2129/Just this once

Just this once
Date of Scene:	01 December 2024
Location:	Plot Room 2
Synopsis:	Catra is in miserable shape, but she's still doing her best to collect the energy she needs to keep Rashmi safe! Adora shows up to do her usual thing, but instead of fighting they have a chat. It may or may not have helped.
Cast of Characters:	Catra, Adora Rainbowfist

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Catra has posed:
Catra is out and at it again, with the youmas and the energy draining. Except, this time, she's doing it with three broken ribs. Also, the Inhumans department isn't trusting her with particularly good youmas right this moment; Fishbones didn't return when recalled, and they're blaming it on her, because well, of course they are. So she's got what she's got, and she's set up in the grotty, poor end of town that she so clearly favors.

Right now, she's sitting at one of the outdoor food vendors that she likes so much; it's a place in a glorified back alley, set up in a square with stools all around it and the kitchen area right in the middle, you order and watch your food get made while you wait. Catra is currently trying to eat a bowl of teriyaki chicken, but she's basically just picking at it; everyone else around her is unconscious, slumped on their food or on the floor in the kitchen, or wherever else they are in this alleyway. The crystal-jar spider-robot is standing beside her, still cracked, with an increasing amount of black liquid inside of it.

Running aroud almost gleefully is a youma. ...It's a gumball machine. One of those ones that's three machines all together, like some kind of three-headed mini-monster. There are multi-colored splats all over the place from dark-energy infused gum that its spat at the walls. One of the machines dispensed toys instead, so by now there's several platoons of one inch tall animated plastic men running about, having little battles with each other. (A tiny plastic MASH unit is set up in one corner, doing its best to treat the wounded, while tiny tanks are massing for a battle over there.)

For her part, Catra just looks glum as she picks at her food, and keeps glancing at the jar beside her.

It's not full yet.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"You know, you'd probably get better energy in the rich areas of town, instead of somewhere where people are already suffering." Comes the comment from She-Ra as she appears, dropping from the roof to land atop the gumball youma in a flying kick, intent to knock it over and stand on it.

A part of her hoped that would be enough to defeat it, but just knocking it over for the moment would be enough.

"Besides, you should just. Like, text me or one of the other people I know you have the phone number of so we come faster, since I know you don't want to hurt these people."

Just... giving her energy feels somehow wrong, like it'll teach her that it's fine to just... DO things like that. But that's why she could let the Youma do its job at least a little bit.

...Not that any of this would really stop Catra. Just talking never did, it usually just made her angrier or make a snide remark and run off. "Hey, Catra. ...You ever kind of just... miss how things were... simple in Etheria? We tried to stab each other, the war just... kind of kept going back and forth. I mean, it was awful, but at least I understood it."

Catra has posed:
The one advantage to a small youma might just be that it takes a while before it summons the attention of the Mahou that-- nope, nevermind, here is one. They're just like flies to a little pile of crap, no matter how smal lit is you can count on them to show up promptly.

Oh and it's Adora. Because of course it is.

Catra watches as her youma gets pounced on from above, leaving it rattled and, for the moment, not doing anything except squirming on the floor and spitting more gumballs and little soldiers all over the place. It fires a bunch of toy-balls up into the air, that turn into a dozen paratroopers, slowly descending on little plastic parachutes.

"Alright men!" says the leader of another group on the ground, who would sound gruff if he didn't have the vocal range of a chipmunk. "This one's big but we'll take her down just the same! No retreat!! Fire!!"

As the soldiers all start unloading really tiny dark energy blasts into Adora's ankles, Catra just looks sullen, watching it all play out without really interfering. "Just destroy it if you're going to," she replies. "Look at it. It's pathetic. And it's not filling this up." She reaches over, slowly, to tap the side of the crystal jar with her chopsticks. "You're right, I'd get more in the upstale areas, but I'd also get attention faster. ...Nobody cares about these people. Why do you think you're the only one here?"

She shoves her bowl of food away, and rests one elbow on the counter, propping her head up with her hand as she watches She-Ra dealing with the youma, which has finally figured itself out and is starting to drain her. Very slowly.

"Yeah I miss that," she mumbles. "I miss... I miss the Fright Zone. I miss... lots of things." She sighs, glancing at the food she isn't eating. "Maybe not the grey kind. I don't miss that."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Gumballs are launched out, and ... She-Ra doesn't make an effort to avoid them. Or the shots from the toy soldiers. Sure, they hurt, but ... well, they do the draining part, right? And she can ignore that... prickling. What's a little bit of pain, after all? She-Ra looks down towards the youma when Catra says to destroy it. "Mm... yeah... it's ... not very efficient, is it." She mutters under her breath.

And turns the sword to stab it down through the glass dome of the Youma with a burst of power. "..." She steps away from the Youma, regardless of if that actually kills it or not. (Does she have to kill all the little toy men too? Well whatever.)

She makes her way towards the crystal jar, closing her eyes to quietly focus.

"I'm the only one here because Tokyo is a huge city that has as much of a population as our entire planet which is kind of terrifying to think about." Adora says simply. "That and I've been ... kind of keeping an eye out." She moves her hand down to the like... spider...youma...thingy at the bottom of the crystal jar. Trying to feed energy into it like when she shares her energy with the other Princesses.

That's how you fill the jar, right?

Either way it's probably more efficient than the youma. "There's a few upsides to this planet." Adora comments idly. "Like us learning you're probably a Princess considering we had literal dreams of /fire cats/." Adora says, getting the ever so slightest smirk. "I knew being a princess was contagious." Is... is she teasing Catra or just trying to cheer herself up? It's hard to tell honestly.

Catra has posed:
Catra watches the Youma get entirely done-in by the Adora's sword. It squirms like a stuck frog for a few momtnes, before it kind of just... shrivels up. Pathetic even in death somehow. Catra observes its death with a somber look on her face. Hey, it's hard to get too excited about anything when you're still nursing a pretty serious injury.

"Why are you helping me," she asks, flatly. "We're enemies, remember? You're with the Rebellion, I'm with the Horde... except... neither of them exist here." She looks back at where her food went after she pushed it away, and then down at her chopsticks, still in hand, and then back to the food. Still thinking about it. But swallowing hurts and she doesn't like it.

"I'm *not* a Princess," she growls, a bit of her usual fire creeping back into her voice. "So what, fire cats sniffed around me in my dreams, whatever. They'll figure out I'm not Princess material soon enough and wander off to go clog someone else's nostrils up with ash or whatever they do."

The crystal jar just stands there, impassively; though Adora's efforts do seem to be working. The black liquid sloshes a little higher. Maybe it's not all that efficient, compared to letting a Youma do it.

The little toy soldiers aren't letting up; as the gumball youma dies, it breaks open, and its remaining contents of soldiers all start running off in various directions. The streets are gonna be lousy with them for weeks at this rate. There's a small army of them now; some of them are still shooting at Adora, others are warring with each other, and a few are even chasing off the local vermin.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"Because... even if you've made your choice, even if we're enemies... at the same time..." She-ra pauses, shaking her head as she continues to fill that jar as much as she can. Which seems less efficient than when she was just letting the Youma drain her. Whoops. Oh well, she can continue drip feeding the jar for now at least. Whatever.

...She'll have to deal with those toy soldiers soon though, even if they didn't hurt much individually they /were/ still shooting the heck out of her ankles. She turns slightly, swinging her sword towards those toy soldiers to unleash a quick little wave of energy towards the ones actively shooting her. "...You're still you. ...And we still made promises together. And if some... crazy... clown guy gets rid of you, well... there's no way I can keep any of those promises." She says hesitantly. Ugh, she probably is going to say something stupid and just ... cause things to go horribly again.

Whatever. It's fine. "...I'm so going to laugh if you turn out to be the fire princess." She-Ra adds, that ever-so-slight tease again.

"It would so fit your spitfire of a personality though, a fiery cat."

Catra has posed:
When Adora blasts the soldiers shooting at her, the little drill sergeant with his gruff chipmunk voice is extinguished; and all the other soldiers in the area quickly vacate. Well, except the ones in the MASH unit, who are busy packing the wounded plastic dudes into little ambulances, before thry trundle off as well.

"He's not gonna get rid of me," Catra declares, though somehow not sounding as confident as usual. "But he might get rid of Rashmi. And..." She stops, bottom lip quivering for a moment, as she grabs her food back and holds it up close to her face. "You made choices too, you know. Wasn't just me."

Now Catra manages to eat a bit more; a few pieces of chicken go down the hatch, even if the rice is basically ignored. Whatever, it's rice.

"I'm not gonna be the fire princess, don't get your hopes up," she insists. She holds up another piece of chicken in her chopsticks, but lets it plop back down into the bowl.

"Hey, Adora. After I pulled the lever, and opened the portal..." She sucks in a breath, and lets it out slowly.

"What happened?"

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"I think that if he went after Rashmi, he'd have a real bad time. She's got a lot of people who'd probably do everything to protect her." Adora responds lightly. The comment of her making choices too gets a slight turn of her head. "...Yeah, I did. Ones that we did talk about ... how they were... ... more complicated ... than I thought." She almost said they were a mistake. But no. It wasn't a mistake. It's fine.

"Oh come on, mysterious dreams hit everyone -- including me -- someone who has had a lot of weirdly prophetic dreams. And I dreamed of fire cats. And considering you're the only cat-person I know..." ... ... They're probably related, right? Then again maybe other people had that dream too whatever.

And then the hey adora. What happened.

"..." Adora's gaze turns fully away from Catra. "Everyone was stuck in the portal, and things were just... weirdly perfect and wrong and then... like... Angella sacrificed herself to get everyone out."

She was... technically... not lying.

...But it still made her heart ache.

Catra has posed:
"The heroes don't always win," Catra replies. "You should know that. I opened the portal, remember? With you and all your friends racing to stop me. You stopped Hordak, but you didn't stop me." Is that a measure of pride, in her voice? Rueful pride? Definitely rueful pride.

Catra sighs, looking a round at the people still passed out all around the immediate vicinity. She shrugs, and looks back up at Adora. "You know, you could get some food if you want. It's not like any of them would know you did a dine 'n dash." She hoists her bowl of teriyaki, and then plucks a piece of chicken and bites it in half, chewing slowly.

"So like. What part of that aren't you telling me? You're terrible at deception Adora, you always roll your the same way and you-- you know what, I'm not telling you your other tells. But I know you're not telling me everything."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
     "...No, I guess I didn't." She-Ra says, looking at that slowly filling jar. Kind of wishing it would fill faster. "You... weren't... there. Not really, anyway. In the portal, that is. Something about it corrupted you after you activated it. You were all just... green and ... I don't know." Is the response to the question. The offer of food gets a hesitant shake of her head.

"No, I'm... not really hungry." Not with that pit in her stomach.

She was forcing more energy into that jar. Trying to fill it faster. Not that it was going to work.

...And she is just. So tempted to just. Run away in spite of it, but Catra was running out of time to fill it, and ... well. This was the easiest way to resolve the situation. For now at least. "I'm not going to get into more of it. It's... it's not worth it for the same reason talking about the past me is a waste of time."

Catra has posed:
"Adora, stop." Catra slides off the stool and gets to her feet, and walks up to push the spider-bot away from Adora; and after a moment, with no energy feeding it and no youma nearby, it reverts back to being an ordinary old jar in Catra's hands. The feline cradles it protectively, and looks around at the people all laying on the ground and slumped on their stools.

"They'll be fine," she mumbles. "But you can't give me everything you've got, in case you get into a fight soon, right?" She pauses, working up to something else, and her ears lay flat against her head.

"look I know how much you love being the hero all the time. I bet you still can't sleep at night 'cause you're too busy thrashing around, worrying about how might be going un-saved this time. But seriously, just... just stop, okay?"

The feline sucks in a breath, pressing one hand to her side over her busted ribs. "Just.. Just this once... and I know you're gonna tell me I'm doing it completely the wrong way. But just once, I wanna know what it's like to be the hero. Just... Just once."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"I'm fine. It'll be fine, She-Ra's a wellspring of power, it's ... I'm still good." Except She-Ra isn't an unlimited wellspring of power. Not here. Not that it really was on Etheria either. But she doesn't really fight the jar being pushed away from her.

The comments about her being a hero, how she loves being a hero... Adora gives a soft laugh. "...Ah... I don't really do that... I don't love being the hero... I mean it's kind of nice being appreciated I guess, but I definitely don't dream about that. It's." She pauses.

"...It's different. I dream of Angella's last words." She turns away from Catra.

"And... have weird dreams about She-Ra and ... talks with a weird little old lady who calls me Mara and it's ... being She-Ra is really weird." Adora takes a deep breath, before giving a simple nod towards Catra. "...Alright Catra. Go ahead and be the hero this time." She starts to walk away. "I'll, uh. I'll get out of your way."

She pauses, looking back towards Catra. "...Seriously. Get some rest."

And then she starts to ... slightly limp ... away.

Look she took a LOT of tiny shots to specifically one ankle it stings a little.