Powering up seemed to come so naturally to other senshi, to Knights, to pretty much everyone but Vanya.…… Or, well, to Farbauti, when he was hopping around rooftops and skulking through the alleys of Destiny City in his crop-top, his tiny skirt with the fuzzy lining, and his boots with the fur that made him desperately hope nobody in any given club was looking at him.
All the difficulty he had with making himself do this didn’t make any sense, he felt pretty sure. Senshi stuff and doing it seemed to come so naturally to Fang and Daedalus, to Demeter and Asmodeus, to ******** Murikabushi, who wasn’t even a White Moon senshi like the rest of them.…… Like breathing, it seemed all the rest of them powered up and went on patrol like it was no big deal (not that Vanya had met whomever Murikabushi was when he wasn’t running around in those murderously high heels with his overly generous plenitude of skirts, but he had a hard time believing that Murikabushi ever struggled to pull out his henshin pen, power up, and go running out to chase youma away from hapless civilians or rescue every Tia, Tamera, Jane, Deb, and Harriet within Destiny City’s limits).……
But on his own hand, even feeling pressure that said he needed to do the thing, whenever he pulled out his henshin pen to get ready for a patrol, Vanya couldn’t help but feel a heavy chill of dread. Whether it loomed over his head all night or came crashing down on him eventually, he never truly managed to shake it, that feeling like maybe, he’d do more harm than good if he powered up, like he didn’t know what he was doing, he never would, and by trying to help, he’d only manage to ruin everything for the senshi and knights who did.
Still and all, though, tonight found him out and about on a patrol regardless. It felt like what all his senshi friends would do. None of them struck Vanya as cowards in the way that he was, and he could hardly justify sitting things out to himself when he’d spent his entire life faking one thing or another in the hopes of having friends, or impressing someone enough to value him for a little while, or……whatever. Didn’t matter what he’d faked his way through life for, he told himself as he clambered down a fire escape and into an alley. Only mattered that, because Vanya had been faking pretty much everything for as long as he could remember, he couldn’t very well use that as an excuse to shirk all the duties that seemed to come bound up in being Sailor Farbauti of Rage, whatever that actually meant when it was at home.
Hopping off the fire escape’s last step and landing in a puddle, Farbauti sighed. Cast a long glance around the alley, combing his eyes all up and down the length of it like looking both ways before crossing the street. Not that he expected to find anything amiss—he didn’t feel any magical auras down here, whether Chaos or White Moon—and not that he would’ve known what to do if he had found something, but……even so, Farbauti sighed at the utter lack of anything nefarious for him to confront.…… Since there didn’t seem to be any guides like How to Be A Sailor Senshi for Dummies out there, how was he supposed to learn except by taking things on and trying his best, the way that braver senshi all seemed to do so easily?
As he headed toward the sidewalk, intent on looking for trouble somewhere else, Farbauti paused in mid-step. The street-lamp’s halo glistened off something over by the wall, and idly, he hoped that it might be money. If not money, then something he could maybe pawn for spare cash……but instead, Farbauti picked up a little six-sided die. Looking at the vintage-seeming wood and gilded numbers, he considered that maybe it could be worth a couple extra dollars anyway. Probably not too much, if he were honest, but a few dollars more in his wallet would always be preferable to lacking said money.
Except, the alley seemed to swim around him as Farbauti stood up. Next thing he knew, Destiny City had entirely disappeared, leaving him in some video game-looking black void. As it yawned around him, only two things besides Farbauti’s own person stood out from the endless black: a golden path before him, leading toward a gleaming exit, and the six-sided die in his outstretched hand.
“What in the absolute whole-grain Jumanji ********……” Grumbling, Farbauti shook his head. That didn’t help him any, if he were honest. Neither did massaging the bridge of his nose. “I knew I should’ve stayed home from senshi school today.……”
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