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Slow evenings were not very conducive to busking. Unfortunately, every evening in Destiny City seemed slow -- after about 6pm it was like the sidewalks rolled up and everyone scattered to the nearest safe space, like no-one wanted to be out after dark. Who could blame them, honestly, given what the news kept going on about? Rob snorted to himself as he tweaked the tuning on his guitar. Luckily he didn't have to survive off his busking or he'd be in very bad shape financially indeed. He just figured the monsters and attacks were part of life in this crazy town. Nothing to be afraid of as long as you were smart about it, really.

Still, what business there had been was petering off for the day, so it was about time to wrap it up. One more song and then he'd pack up and be on his way to that one bar that would serve him despite being "under age." He strummed a few chords while he thought about what he wanted to play, then settled on one of the old folk songs he knew. Nothing too downbeat, because he wasn't really in the mood. Clearing his throat, he decided to do the whole thing a capella and started off in full voice, tapping his guitar and stamping his foot on the ground to keep time:

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand miles I'd travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
For to save her shoes from gravel

Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonnie,
For they all go bare and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money...

A nice upbeat song indeed.

Out of the corner of his eye Rob caught a dark shape leaping into his guitar case. What the ******** was that? Was it one of those youma things, albeit a small one? Craning his neck a little as he sang, he cautiously peered in and saw an enormous black cat laying there, though it was hard to tell how much was actually cat and how much was fur as the feline was decidedly fluffy. His typical scowl turned into a small smile. "Hallo cat," he called softly to it between verses. "Puss puss puss." He liked cats -- he'd never had a cat growing up, his mum would never have allowed a cat inside the house to shed on the furniture, but he had enjoyed petting the neighborhood moggies that patrolled his childhood Kensington street.

Well, no-one else was paying any attention to him, so he decided to focus on his furry audience of one. Not really an appropriate song to serenade a cat with, but he was already in the middle of it. At least he could skip around some of the more violent verses.

This spirit's white as lightning
Would on me travels guide me
The moon would shake and the stars would quake
Whenever they espied me

Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonnie,
For they all go bare and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money...

It was hard to sing of mad things when you were smiling at a cat, it really was.

"Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie ma- Oi cat!" Rob couldn't believe what just happened -- the big black cat had run off with a mouthful of his hard-earned money! What did the creature think money was, catnip? And here he thought it was a nice kitty and was going to buy some tuna for it as a thank-you for keeping him company. He kept an eye on the rapidly-disappearing cat as he quickly stuffed his guitar back in its case, furiously muttering maledictions at the beast under his breath the whole while. "Bloody buggering hell, ********' cat, I should skin it alive and make bloody fur slippers out of it…"

Grabbing the guitar case -- there was no way in hell he was leaving either his guitar or the rest of the day's take behind -- Rob dashed off in hot pursuit of the cat. He saw it make a turn down an alley and ran after it, skidding around the corner and nearly falling on his a** as he stopped. No cat. Where the hell had it gone?

"Oi cat!" he shouted, more out of frustration than any attempt to lure the cat out of its hiding spot. There were a number of dumpsters in the alley, being a typical alley and all, so he started checking around them to see if his quarry was hiding behind one of them. "Come on you, where did you go? Puss puss puss… come on out cat and I'll buy you some lovely tuna… ********' cat, where the hell are you?"

He peeked around one and saw what looked like a black cat-shaped shadow -- hard to see for sure in the shadows of the dimly-lit alley. The two twenties it had grabbed were a bit easier to make out. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Rob reached out a hand. "Come on puss," he cooed at it, "give Uncle Robin back his money or there's no accounting for what I'll do to you…"

At the sound of the voice Rob jumped in surprise. It sounded like it was coming from behind the dumpster he was standing beside. Not only that, it sounded like whoever was saying it had heard him cursing the cat and bribing it with tuna and was pretending to be the cat itself. That was ridiculous! Who would do something like that? Oh yeah, this was a crazy bloody town. He wouldn't put it past any of the population to pull such a stunt.

The two twenties rolled toward him suddenly, then the cat appeared and announced itself to him. He knew the cat was talking to him because he saw the flash of its sharp white teeth in the shadows as it spoke. It -- he (for the voice was clearly male) called himself Faust. Suitable name for a ********' demon Guardian Cat. "What the ******** is a Guardian Ca-" Faust Faust didn't allow him to interrupt and continued talking right over him, all but forcing Rob to listen to what the cat was saying. Monsters! "Yeah, I've seen those-" he interjected as Faust went on, then shook his head. This is insane, what the bloody hell am I doing listening to a talking cat? Worse, answering it? Monsters, talking cats -- what the ******** is wrong with this city?

And then the cat said something that really caught his attention. "What, the monsters are controlled? Bastards!" Now he was getting angry. He couldn't let those Negaverse or Dark Mirror arseholes get away with it, not if he had the ability, as Faust was saying he did, to do something about it. He simply couldn't. If he cared enough about people to set up a record label for other punk bands who might not have the chance to get their music out and heard, he should care enough not to let his fellow Destiny City residents get killed by monsters -- or by those who commanded the monsters.

He saw Faust duck behind the dumpster and return with a strange-looking pen in his mouth, dropping it at the musician's feet. The pen gleamed in shades of green, like dappled light filtered through the trees in a forest. Rob stared at it for a moment, thinking hard. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess, he finally decided. Then he bent and picked the pen up. "You don't have to pee in my guitar case," he told the cat. "You got a deal. Besides, I haven't gotten in a good fight since I moved here, and I'm itching for one. It's about time I did some massive arse-kicking."

Holding the pen aloft, he closed his eyes. "Puck Power, Make-Up!"



Sailor Puck looked down at himself. "Bloody ********. What just happened?"

"Aw hell, I knew I was gonna like you." Not only did the man jump straight into powering up without too many questions, but he was one of the few who actually seemed interested in a fight. Then again he might've had some questions, but Faust pressed right on through his spiel. He had better luck just powering on than to pause for questions, anyhow. That endeavor dragged on for centuries.

But before him stood Sailor Puck, Senshi of... Faust paused, flatted his ears, and tried to discern the sphere. "Oh, you gonna wanna hear this. See you're called a Senshi, and while you're all powered up like this, your name is Puck. Not whatever kinda namby-pamby s**t you might go by when you're jus' playin' your guitar - you don't want anyone to know who you are. Once the bad guys find out, it's over. But anyway, you get this magic s**t on your side, and all magic that a senshi has gets this kinda theme goin' on. Yours is 'the Woods', whatever that means. Ain't got a damn clue. But if you concentrate, and you wanna cast, it'll come to you how to do it. And trust me - magic's pretty damn effective against those monsters, called youma. Helluva lot better than guns." Faust nodded sagely.

"You gonna have a lotta questions, and that s**t's kosher. Here-" Faust broke off to go digging about behind the dumpster again, and beyond a few dust clouds that sprayed out, the cat returned with a cell phone in mouth. He dropped it at the man's feet. "This is gonna be how you get ahold o' people. Senshi people, not yo' mom or some s**t. You can use it to talk to me, too. But I don't pick up when I'm sleepin'."

"If you go pokin around in the phone, there's a primer in there that's got some information. Good for bedtime reading, but talkin' to people personally is better. Look out for a dude named Thraen - he's some kinda walkin' garden - if you got questions. He can probably tell you way more than you wanna know. But I'm good at chattin' about the senshi stuff, just, uh, personal experiences are kinda different-"

Faust paused again, puffed up, and leaped backward slightly into the Offensive Cat Stance. The already large cat looked substantially bigger in his evolved form, and iwth ears pinned back, he likened himself to a veritable force. "Aw hell! You feel that? Kinda like someone's rubbin' your fur the wrong way? Or uh, somethin' like that? That's gotta be one of the enemy. We should check it out, and maybe kick his a** to kingdom come for haulin' his b***h a** out around here. Let's go!" The feline didn't leave time for objection when he shot off toward the street corner.

The Order aura was getting closer, and Elsa ran through a long litany of mental disparagements of the unknown senshi's family lineage that were probably entirely unfounded, but that made him feel a little better with the knowledge that he was about to get tangled in a fight where he might well have to sling around the terrifying thing that was his magic.

But as demanded, he slid out of his hiding place, moving towards theSenshi and cracking his knuckles, and tried to make himself look as scary as possible at five foot three in a figure skater outfit.

There was only so much he had to work with on the intimidation front, here.

"You wanna ******** go, then?" He asked, and his tone was sharp. If he was lucky, he would be able to keep this a straight fight - fists and feet (and knees and elbows and anything else - no one said it had to be a clean fight). "Because I promise I can ******** up your day in ways you can't even imagine."

If there was one thing Elsa was aware of, it was that he had to compensate for his smaller stature with other methods. Threats, confident posture, anything to throw his opponent off. Maybe he could get the blond Senshi in front of him to back down. (He felt like a coward for wanting to avoid a fight, but he would feel worse if he felt like he had to use his magic.)

Faust was quick to join the shouting match, eager to flaunt his own sassiness in a battle of the wits. By and large he preferred a good showdown but the black Mauvian needed to keep his suave tongue just as fit as his muscles. He charged toward the blue-haired Mirror child and skidded to a halt on small bean-speckled feet. "You step the ******** off, ********! s**t gonna get real if you don't git'cho b***h a** outta my neighborhood!" The moment the words left his mouth, Faust knew he sounded smooth as ******** next to his new senshi companion.

That would uh, probably have more questions about the whole senshi thing that he needed to answer.

That could wait.

"Yo!" He called to Puck. His position on the sidewalk constituted a V-shaped attack, with both himself and his senshi facing the target. It left calling to each other awkward, for it demanded that the Mauvian direct his attention away from the assailant. "These dudes ain't gonna listen to s**t! They run around drainin' people just as much as the Negaverse does, and they don't give no ******** what happens to 'em afterward! Jus' run up there and rip his face off! But be careful - they've all got magic, just like you. And this dude might be packin' somethin' bad - so jus' rip his tongue out before he can cast it!" That sounded like solid advice.

And Faust fully planned to participate - but he wanted his senshi to throw the first punch. Faust considered it important to see how good the boy was at fighting someone else, and only afterward would Faust start in on the Mirror kid with his signature Flying Dragon Kick.

Elsa groaned softly. The cat was a complicator here - he really didn't like the idea of having to hit a cat, even one that was all too happy to run his fuzzy little mouth. It felt extra gross, like this war didn't just have to come with taking energy from people and occasionally cornering kids in gyms and getting them corrupted, no, he had to abuse animals too.

Fuuuuck that.

"Don't even start, hairball," he said, "I could kick your furry a** across this park without all the fun magical strength enhancements." Not as much as an officer, but he could still top buildings with a leap or two, and that was pretty damn substantial. "And as for you," he started making his way to the blond Senshi, considering potential angles of attack, "I haven't been scared of people like you for a long time. Think you're big and tough, or that I'm an easy target, because I'm tiny?"

The man's arms were bare, making for a good target to grab onto and apply magic if necessary. Once he was close in, he stopped walking and started running, hand curled into a fist and aimed for the man's gut. Everyone was a bigger target then him, almost, and that meant that he had to aim low and fight dirty.