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Thraen wasn't far from the signature when it burst into being of his awareness- a tackhammer-like imaginary sonar ping to the side of his skull- Chaos and parks seemed to go hand in hand. People were relaxed, or at least sought to be, finding nature a refuge of growth from the daily grind and grime of city life.

So many of the attacks happened in all the parks that it was a wonder the police didn't dragnet the places nightly- excepting that there were a number of parks, a limited number of police, and regular crime to attend to in addition to the shadow war. But Thraen was not too busy, though he was one person. He'd even been staking out the parks on the express purpose of keeping watch until the majority of joggers, dog walkers and date-goers found their cars and went home when the parks closed. And trouble, it seemed, came knocking as he'd predicted- it felt like a captain. The Super Senshi of Gardens dropped down from the crown of the tree he'd been scouting in and dashed for the source of the signal. At least it didn't seem to be moving any.

And having closed fast- there was only one possible source- the silhouette of a man near the closest bench wearing a trenchcoat and hat. It was too formal by far unless there was a fete in the park. Which Thraen highly, highly doubted. Thraen slowed to standing and called over a short distance of lawn between them, "So walks and reclines the fetid corpse, and fouls the living green where rest the living wander. Declare yourself, Agent."

Eyes and hair of blood, a flippant grin and spine curved the body frame for showmanship and spite-
"You."

"I remember you."
Every scream in the big top, that woman's dead eyes staring, every partial second of that gloved hand plunged into his own chest while tentacles held him and he writhed for freedom. "I will meet. every one. of those souls that died. out of your buried body."

"How many years of flowers would have to be bloomed from that corpse to make up enough joy to replace that which you've stolen, ended, destroyed. Murderer." What the police cannot do, what the justice system will not do, what the city will not act on- that is why we are here and ride this carousel every night. There must be some opposition to these...there is no word for them in any language spoken or dead.

Thraen shifted into action, a sprint and lunge to close the distance and try to break whatever would with a punch aimed at the man's collar.

The officer went down, scrambling boots in scours over the grass and ground. Scarring the Earth even more with his very presence. "Personal? No, Captain."

Thraen followed the man's movement immediately, having no want of distance between them. It was mind boggling that the man seemed in anything of a panic. This man, who had pulled a civilian's starseed in front of him to taunt and gloat. The first step to justice is to take away his weapons.

Thraen jumped to get in front of the captain's scramble, aiming his landing to bring a wooded boot to maim one of those offending hands.

"Justice is impersonal. No explanation validates the souls of those ruined that night, or any night since. Every day you are allowed to continue is another count of lives you've touched and ruined. You will pay for those with your own forfeit."

Vigilante... That was a truth, and it struck a chord in the back of Thraen's mind, warring with the strictures kept sacred as a chiseled marble stele- vigilantism was a hard topic and device, and he'd known it played into the roles they all played. He hadn't sat down to consider it against the hard truth and weight of doing more than good-samaritan-driving-trouble-away from bystanders. He needed to think that over both long and hard.

"I'm just a man- I don't deal in souls, Captain. Justice is paid by the body, whatever mercy your soul seeks in the hereafter is the province of whatever god you choose to believe in."

"Killing you...won't make right anything you've done. Nothing can put life back into bodies, or return what is stolen and used. But you are right that it would bring me a step closer to you. But there is still lex talionis, Captain. Justice must be had, and payment must be made. Either in your energy and life, or in some other manner. You owe a blood debt, and restitution will be had. "

"I am not so ignorant that I would believe you able of swearing off energy gathering or killing. So every night I let you live is an increase of that debt unpaid and on my head for letting you go, " Thraen stepped his other foot against the hollow between the Captain's shoulder blades. I don't actually know how to efficiently kill a person. How to execute. Movies make it seem so simple to turn someone's neck, but I would get something wrong. That would be horrible. If it is to be, and it is to be for justice, then it MUST be clean. What do I do? There's no classes on this, no books I've read. I've never killed anything except fish, bugs and a few squirrels after getting a hunting license. "That leaves a poor situation for how you're going to remend your ways. This is your one chance to make a suggestion."

Espionage? Trading intelligence on lives? It is hardly worth it.

Is it? For the price of what this one man can do, and will do, is the information on others and what they do, or how they do, or where they do...is it worth it?

Without risk, rare is gain. The risk is not mine being paid. I Have next to no information as it is, and no team. If I'm going to be even vaguely effective, then I must have some 'book' to read. Some sort of data I didn't have to be broken to collect. I can't sustain this trade. I shouldn't. Law is law, immutable. One bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

Police do make deals with the lesser to catch the greater.
I do not like it.


Thraen shifted swiftly, dropping his wooded knee to grind where his foot had been in the Captain's back. With a hand he knocked aside the cap and grabbed his hand into the red hair to pull the captain's head back. Thraen pressed his lips to the man's ear, "Your name. Your station and assignments. The Negaverse- I want to know where it is. Where is it's door. Every cave, every castle, every country...has a mouth, a door, a shore. I want to know how you all come and go from this place or places. After that, you will stay very, very still and dissemble to me of yourself where any energy balls and starseeds are on your person. I will take them. Every part of you is mine, tonight. You will swear on your blood to take no more starseeds."

" You give me that, and you will walk away from this with breath still in your throat, you have my oath."

"The price of your life, Captain. I do not make it lightly. You may thank the existence of counter-intelligence within the laws and government of the land we stand on that I can consider it at all just. "

Wisdom is knowing not only justice, but when to hold out a hand of Mercy. The government and two friends. I will....try to have mercy. Medea's way...Irene's way. I will try.

Infiltration branch...they have specific branches. And one dedicated entirely to PR. 'City's practically ours'..indeed. It would explain the profusion of anti-senshi propaganda throughout the media coverage of events and the label of terrorist. Is it by buying off, or because actual agents are part of the media? It could be either, both. Better to assume both. All that is the enemy need not be powered by magic only, but amplified by those driven by malice alone.

Regular people who pray to their god, Schadenfreude.

Back pocket- Thraen kept his grip in the captain's hair, tightening the fingers to pull at the wefts and scalp. If it were nicer meant, it could have felt good as part of a massage to the temporalis muscles, but it wasn't. With free hand, Thraen did not hesitate to turn, pat the jacket for pockets, then move it to access the captain's pants and pockets there. Neither was the Super senshi shy about reaching in and pulling out the fore-mentioned loot, unintended goosing of a nice backside reduced to process and procedure. There was no play, only business in the motions. Thraen stashed the items in the top of his gloves, as though hiding a sgian-dubh.

"Don't be so certain of your superiors over my creativity when it comes to what to be done with you. Death is the end game, but not before." It highlighted another failing, though. He planned to remedy it immediately- he didn't know techniques and subtleties of interrogation, as much as he was familiar with some of the more gruesome methods from art history and graphic woodblock prints. He needed to spend some hours, like a thesis, in the library.

" No one ever tells the whole truth the first time who is part of an organization like yours," Thraen pushed the captain's face into the ground before standing again, one boot planted where knee had been in Buddingtonite's back. Don't know how to get there? I don't believe you. It is possible, but unlikely, since you do not travel in pairs. It is too inefficient. But that doesn't necessarily mean that if you do know, that the knowledge would help a senshi to get there. That...isn't the point. I need answers and they're not being given. I'm being rambled and proselytized to.

That the captain persisted in trying to demoralize him, as though to convince him of futility, hinted that he was still too much under his own power. Too deliberate, not hopeless- "You aren't telling me what I want to know, and that means I can't offer you my word. If you can't make me promises of time-"

"Those who cannot censor themselves, bridled will they be by others." Which meant finding a way to break those hands so that they could neither gather energy nor take starseeds for at least so long as they needed to heal. It wasn't much of an assurance, but it was something. A small price extracted, before other questions that he might better answers to. Thraen aimed a hard step at the hand he'd originally caught much the same way, but this time not to pin it- this time he wanted to break it.

A better person? That is a interesting debate- what makes a good person. How the individual defines it? How the society defines it? How religions define it? These....are all different. Proving it isn't something to be done in an hour or a day, even, if one wanted to. "The whipped child sues for clemency on the basis that punishment itself is unjust? Consequence is not unjust. You have murdered people, a count of which I have not...but I have witnessed and would have been numbered among them. "

"Punishing unwanted behaviour is part of pedagogy. It also includes rewards, if you had acted to benefit society instead of breaking laws." Another point to research- the study of punishments and their effects. How was the best way to behaviorally modify those he came across- get them to stop being part of the Negaverse.

"Nothing I can offer you...no, maybe not yet. You're very right that I'm not strong enough to hold a fence against the whole of your organization and to tear from the grasp of rot the few buds its parasites have not yet wormed through the hearts of to graft or replant to better bloom. I want to be. I will be. I will find a way. "

"Remember it, Buddingtonite. If penitence is ever truly in your heart, I will see you judged and pardoned, and I will stand by those who find that bravery to accept their dues and do better. In the meantime, I'm curious what you suddenly came up with that I 'need' to know."

"Start talking, and justify that I don't execute you for murder." Thraen hissed and stepped off the hand. Even giving the captain his life hardly seemed fair. I should take his other hand as well, if it's really to be enough to keep him off the streets long enough to make a difference in lives and energy. They are on my hands, every one, if this gamble is wrong.