Turning of the Tides

Cato listened to Lottus' story, mostly in silence. She nodded along here and there, but she didn't know fully what to say. By comparison, her own problems with the missing King Taori seemed miniscule. She had felt jilted by not being granted an audience with him, where Lottus had what sounded like a legitimate blood feud with the man.

"At least the new Queen isn't as likely to continue on those bounties," she noted, though she had no way of knowing for sure. "Handovers like this can sometimes result in sweeping amnesty agreements."

She fell silent, her attention turning to the blue gemstone Lottus procured. She felt herself frowning, out of curiosity more than anything. She had never known this Rapini, but she knew immediately it must have been a keepsake of hers. That alone lent weight to Lottus' next claims.

Cato looked back up at him, watching his expression carefully.

"You know that's a path that might well get you killed ahead of time," she warned, keeping her voice quiet. "I'm not going to tell you not to do this. If you go to battle like that, then you know I'll come with you. But you have to know what the risks are."

She paused to let out a longer breath, finally pushing aside her meal. She was more or less done with it.

"Let's say you do that. You launch an attack and you try to destroy their storehouses, and you find that isn't enough, and then you try to burn their city. Maybe if it works, you're able to stem the flow of Destron around Plant and elsewhere. You'll perhaps deal a final death-blow to the ability of the Tuffles to launch a new assault against us."

She forced a weak smile.

"But, if you do this," her tone fell grave. "If you do this and you don't succeed, then it might have the opposite effect. You'll inspire the Tuffles to feel the Saiyans are a threat they can't live with, and to redouble their efforts into Destron research. You could galvanize even pacifist Tuffles into letting underground Destron research flow back into their universities and research centers, back to the forefront of everyone's minds."

She fixed Lottus with a hard look this time.

"If you do this, I'll try to help you. But if you do this, and you fail, then the Tuffles might well usher in a new decade of hell in Destron."

---

Cato offered Lottus a small smile before pushing herself up to her feet, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture.

"Just one moment--I've reconsidered something."

With that, she brought her used tray back to the counter and leaned over to talk to the server. In a couple of moments, she was on her way back to the table to sit across from Lottus again, this time armed with two large cups of Sadala ale. Her decision not to drink had been made before she had to hear about off-worlders plotting to weaponize Destron.

She slid one of the cups across to Lottus, on the off-chance he wanted one.

"I don't know this Doctor Yatapi," she finally replied. "But if he really is working on a way of neutralizing the Destron, then that's probably for the best. In some small way, it did make for an excellent training ground--but we would all be better off never having to be anywhere near that stuff again."

She glanced towards the window, her mind returning to the Heran. She didn't know how effectively someone off-planet would really be able to weaponize Destron, but the effects on Plant were evidence enough of why that couldn't be allowed to happen.

"The Tuffles nearly ruined this entire planet with that stuff," Cato began, carefully. "And they were outmatched in every way by us, physically. If your Heran warlord decided to mount a full-scale Destron attack on Earth, there'd be no telling how many earthlings would die."

She was almost entirely certain that she almost entirely did not care about Earth or anyone on it, even if it was half of her heritage. Even so...

"There's no honour in a slaughter like that, and there's no challenge in it either. Most Earthlings can't even clock a power level over five. Unleashing Destron on them, or any planet like it, would just be cruelty for cruelty's sake. He might have more of an argument if he meant to use it against the Arcosians, but even so..."

She shook her head.

"Nobody should be allowed to use it as a weapon of mass extinction ever again."

---

Cato took a long drink from her ale, not noticing anything odd about the silence until she settled the mug back down and had a chance to see the expression on Lottus' face. She tilted her head to one side, puzzling back over what she had said. Was it the Destron? She hadn't meant that she would have used the Destron against Arcosians, only that it made more sense from the standpoint of someone willing.

Then, it made a little more sense, and she shook her head.

"Yeah, you're being foolish," she said, flatly. "There are only a couple worlds out there fortified enough for someone to want to resort to something like Destron to take, and I've been to Earth. They've been hit by alien attack after alien attack to the point they've created a whole database to register every single person with a notable power level in the interest of tracking them."

"To top it all off, they've been hit by Herans recently."

Cato lifted her mug to take another sip of her drink, leaving Lottus time to process all of that, before fixing him with a look of her own.

"I get that you're probably nervous with everything coming up, but don't be stupid. I wouldn't have come to you trying to parse out where our loyalties should lie in the future if I didn't plan to be loyal to you as a friend."

---

Cato fell back into her seat and let out one final breath of annoyance. It wasn't that she blamed Lottus for being paranoid exactly, she might have felt the same way if she were in his shoes. But even so, she felt it important to make sure her place in all of this was clear.

"I do plan to meet your Heran," she added, as an afterthought. "If he's running around with grand plans and an affinity for Destron, then I absolutely will. But you can rest assured that nothing he can say is going to sway me to decide it's better to side with him over my own people. Even if I decided to help the Empire, it would only happen if it didn't come at the expense of Plant."

Cato managed a weak smile at that. She really had no strong reason to love Plant, but it was the first place she had been that she could really claim that she had some sense of belonging. That sense of belonging might not have always been shared by her peers, given her missing the decades-long war that bonded them.

"I know a little bit about Vocado, but not much. He likes to think things through and take things careful, but I imagine that only lasts to an extent. I have to imagine if something gets his blood boiling, he's every bit as reckless as you."

She hummed for a moment. Would Vocado be willing to assist in this? It was hard to say.

"Once he shakes off whatever rust he has from his long slumber, he could be a powerful ally for what you have planned next. Especially since you have to imagine if he isn't fighting with you, he'll be fighting against you." She tilted her head off to one side. "You know there'll be Saiyans fighting to protect the peace."

She reclined her chair back onto two legs, opting to just sip away at her ale. She'd keep herself to just the one, but she was in no rush to get home after all of this.

"I don't know why you have to plan for dawn," she complained, as Lottus made to leave. "I like sleeping in. But I'll be there."

---