revivalproject | Some people have a bad day.

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Some people have a bad day. | Calibrations

WHO: Catra, OPEN
WHERE: Catra's Calibration Room
WHAT: Catra's Calibration
WHEN: 3 June - 10 June
WARNINGS: Child abuse, violence, possible She-Ra spoilers (up to end of season 4)

The room you step into is one of utilitarian design, metal walls and bunks with perfunctory mats that serves as mattresses, along with a single pillow. By it there's a crude drawing of two girls, one of which seems to be scratched out.

A small shape sits on the end of one of the lower bunks, hidden away under a thin blanket and sniffling, though she'll hiss if you approach. She holds a letter clutched tight in her fists, and that may be what has her so upset.

Meanwhile, the longer you're here, more you might begin to notice, something seems off. Part of the room seems to be fading away, being slowly devoured by whiteness. Will you avoid the impending doom or explore it?

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"Oh, between 36 and 40, actually. I think the statue barely reached twenty." Which has been a very upsetting discovery to make back then.

He gives a short tilt of his head at what Catra told him "Shadow Weaver. Well, that name is ominous enough that I'm not surprised. Even my grandmother got mad when I opened the wrong cupboards and she could be frightening enough without such a name. Just as that time I wandered off into the storage area of the supermarket we went shopping to every week because I got bored and started to rearrange their good alphabetically. They weren't as impressed as I hoped they would be."

"..." Catra pauses to run her tongue around her own teeth to try and guess at how many she has in comparison, brow furrowing. That sounds like a lot.

"It's not that strange." People around here have pretty obvious names. "What kind of goods? Like their ration bars?"

"Oh, anything I could reach and carry around. Vegetables, canned food, toiletries... Of course I didn't just put up a group of shampoos but sorted them in by the brand names on the different flasks." He smirks a little, almost sounding a little proud of himself. He certainly was when he was a kid.

"I'm actually not sure if they had ration bars... Or even protein bars?"

She blinks at him like she really doesn't understand half of what he's saying. "What's a vegetable?" she asks, and then she looks a little concerned, "If you didn't have ration bars what did you eat?"

He raises a brow "Ah- You know. Vegetables are- Food? Tomatoes, cucumber, salad - Edible plants? Aside from that, meat of course. Or fish, fruit, bread..." His expression becomes a concerned one "Are you only getting ration bars to eat?"

He's met with an entirely blank look until he mentions plants. That at least she knows a little about, though there aren't a whole lot of plants in the Fright Zone.

She blinks at him, head tilting. "Yeah? What else would we have? There's two kinds."

Now that's a terrible thing to learn - And leads to a quick decision from the Archivist.

"Guess we will have to introduce you to something more enjoyable once this is over."

She looks intrigued, ears cocking like she can't quite imagine what that would mean.

"Does that mean you're staying here?"

"Until this dream ends, certainly." Then they'll be back in the tunnels "But I won't go searching for your memories, Catra. You can tell me what you're willing to share in your own time."

"...What if I don't want to tell you anything?" she asks, giving him a skeptical look like she doesn't quite trust.

And he just shrugs in return, pushing aside that nagging sensation of needing to know regardless.

"Then you don't have to tell me anything. I just- I don't like forcing anything you might feel uncomfortable with."

"..." She doesn't seem quite sure how to take that, glancing off into the corner where the encroaching nothingness is growing.

"...Maybe you should go before something bad happens."

He casts her a concerned look, then follows her glance with his own eyes, turning his head a little.

"Honestly? I'm not sure if I can. These dreams..." He shrugs. "...do you know what that is?" He asks, pointing a single finger at the nothingness.

Edited 2020-06-16 02:12 (UTC)

She frowns, edging away from it with a guilty frown. "...Maybe," she grumbles. "Just...look at something so you can leave. Then it will stop."

"You mean one of your memories." It's a guess, followed by an odd idea.

"What happens if it reaches us? Can I walk into it?"

"Yeah," she nods encouragingly, and then her ears drop low at his next questions, "...You could," she answers evasively, "But you don't have to..."

"If it worries you, I want to figure out what it is." Jon replies and stand up, putting a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "Then we can figure out how to deal with whatever this is."

It's a promise. One he may still have to figure out how to even keep, but the Archivist does step forward to walk into that spreading nothingness.

The nothingness encompasses him and then Jon seems to reappear in some other section of the base, a imposing man with red eyes watching as a sword hangs at the center of it all, electric sparks arcing all around. There's a blonde girl bound by her wrists and gagged off to the side, pleading and straining as a grown Catra runs into the room.

"The Princesses are here-" she pants, "There's no time to waste. We need to open the portal."

The man doesn't look back. "Where's Entrapta?" he demands, "I need her."

Catra scowls, and then gives a cruel grin, thinking fast on her feet. "Who do you think let the Princesses in?"

Hordak gasps in betrayal, seething a moment before slamming his fist into the button before him, breaking the machinery. "But she-- She wouldn't," he insists, and Catra laughs, even as he rounds on her.

"Did you really think she was on our side?" His features grow from rage to shock, and Catra straightens, "Oh, you can't trust anyone, especially, a Princess." She turns to deliver a poignant glare to the bound girl. "They'll just use you to get what they want. Open the portal and let's end this."

The girl screams desperately behind her gag and Hordak approaches the switch.

Suddenly they're interrupted by the girl's friends, one of them shouting- "This way," as they burst into the room.

The girl knocks off her gag and screams for her friend, "Bow!"

"Forget about them! Pull the switch!" Catra demands, and that nothing seems to be growing at the edges again, dancing just out of reach.

She's blasted aside by purple magic, growling as she slides across the floor. Hordak fights with the intruders, and soon the room is rumbling ominously, moments away from falling apart.

There's a dangerous, almost feral look in Catra's eye as she looks to the switch, and as she approaches it the girl pleads desperately- "Catra, please don't!"

Catra turns slowly to look at her former friend a cruel smile on her face as her eyes narrow, and without a word she pulls the switch while looking her in the eye.

"Nooo!" the girl cries, the device rumbling to life, the sword throwing off light and increasing arcs of electricity, and then a blinding light swallows EVERYTHING.

For a long while there's nothing but Jon and that blinding white. There's a distorted noise and Catra joins him, not the child, but as she is the memory.

"Just leave," she growls, narrowing her eyes, "You aren't supposed to be here."

Jon observes the scene in silence, crossing his arms pensively the moment Catra moves to pull the switch. And for a long while he just stands like that within that white nothingness, until eventually he is joined by her.

He makes no move to go anywhere, only turns his head in her direction. "What kind of portal were you opening?" Of course he has questions.

She stares him down a moment, seeming unnerved by his presence.

"...A portal to another dimension," she mumbles, glancing away, "Does it really matter?"

There's a distant rumbling, and voices echo through the nothing.

"Catra, look what's happening! You're going to destroy everything!"

"I don't care. I won't let you win! I'd rather see the whole world end than let that happen!"

"Why?" He asks further, plain curiosity tinging his voice. "Were you trying to bring something in?" Or send something out.

"And who were all these people?"

"...We were trying to send a message to Horde Prime. To- to bring his armies and help us conquer Etheria once and for all, but the portal didn't work how it was supposed to-"

She grew silent then.

"They're no one. They don't matter."

The rumbling grows louder and those echoes scream out.

"Catra!!"

"You used to be friends, didn't you." It's not a question. More an observation. "And they used you."

Catra frowns, and more echoes surface from a different time.

"Ah, you know, it all makes sense now. You've always been the one holding me back. You wanted me to think I needed you. You wanted me to feel weak. Every hero needs a sidekick, right?"

"Catra, no. That's not how it was."

"The sad thing is, I've spent all this time hoping you'd come back to the Hoarde, when really, you leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. I am so much stronger than anyone ever thought...I wonder what I could have been if I'd gotten rid of you sooner."

Catra growls and swipes at the air as though she can silence the echoes, and part of her seems to fracture away into darkness, rimmed with that piercing light.

Heroes and sidekicks, huh? Curious.

Not quite as curious, however, than what happens when she tries to attack the air, causing Jon to take a step away, his expression alarmed. "Are you okay?" He asks, setting aside the words that have just filled the air around them only to upset Catra enough to strike at them.

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