(Backdated to September 9, 2021)

Gremlin hated doing upgrades.

It was embarrassing to have to go crawling to a general sovereign, begging to be given the permission to use a Mauvian’s primary ability. It implied that he cared how successful any of these senshi were. It implied he thought they deserved more power. It implied he respected the Negaverse’s sovereigns enough to request their aid. All untrue. All terrible. He avoided it unless it was absolutely necessary, which meant he avoided the purpose he was here for.

Why would a Mauvian find himself on Earth if not to support the piles of senshi that had suddenly graced the planet?

He wasn’t sure. Maybe there was no reason. Maybe those who stayed with the White Moon had the right idea in picking up where they left off, and just being the guardians these stupid human senshi desperately needed. Or, y’know, maybe it was wiser to stick with Metallia and let her clear everything off the planet. Wasn’t his world. His world was lost. Everyone else’s world should be lost too.

Regardless, he kept to himself unless there was reason not to.

…There was reason not to.

As much as Gremlin hated to admit it, his scrawny, gimp little cat body was practically no use. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t run. He had no magic. His technology couldn’t protect him. Any day he walked outside, he could be kicked to the curb by any passerby who thought he had a transmissible skin disease. And gods forbid he try to be useful in this war. His most recent attempt at usefulness had been in the Rift-

Which any braindead imbecile could’ve told him was entirely idiotic. The first time hadn’t been great, so it’d been a brazen thought that the second time would be better. Brazen and wrong.

He’d wanted it to be fine… because he had a team with him. He had a general who saw use in his aura-dampening abilities and a senshi who welcomed him into his home. It was the most ‘home’ Gremlin had ever remembered having, much better than living on the streets, and more personal than his nook in Headquarters. The mission had still been s**t once they’d all been separated, leaving just Gremlin and Cervantite cowering together behind a rock, so that was exactly the opposite of how protected Gremlin had expected to feel around his team.

So, yeah. He didn't really want to stand for that again. With enough begging and simpering, he'd managed to obtain a Chaos crystal from one of the sovereigns, with enough energy inside for one upgrade.

"Lazy brat," Gremlin snarked into the microphone of his tablet to send as a recording. "Meet me outside by the pond. Chop, ********, chop." And then, a hasty addendum: "Bring your pen."

Despite that rough mission, Ellian's enthusiasm for being a senshi was hardly dampened. Had it been one of his better moments? No, of course not. But there'd been dozens of senshi and agents on hand to manage whatever actually needed to be taken care of, so if he wasn't as useful as, say, literally anyone who'd had more time and more promotions in the Negaverse than he had, then why was that his fault?

He wasn't that arsed about it. Everyone he cared about was alive and not that scarred, so...? Yeah, seemed fine to him. He was still perfectly eager to power up whenever he had a moment to do so.

Tonight was no exception.

Since he couldn't teleport, he hadn't wandered far from home, but his house was hardly in the city proper, so Diesel was not even slightly concerned about anyone being out here to find him. They had a scattering of neighbors, but it was dark, and the deep valley and scattering of trees would obscure him from prying eyes. Benefits of having a "nice" house in a "good" neighborhood, he supposed. They weren't all stacked on top of each other and there was plenty of privacy even living in a big city.

His tablet blipped a soft light to signal he'd received a message. Not uncommon. Rakovanite messaged him pretty frequently, way more frequently than Nataniel ever had, so much so that he almost expected his brother to be ready to summon him.

Imagine his surprise to see that it was a voice message from a crotchety skin cat.

'The pond' was just a stagnant little puddle nestled in the valley, at the foot of the hill where most of the neighborhood houses sat. It was the farthest point from the houses, so easily the most obscured (and Diesel had caught Gremlin swiping for fish in the water, once. It was obvious the Mauvian liked it there). It was close enough that Diesel didn't mind showing up, and when he did, it was to find Gremlin sitting at the edge of the dock, not starring toward the water, as one might expect, but glaring inhospitably the second Diesel made it through the treeline.

"Are you already mad?" Diesel asked as he approached the edge of the dock. "I got here pretty quick. I was already out, even. So if you're looking for a reason to b***h-"

"Boy, I'll give you a reason to do all this snarking if you don't shut your <******** disgusting, ungrateful mouth!" And because he knew how easily it could turn into a snap fest between the two of them, Gremlin quickly produced the crystal, pushing it across the wooden slats of the dock. "Brought something. Something you don't deserve, but I guess you'll get it, anyway, like all senshi with their power. C'mere."

Gremlin wasn't wrong. Diesel felt the rile snap like wildfire up his throat, his retort hot on his tongue at the cat's snippy attitude. 'Rat, don't call me, if you're just gonna b***h!' But it was tempered by the offering. Not because Diesel expected anything good from it (and he was, in fact, very skeptical of anything his Mauvian might offer him), but because it seemed like a lot of effort for Gremlin to go through. "Well," he approached hesitantly. "What is it."

Gremlin sneered. "A crystal of Chaos power. I can upgrade your henshin pen, and then use this crystal to flood your starseed with enough Chaos to force your upgrade. Then you wouldn't have to be a <******** useless coward and could actually defend me from youma when we're on assignment together. You were an embarrassment to be seen with."

Ignoring the worst of the bile (rude comments were customary for even polite gestures from Gremlin), Diesel surveyed the Mauvian with a critical eye. "You could do that?"

Admittedly, Gremlin’s skills seemed a little lackluster compared to what Guardians were supposed to be able to do for him. Diesel acknowledged that a lot of it was because he’d given himself to Chaos, and most Negaverse Mauvians couldn’t do everything they’d done with the White Moon- But even then, Gremlin was sort of… low tier. He didn’t go out looking for senshi to awaken, he didn’t update any tablet functions or create inventions and apps. He was Diesel’s cat, so of course the senshi held him with a certain regard, but… He couldn’t really do much. He wasn’t super useful.

Though maybe 'could' wasn't the appropriate question. 'Would.' That Gremlin would do that for him seemed... uncharacteristic. As Diesel procured his pen and held it in his hand, he cast a wary look down at the Mauvian. "Are you just going to break it?"

"I'm not going to break it!" Gremlin snapped. "Just hand it over, already!"

Hesitantly, Diesel obliged. The mechanism of altering this pen, even for a Chaos senshi as Diesel was, seemed innate within him. Even if Gremlin had no memory of doing it previously, his claws worked at the trinket, and it was only moments before he passed it back, completed. "Better say goodbye to that form, because you won't be able to access it again, once we've done the next part." He picked up the crystal between both front paws, balancing carefully on his hind legs. This part, he was less certain of. "I'm told it hurts." he warned.

The pen was back in his hands. Admittedly, Diesel wouldn't know if it was broken or otherwise, and hearing Gremlin say, 'You won't be able to access it again,' did send a peculiar sense of dread through him, like Gremlin's threat was for the entirety of his senshihood. Like the Mauvian could take it away, somehow…

... He wouldn't put it past the cat.

But he also expected that if they could just do that whenever and on whoever, they probably wouldn't have their current White Moon problem, would they? So he tamped down the initial response with a quick pass of his tongue over his teeth, steeling himself, before he gave a nonchalant shrug. "Good thing I'm no p***y."

Gremlin snorted, wondered if that was a shot, then dismissed it. He'd be doing the most damage, anyway. In the recesses of his senses, he felt the glow of the senshi's aura, felt the peculiar thrum of his very alive and radiant starseed as it hummed with that power. His own abilities could click something like a lock on Diesel's starseed, and once it was open, Gremlin used the energy in the crystal to channel more Chaos into it. It felt bizarre to be doing it this way, unnatural even.

But the little gasp and tremors of the senshi's body (alarming when the boy was standing over him, if Gremlin was being honest) were enough to make him feel like he was doing something successfully, and moments later, once the crystal was drained, Diesel dipped to the ground next to him, falling to his knees. Pathetic thing.

"I did warn you," Gremlin snorted. "But look." His claws grazed over the newly sequined edge of the vibrant fabric at his hips. Bright copper metal flames glinted as circlets around his forearms. "It worked."

Diesel wasn't sure how to describe what he was feeling besides that his spirit ached. When Gremlin’s claws were on him, pushing Chaos through him, it wasn’t so different than when he’d been awakened to join the Negaverse. Uncomfy- painful, even. But exhilarating, despite the ache of his heart. It felt stupid to even admit that he could feel something like spirit fatigue, but he did. His chest burned, and his soul felt- heavy, somehow, fuller. The worst of the burn was temporary, but the effects lingered in his shaking limbs as he knelt on the dock next to his cat.

"It worked?" He prompted, voice strained and confused as he followed the curve of Gremlin's claws over his outfit, eyeing the flashy sequins and flared gold filigree. New and pretty. "It worked. It worked-!"

Maybe it was a bit ill-mannered to sound so shocked, but their relationship was such a tempestuous one- Diesel was even pretty confident in saying that Gremlin’s relationship with everything was tempestuous… And he simply wouldn’t have expected the Mauvian to do anything to help him, unprompted.

"Alright, alright, keep it down. It's not that big of a deal. Even if it's incomprehensible to your tiny mind, this is what I'm good at," Gremlin snapped. "So of course it worked. What, did you think I was lying or something?" But if there was just the tiniest bit of relief in his voice, or if his icy eyes maybe glinted with something more rewarding than ire, Gremlin wouldn't know any better. Upgrades- particularly Chaos upgrades- had been known to go wrong, and Gremlin wasn't exactly the most experienced in this regard...

It might have been unfortunate if his senshi had been youmafied-

This senshi. Not 'his' senshi. This one. It just would've sucked to have to run screaming from a new youma. That was all. Nothing more than that.

Giddy energy fueled Diesel into recklessness. The abating burn didn’t matter, the tiresome drag in his chest was irrelevant: he was just so happy-! There was a lot to do, still, like try out his new magic and figure out this teleportation thing, but that’s come in time, and more importantly- Both arms tangled up underneath Gremlin’s belly, pulling the Mauvian to his chest and dangerously close to his face as Diesel bravely smeared his cheek against the top of his cat’s head. “Thanks, Gremlin.”

Diesel's fingers ran once down his back, and the tiny little rumble that left Gremlin's throat as he was plastered to his senshi’s chest was definitely, definitely a growl and certainly not a purr.

Gremlin: 1051
Diesel: 1044