(Backdated to December 15, 2021)

Gremlin had no idea how he'd ended up in this situation.

He thought he'd been doing well. The temperature had plummeted during the night, leaving the sky a dreary gray and the streets covered in an almost imperceptible sheet of ice. He hated this weather! Definitely didn't want to be out in it. Unfortunately, this was when they needed him the most! Who? The humans' kittypets! Humans would turn their poor, defenseless creatures out into such unforgiving weather and forget them there for hours and hours while they went to work or to sleep or whatever else filthy two-leggers did with their free time, and Gremlin knew this was the moment for their liberation.

He'd been working on just that, and had successfully convinced a fairly young tabby to trail him away from the streets, away from the houses, away from the harsh shine of city lights, through the trees to lands nearly untouched by the city (food was uniquely encouraging to more than just him, it seemed, as he rarely had problems convincing cats to follow him).

This was standard fare.

Many of the cats he'd liberated since his awakening were doing well outside of human hands. They'd formed a colony hidden in the trees, and they were becoming blessedly more wary of strangers (sometimes including Gremlin and his new acquisitions, as well). It would downplay their sacrifice if he neglected to admit that some were lost. Maybe to predators, maybe to sickness, sometimes to the unforgiving nature of winter in the mountains-

But this was better for them, he knew! Better than being chained to the whims of the humans. Here they were free and they had each other! -Just no medicine and no climate control. But a necessary sacrifice. Necessary.

This wasn't what made him question how he'd gotten here. The tabby trailing him had steadily become belligerent, acting at certain points like she would bash into his to snatch the food he kept tempting her with. She'd been so pleasant on the street, but she was growing agitated as they moved deeper into the woods. There'd been a peculiar charge in the air, as if a storm was coming, and then all at once, the tabby had assaulted him.

Swiped him with her claws, lurched to pinch her teeth into his flank, dove for the fried chicken leg he'd been carrying in his maw. If the rest of the colony hadn't been alerted to them, yet, her snarl woke them all.

It woke them all.

Gremlin had never seen so many angry, aggressive eyes peering at him from behind trees and up in the branches. For all the times he'd visited to bring new colony members or offer food scraps, none of the cats had ever shown blatant aggression to him.

But they did now. The rumbling of their snarls was an echoing chorus, and he was in the center of it. As the tabby snatched up the chicken leg and ran, Gremlin wondered how had this happened? What could cause such an unhappy change in mood so suddenly? Anxiety prickled in his ears, thrummed along his whiskers. Even if he could communicate with them at one point, the ability had been lost when he realized he was not a cat, but a Mauvian.

They would no more listen to him than a human.

It only took one of them to be spurned forward by the static for them to all lurch forward, yowling and hissing in a frenzy of dozens of agitated cat cries. Gremlin found himself yowling in response, fear and warning for them to back off- He had a laser, and he'd use it-!

But he only had the one blast. Maybe it would frighten them into leaving him alone, or maybe it would make them angrier, and then he'd be too exhausted to even run from them. Would he risk that? Even as a guardian, Gremlin had no exceptional powers to defend himself from an aggressive hoard, so rather than blast, he tried to run as they all descended upon him.

Teth, claws, lashing tails, angry yowls and snarls and hisses. His body, crippled from a human-caused accident seasons prior, stood no chance of escaping them, and it definitely seemed like it was Gremlin specifically that incited them. They tore into him, piercing through his naked flank without any resistance. They swiped at his ears and muzzle, while he yowled in desperation and had no means to defend himself.

Escape was out of reach, escape was out of reach, and if he only had his senshi with him, they could teleport to safety!

But he was alone, and his heart ached, and the thrum of lightning in the air sparked against his skin as teeth and claws berated him and then-

And then nothing.

Silence.

Warmth.

He was sitting on the wooden floor of his senshi's bedroom, crouched down with his ears pinned and desperately trying to protect his weaker, more sensitive midsection from being gored. Scratches and bites littered sensitive skin. Blood oozed from the messiest of the wounds. But he was alone. He was alone in his senshi's house, like he'd wanted to be when wishing that Diesel was with him. Gremlin bent and swiped his tongue over a scratch, as if trying to feel if it was real, if any of this was real, if he was alive.

His sandpapery tongue stung the wound. He tasted copper.

If Mauvians had once had the ability to teleport, it seemed to be resurfacing again now, when they were most in need.