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Just on the outskirts of Destiny City is a modest, somewhat beatdown race track; home to many a junkyard derby, amateur monster truck rallies, and barbeque competitions galore during the summer. Even in the winter months, colder and quieter as they were, couldn't keep a certain sort of local away. There were still periodic late night markets that were always a little weirder and a lot wilder than what one would find in the daytime. Maybe it was the lack of regulation, and knowing it was the sort of public gathering that could be broken up by overly nosy cops at any time. Might as well be up to a little of that real nonsense, you know?

It was a chilly night for sure this time. Even had scenic little snow flakes softly drifting down on the collective of tents and carts on the field. Folks who'd normally put out a blanket just stayed in their cars and parked those up on the track, dealing trinkets and old books along with whatever else through their car window, like a series of reverse drive thrus.

On one end of the field was a giant banner that read, HE MAN THE MAN COMPETITION, and someone even put up one of those big dancing tube guys to jam along beside it to the tune of The Black Eyed Peas "Pump It" and a roulette of other jock jams. Giant black garbage cans and and actual dumpsters were shifted here and there on either end of the area. Many of the men and women currently stretching nearby were built like dump trucks to go right along with them. It was all muscles gleaming in the overhead lights and yards upon yards of spandex stretching for its life.

And there, amidst the jungle of flesh and active wear, stood a mountain. A volcano. A Don Diablos! Gazing straight ahead into the abyss, possibly having flashbacks of his last stint in hell (or court), the ex-wrestler was doing a set of extremely aggressive squats in his little black tanktop and flame print drop bottom pants.

In theory, Ashton Carver did very much have better things to do today, and could probably have listed them if sufficiently prodded about it. A lot of better things, even; things that would be eminently productive, or at least produce some sort of desirable outcome, or work towards that outcome. In practice, however, sometimes one absolutely had to treat himself, and a competition of somewhat scantily-clad, muscular, people?

Look. It wasn't Ashton's fault if this was basically a free show, now, was it. But she fully intended to treat herself.

Sedately chilling out near the stands, wearing the most stereotypically hipster red flannel jacket possible and a dark green beanie that had seen better days, Ashton scrolled through his phone to try and surreptitiously catch some good shots of all the very attractive people who were about to gather in front of him. Pretty people were the easiest way to her heart. Or his stomach? She'd already lost track of the metaphor. Mostly that probably had to do with the fact he'd been eying up some just absolutely delightful charcuterie boards on the internet on the way here, and now he desperately wanted to sink his teeth into a little cheese square; well-plated charcuterie had that effect on a person. (Ashton didn't even particularly like cheese, or ham, or crackers. She always managed to forget this when initially confronted with charcuterie. Presentation was everything.)

Who was here so far? Some girl who looked to be a rabid Don Diablos fan had set up camp in the stands before Ashton had even arrived. (She looked familiar, in that weird sort of influencer way; he hadn't determined exactly how, but he'd probably seen her Instagram. Not familiar enough to be particularly interesting.) There was the DJ, with high-saturation blue hair; also vaguely familiar, but more in the way of, oh, I've seen you around, we've been to the same raves before. Someone who... was definitely a Negaverse Senshi, which, well, that was his prerogative, but Ashton had absolutely no intent to power up and planned to keep it that way so she could continue having a nice night. There was a boy with an impressively high ponytail, a cute little skirt, and one of the most aggressively queer bags Ashton had seen in the last 24 hours -- which was not necessarily saying a lot -- and some tiny woman in pink with a six-pack and...

Hm. She sort of looked like Sylvite, actually. Unerringly so.

Well, that wasn't Ashton's problem. If she wanted to be HE MAN THE MAN, congratulations to her on shucking gender roles. The more important thing was that she was not particularly Ashton's type, which was a relief for him, because a lot of these people were or very well could be.

It looked like the competition was about to start up soon, but there were more people flocking in all the while, so she took a very leisurely seat on the grass and got progressively less and less subtle about taking photos. It was fine! This was what social media was for!

“Holy s**t it’s him—“ words of surprise spoken to himself between bites, and Waru couldn’t believe his guised up eyes! There in the distance squatted the mask, the myth, the legend!! Was there even a man beneath that mask?! Waru didn’t know, but he’d heard rumors — mused over them gleefully as he chewed through a peanut packed protein snack that probably had more than just some CBD in it. The dude offering tin wrapped rainbow bars outta a box in the trunk of that Pontiac Firebird had seemed legit enoug—

Whatever! It mattered not at ******** all. Not with how excited he was to be out, competing at something for the thrill of it! It was a breath of fresh air, a release valve venting out screaming steam like a delayed celebration of being!

He was beyond ready for a good time, had pestered the ever loving ******** outta Aramis to do something with his do. Not that any of it translated over underneath the glamor, but? It made him feel better to have his edges gelled up and some gleam of beads in his butterflied twists. Because if Waru was going to show up? No, if *Albite* was going to show up! Then he was going to make an entire *show* of it and what was more showy than an Eternal Senshi?! With yards of locs, gleaming abs, tats for days — smelling utterly divine and looking glossy thanks to enough freshly purchased coconut oil to make the clerk at Wegmans ask him if he owned a bakery. He did not. And he didn’t allude to whether the commercial grade, ice cream drum sized tub of the stuff was going to be used on food; ever or at all.

It might be, someday, but tonight? Tonight it was for pecs, obliques, quads. It was for soft shine, taste bud tantalizing sheen— It was definitely also for the smell. Albite loved the smell of warm coconut. It beat out all the must of kicked up dust and itched way less than the standard types of grease.

He’d had to ditch the bodice that was basically a well laced bra, the bat wings, the caking of layers that made up his entire Eternal fit; till he was paired down to what he’d worn as just a basic. Less than that, even. Looped his dreads into a weave of knots that only lightly trailed metal tinged lines in the well-ridden and slightly iced track dirt beneath his boot-heeled feet, wearing those sweats he knew Faustite liked — he’d keep ‘em tucked into the edges of the boots, least until it came time to ditch it all entirely and exist in only the black and green stripped bike shorts he had on beneath the soft, worn, sweatery grey.

The s**t was gonna be lit like B-bananas - B a n a n a s — the Gwen Stefani song stuck in his head right alongside the bass boosted jock rock, as he dropped into a set of push-ups. No rush to the languid way he tried to move the earth out from beneath himself, because he was people watching between each dip - eying the sets of bundled bodies in cars and those who braved the colder stands. Gauging the attention of those in the venue because knowing there was an audience made everything so much more!!!

Maybe this year he’d prove to Albireo that he really didn’t need a shirt come winter time. He’d just needed a few upgrades and *b a m* he could make snowmelt for days! He’d sell the runoff from his abs and donate the proceeds to a charity — the charity that was his constantly empty pantry — it’d be all ‘ode de la Albite’ with just a hint of coconut…

It was such a good idea!

Dark Mirror Murikabushi —> Reiki Rokugin

Looking around where Mirrorspace had spat him out this time, Reiki frowned bemusedly.… Great. A public “in possession of one or more urinals” restroom that looked like it belonged to one of the city public parks—and with a distinct lack of George Michael turning the place into a discotheque dance party while dressed like a slutty cop. Charming. Lovely. Wonderful. Exactly where Reiki didn’t want to be, at the moment. Genuinely, even Mirrorspace was preferable to the public park restrooms

(On the plus, he noted while exiting, the lock appeared to be quite broken, so he’d likely have an easy time getting back in to access the mirror and go home, if there wasn’t anything interesting going on outside.)

Tilting his head, Reiki stared at a huge crowd, all amassing around somewhere……toward a banner that apparently advertised a competition for men (a com-MEN-tition? would it involve anybody getting kicked in the face by someone else’s ENERGY LEGS? ……probably not, and Reiki kind of hated Junsei a little for sending him that antiquated meme video about POWERTHIRST: ENERGY FOR MEN with the text performative masculinity or whatever monograph from you when lol

But Reiki had gotten back at his little brother by seven (7) whole minutes. While meeting Junsei for lunch, Reiki had very pointedly hummed Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” with the knowledge that Junsei would get it stuck in his head at least until Friday. Check, set, mate.)

At a glance, Reiki didn’t think this competition, whatever it really was, seemed like an excuse for the Negaverse to drain energy. Perhaps whatever was happening tonight was something nefarious? Though frankly, Reiki doubted that the Negaverse would ever resort to using a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube-man. Even Albite had more class than that.…

Organizing something this big didn’t feel like the Dark Mirror Court, either. There weren’t nearly enough of them around and active to put something like this together. Getting closer to the goings-on, Reiki could see so many of the moving parts involved in making an event like this happen. Probably, there were many more that he didn’t recognize.…

And people. So many people. The vast majority of them civilians, or at least powered down.

Even though he felt at least one Negaverse aura around here somewhere—an Eternal senshi, at that—Reiki broke off from the crowd. Ugh, there weren’t very many places around here to power down without risk of being noticed. And there were so many people that, between the usual exhaustion of going to appease Mirrorspace and the feeling of “yeah, a b***h’s Adderall is definitely wearing off, fml,” Reiki couldn’t focus enough to notice if there were other auras besides the one Negaverse Eternal. Maybe he’d get clocked no matter what he did.

Still, showing up with Murikabushi out in full effect? Was tantamount to wearing a bomb-vest to a peace summit. Taking a gun to an engagement party. So, Reiki ducked into some shadows beneath the stands. Once he’d removed his messenger bag and water bottle from his subspace, Reiki powered down, putting Murikabushi away.

Not that it changed his outfit terribly much.… Deflated his skirt a little bit; it was just more comfortable to wear his black pea-coat (or any actual weather-appropriate jacket) if he didn’t have a couple dozen petticoats underneath his little pleated skirt with the gratuitous decorative chain. Replaced his sort of flimsy thigh-highs with sturdier ones—none of the pretty frills on top, but they had the benefit of being thermal stockings. Likewise, replaced his shoes with a pair of Mary Jane heels, just as high as Murikabushi’s pumps but the heel was chunkier, sturdier, better for walking around Destiny City when Reiki didn’t have immediate access to the enhanced strength and agility that he had while powered up. Maybe he undermined the idea of staying warm by wearing a sweater with a heart-shaped window over his chest, but whatever. He looked cute, and he could probably get a hot cocoa or something if he needed to.

Adjusting his bag’s strap on his shoulder, Reiki slipped back out of the shadows. There, he wouldn’t unintentionally start something if he wasn’t visibly a senshi, and therefore effectively armed to the teeth. At least the source of the Eternal aura made itself pretty visible, and it was only Albite. He could do a lot of damage, probably—Reiki still didn’t know the full extent of his magic or anything—but it was okay. Albite was also easy to distract and he seemed a bit too busy peacocking to hurt anybody.

Idly, Reiki wondered how much of a clue the assorted decorations on his bag provided for any powered up people lurking around.… For all Murikabushi felt like someone else’s pageant gown, Reiki usually failed at not acting like himself, and maybe there were a lot of other senshi who went around, explaining queer theory concepts and Michel Foucault to other powered-up persons? But maybe there weren’t? He didn’t know.

It just occurred to him as he looked for a seat that……oh. Yeah. He had kinda planned on being Distinctive when he had decked out this bag with a sewn-on cloth patch with a printed image of Michel Foucault facepalming, a pinback button reading “go Foucault yourself,” another stitched-on cloth patch of basic black with a pink triangle and white letters spelling out “SILENCE = DEATH” splashed in the center, an enamel pin of the “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations” symbol (done up in Gilbert Baker’s original eight-stripe pride rainbow), an enamel charm with chibi-style fanart of Jadzia Dax holding a sign that said “Trans Rights Are Human Rights,” and two more pinback buttons, one with the cover art from Pansy Division’s That’s So Gay album and the other featuring Hole’s Live Through This.

……Yeah, no. Not exactly something he’d done with the intention of going unnoticed. Curse his natural showmanship (and maybe a little bit his enduring love of ******** attention).

But there were plenty of people here, and frankly, enough of them looked equally if not more interesting than Reiki. Plus, most of the powered up people in this city hadn’t even met him as Murikabushi, so realistically, they had no reason to think he was anything but fabulous, queer, a Trekkie, and probably opinionated. Maybe he’d be okay, even after powering down so close to other people.

Noticing that the energy signatures that had been wandering around the place began to move toward the field, toward Don Diablos, Emily slowly stood. When more seemed to show up she rolled up her sleeves and reached into her pocket, killing intent spiking as she pulled something out and suddenly...

A small white object shot from the stands like a bullet, before anybody could cry foul, it had hit Don Diablos in the chest!

And bounced up.

A ping pong ball bounced straight up from one of his massive pecs, came down and then bounced off the other. Between that bounce and the next, the wrestler reached up and tore off his tanktop with one hand, revealing a shining body of muscles that seemed to contain some kind of inner glow. A choir of angels sang! And then the DJ switched up the song!

When the wrestler tossed the scrap of fabric toward the stands, another figure shot out to catch it, this one larger and mostly in black. Even in civ form, Emily's sprint speed was stupidly fast, and she caught the tanktop before it hit the ground. Holding it up victoriously, she gave a smug little smile. Those senshi wouldn't be allowed to out-cool her idol!

Gabi Esparza —> Dark Mirror Basic Lete

On one hand, Gabi felt like they probably should’ve gone out on patrol to drain some energy for the Mirror. That was, like, the vast majority of their job description, now that they’d been Awakened as a Dark Mirror senshi? “Go out, use your mirrorshard to summon Mirrorwraiths, drain energy so the Mirror can thrive” all felt perfectly comprehensible and easy enough to make happen. Anybody with two brain cells and a Dark Mirror henshin pen could do it.

On the other hand, some of Gabi’s friends in the theatre department had been talking about the event going on outside town. For days, they’d struggled to talk about anything else. In large part, the gossip had focused on the Don Diablos character—on who people thought lurked beneath the mask, on what he did to always stay so committed to his character, on where he’d even come up with the idea for his kayfabe (because it must have been kayfabe, or so reasoned the drama students: nobody like Don Diablos could really exist as a human person, not even in Destiny City, so he must have been doing kayfabe like professional wrestlers, and just constantly living it, the way that wrestlers had done before Andy Kaufman had blown the whole performance wide open).

Moreover, Gabi felt kinda pent up, and kinda restless, and kinda very much like ******** off from anything that remotely resembled a “responsibility” for the night. So, they’d thrown on a heavy hoodie and leather jacket for the weather and bummed a ride out to the night market. Nobody would dream of powering up at a place like this, Gabi figured, and so they wouldn’t be particularly negligent in picking up some cinnamon twists and a hot cocoa, and chilling out to watch the show.

It had been such a good plan……until Gabi went looking around the event grounds and saw him: there, right there! One of the Negaverse’s senshi, right there, out in the open, cracks in his chest and forehead on full display. If he was out there, participating in the contest, then who knew how many other Negaverse officers were lurking around here, lying in wait? Who knew how much energy they were draining for their own faction?

Well, soon enough, Gabi would know.

A quick jaunt into the nearest restroom, and Gabi emerged as Sailor Lete of Decadence. As Lete skulked around, looking for somewhere to camp out while letting a Mirrorwraith go to work, they didn’t think that they felt too many powered auras? The Negaverse Eternal, and someone from the White Moon.… Maybe more powered people were around and would make themselves evident sooner or later?

In the meantime: the Negaverse senshi didn’t seem to be draining anybody and Lete saw no good reason to pass up on the free drainable energy. Lurking beneath the stands, they pulled out their shard and called on a wraith.

“Don’t take too much from any one person, okay?” She smiled at the barely-visible little guy. “Just pass through them once and move on to somebody else. People might get suspicious if too many folks start passing out.”

There, see? Lete had LEARNED SOMETHING from the scary fish lady senshi and the nosy little b***h who’d tried to lecture them like oooooh, Dark Mirror BAD. Somebody should’ve been proud of Lete, but in lieu of anyone else to do so, they’d just smirk and feel very proud of themself.

Laike

Laike knew he had to keep penny-pinching if he wanted to afford important purchases, like his pared-down energy drink habit, or ramen for a basic caloric intake, or the internet bill. But he could only tell himself no spending for so many months before his will to continue existing slowly deteriorated. He hadn't noticed how bad his listlessness had grown until his sister —who was always nagging him to be more responsible — gave him some money and sent him off to a night market, because she heard someone was selling plants there on the cheap.

And, really, it was his sister's unwavering confidence that he would find plants at the night market that finally pushed him past the blown-up floaty-men and the gigantic machismo sign. Laike knew he was no HE MAN THE MAN, nor did he want to be, so he hoped to find the plant vendor and dip out before the commotion started for the competition.

But Laike wouldn't get that lucky. Once someone sounded off the start of the competition, all the people around him immediately turned into a herd of water buffalo and stampeded toward the stands. In order to avoid being flattened, Laike, who had finally found the plant vendor in question, inserted himself into the trunk of an old Chevy Camaro and used the plants-for-sale as a blind so the frothing crowds wouldn't spot him. He peered out between two little tomato stalks when he thought he might be able to slip out, but the crowds were still thicker than that one Negaverse senshi guy's biceps. So Laike made himself comfortable in the trunk, curling up so his back was against the floor.

He'd spent about a half hour scrolling Fextralife and trolling the anons that struggled with Astel's incredibly cheap grab attack (skill issue) or the ones that bitched to the cyberspace void about Godskin Duo's craptacular RNG (garbage build) until he'd gotten bored and hungry. GrubHub or DoorDash were clearly out of his price range, so he picked from one of the local restaurants that offered delivery. He picked the cheapest appetizer he could find, then included overly meticulous instructions for how to reach the night market, then how to find the Chevy, then to place the takeout bag immediately behind the two tomato stalks thanks ヽ(☆▽☆ ヽ) (╯✧▽✧)╯


Eion Risk

He'd been watching Albite, of course. With binoculars, of course. He wanted to be able to measure how many millimeters that boy's veins protruded over his biceps — respectfully, of course — but in doing so, he got a close-up of his boy getting distracted. By another boy. That he didn't know. That seemed dressed suspiciously close to a knight.

And was that ******** Nectaris?! "What the <********>," Eion muttered to himself. He set the binoculars down.

"What the <********>," he muttered again when some white whatever — he wasn't going to say what he thought it was at first — struck the luchador in the tit, bounced to the other tit, and somewhere in the middle, the man deftly ripped away his tank top and hurled it back at the crowd. Eion thought he felt a surge of energy at the thought of capturing a Majestic Boy's clothing (for ransom), but as soon as he stood up, some goth maid-looking girl had already caught it.

"b***h," he muttered as he felt the wind leave his sails. It didn't stop him from standing to clap for a most impressive boy, however.

Which meant that Albite better not let him down in terms of performance, or that boy would find himself divorced by the competition's close.

Zotsholo Mjoli

Eventually, rumours of competition always made it back to one endlessly competitive, now locally-based former Olympic track athlete.

Zotsholo Mjoli.

They always did, and unlike those who were going for the market, to ogle the beautiful and sexy competitors, or just to exist outside of their houses in an event that was interesting, Zotsholo came with one very specific purpose. It was a competition. The first rule of any competition was that Zotsholo would always win. The second rule was to read the first rule. The third one, in this case, was that there was at least one very good competitor, and Zotsholo couldn't not respect the legacy of Don Diablos.

He'd still ******** win, of course, but--

Of course, Zotsholo had easily received the memo. All he wore was a tighter pair of spandex shorts, and his uncovered back and abs were already appropriately oily. He ignored the way his sister rolled her eyes nearby, strolling in to get his stretches in while everyone seemed busy either gaining the attention of Don Diablos or...

Was that a ******** corrupt senshi? Was the dude next to him a knight? His outfit was ridiculous-- Why was a knight just ******** chatting and not going for the threat?

He considered transforming too if that was what was happening here...

But perhaps he should just stay the way he was.

There was a certain... power to being a civilian who was going to assuredly win anyway. Perhaps to make that point, he smirked rakishly, planted his foot on the nearest car, and flexed as hard as he possibly could, bending inwards and showing off the crevices of his abs and the roundness of his arm muscles. At least others may admire his prowess and acknowledge his power--



===========

Shikora & Nemyi Mjoli

"Is he... is he showboating?"

"When doesn't he?" Nemyi crossed one leg over the other, sipping from a back-of-the-van bucha they had picked up. "Remember when we went to that Chili's recently? He caught that someone else was trying to go to the bathroom at the same time and he had to stride ahead of them, and then smirk at them once he got there first."

Shikora rolled her eyes at Nemyi's quiet snickers, glancing away from her brother to the other things available. She had thought about exploring the night market, but she couldn't think of much she wanted. Perhaps if one of her poorer patients was here, she would find a reason to go out and get them something that might help them out.

... Wait, was that a senshi?

Shikora sighed quietly, glancing downward to where she could summon her artifact to hand and call on the power of Richtersveld. Hopefully she didn't need to break up any fights today-- "Whatcha looking at?" Shikora jumped when addressed by Nemyi.

"Ah, don't worry about it..."