Nobody ever told Sailor Pyxis about the finer points of retreating, but it seemed to be the only tactic he'd practiced repeatedly. Though he loved his fireflies, and was thankful that he had a way to defend himself at all, he still felt more comfortable running and hiding in places where nobody could find him and hurt him. Inevitably, without Europa there to help him through battles, he'd end up running towards home with regrets and tears and fear for what Abel might say.

This one, however, was the worst. Before now, he'd only fought youma or cautiously patrolled or otherwise avoided any Negaverse confrontation. But tonight's patrol brought him all sorts of terrible: he'd broken a promise, and subsequently discovered that someone he'd wanted to be friends with was the enemy. Prior to tonight, when Pasha thought of the Negaverse, he thought of big, scary people who looked mean and were mean and did nothing but beat people up, very similar to the bullies who made fun of him in middle school. Serandite didn't look mean or particularly scary and didn't really beat him up.

He could barely find his house through the tears. More than one person stared at him as he ran, wondering if the poor little girl in the bright yellow skirt had just been dumped. Pasha was heartbroken enough to feel as if he had. Serandite was a potential friend in his mind before tonight. That meant anyone who was his friend (or potentially so) could be on the opposite team, and he might not even know it.

And he was supposed to really hurt them.

Pushing open his window, he stared through the darkness, hoping to see the gleaming eyes of a grumpy black cat. "Abel?" he called through tears. "I...gotta ask you somethin', Abel." Surely just asking the cat to take the powers away would prevent him from having to hurt anybody he cared about. That was the last thing he wanted to do, whether or not it would keep Destiny City from falling into the hands of evil. He could be selfish this once, he thought.

When the cat didn't respond, he powered down and slowly changed into his pajamas, forcing himself to keep moving and not curl into a defeated ball. The pajamas were very warm, covered in stars and hearts and rainbows, but they didn't feel comfortable and happy at all. Everything felt wrong. His whole purpose was wrong. He wasn't sure that he could even achieve being the bright, perky Pasha that everyone knew if he had to carry this sort of burden around. How did other Senshi do this?

Finding solace in his comfortable bed, he curled up around his kitten, Trinket, burying his face into soft striped fur. Luckily, Trinket didn't seem to mind that his fur was being coated with tears. He obliviously purred in response.

"I don't think I can do this anymore, Trinket," he mumbled, words lost in the midst of the content rumble. "I never thought about hurting real people. I never really imagined them as real people! How could real people be as bad as everyone says the bad guys are? And you know what's even worse? I think...I think the bad guys could be like. Anyone. I know Tallulah's on our side but...but what about everyone else? What about-"

No. He wasn't even going to think about Audrey being part of the Negaverse, because that was just impossible. Few people were as nice to him as Audrey was. Few people loved him as much as Audrey did. Maybe Serandite had only seemed to be a good person as a trick, and she was just really, really terrible otherwise. That had to be it.

Anything to avoid the thought that he and Audrey might have to fight one day. Thinking that one of them might not come out of the battle alive was unbearable.

"Not that it matters anyway," he told Trinket, followed by a yawn-hiccup. "Gonna tell Abel I quit. Abel will fix it. He's gotta."