Welcome to Gaia! ::

Username: The Professional Prophet
Number of Current Powered Characters: 2
Average Time Spent on Gaia Weekly: Uhhh I am on like every day for varying amounts of time, it's easier for me to just schedule in advance when I am needed for extended periods of focus time. I'm always around more when I am not in the midst of finals - now is like a huge fluke in my otherwise flexible schedule.

Why do you want to be a part of the Zodiac Court, specifically?: The thing I like about the Zodiacs is that they have a very unusual past history, purpose, and dynamic in the shop, different from all the other senshi groups and factions. It’s always been intriguing to me, and it’s something that’s a little easier to be involved in from within their court than without. Especially with their Guardian Cat, who’s basically the dude who’s tasked himself with keeping track of them all and keeping them all on track. I never had a chance before to try for any of the Zodiac team, so I’m taking my chances now!

Writing Sample:

Pitiful mewling was coming from the cardboard box Sue had placed in the corner of his room. He’d lined the whole thing with paper, and a towel was at the ready on his bed. The cat inside had almost his full attention. She looked swollen and restless, lying on her side and gouging the newspaper with her claws. It didn’t even take his cat whispering powers to understand her problem. He’d seen it before, and he’d see it again, and all he could do was be here for this cat. She was about to give birth.

His eyes flickered back to the TV that droned on in the background. As a guardian cat, he had a responsibility to stay informed at all times. Not all the strange things escaped news cameras. Especially the bigger things. The newscaster was saying something about a UFO – not the spaceships, and not some run-of-the-mill meteor or comet, but a genuine unidentified flying object. There had been no sign of it till it broke into the solar system. Scientists pinpointed the trajectory of the mystery object would have it collide somewhere on the east coast of the United States.

“Like Destiny City,” Sue and the newscaster both guessed with roughly the same lack of surprise in their voices.

Sue jumped up suddenly, filled with determination and ready to let his princess know that the Zodiacs were back in the world-saving business. And then stopped. Being around all these non-Zodiacs had made him forget that he still hadn’t finished his little side project. The Zodiac Court had no phones when they were powered up, still, and that was kind of his bad. Did any of them remember to keep their cell phones on them after they henshin’d up? Tonight was a patrol night. He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the princess. The phone rang and rang and Sue paced back and forth next to the cardboard box. Finally, just as his patience ran out, his princess’s voice answered. “Hello, this is Serenade! I’m sorry I can’t talk right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Hi, Serenade, it’s Sue, we actually really need to – what.” God damn it. As much as he loved the princess, did she really have to spend two whole sentences of her voicemail recording sounding like she had actually picked up? He didn’t have time for this! No one on the whole planet had time for this! “AAAAAH SERENADE WE NEED TO TALK RIGHT NOW CALL ME BACK BYE.”

He went down the list, one by one, scrolling through his contacts. Every name a Zodiac on his speed dial, but not every Zodiac accounted for. Every last one of them would have one hell of a voicemail waiting for them the next time they powered down. Between dials and re-dials he reminisced. They didn’t hold the line like they used to, these days. Miraculous as their revival and subsequent escape from Barren Pines had been, the universe did not hand victory out on a silver platter. It was a second chance, nothing more, and in Zue’s completely necessary opinion, they blew it. Sagittarius and Aries were gone, again. The opal crystal had been stolen, missing for the longest time. The predictable drama of their modern teenage lives shattered the rest of their unity, in ways their past selves would have been horrified to witness. The proud soldiers of the Surrounding, once the Sol system’s greatest defenders, had all but lost their ancient title to senshi who weren’t even of the moon court. But that was the problem. The Surrounding… these foreign senshi knew nothing of it, or of its maintenance.

Namely, the lack of it. It was the only explanation…

Zue was devoted to his princess, but Sue wasn’t about to let this pregnant stray out of his sight till the worst was over. He only knew faintly where his court was, scattered about the city on patrol. His duty was to protect and serve. He was protecting. Any minute now someone would notice the angry buzz of their phone. Any minute…

“Serenade! Good! Someone is calling me back! And right as I am wrist deep in the miracle of life!” Three kittens were already mewling and wriggling around by the time he got his first call back. To say he was frustrated was a fantastic understatement. But it was Princess Chronos he was talking to here. He couldn’t be mad at her about this, he was the one playing interspecies nurse right now instead of hauling his feline a** to Crystal Academy. He diluted the rage into the volume of his voice, trying to deflect it all away from Serenade. “We have a huge problem. I can’t go into a lot of detail right now but can you turn on your TV to the news? Uh-huh. No. How bad? What color is a few notches above red on the emergency scale? That’s the one I’d use for this. No, I can’t tell you on this, you know that. Just give me ten and I’ll be over there.”

“Also, we had kittens. Er, not us specifically, I mean, I had kittens. Wait, no, that sounds horrible too. Mitzie did, she’s – she’s a stray and – you know what, I’ll explain it when I get there.” He didn’t hang up nearly fast enough, though - Sue’s face was flushed over the giggling from the other end of the line. He looked down at the cat in the box, who was patiently licking her last kitten. Sighing, Sue reached in and gave the new mother a quick scratch behind the ears. Being a parent was a huge responsibility no matter what species you were.

“I think I know how you feel, Mitzie.”

(971 words)