OOC Thread
RP Thread

The dark presence of the Earth army and their powerful queen have been growing stronger, a constant drain upon the senshi and their defenses to protect their own queen and their beloved princess. A particularly difficult battle ends in defeat for the Silver Millennium. It is only pre-emptive orders from the Queen that allow the senshi to escape with Princess Serenity before the explosions of dark energy begin to shred the castle. The fates of the civilians, of their home, of their Queen, are all a mystery.

The senshi must recuperate and come up with a new plan of attack so that they might win against Earth once and for all, and save the Silver Millennium.

Queen Serenity called upon Sailor Pluto to leave her post at the Door of Space-Time and join the battle only a day before the party escapes with the Princess. Up until then, no one had seen her except the Outer Senshi (though they had not met in person) and Queen Serenity. Luna and Princess Serenity simply knew of her.

The Door was nowhere and everywhere. Sailor Pluto could get back to her post there at any time - instantaneously. And yet it was always such a winding road away from it. She usually had a good idea of approximately how long the journey would take before embarking but the sands of time in that in-between space tended to shift forward and back, minute by minute. It made any meeting with the others a bit tricky, even under emergency situations. Once she had taken one wrong step and was an entire day late to their regular check-in as a result. Most of the time though, she was early.

Pluto kept her wits sharply about her, navigating the dark swirling fog mostly by instinct. There was a vague motion of crashing waves in the air coming up to her right. She took a step to the left and continued her march forward. By all signs, she was actually going to be on time for once. The dark-haired Guardian was heading for Charon Castle - orbiting her birth planet, Pluto.

The regular briefings with her fellow Guardians of the outer part of the Solar System were best done from their respective planets. The castles themselves, long ago bestowed on them by Queen Serenity, were equipped with technology that could analyze forces and space around them with much greater range and detail than any of the Guardians’ innate 6th senses could. In addition, the systems accepted manual input and synced reports from each others’ castles to augment the analyses. If anything came up during the meetings - which was not completely rare - it also gave them tools to make a coordinated response. The three of them had already worked together successfully this way for centuries in defending the Solar System from outside invasions. In the process, the others’ faces had become friendly and familiar to Sailor Pluto. Seeing them appear on the control room screen was one of the few small pleasures the lone Guardian of Time enjoyed.

Suddenly a strong gust started blowing around her, pushing her back a bit. She held her Garnet Rod up and out in front of her in an attempt to quiet the disruption. The deep red Orb which was seated atop it glowed brightly in the fog.

The gale subsided slightly before picking up strength again. She hid her face behind her other gloved arm.

“Garnet Ball!”

The Orb’s glow pulsed and a shield of energy expanded out and around her. Now protected, Sailor Pluto lowered her Rod to her side and took a deep breath.

So much for being on time.

The deep irony of the situation never failed to taunt her. She was the Guardian of what, again?

Right… she thought absently.

She would have to wait. Storms like this could lead her astray as much as centuries in either direction. That was an uncertainty she simply could not afford.

About an hour later, she had arrived, her quick stride never breaking as the last tendrils of fog dissipated around her body. There was no door to the control room - her path emerging as if from nowhere and disappearing in just the same way. The room was brightly lit and had a welcoming warmth to it. She reached the main desk and her fingers flew across the touchpad, booting up the communications system.  More lights came to life and a quiet hum filled the room.

Finally sighing with relief, Sailor Pluto rested the silver key-shaped Rod on its stand and waited patiently for those two familiar faces to appear on the large screen above her. She vaguely wondered what it was like to simply live in the castle full-time like the others. Did their control rooms have doors?

A ladylike face with wavy blue-green hair appeared first, a polite smile on her face. Within seconds, Sailor Uranus’ impatient expression filled the other half of the screen.

“Please forgive my tardiness.” Pluto took a deep breath before reporting the storm she witnessed. “I often get feelings of an impending one when I pass by the vicinity of your planet, Uranus. But this was different,” she said. “Uranus, please run a deep scan of your planet 's atmosphere and set up an analysis of any Sun activities that may have affected it, just in case.”

“It's probably nothing,” she continued. “These storms are part of the nature of the Door’s protections, but when the circumstances seem so coincidental, it does us no harm to err on the side of caution.” She nodded to both of them and looked again to Neptune, awaiting her report.