A Dramatic Arrival! Erebos Visits Plant! (Cato)

"You might want to tell the truth if you want to live."

Cato emerged, not far from the cell. She wouldn't have disrupted virtually anyone trying to check in on Lottus' cell, whether he was still lurking in there or not--but there was something wrong with this particular Saiyan. She could sense his energy, and he was far and away stronger anyone outside of the narrow field of Super Saiyans that resided on Plant.

He was stronger, even, than she was as an Oozaru. It was unthinkable for what appeared to her as a common soldier. And so, she proceeded to stop him in his tracks. At the least, she waved off the two guards at the door: they were probably perfectly honest soldiers, and they didn't deserve to be wrapped up in whatever this was.

"You're stronger than any of these runts could ever hope to be, even under the full moon. And yet--" she eyed him. "You look normal. Sorry, but I don't think it's in anyone's best interest to have some strange interloper nobody's ever heard of bothering this particular prisoner."

It was a bit of a lie. As far as she was concerned, the whole idea that Lottus was even a prisoner to begin with was a joke.

"Why don't you say why you're really here, and I'll take a little time to decide whether or not I believe you?"

She beamed at him, but there was no mirth behind her eyes.

"Take your time, now."

"I've never met a single Saiyan whose power is close to yours unless they've become an Oozaru, or..."

She squinted at him. He didn't look like he had uncovered the wrathful power that Lottus had taught her. Even if he had, the idea that there could be a Saiyan that powerful without her having noticed before was inconceivable.

"Besides," she added. "Konatsians are weak. You clearly aren't one."

Confident that she had proven herself decidedly not a racist, she flicked her wrist to dismiss him down the opposite side of the hall. She caught his eyes, but that only deepened her suspicion. Maybe there was such a thing as a Blood Moon, but she was almost certain red eyes were generally a bad sign.

"Who are you to quote the King's orders to me?" Cato demanded.

"If I listened to every palace guard who had orders from the King, I would never get anything done. If the King has orders, he can come down here and tell me himself. If those orders involve Lottus, then I'm sure his personal nurse--whatever her name was--would be notified of them in advance."

"Finally," she jut a finger out at him. "Even if you were a Saiyan, I wouldn't let you pass. Lottus' back is never going to heal if he keeps having powerful idiots try to challenge him to fights while he's laid up healing."

At first, Cato didn't know how to react. The first name almost sounded sensible, but she didn't know any Lord-Commanders. More than anything, she didn't know anything so brazenly named as House Murderveins. She could maybe think of a couple people who seemed like they could belong to a house like that, but they usually had loftier names.

"Right, right ... I don't know any Carrote of Murderveins," she began, carefully. "But that name isn't totally unfamiliar. You must know Sparagus, then. I heard he was lost in the fighting near Hatchi City. My condolences."

She folded her arms, taking a pace backwards, nearer to the door to Lottus' cell. She had no intention of letting this strange man through, but she wanted to catch him in his lie before she opened fire on him. She was still something of an outsider on Plant, and if she wanted to avoid trouble, she knew she should probably have some kind of proof before resorting to violence.

The black wisps that seemed to smoke off of him almost reminder her of the strange effect Lottus' had sometimes manifested, but she had a feeling this was something entirely different. Still, she planted her heels and didn't move.

"Royalty, is it? ... Then answer me this. Why is royalty fetching a prisoner on their own? Surely you have people to do that for you."

Cato hesitated a moment.

The so-called Carotte had passed that little test, but if he really was someone trying to sneak in to free, recruit, or threaten Lottus, then she supposed it was reasonable to assume he would have learned that trick by now. It was a little well-trodden to say the very least.

"My rank is higher than yours," Cato said, bluntly. She planted her heels again and gave no indication she was planning to move. "At least I'm a part of this Kingdom."

She let out a short sigh, and shook her head. She knew this would probably turn into a fight before long, but she could at least try to figure out this guy's motives.

"What are you doing here? Really doing here. I don't care about protocol or about Lottus' being locked up, but I'd rather know who I'm dealing with. If it sounds harmless enough, I might just let you through without tipping the King off that you visited. If not--"

"Well, then, I'll just kill you," she said, in an almost lazy tone. "Then you won't be a problem for me or anyone else here."

"Really, it's up to you if you want to be sensible about all this." A pause. "And there's no family named Murderveins."

At last, the truth was out.

It was little surprise that the man wasn't even a tiny bit Saiyan, and even less that he wasn't Konatsian. It was like she had said: Konatsians were weak, and he was anything but. Still, she hardly recognized the name Erebos Herosbane, and was no closer to understanding the true nature of this interloper.

"I'll repeat what Lottus said to me," Cato replied, shortly. "But you're an idiot if you think he's actually in any sort of prison here. There isn't a prison in the world that could hold him, much less in the depths of this place. He could be out in a minute if he had any inclination to leave."

She might have tried to stop him, but before she knew what had happened--the door swung open behind her, clipping her heel. It wasn't enough to knock her off balance, but it was enough to cause her to whirl around, having half-expected him to have used some kind of damnable teleportation spell to get around her.

Instead, he sank through the floor. She had no idea how, but she wasn't about to play around. The last thing they needed was some magician filling Lottus' head with nonsense, and she didn't intend to be made a fool of from some charlatan--powerful or not.

She let out a surge of power, a power ball forming in her palm for barely more than a moment before its energy surged through her veins. She felt that familiar tug of the primal Oozaru at the edges of her mind, but she retained her form. She glared down towards where she knew the man was lurking. He thought he was safe with the little head-start he built up, but he had no conception of how little Cato cared about the palace.

She lifted her palm, and with a sudden surge of power, fired off a sharp blast of yellow-white energy. It crashed through the floor, incinerating stone and creating a cloud of debris in its wake, coursing right for where Erebos was escaping. It didn't matter to her if she blew up half the dungeons: she wasn't letting him get any further.

"What are you, some kind of coward!?"

Cato felt a dart catch the side of her mask, causing it to tumble to the ground. She cussed, but luckily she didn't need it like she used to: she would be fine for more than long enough to finish this fight, even if she would irritate Maesi by asking for another replacement.

She spun around to try to meet Erebos, but he wasn't where she expected her to be. Instead, he appeared from behind a shadow upon the wall. She only just caught him, her slowly-developing energy sense ability helping her pinpoint him in time to raise her guard.

She felt a glancing sort of pain as his knee hit her outstretched arm, but she ignored it. She tried to grab onto his leg before he could escape, but she wasn't quite fast enough--instead, he fell through the floor again, until he finally reappeared on the other side of the hall.

"You just seemed like you were too stupid to have learned the secrets of the wrathful form," she said, in a mild tone. "You seem less stupid now, but more annoying. How's that?"

She had an idea, but it was risky. If any other Saiyans, or--heavens forbid--Lottus were to step into the hall at the wrong time, it could be a mess. But, she needed a way to quench the shadows in the hall, to limit Erebos' paths of escape. So, she formed another power ball in her palm -- but this one, she flew into the center of the hallway.

It shone, blindingly bright in such close quarters, plastering the whole area with blutz waves. She managed to maintain her mind and her form, thanks to her training--but few other Saiyans would manage the same. While it did manage to wash away most of the prominent shadows for this trickster to hide in, it wouldn't last forever.

"Maybe now you can fight me properly," she snapped, before lifting her hand to fire off a series of smaller ki blasts, intended to detonate just short of him to spray him with smoke and debris.

Without waiting to see if it worked, she launched herself forward--aiming to slam into Erebos with a fierce knee of her own.

Cato cussed loud enough that it was a wonder Lottus didn't hear it.

Instead of her hit landing flush as she expected, she caught nothing but dead air. She touched back down on the ground and whirled around, scanning for her foe--but when he reappeared, he had already escaped again.

It turned out he was a little craftier than she assumed, but it didn't matter. She would get by one way or another. She prepared to launch herself at him again, but before she could, she was under attack again--by her own shadow. She let out a yelp as she saw it enter her peripheral vision, and kicked back away.

While Erebos had caught her unaware, she managed to raise her guard again--and as before, she was made of strong enough stuff that while the attack caught her, and while it had stung, she had escaped the worst of the damage.

She touched down, and breathed out a sharp sigh of relief. Then, her eyes fixed upon Erebos once again.

"I think I know your type," she said, coldly. "You think you're really clever, but you don't know how to handle opponents who prove your equal. Sorry, but I've fought on too many worlds to be impressed by these kinds of tricks."

She kicked off, not bothering to give him a chance to respond. A surge of energy suddenly flared up around her first, and as she touched down just before him--she aimed to plant her fist directly into his chest, to strike him with the full force that ki-infused strike could muster.

It had taken most of her energy to manage that sudden burst of speed, and yet--she felt as if her blood was boiling for more.