That damn buzzing…

Lars let out a loud, audible groan. He barely even remembered specifically what he had done to end up here in the first place. It was all so fuzzy. Whatever it was, though, it had landed him in a high-security space prison. With all of the strange powers that being an undead, pink "zombie" brought him, he, right about now, sure wished an enhanced memory was one of them.

He'd long given up trying to figure out how many Earth years it had been. Every time he had asked the amethyst guards, they had given him an answer in some overly complicated gem unit of time, likely just purely to mess with him. All it did was remind him of how little he'd bothered to learn about gem culture and technology prior to being imprisoned for… what, the ninth time?

Steven and Connie had given up on bailing him out three imprisonments ago, though he certainly didn't blame them. While they may have been a few of Earth and Homeworld's top political figures, they weren't exactly immune to the media's scrutiny.

He was pretty sure he was serving the gem equivalent to a life sentence at this point. He had broken out of his cell the past two times he was imprisoned, which was likely why the court wasn't particularly lenient with his sentencing this time around. In his defense, he'd less so broken out and more so just finally learned how to properly use his portalling powers. Did the court expect him to just not portal out of his cell the second he could? And did they expect him to just not do it again once they'd locked him up once more in the same exact cell? They seemed to have learned their lesson the third, and current, time at the very least.

Antimagic energy—which was what he called it since he couldn't be bothered to remember its scientific name—was the bane of his everyday existence. It was discovered when an Earth-based peridot managed to somehow combine the four Diamonds' energies. His cell is powered by the stuff in order to nullify his portalling powers. It also happens to be highly unstable, causing it to unendingly emit an annoying, indescribably grating buzzing noise that he just knows will one day be the death of him

Lars heard an all-too-familiar click as the lights overhead went out, signaling to him both that it was his "bedtime" and that his cell's two designated guards were going on break. Despite him not biologically needing sleep—the "sleep periods" being in place for full human prisoners who actually needed it—he still enjoyed getting a little shuteye. If for nothing else, the sleep helped him take his mind off of the buzzing. He would occasionally have dreams, also, which were a very much welcomed change from his usual scenery.

He would often dream of adventures with his crew: flying through space at light speed in a stolen ship while battling waves of faceless enemies. He'd also sometimes dream of being stranded on a remote island, where a much, much younger, smaller Steven than he knew from recent times would very often accompany him. Without a doubt, however, his favorite dreams were the ones in which he was back at the counter of the Big Donut. He'd bicker with Sadie over small things, occasionally take orders; and just, generally, be able to sink back into the mundane—however brief it may be. All that being said, he didn't particularly miss his relatively extremely short amount of time as a teenager on Earth all that much, not that he wouldn't go back to it in a heartbeat if it meant escaping his current… accommodations.

Lars flopped onto his small bed in order to attempt to escape his wandering thoughts. It worked, though he regretted it the second the buzzing returned to the center of his attention. He sighed in defeat, deciding to bury his face in his well-worn pillow. It did little to drown out the buzzing, but he couldn't care less.

At times like this, he'd often wonder if he was capable of dying of any sort of "old age." When Steven and he had a discussion about the topic many centuries ago, the half-gem seemed to believe that he was basically immortal in relativity to other humans.

"Connie crunched the numbers," he vividly remembered Steven mumbling while avoiding eye contact. "She was able to piece together Lion's age through Buddy Budwick's journals. He's already lived about… thirty times longer than a normal lion, and he hasn't shown a single sign of slowing down yet. Do you know how much shorter lives lions live than humans, Lars?"

Lion…

He wondered how the beast was holding up these days. Was he still even alive? Last time he had dropped by the Maheswaran-Universe residence, he had distinctly remembered seeing the animal at Connie's feet… or had that been their other, much smaller pink cat? Who knows.

Lars was pulled from his thoughts as he unexpectedly heard the distinct sound of the overhead lights flicking back on.

"Strange…" he muttered to himself as he lifted his face up from his pillow. "The lights usually aren't turned on for another few hours…"

Hopping out of bed, Lars made his way over to his cell wall in order to get a view of the outside of his enclosure. The two amethyst guards typically standing just within his view were missing, which wouldn't have been out of the ordinary had the lights still been off.

"Hello?" he called into the hallway before him, receiving back nothing but the echo of his own voice. "Very strange…" he said to himself, running a hand through his hair that hadn't grown so much as an inch in centuries.

This unprecedented change from his usual day, while welcome, was slightly unsettling. He hadn't exactly felt this… alone in what must've been many decades at this point. Just as he was beginning to find peace in his newfound loneliness, however, the silence was broken by the sound of footsteps which were unmistakably heading down the hallway leading to his cell. While he was somewhat hopeful there was perhaps a gem coming to finally release him, those thoughts were nearly erased as the footsteps quickly picked up pace.

"Is somebody there?" Lars half-shouted-half-whimpered out his cell. "I'm trained in, like, fifty forms of hand-to-hand combat!" he yelled as the footsteps grew closer. "I've disarmed the mighty Connie Maheswaran-Universe in under fifteen seconds before!" he lied—not that he hadn't come close to it a few times in training. His boasting fell on deaf ears, however, as the footsteps grew even closer.

Lars set himself in some sort of highly rusty defensive position that arrived through pure muscle memory as he watched a figure round the corner. The figure, seemingly on all fours, was just barely visible from where he was standing, though he could make out a distinct pair of glowing white eyes.

"If you've come here to kill me, just know that you'd probably be doing me a service. The stupid buzzing that this… antimagic energy crap makes has taken away what little sanity I had left," Lars half-joked.

In response, he heard nothing but a beastly grunt, the figure continuing to just stand in place.

"C'mon, I was joking." Lars rolled his eyes. "Not one for jokes?"

Silence. It was so silent that Lars could hear the sound of his own extremely slow-beating heart. It was then, in the midst of the silence, that he heard the sound of a very familiar yawn. His brain, although fried from decades of sitting in a cell, was able to nearly immediately put two and two together.

"Lion!?"

A grumble was given in response as the pair of eyes stopped glowing, revealing the form of the familiar big cat.

"Oh man, you've got no idea how happy I am to see you!" Lars exclaimed as he peered at the creature. "I haven't seen, like, anybody but the same two amethysts for what's felt like forever!"

Lion didn't show much acknowledgement toward the prisoner as he padded up to the terminal keeping his cell locked and powered.

Lars' eyebrow raised as he watched the feline. "No offense, but I don't think you're gonna be able to crack that thing. The password is somewhere around a thousand numbers lo—" He cut himself off as he watched Lion unsheath his claws.

The terminal, now in six separate pieces, hit the ground as the big cat's claws retracted. It wasn't too long before the electrical gate keeping Lars inside his cell went down, with him being flooded with a sense of relief as the buzzing went away alongside it.

"Something tells me Connie and Steven won't be too happy about you breaking me out," Lars chuckled as he made his way over to Lion. "Assuming they didn't send you. Something tells me they wouldn't put their reputations on the line for me again, though."

Lion grunted, turning away from Lars before kneeling down.

"You want me to get on you?" Lars chortled. "You know that I can make my own portals now, right?"

Lion turned his head back to look at the man, his glare telling him all he needed to know.

"Oh! You want to take me somewhere," Lars concluded, receiving a curt nod from the beast. "I hope this'll be worth the scolding Connie is gonna give you."

As he hopped onto Lion's back, Lars could hear what was likely hundreds of guards' footsteps thudding down the outside hallway.

"Couldn't have made a sneakier entrance, huh?" Lars joked as he grabbed tight onto Lion's mane.

Lion responded with a grunt and nod that indicated that he could have, but chose not to.

"I get it, you need some action at your age," Lars laughed. "I would've done the same."

As the thunderous footsteps echoed closer and closer, Lion roared, opening a swirling, pink portal before the two. Staring into the magic vortex, Lars would be lying if he said he wasn't slightly dreading what would be on the other side. In spite of this, he smiled as the feline jumped into it. He did it, If for nothing else, because he had finally escaped that damn buzzing.