2195/Fireworks

Fireworks
Date of Scene:	02 January 2025
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	Catra sends Adora a text, and the heroine finds the villain in the throes of a panic attack thanks to the celebration fireworks, which leads to a small, quiet chat.
Cast of Characters:	Catra, Adora Rainbowfist

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Catra has posed:
Tokyo. New Years Eve. It's a time of celebration for most people, with parties going on across the city and, as midnight hits, a round of fireworks going off up in the sky, lasting... a long time. This is Tokyo, afterall, nothing is ever going to be done any way but big.

For Catra, this is just another night. So the Earth made it around the star if orbits one more time with nothing apocalyptic happening to it. Whatever. They should just be lucky she wasn't deciding wether or not to open a potentially world-destrying portal while experiencing a bad mood, right? Like when she was convinced she had absolutely nothing to lose? Not as if she's gained a whole lot since then, really.

Well. She seems to be on reasonably good terms with Glimmer now. Also Rashmi. Maybe that counts for something. Maybe it even offsets Joker being... Joker.

So when the fireworks started, she was in her favorite place; the crappy, rundown part of town, at one of the back alley food vendors she frequents. She'd sent a text message to Adora; mostly consisting of 'Hey Adora' and with everything else she considered adding remaining safely between her ears, rather than taking the risk of adding any of it to the text. She was just finishing a bowl of noodles with extra chicken when the first of the fireworks started.

Fortunate, that she'd already paid; by the time the overhead explosions had been going for a couple of minutes, Catra was down a less populated alleyway, hands clamped tight over her ears with a grimace on her face, ears flat and tail all poofed up following the failure of her illusory disguise.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Hey, Adora.

Words that haunted her to some degree lately, even if a part of her still reacted the same way she always did. Adora had been spending time at the Tsukinos when she received that text, and then quietly excused herself for at least the moment.

Especially after there weren't... really any other texts that followed. Luckily, well, Catra ... had an area. Probably a little gang in that area, knowing her. Wether she wants to or not, really. It's just how things go for Catra.

'Hey, Catra. What's up?'

She had texted back. With recent issues, she'd been keeping more of an eye out for Catra texts with the whole her needing to drain people for energy thing.

There was likely... too long between the return text and a response for Adora, so she decided just to, well.

...Start heading over to that rundown part of town, transforming into She-Ra so that she could ride her pegasus steed to get there faster.

Just in case.

...A flight made more complicated by, well. The air being filled with explosions, but it's fine, Japan's fireworks were much more structured, she could avoid those areas.

...But it was loud for swiftwind, and Catra, well. Catra already said the world was loud.

So it wasn't long until She-Ra was landing in that run-down back alleyway, shining in all her too-bright glory. At least until she lands and dismisses the transformation since everything seemed... well, not fine, but.

"Hey. Catra! Catra. Here." She pauses, reaching into her jacket to pull out her pair of earmuffs.

And reaching to slide them onto Catra's head.

It uh. It's less effective over the hands but frankly Adora didn't want to get scratched up at the moment.

Catra has posed:
Catra has her eyes screwed shut by the time Adora finds her, sitting with her back against a wall, surrounded by the prime sort of whatever that people leave in back alleys, with her hands clamped down over her ears. It's not like she can even put in her earbuds and blast something loud to cover it. It's already loud. That's the problem. You can less loud with more loud but with maximum loud, what do you do?

And it's just going on

and on

and on

And it doesn't seem like it's ever going to stop. Catra's breathing is fast and labored, and her teeth are clenched; and when Adora puts the earmuffs over her head, her first instinct is to snap her eyes open and hiss, claws immediately ready to defend herself, heedless to the little red dots they form on either side of her head in the process.

But it's Adora. Catra doesn't strike, because... It's Adora. Did she even hear what Adora said? Slowly, her claws shrink back into her fingertips, and she moves her hands, holding the earmuffs tight against her head, and clearly at war with herself over wether she wants to stay but let Adora see her in this state, or promptly leave but lose Adora's offer of support.

But sometimes indecision makes the choice for you.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Yeah that was why she wasn't trying to move Catra's hands just right there, the claws out and into the side of her own head even. Ugh. Well, whatever, it's fine. She begins to actively go through Catra's pockets quickly, not even worrying about the fact she's just straight up violating the girl's privacy, until she can find the little case for Catra's earbuds and pop it open, and pulling them out one at a time so Catra can put them in, figuring between the earbuds and the earmuffs, well...

The fireworks won't be as bad.

"I don't think they're supposed to last too long." She says, making sure she's fully facing Catra so that there's a higher chance of her being able to tell what she said by watching her speak. There was a moment of awkward hesitation, before she just, gives a soft sigh and sits down next to Catra once she was sure that Catra was... as... okay as possible.

Talking wasn't going to be much of a thing right now between the earmuffs and the earbuds, but well. She does do one careful, somewhat unsure motion. She reaches to wrap one arm around Catra's shoulders, though doesn't force it, pulling her arm back away if she pulls away.

Catra has posed:
Catra doesn't react; or at least, she doesn't interfere. She lets Adora do what she wants, and the earbuds aren't hard to find as she keeps them in a jacket pocket. She hardly reacts to them being pushed into he rears. There's no telling if it helped or not, she just sits there with her hands clamped down over earmuffs, sinking down the wall behind her until she's curled up with her knees up against her chest and her face burried against her knees, breathing hard with clenched up muscles.

Until, eventually... just a few minutes really, but eventually... it ends.

And after that, eventually, Catra's panicked breathing slows down, and she pulls the earmuffs off her hears. Her fingers brush over her face, below her yellow eye and then her blue one; she sniffs, and her ears flick, and it slowly dawns on her that one Adora was here, and two, Adora is still here. With her arm around her shoulders. Which, she didn't pull away from.

Why didn't she pull away? She mustive just not noticed. That's it. Well she's not going to move now, she'd just look like a twit.

And, Adora is here. Right now. So maybe she doesn't have to spend New Years Eve entirely alone, like... admittedly she'd planned to. There were some parties going on at Obsidian of course, but they were all dumb parties full of dumb people. The food is better out here anyway. But, now Adora's here, and they're alone with each other, and they don't hve to fight over anything. So they could just... talk, maybe. If Catra were to say something.

"...Why'd you come?" she asks, shakily. "Just... needed to make sure I wasn't doing anything evil?"

Real smooth, Catra. Great opening line.

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Yeah, that's... that seems about right for a particularly unpleasant series of events. At least, for someone with sensitive ears. Really it wasn't great while she was in the air but, well. It's fine. Adora just stays like that, one arm held around Catra in a form of vague comfort as she looks at the wall ahead of her, quietly questioning why she'd even come. It's not like she'd felt dark energy or anything...

But, well. When Catra started texting something, you respond, and there's no response. "..." The question gets a slight shake of Adora's head. "Not... specifically. Just, well. Normally when you start with 'Hey, Adora'... there's a followup. So I just. Well." She hesitates and then gives a bit of a helpless shrug. "...I figured something was wrong. It could have been that you were doing something evil, but... I don't know." She slides her arm back away from around Catra, resting her hands on the ground between her legs, splayed out to the side and folded up next to her in a kind of comfortable-lazy-ruining-her-pants kind of way.

"This world makes everything confusing. I think it's cursed."

Catra has posed:
Catra's ears lay flat against her head, and she mirrors Adora's posture, letting her legs go straight out on the ground and resting her hands on her knees. Her earbuds stay in her ears, but she hasn't turned on any music. She glances sideways at Adora, then looks forwards, at the wall on the other side of the alley and the piled up whatever along the base of it.

"I was gonna say something else," she mumbles. "But then there was..." she points a single finger upwards. "All that." Her hand drops back down to her lap, and her brow furrows as she grinds her teeth, "As if it's not loud enough around here on a daily basis, when these people want to celebrate they start blowing up the sky?! Like sersiouly who does that. The Horde never did that."

Well, no, they just blew up villages.

"I hate it here," she insists." And falls silent again, dropping her gaze a little, and focusing on her toes instead of the wall.

"But I've never been anywhere I didn't hate it so... whatever I guess."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"Oh, yeah, I figured, but you didn't, so I came to check out your favorite area to make sure that you weren't being assaulted by a creepy clown threatening you to drain energy or have your life ruined again." Adora responds, her tone half-teasing. The comment about blowing up the sky and the Horde never doing it gets Adora saying what Catra might have been thinking. "No, they just celebrated by blowing up villages." Paaause. "Also bowling. I still don't know how Scorpia was so good at that with her pinchers, but I guess the holes are just the right way for them to fit in."

The comment of hating it here gets a soft exhale from Adora. "You didn't seem to hate the horde that much." She comments. "Just Shadow Weaver. The rest of the horde... well, I wouldn't say you /got along with/, but... we all hated Shadow Weaver and that made for a very good bonding exercise."

Adora gives a small nod. There were other comments that she'd had in her mind but she just barely managed to deflect them to a more reasonable subject. Barely. "...The food here's good at least."

Catra has posed:
"Oh please. It was easy for you. You were Shadow Weaver's favorite, nobody'd ever dare mess with you, but they were all lining up behind your back to take a shot at me, just to earn favor with her." Catra regrets the words, the acidity of them, before they've even finished leaving her mouth. She even has the good grace to look miserable about it. But, still; if you want an apology, you're not getting one.

"I didn't like the Horde, really, I just... liked being in charge," she admits. "I wasn't just Force Captain, I was second in command to Hordak, and I was gonna take him down eventually the same as I did to Shadow Weaver. And then I wouldn't've had anyone to worry about at all. I'd've proven to everyone how strong I really am."

And she'd be safe.

"But whatever. We're stuck here now and Obsidian just... it isn't the Horde. When I got here I thought fine, I'll just move up the ranks of Obsidian the same as I did the Horde. But it's not the same, and it doesn't work like that." She sighs, and mumbles almost too quiet to hear, "I was so stupid."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"Yeah, I was Shadow Weaver's favorite. Which meant she gave me extra training, expected me to do perfect on every exam, and if I let anyone mess with me there was a good chance that /no matter what I wanted/ they would be horribly punished for messing with the 'future up and coming most talented force captain'." Adora pulls a face. She didn't seem to be necessarily taking it personally, just. Kind of. Alost reminiscing on how awful of a parent they had, really. Probably a habit from when they were kids and conversations like this happened, but in less... spiteful ways.

"...You do know... then you would have had /everyone/ to worry about in that case? ...Because you'd be their leader. Being the leader isn't just about, you know, being the best. It's also about doing the paperwork and taking care of your squadmates and... well I mean. You know. You also took the training. Though apparently there's a whole handbook that I never read but Scorpia /really/ thoroughly read." She pauses. "...Scorpia is really coming up a lot in this conversation for some reason and that's kind of weird."

"Anyway." She shakes her head. "It's... I mean. It's what it is. You did what you thought was best and you made the choices that seemed the smartest. Like you always do. It just, well. ...You got flung into this strange place too, and I don't know what you remember of the inside of the portal but I'm sure it was awful for everyone, whatever they remember of it..." She pauses. Then sighs, leaning her head back against the wall.

"I'm sure you could work your way up in Obsidian just the same way, but it's just different. But, I mean. You're you. You made force captain /with someone activly trying to force you to not be force captain/. So. Well. Yeah. Not that I'm encouraging you to stay with the big evil horrible supercorporation but, well. ...I also know that nothing I can say will ever change your mind, so." She gives a helpless shrug.

Catra has posed:
"I don't want..." No, that's not right.

"I... I want..." That's not it either.

"I don't know what I want." That's more like it.

Catra finalyl leans her head back and gazes up at the sky, which is not exploding but is clearly no longer trustworthy. She fidgets, as much mentally as physically, wanting to say things and not saying them. "I don't remember anything," she spits out at last, choosing the safest tangent to a scary set of subjects. "I just... pulled the lever, everything went white, and next thing I knew I was here. One of the witches from Obsidian found me, gave me something that put the Japanese language in my brain, gave me a disguise so I wouldn't get hauled off and dissected or something... which... I hate it but I guess that was nice... and that's... that's it." She shrugs her shoulders. "A couple days later, I..."

I found you here. Well, different you.

"Glimmer's gonna need your help," she mumbles at last. "She wouldn't even be with Obsidian if they didn't have her Runestone. Which is now broken. And it's probably my fault," she adds, ruefully. "She's gonna like... I dunno. I think she's desperate to have her magic back. So she's probably gonna do something stupid. But she cares about you and Bow, that's obvious."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"...It's okay. You don't have to." Adora says in response. "I mean. I barely know what I want in this world... like ... a part of me wants to go back, a part of me wants to stay because this world is nice and has nice people but just..." She gives a soft sigh, ever so slightly frustrated.

But not directed at Catra.

"Inside of the portal was... weird and perfect. But I knew it wasn't... right. Things were back to before I left the horde. We'd successfully taken that... first village." She says softly. "Shadow Weaver was... weird... and nice... to both of us, not just me, and you were also force captain and being properly acknowledged for what you did well and ... Scorpia. She was the only one who didn't think things were perfect. She told me that she really didn't like me for some reason and she didn't know why." She pauses.

"But... it was all fake. And because I was realizing that, the world inside of the portal got erased. Everyone I knew disappeared in front of me, one by one." Adora says quietly.

"And then Angela sacrificed herself. And I ended up here." She closes her eyes. "A part of me wonders if I never left the portal, and it's just a trick."

Pause.

"Yeah. ...I'll do what I can to help her and Bow."

Catra has posed:
"Glimmer told me about it," Catra replies. "Well like.. the part of it she knows about." She shrugs her shoulders. "When you all were trying to move her Runestone, I saw... I met Angela. When we were being, I dunno, teleported or whatever insane nonsense you people were trying." She shifts, arranging herself to sit cross-legged with her back against the wall, so she looks less ragged. Or at least, that's how she plans it.

"Anyway. I saw Angela in there, and she didn't seem like... angry or anything. Just sad. Or something. I'm not sure. But she didn't try to attack me or anything so I dunno, maybe she's a ghost." She sighs softly. "Don't tell Glimmer I said that."

"Scorpia does pretty much always mess things up," she mutters, mostly under her breath, but there's a distinct lack of malice accompanying it. "Anyway. When you all tried to move the Runestone, for me everything went white, like it did when I pulled the lever, so I thought Glimmer'd destroyed Earth." She pats the ground beside her. "But it's obviously still here, so like... I don't think you have to worry about being still stuck in the portal. Besides, we we were, we'd both be in Obsidian, right? 'Cause you'd never have found the sword or... whatever. I don't really know how being the Chosen One works. I've never been that important to anyone."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
"It's... so far as I can tell nobody else remembers the inside of it either." Which is why she kind of wonders if she's just crazy and was hallucinating the whole time in a panic or something, but then again, Angela was definitely gone, so... ugh. She lifts her hand to rub her face a little. "The portal was... inside of the sword... the sword is connected to the runestone so ... I dunno maybe that's how she ended up in there... someone else might know better. I kind of wish madame Razz was around she always seemed to know what to do in wierd situations like these." She stops with her hand resting over her face, giving a soft sigh.

"If we were and it was like the first time around, yeah... I guess... and we'd both be evil... CEOs? Or something? I don't know. ...But maybe it's being more clever this time around so I don't realize and so this time around I'll /completely/ fail you guys and then the sword won't seal the portal again and then everything will /actually/ be erased and..." She pauses, stopping, taking a deep breath. "...Sorry. The portal uh. Messed me up a little. Messed you up a little while you were in it, too. You got... like... corrupted by it. Maybe that's why you don't remember anything..." She mumbles under her breath.

She pushes herself to her feet again, "You can keep the earmuffs. I don't know if they're actually that good at blocking out your level of hearing, but they make it pretty hard to hear for me when I'm wearing them, so... yeah." God she's bad at words, how does she unbad at words? Maybe she should ask Usagi for lessons or something.

...Then again, words aren't that hard, it's... trying not to let some of the words out she didn't want to escape.

Catra has posed:
"Adora," Catra heaves a great sigh, "I can assure you that even you are not dumb enough to get outsmarted by your own sword. It might be a really powerful sword, but it's still just a sword." She looks down, and turns the earmuffs over in her hands after dropping that pearl of wisdom. Apparently she can keep them.

Did Adora just give her a present?

"I..." she begins, and clamps her mouth shut. How does she accept that? Shouldn't she give Adora a present? But she has nothing on her to give. Well, except her earbuds, but it's not like Adora'd wanna use those after they've spent the last year and change getting to be on friendly terms with Catra's earwax.

"Thanks," she mumbles at last. "They actually don't... keep much out for me, I can still hear basically everything, but... if my ears get cold they'd be great."

Catra looks down at the earmuffs, brow knitting over her mismatched eyes. "Is this how normal, boring people talk? Just... y'know. Like a year and some ago we were leading armies against each other, now we're just talking about earmuffs."

Adora Rainbowfist has posed:
Adora looks at the sword-turned-bracer on her wrist and gives a soft exhale. "I guess you're right, but I don't know. That just. Was such... a thing. And then I came out into a whole new world so ... yeah." She shakes her head. Wait. Did Catra just assure her she's not an idiot??? ... Sort of???

Huh. That's weird. A compliment. Sort of.

"You're welcome. I uh. I didn't have much better to help with the explosions but I figured those plus earbuds would be... somewhat effective." She says with an awkward chuckle.

Paaaaause. "Yeah, I guess. And uh. You know, you say armies but I think you had the serious upper hand on numbers. The Princess side of things honestly doesn't have that many militarily-trained people... it was mostly just... us and a small handful of other princesses and /some/ guards and stuff but mostly we couldn't afford to move them off of defensive positions so ... honestly if you'd seriously pressed us we might have had trouble."

Ha ha ha another awkward laugh. "...Anyway. ...I should probably get back... I uh. Kind of ran off without explaining where I was going. If you don't mind going somewhere noisy, I don't think that Usagi would mind you coming to hang out with her family. It's uh. Noisy, but like... the party where you seemed mostly fine noisy, not, well, the sky exploding noisy. Seriously did they roll out tanks for that or something???" She shakes her head.

Catra has posed:
Go with Adora. Do it. Just say yes. Just say yes.

One word, it'd be that easy. And sure, maybe hanging out with Usagi and all her annoying sparkle-friends would be grating, and it'd be loud, and it'd be all sorts of things. But she could just do something fun, with...

Catra's heart is racing, and she holds her breath as she stands up and dusts herself off, still holding the earmuffs. "I... I don't know, I'd... They'd probably just assume I was there to sabotage the party or something, like the Princess Prom." She sighs. She drapes the earmuffs around her neck, and hunches her shoulders as she thrusts her hands into her pockets. After a moment, she pulls out her phone -- still the one with a crack down the middle of the screen after she tossed it to/at Adora in the Korma Chameleon -- and thumbs through it for some music, though she doesn't press 'play' yet. "I, uhm..."

Words are hard.

Just say yes. Change your mind. It's allowed.

"I should get back, I've got... I need to make sure that crrepy clown doesn't... think I'm slacking again and go pick on someone else. Even if what he did to Rashmi was basically just nothing." She finally gets around to starting the music, and unlike the dirgey, angry stuff she usually listens to, this is considerably more peaceful, from what Adora can make out, as she turns to wander off.

"...See... you again soon," she adds over her shoulder.