Her orders were simple; retrieve a star seed, make up for the time she was inactive. [Especially after the fiasco she’d missed...how had Order gotten IN?! Damn she had so much to catch up on...]

Simple. Right. When was anything ever truly simple?

It started out easy enough. Stalk someone who looked like trouble, ‘herd’ them to somewhere that she could do things in quiet and safety, where she couldn’t be surprised by a senshi or knight or cat. The process had been explained to her, and sounded easy enough. And she’d been assured that star seeds lay in a sort of ‘pocket space’. She wouldn’t be touching any blood or guts, which was what she’d been leery about. She wanted to punish and take energy, not kill. She wasn’t a killer, and never would be if she could avoid it. She took a deep breath, and engaged the young gang member. It wasn’t hard to get him down, with her training from both the Negaverse and outside of ‘work’.

The next part was a little harder. Though it had been explained to her, and she knew she could do it...there was the fear she’d do it wrong. That she’d end up actually doing serious, lasting harm. But she finally worked past the fear, and plunged her hand in.

And it felt wrong. So very wrong. She tried to ignore the feeling, repeating words in her head like a mantra.

It was orders. Her superiors wouldn’t give her orders to do something that was wrong. This isn’t wrong.

The feeling didn’t go away as she wrapped her fingers around a tiny little thing that felt like the star seeds she’d seen. It didn’t go away as she pulled her hand out and saw the pale little thing, barely glowing but...something about that glow just made it feel even more wrong. And she let go.

She let go and the little ‘gem’ zoomed back into the unconscious person, Sphalerite’s eyes wide and her hands shaking a bit. That…Something in her rebelled against the idea of her taking a star seed, and she didn’t know why. Something about it just seemed wrong, and that little glow, that little gem…No. She needed to know, before she tried again. Needed to be certain.

The Negaverse hadn’t told her what a star seed was. Perhaps...perhaps Elpis would. Elpis had been open and honest with her the entire time they’d known one another, though they kept their identities outside of ‘work’ secret for good reason. But other than that…

Yes. She’d find Elpis. Ask what a star seed was, and why it lay close to a person’s heart. Then she would get back to work, she was certain of it.

The Negaverse wouldn’t lie to her. They wouldn’t make her do something wrong.

They were her family, her friends.

So why did something seem wrong?

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Word Count: 483, according to Google Docs