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Once her sight started to adjust to the dim glow of the torches, she could see that one of the cells opposite was filled. She hadn't noticed it before, but as panic drove her forward she caught movement out of the corner of one eye: someone stepping forward out of the gloom, behind a rusted array of bars fashioned into a door.

It was all very narrow. The reek of decay and damp assaulted her nostrils. But there was a man -- it really was a man -- a man dressed in white, a heavy mass of dreadlocks tied back away from his dark, impassive face. The white coat was panelled with purple, the white boots splashed around the edges with muck and grime. The flicker of light caught gold braid tied across the front, gold trim chasing the white, and for a moment he stared at her as though he knew her.

His eyes were pale grey. The flicker of recognition ended. He was a tall man; he filled up the space behind the barred door, big-shouldered and solid. It was claustrophobic. One white-gloved hand reached out to wrap around a bar, but the door didn't budge.

"Do you know me?"

The voice was equally gravelly, roughened by cigarettes and terseness.

"We're in a dungeon," said the man, which stated the obvious somewhat. "I'm in a cell. You're not."

The door was rattled again, this time upwards. Nothing shifted it out of the stone the bars were lodged in, though a few flakes of rust drifted lazily to the ground after being disturbed. Now the man's gloved finger was turning grey as he searched around for the keyhole of the door, finding it and pressing down against the mechanism searchingly as he considered. "Underground," he said, "but not far down, either."

His eyes were back on her. He seemed to be somewhere in his thirties, clean-shaven, and now she could see that his dreadlocks were a strange muted purple colour too. The entire description nagged in a familiar way, a word skipping around on your tongue that you couldn't locate. "So. Where are the guards?"

"Correct," he said. Now his expression was what else do you think I'd be doing? The man was giving her a third cursory once-over when he said, "You're a sailor senshi. Open the door with your powers. Or my sword -- is there a sword you can see? A rapier, this length, with a worked basket."

Perhaps he could see the unimpressed suspicion on her face as she neared, because he added curtly: "I'm not interested in harming you. I want to know who put me here and why, so leave me or don't."

But she could tell he wanted to get out. His fist had closed around the lock as though trying to squeeze it to a pulp, but this only ended up with frustration carving his expression into a grimace and his tugging away his hand in disgust. It was as though he really had expected the metal to give, at least a little.

She arched a fine, dark brow at him before suspicion crept back onto her features. How did he know what she was? But, she could ask him later, when he owed her for getting him out of the cell. "My powers don't work like that - wish they could, it'd be pretty bad a**..." No, her powers, instead, temporarily made her foes incapable of movement. Since the cell bars were already immobile, she doubted it would do much help.

Glancing around her, Nemesis' gaze sought out a sword. The word 'rapier' brought the image of a fancy sword to her mind. But, she saw nothing of the sort. "There's only chains, uh, some bones... And moss, plenty of moss. But, no rapier, not that I see." Now that she had his assurance that he wasn't intent on harming her, she was a little more agreeable on the aspect of getting him out of the cell.

"Brute force isn't working out for you, eh?" Some of the bars were rusted, and maybe they would cave if enough force was applied. "Do you have anything to pick it with? I'm sure there has to be something around here..." she started sifting through the objects scattered on the floor. Nemesis clearly did not wear any bobby pins in her hair from the way her bangs fell across her face.

"What?"

Her expression immediately turned reluctant, and she folded her arms against her chest as if to say her hands were going nowhere near that corpse, or any corpse. Her hands weren't going to touch dead things for a stranger. Did the man not realize that she was female, and thus less likely to frolic in a field of sunflowers with corpses. "You never know," she responded with the most petite of frowns, "It could..." Shaking her head, she decided not to finish that comment.

Besides, the man had said please. For some reason, Nemesis found her resolve to stay away from the body weakening. "Fine, fine. Got it. Whatever you want." She had a right to sound irritated. What kind of diseases could a dead body carry? At least her fuku had gloves, actually, she'd thank god that she had gloves on.

Chewing anxiously on her lower lip, she knelt down next to the body, skimming her hands over the corpse. It was luck, no, rather, a goddamn miracle that she found a ring of keys hanging around the body's neck. She whined loudly with dismay, fingers grabbing the set of keys and working it off of the body's neck. Despite it being a corpse, she was being awfully careful with it. Yes, it was dead, but this place was creepy, and she was unreasonably thinking that this corpse really hated her for stealing the keys.

"I am so relieved, so relieved, one of these better work, because no matter how nicely you ask, I am not touching another body. I am not." She walked over to the cell door holding the large man, and despite being initially wary of him, Nemesis' good side won out.

She would help him.

Nemesis fumbled around for a few moments, testing each key in the lock before she found the right one. "Thank god," she breathed, twisting the key in the lock and hearing a soft, satisfying click. She grabbed one of the bars, pulling the door open for the man. "Welcome to the free world, though it's not really a step-up from where you were."

The man ducked underneath the low-hanging doorway to move out into the corridor. He was even bigger in, well, person. His first move was to go over to the corpse she'd disturbed and kick it over with his boot, nudging it to the side, but his sword wasn't somehow hidden underneath the body and he lost interest.

He looked around the corridor, looked at the other cells, finally returned to looking at her. "Thank you -- freedom's freedom," he said, curtly, though at least he'd said it. The key that had opened his cell he removed, the untidy bunch jangling in his gloved hand as he kept them with him. Better to take them.

"The free world makes just as much sense as the cell did," he said, "which is, none." His focus was on the body. Then he said, a bit distant: "Use your power on something."

What?

"I don't care what it does." Maybe he then realised he had no right to order her around. "Don't you realise we're powerless here? Test it."

Neither of them felt comfortable. He'd been mute as she'd tried to use her attack, lips set in the same firm, thin line that she'd set hers in at his attitude. It was as though he completely didn't expect her attack to hit. He'd just stood there, completely lacking in tension, waiting for her to realise what he'd obviously realised long before: nothing was happening. All he'd done was raise an eyebrow.

He wasn't someone to meander. He marched directly after her, looming behind as he rested one hand against the wall and towered over her to peer into the darkness. "'Dude'," he repeated after her with all the prim disgust of a schoolteacher who'd been called Mister rather than Mister Lastname, but this was bitten off as he looked where she was looking.