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Princess Ganymede
Location: Reception

Ganymede’s brow twitched. Her red painted lips, already threatening to dip, slid even closer to a frown. Her fingers curled reflexively, nails digging into her palms, but she forced them back open. There was no point in getting worked up over a ghost.

She hadn’t seen Serenity in… eleven years, almost? Longer than some among them had known of their powers. Longer than others among them had been on Earth. Longer than one or two among them had been alive. Ganymede had cared little for her then. She cared little for her now. Whatever caused the war, whatever Serenity had done when war was at her doorstep, it hardly mattered. What the war had become in Serenity’s death had nothing to do with her anymore.

Instinctively, Ganymede shifted forms—from trailing red with black ruffles to layers of pristine white; silvery wings stretched out behind her; diamonds glittered around her shoulders; bejeweled rings flashed on her fingers; teardrop pearls swayed within the diamond arches of her tiara.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, expression as neutral as she could make it, greeting the ghost with something she hoped looked like indifference.

“Everyone, meet Queen Serenity.”

Eternal Sailor Kerberos

"Gany, Val!" Kerberos greeted his friends with a cheery wave, glad to see them join in time to find out exactly what kind of thing they'd managed to unlock with everyone's aid.

Honestly, he'd sort of expected that maybe a barrier would come down and they'd find some kind of magical item, or blueprints, or....he didn't know. The abstract kind of answers they'd have to guess at to put together, or some ancient legacy that might put them on the right path.

And, well. Sort of.

The ghostly woman who appeared was beautiful, certainly. But she wasn't familiar--not until Ganymede addressed her.

Queen Serenity. Not the Serenity who had started all this trouble, in the messy version of the story he'd heard, passed from person to person years ago and ultimately originating with Beryl (perhaps the least unbiased source he'd ever encountered). Realistically, he knew almost nothing about her, except that she apparently existed and Ganymede sounded less than pleased to see her. But still certainly someone important. And perhaps the one with the answers they sought.

So, he stepped forward. Perhaps he was one fo those best positioned to answer her question, anyway.

"You'll forgive the lack of formalities," he said. "We come on behalf of the Earth, seeking help in fighting an ancient enemy of the Moon Kingdom. The being known as the Herald of the Dark Star approaches, and we want to stop it. For good, ideally. Is there anything you know, any knowledge you can share, that might help us?"

He turned, and beckoned Murikabushi over.

"Myself and several others were pulled to a place that we think was a prison for it. There, we found murals, and magical spikes--Muri, could you show her?"

Super Sailor Surtur of Desolation
Note: Surtur is a DSS but looks human and would not be distinguishable from any other Senshi from Earth.

“You’re going to get me into a lot of trouble young lady,” Surtur sighed in disbelief as he finally caught up to where Eupheme had escaped to, watching as she shuffled along with a small group of teenage knights. The Moon had been the original plan, but he had to make sure that she hadn’t wandered off somewhere else, first.

He had his hands on his hips as he shook his head, both at Eupheme and the “story” that Cynthus was telling them, but his attention was already drawn to the strange projection of supposedly Queen Serenity.

He’d never met her before his World was shut off, but as a Moon of Saturn, he was well aware of the close ties the Sol System planets had with the Moon Kingdom.

The Moon Kingdom had done countless good deeds throughout its history, per the records of the time. They were seen as a benevolent force of justice and peace by many. Surtur only assumed those who did not see the Moon Kingdom in such a light were either jealous of their success and notoriety, or perhaps they thought they knew more than the rest, but conveniently failed to share those findings. Or maybe just suspicious of those wanting to do the right thing, despite all odds.

At least the Moon Kingdom seemed to shake off any negative nicknames.

He waited until the other started searching for the magical spike to share, before speaking up as well, filling in the gap of silence while it was pulled out.

“Storms, identifiable by their purple hue and non-traditional lightning, have been cropping up on many of our Worlds. Earth included, of course. Some, myself included, believe it is trying to tear holes through the universe with the intention of making shortcuts,” he shared, his expression and voice solemn.

He believed Almadel’s intuition above possibly anyone else. With his experience and by nature of being well traveled, he had to trust that the man knew how things in the universe worked.

Surtur had been trying to track Almadel down to bring up to the Moon with him -- because who else could sneak their way into places they don’t belong better than that man? But things hadn’t worked out, and his ward had escaped him. Temporarily.

Halle Knight of Lysithea
location: Reception Room

A year earlier and maybe he'd have felt the same way as he had meeting and finally talking to Princess Lysithea. This was, in a way, one of the people who would, by common sense, be considered a source of both information and authority. The kind of authority that meant a certain measure of responsibility toward him, toward his brother and cousin, toward Mechelen and any number of Knights. And pages. The pages moreso than anyone else.

But the reality was that they were just girls, and while they may be able to give a few answers, provided they were asked the right questions; they didn't exist to gives him solutions, support, or safety. They had their own problems. In this case...being dead. Maybe. Or maybe just somewhere unreachable, since being dead should mean she was also reincarnated on Earth, right?

Unfortunately, Halle didn't quite know what to ask while they had her here, especially not as a hologram and not as a person physically standing across for him. Fortunately, some people were a lot more prepared. Rubbing his thumb along his signet, Halle summoned up a holographic screen that showed the scene in front of him and started recording. Others would probably want to be able to watch later. And Almere would probably go bananas getting to see a spectral Moon Queen in action.

Deep Space Super Sailor Pyrrhus

Oh. s**t.

Pyrrhus had gone out of his way to have as little interaction as possible with the Moon Kingdom, once upon a time. As much as he longed to get his hands on some fancy Moon tech, he had a feeling that the prosperous, generally-regarded-as-benevolent Moon Kingdom would not take kindly to a mercenary and thief whose main source of income and entertainment was Doing Crimes.

So. Maybe if he was very, very still, the hologram of Queen ******** Serenity (or the actual living Princess present who might or might not have opinions) wouldn't notice he was there.

"s**t," he hissed, under his breath. "None of us pocketed anything, right?"

Eternal Murikabushi of Hunger
Location: Reception Area.

Honestly, Murikabushi wasn’t sure what he’d expected to happen from ranting at the barrier and trying to commune with it. But something unseen emanating a sense of being disappointed in him didn’t feel like it was anywhere on the list. More than anything else, it made him wrinkle his nose like a particularly ill-behaved rabbit who couldn’t believe the bullshit it was hearing (even though, out here in reality, Murikabushi heard only the voices of other people who’d come out to try and help with this project).

If not for Aruna apparently getting through to whatever consciousness they were dealing with out here, he was ready to be very upset.

But, once she’d made Kaifeng and Erytheia’s weapons fall from the ceiling, revealing the hidden mechanism of something, everything seemed to pick up the pace. It was like getting this much closer to the goal gave reality itself the motivation to speed things up, with three different participants—a Mauvian, a Squire, and a Super Senshi, none of whom Murikabushi recognized from anywhere—placing shiny little orbs on the pedestal where the mechanism stood. After that, some pretty in pink popcorn-looking senshi revealed a USB port in the side of the pedestal and Erytheia installed it.

Then, somewhat more interestingly than anything else, Kerberos’s friend who’d organized all of this showed up. While Ganymede was perhaps shorter than Murikabushi had expected, that didn’t feel too odd. Ida and Cybele were both pretty petite as well, and Ganymede certainly had the right kind of glamour for a princess senshi (in Muri’s own gay little brain, where “princess senshi” entailed not only massive responsibilities and probably more inherent risk than any other kind of senshi faced, but also a level of fabulousness that went unmatched by anyone else).

It took superhuman effort to restrain himself from applauding when Ganymede busted out the full royal effect. Truly, few in this universe were as brave and gay as Murikabushi watching Ganymede’s lacy, ruffled fuku shift into an absolutely ******** stunning gown, decked out in jewels and sparkle and the full princess fantasy. He kept his hands clasped together in front of him and his feet planted firmly on the floor, but that didn’t make him any less awed by the glamour and the It-Girl Factor of the princess he’d only heard about until right now (and still hadn’t really met).

By contrast, the ghost or hologram or whatever of Queen Serenity, Murikabushi mostly regarded with an arched eyebrow. Maybe she was grander and more impressive under other circumstances or something? Such as, when she didn’t have to share the stage with someone like Ganymede? But given enough fabric, Murikabushi and his sewing machine could’ve tossed together a passable dupe of Queen Serenity’s basic b***h strapless gown in under half-an-hour. The bow on the chesticle area would’ve been the most complicated part and even that wouldn’t have been terribly difficult.

As talkative as he normally was, Murikabushi would’ve been content to just be quiet and keep his thoughts to himself for once, to defer to Kerberos because……honestly, the spike should’ve chosen him as its bearer in the first place? Like, this was obvious to anyone with a brain, yes? Between the two of them Kerberos had worked harder, he’d done more, he’d paid over a decade of dues as a senshi by now, he was on a personal name basis with Cosmos (probably?) and both halves of the Velencyans’ ridiculous Space Cherik nonsense leadership (none of whom knew that Muri even existed, as far as he knew, since it wasn’t as if you could just text Cosmos like a normal person and “Tell the beautiful, sad Space Magneto that I say ‘hi’” wasn’t a request Muri actually expected Kerberos to honor on hearing that he was going to go meet with Commodore Lyndin).

But there Blossom went, putting him on blast by……uh, calling him over to where Kerberos stood with the most gorgeous royal in the room and some Jupiter Knight whom Kerberos had greeted with her. Putting up no fight about it—lest that make a worse impression than whatever he inevitably said—Murikabushi went to Kerberos’s side and produced the spike from his subspace. First, he held it out for Ganymede and Val (—oh, right, Valhalla? that was it, right?) to see; then, for Queen Serenity’s………ghostogram, or whatever.

“The murals where we found these indicated that there should have been six of these,” Murikabushi told the Queen, “but one of them was broken or something? Hence, this creature escaping, it seems like? As for the other five, we have two here. Any others that made it out of there will likely be with members of the Negaverse, if they made it out of there. They were the others present in the probably-a-prison with me, Kerberos, Solaris, and Encke.”

At least, he really hoped they all had the spikes. But beyond that, Muri had no idea which of them had the spikes or didn’t.

“The storms have already been hurting people,” Murikabushi added, thinking back to some of what he’d read on the Order database. “A Code Piece on someone’s Wonder warned that the storms might do damage to home-worlds and wonders alike. Two different senshi have shared pictures of injuries sustained after getting hit by lightning. One of them……” He waved, trying to get Tempesti’s attention. “Hey, Tempesti! Do you have the photo of the mark the lightning strike left on your arm?”

Sailor Tempesti/Rowan Trumoia
Location: Reception

Tempesti watched with a mixture of amusement and trepidation as the others addressed the ghost with varying degrees of respect. It seemed like the obvious was in fact true, this was apparently what remained of the Moon Kingdom’s ruler. If she had known anything about this woman in another life, that information had long since vanished into whatever void swallowed memories between stints out of the Galaxy Cauldron.

Queen Serenity didn’t seem particularly interested in disintegrating them, though she had no idea how quickly that might change depending upon how the undead(?) queen received their answers. Whatever ideas she had about the capriciousness of royalty further cemented the senshi’s desire to keep her lips firmly shut in terms of addressing the hologhost.

Murikabushi on the other hand hadn’t given the impression of self-importance she associated with smiting those who raised one’s displeasure. Trotting over while keeping an anxious eye on Serenity, she extracted her phone from the subspace, “I do, just give me a moment.” With a few flicks across the screen she pulled up the photo in question. The snake’s unfriendliness hadn’t magically softened in the time since she’d last looked at its face. “Here,” She handed the eternal senshi her phone, quietly pleased that she had something that might possibly be useful.

Sailor Aberdonia of Papyrus

Aberdonia blinked as a senshi he hadn't noticed before in black and red suddenly transformed her outfit into a ruffled white gown dripping with jewels, silvery wings extending behind her. He'd seen a royal before, with Cybele, as near as he could tell, but to see a random senshi transform into a royal senshi was a new and surprising twist.

And she introduced the hologram that appeared as someone called Queen Serenity. And then other people, senshi for the most part, speaking up to tell Queen Serenity what they'd found. He blinked himself out of his slight surprise, shook himself, and took a step toward the hologram, taking a deep breath as he did so.

"Your Majesty, I have found highly damaged records in my homeworld's archives. I couldn't read them, but the few pictures that accompanied the records showed a creature, like a serpent, or like a storm, seeming to devour or chew through worlds. I think they may have been recordings of survivors' tales. I think...I think that, whatever that thing is, it's either heading for Earth...or is going to pass uncomfortably close by. And I don't think it's the latter. I think we're in for a whole lot of trouble if we don't try to stop this creature. Like, 'no planet to live on and fight for anymore' kind of trouble."





Chibi Sailor Aquitania of Courage

Aquitania was startled as the crystals and USB all clicked home to see a dazzling glow and hear a hum. Then, a hologram, an actual HOLOGRAM, appeared, ethereally beautiful, a woman with silvery hair in buns-and-pigtails that trailed to the floor, and a beautiful, form-fitting white dress that also pooled on the floor, with fabric wings attached to the small of her back. Sure, it was simple, but simple could still be really pretty. It was a little disappointing that her theories tonight hadn't panned out, but it was all still an exciting meeting.

Which was a bit spoiled with the serious news that the recent freak storms seemed to be the harbingers of something truly awful. The storms hadn't been isolated to Earth, something was imprisoned, and was now on the loose, ripping holes in reality to shortcut its way to its next meal.

Against her will, a small wave of anxiety overcame her, and she reached for Realta's hand, seeking comfort from the one familiar face in the crowd.

"I don't like any of this, Realta," she murmured, trying not to interrupt the conversation being had with the hologram. "But I don't think 'not liking any of this' gives anybody a free pass to ignore whatever is on the loose. And I think I'm going to have to learn in a big hurry how to get better at being a senshi, so whatever that thing is doesn't succeed in eating the Earth for breakfast."