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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This wasn't so bad. Being in a void is about what Tony expected of stepping into a void, so he couldn't really be too uncomfortable now that all the noise was gone and he was left in the white light. That didn't mean he was any closer to understanding it, though, so to the void he asked, "What did you do...?" They had called it a portal, but it didn't feel like much of one to Tony.

"It was supposed to be a portal. To let us contact the universe outside of Despondos, to contact Horde Prime...But it didn't work like that," Catra explained.

Out of the nothing a room constructed itself, like the bunk room, but with a larger single bed, a red banner hanging above it. Adora was asleep in the bed, and Catra perched over her, trying to wake her.

"Adora?"

Adora woke with a start, grabbing Catra who started and tried to calm her. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Adora." She grabbed her wrists firmly to still her struggling, "Heh. Since when do you sleep in?" she asked, flashing a teasing smile, and Adora looked confused.

"...Where am I? How did I get here?"

Catra frowned, looking concerned. "Ah...you're in your room? Are you okay?"

"I...I'm fine. I was just having a weird dream. There was something I needed to fix."

"Of course you dream about work," Catra teased, "There's nothing to fix, Adora. Everything's perfect."

"Yeah," Adora gave an uncertain laugh, "It was just a dream."

Catra helped pull her up with a smile. "Come on. Get up." She jumped away and looked back with a playful laugh, goading Adora to follow as she ran out the door. Adora stopped to put on her jacket, pausing to look in the mirror and as she did she frowned, and for a moment the world around them flickered and buffered, like some sort of glitch.

Tony didn't really know what to do with this, what felt like, entirely separate memory, wanting to put it on pause so they could deal with the portal thing and address the fact that 'portal' was not a device which with people established contact and that should have been their first clue. This felt like another time in these girl's lives in this military where they weren't fighting and were more friendly again, making Tony watch Adora apologetically, feeling very much like she was Catra's long-suffering Rhodes now. He shrugged it off with a frown to turn to Catra and ask, "Why didn't she want you to do that?"

It wasn't as unrelated as it might have seemed.

Catra scoffed, rolling her eyes like Tony wasn't keeping up with things. "Because if Horde Prime sent the Horde the rest of his armies then we'd conquer Etheria. And because she knew the portal wouldn't work how it was supposed to. It happened before."

The girls walked through the halls, Horde soldiers stopping and saluting as they passed, whispering among themselves about Adora, and breaking into cheers.

"...What are they all looking at?" Adora asked.

"You," Catra supplied as though it were obvious. "The Invasion of Thaymor went perfectly. You're the hero of the hour."

"Thaymor?"

The memory fractured again, flickering and jumping like a skipping record.

"Oh. Yeah. I defeated the rebel insurgents at Thaymor. Yeah." Adora laughed, as though she just now remembered, "I did that."

"Oh please. You couldn't have done it without me," Catra teased, looping an arm over Adora's shoulder and pulling her close.

"Riiiiight. What would I ever do without you?" She shoved her playful, and Catra fell into another soldier who rounded angrily on her.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, twerp!" he threatened, before catching sight of the stern looking Adora and backing down.

"Force Captain! I'm sorry. I didn't know you were- I'm so sorry-"

"You'd better be. Dismissed," Adora instructed, her and Catra's arms crossed in a united front as he bowed and backed away.

Once he was gone they burst out laughing. "Oh, Force Captain, don't hurt me!~" Catra mocked, putting on a dramatic reenactment. "Oh. Too good."

"Where are we going again?" Adora asked.

"To the locker room. There's something I wanna show you," Catra insisted, leading them down the hall.

"Then why are we going the long way around? Let's take the side door right-"

She turned to point, but the door that had been there a moment ago was gone.

"What? It's always been this way. Are you sure you're okay?"

"...Yeah. I'm okay," Adora tried to dismiss, and Catra hurried over to examine her.

"Do you have a concussion or something? I know you get hit on the head a lot. But I figured your dumb little hair poof would cushion the blow."

Tony was still not following. It didn't look like it could have gone that bad to him, they were still a strong army and doing...whatever it was the Horde did. What Tony did say was, "Your memory is a little corrupted," not sure which parts of these glitches he was supposed to be following, and if the void had something to do with Catra's brain not working right like he had suspected.

"It's the portal. This isn't real," Catra mumbled, watching as the girls rough housed before falling into the locker room where they were greeted with a chorus of 'surprise!'

"What is this?" Adora asked, Kyle holding out a plate with few grey blocks mushed together, a drawing of Adora scratched into the top like it was some kind of cake. "Are those ration bars?"

"We wouldn't have been able to defeat the rebels at Thaymor without you," Lonnie proclaimed, "Plus, you were the one who convinced Shadow Weaver into letting us come. So, we all pitched in, took Kyle's ration bars for a week and made this."

"I'm hungry, but celebrating your victory is worth it," Kyle agreed.

"You guuuys," Adora moved to hug them, "You even got the gray kind! It's way better than the brown kind."

"Hey, it was Catra's idea," Lonnie said.

"Oh yeah?" Adora rounded on Catra with a smirk.

"Eh, whatever. Don't make a big deal about it," Catra dismissed with a grin.

"Wow. I can't believe you like me," Adora teased, grabbing Catra in a headlock, and giving her a noogie. "That is so embarrassing."

"Owww. Stop it. Get off. This is not because I like you," she countered, squirming free and pouncing on Adora. The fall bumped Kyle who dropped the makeshift cake, and the cadets broke out into laughter, admonishing Kyle and tossing bits of ration bar at each other.

"Adora-" The festivities were interrupted by the appearance of Shadow Weaver, "Get off the floor. You are the Force Captain who sacked Thaymor."

The girls sheepishly got to their feet, looking as apprehensive as they always did in the memories that involved her.

"Sorry, Shadow Weaver," Adora recited.

"And you-" She gestured to Catra, who wilted in apprehension, but then, what looked to be violent gesture turned kind, gently wiping some of the mess from Catra's cheek. The girl smiled in a way the memories suggested she never had around her guardian. "Look at you. You're a mess. Go get yourself cleaned up," Shadow Weaver purred, using that same sweet voice she used with Adora, petting over Catra's hair and cheek in a motherly way before gripping her shoulder gently. "You are no longer children. I have high hopes for you both. Do not waste your time on such foolish games."

Of course it wasn't real, none of this was real, though Catra's brain in general so far had a uniquely unreal quality to it that made Tony suspect she meant the portal gave her the brain damage, and now they were stuck in whatever fragmented dementia reality that left her with. That would explain why everyone was suddenly being so nice to her at once, instead of wicked at every turn. This theory didn't leave Tony confident which version of events were the reality, or even if it held any water--an abusive authority figure running hot and cold was not a far-fetched warping of reality. "They all leave you," Tony said, looking skeptically to Catra as all of these friends surrounded her enthusiastically.

There was a flash like lightening, where the nothing seemed to erupt forward with a frightening and destructive force and then it was gone again, those in the memory seeming not to notice at all, though the Catra beside Tony flinched back, shooting him a glare.

Abruptly they seemed to skip forward.

Catra was pulling a panicking Adora along.

"Come on. Let's get you outside. You need some air."

"No, Catra, I don't need-" Adora argued, and then a flash and the girls were seating high outside, overlooking the Fright Zone. "-Air." Adora looked around in a panic while Catra looked confused. "How did we get here?"

"...We climbed up like we always do. Don't you remember?"

"I don't know what's happening to me. It's like I'm losing my mind."

"You just need to relax," Catra assured, looking skyward with a small smile.

"...Yeah. Yeah you're probably right. I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"Of course I'm right. Everything's perfect. Soon, the two of us are gonna be ruling Etheria together, just like we always planned."

Adora paused. "...Is that what you really want? To rule the world?"

Catra seemed taken aback by the question, faltering for a moment. "I mean- yeah, obviously. ...Isn't that what you want too?" she sounded wary of the answer she'd get.

"...I dunno."

"Don't flake out on me now. This is what we always wanted. Everything will be perfect as long as we stay together."

The sky flashed with more of those ominous strikes of nothing, and Adora looked afraid.
"What if we don't stay together? What if it all goes wrong?" The flashes grew more frequent, more violent. "Why can't you see that?" Adora demanded, looking out at the sky.

"Adora-" Catra reached forward to grab Adora's hand, "Stay with me, okay?" she pleaded.

That was all somewhat clearer, making Tony return Catra's glare then snap his fingers as though she could fix this fresh nonsense she was inflicting on her friend right now. "I'm going to guess no one's told you yet that you have a real mean streak," he said, and pointed to that face Adora was making, enough to make him want to put an end to this farce and he didn't even know the girl. But maybe that was his own personality deficit. "You can't force people to be around you after being a total asshole to them and throwing them into pits. That shit takes time to process."

"I'm not doing this," Catra growled, gesturing to the world around them and the flashes which seemed to now be speeding through time, day turning to night and back again. The girls flashed to the ground, having some conversation with their fellow cadets that seemed to be setting Adora off, still the only one who could see what was happening.

"I know this is wrong. Can't you see it? My memories don't match, we're jumping around. Things are disappearing. It's like time and space aren't working right and I-- Mara. Portal. I think- I think I remember. None of this is right. We're not supposed to be here."

"Adora. Everything's okay-" Catra tried to insist but she was pushed off by Adora. "Stop saying that. This isn't right. Everyone keeps telling me everything is perfect but it's not.

Another flash and everything jumped forward again. Adora tugged Catra away from a group of people and into a closet.

"Hey!" Catra squeaked, "You've officially lost it, haven't you?"
"Listen. We have to go. Now," Adora demanded. She looked terrified, "Scorpia, Lonnie, Kyle, Rogelio, they're all gone!"

"What are you talking about?? Who's gone?"

"They're gone. There's nothing left. And we'll be next if we don't get out of here right now."

Catra sighed, and moved away, arms folding to hold herself. "You're not making any sense. Everything's fine, okay? It's-"

"Don't say it's perfect! I know it's not perfect and so do you-" Adora insisted.

Catra frowned, and then, a beat later she drew in a hushed breath, eyes growing wide in realization. There was another series of flashes, and her eyes darted about in a frightened manner before she insisted- "...You've gone crazy. I'm not going anywhere." She crossed her arms defiantly.

"Catra-" Adora growled, looking about the closet. There was a box of stun batons, and with a determined look she grabbed one, powering it up.

"What are you-!?" Catra managed, shrieking as Adora caught her with it, before collapsing into her arms.

Scooping her up Adora ran, and behind her that nothing grew, consuming everything in its path as it cased after them.

"Uh-huh," Tony muttered, mouth open to touch his tongue to his teeth as they watched what was only Catra's fantasy play out, nothing to do with her, just coincidence that she and Adora were stumbling through a reality that Catra wanted to see. He didn't chase them with the nothing as the ran, hands tucked in his pockets and letting it overtake him as he lagged behind, watching their retreating backs before glancing back to Catra, eyebrows raised. "Wonder what that means," he muttered, "Must be some really Freudian shit happening there, couldn't imagine, not my area."

"I'm not doing it," Catra repeated with a hiss, "It made what people wanted and then it fell apart. This is what the portal does. This is why she tried to stop it."

Again, Tony went, "Uh-huh," not sure how Catra could go on in so much denial when the events kept on playing out in front of her, too, but Tony had some serious blinders on when he was a teenager, too. Maybe that one wasn't a personal problem, for once, and he watched Catra more carefully then, hoping it wouldn't take getting her heart shredded to lose them. "So you stopped being an asshole to her," he suggested, letting his head loll like he absolutely didn't believe that was the outcome of this revelation, that Catra could have seen what she perceived as exactly what she wanted and made any course correction to make it happen.

She huffed, but this world of memories didn't seem content with Tony's refusal to follow along, and the world shifting to catch up with the girls. They were in a wood, the world behind them crumbling away, and the skiff they'd sped away on crashed. They each rushed for the stun baton, and Adora caught Catra in a headlock to keep her from getting to it.

"Catra, you can't. We need to get as far from the Fright Zone as possible or we'll be completely erased along with everything else," she pleaded as Catra strained against her.

"You think you can convince me by kidnapping me?? What is wrong with you?" Catra countered, flipping Adora off of her.

Before she could reach the baton Adora kicked it away. "I won't leave you behind again."

"...Why can't you just stay? We have everything we ever wanted."

"It's not real, Catra," Adora insisted, despite the hurt look on Catra's face, "As much as I wish that things could be simple the way they used to be, there's no going back." She took Catra's shoulders, trying to make her look at her, but Catra shouted and slapped her hand away, running from Adora.

She didn't get far before Adora tackled her, and the two faced off again, each panting.

"Why did you do it?" Adora accused.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Catra denied. The sky lit up, the forest crumbling away with that brilliant light.

"There's no time. We have to go." Adora insisted.

Catra shook her head, holding herself, eyes squeezed shut tight.

"I promise. Everything will be okay if we just stay together," Adora continued. "Help me fix this. Please. This can't be what you wanted."

"Don't you get it?" Catra retorted suddenly, rounding on her, "I am never going to go with you."

She gave a crazed laugh and pointed at Adora.

"You always have to go and ruin it, don't you?" She lunged at her, swiping and yelling, while Adora dodged in shock before pushing her away.

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

"I don't. care," Catra insisted, voice raw, "I won't let you win. I'd rather see the whole world end than let that happen."

The ground fell away beside them, and rather than flee, Catra tried to grab hold of Adora to ensure she couldn't.

"Catra no!"

The ground fell away, and Catra fell with it, clinging to what remained of the rock below.

"Catra!" Adora screamed, crawling back to avoid falling after her and looking down at Catra, hanging in that same precarious grip that Adora once had. Catra looked up at her, and then, the rock crumbled away dropping her into the light.

"Oh, wow, you didn't, what a surprise," Tony muttered, stroking his chin as Catra took this chance to shout her friend down in the memory, pointedly not looking at the Catra on this journey with him. It didn't take Adora dying, it didn't take being directly confronted with what Catra wanted most, maybe it would just take a nice chat over a cup of tea for her to figure it out. As the memory Catra fell, Tony just leaned slightly over to watch her with a pout, and said, "Honestly, it's like, dramatic irony or something at this point, it has to be. This is just a dream you had, this is what you wanted?"

"I told you I didn't want you in here," she growled, increasing frustrated as Tony continued to insist this whole thing was a construct. It might have been her fault, but it wasn't controlled by her. She just pulled the switch. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Out of the nothing Catra crawled and climbed her way back up. Fractured and broken, half consumed with black, and rimmed with that blinding white. She looked half feral, and lunged abruptly Adora appearing just in time to be tackled.

Catra pinned her, straddling her with a wild look in her eye.

"Catra, stop. You have to-" the girl plead, struggling against Catra.

"It's always the same with you, Adora. 'I have to do this. Oh we have to do that'. Let's be honest-" She stood, pulling Adora up by her ponytail, "All of this is your fault," she growled, tossing her away. "If you hadn't gotten captured, your sword wouldn't have opened the portal." She hauled her up again and hurled her back. Adora didn't fight back as Catra kicked out her knee, knocking her back down and dragging her along. "If you hadn't gotten the sword and been the world's worst She-Ra, none of this, would have happened."

She shoved her back and Adora went tumbling again with a shout. Soon after Catra retrieved her again, gripping her by the hair. "Admit it, Adora-" she growled, "The world would still be standing if you had never come through that portal in the first place." She pushed her away again.

"You made me this," she insisted, chasing after her, kicking her down and stepping on her back, "You took everything from me." Again she hauled her up and tossed her away.

"You broke the world, and it is all. your . fault."

Adora looked briefly broken, caught up in these accusations despite the truth. But then, determination set in, brow creased at last.

"No, it's not," she countered firmly, shoving Catra back, "I didn't make you pull the switch." Catra tried to lunge at her again, but Adora caught her by the wrist, pulling her closer. "I didn't make you do anything." She flipped Catra and tossed her away, where she half righted herself and glared from the floor.

"I didn't break the world," Adora continued, "But I am going to fix it. And you? You made your choice."

Catra snarled and moved to lunge again.

"Now live with it!" Adora cried, punching her hard, and abruptly shattering the white that surrounds them.

They were back in the portal room, everyone looking confused, stretched up on the floor from the explosion. Catra rubbed at her cheek, but had only a moment to wonder before the portal started up drawing scattered debris towards it. And then- it stopped. Everything hovered in mid air and Catra gave a frightened gasp.

The portal emitted a blinding light, and from the other side stepped She-Ra, sword drawn and face determined. She was a good 7 feet tall, but the features were unmistakably Adora.

She turned and sliced through the portal with a shout, and the device fell with a crash as the room rumbled around them, about to collapse.

Catra ran to Hordak, pulling at his arm as he started at the destruction. "We have to go. Now."

He hesitated a moment before running on ahead. Catra paused to look back, met with a hard look from She-Ra who turned to face her fully, eyes narrowed with promise.

Catra's own eyes widened before stepping back fearfully, slipping out of the room and at last the memory ended.

As hard as Tony was being on her, and as much as an undeniable asshole she was being to her friend, that punch that broke the whole world made Tony flinch enough to step back and offer a hand on Catra's shoulder. It didn't last long, and Tony was stepping away as they were finally released from that tumultuous memory, cautiously at first because he was sure this was just another dramatic jump, then loping back toward the bunk where they had started, to collapse and moan, "That was exhausting. Aren't you exhausted?" No one else had this much that they seemed to want to show him, the memories kept coming out of Catra in suffocating waves.

"..." She half flinched from the touch, but allowed it with an uncertain expression, her tail swelling and swaying warily.

She breathed out a sigh when they finally returned to the start, and gave Tony a pointed look at his question. Of course she was exhausted. Too exhausted to even offer a snappy line. She crossed to the door, palming a button and they slid open at last.

"Well you don't have to stick around any longer," she muttered, moving back to the bunks, shrinking down again to that child she'd been when he entered and climbing up onto the top bunk.

A moment later, Tony was peeking over the edge of the bunk hands on the mattress and eyebrows raised curiously. Eventually, he asked, "Did you ever apologize?" Even if Catra really didn't think she was in the wrong in any of that, when she clearly was and Tony didn't know how she justified it anymore, especially after the way that woman treated her--if Tony knew he was anything like his dad to his friends or especially any of the kids, he'd be curled up in his bed resenting himself, too, he supposed. But even if Catra was committed to that denial, she had to see how it was prudent to apologize to the Amazon lady with the big sword.

"..." Catra lowered her ears and tried to look anywhere but at Tony.

"I won't say sorry. Ever," she muttered. It sounded like a phrase she'd repeated a lot. Long enough that going back on it now was difficult. However sorry she might feel, it was reflex now to lash out. To deny and to fight rather than accept her own fault in any of this, however much it was eating away at her.

"You don't have to mean it," Tony suggested, what could be seen of his head tilting slightly as he watched Catra carefully, not sure how she would take his meaning. There were some cases where he meant that eventually she would mean it if she said it enough, and some cases where it was just the fastest way out of a tight situation that wasn't worth conserving one's pride over. Pride had gotten him into enough trouble, he could at least pass on that hard earned wisdom.

She gave him a look, not sure how she felt about that suggestion. "...It's too late. And she's not here anyway. There's no point."

There must have been plenty of times in Catra's life that her friend wasn't around, this one shouldn't have felt that much different. Being in the bunker was certainly demoralizing, but they shouldn't have been resigned to spending the rest of their lives down there yet. "I'm going to get us home," Tony promised with a shrug. "You'll tell her then. Tell her how you went to another planet and realized how big the universe was." He finally slipped away from the bunk then, heading for the open door with his shoulders stretching back, more than ready to move on from this abusive mess.

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Some people have a bad day. | Calibrations

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