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 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2023 12:09 pm
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The last delivery of every night always gave Vanya a feeling of relief and satisfaction. More so when he wound up taking it over to the anarchist lesbian coven who all collectively treated him like some kind of weird pet. Not that any of his other regulars didn’t treat him decently, because a lot of them did (possibly because repeated exposure to him made them think he was kind of pathetic and feel bad for him? Vanya would take that, though)—but the anarchist lesbian coven were special, in his world. They knew his name. They asked how he was doing and seemed to actually care about the answer. More than once, they’d taken something out of the bag their order had been in and given it to Vanya because they’d actually ordered it for him.
They also regularly tipped in cash, which was a kindness that Vanya did not take for granted.
Tonight, they’d had a cash tip for him, and a little tray of chicken and vegetable tempura. Getting this home to his shitty studio apartment and having it for dinner would taste so good.… Honestly, the coven could keep seeing him as pathetic all they wanted if it meant that Vanya periodically didn’t need to worry about buying his own food.… They’d also had a bigger order than usual and a story about how Melanie’s sister was coming to visit from out of town. Apparently, they looked pretty similar, save that Tamara liked to wear short skirts and all kinds of ribbons while Melanie was very much a jeans and flannel kind of girl.
Emerging from the coven’s building, Vanya went right over to his bike, put the tempura in the basket—but he’d barely started undoing the lock when he noticed her: a short girl in thigh high and cute boots, with ribbons all over her little outfit. Maybe it wasn’t any of his business, and maybe he didn’t owe her anything just because her sister was nice to him? But Melanie and the other ladies in the coven ripped cash, and they really did treat Vanya kindly.
“Hey,” he said gently, very aware that a guy coming up behind a girl on her own probably didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. “Are you Tamara? Melanie’s building is right around here?”
Dimly, he registered that she didn’t have any suitcases or backpacks or anything with her, but—maybe her bags were still waiting in an Uber? Maybe she wanted to make sure she’d gotten to the right place?
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Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2023 12:33 pm
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Guinevere wasn't used to being approached by potential draining victims, really. This was sort of a new one. She'd been idly wandering this part of town, taking in the sights and looking out for anyone alone late at night, but she hadn't had much luck. Which, really, was fine, she was never super worried about her quotas. There were always enough sheep.
And this one, this poor little lamb, had wandered away from the flock and right into the wolf's clutches.
Guinevere smiled, as she turned to face him. She did not have the appearance of something dangerous, she knew that.
It was to her advantage. If she was big, or intimidating, or wielding a weapon like her officer colleagues? He might have panicked and run. But who would run from a cute girl in a little black-and-pink skirt?
"Oh, sorry! I think you've mistaken me for someone else," she said, sunnily. "But there is something you can help me with, actually."
She snapped a hand out. Grabbed his arm to hold him in place. Started pulling his energy.
"Just a little of your energy. I promise, it'll all be okay, you'll just need to take a nap after! I'd recommend not doing it on the concrete, though, that would suck."
She was all friendliness and sunshine, all smiles. He hadn't done anything to her, really, just been unlucky enough to blunder right into her when she needed to drain. In fact, he seemed nice, coming up to a stranger and trying to help her find where she was going, and really, she couldn't look at him and feel threatened at all, so....she'd at least make sure he wobbled away from her conscious and aware, rather than knocking him out or taking his starseed or anything else super bad.
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Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2023 1:46 pm
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As reasonably safe as he’d initially felt, Vanya crashed headlong into terror and regret as soon as the girl turned around. Black outfit. Vicious-looking cracks in her chest and forehead. Asmo’s warning from before echoed through his mind: Super long hair and holes here and here means Negaverse senshi, means bad news, means ******** run because they can do the starseed thing.
Sure, Miss Not-Actually-Tamara-Apparently had a cute smile, like she wanted to seem very nice and harmless. But as she spoke, Vanya’s eyes darted between the crack in her chest and the matching one in her forehead. His own chest ached, feeling somewhat less solid than he liked, remembering how that other Negaverse woman—the one who’d grabbed Vanya as a meat-shield and threatened to steal his starseed, the one who Asmo had saved him from—had started pushing her fingers into his chest when fingers absolutely did not GO in there and NO BAD STOP,
Either way, in the face of this menacingly cute, tiny little woman and her terrifying smile, Vanya froze. He knew that he needed to run, he really needed to run, she was a Negaverse senshi and probably going to hurt him, and oh ********, that hand on his arm could not mean anything good, especially not when she was a Negaverse senshi and being so nice, like she knew she was going to do something terrible.
But Vanya didn’t get away in time.
And as much as the part of him that trolled in Youtube comments sections wanted to fight, the vast majority of the rest of him knew it was a losing battle. What if this senshi’s cute exterior hid nasty fire powers like Asmo’s? Or like, magical pink sugar powers that would make him die of glucose overload while she drained him anyway?
Better to just……roll over and let her have her way. Maybe it would get done with faster.
Nodding felt pretty pointless when she was draining him regardless, but……Vanya’s fear impulses made him do it anyway. “I hope they’re good to you in the Negaverse,” he said, lowering his voice so anyone passing by wouldn’t hear. Wouldn’t do for them to, like, get that word in their head and turn it into some fearmongering part of the news cycle or whatever. If that would even remotely happen. “At least, good enough to make up for making you do this to people.”
Because, being on the receiving end of this for a second time, Vanya could confirm: getting your energy drained REALLY KINDA SUCKED, actually. These conditions were terrible, he wanted to go home.
“……Do? Do you like tempura?” He glanced over at his bike, at the basket. “I—some regular customers bought it for me, but…? Do you need actual dinner, too? Not just my energy or whatever?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:45 pm
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He wasn't trying to struggle. That was good. It meant there wouldn't be any...silly little accidents that would end thoroughly unfortunately for him. That was the sort of thing that Guinevere liekd. When her prey was too afraid or too shocked to fight back.
He seemed a little of both.
Though--oh, interesting! He knew a thing or two! Had he gotten drained before? Maybe been rescued by somebody? If he was magical himself, he'd know not to use those words, to stay incognito, she was pretty sure.
She reached up and patted his cheek with her free hand.
"Oh, don't worry~! The Negaverse treats me great, and I love doing this, anyway. It's super fun, and do you know how much power I have? Like, it's such a good gig, why would I want to do anything else?" She laughed. It was delighted, bright, sunshiney.
"Anyway, keep your tempura, I've got food at home, but that's very sweet of you!"
Okay, he was being nice. She'd leave him a little less unconscious than she might have otherwise.
So, once she judged she'd taken enough, she let him go and stepped back, holding the precious glowing orb in her hand for a moment and examining it before tucking it into subspace.
"There we go, all done! Try to stay out of trouble now!" She waved, perkily, and turned to walk away.
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Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2023 3:35 pm
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As she drained him, Vanya felt more and more certain in his convictions here: energy draining really kinda sucked, actually, and he did not enjoy it very much. Not a single damn bit, thanks. Not that anybody cared.
His head started aching not long after she’d started. Then, it spun like the world was rushing around him while Vanya stood still. Not as badly as it had gone with the ******** in the bad Hawkeye cosplay, and at least this lady was keeping her hands away from his chest, but nevertheless: dizzy. At least, for all his knees Bambi-wobbled underneath his spindly legs, Vanya didn’t collapse like he had when the other guy had drained him (concrete like the sidewalk, he thought, would not have broken his fall as politely as the snow had done). At least he could keep nodding while she explained how she actually enjoyed doing this (scary) and kept talking to him like she thought he was the cutest puppy at the pet store (or wherever it was that people who liked them bought puppies).
Worst of all, Vanya’s heart pounded in his chest like he’d never felt it do before. Like, ********, was this some kind of arrythmia or whatever? Was he having a heart attack? Vanya didn’t usually feel flushed and hot like this when the anxiety spirals came for him, dragged him into their grip while maniacally laughing about how weak he was and how he was utterly helpless to stop them, and then suddenly it was two hours later and he had people with genuine blue check marks—the kind earned for doing anything noteworthy, not for paying Elon Musk eight dollars every month—@-tagging one of his assorted alt accounts because he’d started picking some ridiculous fight or other while utterly overcome by the horrible dread that everything was terrible and he was terrible and he would be alone always and then he would die. He hasn’t felt heat like this when the a*****e Hawkeye had drained him either, nor when the mean redhead had threatened to steal his starseed.
Why did it feel like something wanted to burst forth from his chest like something from Ridley Scott’s worst nightmares?
Maybe being nice and showing his metaphorical belly for this Negaverse senshi had worked, though. Even if she didn’t take him up on the offer of distraction food, and even though this draining stuff still sucked and was garbage, she left Vanya on his feet, and that was probably the best he could hope for.
“Get home safe,” he called after her, feeling like a ******** idiot for still being nice to somebody who’d just done this to him, and had as good as told him that she was going to do it to more people, because rather than see it as some kind of job, she actively enjoyed doing it. That sounded like the sort of thing that somebody really should’ve done something about? Like, trying to stop her and her Negaverse? The way that Asmo did?
But what could Vanya Renault ever hope to do about this? He weighed less now than he had in high school—and he’d still been pretty skinny then, so that was far from ideal when looking for a fighter—and he was, hands down, the single least magical person he had ever met in his life. He couldn’t even get into film school (not that he’d ever applied, because what had been the point when he’d known that he needed to get away from his family more than anything, but no self-respecting school would ever let him in the front door, that much was obvious), never mind trying to stop any Negaverse whatevers.
Sighing, Vanya at least felt his heart calming down from whatever all that had been. Skulking back to his bike, he resolved to just……take it slow about getting home. Hopefully he wouldn’t crash or something equally ******** embarrassing.
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