Of all the children Zory had ever taken under her wings at any point during her travels, Ozzy Noiré was easily the least understood of them all. Although he did not recall how they originally met long ago immediately, glimpses of his previous interactions with one of the most notorious time-travelers of all times made him look up to her with deep admiration. She was an unsung hero many worlds, yet misrepresented on many levels in others. Ozzy couldn't care less how many people believed his loyalty was born from growing obsession so long as she knew his devotion was the least tainted kind there was.
"Ozzy, wait-!" Someone called after him as he continued charging almost blindly through the gathering crowds.
Zory had left Stelli City for good reason long ago and she had stayed away for even better ones. As time passed her by in the zelestial worlds she had been traveling in, there had been more than one point in which she decided there might never be a good time for her to return. He had given up on the idea of her ever coming back to begin with long before he had made his debut in the underground circuits. These people had already almost killed her once, welcoming the chance for them to try it again was beyond ludicrous.
"Ozzy, you need to cool it." A woman commanded as he found his path abruptly blocked by her.
"Get out of my way, Yuri." He barked to no avail.
Yuri's long dark hair and even darker eyes was where her resemblance to Zory ended. As distant cousins they had very little else in common regarding their features or build. That strangely purple sheen to Yuri's hair in certain lights was a hallmark of the Yin-Yang dynasty that began long after most of Zory's generation had been wiped out.
Ozzy had once heard a comparison of how very yin and yang the two powerful women at the head of that empire truly were inside and out and it had stuck with him. Zory's cousin was not at all above any violence she opted to deem as truly necessary, but she also wasn't going to opt to show mercy if this escalated. He had been told that standing beside Yuri always made Zory feel like she was the teapot of their family's collectibles. She was shorter and stouter, her broader kind of frame and hardened muscles were built for and refortified in battle. Yuri was tall and slender like an elegant vase and her younger years that were spent mostly as an avid bookworm had proven to grant her tactical-geared mind an upper edge on most, but not on Ozzy.
The Nine Seas of Time were definitely not a place for the faint of heart and Yuri was a far cry from the seasoned traveler she would never outrun the shadow of. Ozzy was more than capable of turning himself into the exact kind of battering-ram Zory did whenever Yuri pulled something like this. She had opened a door to the shadow plane faster than Ozzy could see her already waiting for him on the other side. She had ripped him right out of sight before too many people could take notice of how desperate he was to get to Zory. While he could still see and hear the flow of the crowds that instinctively walked around where they stood, he knew few who served the main generals could sense them at all here.
Those who served the Luna-Sola monarchy during any number of eras of endeavors to accomplish this or that had already been at odds with Yuri's people for centuries now. The chance Zory wouldn't take him getting into a scuffle with any member of the Yin-Yang dynasty tonight personally was slim to none and least of all if it included Yuri.
"She's not safe here." Ozzy asserted tersely. "She is not safe here and the fact that you signed off on her doing any of this either too makes absolutely no sense, Yuri."
As Zory wandered and drifted between her visits to various parts of their world from time to time, far too much of what she stood for had been lost in translation. Of all the things they had argued about or agreed to disagree on, matters of safety were usually the worst blowouts with Yuri. They were oil and water when they weren't gasoline and fire. He had seen even the most simplest of topics of far lesser priority become an overly complicated head to head between them. Whatever reason Zory gave Yuri to stand down on this one couldn't even begin to explain why she agreed. He was more than ready to shirk the iron fist Zory's cousin typically led whoever else she had in tow with. More and more old threats and new ones as well to Zory's life were bound to be piling up by the second.
"I'm not saying you're wrong to worry, okay?" Yuri uttered with clear aggravation glaring in her tone of voice. "Making a huge scene and drawing any additional attention to her too soon isn't the right play right now either."
Whatever the play here was, Ozzy was no longer willing to play nice about it. When it came to any and all of the insanity regarding the Yin-Yang dynasty, he rarely had a foot to stand on when it came to Yuri. Ripping him out of the standard panes of reality was not going to cage him for long. If Ozzy had to choose another hill to die on today, it was going to be the fact that the man Yuri had chosen as her date definitely wasn't the right play to make tonight either. The notorious playboy Yuri was sporting the corsage of had already given that exact one to dozens of women in recent years. Ozzy couldn't even fathom why she had bought into whatever he was spewing.
Zory was known to be forgiving to a fault, but whenever it came to operating beyond both your purview and jurisdiction, she was often anything but. Whatever the famous General Vizzario had done to help convince Zory's cousin to overstep normal boundaries on Nova Alliance turf was not going to end well for anyone. Their presence was not known nor would this sort of defensive measure had been authorized if it was.
Yuri tended to summon ancient katanas first and only ask questions later and this ceasefire was already feeling unstable enough as it were. One wrong move with Zory made by other guests at the starlighter's gala and the annual truce would be game over for everyone in a domino effect that promised outbreak of war by dawn. Working their own security angles without notice was an overreach and an intrusion enough as it is. However they chose to respond if anyone laid the wrong kind of hand on Zory would likely be an overkill to boot.
"Whatever Vitale is planning is not gonna fly." Ozzy forced himself to say while biting back the urge to yell at the latest girlfriend who had obviously been snowed. "She already made it perfectly clear that she views him as a traitor, period… He's been desperate to get back into her good graces but he needs to get it through his head it'll probably never happen."
"That was then and this is now, Ozzy." Yuri said with obvious conviction. "He still knows her better than anyone… They were friends for a long time before they were ever anything else and believe it or not…? The rapport between them is not quite as bad as you probably think."
Ozzy was painfully aware that the man who had arrived in their word over a decade ago horribly wounded to the point of being permanently blinded by none other than Zory herself was biting off more than he could chew. She was working his personal interest in winning her favor to her own advantage in ways that could not possibly play out however she was hoping it might tonight. Vitale would never turn on the other generals in a heartbeat to protect her the way Ozzy would.
"If you're going to tell me I'm too green," He snorted. "I'm going to tell you that you're too close to this one… Even if whatever between you has truly helped him get his head on straight for the first time probably ever, hers definitely isn't, so this whole plan is a wash… The person you're risking truly being hurt the worst by how all of this plays out is Trixxie and I'm not going to stand for it."
Her wishful thinking had already gotten her into all sorts of trouble while trying to make friends with all the wrong people more than once. There was no telling what anyone else she invited was capable of given her knack for seeing the best in people. Zory's ability to bring out the best in them went hand in hand for Trixxie flying blind tonight on many levels.