New Girl In Town (OPEN)

”Yangcong is right.” It caused Cheri to suffer a profound harm to her soul to admit such a thing. ”Even if this Onnio is not officially working with the Vegetan forces directly,” which she doubted, ”he would be working with at least one sanctioned military corps, in this case the Buster Corps, and is certainly engaging with battles on the frontline— I can tell you that much from personal experience.” Even by having him pried of intel regarding only the Buster Corps, that’s still worth the effort to capture him. Even if he gave no information at all, it would be worth it all the same simply to take a powerful player off the figurative playing board. Also in her speech was the name drop for ‘Buster Corps’, the group Onnio told her he was in, which could have been quite the piece of evidence.

She could go along with the idea of investigating Onnio using Qarinah, sure, that could work, but what Yangcong was saying was that he could be an asset! Ridiculous. ”Be careful.” While she was not looking to anyone in particular when she said it, the subtext would imply that Yangcong was the intended recipient. ”Onnio is hopelessly nationalistic, having lost himself to a life of propaganda and mistreatment.” Any treatment considered tolerable by the Vegetan culture would be considered mistreatment by any proper culture. ”He will not willingly betray his concept of ‘Vegeta’, even though it has next to nothing to do with the actual Vegeta.” ‘Vegeta’, here, referring to the Plant from the Vegetan perspective, and that which is ‘Vegetan’ as a whole. ”So, there’s either the violent approach, or you can try some of your charm.” The attention went directly to Qarinah. ”Soft charm, of course. He is too young for seduction, so please don’t try anything.” Because that would have been really weird and bad.

Cheri did not think Onnio had any useful information. She reckoned, if Onnio ever learnt any useful information, he would get a headache as it burned its way out of his head to maximise his holistic uselessness. Still, if such a mission would result in his capture, then that was brilliant… only, she doubted such a thing was likely, so truly the main purpose of such a mission was for Qarinah to prove herself (as per Yangcong’s idea).

Speaking of Yangcong, he found a moment to speak to her regarding… Arcose, at a time like this? ”Sounds promising.” But she would not ask questions or seek to continue the topic, to retain the structure of the time-space continuum in regards to the conversation with Azoth she had not yet had.

She caught the blood ruby, quickly placing it down after she felt it start to sap at her energy. They seemed to work suspiciously like destron in a few respects. ”Blood rubies, yes, I’m familiar. Found across the galaxy, with more on Earth than anywhere else. Terrifying little spectacles; draining life, adding power, themes of blood.” I wonder why she could be wording it like that... ”Possibly they originate from areas with high concentrations of demonic energy.” Was it a coincidence that Earth’s primary portal to the Otherworld, the Furnace of Eight Divisions, and the largest known blood ruby mine on Earth were both found in the planet’s West? Probably, yes, but the theory was not without merit.

"Because," Cheri answered, years of politics, theory and economics at the forefront of her mind, "the tuffles are just about the best trade partner one could have, would be even greater with the full planet at our disposal, work far better independently and have the mother of all deterrants." Besides, if some Arcosians came over to conquer, they'd have saiyans and tuffles to deal with. "Anyone who tries it is actively putting themselves at a disadvantage." That much was obvious. So, either Qarinah truly did not know, or she was just playing a little game running circles around Yangcong.

Like a hubristic scientist, Yangcong tried to justify his metaphorical 'playing with fire' (though, in reality, far far worse than fire in every conceivable way) with assurances of time and care put into its design. Regardless of how safe Yangcong had tricked himself into thinking it was, destron was still destron and, for long as it was destron, could not be removed from its inherently destructive, corruptive nature. Was there even a slight possibility that this destron had, indeed, been 'perfected'? Possibly there was. But for such a thing, if it had any long-term effects, they would be felt for generations, and you would only need to screw it up once to ruin an ecosystem. This was why the tuffles had agreed to never use destron again; no matter how one twisted their mind in an attempt to justify it, no matter how one tried to get around the wording of their signed conventions as Doctor Satsuma had with his Destron Droids, destron was abhorrent and its direct use did constitute as a war crime. And all of that, of course, was secondary to how he got some actual scientists to work on illegal weaponry given that Yangcon himself was clearly still a saiyan and any use of their work could very well lead to their arrests. "No thank you." No, she did not want any destron. More destron was the last thing Plant needed.

But the hybrid, who Cheri did not know was a hybrid, was insistent on the blood ruby idea. It had potential, sure, but when a demon was warning you that something was dangerous instead of goading you on to try it, that was a pretty good sign that it was dangerous. Dangerous was still possible, of course, but with other avenues open, was it worth the bother? If she were bothered, she might have brought up some interesting science that would have made the need for a 'frame of reference' entirely obsolete... but she didn't like the idea all that much to begin with, and didn't especially care to continue it. The hiring of Qarinah was already enough of a risk for today, thank you very much.

The hell is a 'shinjin'? The hell is a 'Darastras'?

Oh, great, and now we were attacking each other. First, Qarinah tried to prove her power, and the power of demons, but the old man was having none of it. "Yes, yes, an interesting demonstration," started Cheri, taking a second drink of her wine, "you've proven yourself already, etcetera etcetera. Yangcong, let her go."

Cheri hoped it was clear that she wasn't going to try anything so foolish as opening gates to any hellish planes. If Yangcong tried it, well, Cheri also hoped that it was clear that Yangcong did not speak for the tuffles. How the hell did he even make it into Hatchi City?

Yangcong had let the demon go and hopefully his warning was more than enough to cause her to not act foolish once again. As he floated a bit away from her, she had headed back to sitting down on the chair and drinking more wine.


"If she had done that to you Cheri, I wouldn't be taking it lightly. That attack wasn't exactly a paper cut demonstration."

He was still healing from the wound that he had received and was so injured that he decided to join the table and hopefully he would heal within time. He looked to the vampire demon and just wondered how powerful she truly was with those types of attacks.

Now the moment of truth was finally coming out on what was in this fucking wine that the woman kept drinking over and over. Apparently it came from Planet Sadala and they both were drinking and this only weirded out Yangcong since he couldn't believe that anything good could have came from a planet covered in natural disaster. Could they Vampire truly be trusted in the end after telling us that? Then came the response that he got but didn't want to hear. She didn't know who the guy was either and simply shook his head.

"From what I heard about this man. He's a shinjin who wants to remove all sentient life in creation, in order to create true paradise and peace. Are you sure you haven't heard about him through the realm that you are from? or perhaps his followers for that matter? I believe this is a group effort and if what that shinjin had told me is true. Then I truly believe that this entire universe is at greater risk than I had originally thought."

The war was one thing, arcosians were another. But to have Gods themselves wanting to destroy the mortals at a higher level was something else entirely. This instilled fear into his mind and he had hoped that somehow and someway that, that shinjin had lied to him in the end. But when that destron gas that Yangcong had sold to those Herans and they had used it against the city. This only confirmed to Yangcong that the shinjin had stated that he had only came to that planet because he had thought that they were the ones responsible for that mess. He could only mutter to himself just being exhausted with the whole idea of it. He then focus his attention to the woman who was now explaining how shinjins worked.

"Tell me something, do you truly believe that lets say this group does exist. Do you believe that us mortals can beat them?"

He was afraid of her answer but at the same time he truly wanted to know whether or not if they stood a chance at beating the shinjins at all. The only shinjin he had truly known was Ward, he was a strong shinjin in his eyes who didn't have the same view point as Mortals but at the same time, he truly was a strong shinjin who also wasn't aware of this group existing at all. Even though Cheri didn't agree with it, he looked her way almost worried.

"Cheri, do we have the technology to increase our power to go above and beyond any capable means...."

It was true that even though Yangcong had worn the tuffle uniform, both his own design and that of the armies design. He still lacked the knowledge of how deep the technology goes as a universe standing and not just mere combat or new gadgets that aids them. He wanted to know if the tuffles had something up their sleeve that could not only help them against the war effort but also help them against the shinjin threat.

"I just want to make sure that we have a fighting chance if that opposition does exist. I have seen a shinjin known as Ward. He is a strong being that also isn't aware that the group exist. But we need to know how we can protect ourselves against an unknown enemy and I believe that we tuffles can do something about it that no other race can do."

He was speaking of the technology that was so advanced in nature compared to the saiyans, the arcosians, the namekians, and even the earthlings who quite frankly, had the technological means but were not like the tuffles by chance.