Outside on a scrapyard plot at the back of Crimson Light's hangar, Little Cato was trying to keep himself occupied. Standing a few meters away from a target board, he took aim with an anti-matter pistol and shot. But since he wasn't actually shooting at a Tenebrus, the shots didn't explode into crystals, merely either denting or putting holes in the target board.

Even after talking with Gary yesterday, he still couldn't get his mind off the events of the restaurant that happened earlier before the talk. It still wasn't fair that the Tenebrus, Holly, had to be arrested simply because she was of the same ilk as the Mad Tenebri, but even more unfair was that her husband Todd and her boss Sal had to be arrested too, all because they had dared to be nice to her and treat her normally like any other person. They were guiltless in being that way because it was true. In Little Cato's point of view, he could care less that Holly was a Tenebrus. He cared more that she had done nothing to deserve punishment from the law, most of all Superior Stone and Scarlet Lance.

But the past was the past, and there was nothing Little Cato could do to change that. Unless he could travel back in time or go and raid Scarlet Lance HQ to bust Holly, Todd, and Sal out himself, they were pretty much permanently out of his reach. Little Cato growled, firing out one more shot that left a cracked and shattered hole in the target board.

"I guess Gary didn't make you feel all better?"

Little Cato turned around to see Quinn walking up to him, her hands in her pockets. She gave him a little smile, but the look in her eyes implied that she was more worried about how he's been acting recently.

Little Cato sighed, "Well, he didn't really answer my questions, so I'm back to wondering."

"You're wondering why even a nice Tenebrus gets thrown around?"

Little Cato nodded, then clarifying to Quinn about his confusion as to why Superior Stone was always so aggressive towards the Tenebri.

Now it was Quinn's turn to sigh. "Stone and I...go over this again and again, too many times if you ask me." She began to reminisce. "You know, before I joined Crimson Light...heck, before I even joined the Infinity Guard, I used to have a sister."

"Oh," Little Cato responded with an empathetic tone. "You must've been close to her."

"Well, maybe not 'that' close," Quinn clarified, "but yeah, as my family, she meant everything to me and she thought of me that way too."

She shuffled around and walked towards the target board Little Cato had practiced on, brushing a hand on it. "When I made the decision to join the Infinity Guard, she encouraged me to go through with it...so long as fighting Tenebri wasn't the only reason I wanted to join. But then it was partway into my cadet training when it all changed for me, just one call telling me that my sister got caught up in a situation involving a Tenebrus."

Quinn stopped talking to look at Little Cato who stayed silent the whole time, but then continued. "In a flash, I knew I would never see her again. It should've made me wanna quit...but I didn't. I kept right on going. And well, here I am."

For a bit longer, Little Cato remained speechless, unsure what to make of Quinn's backstory. He did find his voice after a few seconds. "That's...rough, Quinn. But what's it gotta do with yesterday?"

Quinn walked over to Little Cato. "Some people like Stone either just can't or won't let go of the past. They might blame the Tenebri for things that happened a long time ago, that might've made sense then but are different now." She rubbed a hand in the fur on Little Cato's head. "You told Gary about how Holly was so normal even though she was a Tenebrus, that she never did any of the things most Tenebri are accused of, that she acts nothing like a terrorist. If you believe even someone like Holly is a normal innocent person, why wouldn't there be more like her? You get what I'm saying?"

Little Cato paused, taking a moment to think about what Quinn just said to him. He slowly paused before finding his voice again. "Yeah...yeah. I think I get that. I just...I just thought of Gary and myself...and after hearing you tell me about your sister, I just didn't think we'd all be members of the same club."

Quinn smiled sadly before turning around to go back inside the hangar, leaving Little Cato alone with his thoughts.

It had been a full and long day, but Little Cato felt relieved for the lack of action over the entire shift. He was normally excited to tackle any Tenebrus issues that happened anywhere across Tera Con Alpha, but after everything that happened earlier in the day along with yesterday, he just couldn't concentrate. He ended up mostly patrolling the streets on his bike, checking every neighborhood for any smaller and more local situations, hopefully not Tenebrus-related for that time being. He did get a bit of satisfaction out of saving a kid from a bunch of bullies, though he was mostly disappointed over how easy it was since the bullies immediately backed off upon recognizing his face. He left the kid with a few encouraging words right after taking them home, so he thought it counted.

Little Cato made a stop at the same park near the outskirts of town where he and Gary had their talk a day before. He sat down on the same bench, not to brood on past events, but rather, he distracted himself by looking over some of the gear he carried with him the whole day. He had his anti-matter pistol which he kept for all Tenebrus emergencies, a pair of binoculars, and the miniature communicator that he wore so he could stay in contact with Crimson Light.

Putting his gear away, Little Cato took out one more thing from his pocket, taking as much time as he needed to examine it since the sun was just starting to go down: it was a photo of himself and Gary, taken 10 years ago. Gary looked a lot more different in the picture than he did now. In the present day, Gary was mostly the same as in the photo, except he now had a small ponytail, burn scars across a good portion of the back of his body, and his entire left arm was a mechanical prosthetic.

It wasn't the case 10 years ago.

It was sometime after the 3rd anniversary of Gary's adoption of Little Cato that the two's relationship took a great big step, though it wasn't in the best of circumstances. At the time, Gary had two arms both made of flesh and blood, but an incident involving, not a Tenebrus, but a mechanical malfunction resulting in an explosion on the job during a Bring-Your-Kid-To-Work-Day drove him to save a then-14-year old Little Cato, shielding the boy from the blast with his own body which burned him badly to the point it costed him his left arm.

Since that day, Little Cato felt eternally grateful to the man while feeling guilty for said man's predicament and what he had to do, finally having truly begun to see him as the same kind of father he once associated with his previous father Avocato. He made a promise to Gary of his own free will that he would one day join Crimson Light and accompany him on his missions together, and sure enough, he eventually did after years of training.

He did get a little bit of pushback thanks to Quinn who had reservations about him joining due to reminding both him and Gary of the dangers of the job. She frequently cited Gary's loss of his arm as a reason not to join, to not jump headfirst into a potential life of danger, but in the end, it was still Little Cato's choice and Gary's trust in Little Cato that the Ventrexian won out.

For a moment, for some reason, Little Cato paused from his reminiscing over the photo. He set the photo down on his lap and looked around, looking for a disturbance. He swore that he felt something in the air, something similar to a rumble that vibrated through his chest and fur. It felt like a faint distant shockwave, presumably coming directly from above in the sky but at the same time, from the ground below. He couldn't quite pinpoint where exactly it came from as it simply felt like it came from everywhere at once. With no way of really knowing, he shrugged it off. Maybe it was just his own imagination at best or paranoia at worst.

He jumped a little bit when his communicator suddenly rang. He quickly put it on and activated the answer function, thinking that maybe Gary was calling him. It wasn't, surprisingly.

"Little Cato, how are you?" came the voice of someone he wasn't expecting.

"Gov. Jack?" Little Cato's eyes widened in surprise. "I-I…didn't expect your call."

"No, no, of course you didn't," chuckled Governor Jack. "Normally, you'd be calling me."

"Y-yeah, yeah," Little Cato stammered a bit. "Do you need me for something, sir?"

"No, nothing at all." Jack's voice then suddenly evened out, going from a jovial tone to one of slight concern. "I called you just to ask if you were okay. I heard about the incident at the restaurant you and your friends were at yesterday, involving Scarlet Lance…"

Little Cato's face fell at hearing again the name 'Scarlet Lance' being said in front of him. For the time being, it really was a sore spot. "Yeah, it wasn't a good time."

"Yes, you and your friends were out celebrating your victory. It's too bad Scarlet Lance had to be working when they showed up. I just wanted to say I'm sorry for what happened."

"Oh…well, thanks…Gov. I really appreciated that."

"You're welcome, Little Cato. Now, if you don't have any more concerns, then I guess that would be all."

"Wait!" Little Cato interjected a little forcefully, just in case Governor Jack was really fast at hanging up, "You said you're already up-to-date about what Scarlet Lance did yesterday, so could…" He hesitated, somehow unable to finish the statement.

"You'd like me to put a leash on Scarlet Lance and their operations?" Jack tried to finish for him. "If so, that's rather forward of you. I'll keep an eye on them if that's what you're asking, but I will let you know they were just doing their job."

Hearing what the governor just said extinguished any sort of hopes Little Cato had of turning the tides in favor of a few particular innocent people. If the governor wasn't going to change things, then there really was nothing more to be done, all options having truly been used up. He couldn't say anything more. "Understood. Thanks anyway, gov."

"You take care now." With that, Jack then cut communications, leaving Little Cato only with silence.

Little Cato put away his communicator and pocketed the photo as he got ready to leave the park. He had been out for a while and he was sure that everyone, especially Gary and Quinn, would start to get worried. He had just got to his bike when he noticed a strange reflection on the bike's windshield. He looked into the distant horizon beyond the city's borders to catch a glimpse of a wispy trail of a familiar dark purple energy streaking across the darkening sky like a comet towards the mountains. His eyes widened and he gasped, recognizing the sight all too well.

Little Cato turned his communicator back on. "Guys! Guys, are you there?"

Gary's voice was the first to sound off. "Little Cato? Buddy! There you are! Quinn was just about ready to try and go on a hunt for you! You coming back soon, Spider Cat?"

"I can't, Gary," Little Cato replied quietly, his eyes not leaving the site where he saw the comet-like apparition landed. "I just spotted a Tenebrus right about now. It's headed for the mountains." He was sure he heard faint gasping from the other end of the line.

"O-okay, I guess we can't leave that alone," Gary stammered a bit. "Just tell me where you are and I'll get everyone to meet up with you."

"There's no time," Little Cato refuted. "I don't know where that Tenebrus is headed and who knows if it's staying long?" He followed the streak with his binoculars until he pinpointed where in the mountains it landed. "I'm going to trail it. I'll keep my signal on for you to track my position."

"You sure it's a good idea to go by yourself?" Gary asked uneasily. "You don't know what kind of Tenebrus you're chasing, and neither do we."

Little Cato got on his bike and revved up the engine. "I'll be fine. Just come find me." With that said, he sped away down the road until he was outside the city.