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Megrez was indeed on the hunt tonight. She had no particular mission tonight; she just wanted to scout the outskirts for any stray Negaverse agents to pick off, steer towards purification, or drag back to Avalon for Shadow work. She felt a low-level Chaos aura nearby that soon blipped out of existence, but more importantly, there was a strong Order aura nearby as well. Had someone killed a lieutenant?

When she saw who the Order aura belonged to, that theory went out the window. "Mintaka." She came closer to the other senshi, trying to sense any indication of where that Chaos aura had gone. "There was a Chaos aura here not too long ago. Did you do something about it?" Her voice was flat and serious. Mintaka was a nice girl and all (always had been), but Megrez didn't trust her to "do things" about Chaos auras.

"Is that so? By my reckoning, you were right next to that Chaos aura. Perhaps, in the end, the person you escorted was a civilian, but they were most certainly a Negaverse agent before that." Megrez adjusted her stance slightly, her boots making light scraping noises against the dirt. "I'm being led to conclude that you led a Negaverse agent out of the city and into this area, the forest surrounded the Order Headquarters. I hope you realize the danger this may cause, even if that agent was only a lieutenant." Even if the agent was only a lieutenant, they could slip into the Order Headquarters and bring all manner of information back to the Negaverse. As Megrez saw it, Mintaka had just created a liability for Order.

"Of course I found you out. You didn't really have much evidence in your favor in the first place." Really, when you had someone who was nearly right there and felt the Chaos aura, it was hard to deny eyewitness testimony. "Not tortured for not following rules? If they're having that much difficulty with the Negaverse rules, why don't you present them for purification? Unless they're still clinging to chaos somewhere, of course."

Megrez folded her arms and kicked at the ground some more. "A personal location... if they don't find a place that will actually protect them, they will be found by the Negaverse and killed or taken back for questioning no matter what. While I do suppose they couldn't just waltz up to HQ, they could if they were under supervision." Megrez wasn't fully placated, but she was juuuuust a bit. Perhaps this errant Negaverse agent could be a candidate for purification, and any extra knight would help.

"Fine, so it's hard to physically prove the presence of an aura. So what?" Megrez wrinkled her nose; sometimes Mintaka's babbling about being a "lady" could get a little cloying. "Many people are willing to leave everything behind when they corrupt, or are forced to do so when a General shoves their hand in their chest and says the word. And some people are indeed willing to leave everything behind to purify and free themselves from Chaos. That renders the point moot." She might have missed the point a bit, but what had been said was already out.

Then Megrez came up with an idea that might appeal to Mintaka's sensibilities a bit more. "Look, there's something you need to understand. The person you just led out of the city might be in grave danger if there's no one to protect them. Some nosy Negaverse higher-up might make a sweep of a neighborhood, find a lieutenant missing, and then next thing you know, they're out hunting that person. How do you know that where they're headed is safe?"

"If the 'gray' hurts us, we need to do something about it," Megrez said, becoming increasingly exasperated. "Fine! If you're so sure, you just wait and see what happens. I wash my hands of it. It's on you now." She hoped that Mintaka would eventually receive some consequence for her actions. If she was so sure the location was safe, then it would be her responsibility. The little bite at the end was completely uncalled for, however, and Megrez reacted accordingly. "Excuse me?! Who are you to tell me my 'game' is old? The rules of this war aren't going to get old till the war's done in one direction or another. There is no finding a new one until something drastic happens."

"Everyone is getting hurt." Megrez repeated the words, if only to see how they felt on her tongue. There was a ring of truth to Mintaka's words, and the stubborn walls in Megrez's mind were starting to crumble. It hurt to admit that things were going wrong. "Yes... everyone is. But the way things are, we have to take care of our own." Then Mintaka said something that fired Megrez up all over again. "Pointless?! Look, the Negaverse won't hesitate to pick us off. We need to whittle away at the tides as much as we can. Surrendering is pointless. Doing nothing is pointless. Are you giving up? The second you give up, the Negaverse truly wins." Megrez swore she wouldn't give up, even with the cracking walls in her heart.

"How noble," Megrez said with a sigh. "Tell me, have you had much success in those goals? Have you been able to come to terms with the Negaverse? If it were as simple as coming to terms with each other, and those terms didn't involve our utter decimation and submission, this war would have been over long ago." She was starting to feel tired of arguing. They clearly wouldn't see eye-to-eye, and if this kept on, they'd just keep demoralizing each other... or at least, Megrez would feel demoralized. Mintaka's method didn't seem to work, but did her methods work, either?

No, I can't give up. The second I give up, the Negaverse claims another victim.