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Patrolling at all understood the possibility of finding an enemy, since that was the very purpose of it. Find youma or agents and prevent them from doing harm to the population and environment. It wasn’t every night that something was felt, but he engaged when he did. It sent phantom aches along his scars, feeling the tinge of chaos now at the periphery of his mind. Thraen pivoted on the gravel of a roof to intercept. Better that there not be time allowed to draw a sigh and dread what this encounter would bode.

Are they moving. Is there a youma. Other signatures immediately nearby to act as reinforcements. All negatives immediately, but changeable. A civilian could hide at a vantage, undetectable, and then power up to become reinforcements as part of a trap. How into the well of madness will this one have dipped.

A silhouette emerged against the city backdrop. A cape, a hat, a General. This will go badly.

The same as each other time, with broken bones, need of stitches, and nothing much more to show for it. At least this one wasn’t already murdering someone. He called on approach, “A fail night for an ill aura, General.”

Landed on a near ledge corner with the scrap of stone on stone.

"The fettering of the will of Metallia, " Nor was this General one that Thraen recognized. Communication between senshi was notoriously lackluster, though, compared to the experiences with officers. The question at hand was whether it was a truth or a lie seeking information that this one knew neither name nor magic.

"What is your reason for wearing her livery and power?" No immediately obvious weapon to bear, but the hands were not visible behind him. The man closed some of the distance. This was fine, preferable even. He might bear something meant for close melee.

"Your definitions sacrifice the Many to the Few, the One, indeed feeding the starseeds and energies of the one living planet and all its inhabitants to the gorge of the thing called Metallia. It's will, inhuman, to feed and enslave all to itself. For what else have they done, workers of her will, but take energy-stealing, take lives and souls to ending corpses, and create in others, breaking from rebirth by making Youma of them. When has Metallia created something, instead of twisted it? Grown something for renewal and succor instead of for war and destruction? You stand by a tyrant."

"So wear I my garb- and make of this Magic and Starseed in my breast what I can. To safeguard and uphold the rights and lives of those who cannot protect themselves and have no magic of their own. To learn of Truth beyond the veil of Glamour. " Hands visible were better, but little comfort, to the eternal. Empty hands were still dangerous, and could still reach into a chest. They could all do it, even the lieutenants.

"Your own desire. You desire and believe in the justness of the actions of the Negaverse, for the glut of this creature, Metallia?"

"Betterment is not murder. Nor to make youma of people, the destruction of starseeds and destinies like chattel. The Earth has Knights of it's own, who steward the magic of it's Wonder Ley-points that Metallia fouls, covets, corrupts. What does Metallia offer that the Earth Knights don't already provide, save she drains energy and lives where they tend it and let it grow? Silver is no colour of my words, but tar black when speaking of that creature and her mana thrumming your veins like a drug. Clouding wills from free thought. "

"I pledge myself to no White Moon, no kingdom with an empty throne. I want no dominion over others, nor council it. The difficulty of navigating many opinions of children has little bearing on making a choice of morals and ethics. Because others make it hard, you shrink from doing what is right? From calling crimes wrong? An even more difficult view on the soil of a federal republic."

" 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are: ' "

" Life."
" Liberty."
" And the pursuit of Happiness.' Every starseed pulled from a chest violates that, General. "

"Laugh then, and take naught serious, not even your own motivations and compass. This is no laughing matter, that plays the worth of lives against the eternal core of sentient beings in an established cycle of rebirth." Thraen's eyes narrowed, flickering fires bright in the dark.

"Fallacy ad Hominem, fallacy of composition- among a host of others. Your debate form is wanting, and answers no point except with emptiness. Will you move onus probandi, next? Let us keep to what can be proved. Metallia demands quota of energy and starseeds from every agent in her army. Civilians are hors de combat. " The words came hissed. "Murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Yet civilians are harvested and slaughtered for energy and starseed by command of the Negaverse. "

"You and I, General. You and I are soldiers each given magic in this war. We are the combatants. We are casus belli, and as combatants may lawfully kill enemy combatants. While neither of our factions has the recognition of the sovereign nations of the planet earth, in matters of sovereignty we can point to 'Dina d'malkhuta dina'- "the law of the land is the law." The laws of war recognized by Earth's coalitions and terms of engagement. Some of the senshi may be war criminals, indeed, as you say. They are individual actors. They would be tried each as a sociopath or serial killer, a single entity in breach of Geneva Conventions for torture and inhuman treatment. As I cannot deny some senshi have done this, so you cannot that the Negaverse has as well, and scarred it's share of senshi and knights through torture. Or through stealing half their person away, unwilling, to their very soul. But the Negaverse is a standing army beneath an inhuman intelligence, and stands for murder, slaughter, and thievery by virtue of it's standing orders. There is an ethical difference of wrongs, tried by a handful of individuals to the systematic, continual and repetitious orders of a organized body "

"Will you actually think on this, and offer back better? Will you bark laughter and take up your weapon for savagery? Come, General, let us not waste each other's time."

Flamed interest cooled at the first words exited from the General's hole. He replies to none of it. 'you know nothing of ours' all over again, as others, throwing out 'you don't know me!' as though this were justification for any action. A smokescreen for every ignorance and occasion. This one wants no more to think about actual reason than the others. I was mistaken. He returns and fixates repeatedly on the same arguments even as they are named fallacies and hears nothing else. Doesn't debate, doesn't offer....anything at all. 'you think your mind more intelligent than mine'....

a**. Thoughtless a**. Not until so much said, and so little in every turn, did I think lowly of capability. Is it that I used specific terms that he comes to such a conclusion? Surely! Surely! It must be the case that someone only uses advanced vocabulary, beyond the common 3000, when they are trying to prove superiority. Never, ever, ever, as a sign of respect and acceptance that another is equal and knows the same precision. It is only an insult, only ego, and I'm treating him as less-than-human by talking to him like a human.

"My actual thought or opinion are no part of your purview. You repeat yourself without Reason. No more there be to speak upon, then. Surrender any starseeds on yourself, and declare their origins if by your hand or another, or surrender to a search. Or draw your weapon, as sorrow and pain must dwell between us. "

‘And you speak of arrogance on our side.’

When? Again for when, except for the final asking, that the General stop generalizing or repeating himself and ‘actually think on this’, there were no speakings nor intimations anywhere in sifting the words that had passed. The General made up entire conversations, apparently, in his own head. Or inserted derision instead of interest for emotional backing onto a presented evenness of tone. Conflated statements about Metallia alone to adhere to himself? The question comes to be if the trouble is in him, to naturally project his own habit onto others, or in the chaos twisting him.

At least he summoned his weapons, if making no other moves. A warrior of arms as apt to his ‘debate’: empty. They’d already assured they were melee distance, and the General’s willingness to have closed so much was plain with the revelation of his steel. He holds them like a pair of tonfa. Fast as fists, and damage attacking or guarding. But close range, as weapons.

Thraen made a lunge with leading leg, aiming boot to the dark instep of the General’s foot while pulling his own arms up ready.