Asch's jaw drops a little as Athena suggests her as second in command. Alexis knocks her out of her stupor with his question, and she shouts quite suddenly "Y-yes, yes, of course I would accept! It would be an honor to assist Harmony in any way I can!" She then gasps and sheepishly scratches her cheek. "Um... that is... if it's okay with you all."

And then Alexis makes a name suggestion, and Asch says, "I'm... not sure that would be universally accepted. However... how about a simple 'Hope' for the team name, if we wish to inspire it?"

Harmony blinks at Athena, and then stares somewhat accusingly at Chandi before shaking her head. "How did... If the others wish it. And of course, I don't mind if Asch acts as my second."

##############

The Avengers! The Justice League! Teen Titans!

[The last would hardly work. They're not teenagers.]

Actually, we're pretty close to a Justice League. We've got a Batman, Serpico is Green Lantern-ish with how he makes things, Chandi's Wonder Woman, Awakener is vaguely Supermanish what with the catching of spaceships. We don't really have a Flash though, do we... Maybe Lumina, what with the Lightning Rune? Asch is... Martian Manhunter-y. Maybe?

#Who would I be?#

... Aquaman?

##############

Harmony gives MUSE a very dark look before shaking her head and turning to the discussion. "I do not have a preference as to a team name... but I do believe it is important that it is something that has the right connotations no matter what world we are on, or who we speak to."

##############

Spoken well you have, young grasshopper.

#... why are you talking like that? And I'm not an insect.#

Well, you fly through the air, you make music, you have long legs...

#Are you seriously comparing my legs with a grasshopper's?#

Hey! Try rubbing them together really fast!

#Why would I want to do that?#

... well, I suppose you would need--

[Don't say it.]

Say what?

[Never mind.]

#Don't grasshoppers 'sing' when they want to draw in a mate?#

Yes. That's what most 'songs' in the wild are - bird song, insect song, that sort of thing. Mating calls. Kinda changes your perspective on things, really. That pretty little bird with the beautiful song is really saying 'OH YEAH BABY, SHAKE THOSE TAIL FEATHERS! GIVE ME SOME LOVIN'!"

#Great. Thanks for that particular image. At least my songs don't have that effect on people.#

...

[...]

#What?#

[Nothing!]

Nothing!

#... what?#

Let's just say that we're glad that we have this party... makeup.

#What's that supposed to mean?#

[No threat of romantic interest. Awakener is... well. The Awakener. Alexis is Alexis. Serpico is... well. Serpico. And all of the rest are women.]

And none of them swing, that I know of.

#What does swing dancing have to do with this?#

... never mind. Anyway, I for one am glad that CORE made... Er. Harrumph.

#... CORE did what?#

[...]

... What?

[Made arrangements.]

#What sort of arrangements?#

Pole dancers?

#WHAT!?#

[Hush. I did nothing of the sort.]

#Then what DID you do? I still remember what you tried to show me in the cafeteria several years ago.#

[And I still maintain that was a perfectly viable venue. No one else could see the presentation, after all.]

#I could see the presentation! And that's not something that should be shown in public! Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep a straight face?#

Hah! Too hard, apparently. Your face was completely red and you went running out of the cafeteria!

#And you two are evading the question. What. Did. You. Do?#

Well. Did you ever wonder why you ended up in a class with so many women? Non-humans? One guy you were pretty much guaranteed to hate?

#I don't hate Serpico, I just...#

Don't like him, don't trust him, and think that if he judged it necessary he'd use you like a tool to be thrown away at his convenience?

#... yes.#

Good. That's my take as well.

#And you're evading the question again. What did you do? What does our class makeup have to do with anything?#

Weeeeeeeell... we didn't want you forming any romantic attachments in your formative years.

[Puppy love. Such a silly emotion.]

So we... er. CORE... ensured you wouldn't. Ensured there were no men you could ---<muted>

#...What else?#

[...]

#What else? CORE? Why did you just mute him?#

[Nothing you need to be concerned about.]

#I am concerned right now.#

[You have no need to be.]

#You're not going to tell me, are you?#

[No. No, I am not.]

#... we're going to talk about this later.#

[Just... try to avoid singing - really, personally singing - in the presence of men.]

#Why? I've sung in front of others plenty of times.#

[No, that was the musica universalis. I'm talking about you, personally, singing, just your voice. Nothing more.]

#I don't...#

[Yes you do. I've heard you. The term 'siren' comes to mind.]

#I sound like an alarm?#

[No, no, no. I know we covered mythology. THAT siren.]

#Oh.#

[...]

#It's not that bad, is it?#

[Just... please. Don't. Stick to singing in the shower. It's safe there.]

##############

"Congratulations," echoes the Awakener. It then goes silent once again while the others discuss their idea of a team name, keeping its mask patiently fixed on Athena. Once Harmony states it's important, however, the Awakener turns its mask to her. After a bit, it says "Twice we have faced those who committed one of the gravest sins - destruction of the memory. Twice we have survived. Twice we have kept our Selves. Perhaps those who meet us in the future will be reassured by knowing we are Those Who Remember."

"Hope!" says Alexis. "I like 'Hope'. It says straight out everything I wanted to imply, and Harmony's right, we shouldn't be relying on implications. We should be saying it directly. Hope. At midsummer's dawn, when the longest day is just beginning, we can be the long, cool shadow of hope. We can be the stormcloud that blocks out the terrible light, the shadow that saves the helpless. Hope's a really good name."

Asch smiles at Awakener's suggestion. "Those Who Remember... I think it has a good impact." Seeing Alexis latch on to her first suggestion, she decides to try an experiment. "I think I like that better than my own suggestion."

"I don't know - I think it promises what it can't back up. We remember defeating a memory manipulator once, because we won that battle; and we remember narrowly escaping with our lives and memories once, which may only be because Athena was right there. If we'd faced and completely lost to memory manipulators four times - would we know? Would we even be capable of perceiving evidence of those missing battles? We only remember what we remember; how can we know what we have forgotten, or even whether we have forgotten anything?"

"Chandi, Serpico, Lumina, what do you think our team name should be?"

Asch blankly stares at Alexis as he begins navelgazing about the nature of memory, and sighs when he finishes. "Perhaps one day you'll learn the answer to that, Alexis; for right now, the best advice I have is trust that you're not in a waking dream. Don't think so hard about it - that line of thinking is dangerous."

"Alexis, some days it's good to be paranoid like that. But to live your whole life around such thinking? It's not good for you, trust me on this," Lumina sighs. "As for the name of our team? Those Who Remember is undoubtedly the most fitting, if not more than a little over-the-top provocative. Both are excellent reasons to give it the go ahead. Whoever this adversary is, he knows we know of him. He possesses the means to keep us from knowing of him. And yet, we still know of him. Call it a fencer's touché. We acknowledge the disadvantage against us, but the competition isn't yet over."

Athena smiles, "Alright. I like the sound of Those Who Remember - any assignment you get from here on shall be given to that name. Harmony, you are acting leader. Asch, you are second in command - I trust this is well with all of you." She turns her back and walks to the front of the class, "...as you may have seen... the other day we had a God come back from a mission with his Soul Scarred horribly." She faces the class again, "He has a hole in his heart that will now never heal... not to long ago, that would mean he'd walk the line between death and resurrection forever... but we are constructing him an Ether-Tech heart that will bypass the scar and allow him to come back. For the moment however, he cannot speak... so we cannot find out what happened."

She brings up the image of an extremely tiny moon, covered in grasslands and rivers. "This little moon is not part of our jurisdiction... however, we've gotten reports of a Mortal who is trying to become a God making a home here. This Arbiter, going by the name of... " she clears her throat, "Beast... took the mission to go speak with the Mortal and came back not 5 minutes later scarred and quite dead. Because of this, we have no idea what transpired down there... if this Mortal is hostile, or if Beast simply rubbed him the wrong way. Regardless, this is an odd and dangerous situation, so we're sending you in as a full team. Speak with this person, see what he wants and what happened and if needed... engage, capture, and bring him back here."

She grins, "Shin, of course, has tried to take the mission from you... but I signed you all up the moment I heard about it so he doesn't go down there and shoot whomever did this without asking questions. So he's banned from this mission and not happy about it... poor baby."

"This will be your first Mission together as a full team... and from what I've gathered, it seems you'd rather all get going as opposed to eating cake and partying at a ceremony... I do not blame you at all, but I would like to treat you all to a nice dinner out tonight if that would be alright?" She smiles at her students.

Those Who Remember gather on Athena's teleporter and bid their farewells before engaging it and warping to the little garden moon. As the classroom bubbles outwards and begins to fade, Athena turns as her door opens and greeting a guest with a smile, "Oh! What brings you here this morning my Lady Des..."

And then Those Who Remember land on the moon.

In the sky sits a huge planet covered in red, liquid magma rivers and oceans play over the entire surface of the world... a new world, recently formed and cooling. The little moon the team has landed on is teeming with fauna and flora alike - tiny creatures, small plants, all fragile and new. They skitter about the short trees that dot the landscape, chattering and singing.

To the west lies a dry plain, rocky and a bit dusty, but otherwise cool. On the landscape sits a rather large stone, and upon the stone sits a tall being dressed in an orange tunic and black flowing pants. He is feline, a long thin tail wrapped about his waist, his legs curled up into the lotus position and his paws resting on his legs; he wears no shoes, but has pads on the bottom of his oversized feet. He is covered in a fine layer of light orange fur; his head is covered in long thick black spikes of hair, flowing from his crown downwards. The bottom of which is tied loosely into a tail by a thin red band; from deep within his hair near the top of his head jut out two long cat-ears that twitch backward as Those Who Remember approach. Sitting in his lower back is a simple leather sheathe, holding a blade shaped like an isosceles triangle, the longest part facing down, the shortest part connect to a spiraling white hilt with no hand-guard, and the top of the triangle curving inwards down to the point of the blade.

He turns slowly and stands, facing the Arbiters with dark blue eyes, a long creamy snout and a jet black nose. His eyebrows are as black as his hair, but otherwise his face is covered with the same lighter cream-orange. He looks at each Arbiter with eyes that seem deep pools of water. He sighs as he stands to his full height, nearly six foot four, and lets his arms hang at his sides, his shoulders slouching. "Really?" He speaks in a deep voice, commanding but soft spoken. "Have you all come to shove me off this planet too? I didn't think the Arbiter's had anything to do with this world..." He crosses his arms and raises a single eyebrow, "At least you aren't charging at me, screaming about breaking my arms..." He sniffs, "Well. Speak up. What is it the Arbiters want from me?"

Harmony's eyes widen in startlement when she sees the mortal, and she approaches him cautiously. She bows politely and peacefully toward him. She recognizes him. His picture currently lies in Athena's office. A picture with three others. Three who are supposed to be... "You are looking well, for someone who is supposed to be dead, Makosan. Athena will be glad to know you are alive."

The felines eyebrows rocket into his hair and his eyes grow wide, "...you know who I am?" Then the rest of what Harmony said sinks in, "...Athena Sensei survived what I did?!" He sits down hard on the rock, breath leaving in a rush. "...I thought... I unraveled her..." A small smile spreads across his face, "This is wonderful news... are you her students or something?"

"Indeed. She told us during our final 'battle' with her as a class. Which we won with no 'deaths'." Harmony permits herself a small, smug smile. "But as for Athena... It was a very near thing. She was lucky. She was teleported right into a meeting of the Elders. They were rather forced to... take matters into their own hands." She folds her hands diplomatically. "She still bears the scars from it, though they are not easily visible. She believes you dead, has grieved for you."

"As for what we are doing here this day..." She pauses, taking a closer look at Makosan. "One of our own, an Arbiter, was sent to investigate this place, to investigate a mortal who is 'trying to become a God'. He took a wound to his heart - one that will Soul Scar him. Thankfully he will survive due to advances in Ether technology, but... that he was wounded in such a way, likely by this 'mortal', is a fact that we are forced to take seriously."

"What transpired here, Makosan?"

Alexis hangs back, behind Harmony. Shadows and darkness gather around him; he keeps his ears open, looking around.

He doesn't say anything just yet. Harmony seems to have this well under control, and he's not going to interrupt what appears to be working.

"Ha!" Makosan grins, "No deaths eh? I bet she was proud... you've no idea how happy I am to hear she's okay. More so to hear she remembers me at all..." At the mention of the other Arbiter, the smile slides right off his face. He takes a deep sigh, "Mortal trying to become a God... that's how they view me. Well the big guy they sent down here wasn't much for talking..." he places his hand on his muzzle in a gesture of exasperation, "He showed up, declared he was going to kill me and bring my soul in and charged."

He pats the hilt of his sword but does not draw it, "My Shift has a very potent property... it can scar souls with a single strike. I really didn't know Gods like him existed... I drew my sword, pointed it at him, was about to warn him that I could not die here and he literally charged and impaled himself on my blade." Deep lines appear around his sad eyes, "I think he tried to use his immortality against me... went to crush my head while he was impaled and died. It was too late at that point, his soul was scarred. His return rune went off and he disappeared." He stands back up, taking in the arbiter team sent against him, "I'm glad they sent people more level headed this time... though you only have my claim to say I am who you think I am and my story. It is up to you all to believe me or not."

"Still..." That ghost of a smile returns, "To know Athena survived and that she still remembers me eases a very old burden on my heart... thank you."

Chandi's eyes widen at Harmony's assertion, the rest of her expression hidden behind a veil. Her eyes narrow once more, and focus on the stranger in front of the group. Something feels...off to her, and her senses. An uneasiness with the current state of things, on this planet, the speaker, and the previous attempt at this mission by a more well-trained Arbiter. The uneasiiness is exacerbated when Makosan reveals the abilities of his Shift, bristling underneath her clothing, hidden scars pulsing and stinging. She opens up the Communications Rune, a personal, small, hidden contact with Athena.

"Athena, a few short questions that need quick answers. What is Beast like, what was Makosan like, and what was Makosan's Shift?"

There is a delay before Chandi gets a response... and when she does it's an Arbiter communications officer. "Athena is currently in a session with the Elder Gods. Would you like me to give her the message when she's finished?"

"Yes. Tell her it's urgent. Either Makosan is alive, or someone's using his name. And whoever this guy is, he can scar souls with his Shift."

"...Makosan. Riiiiiiight. Look it's nice you play along with her, but this is grown-up time lady. Please don't prank call the Arbiter headquarters. Do it again and I'll have to report you." The line is disconnected.

Chandi's jaw drops at the insinuation of playing a joke on the Academy, during a mission no less. Her muscles tighten, and she struggles with not re-opening the comm link and yelling at the speaker. A familiar energy pulses within her abdomen. She takes a few moments to hold her tongue and prevent any outburst that may bring attention to her actions, then re-opens the comm link when she's somewhat cooled her temper. She waits until the first sign of a speaker on the other end, then whispers into it once more. "We are currently in conversation with the being that sent Beast to the medical ward. This being has access to a weapon that can scar souls on contact. Please tell that to Athena the instant she gets out of that meeting. This will be my last attempt at communication." The instant she's finished speaking, she cuts the communication log, hoping that the brief response is enough to demonstrate at least a modicum of the truth and severity of the situation.

There is a moment while the speaker considers the information, a new voice answers "Confirmed. Athena will be notified the moment she is finished with the Elders."

The queasiness in Chandi's stomach has only amplified with the strange behavior of the Academy Communications Group, but she finds small relief in the idea that the information is attempting to be passed on to Athena. Hopefully, it won't be too late. Chandi straightens her posture a bit more, and then a small rune glows in the back of her throat. A breeze passes by, and Chandi's message is carried with it, hidden, and directed at her allies. "I've attempted to contact Athena, but she's with the Elders. The second person I talked to stated he'll attempt to reach her as soon as possible." The breeze dies shortly thereafter, and Chandi takes a few steps forward.

"That is quite the weapon, sir. I wonder what it says about you that your Shift can cause such lasting damage?" There's a slight pause, Chandi's gaze piercing and tense as it bores into Makosan. "But I digress." She says after a few moments. "Why are you here, and what exactly have you done that warranted a mission like this in the first place?"