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When Alkaid appeared, Hiro moved himself a short ways further from the throne to rub up against his senshi's - General's - fragile-looking legs. Even if she was something not-quite-senshi anymore, she was still his, always would be. Any support she needed, he was there to give, even if it was only leaning against a leg while the Negaverse acted like gradeschool children and Tanzanite grew more furious.

When some lowly peon dared to touch the General-Queen's wings, then draw back as though contaminated, Hiro couldn't hold back a hiss is disdain. How dare some little upstart take liberties, and then act like Tanzanite was some cockroach that was beneath him!?

If it wasn't for the fact that Tanzanite was trying to run a goddamn war meeting here - not a kindergarten - he would have trotted back up and smooched her legs just to prove that not everyone was a d**k. He shot her affectionate kitty-eyes (well, eye) in any case. He might stay after, if she wasn't in a terrible mood. He was beginning to think his purrs had magical properties, the amount of good they did for his little soldiers.

He was proud as any papacat could be to see that his soldiers were intelligent and respectful. Painute, Alunite and Fluorite were all well-behaved and Painite was keeping her subordinates in line.

Eyeing the two idiots who'd incurred Tanzanite's wrath, he growled, "Hand them over to me. I'll whip them into shape."

General-Queen Apatite... well, Hiro wasn't surprised to see her appear, though he was certainly wary. She didn't strike him as the most sane of the General-Queens. As long as he remembered to avoid mentioning anything regarding vampires, Twilight or Edward, he would hopefully be safe. Though the fact that she was calling them all 'Bella' right now was... so very far from reasurring that Hiro didn't have the words (apart from
"In any case, as I said to begin with, I have no doubt that you have a plan," he told Tanzanite. She'd hinted as much from her opening speech - were the rest of the Negaverse clearly too stupid to have caught that? So idiotic that they needed to debate a strategic decision coming from above that they were losing? If the General-Queens said it was so, then it was so.

Sometimes Hiro thought he was surrounded by idiots. And then there were days like today when that was proven to be a fact.

Tanzanite listened to each response in turn, her eyes upon each of those recruits as they spoke. There was no humor left in her expression, and very little patience. Her gaze went to Serandite as she felt that small touch on her wing, one that was not followed by a look of revulsion. The pink-haired General earned a small, but thankful nod.

“We do not know nearly enough to attack it ourselves from within, nor do we have the means to get there yet,” she said as she retook her place upon the dais, “The Zodiac Guard is... complex. General-King Charonite devoted countless hours and unimaginable amounts of energy to their defeat, and still they persist. Their magic is different, their patterns less predictable. They are organized, they have leadership, and most perilous of all; they have their princess. We don't know enough about Princess Chronos to know if she is the source of its power.

As I said, we are losing.”

Lackluster information, perhaps, but Tanzanite had no intentions of lying to them. They were taking a shot in the dark, depending on dangerous methods and even more dangerous people to achieve their goals. Tanzanite extended her blackened limb, and gestured to the broken body of the Ascended General.

“Planet Alkaid,” she said as she retook her place upon the dais, “Is our plan. Alkaid was taken to her home world by the same being who led the senshi to Elysion. Rather than believe his lies and let him destroy her as Linarite did, Alkaid has given her planet to Chaos. The price she paid, as you can see, was great.” Tanzanite turned her gaze upon the young woman, and pride shone clear in her eyes. Alkaid had made the ultimate sacrifice for the Negaverse and surrendered the very source of her power to Chaos. Her body now leaked that dark energy; water dripping from a broken vessel. Unique, but undeniably corrupt.

“In doing so, the Ascended General has given us something we have never had before. A place from which we can launch an attack directly on the Surrounding, while our own soldiers stay safely out of harms way, and access to the power outside of it. Power that could take an ordinary youma and turn it into a creature capable of incredible destruction.”

Tanzanite's expression shifted, her lips curving in a smile. Finally, the stars were within their grasp. Their reach now extended beyond Earth, and the cost of that power would prove worthwhile in time. Tanzanite glanced to the covered object, and that brief flash of joy faded.

Not yet.

“They think they have us trapped, pinned down on Earth like rats so that we cannot escape. They're wrong.”

Dahlia was quiet, but not rude, or defiant in anyway. If their superiors had cared to look to her they would have found the cat with her tail still submisively against her. But really she was just listening. Soaking up every little detail she could manage to, her ears twitching and shifting to catch each voice. It was all important, every little bit, things she needed to know, should know. Perhaps she'd have more to speak about the next time they met, but for now she was like a creamy white sponge.

When the Ascendent General Alkaid stepped into the attention, the expression on Dahlia's face twisted a moment, not nearly so forgiving and approving as Hiros. The whole things was wrong... the strange power that leaked from her.. she'd given up her planet?

She shifted uncomfortably in Lyra's arms. Alkaid was obviously powerful.. obviously dedicated to the cause. Surely it was something they needed and something to be celebrated. So why did she feel so betrayed?

The senshi had given up that which made her a senshi.. and as a guardian.. she couldn't help but feel dissapointed. She had no qualms with the soliders of the negaverse.. but the senshi...

Were things that bad? Did the senshi feel so unwelcome that they'd do this and give up what made them special just to assimilate? She glanced back at the senshi around her softly, silent regret in her eyes. Masahiro had complained that one day there might be less then a dozen senshi left when the negaverse won. But was it possible there would be a day when there would be none at all?

Every solider knew what happened when their usefulness came to an end.. and who needed guardians when they no longer had senshi to lead?

When Tanzanite spoke in defense of Charonite, or what Wolframite felt was his defense, he felt better and puffed out a bit, half wanted to say "See!" to Hematite. Charonite had worked hard, and it was unfortunate that he wasn't here today to help them all. Saying he left them to clean up was rude if not just disrespectful for a man who had done so much for them.

As for space travel, he had never thought they would actually LEAVE their planet mainly because he didn't think they had an astronaut uniform tucked away in the Negaverse. Now that there was senshi about, and a different type if that could be imagined (just how many could there be?!), it seemed the only way to protect Earth was to leave it. That didn't settle well with Wolframite, who worried that leaving the planet for a moment would be like leaving your house with a pack of hyper gorillas inside.Still, if that was the last thing that they could do, then it had to be done. Maybe that was why Tanzanite was against the idea, and he breathed out at the idea of leaving home only to realize he really wasn't leaving much. He'd given up everything from family to his social life in order to "work" in the Negaverse.

Finally grabbing his attention more than before, the new general looked over the cracked senshi. It was strange to see someone who looked solid and complete, living, and yet took as if made of glass. It seemed impossible for her body to even work that way, and yet here she was, looked on fondly by Tanzanite for her dedication and sacrifice. Wolframite couldn't argue that if Tanzanite felt she deserved respect than respect was due.

Still, he was still curious about some matters. "How are we getting to her planet, and even more than that, how to we reach the other planets and this wall of their's? Not only that, but what about Earth when we are away?" He asked, guessing that while everyone was just throwing out questions, he might as well just ask the obvious ones. The broken senshi might have done a great deal for them, but she looked to fragile to be taking a complete army to a planet who-knew how far away.

For the larger part of the meeting called by the General Queen, Captain Moonstone had kept her mouth sealed shut: she had nothing of value to contribute and refused to take up any of her fellow Negaversers' valuable time playing 'You Talky, I Talky'.

Even so, Moonstone had reacted to Tanzanite's statements, her declarations and questions; and to those that came from other Nevagerse agents at all parts of the power food-chain. Reactions that were as varied as the abject horror that lumped deep in her gut, twisting at the knowledge that the Senshi were winning, to chilling disgust at some of her 'peers'...but always couched in the fiercely burning fervor Moonstone had for their cause.

They would prevail - they must!

Sugilite was bored. She didn't fidget or grumble, but her eyes were anywhere but the General-Queen and her captains. So they were loosing the war, it was understandably a problem, but not a big surprise to her. Anyone with a working ear listening to the bickering could figure out the problem. For the Queen to actually have to reprimand her soldiers was the biggest sign of their weakness, Sugilite was certain a real soldier would listen to their commanding officer without any chatter. Admittedly, the senshi seemed to get around this discipline problem, but from what she had seen, they kept their strength up with an insufferable superiority complex, and a completely fabricated moral high ground.

Youma wouldn't talk back, was the little thought that sat in the back of her mind as she impatiently shifted her weight from one foot to the other. They'd stand and listen, and follow orders through. They wouldn't sneer or roll their eyes, or look doubtful, or worried, or any of the other expressions she could see flashing to the surface and being pushed down on her fellow soldiers. Did they honestly expect anything but bad news from such an abrupt and forceful summons? The day she was pulled to this hall to receive news of a birthday part with four kinds of icecream was the day Sugilite would go get her head examined.

The talk of going into space and travelling to another planet arrested her attention for a moment, and a small sunny smile lit up her face as she imagined the particularly chatty members of the meeting choking to death in the void of space. It was fortunate, she supposed, that this event was coinciding with her tiring of her education at the Academy, and Sugilite wondered briefly if interstellar travel counted as breaking curfew. This was clearly going to be something more than a small skirmish in an alley at 2am, and she weighed getting expelled from the prestigious school against telling her commanding officer that she'd be taking a rain check from the most important battle since she'd joined. It seemed a risk she'd have to take, and to her own surprise, it didn't bother her a bit. Surely she had more of an attachment to her civilian life than that? The thought tickled a nerve Sugilite didn't thought she had, so pushing it aside, she tried to draw her interest back to the speech being delivered.

At Tanzanite's words, in regard to Alkaid, his gaze finally settled on the china doll of a senshi. So that was the price a senshi could ultimately pay, aside from the ones other officers paid - whatever they may be. They gave up their appearance. As horrid, and frail, as she looked he could tell she was not weak. And who knows some might consider her appearance appealing, it was certainly interesting and knowing what had gained her the appearance he felt a certain fascination with it.

The General Queen's continued speech broke his attention from the senshi, and brought it back to her. The words on the Zodiacs had already been stored away, no point in lingering on them whilst she continued to speak and little was known on those senshi.

Launch a direct attack...would they be going up in to space? That was...shocking but thrilling at the same time. The whole idea of implosion, the vacuum of space, rose to the forefront of his mind but was just as quickly shoved back down. Now was not the time to speak up, he really was getting good at not thinking and speaking at the same time. That was one thing he was learning, had learned when he'd joined. They were strong people, and something told him that he couldn't and shouldn't just speak his mind.

A glance to Painite, searching for her reaction. Would she have the same thrill shining in her eyes he was sure shone in his own. Figuring someone, anyone higher up, had thought of the whole space vacuum and implosion set him at ease. It let him think about the battle but also the very idea of being up amongst the stars, and to see them closer.

What about Earth though? If they left the senshi remaining here could do who knows what. No, the General Queen had to have a plan for that. There was no way no one had thought of that. He trusted those in charge to see anything he did and whatever he didn't. He'd have to think of how to deal with his parents and school, if he were to go in to space. He'd think on it after the meeting, he couldn't now, now was time to listen.