2066/ShimmerCode: Cat's out

ShimmerCode: Cat's out
Date of Scene:	14 November 2024
Location:	Dorms #1
Synopsis:	Catra joins Hinoiri on her game channel, Shimmer Code. Together, they decide to conquer the world... as dual unicorns with the most powerful forces imaginable. Violence and excessive magic. Oh, right, and teamwork, I guess.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Catra

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri had prepared. With a bit of help from a totally innocent and not at all trolling nurse, she'd gotten ready in the most villainous of outfits. She'd gotten a wig, to give her black hair. Fake contacts, a black jacket, red top, a choker, a necklace, some other bits and pieces to look like the main villainess from a game she'd played recently... and now? Well... the cameras were up, console was in, she was just waiting for Catra to show up.

There was also popcorn, because of course there was popcorn. What kind of gaming session didn't have popcorn?

It was a few days before halloween, but that was why the costumes were so important! And why she could have Catra on it.

Catra has posed:
Catra was not entirely sure how she felt about appearing on a stream, broadcast all over the internet, while pretending that her real self is actually a halloween costume. It's not like being a cat is inherently spooky or anything.

Well... okay maybe a little. The ability to strike feat at her own discretion must be maintained.

Still, Catra arrives wearing no kind of costume at all, other than her regular self. She's dispensed with her headpiece for now, letting her rather wild hair just be free, so long as it doesn't come down in front of her face; and instead of her usual Horde bodysuit she's wearing a tight black t-shirt under her Crimson Wastes jacket, and equally tight blue jeans, with a backpack slung over one shoulder. And she's barefoot, of course.

"Hey, I'm..." she pauses, and quirks an eyebrow up suspiciously. "What's that?" she inquires, pointing at the popcorn.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara would pop open the door and motion her in. Dianora was out, so there was no need to worry about anyone else popping in, so she just motioned to the couch. "Over there, game is set up." She closed the door and then walked over, popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth. "Popcorn, Catra. Really? You really need to try more of this world's food. Heck, we even had it back home." Pause. "Which is actually kind of weird, considering corn is a kind of genetic anomaly anyway. Right, moving on... ahem." She tapped the cushion next to her, for Catra to come sit. "Help yourself. Now..." She started the remote. "Hello, boys and girls. Welcome to Shimmer Code. Today I've got a special guest. We're playing... the villains. Rawr. I think you all know who I am supposed to be and this is my friend, 'Catra'. Amazing, no?"

"Now, as my guest today, you can pick the game. We have..." She motioned to four games set out. "This is a puzzle game where you try to capture hordes of little gummy creatures to make into snacks within the time limit." The second game. "This is a strategy game where you try to conquer the world in real time and create elaborate dungeons to crush the foolish heroes challenging you." The third game. "This game is one where we make giant amazons and smash hordes of foolish robots and lackeys who dare to stand in our way with violence and..." the fourth game. "This one you play as unicorns and try to craft the spells of ultimate destruction, with lots of platform jumps."

"So, Catra, what do you want to play?"

Catra has posed:
Catra takes a moment to unsling her backpack, from which she pulls out a bunch of snacks she's brought; she didn't make them herself, plainly, she bought them, but they're good quality stuff and they all feature little constructions, about half of which all heavily incorporate meat and the other half of which are vegetarian. Then she tosses the empty backpack somewhere off-screen and plops down on the recommended cushion. Her hand shoots out to grab a handful of popcorn and stuff it in her mouth.

"...That's... OKay that's..." She grabs another handful and munchs on it, then another.

"Alright when you said it was corn I was skeptical, 'cause everything I've tried here with corn I've hated, but that's actually not bad." She glances downwards, looking at the games, and then back up at the camera. She glares at it like she's thinking about trying to break it with her mind, and then raises her hands up in the air, "Yes, we are the villains!! So SpppOOoOOoOoOOooky, don't say anything stupid in the chat channel or I'll come to your house and burn it down while you're asleep." She flashes a grin with pointy teeth, and looks down at the games, contemplating each of them in turn.

"I think I'm on board with crafting the spells of ultimate destruction. Let's be Unicorns."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"Yeah, popcorn is weird. Different from normal corn. Normal corn can suck. But popcorn rules."

She got to her feet and grabbed the game, walking to the game station to slide it in, then tossing her one of the controls. "Okay, so the gameplay here is pretty simple. You teleport with circle, jump with X, cast a spell with triangle and gore someone with square. Gather the components by beating up the monsters and then, once you get enough of the right components, cast a spell. Once all the monsters are beat, you move onto the next stage and eventually a boss."

There weren't a lot of villainy games with unicorns, okay?! She'd admittedly expected Catra to choose the amazon game, though. And the unicorn game had a rather... upbeat soundtrack, for being so violent.

"So, how you been? Any big plans for nightmare n-- halloween?"

Catra has posed:
Catra's really never played any of these games before. She's actually never played a video game before; they didn't have them on Etheria and she's never had the inclination to try up until now. Honestly, she's actually feeling a bit conned into it, but once she's got the controller in hand and she's having a chance to try it out... She looks down at the buttons, and hmms.

"Okay so, jumps is X, magic is the triangle, square is the murder button, and teleport is the Sparkles Button." ...Whatever that means. Well, it might mean something. "Alright, I got this."

She doesn't got it. First attempt she dies horribly, and there's an unexpectedly gorey animation of a pixel unicorn's body getting sliced in half.

"Okay *now* I got it."

And maybe she does. Or maybe not. But she lasts a lot longer this time, and after several minutes she might be getting a bit boxed in by baddies, but she's doing just fine, more or less.

"Uhm. Plans? I dunno, heard people talking about Trick or Treating, and I've never done it before so... I dunno. Might try it. You?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara grinned, despite herself. She managed to pull off a REALLY good evil grin, too. She.... was better with the controls, but had admittedly not played this game before either. She'd wanted Catra to get fresh picks. But she was getting better at it. Best part? Two player, so they could play by each other and support each other. When Catra got penned in, other unicorn could come in with goring action!

"We had something really similiar where I was from, never really did much with it. The dressing up was fun, we'd sometimes have someone important and stuffy who'd show up, make a bunch of annoying speeches. I spent most of those holidays on a train being whisked around like luggage or waiting for some silly gala to end."

"So I figured this year, I might check out the school's halloween party, then come back home and just relax with a good book. Trick or treating can be fun... just, ummm, know that's a saying. You don't actually trick someone. Well, unless you want to. That can be fun, but never really got behind the whole 'prank wars' aspect of night-- halloween."

And ack, now SHE WAS TRAPPED! There was a blowing enemy, and it kept blowing her back towards the edge as other enemies crowded, she was gonna plummet to her pixely, spikey death! Nooooo!

Catra has posed:
Catra works the controller and her unicorn (she picked a black one with a blue mane and tail and silver horn and hooves) jumps, hops, jumps, teleports, and gores the blowing enemy. Hopefully in time. Maybe in time? Well she did her best. Either way she vacuums up all the loot, and it looks like she might be getting close to casting a big spell, like what Hinoiri was talking about. Well, if she's reading the screen right, anyway.

"We never had it at all where I was from." Well, also you did grow up in a place literally called 'The Fright Zone', Catra. "Mind you, where I came from we had--" You're on camera, Catra, "People with... different... ideas about things."

Yes, different 'ideas'. Also beast people and an alien clone and a holographic jerkface. The usual, of course. (Earth is so boring on that front.)

"Mind you, we also kind of had a war going on, so that really just took up everyone's atten--OH CRAP." Catra's Unicorn has run afoul of what really just looks like a big cube-shaped piece of jello, which Catra totally thought you could jump on but it turned out to be some kind of... "OKay what the hell is that?!" she protests, as her Unicorn flails about as it gets sucked into the cube and dissolved. "That was not what I expected from that, it looked so... so..." she shrugs, "So non-threatening."

The cube hops off on its way, very very slowly homing in on Hinoiri's unicorn.

"Yeah don't get close to that square thing, it's mean."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"Yeah, wars can really put a damper on things like fun. We didn't have games where I was from, either. I imagine trick or treat wasn't a high priority when you're teaching people how to fight. Not a lot of diplomatic envoys you'd need to meet, either. You know, I don't know if I ever asked, but did you guys have any holidays or celebrations where you were from?"

Then Hinoiri's eyes wandered to the gelatinous cube. "Wait... the smooze? Why would it-- oh buck! Buck buck!" She tried to gore it, ineffective. She went through her items and tried to use a mini-spell, a lil fireball, ineffective! She ran! Ack, and she got turned into a pigeon by a witch! FLAIL!

And then ran under the witch, cause no attack but smaller! And the cube ate the witch!

"... Well, okay, then. It--"

And then... all the enemies were gone. And the music shifted. And the cube grew three times bigger.

It was the boss.

"... Oh buck."

Hinoiri's unicorn had been a red one with a black mane and tails... nobody could see her bleed then.

"This may put a damper on our plans for world destruction."

Catra has posed:
"Well not necessarily," Catra points out, "I mean we could just keep feeding it stuff to make it bigger and bigger until it dissolves the world. Then there'd just be this big smooze-cube floating around the sun, sucking up asteroids and eventually devouring the entire galaxy once it gets ahold of a few stars and black holes and things." She chews her bottom lip. "Probably can't do that in this game, though. Nice move getting it to eat the witch though. I need one of these things in real life."

Wait, is Catra thinking about make a smooze-cube youma?

"OH!! Hey wait, I think I remember seeing... in the, whatever, the tutorial thing, it said something about--" Catra snaps her fingers, "You've got in your inventory, sparkling dust, a phoenix feather, awakened oil and some burning embers, I'm pretty sure you can use those to bring me back to life."

Catra leans forwards, watching the screen (and Hinoiri's little red unicorn bouncing around on it) intently. Her ears are perked up and she's watching it the way a lion watches a zebra before pouncing on it; that is to say, intently. Who knew this would be so much fun?! It's stupid, but that doesn't seem to matter!

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara gave a light snort. "Really? I think we had something like that back home. It only threatened to devour a kingdom, though. Very resistant to magic. And probably not, we're the bad guys, it probably just eats us and then goes away."

She blinked when Catra called out the combination, before... "Ohhhh. Huh. Hey, it does! And... voila! One Catra, summoned up and... and..."

"... What in the buck is a 'phoenix down' spell?" Hinoiri asked. "So, like, did I just down a phoenix to resurrect you? Weird. But okay. En garde, giant squishy monster!" she said, before... running awayyyyy! And trying to lob sticks and branches at it, and then trying to knock a tree on it. Environmental damage, hoooo!

Oh, right, and trying to stab the lil monsters that popped up for spell components.

"So, it's likely magic resistant... so any idea what kind of spell you'd use on something like this? Also... if you try to get one, be careful. It all seems like fun and games..."

"But just wait until you'd have to *feed* the slimy thing."

Catra has posed:
Catra flashes a toothy grin as her unicorn is brought back to life. "Alright, here we go! Starlit Skyfall back in action." Because of course her Unicorn has a cool name. How could it not? (Catra's pretty sure it's a she but didn't bother reading the backstory.) She gets straight to work on jumping and hopping around, goring things that can be gored, enjoying the bloody animations -- wait is this supposed to be a kid's game?! -- and greedily hoovering up all the loot. Until.

"Wait a sec, do you need anything?" she asks, after plunging her unicorn's horn straight through something that looks like a squirrel crossed with a sword-wielding maniac. "Just grabbing everything in sight is silly. If there's anything you need to cast a spell, let me know, and I'll do the same."

As for what might hurt it, Catra bites her lip and chews on it in thought, as she bounces her unicorn around and mostly just tries to avoid getting eaten by the smooze cube. "Well, if it resists magic... and it dissolves stuff... I mean, I dunno, fire? Or cold?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara definitely smiled at the name Starlit Skyfall. Because of course. She wasn't even sure if that was the game name or just the one she came up with. Beat some of the others.

"Honestly, not sure. I think I've got some pieces but-- oh. OH! That's IT! Yes. YES! YESSSSSSS!" And then? Then she laughed like an evil megalomaniac, head back, actually cackling. "I just need a fairy wing and I can cast the freezing spell! Do you have what you need for the starfall spell? Freeze it and then shatter it into a million pieces! Make it suffer and writhe and experience the raw destructive power of the most powerful unicorn in all of--"

Pause. Blink blink.

"Err, I mean, of the combination assault of dark unicorn magic!" She... she got into it for a moment, okay?!

Catra has posed:
"fairy wing? Okay, I don't have any of those, can-- Can you trade stuff?!" While Hinoiri is laughing maniacally, Catra is busy flipping through menus in between jumping around on the screen, goring something that was about to eat Hinoiri's unicorn, and teleporting out of trouble. "No once you pick something up you can't drop it it seems."

Catra isn't about to fault someone for getting properly into villainy. Why not?! She's pretty into real villainy, might as well enjoy a little pretend for a while, and this is far more fun than she thought it was going to be. It's like sparring with the horde kids again, except she's not at risk of getting punished by Shadow Weaver for looking at something the wrong way.

"Oh, uhm, what do I need..." she looks at the menus again, "Green Salt and a Cinder Twig. Whatever that is." she hops about a little more, and murders everything that gets in her path, all with suitably gory and violent little pixel deaths along the way. Truly, this game is great. Her hatred of Earth has decreased, in this moment, by a very very small sliver.

"OH!! Fairy Wing, over there, bottom right of the screen. Grab it--- quick!! Before the cube thing lands on it, quick quick quick!"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was, admittedly, enjoying this a lot more than she thought she might. A lot of the unicorn stuff she'd seen in this world was very... prissy and sparkly and bleh.

This reminded her of her third year extra credit assignment. With a bit more death.

"Okay, I think the green salt drops when you hit the birds by dropping a tree on them. Cinder twigs... maybe if you hit them with a fire enemy?"

And then there was the wing! Hinoiri was too far but there was NO way she was letting it out. Teleport, jump down, teleport, slide, got it! Teleport, oh no, she--

Drop to the lower stage, dash away and--

"Got it! Okay, we got this, going for the-- Cinder twig! There it is, where it ate the bunny, I'll lure it, then get ready!" Hinoiri said, before cackling. LEaping to get the giant ooze's attention, then running, as it followed her, growing ever larger... cackling like an evil unicorn... soon. Soon the slime's demise would be at hand. IT WOULD FEEL THE SUFFERING OF TWO ANGRY UNICORNS! MWA HA HA HA HA!

Catra has posed:
Hop, skip, teleport, jump jump jump, gore a rabbit (it deserved it okay) and set some weird insect things on fire with a spell, then a couple more jumps and the Cinder Twig is claimed. "Okay just need the Green Salt," Catra announces. "What even *is* Green Salt, anyway? It sounds like it'd just make your food taste worse instead of better."

The feline grabs a handful of popcorn and stuffs it in her mouth before gonig back to jumping and hopping around. "Drof a 'ree on a birh?" she asks, forgetting that she has a mouthful of popcorn. She munches furiously and swallows, "Drop a tree on a bird? I can do that."

She jumps about, getting some distance from the smooze cube -- don't want to get her little unicorn dissolved again, little Starlit Skyfall has big plans for the world afterall, gotta prove the superiority of unicorn kind (almost as good as cats) by blowing up the whole planet. 'Cause then people would know. ...Not a lot of logic went into this game, come to think of it.

"There we go!!" she mashes a combination of buttons that makes her unicorn jump up, do a little flip in the air and whallop a tree with its hind legs, sending it flying at a flock of birds. She runs down to collect the loot, without looking really; but a little bit of text that lists a bunch of things along with 'green salt' appears above her unicorn.

"Alright there we go!! Wan to do the honors?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
"YES! YESSSS! DIE YOU OVERSIZED OIL SLICK! GET DESTROYED LIKE KYABETSU'S DREAMS OF DETHRONING MY ICE SCULPTURE THESIS! MWA HA HA HA HA HA!" As she cast the ice spell, and the slime monster was wreathed in ice, its life bar getting a frozen symbol under it. Amplifying the damage from physical force strikes!

... Also, Hinoiri may uhhhh... may be getting... a bit TOO into it. You could almost see the light of destruction flashing in her eyes.

Then she ate some popcorn. So maybe she wasn't... entirely over the top evils. Maybe. Somewhat.

Catra has posed:
Catra has a look of deep concentration as she watches Hinoiri get her big combo spell off; as it finishes, she jump-hop-skip-teleports into position, and her fingeres dance over the buttons (she picked that up quickly!) and her own big, square-destroying spell goes off, blasting away at the smooze cube with an array of flaming spikes.

And then it appears to be over; there's some kind of victory screen playing with points and everything else. Well, for that level, anyway.

Catra thrusts her arm upwards, holding the controller up over her head like a sword upraised in victorious salute. "We did it! Take that squishy boss cube with all your right andgles and slimy consistency!"

And then, Catra realizes she's been getting way too into this. ...On camera. ...For who knows WHO to see.

But right now, in this moment, just this once... maybe that's okay.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara couldn't help it, she got up and pointed at the screen. "IN YOUR FACE SLIME MAN! HA! TAKE IT! THE WORLD IS OURS!" she called, before cackling like a villain again. Ahhhh, it was like Sunbreaker, without the impending destruction of all people knew and loved!

And she'd reach out, fist towards Catra. "Fist bump?" She'd learned this one from one of her school mates, possibly even Adrien. It was apparently popular in france.

She'd then sit down, smirking to Catra, eyes still burning with that enjoyment of violence and destruction. And the pleasure of blowing something up. "So, wanna see how many of the bosses we can clear?"

As the words 'World 2' flashed onto the screen.

World domination would be theirs.