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One person had already come by and given Megrez a piece to her puzzle: Megiddo. She had relished every moment that they were together, and it had helped settle her some. It would take more than one person to fully clear the clouds on her conscience, though, and so she waited to see if any more people would come to see her. The words in her text were still fresh in her mind:

In the park on the north side of town.

I'm scared. Please help me.

She was less scared out of her mind right now, but she wanted to see and hear more people. Who would come next? She waited, watching the darkness for signs of movement.

Megrez heard Penthesilea's voice, and it made her look around frantically. The voice seemed to be coming from the direction of a strange red pattern in the night. Cautiously, she got up from the bench and approached the lights. "Penthe? Is that you?" Closer inspection revealed that the lights did in fact appear to be coming from someone who could only be Penthe. "Penthe!" she called out, throwing her arms around the newly-transcended senshi just as she had done to Megiddo and squeezing tight. "I'm so happy to see you, really, you don't even know..." She released Penthe for a moment and began to trace along a stretch of glowing pattern along her arm. "What happened to you? This looks like... a really strange burn. Oh, it doesn't hurt when I do this, does it?" Just in case, she let Penthe's arm free.

Megrez could have levitated several feet off the ground from Penthe hugging her and patting her hair. It was just what she wanted in so, so many ways. Subtly, she nestled in a bit closer. "Ah... well, a lot happened. You know the first half, with me blowing up around Castor and all the other guys and me swearing an oath to let them kill me if I ever corrupted, and you know about me killing that captain. But the rest... well, when I got back from my planet, I met Pollux and we took out two lieutenants. He's... really something in a fight." She was going to leave out the fact that he froze a woman's eyes.

"About two weeks ago, I stopped a corrupt senshi from killing a page, and he used his magic on me. I don't know what it was, but it made me think... I thought about killing those lieutenants and the captain, about how the people at that meeting said I was flirting with Chaos, about how much I hated senshi who hadn't killed and wouldn't kill because they were so pure... it made me wonder if I wasn't fit for Order, if I should just corrupt anyway because I was just about there.

"Earlier this week, I tried to kill another lieutenant, and this other senshi stopped me. That's how I got this bruise on my cheek, see? She kept saying that if we killed, we were no better than the terrorists the Negaverse wanted to make us out to be, and that we should defend people till the 'big fish' showed up. She said she had killed too, so... I don't know why she went out of her way to stop me. Being only defensive doesn't sound productive to me.

"I had these two dreams and I'm pretty sure they were the tipping point. The first one... I was standing in front of this horde of senshi, and they said I was irredeemable because I had killed, and that we would be the ones that corrupted Order before we even touched a drop of Chaos. A voice in my head asked me if I hated them... I said I did, and it told me to show them how it felt. Somehow, I tore them all apart. Then I walked out of the room, saw Destiny City destroyed, and turned into a monster.

"Just today, I had the other dream. It was this dystopian future where the Negaverse had taken over... Megiddo was dead, Gunn was dead, and you were corrupted. I remember feeling so sad and lonely, and missing you all so much... I had this dream-in-a-dream where I killed you and another friend who corrupted, and Gunn and Megiddo came to carry us off like valkyries. But then I really did kill you. Thraen helped... he did most of the work, really. I just burned your body so Gunn and Megiddo could find you. I felt so empty after that... and then a General-Queen killed me and that was it."

Megrez cast a cursory look back over to the bench. It occurred to her that maybe she should have asked Penthe to sit down before going on like that. Well, too late now.

Megrez returned the hug tightly, perhaps pressing against Penthe a little too much. "You did? But not in a dream...? How?" It occurred to her that there was a certain other senshi who would definitely want to hear about such a coincidence, two dreams (visions?) with matching situations. If Astarte didn't show up tonight, she'd have to send her a text later. She was jarred back to the present by something alarming. "A General-Queen went for you?! Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I'm so glad to see you're okay..." She wasn't sure what she was apologizing for. For not being there to try and chase off the General-Queen herself (a horribly one-sided match if there ever was one)? Penthe would have to work hard to make her let go now.

"You heard the others at that meeting. Lots of people think that killing makes you closer to Chaos. And those people who don't kill and won't kill and act like they have some sort of moral high ground for it... I hated them so much that I tore them apart." Perhaps Megrez was squeezing a bit too tightly now. "I thought about breaking my henshin pen so that neither Order nor Chaos would have to deal with me ever again, but... that won't make the monsters in me go away. I don't want to be a monster, Penthe."

If Penthe hadn't included that heads-up to watch the armor, Megrez would probably have ended up caught in a feedback loop of ridiculous, self-reinforcing fluffy happiness. "Oh, right, sorry," she said quickly, loosening her grip slightly. "Holier-than-thou ********..." She giggled at the phrase despite herself. It summed up her opinion on those types quite nicely. "Yeah, that's right... I still don't understand why people deny that this is real, like you can just go into this and act like it's nothing serious. There were so many of them going on about that at that meeting, acting like we'd already corrupted just because we'd killed, like that a*****e who slapped me..." Shaking her head and sighing, she added, "I just don't get it."

"Yes, that's right." Megrez put her hands around Penthe's. "It's true, isn't it? Every time we kill a problematic lieutenant, we save bunches of civilian lives and we prevent a nasty general from rising. That's so many starseeds staying in people's chests." Ever since Gunn and Megiddo had introduced her to that line of thinking, it had become her motto. An ounce of prevention was, as always, worth a pound of cure, and no amount of preaching from those pacifist ninnies could change that.

There was a moment where Megrez said nothing, but her eyes darting around suspiciously indicated that something was on her mind. "On a completely different note... well... um... there's something I've been wanting to ask you." Maybe, with her hands where they were, Penthe could feel Megrez's face warm up just a bit. "You know... in that dream, you kissed me. It wasn't exactly great, but..." With her heart beating a mile a minute in her chest, she dove right into what she wanted. "Next time you and Megiddo go on a date, I want to come along. And not as a third wheel. As a... you know. A participant. Megiddo was here a bit ago and she said she's okay with it, but I wanted to check with you."

"Oh, uh, s-sorry." There wasn't really much point in apologizing when Megrez knew that she was dropping a massive brick of awkward right on Penthe from the beginning. When Penthe answered in the affirmative, Megrez brightened up all over again. "You'll let me come along? Thank you! I'm definitely looking forward to it." A girly giggle escaped her. "Definitely."

And well-received the kiss was. If Megrez had a doggy tail, it would have been wagging a million miles a minute. She embraced Penthe, trying hard not to cling too tightly. It was hard for her to define the strong foreign happiness flowing through her; all she was certain of was, in this moment, she was happy, and with Penthe safe and sound and that grim future only a vision, she felt she could relax. When the kiss naturally released, she just stood there, beaming, for a good while. After the break, she said, "I'm going to be here for a bit longer. I want to see if anyone else comes by."