Welcome to Gaia! ::

There wasn’t a whole lot of setup you could do at Olympus. The benches didn’t move, so you didn’t need to worry about your seating arrangements. The location was dramatic to begin with, so there was very little to be done in the way of set dressing. Trying to sweep the packed-sand floor of the arena would only stir up more dust, so that was flat out.

So really, the extent of Babylon’s efforts could be summed up as “a cooler of bottled water and a Costco-sized variety pack of granola bars,” and he was already sweating about how much of a pain in the a** all those wrappers would be to clean up. You could tell people to take their trash with them at the end of the event, but there would always be that one a*****e… So went elementary schoolers in national parks, so too went knights.

He turned to Hvergelmir.

“Any prep left on your end?” he asked. “Or should we tell the code to send out the call?”

While Babylon had been setting up their little mini-display of offered water bottles and granola bars, Hvergelmir had been tracing the outer boundaries of the amphitheater with a rucksack and a little package of Command removable wall hooks, sticking them to pillars at evenly spaced intervals. With the help of a good amount of internet research, she’d done what she could to clean up the beautiful old coats of arms that Titan had given her, and she hung each one up with care on one of the Command hooks, ringing the space neatly with the ancestral colors of a group of the knights of old that had once visited the great court here on Earth. Some of them, no doubt, belonged to knights that might come to the meeting tonight. Others, perhaps not — there was at least one she thought she recognized whose knight she knew could not come to claim it. Probably there were others. Dead. Corrupted. Not yet awakened.

Here, she thought, was the best place for them to wait — to maybe someday be claimed. If nothing else, they were reminders of a proud legacy that each of them shared: a history that belonged to them, and to the knights before. A great brotherhood that might someday be strong and united once more.

Come back to us, the plaques seemed to say, hanging here. All our lost brothers and sisters. See how we have saved you a place.

In the end, though, that was all the preparation there was to be done. Everything else — the topics they wanted to discuss, the things they’d say, the demonstrations — Hvergelmir had gone over those things backwards and forwards. It was all memorized, practiced.

For better or for worse, they were ready.

“I think that’s it,” she said, trying to quell the fluttering of nerves in her stomach as she returned to her friend’s side. “I guess it’s time.”

Babylon surveyed the work Hvergelmir had done with the coats of arms. He recognized the golden crown and daffodils of Avalon, Mistral and Babylon’s combined targe with its blue hyacinths - and there were others he could and couldn’t guess at, rising stars and griffons and bolts from the blue and castle walls that ancient knights had carried as signs of their sworn houses.

Olympus benefited from the adornment, he thought, looking less abandoned and more like a workable space. Atmosphere was everything. Maybe people would feel more welcome to use it now that the seal of historical pristineness was broken.

“Alright,” he said, turning towards the code’s hazy presence. “You heard the lady. Send the call.”

Olympus was, on this occasion, cast in daylight: the distant sun glowing hazy through the Martian atmosphere, casting long shadows between the theater’s huge columns. At the center stage of the area stood two knights: one a woman dressed in white, with an antlered golden staff at her side and iridescent hair piled on her head; the other a man, slightly taller, in the blues and furs of Mercury, with tousled brown hair and a lantern of beautifully colored glass dangling from his hand.

“Welcome,” they each offered to some of the arriving knights in turn. Sometimes it was “Thank you for coming,” or sometimes, “Please, feel free to have a seat.” They pointed out the refreshments, then waited till it seemed like most of the knights who were planning on attending had gathered.

Eventually, when they were all assembled and mostly seated, the woman in white glanced at the man in blue for reassurance, then looked out over the small crowd. “For those of you who have never been here before,” she began, stilling a small tremor in her hand as she raised her voice to be heard, “we’re currently standing on Mars. This is Olympus — a thousand years ago, this was the place where we, and our ancestors, gathered as knights. We’re here again because we’re knights again. We’re glad you all could be here.”

Her eyes moved between familiar faces in the group, settling on them for affirmation. Her grip was a little tight on her distaff. “I’m Hvergelmir Knight of the Cosmos,” she said. “And this is Babylon Knight of Mercury.” She looked back over at her companion.

Babylon waved, an air of sheepishness about the gesture despite his overall attempts at looking like he knew what he was doing. “Hi,” he said, surveying the crowd. It was as good a turnout as they could have expected for an event like this, a good mix of veterans and fresh faces. He just had to hope that the veterans would see it as a valuable networking opportunity and not a lecture about things they already knew.

He cleared his throat. “So, as you might’ve noticed, this whole knight thing doesn’t really come with an instruction manual. The senshi have got cats, at least, but we all awaken on our own and have to figure our s**t out from there.” There wasn’t anyone so young that he couldn’t swear in the audience, he thought, scanning the crowd. Knights didn’t typically come in Chibi varieties. He’d met some young ones, but all at ages he’d feel comfortable dropping s-bombs around.

So: moving on. “Hvergelmir and I have like nine years combined experience or something nutso like that, and then there’s this thing.” He gestured to the Code’s hazy presence. “The Code. That’s what called you here today. It’s a magical construct that exists to serve us - preserve our history, help us along, make sure we’re working together as intended, and push us to grow in ways we didn’t know we could. It’s thousands of years old. As old as our order.”

Maybe older.

“We were thinking that today we’d go over some basics,” said Babylon. “If that sounds like a class you’ve already taken in the school of hard knocks, you’re free to go. We won’t be offended. But, for everyone else, we’re gonna talk about signet rings and wonders and ancestors, and then we’re gonna open the floor up for questions and you can ask me dumb s**t like where babies come from.”

Hvergelmir couldn’t help but smile. Babylon would, undoubtedly, always be Babylon. “If you’re here,” she said, “then you’ve awakened to your powers as a knight — and as knights, we’re each tied to our own ancient piece of land that allows us to command a certain amount of what we think of as magical ability.”

“Yer a wizard, Harry!” someone in the crowd shouted out.

Hvergelmir raised her eyebrows and smiled again. “Yes,” she agreed. “That’s more or less true.” Pausing only briefly, she went on, “For some of you, the land you share a connection with is a place somewhere here on Earth. For many of the rest of us, that land is somewhere deep within the reaches of space — either within our Solar System, or outside it. We each have the power to visit that place and see what our ancestral land once looked like, just like we were able to come here to Mars today . . . but remember that these places — we call them Wonders — have had to survive for thousands of years, often without human protection. They may not be safe to you or to any strangers you take with you.”

They’d decided to leave out the homeworld oath for this part of the speech. No matter how much they stressed ‘don’t try this now,’ it was entirely too likely that someone was going to accidentally or purposely try it anyway, and wind up disappearing from their meeting to parts unknown far too early. Practical applications of knowledge were something they planned to do later, after the rest of it was finished.

“As knights, our connection to our lands is unique, and it differs somewhat from the connections we see in the people we refer to as sailor soldiers. We’re tied to our land both by our blood and by our souls, for lack of a better term — which means the power we wield is an inheritance that we can either pass down to future generations of our bloodlines, or that will pass down to us once again in our next incarnation. Babylon,” she said leadingly, “is what we call a Descendant Knight.”

Babylon gave Hvergelmir a little bit of a who, little old me look, touching a hand to his chest. This got a few laughs from the crowd. “Joking aside,” he said, “that’s what I am, and that’s what some of you are, too. We’re the closest descendants of whoever last held our title. Usually, it’s direct, but you might be a cousin or something. Anyway, a thousand years is a long time, so if you don’t look anything like your ancestor, it’s ok, it doesn’t mean you’re the milkman’s baby.”

That got a few laughs. Babylon smiled, pleased with himself, and then continued. “So I mentioned ancestors, and you might be thinking, hey, Babylon, what the hell is that? Simply put, your ancestor is the last knight of your wonder, and they’ve been standing a vigil waiting for you since literally the end of the Silver Millennium.They’ve been very lonely for a very long time and if they’re rude or cryptic to you when you first meet them, that’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’d be pissed off, too, if you were in their shoes.”

“Your ancestor is a wealth of knowledge, so at least try to get on their good side,” he continued. “If it seems like they’re testing you, they probably are. Most of them want you to succeed, though, so that’s nice, and if it ever seems like they’re trying to deliberately sabotage you, just remember - they’re dead. You’re the knight now, and ultimately, your actions are your own. They can advise you, but you can decide whether or not to take that advice. You get to decide who you are.”

He let that sink in for a moment, and then segued to, “So that’s one thing you might find the first time you visit your wonder. Hver, you want to tell them about rings?”

Babylon took a step back and watched admiringly as Hvergelmir ran through her description of aspects. That about covered it, he thought - they were ready to move on to the next subject. He ran through his mental list, wished he’d made a notecard of everything, and then raised his hand to the leather cord around his neck. “I think we’re about ready to wrap up,” he said, unfastening the knot and pulling on the charm.

“So that leaves summons,” he said. “A summons is sort of like…”

He searched the crowd for the knight who’d made the earlier Harry Potter reference. “Sort of like a patronus,” he said, shooting the nerd in question a friendly wink. “Each one has an individual form and magical effect.”

He glanced towards Hvergelmir to see if she had anything to add there, and then added, “As far as we know, you can only find and call upon your summons after you’ve already reached knight rank. You’ll find something at your Wonder, a totem of some kind.”

He held up the necklace, a small, feline figurine on a leather cord. “This is mine.”

He ran a finger over the figurine, and a ghostly snow leopard with piercing blue eyes appeared at his side. It looked warily at the crowd, and then began to pace in a wide circle around Babylon and Hvergelmir.

“And this,” Hvergelmir said, holding up one hand toward the audience. On one of her fingers, stone turned inward toward the palm, was a ring set with an opal stone. She flicked her finger across it. “Is mine.”

Stardust glimmered in the air at her side, and a large sort-of-a-caribou appeared from it, touching down weightlessly to the floor. It had a huge, golden rack of antlers that dripped starlight. The creature knelt down to the ground, and Hvergelmir slipped one leg over its back to mount up before it rose to its golden hooves again. “Eikthyrnir here is very powerful — but that draws on the same reserves of magical energy that I use for my staff magic. I get about a minute of use out of them total, but I have to divide that up carefully. However, once you understand what ability your own summons partner has, you might find it’s very useful. For example — ”

The caribou rose up on its hind legs, then dashed forward into a jump, straight at the audience — but there was nothing overhead when it made its leap except a soft shower of starlight, dissipating into the air. Hvergelmir’s voice came instead from the back of the room.

“ — Eikthyrnir is a teleporter. That’s a power I always want to make sure I keep in my back pocket, in case I need to make a quick exit.” She dismounted from the caribou’s back, ran a hand over its neck, then waited as it disappeared into stardust just as it had arrived. Hvergelmir came back down the center aisle to rejoin Babylon at the front of the room.

“What you make of your abilities is up to you. But you should know at least a little about the people out there who might try to kill you — because if you haven’t already experienced it, there’s a good chance someone out there is going to try and take your life even if you haven’t provoked them. Chaos — the force that powers the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror Court — has two factions that we know of. One is more aggressive, with its methods of control more obviously visible; the other is more subtle, its mission and methods still less clear to us. The first of these factions is the larger group. They call themselves the Negaverse.”

And with that, the ball was back in Babylon’s corner. This suited him fine - he cleared his throat, passed his fingers over the totem again to vanish his summons, and said, helpfully, “Maybe you’ve heard of them?” Which got a few groans from the crowd.

“The Negaverse is a paramilitary organization that serves Chaos and Queen Metallia, not that anyone’s ever seen Queen Metallia, but they talk about her a lot and we’ve heard reports from ex-agents of theirs, so we’re kind of operating on the assumption that she’s a real thing,” he explained. “They collect civilian energy and starseeds and are generally bad news. You lose your starseed, you lose your life, so it’s generally in your favor to keep those things in your chest.”

s**t, had they forgotten to brief everyone on starseeds? Well, it was too late for that now. He was just going to have to power through it.

“The Negaverse employs monsters called youma to assist them in their goals. Youma come in a variety of power levels and appearances - do not underestimate them, because their abilities are unpredictable, and even if something looks stupid, it could kill you.”

Hopefully, he thought, that got the point across. Youma were not something to ******** around with.
“Officers of the Negaverse have ranks roughly equivalent to ours,” he continued. “Lieutenant. Captain. General. General King or Queen. They don’t have magic like we do, but their weapons get deadly as they level up, so that’s something to watch out for, too.”

He took a moment to pause and scan the crowd. There were a few people present who’d come over from the Negaverse, so he was going to stay away from explaining their origin story - it was a great way to start a fight. So, instead, he settled for, “A lot of them will try to kill you. Some of them will try to convert you. Don’t fall for it. The dark side isn’t better, and it doesn’t have cookies.”

He thought that was a pretty good line, so he gave it a moment to sink in, and then turned to Hver. “So that brings us back to the Dark Mirror.”

“The Dark Mirror Court are a group of senshi — like the Order-energy-powered senshi some of you might choose to work with — but who’ve chosen to swear their allegiance to Chaos in exchange for a different form of power. They look similar to the corrupted senshi who serve the Negaverse — both wear black uniforms — but the Negaverse’s senshi have cracked holes in their chests and foreheads, whereas the Dark Mirror Court’s servants wear gauzy uniforms.

“The Dark Mirror Court are less actively violent — and they advertise themselves as being unaffected by the Chaos that powers them. They claim that their goal is to gain access to their homeworlds in space, and repopulate there — but we have no evidence this is the case, and it’s counter-intuitive at best. Senshi already have access to this ability without needing to forge any kind of a pact with Chaos. In fact, they lose this ability on conversion to the Dark Mirror Court. We encourage you to make your own decisions as to who you ally yourselves with, but please exercise extreme caution in this regard. Guard your civilian identity closely, even with those people in other factions that you personally trust — remember that you might trust an individual, but that doesn’t mean we know whether we can trust the Chaos that they serve.”

Soapboxing aside, Hvergelmir returned to more pertinent information. “Their magic works very similarly to Order-powered senshi magic — they cast it using incantations, and it has limited uses. Dark Mirror senshi can’t travel to space, but they do have a particular ability to walk through mirrors, to some extent, and some sort of headquarters within the mirrors themselves. Like the Negaverse, they steal energy from people. They use shadow-looking creatures to do so. They work quickly, but the creatures are generally less dangerous than youma and easier to defeat.”

Wanting to lighten the topic a little, Hvergelmir moved on to their next point. “Fortunately, as knights, we’re not alone in this war. We have frequent allies in a group of people called sailor senshi. They’re powerful warriors, and where we use a combination of magic and the items we wield in combat, they command raw magical power that we can’t match, even from the moment they awaken. They dress in at least partially white uniforms, and they look like — well, most of them look like they’re wearing some form of sailor suit, frankly — like you might imagine. Their advantage is in their magical expertise. Our advantage is in our ability to function and expand our abilities independently. In order to unlock greater power, sailor senshi need the help of Mauvians.”

Hvergelmir took a breath. “I don’t know how else to put this,” she said. “But Mauvians are talking cats. However you choose to make peace with that idea, that’s the basic gist of it. They’re alien creatures that were reincarnated, like many of us, and while some of them can assume a partly human-looking form, the majority of the time they look like fairly average housecats. Usually the sailor senshi will partner with them, since the Mauvians can provide them with some guidance and access to their higher power levels, and sometimes create items for them.”

He didn't want to go.

The nagging sensation at the back of his mind was one that Celsus tried to ignore for the better part of a few minutes, his mind already working frantically to try and suppress the sudden desire to go to Olympus. He'd been there once already, he did not want to go again, did not want to face what lay right in front of him. He tried to focus instead on extinguishing the youma that he'd been in the middle of fighting, finally crumbling it to dust in the next beat, but it was dissatisfying.

His hands were shaking, and he did not look well, dark circles beneath his eyes, face paler than usual, a slight tremor running through him. The voice was wavering in his mind, and Celsus could not ignore it for much longer, his heart in his throat as the idea wrapped around him like a serpent's tendrils, and finally, he gave in, closing his eyes.

When he opened them, he was there.

There were others, of course, and the two at the front, both vaguely recognizable, though none personally acquainted with him. Celsus felt his head swimming, felt the throbbing of his pulse under his skin and couldn't quite relax, his hand twitching in an attempt at summoning his whip for a familiar weight of it. It did not, however, appear, and his eyes went mutinously towards the Code, his breath catching in his throat.

He said nothing, but stood there, rocking back on his heels, waiting and listening for the time being.

He had missed the last meeting due to some....distractions, but he was here now and that was all that mattered right? That and the feeling in the back of his head that just wouldnt go away, he thought it had something to do with this...What? Meeting? When Aaru arrived at Olympus, he took in all the sights from being here for the first time. It made him think of his wonder, all decrepid and virtually depressing. Here's to hoping he ccan soon figure out just HOW it came to be that way.

If anything, maybe his father knew something? Or perhaps pop pops knew? They were the ones that presented the ring to him like it was some sort of treasured family heirloom or something. To him, it was just a ring that he could go into space with and transform into some sort of powered entity known as a knight? Anyway, Aaru quickly found himself a spot and just sat there quietly, marveling at the information he was being told.

What was the Codex? Theres talkign cats now in addition to senshi and negas? And dark mirror senshi are someting entirely different? What? Best to just sit and listen to other people before he spoke so he could gather as much information as he could.

Quinn had been working on school work when he felt the tug from the code. With a sigh he pushed away from his desk and tossed an annoyed glare at the ceiling. The scruffy man knew that it was a voluntary trip but the last one, while extremely inconvenient, did give him a ring upgrade. So with some internal muttering he closed his eyes and accepted the summons.

Havasu blinked rapidly trying to adjust to his new surroundings, still a bit disconcerted just how easy it was for this amorphous thing to drag his a** 34 million miles in a split second... at best guess. The last time he had been here Havasu decided to look up the actual distance that the code would have to bring them and found that it all depended on where the Earth was in relation to Mars at the time of the call. Granted it was all a moot point since he could travel to his own wonder in the same amount of time and Pluto was hell of a lot longer way away.

The cowboy didn't have much longer to contemplate the shear amount of magic involved in their travel before the duo at the front of the group started to talk. It didn't take long before he realized that this meeting really was going to be a 'knighthood for dummies' kinda deal but he kept his mouth shut, after all he might learn something new.

He listened quietly as they covered pretty much everything Havasu already knew, he eyed the crowd. There was such a mix of people it was quite surprising and yet he didn't know a single one of them, not really. He might have passed a few of them here or there but Havasu had never actually realized just how singular he had become.

It was during this search of the crowd that the dirty blond spotted a redhead in a white cape who didn't look so hot. Havasu couldn't put his finger on it but his curiously was piqued so when it came time for questions and the like he casually stood up and made his way over to the other knight via a roundabout route. First he stopped to pick up two bottles of water and a few granola bars before finally coming to a stop a short distance from the redhead. "Water?" He offered quietly holding the extra bottle out. For once Havasu didn't want to draw a lot of attention to himself, besides obviously a few people had questions so distracting them from getting answers wasn't the best idea.