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"Captain" Chalcanthite
Passive: Vibrations
Investigating: Wall 3 Horrified humans and spike

Hearing what sounded like everyone throwing a fit, he kept his comments to himself for now. None of the bickering or punching would do anything productive in his opinion, it was just a bunch of adults throwing tantrums like children and if anything it was leaving his eye twitching as he scrawled a sketch of the wall before him down in his notebook. It was as detailed as he could get considering his worry over the fact things might change to vanish at any moment with how this place seemed to breathe back to life.

Lifting his fingers up to trace over the spike depicted on the wall, he noticed a pulsing energy current in the wall. Lingering as he closed his eyes for a moment, he felt the vibrations and started counting in time with them. Now that he noticed it as he pulled back from the wall, he tried to continue listening for it while casually looking up at the ceiling above.

Focusing as Benitoite spoke and grabbed at the arm that held his notebook, he nodded before returning back to his sketching. "Of course, assuming I can call upon it." Because otherwise, he would still follow but not get into the thick of it as the small blonde tended to. He was still not pleased with them after their own late-night tantrum at his home.

With that thought on his mind, he heard something about the tablets seeming to at least take photos. That was a positive at least, something that could be disseminated to his team and others in the Negaverse after this puzzle was figured out. Tapping the tip of his pen against the paper, he made little dots to count the time of the vibrations in passing.

Faustite’s pauldron hurled through the air as anyone could have expected, but there was a brief second when it silently collided with the black haze where it froze mid-air. It could have been missed easily, it disappeared in only the blink of an eye.

It hit something on the other side and, judging by the clatter, it had collided with an uneven surface roughly thirty feet beyond the barrier. It bounced a few times before finally settling on the ground.

As Murikabushi examined the wall, finer details slowly began to come together. The tiny serpent hurled itself against the bars of thunder, and with each point of contact there was a flicker of another shape. It morphed in size, sometimes just a shadow. The cage flickered with each attempt but didn’t falter for the first hundred attempts. For the first thousand. Watching the wall was like a spell; Murikabushi’s eyes might have only been on it for a few seconds, but in that time it was like watching a millennium pass by, sped up and yet still infinite.

It felt like a haze, like an out of body experience. He felt otherworldly but crushed. Smothered. The walls felt like they were closing in. His heart raced.

For all those years, the prison had stood strong, relentless and unyielding. And then, at the very last second, the serpent slammed against the cage. One of the spikes tilted, just slightly. The trance ended but it wouldn’t have been surprising if Murikabushi’s eyes burned when he came out of it. An electric current hummed through him, uncomfortable and maybe even painful.

The mural looked now as it had when he’d first laid eyes upon it; the spikes were all perfectly in place.

Aqua’s recording was remarkably inferior in quality to what should have been expected of the Negaverse’s technology; any Mauvian would be appalled. It recorded like an old cam-corder, but as the video went on, the quality lessened, like watching an old, decaying VHS. The battery drained at a far greater pace than ever noted before and, perhaps the most easily noticeable difference between the recording and the room around them was that the murals were all frozen in place. The camera picked up only a single frame of each of them–the same frame–no matter how the mural moved.

However, as he stood before the mural, something strange twitched out of the corner of his eye. The mural was large and took up enough space on the wall that it should have been easy to make out some of the finer details, if only the glowing lights didn’t distort the image.

The brightness on the wall ebbed just slightly. A crack suddenly appeared on one of the spikes. Small, at first, but it grew. The lightning that struck all spike in a perfectly uniform manner slowly began to twist. It danced awkwardly, swiveling in place. The lightning surged in some parts of the perimeter, but holes appeared above the damaged spike. If he paid close enough attention, he would notice that the hexagon on the floor reacted to the lightning strikes depicted on the wall. The dull circle at the top of the hexagon matched the placement of the cracked spike.

With Jet’s attention on the ceiling and the vibrations, he had the unique opportunity to notice that the black clouds above them seemed to move in a noticeable pattern as well. It wasn’t as precise as the vibration, but in twenty second intervals, there were three observations. For the first twenty seconds, it looked like the dark fog was pulled to one side of the ceiling. For the next twenty seconds, it looked like it was pushed to the other side. A perpetual push and pull, for the brief pause between, the clouds stilled. There wasn’t enough time for them to completely calm, but in the very brief seconds, the fog thinned. Jet might not be able to see exactly what was above them, but he caught a glimpse of a panel. It didn’t glow as brightly as the others and it seemed almost entirely smothered by the haze, but if he watched carefully, he might pick up just enough to realize there was some sort of chart just out of sight.

As the dark clouds churned, it was easy to get caught in the ebb and flow of whatever strange force commanded them. His eyes didn’t see what was before him, they saw what was beyond–even if only briefly. Celestial images were painted over the white ceiling and moved like a living star map, perpetually in motion. The worlds were bright and colorful–unrecognizable, but obviously alive. The black fog obscured everything from vision once more; Jet’s vision returned to normal. The ceiling sounded like it cracked, and a half-dollar sized circle fell to the ground with an uncomfortable clatter just at his feet. Unlike the pretty paint of each world before, this piece was devoid of all color–completely charred.

As Solaris leaned close to examine the world, she had a sudden, jarring memory. It felt real enough to be hers but it was foreign to her, like a dream too far away to recall. The thought was so overwhelming that it made her feel faint. While she couldn’t make out the details–the language, the voice–she knew what was being said. ‘Another one gone,’ echoed in her head. ‘A whole world? Impossible.’. Static in her mind made it hard to completely follow the flow of conversation but she could piece things together from the snippets. ‘Don’t listen to those legends. Space is full of storms. Another hole’s probably just torn open.’

The stars in the sky might have looked familiar, if she really thought about it. Maybe she remembered an old story about very distant worlds being swallowed up by storms. A legend that spoke of a great beast who came from the darkness and swallowed worlds. A story to keep naughty children from misbehaving.

Except, the absolute fear laced with the memory spoke of a world in terror. She felt cold. Her knees trembled from the pressure.

Energy pulsed beneath Benitoite’s fingers. It felt strange, like it was a current all in its own. It had an obvious current, and though he couldn’t see it, it felt as though it was flowing straight towards the serpent in the mural. It coiled tightly around the world, not quite squeezing it, but it held the planet firmly in its grip. A strange hum filled Benitoite’s mind, like the dark fog was rolling into his own mind. It blurred the edges of his vision and silenced all over thoughts.

The mural lingered in front of him, but in the brief illusion it seemed to come alive even more than before. Benitoite could see the faint haze of energy as it was drawn out of the world. Slowly, it lost its vibrancy and the glowing blue light faded to a pale grey, and then the world went dark. The serpent grew, though. As the world withered in its hold, it glowed brightly. The world shrank. Died.

It was an empty husk by the time the serpent freed it; it circled in the empty space, scattering what was once a vibrant planet into no more than space debris. It swam away, as if to another world in the distance. When he blinked, the mural was back to normal–but he wasn’t. He felt cold, vibrantly jolted back into the here and now. He felt a strange sensation of crushing loss. Of emptiness. Of hopelessness. He felt drained, almost as if the mural had been taking his energy, too.

As Chalcanthite’s hand glided across the wall, the first thing he noticed was an unusual warmth building. As he honed in on the current of energy, unseen but felt–loudly–he came across an odd sensation. He had little to no access to any of Metallia’s gifts, and yet orbs of energy collected at his fingertips. It felt no different from absorbing energy from anyone on Earth, except he wasn’t even trying to draw it out. Each time one of the humans slammed their hammer down, another trickle of energy gathered.

A strange emotion overtook him; he could probably recognize that it wasn’t his own, but a panicked desperation began to swell. The longer he held his hand to the wall, the worse it got. The serpent had stopped slithering in the sky; where it once had been so fluid, now it was held still–transfixed, and staring at exactly where Chalcanthite’s hand was pressed against the wall. The creature’s form grew just slightly larger during the twenty seconds when the vibration was highest. It seemed to shrink just slightly for the twenty seconds when the vibration was lowest. The cycle repeated in perfect intervals.

The wall Kerberos touched, at first, yielded no reaction. It was strangely warm, and the longer Kerberos’ hand lingered on it, the hotter it began to grow. Sparks gathered slightly under his fingertips, nipping at his palm. The number of sparks seemed to burst to life in tandem with Faustite’s blows. Kerberos was just a conduit for the energy.

The room thrived on energy. It needed it. Burned for it.

The sixth wall did not simply glow, it erupted in light, erratic. Alive.

A giant eye appeared on the wall. It took up nearly the entire space. The slitted pupil scanned the room frantically and then landed on Kerberos. It narrowed as it looked at him, looked through him.

Kerberos could feel eyes on him. In him. It saw through skin and muscle and bone, it saw right into his mind. He was struck with a sudden headache and the sensation of a great pressure crashing down upon him. It was a strange violation, like his thoughts were torn straight from his mind, devoured like the words on a page. Information, consumed, digested. If he felt foggy or confused, who could blame him?

Attention torn between two walls, Encke had the unique experience of being bewitched by both of them. As he observed, he could see the blank looks that covered Solaris and Benitoite’s expression briefly, the way their faces had become oddly pale. The mural didn’t change; he saw it as it was, but he heard something. A horrible wail, like a million people screaming for help. He felt a strange chill clutch him. He felt a hunger consume him. It was maddening, as if he’d been left to starve for a thousand years. Maybe it was the sudden chill in the air that caused his hands to shake, but there was an odd, smothering pressure, too.

It was probably Kerberos’ wall. Encke was staring at the wall just as the eye manifested. It was piercing. It stared at Kerberos like he was something to devour, but more than that, it seemed like it could see through him, and right into Encke behind him. It felt like lightning in his mind. There was a primal screech, a single demand–consume.

It doubled down. Devour.

His Transcendence marks began to burn. It felt like something was trying to peel them off of him, trying to flay him, trying to take them.

He heard the wail of his world, shrill and shrieking.

Despite the fierceness of Faustite’s blows, the wall was unflinching. It was built to withstand more than fist or fury.

As he pummeled the wall, the sparks grew in numbers, but it wasn’t just heavy in the air around him, it was in the mural, too. Each strike was a new thunderbolt in the sky. The mural glowed brighter, as if each strike had charged it. Faustite’s knuckles glowed white, leaving an echo of light trailing after him as he stepped away. When he settled on the hexagonal point, the lightning paused–if only in his own mind. It was like the mural was moving in slow motion. He could see the thunderstrikes, but everything dimmed but the stars behind it. If he looked closely enough, he could make out a few constellations. They weren’t just a smattering of star shapes that looked similar to Earth’s constellations, and there were enough of them flickering behind the clouds that it couldn’t have been his imagination. The sky in the mural was his sky. Faustite’s vision suddenly flashed white.

While Heliodor’s attention was focused on the wall, he would find his suspicions confirmed: the lightning that flashed on the mural matched in perfect sync to the flashes of light down the ominous hallway. More than that, the longer he stared into the darkness of that hallway, the more he felt the lightning. He was aware of the sheer amount of pressure in the room–outside of the room. Maybe he noticed that the unusually dark barrier blocking the hallway seemed to churn in perfect sync to the clouds in the mural.

The hallway felt dangerous. No illusion could conceal that from anyone determined to see past the fog. Whatever was behind it, just out of reach, was powerful enough to make the hair stand up on the back of his neck. A dark fogged rolled into the corners of his mind, trying to creep across all of his thoughts. It had taken root there and, worst of all, the dark barrier in front of him had some magnetic pull, like it was calling to him–

A pillar of light erupted around Faustite, and all the sparks he’d generated suddenly grew in size and power. Lightning danced over his skin, desperate for connection. It arced from Faustite to Heliodor, and it looked like it was trying to jump to the next nearest person but just ran short. It fizzled with a hiss, like a firework screeching; the noise echoed along the walls and the room was briefly bathed in stark, white light.

Faustite and Heliodor were gone but it was little mystery as to where; though the lightning itself was gone, the trail it left behind was slow to fade. It tracked from where each had stood, through the hazy black barrier of the hallway in front of Faustite. Though the wall of darkness remained, there was now a noticeable glow behind it, undoubtedly a remnant of where the two had landed. The dark barrier only rippled; the shadows there looked as much like smoke as the ceiling. It muffled the sounds between both sides; even a scream could be no more than a whisper.

Faustite and Heliodor have activated an ancient magic and have disappeared from the main hall. They have traveled down the hallway between walls six and one. The following is known only to them:

Faustite and Heliodor arrived at the end of a long hallway, on a glowing circle identical to the one Faustite had just been standing on. The lightning had been painless, if not a bit jarring. For a few seconds, it felt like they were moving through water–slow, and out of place.

Pale blue symbols manifested along the wall, rapidly trailing after them as if to keep up. Trails of lightning lingered in a strange, residual glow.

The sleek, stony walls and floor were as flawless here as in the main room. If they turned behind them, they could see down the furthest end of the hallway. They could see the glow of the main room through the black haze–a failed guard that hadn’t been strong enough to keep them out.

A few feet in front of them, a tall door that stretched from ceiling to floor and wall to wall. There was no door handle and it looked as though it must have been sealed with some magic–but, perhaps of more interest was the pile of bones that lay on the floor in front of them, half dust already. Whatever they had worn had faded away, and a strange, ashy substance covered what artifacts might have been left behind.

A golden, five pointed star was clutched eternally within a bony hand held tightly to their chest.

Eternal Sailor Kerberos
Action: getting dragged around by jet

By the time Kerberos thought to pull his hand away, it was far, far too late. Whatever was in the wall, whatever it wanted, it was awake. And it was hungry. It stared into him, through him, and the sudden crushing headache made him stagger. Made him vulnerable. Made him easy prey for a General-King.

He saw the flash of light that took Faustite and Heliodor, and winced in concern, but wherever they were now--it was hard to guess, and there was little to be done. Especially not by him, not when Jet was hauling him off.

Everything felt foggy, distant. And as Jet dragged him, over half-heard sarcasm about truces--Kerberos was really regretting trying to be nice--Kerberos found he couldn't quite keep himself from talking, whether it was wise or not. It was his first defensive instinct, always, and even through the fog in his head he was given to letting his mouth run.

"Ah yes, the Negaverse experience," he said, as if sarcasm was going to help him focus or save him if Jet decided he'd be better off dead, "getting dragged places I don't want to go by superior officers that hate me. There's even an ominous dark place for you to throw me, really complete the nostalgia trip, though it'll be missing the je ne sais quoi of me also detoxing from alcohol while it happens--"

Though maybe the heavy headache and dizzying brain fog would simulate the experience well ********," he said, under his breath, once they stopped moving, and he pressed a hand to the side of his head like ti might make his thoughts start working. Jet was asking questions. Murikabushi had indicated he found Jet to be a generally reasonable person. Probably if he was asking, he genuinely wanted answers.

So, he raised his voice to answer Jet's questions.

"It could be giving us a location," he speculated, aloud, then dropped his voice a little.. "Did they look like Earth's constellations? Or like something else? ....Could you tell?" If it was anything like what he'd experienced, it was probably just a flash, but if they could identify something.... "If it's something alien, that might be the star map for where we are now. If it's Earth...that's bad news."

That much, he was sure of. He pitched his voice up again.

"There's something here. Something hungry."

Something that had seen him, looked through him, torn his knowledge from his mind, muddied his thoughts and left him headachey and dazed. He doubted the others were doing much better. And given the circumstances, it was better to cooperate.

Character Name: Corrupt Eternal Senshi, Heliodor
Deep Inspect: The blue glowing symbols on the wall, seeing if both sides match and if he can make sense of any of them.
Passing Inspect: Reaching a hand into the inky fog at the end of the corridor
Action: Carted away with Faustite and dealing with an odd desire.

There was so much happening at once that it was an overwhelming amount of sensations. Beyond his anger, Helio was subjected to the sensation of…something crawling across his mind as a darkness settled over him while feeling a desire to explore the lightining filled hallway more. But, he didn’t take more than a step towards the darkness of that hallway when a flash of light filled his vision and he was whisked away.

It took him a moment or two to orient himself. His vision and mind were a bit scattered at the abruptness of the movement and the change of scenery. Thankfully, it seemed, he hadn’t been dragged on alone, but Faustite had also been brought along. No one else though. There was a bit of relief in that he’d not have to deal with the others for now. It would give him a chance to calm down and try to understand what it all was that he seen and felt. Cause he had felt something creep across his mind like it was looking for something. Was it still there? Had it been the cause of the intense fear?

He did find himself annoyed though that he couldn’t inspect the hallway with the lightning. Why he wanted so badly to explore it when whatever it was in the darkness had scared him with a power he couldn’t understand, but the need was there. The darkness had moved like…like the clouds. But in a way that seemed so unnatural.

Movement from Faustite caught Helio’s attention, and the spaced-out corrupt focused his attention to the General-King. He offered a distracted nod in confirmation as he visiually checked himself. No. He was good. “Right I’ll go down here and take a look.”

He began walking down the corridor, his hands moving along the smooth walls and the blue glowing symbols that trailed along them. They were beautiful and fascinating. He followed down one side, touching as he went, eyes drifting from that wall to the one across, trying to decipher the symbols or see if they were twins of each other and if he could make any sense of them.

He only stopped when he came to the darkness in front of the tunnel. He knew this led to the room they’d just left. He vaguely wondered if the others were still there, but didn’t give it much thought beyond that.

Curiously, Helio reached out into that darkness for a moment, passing a hand through the inky fog. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do. That quiet echo of desire muddling his other thoughts, but it helped ease the growing want.

Character: Transcendent Eternal Encke
Personally: brain offline, come back later
Active Investigation: Trying to get back in contact with his comet
Passive Investigation: Throwing his flashlight in the direction of the eyeball on Wall Six

As Solaris sketched and stood with her back to him, Encke kept his attention everywhere he could. She needed time to take as many notes as she could, and Encke needed time to make sure he noted everyone there. The only identity he was uncertain of was the other man who was standing at the wall Benitoite came from. If he had more time to observe him, he might put the pieces together.

The problem was, he didn't.

He saw the way Solaris' face went blank and pale as he looked over his shoulder, and he quietly asked, "Are you alright?" She came out of it, but what did she see? What did she experience? What did--

Oh.

He saw the way Kerberos reacted, but what he saw was the way it looked through him. What he felt was a desire so deep he was quite familiar with it. Dangerously familiar.

He needed. It needed. They needed.

Encke recalled the way they yanked the self from acting on their most base desires as much as they could. As much as they could.

The pressure was easy to loop into what he felt himself and it was not felt as a separate entity. It was not felt as a separate piece. It was him. It had been him. It demanded that he see those in front of him as--

It felt like someone was ripping at his skin. They expected to see green when they looked down and they did but they also saw the way their markings flickered and staticked and flashed in their mind as green and purple and gone and invisible and he hungered--

Encke's echoed scream of his own mind was silent even as he grabbed at his head and curled downwards on himself. The flashlight was disregarded in an attempt to stop it, tossed in the direction of the all-seeing eye.

There was a voice in the back of their mind trying to claw its way back from the flash and the screaming and the wails and the way their comet cried. Not in front of-- not in front of--

Encke's attempts to claw himself back resulted in him pressing further back to Solaris, ignoring the rest of what was around him. On his phone, he sloppily typed a note. Three notes.

More notes.

Perhaps the ceiling was worth exploring, but Encke made no attempts to. His mind was busy trying to balance against the way it felt like his green skin was going to molt. Was there any other explanation?

Perhaps it was obvious he has seen something, but he wasn't talking about it. Instead, Encke tried to reach back out to his comet despite the screams.

[ OOC Note: Encke is hallucinating and what he's seeing happening to their arms and their markings should not be taken as what is actually happening! ]

Character: Super Sailor Solaris
Active: Wall 2, Serpent eating the World, trying to focus on the stars/constellations, in case she recognizes them
Subsequent: Informing the group



There were different kinds of fear, of dread, of terror. They had different flavors to them, so to speak, different overwhelming facets and features that could either fuel flight and fight, or freeze all possible movements and breaths before they'd even begun. This wasn't a fear of impending danger, or a dread of a death she couldn't avoid. It was a horror that froze her, hair standing on end at the nape of her neck, wings folding defensively around herself much as they could as if they could offer an ounce of protection. The notion of people speaking of worlds being gone. Legends? Storms?

She felt cold, feet shifting apart to brace herself from falling to her knees. Her fear, yet it wasn't her fear. It was a fear from countless peoples, a world's worth of dread and fright. The tiny fragment that was hers was centered around old, old stories. Tales she'd hear in passing, warnings from parents to giggling children caught doing something they shouldn't be, all in different languages and origins. The trade hub of Solaris, with its constant ebb and flow of cultures and their old, old stories, mixed and bled. So many stories shared similar notes and themes, stories of terrible storms, or a monstrous beast that would emerge from the void of space to swallow worlds--and when it was bored, stealing away disruptive and misbehaving children. Kyrie was familiar with an Earthling term, the Bogeyman, and felt it was a suitable notion for the beast in these stories. The storms were always varied in their depictions, and the great beast never had a singular appearance to it in anything she could recall. Some even said they were like a pack, or a whole tribe of something.

The idea that there's always a kernel of truth in such old stories wasn't new to her, but for that to be in place here? Now? It was numbing. How do you fight a thing that consumes worlds?

She looked to the stars around the serpent and the world, something needling her mind. A familiarity? She wasn't sure. Not difficult to mistake certain star patterns for others, after all. But it was a necessary distraction. Her pulse was erratic, hands almost shaking in how tight she held onto the field journal--she was lucky the padding of the pages kept her from snapping the damaged pencil even more.

But she wasn't the only one dealing with s**t, or, apparently, triggering s**t. Light burned through the room and she flinched, turning quickly to peer over her shoulder to see Faustite and Heliodor... no longer were even in the room. Then Jet was speaking, commanding, and he snatched up Kerberos and Solaris grit her teeth, shoving the piece of pencil into its strapped holder on the journal, and pushing the journal itself under her jacket and bodysuit at her chest to try and hold it in place for the time being. But any attempt to respond to the speculations being tossed around, revelations of whatever they'd apparently each dealt with (or still were?), was paused as she realized Encke was pressing back harder against her, and she swore in her native tongue, turning and moving up more alongside him to put one hand at his opposite shoulder, the other on his arm with firm grips, trying to... ground them? Wake them up? She wasn't even sure. "Have a breakdown later, need you here right now. Try to breathe, just breathe," she hissed gently as she could into his ear, not sure how to help assure them things were alright when they definitely didn't seem to ******** be...

She listened, though, as Captain and Aquamarine spoke their pieces, eyeing the dark circle on the floor that latter pointed out. Kerberos mentioned something hungry, and she made a face.

"I could hear... something of a conversation. Talking about another world being gone, and not to listen to legends. We had stories similar to that on my world, and on a lot of others, about storms that swallowed up worlds, and a great beast devouring everything. Kind of Bogeymen from space--people'd tell kids they'd get taken away by some beast if they misbehaved and such, or they'd get lost forever in the storms if they were out in bad weather." She spoke calmly, but loud enough for the room to hear her in response to what the others were sharing. She jerked her head back towards the serpent on the wall behind her, wrapped around the world. "Safe to say that's likely this place's depiction of their version of the great beasts." Though she had a sinking sensation that it was less their interpretation, and more actual sighting....

“Dorothy” (Eternal Murikabushi of Hunger)
Action: Empathizing with a world-eating serpent, just a day that ends in Y for Murikabushi. Switching to Space Historian mode to calm himself down. Sharing with the group.

Trying to examine the mural he’d chosen sounded so great in theory.

Not that Murikabushi didn’t enjoy that part, because he did……insofar as he could enjoy anything while stuck in an incredibly stressful situation, with a group full of Big Personalities like these. “Big Personalities” counted as a compliment, in Muri’s mind, regardless of how messy, complicated, and potentially volatile it currently made things. Even if he didn’t necessarily get along with someone—whether for basic personality clash reasons, or due to larger-scale issues like Order and the Negaverse having lengthy histories of mutual mistrust—he still appreciated when people had convictions that they stood by. He appreciated it when people were unapologetically themselves, nothing more and nothing less, and not fake-a** bitches who didn’t have the nerve to just be real with people.

An unfortunate downside of Big Personalities, though, was that they always found a way to clash. As Murikabushi considered the mural he’d chosen from multiple different angles and vantage points—twisting himself to the left, and then to the right, and then standing up more fully so he could look down at the image instead of up—the voices raising at each other fought to pull his attention back to all of that. In at least some part, they did succeed. Sounds of [not distress exactly but Muri didn’t want to think of another word right now, with so much going on] from two people he cared about, and one he respected (fear of Jet-flavored retribution notwithstanding), tugged at his awareness and ******** if it didn’t feel like getting invited over to a friend’s house, only to receive a front-row seat to their parents’ two-person, family court performance of the Oresteia.

A deep, powerful part of Murikabushi wanted to interject, at least to check on Faustite and Heliodor. Another part of him wanted to catch the eyes of the other Order senshi present—especially Kerberos, who seemed to think that stupid s**t was fine, actually as long as he did it rather than Muri—and with their attention secured, make a confused expression and mouth something to the effect of “Did I do this?? Is all this”—meaning, the argument between the Negaverse officers present tonight—“MY fault??” Neither of those actions came to pass.

Before too long, all the officers’ squabbling seemed to fade away. To Murikabushi, it all sounded distant and muffled, like trying to listen to something from underwater. Muri felt practically submerged, himself. His heart raced but his head felt slow and thick as soggy cotton. Watching the little serpent ram itself against the bars of its prison, Muri felt a chill drop into the pit of his chest—yet, a part of him ached with deep compassion, even empathy. That was how Mirrorspace had felt when he’d still been stuck there as one of its senshi: a cage that wanted to keep him in, that wanted to keep him locked away and smother all the color and life from him until he broke down and accepted the sterile, empty halls of Mirrorspace, until he no longer even wanted to be free, to be himself. Murikabushi remembered so vividly, so violently, how he thrashed against the walls of that prison. He couldn’t blame the serpent for acting that way—

“Augh!”

Murikabushi broke out of the trance with a yelp of pain. He held up one hand, pushing out from himself at no one in particular, trying to warn anyone off of coming too close or touching him. The other hand, rushed to his eyes. Burning, they resisted his attempts at rubbing them into a more pacified state. As he tried to catch up on what the happ was ******** everyone was (Faustite and Heliodor had gone missing, with some arc of lightning pointing down a corridor from where the former had stood), what was going on, what anyone had learned that they’d deigned to share—Muri looked toward the rest of the group with watery eyes. Not crying, exactly—his facial expression remained more or less neutral—but his eyes felt like they were on fire and intended to protect themselves from a threat that didn’t exist.

“I don’t think it’s hunting,” he said, picking up from the suggestion by some General he’d never met before. Frustrated with the way tears blurred his vision, Murikabushi scrubbed at his eyes again. This action accomplished exactly as much as it had the first time, which was so say <********>. “Maybe it was hunting before, sure. In the ancient past. But not anymore. Assuming that any worlds were reborn after dealing with this thing is a stretch. Even if they were back then, though, we shouldn’t expect that to be the case anymore. Look……”

Taking a deep, shaky breath, Murikabushi pointed to the third mural, then the fourth—the one he’d stared at for what felt like ages. “Sailor Angel Dust’s people had stories of storms and great beasts, right? Well, running into one for real seems like a pretty solid reason to make a mural, especially if you get it imprisoned. Not only would you want to commemorate that kind of accomplishment, but you’d also want to leave some kind of warning to people in the future who might find the prison you built. So, you show them how the storm-beast threatened the world where you found it. You show them your preparations in getting a prison ready. And you show them the thing imprisoned.

“General Aquamarine has the right of it, pointing out that the spikes and the hexagon line up. And if we follow the story the murals put together, that means we’re probably standing on top of this great beast’s prison. He also probably has the right of it in suggesting that we’re ********> Eyes wide, and still watering, Murikabushi pointed toward the fifth mural. “That little b*****d in the mural is sitting still right now, but he wasn’t when I was looking at it. He was throwing himself against the bars of the prison, over, and over, and over again. A hundred times over. A thousand times over. Finally, he got one of the spikes maintaining his cage to bend.

“Vegas money says it’s that one right there.” Murikabushi pointed toward the one circle on the floor that happened to be dark. “If there’s some way to fix it, maybe we can? But considering this guy has broken the prison confines once before, we might just be kicking the can down the road. After a thousand years locked up, I think he’s way past hunting and well into ragingly pissed off territory. And who knows if anything we do will hold for a thousand years.”

The Space Cauldronxx

xxGuine

Sleet Tempest Snapexx

Kaexxfaux

Sunshine Alouettexx