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Sailor Subamara slipped in late through the back door, among the last to arrive, and people had already started speaking. Hopefully she hadn’t missed anything important, she thought, the message on her phone had sounded super-official. Even so, the Senshi of Coffee had trouble tuning in to the discussion straight away, dazed by the size of the turnout. She hadn’t even realised so many senshi existed. So many, and (mostly) so helpful. How thoughtful of the princess to set up time to make sure people like her knew what to do! It was great to see something organised. Subamara liked organised, sometimes more than was healthy. She wondered if the senshi did anti-war fundraising. It didn’t seem much like a war council to her, more like a student council, where not all of the kids were in it for the extra credit and were just killing time between classes. There was nothing worse than people that just turned up to argue. Seriously, there were debating clubs for that.

There sure where a lot of teams, though, and that was heartening too. While Subamara was confident that she could manage the job just fine by herself, Swearing Girl was certainly vehement about not going alone, and it seemed to be one of the few opinions that was getting more support than hecklers. It would be awesome to know that back-up was just a phone-call away. Once she figured out the technical issues.

Subamara lifted her phone high into the air above her, trying to get a clear scan of the princess girl up on the stage.

--

In between helping the rest of the cats to keep a lid on the massive energy housed within the meeting room’s walls, Tomlin listened to the discussion, and pouted to himself that he could no longer see what was going on. The spot he’d chosen had quickly become untenable, as senshi and knights drifted in and blocked his limited view of the action. He couldn’t even see the stage anymore, let alone the speaker on it. Ears tipped forward, the ginger tabby guardian strained to identify by voice alone all the various participants. Given he hadn’t met a large number of them, it was both difficult and unsatisfying.

Tail swishing with faint unhappiness, he took note of each team as it was announced, but the one he was waiting to hear didn’t appear to be coming. Why not? Surely they were here?

He could concentrate and move at the same time, he decided, standing up, and hoping for a better vantage point, he attempted to leap up onto the closest shoulder, the one who had just introduced herself as Acubens, oblivious to the senshi’s current conversation and state of mind. He needed to check where the Jovians were, and why they weren’t speaking up.


(If he is inconvenient, just drop him! biggrin Or I can edit, either's good.)

Valhalla let out a small 'oof' as Ganymede practically laid down in his lap, not having expected him to do so. No that he really cared... Of course seconds after, Ganymede decided now would be the best time to call others' attention to him. So who do they look at first?? The guy whose lap he was laying in. Fantastic.

He adverted his eyes from any looks his way, not so much embarrassed by Ganymede as he just didn't want the attention. The last big meeting called had been him at the Surrounding, and while it hadn't been as big of a turn out, it had gotten pretty heated.

After helping Ganymede back up, Valhalla offered a small, but wary smile in Tsui's direction. "This is how most meetings are... I haven't been to many, but I've heard stories. People try to voice their opinions, some agree, but more will disagree, or not like how they're being talked over. It's more of less a competition to see who can be the loudest or cause the most upset by grumbling and letting discontent spread through the crowd."

His small smile had slowly morphed back into a frown as he spoke, although he wasn't aware of it. There were too many conflicting opinions, too many trying to be 'better' than the other. "This is why I prefer the Jovian meetings. At least there we all know we're equal, rather than someone trying to be the... leader of all," he said with almost a sneer in his usually agreeable voice. He'd heard a few people grumbling through the crowd nearby... and he didn't like it. But for the sake of having this thing continue...

"People want a leader because it's easy. The problem with that is that we would become more like the Negaverse and their militaristic ways. Yeah, it works for them, but they don't often get a choice... or an opinion. Once a senshi is corrupted over to the Negaverse... they lose all memories of who they once were," he said, still frowning as he remembered the one time he'd crossed paths with a woman called Lyra. "I don't want that. I still want my voice, my free will... My own choice to protect who I can..." Negaverse and DMS included if it came down to it.

The squire of Jupiter froze as the topic of knights were brought up, his cheeks turning red as if Polaris was talking about him, specifically. Obviously she wasn't since... they hadn't ever really met, but he had no idea why knights would be a topic in a meeting.

"What about us?" he asked out loud, unable to... not be curious, yet rather wary of the subject.

Chaonis had no suggestions. It was very unlikely that he would have comments on anything. Well, not constructive, anyway. He watched the scene, then looked around for something else to keep his attention. He glanced at Grus and gave her an innocent grin that lacked innocence.

Let them all babble about how cool their teams were or how awesome their ideas were or how sharing was caring and newbies were dumb. They were mostly idiots and brats, and they were all acting like they were spoiled or entitled to something. Chaonis might not be a nice guy, but at least he wasn't being a big baby.

He already knew he wasn't going to do a damn thing they discussed here, so why should he be worried?

Camelot, on the other hand, listened with a strained patience. Strained only because, recently, he had been battling a rather off putting temper. It was very evident to him how young they all were, and how big the war was. It was not the time for these very common thoughts of pity, however. He simply waited, leaning on his shield as he held it in front of him mostly out of habit, since he generally stood leaning on his cane.

He knew they would be able to do something constructive here, underneath the clashing opinions and rising tempers and dire need for snacks. This wasn't about control, not from where he saw it, but he understood why they were getting tense. Leaders, or the need for them, were hard to accept on the best of days. The idea that they were trying to copy something from the Negaverse, brainwashed and ruled by Chaos, was intimidating as well. Camelot did not want to share anything with Chaos.

In any case, he was willing to listen to what others had to say, whether he agreed with it or not, as they had been gathered here to speak. That was what they would do, voicing their concerns and fears, their irritations and experiences. He did not share the same pride as many of the others that rebelled against the very idea that a Princess might hold some kind of over encompassing rule over them, nor did he think it a very far leap to offer them the respect they deserved by rank alone. Something had decided them worthy, and even though he hadn't voted in the decision he felt a kind of duty to them regardless.

Then again, he felt a similar duty to civilians.

But he was Camelot. Kings, Queens, princes and princesses were who a knight served in his mind. From all the books he'd read, he was conditioned to respond to those words, more than anything else, just as he was hard wired to be loyal and dutiful to his fellow knights. It far easier for him than it was for others in that way.

His ears perked at the mention of knights as well. They were their own agenda item, it seemed. He wasn't here for himself, but he couldn't help but be curious now.

A smile lingered on his face from when Lenka spoke up about her team. Yum Yum was probably the most adorable thing he had heard yet, and he wondered if she had named it. That wouldn't be surprising.

It seemed that there were actually quite a few teams out there, Athene had managed to pick out the words ‘Knights of Destiny’, ‘Zoo’, ‘The Lost Boys’ and ‘Yum something or the other’ being called out by different people, although with what seemed like other conversations going on, the dark-haired senshi was finding it mostly hard to follow along.

After a while, Polaris was asking for final comments before the next topic – not that Athene had any – although the next topic of seemed interesting. Despite having come across some – Camelot, Valhalla, Nysa and the others who were part of his team – Athene didn’t really know that much about Knights.

“What if they don’t want to be purified?” Ganymede wondered, settling down to lower his voice to speak mostly to Valhalla, Europa, and Tsui.

It was something he’d talked about with some of his teammates before, though perhaps not at length with Europa and Tsui yet—the latter of which wasn't on his team, but she'd been at their last meeting and he thought she still applied, in a way; he at least knew of her more than he knew of some of the other strange faces hanging around—and it was something he hoped other people took into account in their interactions with the Negaverse with the knowledge that purification was an option.

“I mean, they already think we’re terrible people intending to enslave the Earth under the rule of a moon queen,” he explained. “Wouldn’t encouraging too much purification make it seem like we’re forcing ourselves and our ideas onto them? How does that make us any better than they are? What if they’re happy the way they are now? What if they think and believe that’s how they’re supposed to be? If that’s the case, what makes purification any different from corruption, aside from the fact that we know we’re right. The Negaverse knows they’re right, too. They just operate under a completely different—and probably bogus—prospective.”

He didn’t particularly care if some of this wasn’t up for discussion at the moment. Apparently they were supposed to be talking about the knights, but Ganymede didn’t have anything to say about them other than what had already been said, and Polaris had been the one to bring up purification to begin with, so in Ganymede’s opinion the topic was fair game.

He could understand wanting to purify people. It would certainly make things easier as far as dealing with the Negaverse was concerned if they could just purify them all and be done with it, but that didn’t seem like the best solution to him. In many ways, he could see how it could even make things worse.

“Shouldn’t we just save purification for the people who want it and don’t believe in the Negaverse’s ideals anymore, and just try to work out our differences another way?” he continued.

He had yet to raise his voice loud enough to be heard by the entire room. He was much more comfortable discussing these things with the people he already knew. Anything more and he was sure another Surrounding incident would occur, and he wasn’t exactly in the mood for that at the moment.

Pravoski, an orange and white guardian cat, had been shifting through the ever growing crowd and couldn't help but over hear Ganymede.

"That's the wonders of war - each side thinks their right. Sure, people can see things differently, even 'absolute' truths. It doesn't really change truth, but what and how they see it is different. Fer instance, two people are looking at a building from different spots - one on the south west corner and one on the north east corner," Pravoski began to go in to a long drawn out explanation of truth and perspective that was oddly insightful for the usually laid back, heck-care, feline. His voice level was perhaps a little les private than the Senshi's.

He continued, "when they describe the building, they could be describing different different looks cause building don't usually look the same all 'round, right? Considerin' that the building is 'truth' and these different locations as the differing past experiences and points in the lives of these two people, which color their perspectives. They see the same thing, but with different eyes. So while the truth doesn't change, how you perceive it and how I perceive it can be totally different."

After that rather long-winded scenario Pravoski took in a long deep breath, "That's the problem we have here. And the 'truth' as been lost for so long now, all that remains is two perspectives of the same thing. There no longer is a truth."

He might have smoked a little something before coming to the meeting.

"But you know, I am all for the idea of gettin' around a campfire and singing Kumbaya with he forces of Chaos. Sounds fun. Will there be cheeseburgers?" The large grin on the cat's face showed that he was completely serious.

"Or, ya know, get some leaders together from both sides and work out a peace treaty medeval style. I like the campfire idea though. Campfires mean food."

Food - important to many here at this meeeting.

“Diplomacy is not forcing someone to be who they don’t think they are,” Ganymede replied with a roll of his eyes. “If you want diplomacy, you’d be better off doing what the cat there just suggested and getting together a team of delegates to form some sort of a peace agreement,” he added, making a motion with his hand toward Pravoski.

“I don’t recall ever saying violence is the answer either,” he continued. “In fact, if you knew me at all, you’d know that I’m very much against it. What I’m in favor of is open discussion. Although,” he paused to eye the cat who’d spoken to him, “our side doesn’t have leaders as far as I’m concerned, and I’m pretty keen on keeping it that way, so if we ever had people get together to have a nice little chat with the Nevaverse’s people, I’d prefer it if we all took a vote on who to send.”

"Sending in a team of diplomats is sending them on a suicide mission," Aster insisted. "If their goal is to get rid of all the Senshi and our goal is to stay alive, then we'll forever be at an impasse in negotiations. They won't take anything less than what they want, and we're not going to offer to kill ourselves. There's no real diplomacy here. Save for purification, the only non-violent option is for us to return to our home planets and never look back, which is as good as having ourselves killed."