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The night was cool and the ground was warm and damp from the rain that proceeded the sunset. The cold night combined with the damp ground to create fog. It puddled in the depressions and hid the harshness of the sleeping city. Buildings were wrapped in ghostly tendrils and cars left wakes behind them where the fog swirled and twisted like a living creature.

Pompeii was uneasy about patrolling on a night like this but she figured that if ever there was weather to hide misconduct it would be weather like this so here she was sticking to the shadows and wondering what exactly she thought she would do if she encountered something or someone.

Pompeii found herself swallowed by the fog, completely hidden by it and yet blinded by it. It came as a surprise when she picked up a feeling of darkness from somewhere out in the fog. She was puzzled by it since she had not felt anything like it before. Youma felt slimy, nasty, and all around detestable to her while Senshi and Knights were more warmth and light. This... this was more confusing. It was dark but but not nasty, cold but not slimy... it was like stepping into a dark cavern where it was true blackness reigned... disorienting, scary, and yet given time it could be seen as comforting for some people. What was this? or rather Who? since someone called out. Pompeii could only figure that the voice was connected to the feeling... she hoped.

"Hello?" She called back softly, moving cautiously closer. She might be naive but she wasn't stupid. The city was dangerous for a female at night... and if this was a 'bad guy' then she didn't want to be a victim. Pompeii had forgotten that as a knight she could likely take on any normal vagrants that would pray on a female.

Pompeii was surprised when a blond man stepped out of the fog, his dark suit with bright blue accents seemed to glow in the foggy light. The strange aura that she detected most defiantly radiated from him. What was he? She breathed a silent sigh of relief when he kept his distance but that sigh was quickly squelched when he called her a knight. He knew what she was? How?

"How did you know? Are you a Knight too?" Could it be possible that each knight, senshi, and guardian cat have a different feeling about them like a fingerprint? "And you know even if the city is dangerous we have a job to do so..." She shrugged and tried to loosen up a bit but it was like a chill was running up and down her spine, she just couldn't seem to get comfortable.

Pompeii was pleased to meet yet another knight but something wasn't right... he didn't feel right. Everyone else had a sense of light and warmth while the man standing in front of her was different. The doubts were already swirling when he introduced himself. Ackbar? Tatooine? Star Wars? "Are you kidding me?" The last question slipped out as she stood there with a disbelieving look on her face. Since it was already out there she asked, "Why Star Wars? Couldn't you have picked something a bit more obscure like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or a Hitchcock movie?" As Pompeii understood it the knights were from this solar system and their names were derived from ancient places like Shangri-la or Camelot.

Couldn't there be a place in the unknown called Tatooine? Or some wonder named Ackbar? a small part of her whispered. No, no, this just doesn't feel right. Pompeii shook her head in denial to both the silent thoughts running rampant as well as the feeling she was picking up from 'Ackbar'. "This is a bad idea... I think you are lieing and I don't know why." She took a few steps back and wondered if maybe it was time to cut her losses and head home. She could always find Maia later and ask about 'Ackbar'.

Assigned… his name was assigned…. While Pompeii’s name was just her’s. Pompeii remembered the first time she powered up. How, when asked her name, she had given it with no thought. She was Pompeii. She was a page of Saturn. She was not assigned anything… this man was lying. But still she hesitated because even though she knew he was lying the rational part of her mind asked if maybe other knights felt different, if other knights felt they were assigned to their position like any other. It was something that would have to be asked, but not here, not him. There were too many squirrelly parts to this meeting but Pompeii did get an idea. Even if he was a knight, he would understand a bit more about chaos… a subject Pompeii was leery of asking about. But first she actually needed to give him a name, or rather a planet. Should she answer truthfully?

“Bartledan,” turnabout is fair play. Pompeii didn’t believe that he was Acbar from Tatooine so she too shall make up a place and name. She figured that if she was wrong she could always apologize and introduce herself properly, but until then, “Trillian of Bartledan.” Let’s see if he got that reference.

“If you have the time Acbar,” Pompeii remained where she was, the fog acting as a natural barrier between them. A useless barrier but a barrier none the less. There was no point in coming closer when she was still uncertain about this man. “Could I ask you a few questions?”

Pompeii had the ridiculous urge to snicker when ‘Acbar’ called her Trillian but she contained herself and made a mental note to really talk to Maia or Camelot about this meeting, not that mental notes were terribly useful since Pompeii tended to forget them anyway. “So… um.” How did one begin asking a stranger questions that they did not feel the right to ask their ‘mentor’? Shifting from foot to foot, Pompeii pondered the best way to ask the various questions flooding her brain. She didn’t even notice that she had drifted a bit closer to Acbar, still not close enough for any real issues but closer then she was before.

“Where is… are… is?... the negaverse from? Is it a sentient being that has just ‘possessed’ a rational human? Or is it more like a mold? It has no real thought about the damage it is doing, it just does?” It was a hard for Pompeii to wrap her mind around this concept of a great big ‘bad’ that was trying to take over the world… was it really trying to take over or some other convoluted plan? Was the negaverse a group of people, much like she was a knight, who have been corrupted by power? How would that make them much different than a politician or any other member with a lot of power? What is that saying? ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’

Good will towards men. Pompeii couldn’t help but add mentally… it was such a cliché phrase that she couldn’t take it seriously but Pompeii remained quiet and listened to what he had to say. “Then they are deluded because without light there is no darkness, without yin no yang, no good means no bad. The world is made up of opposites… hell even the universe is. If we,” Pompeii had caught his slip but it was just one more mark against his favor, “left, chaos itself will break into two factions… good and evil. There has to always be some good with some bad or the universe as we know it will cease to exist.” Hell, even gravity is basically two objects pulling against each other in a endless battle of wills, Pompeii mentally added. It wasn’t until she was finished her little speech that she realized that she sort of dismissed her own side but she advocated for the other side as well. Then again it wasn’t as if she had seen the damage that the negaverse could do; she had only dealt with youma and weak ones at that. Acbar’s argument was the basic superhero debate… if there were no superheroes there would be no super villains because one inevitably makes or draws the other however the flip side was… were there superheroes because there were super villains?

“Selfish? I was born here buddy. Born and raised on this planet and the same argument can be used in our favor.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Why can’t they leave since they are endangering the planet? Who said they don’t have homes to return to?”

“They… ‘Unlike us, they don’t have anywhere else to go’” Pompeii had a very good idea who she was now talking to but since no harm was offered none would be given… besides he did raise a decent point. If the knights and senshi were seen as interlopers the negaverse had every right to fight back… much like a native species often fight back against an invasive species. But unlike a plant or an animal a human has a larger brain… more capacity for love and understanding. “But why leave? I do not wish to leave my friends and family, my job, or my planet. Why could we not live in harmony where we no longer fight?” Maybe the thought was a bit too utopian and would never work but if it wasn’t brought up how could it be addressed?