Welcome to Gaia! ::

Years. It had been several years since he had looked at the city as more than just a place he was a visitor of. His occasional visits, both personal and business had been short, spaced, and he'd removed himself from the urges to patrol, to fight. His planet was his home, his life was in Italy, he had left Destiny City to live in a land that was not so overrun with chaos.

And now he'd returned.

He'd felt the shifts, felt the losses, even with an ocean separating himself and the hub of order and chaos energies. He'd felt her corruption. He'd felt the end of the dream and a wish that the cauldron could not grant in this lifetime.

His brother kept him informed, kept him mildly aware; Contacts kept open he knew the shifts had changed yet- He walked alone on the street, avoiding the park and it's memories- things had not changed. They were still at war.

It wasn't something required, but yet it was something like formality. She was the eldest of those who'd come into their power, she was the one who could claim the blood of surrounding- the blood that tied to the white moon and by extension to earth.

There was no grand exclamation of his henshin. No posturing as he waited near what had once been Barren Pines. There was only a pulse of energy directed at one person- at one royal.

Castor sought Chronos.

It was odd to get back into feeling out energies- to go from nothing to being acutely aware of just what and who was around. He'd had energies pinging his senses like wildfire in a way- part of him screaming to go and find them, to assist, to fight- but he couldn't.

House calls came first.

The sight of both Chronos and her ever present maiden was welcomed with a smile, if a slightly melancholy one.

"Well, believe it." He joked, rubbing his arm where she'd hit him. It stung in that way that was almost pleasurable. The action reminiscent of the past- something he'd missed. He'd missed Flora's scoldings. He'd missed her way of being angry but not with him yet worried all the same. Her voice laced with that concern and yet fury at his actions or words. He'd missed her, and before he could stop himself, Castor had returned her hug with a small and short embrace of his own.

"It's good to see you again Flora." Letting her go, the senshi turned to the zodiac royal, momentarily standing straight and proud before bowing. "And you Chronos. As for your questions-" He reached out, flicking Flora's bow.

"I've been missing for four years- the more who know I'm back, the less chance I have of catching chaos off guard. I would have contacted you as a civ, but as I didn't know the situation I felt it better to come directly. Pollux is covering the more civilian side of things for us. For all intents and purposes, I've been a near figment as a civ while working on Castor." He held out his arm, gashes scarring him up and down. "Beetles took up residence in the capitol's cathedral. Been having to route them for the last 3 months." He sighed. The things he did to preserve the few places of his homeland that had withstood the test of time.

"But that's not why I hoped to call you out here- Your highness." He motioned for her to walk with him onto the grounds, knowing full well what they symbolized.

".... I need to talk with you. As one royal to another, about my plan of action... and what it might very well mean for you and those of your court." It was not the beginnings of a good conversation.

Flora was one of the few who kept the brother grounded, who in spite of everything, could and would stand up to them to remind them of their flaws, and who would not request but demand their attention to her words in feelings. It was not something born of fear or power or rank, but rather of friendship and that sort of platonic love one holds for someone dear to them.

Her texts were met with mild amusement from the senshi of Hail who couldn't help but notice her and the senshi of frost, who naturally, was left to feel mildly guilty because of course, Flora was indeed, right.

'you're welcome'

'and I'm sorry'

'i have never stopped sending you flowers and I certainly won't stop now'

'Thai, Italian, Greek- pick a cuisine and I'll cook us a dinner. I promise it'll be better than any restaurant'


Castor just turned his attention to Chronos, smiling. "Ha, it's fine really. The beetles are just... difficult. My crystal is one of the few things that can herd them and I'd rather take it slowly and safely than try to charge and evict them or have someone help only to see them get hurt." He pat the marks on his arm fondly. "Besides, used to be you weren't a man till you had a few beetle scars. It's about time I got a few of my own."

It was a divergent from the actual conversation, the one he needed to have.

The grounds of the fallen 'school' cast a grim shadow and reminder- that not everything was what it might appear to be, that often, death would be the inevitable for those caught in a war they knew nothing of.

"....Things haven't improved since I've been gone Chronos. Arguably, they've gotten worse." He kept his voice even, careful to not to imply that it was somehow her fault. "I felt them take her back; Her grove has fallen silent again." It wasn't hard to guess of who Castor spoke of.

"Pollux kept me updated with the stories, with what information he could- and when I got back a while ago I had hoped I was wrong, that it was just exaggerations... but Chaos is thick here Chronos. It would be a lie to say that there is balance." He kept walking, trying to pick his words carefully. "...." Trying to find the best was to describe what he felt he had to do.
"Castor was an empire Chronos. I was born to command and lead my people to war- to claim and establish dominance in the cosmos. If I found Chaos I was bound by my duty to eradicate it. To go to war, and take back that which had been lost to Order." He stopped to face her.

"In four years, Chaos has not been pushed back, but rather it has become stronger." He took a deep breath. "I swore alliance a lifetime ago to Mercury but she is no more, and so the allegiance of Castor to the white moon has dissolved with her death and lack of presence. Now, I find myself in a very conflicting place. Earth is without it's ruling family, and the closest one who may lay a claim is you Chronos. I have never sought to establish rule amongst the white moon court, and I do not seek that now." He looked a Flora, whatever happiness on his face fading and replace by a profound sadness.

"But under the circumstances, I cannot sit by and say nothing. I cannot claim to be an ally of a world that is slowly being consumed from within." He hoped she would understand.
"I plan to do as is my duty Chronos. What has transpired here- It is not fault I place upon you, but rather acknowledgement that if anyone should have the right to object to what I plan to do lies at your door, because what I say is not something I can ever take back, nor, something I take lightly for all it's implications."

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He did not wish to do this, he dearly wish it could be avoided- yet he felt the darkness within the darkness. Chaos would not stop it's conquest of earth, not even if it's peoples were all dead and gone.

"The Dioskouri plan to declare war upon Earth." Castor would not be acting alone. They had never acted alone.

"Dioskouri." He repeated for Flora. "It is the forces of Castor and Pollux acting as one. It's more... a formality really." He rubbed the back of his neck.

His shoulders slouched and walking to a fallen bit of concrete, he sat himself down, hands folding into themselves, head and eyes low. "I wish I could say I know- but the truth is I recall little of white moon. My past was spent going world to world, fighting, and returning home as either victor or honored champion. I was never a failure, the faith of my people in me was absolute. To lose a war was to do so because we were not strong enough.. and even in this life, I personally don't enjoy losing a war."

"I'm sorry if I offended you Chronos- but the fact is we, the senshi, are losing this war. The balance is tipping back and forth, and I do not think it tips in our favor. Can you tell me, with certainty, that for each one they take from us, another is born?" It was something no one person could answer perhaps but cosmos herself. "In war, nothing is certain. I allowed myself the ideal that perhaps I could live a life with some small happiness and I have found the truth of that lesson hard and cruel in it's reality." His fingers tightened, clenching.
"Many of the senshi are loyal to the white moon- who do have loyalty to Earth. There are Knights, but even they are of divided loyalties. When we go to war it is not our intent to seek battle or war with them- but those who have taken earth as their own. This is not something that can be easily said because they are a part of Earth. War is war. If I openly make known that my alliance with white moon has dissolved, that alone is a cause for war. So here lies the problem we face."
He looked up at her.

"We will have to declare war sooner or later Chronos. The longer we delay, they more risks we run by saying nothing, by acting behind a curtain we hide the facts that are before us. Earth is being consumed by Chaos, and if we make our declaration now over later inevitably, the outcome will be the same. If it means that we must fight senshi or knights who would try to stop us from our goals to eradicate the blight that plagues Earth-" There was a flicker of something in his gaze, the knowledge, the threat, the understanding of just who he was speaking to and what he was saying- and very well, what it might mean for them all,

"-we will kill them."

A single text to Flora-
'3 course meal with flowers- as I expect we'll have a lot to discuss.'

He listened. He listened not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He wanted to understand, he wanted to know what was it that they had faced. What they would face for eternity.

He was silent. He was unmoving. All that he did was breathe and stare at the pair of them before closing his eyes.

"You're wrong Chronos." His eyes opened, dead, cold, and lacking. Something had died in Castor. How long ago it had died was anyone's guess, but something that had once lived in him had died, and left behind something grotesque in it's place.

"They are murderers. They are sadists. They are vengeance and hatred and they are white moon. Protecting what? Who? How many would leave strangers to die, just to save themselves? How many would justify and claim they are only 'protecting' others when they hunt down and murder children? There is good in them, but that does not make them good." He stood, staring still at the Princess and her protector.
"I am not good Chronos."

His gaze shifted back to the remains of Barren Pines. "I am what they fear. I am a murderer. I am an invader. I am a senshi." Hope had died, and it had left behind hatred so deep, it had consumed a part of him.

"And I will kill anyone who will try and stop me from destroying those who would harbor Chaos." And there in his eyes, was nothing left of the man that had once promised to save the world.
"Including you."

He offered no apologies, no considerations, no alternatives, nothing. He had drawn a line in the sand and refused to cross it. Black and white, stubborn and prideful. These had not changed.
Everything else had.

His gaze moving to Flora, Castor's cold glare did not falter or soften, he only walked toward her, hands firmly clenched at his sides. Warm had utterly left him, leaving him cold and empty. "The senshi had nearly three years to cleanse this city Flora. As far as I can tell they have done nothing to tip the scales."

He stared her down.

"I will give the negaverse what it's wanted since the day I henshined under Hillworth." He smiled.
"One month and then I will give them war."

Conversation had died. There was nothing to talk of anymore, only to say. And his part said there was no reason to remain. He just kept that illusion of a smile as he walked, turning both his back on Flora, and the evidence of the cost that war would bring.