good enough for Tallulah, you’re good enough for me,” he said with a smile, reaching out to offer a hand to Nick. “Nice to meet you. We’ll have to talk later after all this,” he suggested, especially with everyone already splitting into their pairs.

“You too,” he said to Maggie with a bright smile, wishing there was more time to learn about this new young senshi who was so patient in hearing about everyone else’s lives and not sharing much of her own. Everyone needed the opportunity to talk about themselves. If anything, at least she was paired with Finn, because despite his general annoyance with him… it wasn’t because he was a bad guy — even Chris could readily admit that, and if anyone would treat a new senshi well, it would be Finn.

Satisfied with Paris, Maggie, and Talullah’s pairings (he waved a quick hello to both Lily and her brother), Chris looked up to try and figure out who this Elke person was.

It didn’t take long to get a pretty good idea of who she was when a tall, blond, young man practically shouted her name a couple times. Chris welcomed the quick kiss, and laughed awkwardly once more as Paris playfully said her goodbye in her own little way, snorting lightly in amusement at her challenge, but didn’t bother responding as she took off to meet up with Lily.

As for his own teammate…

“I’m assuming you’re Elke,” he smiled, trying not to seem too amused, nor did he want to interrupt any kind of reunion between she and the young man (Bo). “Chris,” he introduced to both of them, offering a hand if they were into handshakes and all that, but not offended if they weren’t.

Finn, although he was trying his very best to ignore the fact, had definitely picked up on Maggie's inexperienced attempts at flirting and was trying to formulate the right way of telling her she was barking up the wrong tree. Maybe if he just didn't respond in kind, she'd get the message. Or he'd find a convenient way to mention his boyfriend, which seemed mean, but what could you do, really?

Chris, well, Finn's opinions on the guy were based on a whole lot of history and at least for misunderstandings and they probably weren't worth sharing because he was admittedly biased. So he said, tactfully, "They're a good pair. They deserve each other." Paris seemed happy, and that was really the only measuring stick he was going to hold to that relationship.

"I'm at right around the three-year mark," he supplied, grateful for the change of subject. Perhaps all the senshi had been closer to Maggie's age when they started, but the war had been dragging on for a long time. Everyone he knew had awoken young. Pointing to Elke on the other side of the room, he said, "See her? The little blonde girl? She's been a senshi for six years."

Which was just a staggering length of time when you thought about it.

Seeing her blush, he tried to smile and to keep it friendly and not creepy, but any twenty-two year old guy hanging out with a girl who he guessed was probably like eight years younger than him was going to feel awkward. "I'm Babylon Knight of Mercury," he said.

Anabel looked at the other girl, and after a few moments of slightly frustrating signaling, got Kaatje to drag around another bar stool. "Got on the wrong side of one of those monsters, I guess," she said, sympathetically. That would suck. She couldn't even imagine. Well, she could definitely imagine, considering she'd met one. Or, uh, kinda run from one at top speed… carried in Babylon's arms like a princess. Embarrassing. "It's gonna be pretty okay hanging out back here. I brought snacks." A bunch of vegetarian, gluten-free options… but snacks nonetheless. She pulled out a bag of buffalo wing flavored chips, opened it, and offered the bag to Alex.



The first warning that anything, anything at all, was happening came in the form of her name shouted across the lobby area. She turned to look, and there was multiple feet of very tan, very blond Bo Hanley rushing for her. Elke did not even bother to brace herself for impact, but once Bo had her in a hug, she wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could and squeezed. He smelled so good, like sunlight and sea salt and fresh air, and a very large part of her was sad, and a very small part was happy. Other people were allowed to do their own things; their world was allowed to keep turning; it was only she who felt so stuck. That hug was pretty much all she could manage, between the way her throat had choked up and the stinging in her eyes. "No, I haven't seen Serenade," she said. "She's okay, though. At school." Although she hadn't seen Serenade, she'd received responses to her text messages. Part of her, a very big part that felt a) small and b) like a huge failure, did not want to see the Zodiac Princess again. She did want her friend back, very badly. "I'm so glad to see you, Bo! We'll catch up in a minute, okay?"

When she was back on the ground, she fussed with the way her hoodie lay against her and, sheepishly, turned her attention to her partner. "Yes, hello," she said, shaking his hand quickly and then tucking her hands back into her sleeves. "I'm sorry, I've been gone for… a while." To Switzerland. Was she going to say anything about Switzerland? Probably not. Instead, she surveyed the group again and tried to think of a polite conversation topic. "I'm sorry for eavesdropping, but, you're going to graduate soon?" Elke wasn't actually sorry for overhearing other peoples' conversations, since she hadn't done it on purpose. It was only polite to say she was. "I can't imagine trying to balance school with being a senshi," she said. "I was already fluent in Mandarin when I started in AP classes and I still couldn't handle both at once."

Bo hung on every word about Serenade. His contact with her had been so minimal -- partly his fault for never keeping track of his cellphone and repelling most technology outside of his cameras. The thought of her made his heart swell wide... but in pain. Most of his days were spent trying to forget the fact that she wasn't around. He winced in his eyes, subtle to most, but probably something Elke might register, if only for their long, long, long existence in each other's general vicinity.

The smile returned to his face, stuck there like it was glued. "I will hold you to that. Literally. With these arms," he said to Elke, raising up his arms.

Then, with a quick nod, he let her be and slid over to Keren. Bo hadn't actually paid attention to who his partner was, but he remembered this girl from last time and figured she knew better. She had a clipboard, after all. That s**t was official.

When she sniffed at him. Bo leaned in to give her a better whiff. "No libations in these veins on this morrow," he said in a pretty awful English accent. "I was at the beach for sunrise. That is the pure perfume of mother nature -- complete with watery drippings. Salt, sea, sun, fish piss probably. A real cocktail of aroma, enjoy." His smile was wide, eyes playful. It was kind of a permanent expression.

"So, Karen," he said, mangling her name unknowingly. "I don't know if I've actually hung with you before, but you look sort of familiar. Do you ever go to parties at DCU?" Most people would specify a particular party. But not Bo. Because, more or less, he went to all parties and everyone looked sort of familiar to him. It was an easy way to get around the awkwardness of thinking he was meeting someone for the first time, only to realize he had actually hung out with them previously.



Maggie nearly stumbled at the information Finn was laying on her. SIX YEARS? "I didn't even know this has been going on that long," she said, a touch of awe in her voice. "How does it make sense that I was only awakened relatively recently then? I mean, I'm no strategist" -- she totally thought of herself as a strategist -- "but wouldn't it make sense to just awaken all the senshi everywhere ASAP so that we can just overpower the Negaverse with sheer numbers?"

Her head cocked to one side. "That was how Buffy did it. She got all the Slayers to be powered up -- and bam! Saved the world." All things considered, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was not the worst show for her to take advice from.

True, she'd never met Xander, but Tallulah could guess who he was related to long before he opened his mouth. "Hi," she said, shaking his hand. "You're Lily's brother, right? My name's Tallulah. Eternal Sailor Europa."

He wasn't big for chatting, she guessed. Tallulah went right into her warmup, and she found it pretty easy. Her ankle had healed just fine after her fall from the rooftop, and maybe she was getting a bit overconfident, but- she thought it was safe to say she was fully recovered from her illness. It had only taken six months back in Destiny City.

It took a bit to make it across the area with so many people moving about and all the things flashing to distract a cat's eye... but Ash made it at long last to the snack bar as the pairings were called out.

"Wait, what?" She said as she made the athletic leap from floor to tall counter top, her tail arching up over her back as she blinked at the assembled. "Oh, really now... I didn't come to play tag..."

Were they crazy? Ash didn't do... sports. Or really a lot of physical activity beyond what was needed to maintain a slender form. Running around playing tagged seemed like a very... dirty activity. She'd get mussed up, even pick up dust and dirt off the floor... No thank you, sir. Blinking large green eyes, Ash offered a smile to the other cats on the snack bar.

"Liryn! Its good to see you again. I'm glad to see you look like you're doing well. No worse for the wear I hope? And, um... I remember you, I think, but I don't think I caught your name." She said to the two male cats, greeting the one she knew by his name. Settling down to sit on her haunches, the silver female curled her slender tail around her paws, placing herself at the right angle to view the people she was with, but still keep an eye on the area where the others were warming up. "And... Anabel was it? Kaatje said to come see you. I can help you with the lights, if you like."

Horatio (Teamwork) scored a 5! (6 - 1 (Teamwork) = 5)

Horatio decided that Quenton was going to be her new best friend. (Which, really, wasn't saying much whenever the friendly Guardian thought of most all winners as her 'best friend' but it was a sure sign that he was awesome in her book!) He was calm and respectful, and he presented her with a clear cut path way to his shoulder which is exactly where she wanted to go for cuddles and maybe some good-natured hairpulling because any chance to pull a prank was a good chance--

But then there was Arian, who she hadn't seen in forever and she squealed in delight when he stopped to say hi. "Arian! Hi! I'm fine, and you look fine although I note a distinct lack of hair shinies, but I guess they'd have gotten in the way for the game. Give your best out there!"

She turned to climb atop Quenton's offered shoulder, but by the time she got her greeting out the game was about to start! Still, she appreciated his wish of good luck and waved her tail flag for him as he moved off. "Thanks, you too! Give 110% out there because you can beat that I will!" She then began to stretch her tiny legs as far out as they would go, first her front so that her excited tail twitched in the air, and then her back. Oooh nothing felt quite as good as a good stretch!

As she looked excitedly aroudn the room with people pariing up, one little group in particular caught her eye. Three other Mauvians gathered around a lady (Snowball, Liryn, Ash, and Anabel), and she wondered if there was some, kitty specific role that she was needed for? Not one to wonder when she could just ask, the Himalayan trotted over and cheerfully greeted the group, "Hi everybody! Are we making a kitty pile?"

If everyone hadn't warmed up by now, they certainly wouldn't be just by Kaatje continuing to shout orders at them. She propped her hands up on her hips and yelled, "Okay, follow me now!" She led the way into what she had dubbed the 'ready room', and gestured to the vest-and-gun setups. "Suit up while I talk," she said, as if this were not immediately obvious. She didn't suit action to words, instead leaning against the wall nearest the door to the arena.

"The basic principles of entering a combat zone are pretty simple. You get intelligence, you get orders, you go. That's a different sort of war than the sort we're fighting, so you have to apply them a little bit differently. Today, we're going to talk stealth, communication, and combat: the three pillars of war." She rolled her shoulders, a little annoyed that she was all warmed up but all she was going to get to do was chat with Anabel and Ash over her radio about who might be cheating, or zapping the wrong players. "We're going to discuss these piece by piece, and first is stealth. In the Air Force, we call this See First: we have to know what we're up against before we can approach it head-on. I'm not so good at this myself, but I imagine a bunch of you will be."

She smiled around the room at the smaller, more darkly dressed of their group. "A lot of this you might already know. Keep low to the ground. Present as small a target as you can to your enemy: turn sideways where possible, stay in cover. We do a lot of urban fighting, so, let's not play stupid and expect to find a lot of bushes. Your best bet is alleyways and dumpsters. I, personally, have sat in a dumpster for over an hour to avoid an officer." There was a wryer tilt to her grin this time, and then she ran a hand over her hair. "You're not gonna smell pretty, but if the Negaverse can only sense your aura and not actually see you, you're in good shape."

Then she was all business again. "There's really no way to demonstrate what I mean without video, and that's the one thing I couldn't get queued up, so if you want to see the videos, come on by after and we can go to my place and look at them. In the meantime, here's a practice bout." She jerked a thumb at the door, and said, "You're going in there. No blacklight, but the lights will be set to stimulate midnight, which is when I gather a lot of people patrol." Lucky civilians. "Your goal is to track your partner, and shoot them as many times as you can. You shoot someone else? You get to do pushups when you get back out." Not such an onerous punishment, but she couldn't exactly make them do MTI tools. "You're working on your stealth and your ability to track. Both important for urban situations. You've got thirty minutes. Now… file in here in an orderly fashion. I'll be watching."

She gestured to them, and waited until they'd all filed in before heading back out to the snack bar.



For this round, please roll 1 10-sided die! Points go as follows:
1-3: You… actually couldn't find your partner at all. Oops...
4-6: You think you found your partner a few times. Maybe?
7: You definitely found your partner a few times, but, uh… not every time. You guess you'd better get ready to do some pushups.
8-10: Your partner could not hide. Put a silly latex suit on you and call you Daredevil, because you are amazing.

The next post will go up on May 15th! Remember, if your stat is Teamwork, you're getting one point for this round. If your stat is Intelligence, you're taking three points!

Cat information is coming in my next post!