SO CLOSE! He had been THIS close to that championship belt and he had been beaten to the punch. Typical. He actually survived all the way to the finals – no small feat for his size and the massive Don Diablo he was going up again – but he had long since past the point of being optimistic and thinking that anything less than winning was acceptable. He had a lot of pressure on him now to succeed, and a crystal would have been a grand prize for him to show Beryl that her decision to promote him was not pointless in the long run.

His mood had been nothing less than sour when he crawled in through his window late at night from after the match. He tore off his outfit and dumped it in the trash, saving only the helmet and tossing it on his project table. He ran a hot bath, being mindful that a shower would have woken up his mother who, as far as she knew, thought her son was peacefully sleeping in his bed each night. He was completely covered in dust and he pulled off bits of rocks and plaster from his hair, making his stick out his tongue. After a long, long, long bath, one in which he sulked and pouted and what magic powers of scented bath bubbles and hot water could not melt away the tension and smell of failure, he slipped out, dried off, and headed to bed.

Running a comb through his hair, which really didn't do anything in the long run when his hair always just stuck out in weird ways in the end, he looked over to the tiny globe on his bed. Of all things to be given as a consolation prize, he got a final slap in the face by having the staff of the wrestling match thinking it was at least some sort of prize to get that woman to look at each day.

He knew her as far as stories told by Beryl, a queen he thought was a better prize to give out than this woman, and picked up the globe off his bed with narrow, distrusting eyes. If she had been any other woman, he would have thought she was rather pretty. Fair skin with open shoulders in a flowing, moonlight-pale dress, her hair soft silver and collected up in two buns with ample hair twirling down from each. Her expression seemed to express nothing but soft sadness, yet a degree of something else that he couldn't interpret. She was Queen Serenity, the ruler of the Moon Kingdom, guide to the senshi, and the enemy of the Earth and the Negaverse. It was clear that no one thought that anyone from the 'terrorist' group would have been in a wrestling match, but he felt a personal sting that they gave him this momentum as if to say that every time he failed, this woman was winning.

"You should have stayed on your stupid planet and left us all alone." He whispered to the globe, staring at the woman trapped inside the glass orb. Not having the strength to crush it, he pulled his hand back and looked at a nice, firm, merciless wall to throw it up against – but he stopped.

No. His mother would wonder what the hell he was doing at night going about breaking glass. She already worried about what trauma he might have gone through when he had been left alone without any family during the coma epidemic. If he lashed out around her now, she would blame it on that, on the loss of his eye, and probably consider her father's proposal that she leave the city.

If he left the city, he would not be able to serve the REAL Queen, and in a way, he would let this Serenity win again.

Breathing out, he slumped down in his project table, setting the snow globe next to his helmet, which he picked up and plopped over the head of the lion he had been working on repairing. The more he looked at the globe, the more he wanted to do something against it – to vent.

His eyes went around his project table, the boxes of buttons, sewing needles, and ribbons before he landed on a black sharpie. Perfect. Reaching over, he uncapped the market and snickered as he started scribbling on the globe. He started drawing horns on top of the woman's head, and then added a moustache just for kicks. He then started working on stabbing arrows through her body, and added a few knives in for measure, which were all stuffed through her chest and stomach and looked as if they were coming out the other side. Hah! He then added flames around her feet and then started drawing rather crude missiles in the air aimed for her face. As ridiculous as it all was, he felt a lot better, and uncapped the marker. "There. Now you look as you should." Rose up, taking the globe and went to his windowsill to slam her down. She could get a cold there. As a final measure, he positioned a circus bear he had sitting on the sill to tilt forward and put its jaws around the globe. "You make sure she stays there, Victor." With once glance up to the moon, he stuck out his tongue.

"Like I'd let you win in the end."

Turning, he crawled into bed, grabbing Elliot and pulling him close. One battles lost tonight, but the war was still going.