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It was time.

Dagon had taken far too long, dithering over preparations. But she had what she needed, now; a map, a path, and a crystal bottle of shimmering water from the first, uncorrupted healing spring. She and Frigoris had recovered what they’d needed from the sacred archives, and while it still made her chest ache to have broken the sacred laws of the Dagonite priesthood, she was sure the gods beneath would forgive, when the survival of the world was at stake.

If the gods still had any power to forgive or not. Perhaps they, too, had been taken, like everything else.

Dagon waited on the edge of a fountain, and though it was shut off for the season, it was still a rallying point that she could offer. A light fog swirled around her feet, a manifestation of magic she carried with her.

Almost four years ago, now, Dagon had arrived not far from this very park, this very fountain. Now, she waited here for those who had responded to the call she had put out asking for assistance in saving her world from Chaos. She alone could not fight through the animate creatures that had begun to amass on her world, and she suspected there would be further protections around the heart of the Chaos.

She could not do this alone. But here, on Earth, there was no need to be alone. She had seen that, over and over. The people of this planet were more than willing to turn out to assist each other. So she had to hope they would arrive to assist her.

Frigoris of the Moon
Frigoris stood beside Dagon and reached out for her hand, giving a soft smile. “They’ll come.” She hadn’t ever dealt with anything like this before, not in person, not out of person too, if that was a thing but the idea that Order could and would come together? It was a nice one.

She believed in it.

“I’m not sure how many to expect, but I’m very excited to see the results. We’ll make this place as wonderful as it should be.”

Even if Dagon was the Senshi of Dread, it didn’t mean that the real dread should come from Chaos.

“You know you have my support no matter what, and I’ll be right by your side. We’ll beat this.”

Haldane, Super Senshi of Doubt

And here he was once again, volunteering himself to help people he didn't know, do something he had no idea about. If Bell knew she would no doubt be questioning his sense of self-preservation, amongst other things. As it was, Haldane arrived with a jaunty step, very orange cat coded. No visible thought behind those bright eyes and dopey smile. A brain eating bacteria would die in his noggin.

Eternal Sailor Tempesti, Transcended Senshi of Harpies

Dagon’s call had been unexpected, but it was only a matter of moments before Tempesti followed the pull off-planet and into the strange world in which she stood. An unfamiliar deep space senshi waited at the lip of a nearby fountain and the newly arrived senshi of harpies couldn’t help but wonder if they were here in aid of her planet. Not wanting to interrupt her conversation with the knight by her side, she scanned the other arrivals. She recognized Murikabushi immediately and offered him a wave before turning her attention to the less than ebullient Sailor Bacchus. Her friend was clearly not enjoying this new setting, and frankly the fact that he was still standing here was something of a surprise. A slight grimace of concern creased her face as she walked over before wordlessly gesturing for him to follow her back toward the group.

She was fully aware that she lacked the ability to heal the wounds festering within him, but she knew that the deep space senshi needed noise. Interaction. Even if it was just a band-aid. One she was almost certain he’d attempt to strengthen with his less than healthy habits once he had the opportunity.

Super Grieve of The Collapse

It was time for another senshi world to strip out the chaos that clung to it. Time for the universe to return by a single speck. It'd be a whole world of a speck though. Glancing down at the golden coils of hair and glinting netting next to her, Grieve felt a certain otherness, beyond what every day on this world brought.

The ones born here would never really understand, would they? The loss of all the worlds that had fallen. The great big ********' emptiness that stood in its place. But Dagon knew, and that stupid ******** Bacchus. There's probably be others, too, tonight, that could appreciate the bit they were clawing back from the void.

"If there's riddles or any such bullshit, I'm leaving it to you."

"If you do that," said Joy, with a grim sort of cheer, "then we're both ********. I never could do a riddle in my life."

She wondered whether it was possible to escape, if things went tits up. Possibly she could whisk herself off to the Garde. It would perhaps be better to work on the assumption that things would stay tits down, and this was an outlook that felt more comfortable as she saw how many were arriving.

(She had said to Lyndin, once, that she wanted to save a world, but didnt see a way to do it even if it was the insignificance of a world for just one person. But she'd halfway gotten to saving that one, and she'd had help, but much less help than this. She might not know what Grieve was thinking - might have absolutely no way to conceive of the vastness of the cosmic loss to Chaos - but she was thinking, as she often did, of other little voids, and the ways in which she had clawed things back from them by way of willpower and stubbornness and, admittedly, help. She'd done a miracle. She'd been called a saint by one who ought to know. Surely a handful of them could do a miracle together, even if the miracle was an entirely different shape. It was a recurring issue with her that the problems of other people often seemed to her to be mere nuisances that they could fix if they tried harder. The fact that the problem was an entire world consumed by Chaos didn't change it much.)

Deep Space Sailor Lovas of Fragility and Squire Regal of Chronos

"My thing made a sound!"

Regal should've known right then at that exact second, as he looked into wide and curious pastel lavender eyes, that there would be follow-up to anything he'd said. But he hadn't considered such a thing in the moment. He'd only thought that it would be appropriate to make sure Lovas could be as informed as possible, since... Well, who else was around to take on the task?

So he'd explained it was a text; they'd come through periodically with messages from other Senshi. And since Lovas couldn't read (at all, Regal was pretty sure, but at minimum, he couldn't read any Earth text), Regal had given him the message's contents and admitted that he'd gotten something similar through his ring- which was a whole other matter of curiosity, and Regal would've loved to deflect fully to that, however...

However.

Lovas' attention was clearly and unwaveringly on the message from another Senshi From Space. Someone who had arrived as he did (just significantly less recently) and who had a problem not entirely dissimilar to his. And one that would hopefully have some resolution. Soon. Today.

How was he supposed to do anything besides investigate?

He wouldn't have minded going alone- he had successfully been alone for hundreds of years, and it hadn't killed him, but he was grateful for Regal's company, anyway. ...Despite the fact that Regal did not seem especially enthusiastic.

"Are you sure you want to be here?" The Squire hedged doubtfully from where they stood at the age of the gathering. "You've only been here for a couple of days. You should rest. Or-" Or any other thousand things that could be done on Earth and not on Lovas. There was significant recovery, both mental and physical, that simply had not had time to occur, and Lovas should have at least some idea that they weren't going somewhere that would be gentle and pleasant with them...

Not Regal's favorite scene for sure- Ugh. He should've begged Elias to come instead- Elias wouldn't have put up with half of Lovas' s**t that Regal would- but sending Elias just felt like it would get one of them into trouble, and at least this way, Regal could watch over Lovas... Sort of.

It was just that Lovas was kind of an idiot, and Regal didn't trust his sense of urgency. Or preservation. Or instinct even. ...How was this man alive.

But Lovas was smiling, fangs glinting in the gentle light of night. "Of course! You are the one who said I should try to have Earth 'experiences' while I'm here! And this is an experience, isn't it? I don't want to miss it." And he couldn't possibly miss seeing with his eyes how possible it might be to purge a world of an evil that had ensnared it for- well, however long Dagon's world had harbored Chaos. It wasn't like he had any frame of reference for how to do so successfully, when he'd been trying for a millennia...

"This is literally not an 'Earth experience...'" Regal grumbled. But they were already here with everyone else; if he hadn't already convinced Lovas to turn back, there was no use expecting it to happen now.

Deep Space Eternal Sailor Dagon
HP: 94/100
Location: D4 -> D2
Action: Going for the basin!
Damage/Healing/Buff Done: 10 + 9 = 19 DMG

Dagon took a breath, reaching over and squeezing Frigoris's hand for reassurance. There were so many here. Some familiar faces, some not. All of them got a welcoming smile as she stood.

"Hello," she said. "I am Sailor Dagon, and I thank you for coming to assist me. My planet is in dire straits, and I will need aid in order to save it."

She pulled out her Senshi phone with a flourish.

"The Chaos on my world has animated the bones of its former inhabitants; it puppets them with a strange fungus, and they are hostile. when we arrive, we will need to open the way to an ancient temple where I believe the heart of the Chaos resides. Finishing it will be my job, but I will need aid to prevent form being overwhelmed."

It was a simple declaration, perhaps deceptively so.

She let them be carried to her world, and they found themselves on a beach.

The beach was rocky and cold; a crumbling dock sat nearby, half sunken into the water. It was also foggy, though a thin, hanging fog, and in it, shapes moved.

The promised skeletons.

Some were vaguely humanoid, and they all had the general upright-four limbs-head shape of a human, but it was clear that they had been cobbled together from multiple parts. Some with inhuman heads. OThers with limbs more like tentacles than hands.

And they all turned their attention to the people who had arrived.

Among them stood three stone pillars, each with six sides and carved with various shapes--sea monsters, the anchor symbol on Dagon's brooch, nets, a dagger--and a basin, and around the basin glowed a bright shield.

"It seems we have another problem," Dagon said. "The pillars must be aligned, to lower the shield around the basin. I will then be able to raise the way forward."

Ugh. Dagon would have preferred a fight. But she darted forward, headed straight for the basin, although two skeletal creatures followed behind.

She frowned. Paused.

"Dreadful Aspect," she said, and the monsters were consumed by her magical fog, crumbling to the ground.