Signature Story Arcs and Null the Gull: Does this work?

[Omnicron]

So the Signature Story arcs give you 20 merits the first time you run them on any given character: for a short, fun adventure, that's great! A really effective way to earn merits while you level up on interesting content. However, you can only get the 20 merits the first time you run each arc (and then the 20 merit reward gets locked behind a 7 day timer shared by all signature arcs). This limits the amount of merits you can earn this way.

 

But it occurs to me that the villain versions of the story arcs exist as well, and it seems possible one could run the same arc again "for the first time" by hitting up Null the Gull and doing the red versions.

 

Has anyone tried this? Does it work?

[Omnicron]

Just tried it.

 

No, it doesn't work.

 

Which is too bad. The villain arcs are rather substantially different. It's neat to do them both.