For some reason, the idea of visiting her home--the Surrounding--alone terrified Virgo. Not in the curling-up-in-a-corner-passing-out way of being terrified, but in the way of a slow, snake-like curling of dread in her stomach. She didn't know if she would have a problem seeing Virgo so empty, the way Themis was. It had always been empty that way--just herself and her mentor. Herself, near the end. That was all she remembered...

For this reason, she had wanted to ask a trustworthy Zodiac along with her. Not Leo, because Leo was so stressed she didn't think she could ask him without feeling worse than she already did for pushing him to patrol and practice. Not Zue, because he was an assface. An irredeemable assface. No, she'd finally got back in contact with Mackie, and between Gemini Beta and Gemini Alpha she'd honestly rather have Beta.

At least... for this trip. It needed seriousness that she wasn't sure Andeon would lend to the situation, and attention she didn't think Zue could pay it, and awareness that she knew Leo couldn't lend. (He was so tired. And the Surrounding had once been a hot spot of Chaos activity. They couldn't afford to be caught unawares!) This was the place where they'd all lived and died. This was the Surrounding.

The Surrounding: Virgo knew she had died there. She knew how, and she knew that none of her failures so far was as bitter as her inability to protect the Princess.

In the end, she decided not to risk any of her team-mates at all. They were friends, something like family no matter how distant they'd drifted apart. She knew she could get back if things were truly too dangerous, and didn't want to have to leap after Mackie to grab her and bring her back.

She stood in the living room of her parents' house, already henshined up; Arthur and Van and Tristan had gone to dinner, which made now the perfect time to go to space. It would give her two hours, give or take, to investigate the state of the Surrounding. "Are you ready to do this," she asked herself, trying to bury her nervousness with a sort of false, Captainly bravado. Or she hoped that was how would have it come across; the memories in the back of her mind were rushing through faster than she could remember them. It had been so long ago since she'd seen the temple-esque Virgoan Outpost...

What if her memories were wrong?

It struck her as she knelt in the middle of the living room, and it wrenched something in her chest. She couldn't fail, she wouldn't find anything terrible. Everything would be fine. She took a deep breath, listened closely for the sound of her star. A melody, she supposed, that was what she was listening for, but Themis hadn't exactly been clear when he'd described it. Other than saying everyone heard something different. So she took deep breaths and listened, as hard as she could, picking through the noises of the silent house, past the ringing in her ears.

There. It sounded like dusk, like water over stone, like wind through trees, and a faint, faraway din. She reached for it--with her mind?--and then pressed the 'home' button on her neat little cell phone.

The sensation of space travel wasn't very unpleasant, especially not compared to burning to death, to having a glass bottle jammed into her face, to dying in an explosion. She stood on the steps of her temple, suddenly, and deja vu rippled over her skin like someone had just dragged their nails down her spine. It was perfectly preserved, nearly exactly how she remembered it. The abrupt drop some hundred yards out, the pools of cool, clear water. Trees, blossoming in an eternal spring. Once, she'd experienced the seasons here. The ponds froze over, trees shed their leaves, there had been freezing rain and blooming flowers. Sometimes, whatever kept her outpost in its constant seasonal flux failed. She recognized the signs now in the carpet of petals an inch thick. They didn't flutter as she gingerly descended the steps, instead clinging wetly to the toes of her shoes.

Everything stood still, caught in mid-spring, but she felt like something was gradually coming out of hiding. A fact she was trying to ignore, and she felt as if she were being watched. Virgo turned on her heel, olive green eyes sweeping the promenade in front of the template. No one stood among the columns. She could sense no Chaos influence.

She knew something was wrong. As surely as she knew she was alone in the Surrounding, she knew something here wasn't at all as it should be. Virgo crouched just below a waterfall--it was really too small to call it a waterfall, but it was a natural creation, wasn't it?--and cupped her hand beneath the water. The petals plastered themselves against her skin; they felt wet and clammy, and she shook her hand as hard as she could.

The condition of the exterior of her temple triggered a sudden need to see the inside. She knew that the monsters had penetrated to a certain point. What she also knew assured her that it surely couldn't be so bad. She had given her life to protect the contents of that secret room, the room she'd never shown Huben or the Princess. It was irresponsible. Elke never would have done it, but like a flash she remembered that Arista hadn't been true Virgo, she'd been Libra in Virgo's body with Virgo's sphere. Of course she would err more towards balancing things.

She leapt neatly over the pond, skipped up the stairs to glide through the place where the door had once stood. They had been blown aside in that final assault on the Surrounding.

The first floor of her temple was destroyed. No piece of wood larger than her palm remained, rust stains littered the floor, and she pressed two fingers to her temple at a seconds-long flash of the monsters she'd been fighting. She rounded the bath--not full of petals, but the testament to the magically-sustained outpost was again visible in the lack of algae. The water was even warm when she trailed her fingertips through it.

Up the stairs, she took one look at the observation level and looked away. On the third floor, she stared for a moment at the ruined staircase to her personal quarters. The doors here, too, were torn away. She entered the eastern apartment, pressed her hands against the windowpane, and looked out over the trees. She'd look, and she'd see the cobbles of the Virgo section of the Surrounding. Every single Zodiac's section of the Surrounding was themed to match their outpost, if she remembered properly; cobblestones, to match the interior of the temple more than the exterior wild growth.

Out of superstitious fear, she closed her eyes and crossed the room. Counted to three, and then opened them.

The sight of the destroyed Surrounding tore a wail from her throat.

Entire sections of the cobblestone Surrounding were gone, and she could see the road flickering. Off in the distance, there was the small flicker of Huben's outpost, and nearer--nearer--

A complete break, wider than she could jump. An entire section of the cobbled road was missing. She took one step backwards. Then another, until she was running pell-mell down the stairs towards the other side of the outpost. Maybe it was just that one place. Perhaps it was something easier to fix, or to maintain by a continued presence. She could go to the Surrounding once a week, but if she stayed here as long as she could, maybe got a few other Zodiacs to come up she could probably go back to Earth for only a few hours. Would that be enough to restock on supplies?

These thoughts occupied her as she hopped over the small pools. She had no idea of the limitations of this space travel. Would she be automatically pulled back if she didn't return within a certain amount of time? She slowed to a stop just before the beginning of the slate-gray path of the Surrounding. The pathway to Libra was not much better, for all that she thought if she tried she could get across these breaks.

How many sections were like this? She couldn't go to anyone's outpost but her own. And the portal back to Chronos Castle was in her quarters… she couldn't access it. There was no way to tell, not from here.

It had been much shorter than two hours. Even without a watch, she could tell. She also knew that it would be absolutely terrible to linger there, to go to another Zodiac's outpost without them present. The questions stuck in her throat: How had this happened? Was the entire system vulnerable now? Most importantly, how could they fix it?

She took a deep, calming breath with her hands pressed over her mouth. For months, she had believed the Surrounding destroyed. She had believed there would be no way to see this place again. But she was here. This was okay. They knew the Surrounding was here and they could access it. Before, she hadn't known. Even this, she told herself, was a boon.

Then she saw the Surrounding disappear.

It vanished only for a moment. A flicker, more than a complete disappearance. But a moment, a flicker, that was a moment where the entire system was vulnerable. Anything could get in during those moments.

The Zodiac Captain, because she could sense no enemies nearby, allowed herself thirty seconds of hysterical crying. Then she wiped her eyes with her fingertips, and fumbled out her cell phone as she pulled herself together. Right now, she saw no solution to the problem. But she knew exactly what she had to do now, and that was report to the Princess.

Maybe Chronos would know what to do.