426/Hear Meow-t

Hear Meow-t
Date of Scene:	15 September 2023
Location:	Obsidian Tower
Synopsis:	Takashi attempts to bolster the ranks of people he can point at things he wants and people he doesn't. Maybe. Probably.
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Catra

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Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi Agera had seen the... half-cat? werecat? catwoman? He didn't know the right term. He figured he'd get it from her, eventually. If things went the way he wanted. The way he intended. He'd just needed to wait for the right time. Or for a good enough time. Today was a good enough time. Catra was sitting at the table in the Obsidian Cafateria, poking at what were probably fish sticks. Takashi wasn't sure, he tended to eat food that came packaged, rather than brave the random nature of whether the food they offered to employees for free met his definition of food that day or not. But he just dropped in front of her at the isolated corner table anyways, like he was supposed to be there, the bag of chips he'd grabbed from the vending machine in his hands.

    "You are... Catra, right? Offworlder, freelancer... you're not a youma, are you? Not like the others." he noted. There wasn't a great/easy way to strike up a conversation with someone you'd never met and intended to get to work for you, and Takashi wasn't the greatest conversationalist anyways, but he was going to make the attempt.

Catra has posed:
     The fishsticks are terrible.

     What is it with food in this place? How do you screw up fish sticks? Where's Ted so he can be blamed? Nowhere nearby, luckily for Ted. Still, Catra's stomach is rumbling and she's still a predator, so the fish sticks must be eaten, even if they're terrible. Even if the sauce for them is also terrible. Also there's vegetables which are getting a big no-thank you.

     Whatever, at least it's not the Grey Kind all over again.

     At first she almost doesn't notice Takashi arriving; she's got a set of earbuds blaring music (Nine Inch Nails 'Into the Void' at present) so loudly into her ears, it's like she's trying to block out the world. Or maybe disrupt her own brain waves. Still, after a moment she looks up, stares at Takashi for a moment, before thumbing the music off for the moment.

     "Yes I'm Catra, and no I'm not a youma," she answers, sounding somehow... inconvenienced. "I'm a cat. Why is this so confusing for people?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Lots of things are hard for most people." Takashi noted. "Existing is hard for a lot of them, I think. Maybe even breathing." he says dismissively. "But I've not run into anyone like you. Closest is some catboy from Easter but he's very much a human with cat-styled magic, not a cat... well, I guess I can just call you a cat." he says.

    He opens the bag of chips and pops one into his mouth, before continuing. At least he doesn't eat with his mouth full. "So what's your deal? Everybody has a deal, something they're looking for, something they want, change in the world, themselves, or whatever. What's yours? Why are you sitting here eating terrible fish sticks instead of eating whatever equally crap food they're serving at the Academy Cafateria? What are you even doing here - your file said you were an offworlder but I've already met one of those and I don't think you're going to tell me you were a unicorn cat in another world."

Catra has posed:
     "I'm here eating these fish sticks because I'm hungry and what I have in front of me right this moment is fish sticks," Catra replies, almost sounding like she's growling. Is she growling? Or is that just how her voice always sounds? Hard to tell having only gotten two sentences out of her. "Yeah I'm an offworlder. It's not like you have anyone like me here." She shrugs her shoulders. "Nobody's tried to send me to the Academy, and I'm not enrolled there, so I'm pretty sure some strange unenrolled chick rolling in therefor the food on a daily basis would be noticed."

     Catra pauses, glancing sideways at Takashi. "What's my 'deal'? My deal is I want to win. Adora's here somewhere and I need to beat her." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "And then I want to climb the ladder around here. I was Force Captain in the Horde, I can ascend the ranks just fine here, too." She pauses, continuing to look at Takashi sideways. "Why... what's your deal?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    He nods along. Maybe she's growling, that's fine with him. He's not here to make friends, today. Just to make progress, one way or another. "Yeah, I guess you'd stick out a bit, with the claws and the fur, unless you had some way to hide it or all of this is something you can turn off." he noted.

    "So I don't know what an Adora is but it sounds like a person. So you've got a vendetta against somebody - that's fair enough, I can understand that. What the heck is a force captain, anyways. Is that like a squad leader?" he asks. "More? Less? You're talking about ranks so I'm figuring maybe you don't -want- to eat super dissapointing fish sticks the rest of your life bumming around waiting for opprotunity to climb up or for this Adora to come lookin' for you."

    "My deal is simple. I have more things to get done than I have hands to do it with. I don't intend to stay where I am much longer anyways. But I need people who have more than two brain cells to rub together to help me, and anybody who's worth anything isn't gonna do it for free. So that's why I'm trying to figure you out." he adds, gesturing to her with his next chip. "You've been here a while and haven't pissed anybody off. Cept maybe you. Seems like you don't have any loyalties except for yourself, which is good, because if I figure out what you want, I can bring it to you, or help you get it, or whatever. Cause I'm not gonna try to recruit you based on some nebulous stuff like beliefs or whatever. Someone would have scooped you up by now if that worked."

    "I'm sure you've been evangelized enough at. But you've kept your head on and you've kept to yourself. So you're not just here to kill time. Makes you functional."

    "Did you come here chasing this Adora person? Why's kicking her tail so importanty to you?" Catra has a tail, so he assumes this Adora person would as well.

Catra has posed:
     "What's a Force Captain? Second in command of the Horde," Catra answers plainly. "Hordak was in charge, then me, after I got rid of Shadow Weaver." She pauses. "And Entrapta. Adora was Force Captain before me, for all of twelve hours, then she got rid of herself."

     Catra leans back in her seat, holding a fish stick in her hand as she contemplates it. Well, the fish stick, and how she wants to answer Takashi's questions. Or even really if she wants to answer them. Contemplation ends with her lobbing the fish stick towards the garbage -- which she misses, though that seems to have been intentional. It feels more like it went exactly where Catra wanted it to go, and that's why it's on the floor now, like it's some sort of statement left for someone else to find.

"Adora used to be my friend, and she always promised she'd be there, but then when I actually *needed* her she was too busy switching sides, so if anything? I want her to pay for that. And I want her to know it was me who beat her. I want her to see my face while she's losing everything."

     Catra draws her breath, leaning back in the chair once more as she regards Takashi full on. "You'll find I'm very functional. Maybe I can help you." She leans forwards, making a few repetitions of claw-drumming on the table. "What do I want? I don't have any worthwhile equipment to help me fight here. I'm used to dealing with girls with magic, that's fine, I just want access to things that'll help -- stuff like weapons." She nods, "Think you can get your hands on stuff like that? Doesn't have to be light -- I'm much stronger than the average person on this planet. Seriously, how are people so weak?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi leaned back, considering it as well. "Well, I can make magic weapons good enough to make a 12-year old girl dangerous. I can probably do something less dramatic for you easily, considering you're already so highly functional. Sword, axe, halberd. Whatever you're good with. Weapons are weapons, if you don't want them to talk and strategize with you or erupt in energy I can fabricate them pretty quickly, especially if I don't need to worry about the weight as much. I do a lot of reducing the weight, because people here do tend to be on the weak side at times. Or at least the ones that work around me. That's the other thing that drew me to talking to you. Seems like you have a skillset I'm lacking in my team right now. Claws and movement and an instinct."

    "Well, that and... after the recent incident with Sunbreaker I think they're going to start taking a harsher look at Outwolders who aren't working for something internal, before they kidnap somer girl into a cabin or something. Not that you would, it's just the have a tendency to overreact." he shrugs. "Second in command, though. That's ambitious. Were you happy at second or trying to get to first?" He asks. "And that Adora girl, I can have some folks keep an eye out for her. If she's magic I might be able to track her down."

    "And when it comes to this Adora person - That wanting her to see your face when you kick her pride out of her body - that is something I understand. Is she a cat, like you? Or a dog or something?" he asks. "Not in an insulting way, in a 'need to know what I'm looking for' way." he explained. "I don't know who the heck any of those people are, but some of it can probably transfer over in some way."

    "So what have we got, arm you up, help you find this Adora, help you climb the ladder, make sure you can personally deliver the pounding to said Adora?"

Catra has posed:
     "I'm trained with lots of weapons," Catra answers. "Most recently I was using a whip, but I'd prefer something a little more... direct, I think." She purses her lips, "Claws are great to have but they're a little short range when you're up against someone with a sword. Or someone with magic. ...Let's go with a sword. That'll do for now... I can handle ranged weapons just fine too, though."

     Catra leans forwards, resting her elbows on the table in front of her and steepling her fingers. "Was I happy at second in command? Let's just say I like to keep my options open. Hordak was doing just fine and it's always nice to let someone else be the target when they're gunning for a 'promotion' shall we say." The feline smirks, before shaking her head.

     "Adora is a human. Off worlder, but human. Or as near as matters anyway. ...A bit taller than me, blonde hair in a stupid poof, can't relax, can't sleep, and always has to be the most heroic and special person in the room. Seriously, she takes up all the oxygen, you can't miss her once you find her."

     The feline nods her head succinctly. "But yeah, that'll about sum it up. Arm me up, help me climb the ladder, and help me find Adora and personally put her in her place." She cocks her head to one side, ears perking up as she does. "So. what exactly can I do for you?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi is actually a little bit wary. This is going well. And since he doesn't know Catra, nor does he have any kind of real leverage on her, things that go well make him slightly... suspicious. But she's up front about not necessarily content at number two, with some knowledge of why sometimes second in command is better than first. "Realistically... things are about to kick off bigger than they are now. Sunbreaker's whole kidnapping thing was going to happen to somebody, sooner or later. More and more of the glitter princess sparkleskirt squads are waking up, and people like you are jumping in from other entire dimensions, on both sides. It's a pretty good bet that your Adora, if she's not... morally flexible... will end up with them. Whole big thing."

    "The whole tenor of everything is going to change, and a lot of these people, they're not ready for it. They're gonna keep doing what they're doing and get their butts kicked." he adds. "I don't want to be getting my butt kicked. I want to be doing the kicking. But whenever I show up to get anything done, I get ambushed by a whole crayola box of magical neon princesses who want to go after me for using the energy I was born with just because they can't use it without lighting their eyeballs on fire or whatever." he grumbles. "And look, I'm not helpless. I can hold my own against two or three of them. But it's three today, four tomorrow, five on Monday... and getting into fisticuffs is not the best use of my personal time. I should be doing things other people can't do. Building tools and weapons or standing back and blasting. The energy we use here, I can control it, innately, I just need time to better understand it. And that's something I'm not getting if, when I go to get energy, I get in a fight with some tall lady with a metal stick and she gives me a concussion before I lay her out."

    "I need more people and I need people who are great at the things I'm just good at." Like Takashi could ever say he wasn't 'good' at something. "But who aren't also morons who I can't trust to get things done. And that's why I'm here talking to you. You seem to not have a case of the Big Dumb Fighter syndrome that's common, and you don't seem to be super impatient. Someone who can not only fight, but who can fight well and smart, that's an asset. And I intend to climb the ranks which means assets are good to have in my pocket."

    "So sometimes people need to be hit, sometimes stuff needs to be stolen, and hopefully soon - since you were a Force Commander - groups of less competent units will need to be lead by someone who can do that without needing to be babysat. That is starting to sound like you. And since nobody works for free, I'm happy to help you reach your goals if you help me reach mine. No fluffy happy for the cause stuff. Just a like for like trade. I'm the smartest person in this whole organization, but a lot of problems need a more direct approach than thinking. Someone's gotta enact the plans."

Catra has posed:
     Catra listens to everything Takashi has to say; and a couple of times it looks almost like she might interupt, perhaps to agree or perhaps to protest, but in the end she doesn't; she lets him lay out the whole situation. She listens, and waits, ears perked up (except when someone makes a noise in the hall and one of them swivels, without her mismatched eyes leaving Takashi) and tail twitching behind her.

     "Don't mistake me for someone who'll ever be in anyone's pocket," she warns. "Tried that already. Didn't like how it turned out. But as long as we're helping each other and not tripping over each other? I think we can work together just fine." If they both zero in on second in command at the same time, it seems that'll be a problem to be solved when it arises. Never hurts to put something unpleasant off until later, afterall.

She nods once, and folds her arms behind her head. "Knowing your limits is smart. Knowing your enemy's limits is just as smart. Rushing into a losing battle is stupid. If you can't win, retreat and make sure you have time to come back and win when you're stronger, or they're weaker, or unprepared, or whatever advantage you can get. So they're popping out of the woodwork like worms on a rainy day, are they? Sounds like we gotta raise class expectations and get a few of 'em flunked. Fix me up with good enough equipment? I'll be that much better at seeing them out the hard way. Even better when I've got some troops to help me get things done. It's what I'm good at." She pauses, and quirks her lips upwards at the corners. "It's what I'm *great* at. I've been fighting a war against magical princesses for long enough already." She smirks, "And I *like* hitting people."

The feline stands, stretching languorously with her arms first over her head, and then to her sides, then behind her back. "Sounds like we have an agreement," she adds, holding out one hand to shake on it. "...Do... people shake hands on agreements, here?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
Takashi listens back, and does the same thing, clearly trying to not interrupt but wanting to on some points. He has no ears to swivel though. "Yeah, you don't strike me as the pocket-sitting type. Otherwise I wouldn't have found you here in the lunchroom outside of one." he says, kind of stretching the anology more than a bit. "It's the nature of things, if you want someone competent, you have to assume they want things for themselves, too. Maybe even the same things you want, in the end. So I'm not going to pretend like we're gonna be best buddies till the end of time or anything." he said bluntly.

    "But if sixty people all want the same position, and you and I agree to work together, and we get rid of all other 58, we can fight it out then, and we both have a better chance of getting that spot than if we don't work together at all and just join the idiot parade." he muses. "It's not a magic pact. So no matter what we say, we could know that in the end we might end up trying to bash each other for ultimate victory, or maybe we'll settle in some other way, or the result will just be obvious. I'm fine with us being realistic about those terms. So long as we bash the other 58 or whatever people on both sides who either want that spot or want to stop that spot or us from existing, I think we stand a pretty good chance of getting to that theoretical final battle. We start trying to undermine each other now and we'll never make it to that spot. So that's what I'm really proposing. We help each other till our goals can't be reconciled at the same time."

    "From a boring bureaucratic standpoint you'd show up as under my group, but that's just cause I'm the one who's gonna end up going to meetings and translating what they ask for into stuff we can actually get done while looking good, without shooting ourselves in the foot, and making sure all the stupid crap gets assigned to someone else so they can screw it up and look bad." he explains. "Fair?"

    Note to self, look into magically enforced pacts, he thinks. But at least he doesn't record that note directly in front of Catra. He has -some- tact. He does offer his hand. "Yeah, we do the hand-shake thing here too."

Catra has posed:
     Admittedly, the bit about Takashi being the one going to meetings and not her does in fact get Catra's proverbial goat, and there's a bit of a twitch that might betray that; but she's forced to acknowledge to herself at least that she is still an off worlder, and she's new here, and she barely has any idea where to buy decent fish let alone how to climb the ranks of Obsidian, and she needs to start somwhere. At least Takashi seems like he has a good idea of what's what. ...She doesn't particularly miss Etheria, in all honesty, but she does miss being Force Captain.

     "Deal," she answers, clasping hands with Takashi just long enough to shake on it, before withdrawing once again. "I'll be looking forward to when we can go fight some of the sparkle girls, I enjoy putting wannabe heroes in their place." She plants one hand on her hip, "Out in the world I have a disguise, and I go by Rachel Miller, in case you need to reach me there. ...So, one last question." She perks an eyebrow upwards. "What do we call you?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Rachel Miller." he notes. Pulls out a phone. "Did they give you one of these or is that the first bit of kit we need to go get you? Takashi Agera is my civilian name but all of the business work is done under Riventon. If they got you a cell phone then we can just exchange numbers and whenever you're ready I can take you down to the armory. See what weapons feel right in your hands. That's what I did for some of the others. All kinds of stuff down there, even when we say sword there's a whole bunch of kinds of that, too." he explains. "But when we figure out what you like I'll make you gear that's way better than anything the armory has. Even if you can't use magic we can probably get some sort of Dark Energy pulsing through on command for a bit. You might not -need- it but the look on somebody's face when your sword cuts through their weapon like butter is almost as good as when it cuts through their armor the same way..." he notes.

    "Actually... that brings up one more question."

    "This Adora... do you hate her?" Takashi asks, very seriously.

Catra has posed:
     "Yes," Catra answers, more or less immediately. The lie rolls smoothly off her tongue, seamless with the rest of the conversation. Does she hate Adora? She's spent so long insisting that she does that she herself believes it, whatever her reason for doing so might be. "Yes, I do."

     It does seem like Obsidian can be a bit lax about giving their people the basics.

     "One of those, I do not have yet," she acknowledges. "Which hasn't mattered overly much, because there's nobody I've had any reason to call up until now. So let's start by fixing that, then, so we can call each other when we need help. ...At least so long as we aren't down to the final stretch on who gets second in command."