Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Castle was usually a busy place, but tonight it was a bit more so. Axinite was standing in the main hall in the castle, fifteen minutes early to the advertised meeting time. He stood before a shiny metallic door with a black star in the middle. About hip high was what appeared to be a complex keypad and card swiper—and below that, a similar device a little less than a foot from the ground.

A small group of Mauvians already seemed to be gathering and, while Axinite seemed to be eager to talk to the group he also seemed particularly intent to wait until the printed start time. He offered polite smiles to the Mauvians as they arrived.

He was hoping for a full crowd; this meeting had been advertised for a little over a week. Posters had been hung up in all the common area, emails had been sent, communication crystals had been pinged, and all the computers had a little pop up reminding the Mauvians of this meeting every time they logged in. Suffice to say, he had gone through a lot of effort to ensure that everyone knew tonight was important. He had even offered to pick up the Mauvians who might not have had a ride to the Castle.

With every new Mauvian who arrived, he handed them a plain white swipe card, asking them only to hold onto it for the time being.

The thin, grey tabby slunk into the designated meeting room, after begging a ride from Sailor Dia. It felt extremely wrong to have to not be able to make it to Negaspace himself, considering they were valued members of the organization.... but that was neither here nor there. Grendel would bow respectfully to the General King when he entered, graciously accepting the plain strip of plastic with interest before he took it in his mouth and beat a retreat.

The door with the black star was eyed curiously, and he assumed that this card had something to do with it, given the keypads... but, he supposed that Axinite would reveal all when it was time. The Russian Blue across the room was given a studying glance as well, and if she happened to meet his eye, the tabby flicked his ears before giving a polite little nod.

It wouldn't do to be rude. After all, there were many more guardian cats that had seen the sense of the Negaverse these days, and he hardly knew any of them.

Sensing more turning up Katya turned her green eyes away from the door, though it was certainly difficult to do as it was intriguing. She couldn't help but wonder what was behind that door, no doubt the little white card was set up to open it though.

As her eyes moved away from the door she caught sight of the tabby nodding their head to her. Returning the gesture she stood slowly, and taking a moment to stretch headed his way. As she did that another cat turned up and plopped themself at the tabby's side.

"I'm not the only one, just perhaps the only one here tonight." She stated as she drew closer. "I'd expect the others to turn up, this seems rather important." And she would hope that any other guardian cats would turn up to something important, as was their duty. Seating herself on the free side of the tabby cat she glanced over to Bob for a moment. She had seen him before, but only once. She wasn't terribly familiar with the other guardian cats - a shame really.

He laughed at the lady cat's rather informative comment, his true insinuation clearly going way over her pretty little head. That was more than okay; it bettered his chances if she was as light in her head as she was on her feet, right?

"That's alright, cutie - I only need one to have a good time. It's nice to know that I have options, though."

He gave the pretty green eyed gal a wink before the sudden outburst of an overly excitable kitten appeared on the scene. He bounced forward, dropping a rather pitiful looking poster towards the General King. The paper looked rather soggy and the Maine Coon couldn't help but wonder if the saturation had come from the kitten's own mouth....

Well, that was interesting to say the least.

Paired with the wagging of his tail, the ginger cat couldn't help but chuckle to himself. This one seemed more pup than kitten - but whatever worked, as long as it served the Negaverse, eh?

Axinite looked down at Haymitch, the briefest trace of confusion on his face. “Oh,” he said. “Thank you.”

He hesitated for a moment before he knelt to pick up the soaked poster. He smiled at Haymitch and tried to smooth out the poster before folding it up and tucking it into his pocket.

When he had finished, he checked his watch again. The moment the clock struck the hour, he looked up and smiled to the group. “Hello, welcome. I’m so happy you all could make it. I appreciate your attendance and am really looking forward to working with you all on this. The Castle has been undergoing some changes for a while now. We took the liberty to not only repair, but also to expand. As you can see,” he gestured to the metal door behind him, “Construction is finally complete. I know you all have been incredibly patient while we were undergoing this project and I appreciate that. The Castle took on a lot of damage last year and unfortunately the structural damage prevented us from completing this until just recently. But, I hope once you see the inside of it, you’ll forgive the delay.”

He gestured to the door. “I’d like for you all to familiarize yourself with this location, if you can. There are many areas to the Castle that are open to everyone, but this one exists just for you. I would like to present to you—Mauvian Headquarters.”

He gave them a moment to let that settle in before he continued, “If I could draw everyone’s attention to the cards I’ve handed out?”

He lifted one to show them. “This is going to be a temporary pass to access this room. Only you—and the other General Sovereigns and, of course, Queen Laurelite, have these cards. To activate them, you simply need to touch your star to them and your information should be translated. This card will register you into the database and give you some extra access privileges, but they won’t be updated until you swipe the card in this panel. To enter the room you can swipe the card, but within seventy two hours of registering to the database you can align your star to the scanner and it should open.”

He paused to offer a polite smile. “If you’d all like to do that now, we can move into your new Headquarters. If you have any questions before we begin the tour, please feel free to ask them.”

Bellalunae knew she was running a little behind schedule. Not her first choice, but she had some things to attend too. Plus sadly she had just seen the flyer yesterday, so it didn't give her much time to adjust her schedule. Thankfully though she was able to call in some favors, which got her here just in time somehow. As her little black paws hit the ground as she walked towards the gathered group.

She didn't really know many of the other cats but she honestly didn't let it bother her. As she calmly walked in just in time to grab a white swipe card between her teeth. Which was just in time to hear the mention of a headquarters of sorts. Headquarters, she thought quietly to herself. Now things were getting interesting. A headquarters just for them and a few others sounded cool. Almost like a story she had typed up once where a general found a headquarters to call his teams own, but in his case his was haunted. So it didn't quiet work out to well for them in the end.

She quickly shook her head and focused her thoughts back to the meeting. She slowly walked over and said, "Mind if I try?" She just tried to think of it like the computer she used to have to jump too. As she got her short stubby black back legs ready to pounce and took off towards the wall. Once she hit there - she connected her legs to wall and took off upwards one more time towards the scanner. Gripping onto the card in her mouth for dear life, as she attempted to swipe it at the scanner. Probably leaving a few teeth marks in the card on accident, while trying to hold it for the swipe. Before falling back down to the ground onto her four feet.

"Did I get it by chance?" she questioned as she waited to see what would happen next. She thought she hit it, but she wasn't honestly quite sure. Since she forgot to ask which way to swipe before jumping. The sad part was she wasn't even trying to be a show off, she just wanted to really badly see what the headquarters looked like. Well that and she honestly didn't really ever consider how people around her saw her. It was more like she was oblivious to their thoughts and only saw the stories in her head.

He was surrounded by idiots.

Not that Bob minded, of course, when everything was said and done. Not having any overachievers among their midst meant that standards and expectations were at an all time low - which was actually rather perfect for his lazy existence.

Giving the green eyed gal an eyebrow waggle, he then turned to watch a particularly snooty looking dark Persian make a point about their lack of opposable thumbs. It was a decent point to make, though he couldn't help but snicker at how pompous and ridiculous the little thing was. Hell, in truth, Bob's focus was more on the dapper looking top hat and bow instead of the notion that they'd have a struggle with their cards. His was still tucked away behind his ratty, aged tie and one paw moved up to gently dislodge it from its temporary pocket. The plastic dropped to the floor and he tore his gaze away from Mr. Snoot long enough to stare at the generic swipe card.

Red probably had the brightest idea of all of them, the echoing thud, thud, thud of her forehead smacking the plastic card echoing through the large room. Ran into a few too many walls, that one.

"Pretty sure you just have to rest it there, Red." Leaning down, he pressed his own star against the card, which only had minor scrapes from his claws' handling and not the massive amount of drool or bite marks that the over-excitable duo's did.

At least it was just once, right? Sliding cards was definitely not a task he was looking forward to - his toebeans might not be as soft as they used to be, but holding plastic in between them was still a struggle and hurt.

Axinite blinked at the inquiries about scanning. “Oh—no, you don’t need to hold them up. There’s a scanner right here.” He moved aside to make sure everyone could both scanners. The scanner he had used was installed just about waist high, but the second scanner was installed only a few inches above his ankle. “I understand some of you might choose to stay in either of your two forms, so we tried to make it convenient so you wouldn’t have to shift between them. I understand the cards may be difficult, but if it’s any consolation, in three days’ time, max, you won’t need to use them and the system will recognize you just by your star. There is a camera here,” he tapped a thin, glass circle barely visible in a panel just about eye-level, “So please remember to face it if you are not in your smaller form.”

He smiled apologetically to Theodore and Bellalunae but looked at Lyssa with barely disguised alarm. He moved to her and said quickly, “Here, let me help.”

Her card was likely useless at this stage of its life; he knelt with a new card and pressed it carefully to her forehead for a second before swiping it vertically in the lower leveled scanner. It made a quiet ‘ping’ noise and he handed the card back to her.

“If any of you need assistance, I’ll be happy to help you. I’m sorry for the oversight, I’m still getting used to working with Mauvians,” he said. “I’ll make time after the tour to see that you are all set up. This will be much easier when the system can register your stars.”

Axinite twisted just slightly and withdrew his own card so he could slide it through the scanner. Like Lyssa’s, it beeped—only, this time, the door opened with a soft hiss. He drew the clipboard he’d come equipped with closer to his chest and stood up again. From here, he gestured for the group to enter first.

The hallway was lit with bright lights and a cool air seemed to be flowing through the vents. The corridor was clearly more high tech than most other parts of the castle, though several crystals were visibly charging the panel attached to the door.

The corridor opened into a large, open room. Several lager computers, not unlike those in the computer lab, lined the far wall. A few seemed to have been modified to adapt to Mauvian proportions. Large crystals were plugged into each of these and wires were carefully tucked out of the way. Work benches and tools lined another wall and several pillows, chairs, and tables were placed off to the side.

Axinite was one of the last to step in; after he and the last few Mauvians entered, the door to the castle closed behind them.

“This will be Mauvian Headquarters—a special area of the castle specifically designed on your needs. These computers are hooked up to the database we have in place, though unlike the computers in the lab these will allow you to access the tablets. I’ll go into those in a moment, though. Right now, I’d actually like to touch on this.”

He moved to a circular slab in the corner of the room. It seemed to be made of a shiny, polished silver material and had several purple crystals strategically embedded in it. Axinite seemed particular proud of this and announced, “This is your own little portal from Destiny City, here. Only Mauvians can access it. It is your doorway in and out of Negaspace. I understand some of you must have been inconvenienced to arrive here tonight, but from now on you can take your transportation into your own hands. This teleporter was proposed and designed by our very own, Tiberius and Bob. Right now we only have two of these installed—one here, and one in the teacher’s lounge at Romano’s, but we may install more pending need and security. I would encourage anyone interested in the structure and stability to discuss with either Tibs or Bob but we will have the blueprint available. Unfortunately, we have been unable to recreate these en masse so far—the crystals are incredibly difficult to acquire—but I assure you that it should be safe to use these teleporters as often as you like.”