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]

"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.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Don't give yourself too much credit. I'd run with you any day." Saturday means it, too. Catra is young, but she's got grit and drive, or she wouldn't be alive. Rough around the edges, but she can handle tech and handle herself in a fight, and there's many a runner that started with less.

"An' that's a wise philosophy if you can do it without burning too many bridges."

[heterochrocatic]

"Pff. You like me now," Catra says. Meaning that Saturday has yet to let herself be pushed away by Catra's unceasing efforts to drive off emotional vulnerability.

"I burned pretty much every bridge I had," Catra admits frankly as the game started into another cutscene. Time to meet Corvo's helpers, it seems.

"I had this one friend--" Friend. Sure. "--or she wanted to be my friend. I wouldn't let her in. So she left me too. For Adora."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Oh, tough gal," Saturday teases. "You think you're hard, you shoulda met Kell Indril. She'd break you like a rock wall does a wave."

She watches Corvo ride with the boat man for a while. The admiral guy is immediately too nice to be trustworthy.

"They're awfully eager to help," she mutters, then pays attention to Catra. "Well - you can rebuild them. Gotta eat some crow and take your time, but you can get people back. Or build new bridges."

[heterochrocatic]

"Who the hell is Kell Indril? I'll fight her. Bet I win." She sticks her tongue out at Saturday without making eye contact.

"These guys are shady. No one is that happy to help you. Ever." Catra opines.

"And yeah, I don't think that's happening..."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Troll lady I met on a job. About ten feet tall, muscles you could build a fucking house on, and sneaky as hell even with her size. She'd pick you up in one hand and toss you over the fence before you knew she was there."

"Okay, this Piero guy is very creepy," Saturday nods, convinced. "I don't like him. Anyway, you seemed to be doing all right at the party, even with the friction."

[heterochrocatic]

"Whatever. I fought Hordak, I fought Adora. I could fight her." Catra seems unshaken by the revelation that this woman is twice her size in a quite literal sense.

"Yeah, he's obviously up to nothing good. How do you end up trusting someone like that? Ugh." Never mind that she trusted someone just as slimy. That's not important right now.

"I guess. Adora's different though."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday just shakes her head. Catra could not fight Kell, but also, Kell wouldn't fight Catra. Well, not unless Catra really pushed it. The big troll woman was an angry, bitter bitch, but she'd had the strongest set of ethics Saturday'd ever met.

"She seemed to really miss you," is what she says instead, meaning Adora.

[heterochrocatic]

"Yeah, well, what is she going to do? Her new friends all hate me. What is she going to do? Leave behind being a fancy frilly princess and live in the Crimson Wastes with me or something? Just give up all her specialness? Sure. She doesn't even know if she wants to be my friend again." Catra scoffs, bitterness seeping into her voice.

"Not gonna happen."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Oh fiddle-dee-dee," Saturday says. "Don't go borrowing trouble, Cats. A lot can happen between now and the future, an' didn't you just say there's a much bigger threat than little old you on the horizon?"

She is distracted from what she's saying by Corvo waking up in the Void. "Dude, the fuck is this game?"

Little too close to home, there.

[heterochrocatic]

"Just because Horde Prime is around doesn't mean they stop hating me for the stuff I did." The awful things she did. The people she hurt. Her grip on the controller gets tighter and tighter. Almost white knuckled.

"Wait, what?" This is freaky. Really freaky.

"This is freakin' weird."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Did we just get superpowers from Satan?" Saturday stares at the screen as Catra moves through the introduction to the Outsider's gift. "That's actually kinda cool..."

"An' they might hate you," she says, switching gears, "but they're also gonna need you. You know the Horde; you know it in a way Adora doesn't, because she left. And most importantly, you're Glimmer's best chance of getting out alive. Helping someone when they need it against a much bigger threat goes a long way to wiping out debt. I never thought I'd forgive Solomon ever, but I did."

[heterochrocatic]

"He said his name was the Outsider, not Satan. Were you listening?" Catra asks, looking askance at Saturday as she speaks. Catra's lips purse for a moment.

"...I guess. Maybe." She slouches back against the couch, looking sullen and unhappy. "I did some bad stuff."