Revenge Solves Everything (closed)

[wheyoftheadept]

Who: Saturday and Catra
What: Video games!
Where: A lounge on the rig
When: Between the sheetcake party and the next big event
Warnings/Notes: Spoilers for an older video game? Probably they will talk about their shitty childhoods at some point

Saturday does not recognize any of the recreational equipment in the weird little boxy lounges scattered across the dorm level, but that’s not a problem because neither does Catra.

“Oh, this sounds neat,” Saturday says, reading the back of a box. “You are the once-trusted bodyguard of the beloved Empress. Framed for her murder, you become an infamous assassin, known only by a disturbing mask, blah blah blah - oooh, a city besieged by plague and ruled by an oppressive government armed with neo-industrial technologies. What do you think?”

She shows the box to Catra. It’s very goth, with a dude in a long coat and a hood with a fairly cool skull mask on the front.

“What do you think? It says Playstation on the thing, and one of the boxes under the tv says the same. Probably it’ll work.”

Comments

[heterochrocatic]

"Assassins? Plagues?" Catra tilts her head to peer at the box along with Saturday. She looks uncertain for a moment, then breaks into a grin.

"Sure, sounds cool. Gimme." She takes the box without waiting and heads over the the one that (presumably) matches and begins trying to work it all out. Seems straight forward, though. Monitor on, disk in, so on and so forth...

"This was a good idea."

[wheyoftheadept]

"All my ideas are good," Saturday says back, briefly assuming a haughty mien. "I'm a genius at leisure."

She hops over the back of the couch and watches Catra set up. It's a lot more complicated then when Maggie would do this back home - she just pressed a couple buttons and got out the controllers. There's like, wires and stuff with this one. And the picture quality - when they get it going - leaves a lot to be desired.

"Okay," Saturday says, as the opening narration starts. "I am not actually sure this technology will let me use it, so - you should control the thing, and I will add valuable and enlightening commentary to the experience."

[heterochrocatic]

"We didn't really have anything like this," Catra admitted. "Like we had sims and stuff but none of it was supposed to be for fun." She cradles the controller in her hands and leans back into the couch. At the main menu, she takes a moment to move the selector to 'New Game' as she works out which buttons do what.

"Okay here we goooo. We're on a boat?" Catra says skeptically. "Are we that guy, Corvo or whatever?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Yeah, I think so. We're playing as him, and we're gonna like, go through the story for him. I guess he got sent away to look for a cure for the plague? Weird errand for a bodyguard, but okay."

Saturday exclaims when the little girl in white comes running up. "She's so cute! Is that his kid or something?"

[heterochrocatic]

"I think she's the Empress' kid." She glances sidelong at Saturday.

"Why wouldn't she call him 'dad' if she was his kid?" She continues as she begins to maneuver her way through the brief tutorial, hiding from the girl and so forth.

"Oh here we go. Finally seeing the Empress. Why don't we play as her?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"I think she dies, the back of the box says he gets framed for it?" Saturday shrugs. "She wanted to play hide and seek, if he's not her dad, he's close enough. I didn't call my pops that for ages, so, you know."

Then the assassination sequence starts, and Saturday almost grabs Catra

"Look out, look out!"

[heterochrocatic]

Catra squeaks as she's grabbed onto but she's too engrossed in what's playing out on the screen to really get angry with Saturday. She mashes frantically at the buttons, but to no avail.

"I can't do anything!" She slumps back. "Ugh. That's slimy. We're getting framed!" There's a flick of an ear and a twitch of a tailtip. Might be pushing a sore spot with that.

"Oof. Torture...?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Yeah, they want him to confess." Saturday is enraptured. "I guess they're worried it won't stick without one? I think that guy in the red coat is the ringleader..."

The guard at the entrance to the cell put down a loaf of bread. You should eat, Corvo. This meal comes from a friend.

"I guess we gotta break out now?"

[heterochrocatic]

Catra proceeds to spend at least a minute running around the cell trying to interact with everything except the bread before she finally clicks on it.

"Looks like... Oh okay, keys hidden in bread. Yeah I've used one like that before. That's neat." She plays cautiously at first, and tries not to be too violent, preferring to sneak past or knock out the guards. It does mean she plays at a rather slow pace, though.

"This prison is miserable and I've seen some miserable places...". She snorts.

"Not as bad as the rig, though."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday encourages this, suggesting things like "stand on that toilet and jump at the ceiling, maybe there's a hatch?" and "can you fit between the bars? What about on the window?" and "try grabbing the bars! maybe you can break them!"

When the bread doesn't lead to a trap, she's almost surprised. "Dude, he sounded so ominous, I thought that was like, the dumb way to start and there was a secret method."

It's fun to watch Catra play. She plays like Saturday would, sneaking and eliminating.

"It does kinda look like a shithole, huh? At least he can escape. They probably don't have a taser in his gut."

[heterochrocatic]

The suggestions, sadly, do not offer much help. But through some trial and error Catra manages to sneak her way through the prison and make good her escape, only have to replay a couple of sections when her tactics don't work out.

"Yeah. Don't remind me," Catra says in a grumpy voice. "This place is just the worst. Though it's not like I'd be going anywhere if I was back home either."

[wheyoftheadept]

"I wish I had a real big bomb," Saturday says wistfully. "Ka-splode, done."

She stretches one leg out, propping it up on a table. "Yeah, you were saying something about being in a cell with a, what, a princess glitter or something?"

[heterochrocatic]

"Glimmer. Yeah. Pretty sure it's temporary though," Catra says as she speaks her way through the sewers.

"But even if I wasn't being locked up I'd have nowhere to go. Not like I can just teleport myself back to Etheria without anyone noticing." She sighs, Corvo stops moving.

"I couldn't leave her there, though. Horde Prime is like. Hordak times a thousand. A million."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Good for you." Saturday takes her eyes off the screen, notes Catra's expression, and says nothing about it. "Illegitimum non carborundum. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Horde Prime is the guy who sent Hordak to begin with, right? Set off this whole chain of events?"

[heterochrocatic]

"Kinda. Hordak didn't intend to get stuck here. Plus he was sick. Defective, basically. Horde Prime just brainjacked him as soon as we got zapped aboard his ship.". She resumes playing the game, trying to work out a patrol pattern as she waits.

"So yeah. It's like being stuck here. Except I guess here I'm not completely screwed. Still hate it. Jorgmund are control freaks but they're real bad it.

[wheyoftheadept]

Catra's story just gets better and better. Saturday frowns, knowing Catra can't see, and thinks about this for a while.

"Can you swim in that little channel? Maybe the guards won't see you if you're underwater," she says, meaning the waterway under the grated floor the guards are walking on. It looks person-sized.

"Is Glitter a friend of yours, then? Uh, Glimmer."

[heterochrocatic]

"Oh, yeah..." Catra turns to follow Saturday's advice, then grimaces at Saturday's next question. Ugh.

"No. She's one of Adora's new friends. We were just together right when Horde Prime showed up and we were in the same place as Hordak so I think we just got picked up by chance."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Huh. Well, that's an opportunity. Or was. Both of you stuck in the hands of a common enemy..."

She leaves off the part about how that kinda sounds like what is happening right now. Catra can figure that out herself.

[heterochrocatic]

"Some opportunity. Stuck in space with a princess and a conquering warlord. Just what I needed..." Catra muttered as she continued her rampage of sneaky violence through the musty sewers of Dunwall.

"It's miserable. This whole thing. Being stuck in this stupid rig. It's like being in the Horde except this time they pretend to care about you."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Okay, so what the hell is an Overseer?" Saturday says to the screen. "Are they like... religion cops? This city sucks."

"And yeah." She switches gears. "Welcome to corps. You seen the 'relaxation wing' yet? Creep-y."

[heterochrocatic]

"Oh yeah, it sucks. Creepy as hell. At least Hordak and Shadow Weaver never acted like they were your friends." Well, Shadow Weaver did. When she wanted to betray you and escape.

"The reading hammock things are cool, though. I caught a nap in one when I was on cleaning duty in there the other day. So good." She laughs, pleased at the thought of getting one over on Jorgmund.

"Who knows what that guy is. He's creepy. This city definitely sucks. Worse than the Fright Zone maybe."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Really? I checked the place out but I didn't look that far. I'll see about catching a nap in there." She'd been looking for hidey-holes and future caches, and quickly concluded that even if there were good places there, they weren't worth the price. "I got sent to c-suite once, they have it so nice up there. Total bullshit."

"Watch out, I think that dog can smell you," she adds, about the game.

[heterochrocatic]

"Of course they have it nice up there. We're just the little soldiers they push around and make do all the work while they stay nice and cozy. Nothing new about that," Catra said disdainfully. She's quiet again for a long, long moment as she does her best to maneuver around the dog. It's tricky!

"Feels like that's my whole stupid life in a nutshell. Someone bigger and scarier telling me what to do all the time."

[wheyoftheadept]

"That's the world in a nutshell." Saturday leans back. "There's always a bigger bastard out there, either gunning for you or seeing you as someone in the way."

Saturday leans back. "'Swhy you get yourself a crew and you hang together, thick or thin. Safety in numbers, someone to watch your back."

[heterochrocatic]

"Eh. I'm alone now. I don't have a crew. And even before..." Well, it was just Adora. Catra isn't sure she wants to dig into that again, though and trails off.

"I don't need anyone. I'll be fine. Look out for number one." The same hollow lies she had told herself during her fight with Adora. She had to lean on something, though. Otherwise she might just collapse.