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Kairatos narrowed his eyes at Megrez, apparently still too angry to do much more by way of sympathy with her desperate appeal to die should she corrupt. It was easy to demand such things when you stood there, not knowing what it offered when you were so far down that...

so far down that until he'd purified he'd forgotten what being at peace even felt like. That smiling had been alien, and even then had been a thin layer of quiet over a deeper, unsatisfied anger.

He eyed her for a second more than snorted derisively as he reached hand back to offer quiet, broken sounding Avalon.

"You're fine."

She was taller than him, but right now he kind of wanted her not to be because she sounded like an child who was just scolded for something she didn't understand.

"Hver... we should go. These bodies will revert to civilian, and we shouldn't be here when the cops show up. And if they don't I'll be surprised."

He didn't want to know what they looked like unpowered. He didn't want to see their pictures in the obituaries and know in his gut what had happened to them, though he suspected he'd guess anyway, if he dared so much as open the paper.

"If I stay here I'm gonna..." He started, rage rising in his voice again, but he choked it down like an uncomfortable bite of an spoiled meal. "...There are people I wanna check on. Make sure they're ok."

He suddenly had the frightening image, now that he was over the initial burst of rage that Castor or someone like him would have executed without question, possibly killing people who were actively looking to be saved, or who might yet be saved. People he wasn't ready to give up on.

Castor did not shake, did not face those present. His eyes remained fixated at the bodies, while Pollux looked simply tired and bored.
"Ermehs,dove sono i miei gaurdsmen?"
The question was quite from Castor, and it jolted Pollux to snap his head to the royal. "....Ermehs isn't here Castor."
He lifted his head just slightly, white hair covering his face. "Ma dove-"
"They're not here. They're dead Castor." Pollux's walk towards Castor was a slow one, the touch visibly gentle. "Siamo sulla terra. Ricordate?"
Silence from castor until- "Mi ricordo."

The look of exasperation had left Pollux, replaced by concern.

"Please, again- speak gently." He sighed. "He is-"
"Do they even remember the end?" He asked, cutting off Pollux this time.
"They even recall how they screamed? Looking up at me, begging me to save them? Do they even know how it hurt, watching them rape and mutilate the young ones, not even out of the barracks? My guard fought so well- I was so proud of them fratello, but then they stood in the front- they allowed themselves to be consumed so we could retreat. Their starseeds- They were swallowed so quickly."
It was Pollux's turn to look at the ground, unable to share his expression.
"Fresh melting from skin, the smell of burning corpses, did you know the ground still smells? A thousand years and the soil still carries the scent. I felt a fool when they killed his highness- gouging out his eyes and carrying his body on a pike. They screamed, begging me to save them. But I couldn't stop them. I couldn't my people's tears and keep them strong." Castor's voice remained bland, yet tears had begun to roll down his face. "They were afraid. They became afraid and they were massacred. I couldn't save them fratello, I couldn't call you because they'd do the same to you- Fratello-"

"Go home fratello." Pollux's voice was cold, yet it was clear and sharp. A touch to his brother's face followed by a kiss. "Vai a casa." A final glance to the bodies, and like that, Castor vanished. Only a small amount of cold ground ground where his feet had been a sign of his previous presence.

".... My apologies." He said. "Allow me to answer your grievances. But-" He walked over to an old printing machine, sitting down on the belt. "Firstly- You act like fools." His gaze had lifted, facing those who had voiced their dissent. "You act like there are rules to war. That is a human idealist concept, created to provide an excuse and justification for the winners to destroy the losers. War in it's most basic form is the action taken to destroy. The means, those supposed rules? They are constructs of ideology and lacks fundamental understanding of the enemy. Chaos is not human. Chaos uses humans as hosts, so it is natural to think that it might apply human methods and reasoning. However at it's core, Chaos is a parasite. It seeks only to feed and kill. You cannot think of Chaos as human." He frowned. "Secondly you all seem to lack an understanding of why brutality is needed. Chaos feeds off of emotions- it spirals it's host to depravity. It is a gateway drug. If we feed to the emotional to become erratic, chaos does the rest. You say this will justify them and so what? We have done the same thing. Can you really be so ignorant as to not see such a thing. Senshi have always been murderers. We have always been fighters. All you want to hear and see is an ideal- that we do not kill, that we are better. And if that is true, what do you think they say about themselves?" His tone was void.

"We kill only what we must, we do not do this, we wouldn't have to if it wasn't for you. These are the words of every leadership. Every commander who has asked his army to march. Sheep follow and listen to what they are told. You voice anger at this? Prove you are not sheep. That you can think and not just parrot ideals and dreams that will never come true." His foot tapped against the machine he sat on, a dull echo in the space.

"Purification is impossible at this scale." He said, eyes moving to Avalon. "You cannot force someone to purify, not without risking everything. Each time you purify, the scale of the universe acts, filling the void that has been left behind. Purification must be wanted, desired- what do you think would happen in we purified them? That Chaos would be left with nothing? No, the balance is maintained. It fills the vacancy and returns stronger. The only way to stem this is by removing Chaos's hosts. Death does not create a new slant towards one requiring a slant towards the other, rather it removes it from the equation. Chaos agents are victims, just not in a way you think Knight of mars."
"You made a choice. And you chose selfishly and ignorantly. They prey upon you when you are weak, they use you, and then over time you relish your choice. You come to enjoy it. You become the hero of your own ignorance, the martyr for their cause. You were a victim as much as you were a criminal."

He continued to stare flatly. "Why do you think we have all been born to earth?" Pollux relaxed. "Think about why we would have all been born earth, gathered to Destiny City. Surely, if our worlds wished it, if it was possible, senshi would be spread across the cosmos, working towards restoring balance. Yet here we all are on earth. If all senshi are being reborn here, what does that tell you of the cosmos?" His gaze darkened, his voice becoming colder. "What do you think that will mean if we fail to restore balance to earth?"

"This wasn't just a message to chaos. This was a message to order as well. The Dioskouri have declared war on earth. If you stand in our way, we will kill you. If you defend Chaos we will remove you from our path."

"You were born to fight in a war. Understand what that means and what we risk if we fail."

Andronicus wasn't far behind Themiscrya's arrival. She came out of the wood works because, once again there was a giant congregation of Order signatures together. It never boded well when people gathered like this. She pulled her braid over her shoulder, keeping the hood up around her ears and head.

She wasn't disappointed.

The Page noticed the bodies first. Her mouth formed a hard line and she swallowed. Instinct told her to look away from the bloody murders, but she forced herself to look at them, to look at the casualties. People argued around her, but the a*****e with the white hair was right; this was war and not everyone was going to come out alive. She'd seen as much when they set fire to the warehouse, when they'd broken Leto's wings.

War was not pretty, war was not safe. War was bloody, war was death.

She turned her eyes to the men talking and crossed her arms. She'd never seen them before. "And who the ******** are you two and the 'Dioskouri'? Find that on a translate website, didja? Good job at giving the Negaverse more reason to turn the public against us though. Good job." Poorly hidden anger tainted her words as she looked at them, or rather just the blonde one with the attitude. Apparently White Hair had to go cry to his mummy.

She stood by Themiscrya and Kairatos, tension in her limbs. Wonderful, someone else she was going to have to fight against. It would happen. That she was sure of. She'd cross pass with those two and it would not be pleasant.

They sent a message alright.

As a means of getting 'attention' the pile of bodies was effective - sick - oh yes most definitely sick, but super effective and Athene just knew that this was going to be something that he saw in his nightmares. He heard Ida's voice as his team mate suddenly stepped up by his side, most likely having returned from the quick scout of the nearby area that she had split from him and Liryn to do and although he didn't say anything, he let his fingers slip down in an unconscious attempt to try and catch her hand as she gripped at his sleeve as much for his own reassurance as for hers.

He felt his stomach lurch again, as one of the blonds... No.. with a sudden start Athene realised that the man's hair was in fact white, causally stepped on one of the corpses, the resulting sound of cracking sounding abnormally loud.

Ironically it was the sound of the teal-haired senshi (that had greeted Ida as if she knew her) being sick that finally shifted him, crossing the small distance that separated them before fumbling in his satchel for one of the two small water bottles he carried with him as Liryn watched anxiously from his shoulder. The first was empty - he could feel it from within the satchel but the second he thought he heard slosh, something that was backed up when he pulled it from the small bag, holding out the bottle to her as he said quietly "Here."

He was still over by the teal-haired senshi when he spotted Chaldene, realised with a start that it was a super strength aura that he sensed from the black-haired senshi, but he did not leave his position by the teal-haired senshi. Despite not being involved in the conversation that broke out - well make that more mainly yelled opinions - he both had ears and was not under a rock -(even though the rock would have been much preferable to being here), which meant it wasn't hard to piece together what was going on.

It was quite obvious that the white haired man and the blond by him were responsible for the pile of bodies, in fact the white haired man was being quite open about it and at the same time it was quite clear (at least to him) that the white-haired Prince was clearly nuts as he spouted on about how it was apparently their duty to cause this.... Athene tried to think of a word, but couldn't manage to get past the words 'whole scale slaughter' that kept echoing in his head as sharp as the earlier cracking bone.

It seemed that he wasn't the only person to think this madness, with both a Cosmos Squire who he recognised as Hvergelmir from the BlackWatch meeting and a Mars Knight both spoke out as had Ganymede, but equally there seemed to be some that seemed to think that this madness was perfectly okay such as the blue-eyed, orange-haired super with the feather in her hair.

He finally shifted from by the teal-haired senshi as Chaldene hit the orange-haired senshi, glancing at Ida before moving somewhat closer to Ganymede. The atmosphere was turning ugly and whilst Athene was hoping that a whole scale fight wouldn't break out, he also knew that he would stand by Ganymede should one do so,

He wasn't expecting the white-haired senshi to suddenly disappear or for the blond to address them and although he had no idea what a Dioskouri was, he did know something "I think you're wrong about this" his voice was its usual quietness as he addressed the blond super senshi. "Both of you" and he couldn't help but agree with Hvergelmir's comment that the blond's white-haired brother shouldn't allowed a henshin pen - at least not right now. Then again, he was kind of thinking the same about the orange-haired super senshi who the second orange-haired super senshi appeared to be protecting. "And I'll never think that adopting tactics that the Negaverse would most likely applaud is right - war or no war."

There was no manual to being a senshi, no guidelines and most certainly no rule book, all Athene had to go on was what felt right and this - this would never feel right to him, even as it meant that he was putting himself on the opposite of a pair who seemed to see nothing wrong with butchering a bunch of people.

He looked at those close by, at Ida, at Ganymede, at the unfamiliar teal-haired senshi and at Chaldene. "I thought I heard someone mention police" he said quietly. "And if there's police on the way, we probably don't want to be here." Actually he didn't want to be here, not with the metallic smell of blood around him and all those bodies. "And it looks like they've finished delivering their sick message." Despite his words, and as much as he personally wanted to, Athene knew he would stay for as long as those around him did.

'Call your mother in homicide'- 'Call your mother Themi-'. Black hair, red eyes, noted. He could track and trace her down as needed. Police didn't bother him. The fact someone would opening risk their cover to get their family and themselves involved however was unsettling.

"If my brother needs help-" He shrugged. "I am my brother's keeper." It was perhaps a moment he'd not planned, yet the smile that had snuck onto his face was unmistakeable.

Hvergelmir stared at Megrez for a long time, not speaking. In a better frame of mind, she might have noticed that the young senshi of eggs was talking about someone she'd killed and the help she couldn't seek for it. She might've felt sorrow for her, the remembered sorrow of someone whose best friend was even now living holed up at the Surrounding, slowly mentally spiraling out of control, with no help in sight. It was the sorrow she felt for Bischofite, too, who deserved some kind of help and had no possible access to it,or for Schreibersite, without the financial means. It was the familiar feeling of sitting in a room in a chair across from Carmine, watching with odd detachment as he tried to help her when she couldn't tell him about half of her problems. He still helped -- but it was harder for him, when there was so much he didn't know.

She might've thought about all that. She might've thought of Mistral, too -- it had been on her mind all night, hadn't it?

But what she heard was: That oath of yours ensures that you'll be pristine forever.

Which was true, in as far as Megrez meant it. She'd laid down her weapon and left the burden of the physical fight to the rest of them.

Her shoulders drooped. "You're right," she agreed wanly. "I'm sorry. What I do costs more lives than just my own. It always has."

She'd known that much from the first moment she'd let her distaff clatter to the ground at General Avalon's feet. It was her life she'd risked, but it was the life of the man Avalon was killing that Hvergelmir had thrown away entirely.

She hadn't seen him dead -- but she'd seen another man dead from her refusal to intercede. She'd watched as Sailor Ate crushed his face in; she'd felt his lifeless skin beneath her hands later when she'd failed to protect him from the smoke of the corrupted senshi's attack.

It wasn't that there was ever much of a chance she would've succeeded in either case, if she'd fought -- but it was certainly more of a chance than what was left to them because she wouldn't.

Megrez was not wrong. She deserved, at least, to hear Hvergelmir admit it.

Pollux nodded. Nothing that some things were being passed and sticking. Good enough. "Bien sûr. Il sera stable dans quelques jours. Sinon, je vais vous voir sur une autre nuit." He motioned for her to go.

"The mess has always been here. All that has happened is it has been brought to the surface."