“Damn, he’s uh… pretty mad at me,” Zerori mumbled, a hand scratching the back of her head as she read out the last message she’d been given by (of all people) a fucking deputy. She wasn’t even aware that Master Shen had ever had any kind of ties or connections with the local authorities but she supposed anything could be possible. With a sigh, Zerori turned away from the door and continued to read the message given to her. She’d only gotten about a fourth of the way in before the amount of expletives outweighed any of the substance in the message. As she continued on into her apartment, Zerori would finish the letter until a squeamish grimace was set upon her features. “Goddamn that old man,” She hissed, finally letting the latter fall to the table in front of the couch without a care. “‘You must have died to Liari as foolishly as I had anticipated if you’re not here to complete your training!’” Zerori mocked the Crane master in her best voice as she started to get dressed in what she considered to be the best attire for training.

Simple black spandex with black sports bra but THIS TIME she didn’t opt to wear her favorite pair of boots. Instead she had a nice pair of sneakers that she might have modified to be impenetrable and were a lot more comfortable than her boots. They were still in the testing phase.

Throwing on the last bit of clothing, the hybrid woman was now seething outwardly, “He’s got a LOT of nerve to just throw that shit in my face! You want completed training? I’ll GIVE you complete training! Right up your fuckin’ a-”

The sudden loud chirp of a hungry cat had her stop and look over at Twilight. As always, he sat on the back of the couch with a perpetual frown on his feline face that never failed to cheer her up. With a snort of amusement, Zerori sauntered over to the spicy cat before giving him some gratuitous pets. “Alright. I won’t kick the old man’s ass, but I won’t shut up about his stupid hat.” As if to accept this compromise of ethics, Twilight gave a deep and accepting meow before giving the biggest stretch a large cat could give before settling down into a loaf.

Satisfied, Zerori finished getting ready before heading out the door.

She decided against wasting time for travel and the moment she was outside, she was taking to the air and blasting through the sky to Master Shen’s dojo. After all, if there was ONE thing that his impossible to avoid letters managed to mention consistently… it was how to get back to where he wanted you.

…
..
.

Unlike most other times where Zerori had touched down from her flight to the battle island, this time she was met by the unusual sight of nearly all of the students crowded around in a circle as they observed two spar in the ‘ring’. Just outside of the ring, Zerori landed but she didn’t exactly try to do so discreetly - if the amount of students that had stopped whatever they were doing stopped to look at her. For a long moment, there was just a stretch of silence that seemed to stretch on before Zerori finally eyed them all with a look of annoyance. “What? Never seen a woman in exercise gear before?” With a dismissive way, Zerori turned and proceeded into the temple.

She hadn’t even gotten five STEPS up the stairs before the familiar nasally voice of the most infuriating man on the planet called to her. “You finally show up after HOW many weeks of ignoring my calls?”

With a roll of her eyes, Zerori turned back to deliver a made-in-store snappy comeback when she was suddenly diving out of the way of… well, she couldn’t SEE it but she damn sure felt the heat coming off of it as she turned to see what had exploded on contact. A vase, probably priceless, had been sacrificed in an effort to hit her with a familiar invisible attack.

“Oh, how impressive! You must be the best at not only dodging responsibilities but escaping out of pure fear,” Shen snidely remarked, finally revealed to have been somewhere within the crowd of students as if they were a field of corn. Zerori narrowed her eyes on him, eliciting a scoff of disgust. “Pathetic. I trained you to be as deadly as you are cunning and what did you do? Disappeared when the going got tough. Do you have ANY idea how you looked in that suit while my other pupil made quick work of you?” He didn’t let up, not for a single moment and had Zerori not been paying attention to him, she might not have been able to dodge the second helping of the Dondonpa rushing at her.

This time Zerori wasn’t going to take it kneeling down…

Disappearing out of the way of the attack, the taller than average woman would appear in front of Shen the next - surprising him into flinching in just such a way that it made a satisfactory shiver run down Zerori’s spine. “Do I know how it looked? Of course I did,” She took a menacing step forward, her eyes cold as ice as she slowly forced the shocked master backwards one step at a time. “Go ahead. Shoot me again with that attack,” She held up a hand, a fizzle of energy so imperceptible gathering at her fingertip. “I promise you mine is gonna hurt a LOT worse, Old Man.”

When she finally stopped, surrounded completely by the students in the courtyard, Zerori would straight up her back and look around sternly before she addressed Shen without speaking. “You told me that I missed important training. I didn’t ignore you to be a bitch, Shen and I damn well didn’t try to dishonor your image.” She didn’t even want to bring up the fact that he didn’t condemn Liari’s apparent tantrums of trying to control the Earth and destroying the cities piece by piece when she didn’t get her way. If that’s how he wanted it, then fine. “She was stronger than I had anticipated and I thought I was ready. Ready to beat her ass, ready to keep my city from harm and READY TO DIE FOR IT!” She finally bellowed, the sound forcing most of the students to flinch.

Shen, apparently, had been prepared for that. “And yet you didn’t. Why?” And in spite of how cold that sounded, Zerori knew it was more than just a question of integrity. This was about honor. Vengeance. And yet, even terrified as she was…

Once more she was plagued by the faceless shock of black hair that she couldn’t find a name to. All she could remember was a hand, yelling and to ‘Grab onto ME NOW-!’

A ragged gasp tore Zerori away from the memory as a searing pain bled through her shoulder. Off guard, vulnerable and not expecting it, Zerori looked to see a burn that had burned her skin where she’d been effectively shot. She looked back at Shen, the literal smoking gun (finger, in this case) there in front of her face.

~~~~~

It was early in the day, nearly the crack of dawn when Zerori had finally managed to track down the ship she’d known belonged to someone she was close to. Was it a long departed loved one? The faceless man that haunted her every waking moment she didn’t use to distract herself? An impulse to find answers had helped her to locate the ship she’d tried to find ever since she’d just… forgotten everything. And when she was finally able to find it and go inside, familiar faces had finally helped her to catch important clues. People she’d known but couldn’t find welcomed her back but every tiny piece of evidence that pointed her in the right direction only gave her more questions to resolve!

Who owned the ship? Their leader. Who was that? They didn’t know! What was their name?!

The only piece of evidence that meant ANYTHING… was a piece of paper left behind, likely lost somewhere along the way to the trash - written in her handwriting.

‘Hey, Athren!’
‘Borrowing your Gravity Room because it’s better! Left Banana Bread in your fridge!`
`~Z`

All at once she felt a kind of mixed relief and frustration. She had a name. A NAME but the face was still empty! Bit by bit, Zerori was at her limit. She was DONE! She needed answers and power and she wasn’t going to sit around and twiddle her thumbs while the people she cared about were forced to live in fear.

She looked up at the door the note was found adjacent to, locked behind a passcode that Zerori knew she could get into. After all… Athren had let her in, didn’t he? Passing the note into her armor, Zerori stomped in and materialized her helmet to send a message to her girls at the Maker’s Bakers.

“Janet… yeah, I’m fine- hey, remember those plans I drafted up with Capsule Corps blueprints I borrowed? The radar, yep… Set it out for me. I’ll be back later tonight to finish them.” As Janet spoke on the other side, Zerori would type in the passcode she knew by heart (literally), watching with a determined half-grin as it slid open upon command. “-Yeah no. Let’s just say I got an epiphany. See you then,” With a press of the button to end the call, Zerori stalked inside.

~~~~~

Once her mind finally caught up with the world around her, Zerori’s hand came up to snatch Shen’s wrist, faster than most anyone could see. Her eyes were brightly lit with rage, glowing an ephemeral red as she snarled in Shen’s face. “Damn. You really do have some fuckin’ balls on you, don’tcha?” With what little self-control Zerori had, the Crane master would find himself suddenly crashing into most of his students yet was otherwise unharmed as he looked up at Zerori.

Hatred radiated off of her in waves - actual WAVES of hatred - as she looked down her nose upon him on the ground.

“You want to complete my training? Fine.I’ll show you that I’m not a coward. Teach me that one you always tell me about. The ‘Neo’ Tribeam, whatever the fuck that is. You told me it can kill the user if they’re stupid, yeah? Sounds like it’s right up my alley,” She took a step back, her gaze roving over the crowd of students as they watched with trepidation and fear for her next move - even if they were helpless to stop her. When she looked back down at Crane, she snorted.

“See you next week, Shen.”

She had a dragon ball radar to make.