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Encke detected a signature that clearly belonged to Chaos, a signature that felt about the same level as his, and headed in the direction of it.

Was it a general? No, that didn't quite feel right. It didn't feel like the slightly off pulse of the generally morally grey Dark Mirror Senshi. And it didn't feel monstrous, so it clearly was not a youma, or a half-youma. Process of elimination told him what he had to be feeling: a corrupted senshi. A corrupted eternal senshi, at that.

Encke shuddered.

There was a moment where Encke considered just moving on. The corrupted senshi terrified him, in a way. The fact that they were wrong and an abomination in their own sense only took one look at them. Their foreheads were cracked. Their chests were cracked. The thought that any senshi, himself included, could just be taken by the Negaverse and turned into a slave to Chaos was horrifying. ... Though he, himself, was actually no longer included in that. The transcendence came as a relief in that sense.

He was not safe from the sight of those who had been mangled and given up to Metallia, but...

He bit down on his lip. He felt no other Order signatures that were strong as his own. Even if he didn't want to go deal with them, Encke figured it was likely that whoever they were might have already been draining someone, or perhaps worse, fondling starseeds. He resumed his approach.

The sight of the corrupt eternal was enough to send his blood running cold, but it wasn't enough to send him running. As much as his instinct told him to charge, to push her off the building, to fling his attack at her and let her suffer, she wasn't exactly ... doing anything. It felt wrong to make the first move. There was no point. Just sitting on a building, she wasn't a threat. Better not to burn off his attacks in case an active threat came along.

For now.

Encke pulled at his sailor collar uncomfortably.

Why wasn't she doing anything? Why was she smiling? He assumed no one got to the upper levels of an evil military corporation without being a vicious hardass. So far, his experience had supported that assumption. It supported that assumption all the way down to the base level.

Encke kept a close eye on her, watching as her eyes wandered to take a glance over his body. Combined with her statement, Encke couldn't help quirking a brow.

Was she hitting on him?

Honestly, all things considered, he couldn't quite tell...

"You're just sitting there," remarked Encke, lifting a hand and swatting it in her general direction. Maybe he could try to fish some answers out of why she wasn't doing anything. Perhaps she was playing lookout for someone else? He didn't exactly feel any other Chaos signatures in the vicinity, though... "Not exactly used to finding one of yours just sitting around doing nothing."

He was tempted to bluntly ask what she was doing, but that didn't seem like a good way to get an answer.

"No, we wouldn't."

Encke crossed his arms and shifted defensively. Combined with the flat tone of, 'we wouldn't,' it was a clear sign that if she made any moves, he would start swinging. He quirked a brow, leaving it in her court, but she kept talking for the moment, so he supposed that was fine. Maybe. He probably should have just attacked her while she was open, but that felt... Bad. Ugh. Morals were hard.

Besides, it was a pretty sight. Encke didn't let his guard down necessarily, but he did briefly glance to the side so he could take in the sights. It no longer fascinated him the way it did back in 2011, but there was still something pretty about seeing lights dance against the dark sky, especially since light pollution admittedly made it hard to see too many stars here.

He couldn't help glancing back and wondering which celestial body she really belonged to, because he knew it wasn't Stillwaterite.

Figuring he was at least somewhat of a known quantity among the Negaverse at this point, he figured there was no harm in responding, "Encke." A pause. "Does the Negaverse even bother to tell you your real name?"

Except it wasn't.

Encke knew that any name with -ite at the end of it was not the name of a senshi. It was a corrupted mask the Negaverse threw over them when they cracked chests and cracked their foreheads. At her response, he frowned, but he honestly couldn't expect much else. She was an Eternal. It was likely that she was deep in the poison of Chaos by now. Retrieving her from that would be difficult at best.

From what he had seen, it often wasn't worth trying.

He blew a stray piece of red hair out of his face as he watched her, not letting her eyes move from her for a second. He was clearly tense; Encke was waiting for her to make a move, waiting for her to make him attack her. Nothing was ever coming, but it was forcing him to stay on high alert.

"So they don't, then," was his response, shaking his head. She knew what he meant.

"Well, Still, I'm sure whatever your actual homeworld is, it misses you. You got cut from it by Chaos. They," he gestured vaguely at her, "literally cracked you open."

Encke couldn't help shuddering at the thought.

If she was attempting to provoke him, it was working. His eye twitched and his arms dropped to his side, one of his hands balling into a fist.

Could she really still touch his starseed? Could she really still pull it out? Could she really still shatter his starseed, just like that? It seemed like a myth -- why could she still touch it if she could not corrupt it? Why could she get at it at all? The thought ran through his head, but he was not willing to ask for a test of the theory. Encke was not an idiot. He would rather be alive and wary than dead.

He had enough experience with death.

"I can heal others," replied Encke, attempting to keep his voice even. Considering he was an actor, it was actually working quite well. It wasn't the first time he had played at niceties while actually feeling angry. He took his fingers out of the fist they had balled in, instead wiggling them as if loosening them up. "I can go to space. I have my own comet. It's mine. I can rebuild it, I can make it a home. It's inaccessible to you and anyone like you."

Those were the most important things to him, but, "I've had more energy since. I feel stronger and brighter than ever. The glowing is a little strange, yes, but I have a link to the greater universe. And you?"

He quirked a brow, not letting her answer. "You may be able to teleport, but you're a slave to the Negaverse, whether you currently think you are or not."

He caught her attempt at making a sexual joke and might have thought of smirking if he wasn't distracted by the fact that she was still trying to insist that her position was superior to his.

It clearly was not.

"Sure, the war is on Earth. That's where this war was started, years ago, before I even awoke to it." He realized he was a part of it long before he was a senshi. The aforementioned events flashed through his head for a moment, and he wavered, but he buried it down before it could bubble up any further. "But this is just where the war is centered, at the moment. All of us, you included, lived in space before. Before we were born on Earth, that is. Going to space is truly going back home, for us. Going back to our societies. Rebuilding them so perhaps someday we can all live in space again, throughout the universe."

Encke loved space, truly. The concept that space was not a perk was foreign to him. The idea that there were entire societies to explore, to learn, to repair, perhaps to work on bringing back -- to him, that was magical.

"There's no real greater force for me, Stillwaterite. I make my own decisions. You're controlled by a force that expects too much from you. You mentioned draining energy, but aren't you also expected to collect starseeds?"

He tilted his head.

"Don't people in on your side encourage starseed consumption for boosting your own strength? You cannot claim to be saving Earth or to have any upper hand when you are consuming the souls of their people for power. Even if you aren't, many on your side are."

"Perhaps you have failed to realize neither I nor you would be here, on this planet, at all, if it wasn't for the destruction Chaos brought on the universe a thousand years ago. We'd all be in space."

His expression was flat.

"I'd love to live in space fully, but that option was never presented to me."

Encke's eyes locked on the starseeds when she pulled them out. He knew she was likely doing this to goad and taunt him. Everything she had said and done so far had hinted at as much, even between her insistence that her position was the superior one. And yet, his blood boiled anyway. Those were souls. Souls of people that should, at the very least, be sent back to the cauldron to get another chance. It was likely too late to return them to their bodies, but it wasn't too late to save them from the maw of herself or whatever servant of Metallia would end up using them.

"Perhaps you don't realize, Stillwaterite, that I haven't had to sacrifice anything to receive my power." He could have just hung up his suit, per se, if he wanted to. Not bothered to pursue it any further. Blend back into society. He wouldn't, though. He needed to save civilians from people like her.

He needed to make sure nothing like he went through ever happened to anyone else.

"I'm not asked to interrupt the eternal cycle just for some cheap energy and power for someone else."

He quite nearly zapped himself in front of Stillwaterite, grabbing for her coat with a sneer on his face.

"There are shitty people, but it's not your job to use your unfair advantage to become judge, jury, and eternal executioner."