Once Lance comes home, he’ll find Taurus on a couch in his living room. She is lounging on the couch, staring at the ceiling, humming to herself. She stops as soon as Lance enters the room fully, and narrows her eyes at him. “How many senshi and knights are you harboring?” she asks bluntly. “I’ll let you think on that answer.”

Lance walks in, it had been a long day, and when he saw Taurus on the couch he knew it would be even longer. "No need to think." he replies as he gets a drink from his fridge. "One senshi lives in my territory and possibly a knight, I think he works at the hospital so he might be close by." He replies.

"I found out pretty soon after I made that deal with you." Lance says as if it was nothing. He had just broken a senshi's soul, and possibly destroyed one of the few chances he had at a genuine friendship. "But if you'll recall my terms were that anyone is free to live in my territory so long as they do not use their powers there and to my knowledge the senshi hasn't used anything." He says, no point in denying it, he'd made the deal because he thought his might happen anyways.

"Now my turn to ask, why did one of my healing powers drop a sister of an acquaintance of mine into a coma?" He asks also unamused by this situation.

Taurus sits up straight, “You’re Covenant. You’re corrupted. That’s how it works. Your soul has permanent dark stain on it because of what you are now. It was there from the moment you chose to accept it. Or maybe it was always there and it just kicked into hyperdrive. It might be messing with your knight powers. I can imagine there might be some kind of interference between the two. However, I haven’t seen a knight get corrupted before, so this is all conjecture. It would make sense though. Chaotic energy spilling into your powers, changing them. I don’t understand why you are angry. That ability is still useful. It’s not like you lost power. In fact, now you have power from two separate sources, it seems. Chaos energy and whatever fuels your powers as a knight. You might be able to accomplish more than you could have.”

“My turn for questions again.  Do you remember what I said about harboring senshi and knights? Did I not tell you earlier that if you were safeguarding on our enemies that we would have issues? So just why the fuck did you think that was alright?” Taurus growls. “I’m going to let you explain yourself. I know one of their names. And if you don’t give me a damn good reason, I will leave her corpse on your doorstep.”

Lance nods several times. "I'm not actually mad about the power itself. I just don't like the fact that no one told me it was going to happen and that it is hurting consistency. One of the keys to fighting is understanding yourself and how your powers work so not being able to rely on my powers doing what I expect them to anymore is a pretty big handicap. It's like if you tried to use that wind bull of yours and suddenly an rock badger made an earthquake instead." He explains trying to make it clear. If he couldn't rely on his own power what could he rely on. "I also didn't ask for my power to change, but I suppose that's no ones fault." He says with a sigh, fairly nonchalant about this whole thing.

"I haven't been harboring her,no one has attacked her anyways and she hasn't caused problems, but I guess that mostly sounds like an excuse...it probably is..." He admits thinking about it and setting down the drink. "As for the reason why I didn't do anything about it. There has been a lot of tension on the knight and senshi side and she's been taking the brunt of a lot of criticism and disappointment. I was hoping I could convince her to become neutral and a protector of Shinjuku, just like am looking for youkai to do the same."

"Though if you've never seen a corrupted knight before what was that spy who stank of taint almost as strong as yours?" He asks in exchange for replying to her question.

The kid’s calmness was unnerving. Her anger was escalating, but she tries to push it back down. But damn if she didn’t feel like breaking his a few ribs right now. “If you can convince her to stand down fine. However, you have a deadline with that. And one that is approaching quickly.”

She raises an eyebrow, “That knight? I do not know him. That was the first time I encountered him and Ms. Torres. He looks like someone that has crossed that threshold, where the taint stains everything and cannot be removed. We are not warped in the same manner. I like to believe my mind is intact. His is not. To make matters worse, he is a viper. I fully believe he will bite unexpectedly. But I don’t know how he came to be that corrupted.” She shrugs, “Your guess is as good as mine with him.”

"You are acting different," she states.

Lance lets out a breath and sits down next to Taurus. "I will do my best to convince her, but Sophia is not very strong, even when transformed. I do not think it would be a chore for you to defeat her in a fight. Besides if you really wanted the identities and to kill them like a snake in the grass why not press me more for them? Fighting a foe head to head regardless of the odds is the way we do things right?" He asks her looking at her very seriously, Lance had agreed to work for Taurus because he respected her if she was just another snake in the grass looking for victory at all costs then he supposed that was just another person who did not meet his expectations.

Though when he hears she didn't know about Peter he looks deep into her eyes. His pale brown eyes showed none of the life they did when he was fighting. "I believe you." He says and some of the color returns to his eyes. "I do not like that Knight, but to make matters worse I thought he was someone one of the others had sent to spy on me."

"Oh Sophia is a senshi, so he did not lie about that, but I don't think you can trust him anymore than the senshi should have." he says and looks outside. He was so tired, playing politics like this was too much for someone like him, caring about others was hard, how did people live with the fear of losing something all the time?

"Hey Taurus, I'm going to level with you, I do think Sophia will come around to my side, but it might not be until after we defeat the others." He says and an intensity begins to build around him, a cold, determined intensity that was sharper and more lethal and anything he had shown while fighting as Oni. "To be honest I am glad she is in my territory, when I was just a monster she was the only one to show me kindness, and treat me as a person. I cannot agree with her decision to fight for this doomed and filthy world, but I do value her." He says and gets to his feet.

"I won't protect her when she attacks us, but if killing her is so important that you would like to make an enemy of me then please tell me now and we can skip straight to the end." He says, in his mind Soma was screaming that he had just ruined everything by coming clean but as Lance became the Eris Knight and the singing spear appeared in his hand Soma was struck silent.

Lance was entirely himself and had overcome both Soma and Oni, not in a fit of passion, but as a conscious decision.

Taurus rubs her face a little and sighs. “I will not personally attack her unless it comes to it. However, I am sure we will come to blows with the way she is aligned. The girl is weak. She looked like she was about to fall over when I saw her. However, I cannot speak for everyone else. There will be plenty of people who will try to kill her, perhaps just to make a name for themselves in the Covenant. You are signing up for a full time job if you want to protect her. She will not always be in your area.”

She looks at him, “You are better off not worrying about her. She will get hurt. It’s the nature of war. What will you do then?”

At the mention of defeating the young senshi' allies and recruiting her, Taurus' gaze hardens, “You want to break her spirit or corrupt her soul? Defeat and destroy everyone she works with and cares about, and take her to this side. It would be far kinder to kill her, don’t you think?”

As Taurus says tells him that it would be far kinder with kill Sophia he smiles an empty smile. "I said my side, I am going to over her a place here in Shinjuku. I am going to protect this place." Then he sighs, she was right after all. "You're probably right, it might be kinder to kill her and that may very well be what happens, but if she is going to die then at the very least I'm going to make sure it fighting for what she believes in, and not by the tricky of some cretin looking to earn points with a false goddess." he says, some of the intense rage that taurus has come to know leaking into his voice. He had reached the conclusions as well. He is aware there will probably be no good end for him, but he never believed there would be one.

"Well if I can convince her first then it won't come to that, and..." He sighs. "Well if she bites it then everything will just go back to the way it was before." An endless life of fighting to avoid thinking about the rest of his life.

"I will protect her so long as she does not break the rules of this land." Then he smiles "I extend the same offer to you and anyone else...well maybe not that crazy knight. I don't need a viper crawling into my home."

Taurus gets up. “While I don’t understand why you are so intent on making yourself miserable, it is your choice. You seem to have thought a lot of about this at least. I hope for your sake that you don’t come to regret any of this. That is the best we can hope for, I suppose. Death without regrets. I’d ask you not to break her spirit. I’d think significantly less of you if I saw you dragging around a husk of a girl. I prefer to believe our cruelty does not run as deep as Virgo’s or the viper knight.”

She walks to the door. As she is about to leave, she says back to Lance, “I think we will both have to deal with that knight however. While I find his single-minded devotion to Virgo unnerving, he’s far too useful. Keep your eyes on him, and don’t blink for a second around him.” With that, she leaves Lance to his home.

As Taurus begins to leave Lance asks her something he had been wondering for a while, especially with all the leeway he'd been getting lately.

"Taurus, what exactly do you want from me? I get that having me stay out of the active youma hunting is useful, but I get the feeling there is something else." He asks simply.

Taurus back steps back into the room. She ponders for a few moments. “Four things. The first serves the goals of the Covenant, you, and me. The senshi and knights would like to get together these things called the Rainbow crystals to essentially restart the world, bringing it back to the way it was 8 years ago. I hate the idea of that tremendous step backward. These crystals were used to bind seven great youma, so the crystals are attached to their souls even after being reincarnated. We do not have much information on where they are except blue is with Jun Kaneko, CEO of Kaneko Industries. We have been trying to bring Jun to our side as he is adept at seeing the future, but attempts to recruit him have failed so far. Anyways, I would like your aid in finding and getting any of these crystals. You have a good sense for youma, so you might be able to find the other ones. Second one is more or less an extension of what you are already doing. I want to be able to put some of the lower level youma or injured youma here for safety without dragging them all the way back to the world of youma. I’d also like to be able keep stuff here that I rather not have found and organize meetings in this area without worrying of someone interrupting. The third is a request for aid if the senshi and knights threaten valuable resources, become too powerful to stop, or attack our men without provocation. I don’t anticipate that happening. However,if such event occurs, I would like your help. Fourth is a personal request. If I should ever become as insane as Scorpio did in his final days, kill me, burn my body, hide the ashes, and take my lance.” She crosses her arms, “Do you have any issues with any of those things?”

As Lance listens to the requests he nods, they all made sense, though he figured he should probably tell her before anything else. "Well since you've been so understanding for me and now that I know what you are looking I should let you know the Senshi have at least one of those rainbow crystal things. It fell out of a youma the group fought at the Hino Shrine. I am pretty sure the red headed knight has it, so if you are interested might want to go deal with him." Lance suggests, he did not intend to attack the knights unprovoked that would lead to problems for Shinjuku.

"As for these other great youma, I can start looking, any idea where they might be or what they can do? Also are they on our side? The one at the shrine just seemed insane." He admits though when she mentions killing her he frowns more deeply. "Yeah I'll do that, but if it does come to that I'd rather you do something preventative first. When Virgo does establish whatever she plans to if it turns out as bad as this world I'd like you with me to help remind her we wanted a better one.

Taurus sighs, “Of course, they do. Red headed knight. Do you mean the one with power over fire or the one from earlier today? We’ll find someway to get it later.”

Taurus shakes head, “I do not know where the rest might be. All we can do is search the Earth for those with energies similar to ones that we are looking for. And no, they are not on our side. I would not be surprised if some did not know what they were or the power they possessed. Also, they are not all crazy. Jun Kaneko lives a relatively normal human life.”

Taurus looks surprised that Lance had any kind of reaction to her death. “I do my best to keep my mind. However, would I recognize if I went insane? I do not think I am anywhere close to that point, and hopefully, it will never happen to me. I just need to have a plan in case it does.”

She smiles as he asks for one more thing, “I do not believe there is a good world coming after this one. I am sure there will be those who will construct one with the best of intentions, but it will become sick and diseased somewhere along the line. And I will topple the next civilization to come after, so things are not stuck that way. I already I planned to eventually tell Virgo that I had come to set fire to her kingdom, but who knows when.”