575/Cat Calls

Cat Calls
Date of Scene:	09 October 2023
Location:	Four Clover Mall
Synopsis:	Niji and Adora are on the hunt for one cat.
Cast of Characters:	Niji Dasshu, Adora Rainbowfist, Catra

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Niji Dasshu has posed:
It's a busy day at Four Clover Mall, the sprawling monstrosity of a building that might hold as many people just doing shopping on one level as Catra and Adora can remember ever seeing in any one spot. For Niji, this place is an extremely normal one, a home, a way to kill time when she isn't bouncing a ball (or get another ball after the inevitably kicks it into the great beyond on accident). But today, she's not here for sporting gear. She's not here for video games. She's absolutely not here for books, she'd never be here for books, and the nice old lady at the bookstore absolutely doesn't know her by name (and hair).

    No, she was here to step into one of the stores that sells cell phones to Tokyo's teenagers - because her new friend Adora is woefully without a cell phone and she's absolutely sure you cannot Modern Teenage Girl without a cell phone to text and take pictures and decorate and hang charms from. It's practically a lifeline in this era! Or so she has proclaimed, loudly, upon meeting Adora, upon befriending Adora, upon dragging Adora to the Echo Wireless shop, and now, as they're walking out with a phone she was happy to (make her parents) pay for.

    "Really, I can understand some of the other stuff..." Niji begins, putting her hands behind her head like she's managed to find a way to lean back and lounge as she's walking "... but other than not being told about sports like, existing, not having a cell phone is the craziest thing I've ever heard of. But it's cool, we'll get you used to it quick." she says.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Adora has gotten into sports since her and Niji first spoke. She's been watching a lot of American sports, specifically. She's dressed for a day outside of school, in skinny jeans with Doc Martins (With yellow laces) and a San Diego Padres' jersey. Her hair is even down!

She leaves the store with her friend, staring down at her new phone. It's a nice smartphone with the various bells and whistles. She even chose a phone case! It's an anime style painting of a catgirl sticking her tongue out and looking all sassy. Adore really wanted that one. She hmms and glances over and down at Niji, smiling. "Well, like I said, the place I'm from was really archaic. Kinda. We had tech, but it was all for -bad- stuff. Never for recreation. So, we had radios but...nothing like this!"

Catra has posed:
Wandering about in the mall is Rachel Miller, the false identity Catra has been hiding behind since she got here and was promptly informed that Earth absolutely sucks because it has no beast people and she can't wander around looking like, y'know, herself, because people will absolutely freak out about there being a cat person in their midst. And not in a good way.

So, the persona of an obnoxious American girl is exploring the mall, dressed in ripped jeans and a hoodie, with earbuds lodged in her ears. Right now she's sitting on a stool in a food court, noisily slurping up a bowl of noodles with shrimp (admittedly, shrimp are pretty amazing) and watching people meander around. Fortunately, for the people around her, she doesn't have a big bag with a rifle slung over her shoulder; apparently hunting for test subjects in a mall is a little extreme even for her.

That said, this place is loud. There's more people in here than Catra's ever experienced in her life, and they're all... talking. She thumbs the volume on her music -- a Korn album currently -- turning it up to the point that the people around her can all hear the lyrics, as she seeks to simply... drown it all out.

Enhanced hearing can be a curse.

Oh, and speaking of curses, there's Adora, walking past. Seriously, is she just... everywhere? Did she get cloned when she arrived and now there's an army of her?

Oh, and she has a friend, that's cute. The feline sighs into her noodles, for the moment just watching. Except now instead of watching the world go by, it's a cat glaring at a rival that's got her mouse.

Niji Dasshu has posed:
    Niji, on the other hand, has no idea that Catra or 'Rachel' is watching her. Situational awareness was never really never her jam, if we're honest. And even if it was, well... attention was kind of what she was after. Otherwise she wouldn't have dyed her hair so outrageously, either. So she's also kind of used to being looked at by people.

    "I think you'll be really popular though, Adora." Niji says. "You're already standing out but in like, a good way." she notes. "And you're friendly and outgoing and pretty so, really, now that you're getting the cultural stuff down, you shouldn't have any trouble filling out your contact list." She pauses. "Just remember I was your friend first." she adds, with that cheeky grin that makes it hard to tell if she's being serious or joking when she says that. Totally not knowing somebody listening might take particular offense to that.

    "Oh, and with the whole Cultural Festival thing coming up you'll have to figure out where you're getting involved there. Somebody probably has some sort of sports related thing... or really you could just carry heavy stuff around for people. I bet you could lift up the entrance sign on your own." she notes. It's not even intended as flattery, just blunt honesty. She's been around Adora enough to know her strengths (i.e. strength). "You don't strike me as the like, fashion show walker kinda girl. I usually stay a bit in the background too - still haven't tricked enough people into helping me start my band."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
    Adora grins softly, blushing a bit (It really makes her freckles pop!). "Aw, I'm not that great. Just weird. That gets it's own kinda interest, you know? But I've been making a few friends. You. I've been meeting with Mio-chan every week to teach her how to fight. That's fun. I took Hinoiri-chan to the horse paddock in Shibuya where my Club goes. That was...less fun, though. That girl..." She trails off and shakes her head, before turning her phone over to admire the case. The catgirl happens to have a LOT of similarities to a certain wildcat.

    She has never actually seen Catra in her disguised form, so she has no idea it's Catra glaring at them. "The Festival sounds like it's gonna be really interesting," the tall girl replies, glancing back over. "Maybe I can do something for it in the Cooking Club? I'm in that. Or see if we can do some kind of display with the Equestrian Club. Our horses are a Japanese breed and everything."

Niji Dasshu has posed:
"Cultural Festival is kind of a bad name for it, but it's also the name everybody uses. Really it's more like 'show off everything we do as a school' festival, but that sounds boasty and Japanese folks in general don't do boasting well. It's one of the things that makes them think I'm wierd, too." she admits, and looks down for a moment before re-asserting her standard excitable energy ball mode.

    "So like, whether your horses are Japanese or not doesn't really matter. I get how the name can throw you though. But anyways. If you can do some sort of tricks or help people who visit learn to ride, that sort of stuff is awesome."

    "Cooking club is a good choice too - selling stuff people want to eat is kind of a time-honored part of it. Really you probably want to get your fingers in as much as you can. As someone who's from far away helping out is a great way to meet people and show them that you're friendly and helpful and all of that stuff." she notes. "I always try to make myself useful. Though, if you haven't tried playing an instrument I may have to see if you'd fit in the band..." she muses aloud. Again, hard to tell if she's being serious or kidding when she says that.

Catra has posed:
Catra slurps up the rest of her noodles, and then just stands up and vacates, leaving the dirty bowl there on the counter (and worse, the dirty chopsticks beside it, to make a mess, for somone else of course). She pulls the hoodie over her head, and slips into the crowd. She can pretty easily get lost in a crowd, on account of being only slightly taller than 5 feet (though at least she can still say she's significantly taller than a hobbit), but Adora has no such benefit.

The disguised feline takes a roundabout route, moving up behind Adora and Niji; and as she gets close she reluctantly silences her music and pulls the earbuds out. With the music gone, all the noise and commotion of the mall rushes in, and her ears -- her real ears, not the illusory ones -- tuck flat against her head.

But it's the only way she can spy on Adora and Niji.

She falls into step behind them, doing her best to just look like an American tourist with a lousy attitude and no respect as she listens in to what they're talking about.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"Oooooh, cool. That all sounds like a lot of fun. We had some festivals back home. I mean, not in the original School, but the place I moved to after..."

"I'd just humiliate myself with music," the blonde responds with a grin. "But I'm getting better at cooking. I totally just mastered Katsuo-no-Tataki. It's this dish from...um...somewhere in Japan. You wrap this awesome tuna in hay and lightly sear it. The inside is all soft and fresh and the outside is...well, it's great. I'm trying to learn all the fish dishes for..." She trails off and shrugs a muscled shoulder.

Moving so sneakily, Catra has a good view of the chunky bracelet Adora is wearing. It looks like some kitchy piece of jewleery to most folks, but Catra could almost certainly recognize the First Ones script scrawled all over it. That's the -Sword-.

Niji Dasshu has posed:
Niji gently elbows her. "I'm sure you're not that bad. Sports kind of help you get into a rhythm, get used to moving your body, then you just add a beat." she says. "But, I won't force ya." she notes.

    "But that does sound good. You could probably make a bunch of it for one of the stalls and sell it off. Could pay for your club's gear for a while, though that's less of an issue here since Radiant Heart seems to be a lot more generous than like, your average school."

    "That original place you came from sounds miserable." Niji notes. "Are you... gonna try to go back?" she asks, after a little bit of a pause. "Like, once you get your girl back and all." she says. "Cause like, I'd miss you if you left... and it sounds like it's a really kind of... don't take this the wrong way but it sounds pretty crap." she says, bluntly. "Maybe that second place is better, I guess, but still." She doesn't yet know how much RHA can use an Adora, but she's sure the girl must have friends back home too.

    "If you do leave you're gonna have to get cell service out there or something there so we can stay in touch. I'm not super-great at the pen-pals thing but texting I can do."

Catra has posed:
Catra is listening, right up until the moment she notices the arm jewelry Adora has going on. That bracelet, with the First Ones script all over it. The sword. Yeah, that's gotta be it, right there. She wholly misses all the stuff about Adora learning how to cook fish or Niji talking about friendship or... whatever. Seriously, who cares about that stuff.

The guise of Rachel Miller veers off from the pair she'd been following. What ensues is a display of fancy footwork, as she picks up her pace and works to get ahead of the two girls, keeping a fair distance away to avoid being noticed. Once she's a good distance out in front, she changes direction, turning sharply and head straight back towards the pair; and she's approaching with a mission. It's like she's late for work or something, or there's a super good deal on a TV at the electronics shop and there might be only one left.

As she approaches Adora and Niji, she steps out from the crowd and basically plows through, using her shoulders to bash her way roughly in between.

"Watch it!" she complains angrily, as it it was somehow their fault for existing in the piece of real estate she was walking through.

With the distraction of minor physical violence and a rude tone of voice, she siezes on the opportunity to make a grab for the chunky bracelet, and whip it off Adora's wrist while she's busy thinking about other things. With her heart absolutely racing, she doesn't look back as she keeps going, hopefully with a bracelet she can hurriedly stuff in a hoodie pocket, as she loses herself into the crowd once more.

Though, there is one thing that might bug Adora, even if Niji won't understand it, at least not yet. Was that Catra's voice?

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
She chuckles at the elbowing. "I mean, you'd be surprised. Trust me on the music thing. Same with dancing. Two left feet."

"Yeah, earning money for the clubs sounds awesome, really. I'll do that!" She goes a bit quiet when she's asked about going back 'home'. "Things got better back home. That school I grew up in was...destroyed. Wiped out. All the horrible stuff ended. I do wanna go home, but I don't know if I can. It's complicated. But yeah, not before I get Her back. Never gonna leave her again."

And before she can really reply about cell service, the random American girl collides roughly with them, and Adora stumbles a bit. She doesn't notice her bracelet is gone, immediatly. But...that voice?

She stares after the hoodied girl and says, "...Catra? I heard Catra. That's Catra's voice." She heard that voice in her dreams. She knows it. She brings her hand out to try and stabilize or help up Niji if it's needed, which is when she spots her bare wrist.

"NO!"

Niji Dasshu has posed:
Niji doesn't know what's going on, on any level. A bunch of stuff happens. A random girl collides with Adora and Niji manages to bite back her harsh response - girl looks foreign too, and maybe like Adora, she's just a little unsure of how things are done here. Niji appreciates the stabilization, since she was a little bit off balance, but she's a lot more confused by the comments about Catra's voice. "Is your girl from America then-" she gets cut off in her question by Adora's exclamation. "Wait, what's wrong?" she asks.

    "It's okay Adora, if that was her we can go after her. It's not a big deal. We were headed out anyways." She doesn't understand why Adora suddenly shouted, but she DID pay enough attention to her new friend's problems to know the girl she's trying to pin down for a talk and her name.

Catra has posed:
Catra did it. She actually did it? It was really just that easy? It's not like she hasn't taken Adora's sword before (and she even gave it back once, but that was NOT because she liked her), but this time it was just... too easy. The only way it could possibly have been easier would've been if she'd said 'please' when Adora was in an inadvisably generous giving mood.

The feline can't help but laugh out loud, which earns a bit of a look from the people around her, since people don't usually just... laugh at nothing, but she ignores them and keeps going. She casually shifts the bracelet from hoodie pocket to jeans pocket, as she takes a turn to head down a different corridor.

Oh man is Obsidian going to love *this*.

Too bad she totally missed all that nice stuff that got said about her. Whatever. Let Adora hang out with her friend and talk about whatever, who cares.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"My sw-...my bracelet. I CAN'T lose it. If she stole it it's definatly her." She curses loudly in Etherian, which sounds NOTHING like Bavarian, or English or any other language, really. It probably sounds the most like original Gaelic or something.

She turns, then, beginning to hurry through the crowd to try and pursue her cat and her stolen item of power. Think. Think like Catra. Hiding places. Blending in. You fought her for a few years and grew up with her, she tells herself. You know where she'd go.

"I'm gonna find her. You can follow if you wanna, but...it might get dangeroius," she replies ominously. After that she takes off at a run, trying to weave through the crowd in pursuit. It's not gonna be that easy, Wildcat.

Niji Dasshu has posed:
    "Stole?" Niji asks. It's a one-word question that is awnwered very quickly by Adora's continuing actions. Niji is keeping up with Adora from the get-go. "Your girl is a thief?" she asks. "Dangerous? Whatever. Nobody steals from my -friend- and twice as much nobody when I'm right there." she says.

    She doesn't even consider not doing this. As far as she knows it's just some other human that did it - but there's a liklihood she'd chase either way, especially if she didn't stop to think. Which she wasn't. Which meant she was actually out ahead of Adora - occasionally having to check where Adora was going and turn around. She didn't know Catra, but she did know chasing people, chasing things. Weaving in and out of the crowd like defenders in basketball, dashing from point to point like running the bases in baseball - and if she can get close enough to the thief, she fully intends to show her own appreciation for American Football with a tackle.

    But, she doesn't KNOW Catra, and how she'd move or where she'd go, so there's a lot of wasted effort... but she's really trying to do her best, whenever she catches a glimpse of the American in the hoodie. Shame Catra's not as tall as Adora, that'd make this so much easier...

Catra has posed:
Catra almost turned her music back on -- this place is still loud and the sensory overload is not something she finds even vaguely enjoyable -- but she's being followed. That much before apparent when she walks past a place with a big mirror on display out in front, and she sees Adora. Adora? Yes Adora, and she's right back there. Which means that if Adora was observant, she'd have seen Catra as well. Or, well, the Rachel Miller guise.

Catra doesn't know Niji well enough to pick her face out of the crowd without her standing beside Adora; at least not yet, but it's a pretty safe bet there's actually two people following her. That'd be how Catra's luck usually goes.

Catra isn't interested in a fight, right now. She just wants to escape with the sword. She briefly considers dumping it somewhere to pick up later, but dismisses that idea just as quickly; afterall, you don't just hide a magic sword that's the key to Etheria behind a fake palm tree in a mall or something.

On the upside, Catra's illusion device is editable. So she picks a store display to walk through (ignoring the sign that says not to do precisely that) and when she comes out the other side, instead of ripped jeans and a hoodie she's in a black miniskirt and a cropped black shirt that leaves her midriff bare.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Adora chases for awhile, but soon enough she runs out of places to look. She has no idea Catra can change her face, and she ends up sitting down on a bench outside the movie theater, her face in her hands.

"This is bad. You...don't understand. Just know that that bracelet is really important to me and I -need- it back."

She glances about the crowded mall, and she runs her fingers back through her hair. "Oh, wildcat...what did you do?"

Niji Dasshu has posed:
    Niji loses sight of Catra when she switches her costume - she's not eexpecting magic. Hell, she's not even aware of magic to expect it. Or, not fully. So she sits down with Adora when she sits. She's... not tired, at all. "I can keep looking for her. Or we can ask security?" she offers. All Niji has are mundane solutions, but they wouldn't be terrible in that situation. This is just different. "I mean, I don't have to understand, all I need to know is that it's important to you, and that girl stole it from you." she says, crossing her arms.

    "And we can report it missing to the police, maybe, so if she tries to sell it or something it comes up? Do you think she stole it just to sell it?" she asks. And then a pause.

    "That's the girl that's been... that you are chasing, right? You saw her? She stole it?" she asks. "The same one that gave you those marks?" She shakes her head. "Maybe she just took it to be a jerk to you. If that's the case, then she's probably not going to like. Throw it off a bridge or sell it. Right?" She pauses. "I mean, what she did... She stole from you. But what we're gonna do is get it back." There's a sort of fire there, a spirit, that makes those words sound like they're more than just a friend trying to cheer another up, but a commitment.

Catra has posed:
Eventually, Catra bursts out of the mall doors, and stalks out into the sunshine. Well, sunshine and a busy city, with people marching about in packs, more or less. Or at least that's how it feels. But for the moment, Catra isn't really noticing. She got the sword. She got the *sword*. And Adora and her friend were too clueless to catch up to her.

"Oh that's PERFECT!" she shouts, singing her elation to the world; a joyous exultation that, somehow, doesn't quite reach her heart. Somehow, victory just feels empty inside, like she's pouring in water to fill a pit lined with gravel, it just isn't enough. It's never enough.

Time to shut the world out again. Catra puts her earbuds back in and cranks the music once more; Kidney Thieves, this time, 'Before I'm Dead'.

Moon hangs around
A blade over my head
Reminds me what to do before I'm dead

Still. Even though she's never experienced a victory that didn't feel hollow in ways she can't explain, it's still victory. Did she literally just hamstring her biggest enemy with an act of petty larceny? So...

Now what does she do with the sword? She pulls it out of her pocket and looks at it, almost bumping into someone and snapping something rude at them.

Night consumes light
And all I dread
Reminds me what to do before I'm dead

Maybe she should take it and show it to Takashi. That might shut him up about her performance. of course, then he might *want it*, though, and she's certainly not going to give it up. Well, not that easily, anyway. Which also begs the question, how does one, like, un-bracelet it, so it actually turns into a sword? Or a shield, or a coffee cup or whatever Adora needs at the time.

The sun reclines
Eats my mind
Reminds me what to leave behind

Well she can screw around with it later. For now, Catra just heads down a back alley as soon as the opportunity presents. It's amazing how far ou have to go -- or don't go -- from the shiny veneer of a city to end up in the grotty, dirty places nobody goes. Places that are perfect for someone who hates all the people and noise and sensory overload, and who don't think they're worthy of human contact.

Light eats night
And all I never said
Reminds me what to do before I'm...

Oh this is going to be fun.