GIVE ME ALL YOUR ENERGY
LOVE ME LIKE AN ENEMY

Cat blinked as he saw Ghost standing by a different entrance, but he shrugged and went on through that way instead. He wasn't necessarily picky, so that was fine. He frowned slightly as he passed by Ghost, honestly surprised that the guy had actually liked the ugly raccoon dog mix. He had honestly tried to make it so repulsive Ghost wouldn't try to get another free pet out of him as any kind of favor, but it seemed like a hit with the Phantom.

If it worked on convincing the guy to try just one more time, though, that was worth something.

Honestly, he couldn't blame him for not wanting to return, given the plumet he'd taken with a nasty wolf boss. Although it probably wasn't worth much, it had earned some respect and trust back from the Empath. That was, if the maneuver had been on purpose. With the way Ghost acted, it was usually hard to be sure. Catharsis went on ahead through the entrance, noticing the icicles jutting both down and up to frame the pathway as it opened up into a cave and yet still seemed determined to lock in their pathway. He hummed a short note under his breath as he saw this, unsure what to make of it.

The cave opened up, and for a ways there was nothing but bright, white ice tinged blue. This didn't keep him from noticing, however, that where his vision tapered off it veered, very quickly, into a pitch darkness he couldn't discern anything else from. The drop outside of the icicles, too, seemed too steep for him to actually see a ground immediately - if he had to guess, it would be made of ice. "What do you think we'll find this time?" He asked with a practiced cheer, so as to avoid commenting on the way the Phantom was nuzzling the gifted pet. Whatever made the guy happy. His voice echoed through the opening cavern, and he frowned.

He could have sworn he heard some kind of squeaking off in the distance, distinctly different from the ice pangolins they'd run into earlier. He frowned, but it seemed so far off he dismissed it as some background music effect to keep them on their toes.

GIVE ME ALL YOUR ENERGY
LOVE ME LIKE AN ENEMY

Catharsis nodded at first - before he caught what Ghost had actually said. He frowned as he shot a look over at the attacker, and opened his mouth to do the predictable thing of protesting. "Okay, no, we've been through this and-" He stopped suddenly as he looked at Ghost, watching him evenly. He realized, slowly, that Ghost was probably as delicate as he was in any actuality. If anything, their encounter with Scar had just proved that to be true.

With a shuddering sigh, he shook his head and went ahead to walk forward, careful in his steps on the narrow bridge through the cave. There was no wonder in that the landscape here was manmade at least in its design. He wasn't sure he'd heard of any environment like this. A few steps were taken and he found that he didn't slip or slide even when he paused, and that let him relax. He looked over his shoulder at Ghost, motioning forward. "See? It's fine. We'll be fine." He called, just in case Ghost might be a little hesitant after his last experience. His voice echoed, and he could swear he'd heard that squeaking again.

If prompted, he'd walk on forward to continue to lead the way; he just had no interest of going too far ahead without Ghost.

GIVE ME ALL YOUR ENERGY
LOVE ME LIKE AN ENEMY

When Ghost touched Cat's shoulder, there was no immediate tension he had to actively relax. It was probably just because he had turned in time to see the touch coming. When he turned to look up ahead, there was a bit of hope; just at the corners of his vision, he thought he saw the narrow path beginning to grow a bit wider. Of course, the only way to know for sure would be to continue walking forward.

Catharsis didn't recognize, at first, that the sounds of squeaking had grown closer. Attributing it to background noise had been his first mistake, as it meant he hadn't recognized the gradual climb in volume. It was when he casually thought of the budding headache from the noise itself that it clicked, and he stopped suddenly with a straightening of the spine as he tensed. He only barely looked to the side in time to see a white bat, about as big as Ghost's raccoon dog, racing right towards him.

That's not something a bat would do, an angry throught flashed across his mind for a moment before the thing rammed right into his face with a shriek and he remembered that reason, sense, and logic didn't really matter here. His hand flew up to latch onto the back of the creature, and he sucked the pixels straight from the bat and into himself, righting himself easily enough. "That wasn't so hard," he said with a foolish moment of relief, before he realized that the cries had only increased in volume.

There were more.

A lot more.

GIVE ME ALL YOUR ENERGY
LOVE ME LIKE AN ENEMY

Catharsis barely noticed the fact that he'd been patted on the head like some dog being praised for doing a trick right, his attention more attached to his imminent death looming above him as all of those bats woke up. He swore under his breath, in the same way that he often had just before having to turn and put on a bright smile for a hospital patient or a family friend, and honestly, Ghost didn't need to tell him the first time before he broke into a sprint.

He could now, very easily see that there was a reason why a single one of the bats had been easy to sap of life in no time at all. He didn't bother to try to count onto them, holding an arm over his head as he felt one lunge at him, sapping at his health before continuing to fly and probably circle back. In that one attack, it was like a pinprick. With the swarm, it would be a death of a thousand cuts if they let it be.

Thankfully, he had been right about the pathway starting to grow wider, into the mouth of a different kind of snowy cavern. His feet crunched down into a thicker layer of snow as soon as his feet made it off of the bridge, having been pelted by attacks from the bats before he turned swiftly and fired off a shadenfreude - it wasn't much, but when the bat caught in the line of fire burst into pixels, they were redistributed between himself and Ghost. He got the feeling that it would be an important kind of skill to keep up as he placed a barrier behind Ghost, trying to at least limit the bat's ability to come at them while he swore.

It wouldn't be perfect, but it would limit the deluge down to a trickle of a few bats at a time. He glanced over, ahead of them, and immediately regretting having wished there had been a puzzle instead - up ahead was some kind of locked door with some mechanical pulleys and some kind of system behind its opening. "Uh- you want to handle that?" The Empath asked, not wanting to fight with Ghost to try to get him to handle the bats.

GIVE ME ALL YOUR ENERGY
LOVE ME LIKE AN ENEMY

While the barrier had kept out a lot of the bats, it hadn't - and, as time wore on, wouldn't - keep out all of them. Catharsis had trusted Ghost to handle the door, and even if it wasn't in his nature, he didn't have a choice on whether or not he might have kept an eye on the Phantom's progress with the puzzle. Every time he'd beaten down one bat, two more struggled through the breach between the mouth of the cave and the top of the barrier. He'd been forced to use bond of compassion on himself once, even going so far as to drop the aoe heal of well of tranquility when he finally heard the door start to move.

"Alright! I knew you could do it." He shouted, backing up to run just as the barrier started to flicker. Ghost had really put his tricks to good use and saved their hides here. Where Ghost had gone through, Catharsis noticed the clicking of a timer even as he was running full speed, and he dove down into a slide to just barely make it through as the door closed shut, squishing a bat into pixels. He winced at the sight, before slowly starting to stand, the snow making its way all the way up to his elbow as he started to lift himself up. He cleared his throat, before looking for any sign of what they'd gotten themselves into.

"Ghost? You there?" He called, noticing the cavern they'd come into was much more narrow, and yet somehow felt even colder.

GIVE ME ALL YOUR ENERGY
LOVE ME LIKE AN ENEMY

Catharsis frowned once as he looked from mirror to mirror, feeling almost like he was at some high budget carnival gig. This was really not his style, and he stepped back towards the door with the killer bats only to be met with another mirror instead. The man frowned, backing up and looking from mirror to mirror, only checking the text the second time. He squinted, trying to figure out the language, but the words went by so fast.

It took a moment before he realized what was going on. "They're backwards." He finally said, glancing at Ghost and trying to whirl around in time to see the word reflected in the opposite mirror - too late. "I don't ... What? I don't get it." It was only by chance that he saw one mirror reflect a much shorter word on the one behind him and to his left - trust?

He frowned, looking at Ghost and pointing to the corresponding mirrors with both hands. "So is 'trust' the mirror that actually has the word, or the one that reflects it?" He asked, patience a little worn as he let his arms fall to his side. "Also, honestly, genuinely, what the fuck does that even mean?" He ran a hand through his hair.