That damn buzzing…

Lars let out a noisy, irritated groan. He barely even remembered specifically what he had done to end up there 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 most powerful 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. 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. In his defense, though, 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 when 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—he called it that since he couldn't be bothered to remember exactly what the prison had called it—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 was 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, which he just knows will someday be the death of him

Lars heard an all-too-familiar click as the overhead lights flicked off, 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" were in place for full human prisoners who actually needed it—he still enjoyed getting a little shuteye. If it did nothing else, it at least helped him take his mind off of the buzzing. He would also occasionally have dreams, which, he must say, were a very much welcomed change from his usual scenery.

His dreams most often consisted of adventures with his crew. They'd be flying through space at light speed, frantically piloting a stolen ship while battling hordes upon hordes of faceless enemies. He'd also sometimes dream of being stranded on a remote island. A much, much younger, smaller Steven than he knew from recent times would very often accompany him in those. 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 short amount of time as a teenager back 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, uncomfortable bed in an attempt to escape his wandering thoughts. It certainly worked, though he regretted it the second the buzzing returned to the forefront of his attention. He sighed in defeat, deciding to bury his face in his lumpy, well-worn pillow. It did little to drown out the grating noise, but he just couldn't care less anymore.

It was at times like then that he'd often wonder if he was capable of dying of any sort of old age. When he and Steven had had a discussion about the topic a few centuries prior, 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 really hasn't shown any sign of slowing down yet. Do you know how much longer humans live than lions, Lars?"

Lion…

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

Lars was pulled from his thoughts by the familiar yet unexpected 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 on for another few hours…"

Hopping out of bed, he made his way over to the 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?" Lars called into the hallway before him, receiving back nothing but the echo of his own voice. "Very strange…" he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair, which was yet to grow as much as an inch since his resurrection long ago.

The unprecedented change from his usual day, while certainly welcome, was slightly... unsettling. He hadn't exactly felt so… alone in what must've been many decades up until then. Just as he was beginning to take peace in his newfound loneliness, however, the silence was broken by the repetitive, echoing sound of footsteps—ones which were unmistakably heading down the hallway leading toward his cell. While he was somewhat hopeful that someone was coming to finally release him, any optimistic thoughts he had were completely erased as the footfalls began noticeably picking up in speed and intensity.

"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 and 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 ever closer.

Lars set himself in some sort of highly rusty defensive position—one that had arrived through pure muscle memory—as he watched a figure round the corner and come to a stop. Seemingly on all fours, it was just barely visible from where he was standing, though he could make out a highly 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 just stood in place, watching him...

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

Still, nothing but silence. So much silence that Lars could hear the sound of his own extremely slow-beating heart. It was then, all of a sudden, that he heard the sound of an extremely familiar, guttural yawn. Although fried from decades of sitting in a cell, his brain 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, friendly 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 in 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... characters..." he trailed off as he watched the beast unsheathe his claws.

The terminal, split into six separate pieces, loudly crashed against the ground as the big cat's claws retracted. It wasn't too long afterward until the electrical gate keeping Lars inside his cell deactivated, and he was flooded with a sense of relief as the buzzing disappeared alongside it.

"Something tells me Connie and Steven won't be too happy about you breaking me out," Lars chuckled as he paced toward Lion. He scratched at a scar on his neck as he did so. "That is, assuming they didn't send you. Something tells me they wouldn't put their reputations on the line for me again, though..."

Lion grunted in response, turning away from the man before kneeling down.

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

Lion swiveled his head around to look him in the eyes, which quickly told the man everything 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 and Steven are gonna give you."

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

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

Lion responded with a grunt and nod that indicated that he could have, but ultimately 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 magical 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.