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He wasn't entirely sure if his higher power signature meant that more people avoided him now, or if it was just a surprisingly quiet night all things considered, but Encke wasn't seeing anyone or anything suspicious on one of his typical patrol routes.

The super senshi stood in an alleyway and tapped his foot against the ground, almost impatient.

Interesting.

It was okay, though. Honestly, Encke didn't really want a fight tonight. He didn't really want a fight any night, but that day had been a particularly intense one at work, and the last thing he wanted to do was go home and start doing some actual fighting. Not that a fight in a movie wasn't an actual fight; in the moment, it certainly ended up feeling like a real fight, but it didn't have the same kinds of consequences as a real fight would.

He scrunched his nose. Anyway.

He was letting his mind wander since nothing really seemed to be showing up on his radar ... at least, until he felt something tinge at the edge of his senses. Encke had gotten a fairly good directional sense by now, and was able to turn his head in the direction that he was fairly sure the sense was coming from. It was a stronger sense, definitely stronger than himself. And it wasn't quite a pure sense, either.

So it wasn't a Knight or a Senshi, which left two possibilities so far as he could tell.

Well, hopefully he wouldn't need to fight tonight.

This didn't look like a Negaverse agent, in front of him. Definitely wasn't one of those weird senshi with the cracks in their chests and forehead that honestly creeped him right the hell out.

(Honestly, he found them more disturbing than the agents.)

So was it one of those Dark Mirror Senshi? Probably. His outfit seemed to have similar elements to Remarque's outfit, what with the random sheer pieces and the dark bodice. And there were no chest cracks, thankfully. He hadn't run into many of the Dark Mirror Senshi, but from what he could tell so far, they at least seemed relatively neutral, and their goals seemed less ... terrible than the Negaverse's, at least. Just wanting to get back to space wasn't a bad goal.

He had been sucked into some strange mirror gauntlet, though, which admittedly made him a bit more guarded than he might have been in the past. Encke didn't look like he was ready to fight or fly, but he did keep a bit wider of a distance than he might have before.

"It's alright," offered Encke, with a small laugh. "This is actually better coverage than my old uniform! Before I basically had one well covered arm and one that was almost bare. No gloves either."

It was a bit odd, admittedly. What were the senshi uniform gods thinking? ... Were there senshi uniform gods? If not, what determined his uniform?

-- Never mind that.

Since the Dark Mirror Senshi seemed non-combative, Encke's stance relaxed just a bit, but he still didn't come too much closer. "No, not in particular. I'm just checking out the environment, making sure nothing bad is going on. What brings you out here? Just enjoying the night?"

Encke seemed to relax a bit further when Avior remarked on the state of his own lack-of-extra-coverage, shifting to let his arms sit at his sides. "If I actually thought about it before escaping out of the house, I might actually grab a jacket! As is, though..."

He shrugged. "'sides, the running keeps me pretty warm."

Spontaneously, he decided to jog a bit in place, perhaps trying to display what he meant by running. He settled after a few moments, though, listening closely to Avior. Wait -- he used to be "white moon"? He had heard that term before. Encke supposed he was White Moon, though he still wasn't all that sure what Encke's Comet had to do with the moon. He had been taken to the moon, before.

More like zapped by force as a way of saving them all, but--

"So did you change sides and then leave the city?" asked Encke, brows raising in interest. He was admittedly curious himself; what would drive someone to want to run away so entirely? Also, admittedly, it was interesting to meet someone who hadn't started out as Dark Mirror. It was worth finding out more about. What drove the decision?

He tilted his head, figuring he should probably make the effort to answer Avior's question before starting to grill him in turn. "But I think it's okay on this side. It's good. I feel like we've been winning a bit more, lately." At least, he thought they were. At the very least, even if it was a while ago now, they had managed to actually get a leg up on the Negaverse for once when they invaded their space.

Encke was curious about what made other people tick, what drove them to their decisions -- especially decisions that resulted in them turning to Chaos. What would drive that kind of decision? Why would anyone want to give up the ability to go to their planet?

... Admittedly, that might have been a driving reason why he would never consider changing sides.

"Corrupted" for love, then. He frowned a bit when he said, especially when he implied it didn't really work out. It was interesting that Avior mentioned "purified," though -- Encke had never heard of a Dark Mirror Senshi purifying. Was the person Avior was with not a Dark Mirror Senshi, or could Dark Mirror Senshi purify? He needed to do more research into that...

"I'm glad to hear you're happy now. That's what's important, right?" He offered a small smile. It was too bad Avior wasn't happy on their side, but he wasn't really frightened of the Dark Mirror Senshi. Uneasy, sure, but not frightened.

Avior was right that the Negaverse was the primary threat.

"Much more bloodthirsty," remarked Encke, with a frown, crossing his arms. "They're terrifying, honestly. I'm not sure if they'll ever change, but I think the best we can do is try to keep their number of incidents manageable. Or even make them go away."

That would be ideal to him, honestly.

"I'm glad to hear that you guys seem to see them as a problem, too."

One of the reasons why he thought the Dark Mirror Court was less of a threat than the Negaverse was because they seemed to have at least somewhat similar goals to the people on his side -- or "White Moon" as everyone from Chaos insisted on calling them.

The idea of getting back into space and perhaps restoring their planets too seemed like a good one. It was where their starseeds belonged, after all.

At the idea of being tired of fighting, Encke's expression seemed a bit grim. Tired? Probably. But-- "I worry we might always be fighting off the Negaverse, or some form of evil. I hope to defeat them, permanently, but there's a reason why people like us exist, right? Not just for the Negaverse, I'd think." When he said 'us,' he was mostly referring to himself and the others who fought on his side so to speak, but considering the Dark Mirror Senshi seemed to be concerned for life on Earth as well, they were included.

... So long as they didn't start sucking everyone up into those mirror labyrinths--

"How is that going? The whole, finding your way off planet thing?"

He could already just ... go to his comet, which was nice, but he was admittedly curious to know if the Dark Mirror Senshi had gotten any closer to their stated goal.

He wanted to ask about what the Dark Mirror Senshi had discovered, curious, but Avior seemed to be avoiding elaboration. He supposed it was to be expected. Encke might have not seen the Dark Mirror as a threat, necessarily, but they also weren't of the same side.

Avior probably didn't want to go babbling everything about their side to an outsider.

Encke laughed, though, when Avior apologized for taking up too much of his time. "Please, don't worry about it," he replied, swatting a bit and shrugging. "You weren't really distracting me from anything important. I like talking, especially out here. It's good to build connections. It's part of how we come to an understanding about each other, right?"

Maybe the Negaverse was hopeless, but he didn't think the Dark Mirror was.

It seemed that Avior was finally relaxing a bit more.

That was good.

It was good for the future potential of this connection, anyway. One step at a time. The Dark Mirror weren't without hope, so he'd take every step he could get.

His grin became a smile, and he replied, "No need to thank me. I'm happy we were able to talk!" He noted that Avior said it had been a while since he could talk so easily to Order, and wondered if more of his allies were actively attacking Dark Mirrors. It would be worth looking into. "Maybe we'll see each other again soon, eh?"

He offered his hand, in case Avior was willing to shake it.

"You too. Be careful out there," offered Encke, waving back as the other man headed off.

This was nice. Maybe it was possible to bring the Dark Mirror Senshi onto the side of Order at some point, and even if it wasn't -- the enemy of his enemy was his friend. So long as the Dark Mirror were not doing anything against the civilian populace of Destiny City, they had a very common enemy in the Negaverse and had a lot more to gain by working together.

As Encke resumed his patrol, he hoped he could make sure that was the case.