2862/Your Own Cat Tree

Your Own Cat Tree
Date of Scene:	03 December 2025
Location:	Catra's Apartment
Synopsis:	Catra moves in! Well, Mamoru helps her figure out which apartment to pick, and he gets her set up... after Anko *betraaaays* her. No honor among cats. Sometimes.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Catra

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
They kept missing each other, but finally--! Mamoru has caught Catra--

Okay, no, he just asked Anko to find Catra, instead of texting her, and the size-changing talking calico cat absolutely went to find Catra using magical cat highways and shadow roads, then informed her, "Mamorrrrru told Anko therrre would be salmon if Catrrrrra comes to the cafe." And then she briefly groomed her face. "You will come."

That was probably twenty minutes ago. Now? Mamoru's actually waiting outside the cafe in a pom-pom beanie and his leather jacket and black jeans and all, and he's holding something in white paper, and Anko is waiting patiently next to him.

Catra has posed:
Come? When called -- no, summoned?

What does he think she is, some kind of... DOG?! Whistle loud enough and promise treats and she'll show up?

PFFFFFFFFFFFFT.

For a solid thirteen minutes Catra sits where she was when Anko found her, in the makeshift throne she built in the half-burned and abandoned dojo that she's claimed as her own personal throne room (for unknown reasons because having some dumb rock does NOT make her a princess), arms crossed with a dour look on her face. But there is just one problem. One nagging, irritating, difficult problem.

She's curious and she basically just wants to know what Mamoru wants.

So at precisely the twenty-three minute mark a stealth black Honda Rebel can be heard howling its way up the road well in excess of the speed limit shortly before it is visible, and it almost lifts the rear tire off the ground as its rider brakes as hard as one possibly could, laying down a strip of rubber behind it to come to a halt in front of Mamoru, before Catra boots the kickstand and dismounts.

"Hey."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yo," Mamoru returns cheerfully, stamping his feet against the cold.

"Salmon," Anko reminds him, looking up and poofing up like she's drawn by Miyazaki.

Mamoru leans down and holds the white-paper-wrapped parcel out to the currently-a-Maine-Coon monster cat. Anko delicately takes it in her mouth and trots off with it. "I had to bribe her to go find you. I told her she could have salmon only if you actually showed up-- what did she tell you?" he asks, grinning. "And do you want to park that on the street, or in the garage, since you're gonna actually move in, right? Or did you not finish picking an apartment yet?"

Catra has posed:
Catra's eyes narrow. Her left ear flicks. She tilts her head to glare in the direction Anko went.

"She told me 'there would be salmon' if I came to the cafe. She did not specify who would be receiving the salmon." Catra wrinkles her nose. "Clearly I should have recognized her as a rival and not a friend. Cats do not work the same way as humans. ...Obviously my time away from the Horde has made me soft. I will have to work on that."

And then Catra just kind of stands there awkwardly. Curiosity has been satisfied, now she knows what's going on and to precisely what degree she can (or cannot) trust the little mercenary moggy. Not that she wouldn't have done the same.

As for the other question, "I, uhh, didn't... really get a chance to look," she admits. "Maybe I thought it was too good to be true. I'm not super used to how things work for... y'know. The good guys."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Oh, uhh. Well, I mean," says Mamoru a little awkwardly, "there are a bunch of us with more money than is good for us so it's good to share it around, you know? I don't know if it's a how good guys work thing or if it's just common decency plus ridiculous resources."

A beat, and he grimaces. "I mean, okay, it's common decency for people who are high enough in their hierarchy of needs to--" The high school senior shakes his head and the bobble on his hat, well, bobbles. "Okay, your sashimi's inside, though. Do you want to be on the same or a different floor as Entrapta? She's on the ground floor and has lab space that goes up two floors from there... I'm on the top floor, and then there are a bunch of people on the second to top floor, including Inai-sensei and Kazuo-kun's mother."

He's getting cold, so he shuffles a little, then moves over to punch in the door code to the residential part of the building (which he shows Catra), and he points out the security cameras along the way. It's much warmer in the little lobby, so Mamoru takes off his hat, and his hair's wild. "I have a map of the building with all the security cameras marked off for you. There aren't any in any of the apartments, and the feed isn't connected to the internet. It's all CCTV that goes directly to Kazuo's server room in an effort to counteract my recklessness with paranoia."

The boy grins, bouncing on his heels. "So: what floor, if ground floor you obviously don't get a balcony."

Catra has posed:
"Different." That is Catra's immediate interjection when Mamoru asks if she'd like to be on the same floor as Entrapta or not.

"For a variety of reasons, including: She's insane. I banished her to Beast Island once though she doesn't seem to remember which is good. Also she's insane."

Catra follows Mamoru in because -- let's be real -- it is cold. And nobody needs to be cold, and besides, Sashimi is inside, and she politely endures his stumbling attempts to explain himself. "It's okay, I think I get it," she says at last, "You're like the Horde except nice. So like. Not like the Horde at all, really. Also the food's better. Not that that's a particularly high bar -- I can still taste the Grey Kind if I stop and think about it."

Yech.

The feline thrusts her hands in her pockets, and studies the building map and all the marked security cameras; and it's not a casual glance, she's looking at it with a quiet intensity. is she memorizing it? Likely. Working out how to defeat the security cameras? That's... possible.

"Honestly, the higher up the better. I'll make sure not to leave claw marks on the outside unless I have to get down in a hurry because of an emergency, like if the Kid is in danger on the ground floor and you and Usagi are away. Or even if you aren't honestly."

Catra pauses, and kind of.. stares for a moment. Is her brain locked up? Maybe? There is something she's supposed to say here.

"And... Thanks."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"High up then!" Mamoru laughs, and they head for the elevator after he ducks a hand inside a minifridge behind the unused front desk and takes out a package; Mamoru hits the sixth floor button. "Would you rather be further from people, so you can come and go with a much lower chance of running into other building residents, or closer to people? And do you want one bedroom or two? Most of the apartments have one or two bedrooms, a kitchen, a big room, and a balcony. And a bathroom-laundry room."

Ding. It's not a long ride. "There's a common space on every floor, too-- going up, they're all above the lobby? I think? Usagi likes them." He huffs out a little breath. "And I guess Entrapta's insane, but we're all a little nuts, aren't we? I mean look at what we do at night instead of like, sleeping. Or studying. Or partying."

He starts to fidget when Catra stares, and then he blinks. "Oh," he says awkwardly, then laughs, and he just relaxes. "I grew up with nothing, with no memory and no family except my sworn brother-- Riventon. I wasn't a child soldier as young as you -- not until I was thirteen. And then it was Obsidian for me, not the Horde. Main difference is that when I escaped Obsidian, I walked into an inheritance from the parents I don't remember-- it still doesn't feel real. So, you're welcome, from one fucked up orphan who used to be evil to another, and like. Don't worry about it."

Catra has posed:
"Yeah I tried to blow up my homeworld once," Catra agrees, entirely nonchallant. It is entirely unclear if she's joking or not.

"I..." There are a lot of options. "Further from people is probably better. I can... hear people. My hearing is a lot more sensitive than the human range which is why I have listen to music from my phone with the volume turned up really high a lot of the time, it's too much and I can't stand it." She shrugs, "Plus I imagine people don't want someone accidentally overhearing them singing in the shower through the wall. Trust me, I don't want to hear them either. ...I had... not idea that was a thing."

It's a thing.

How many bedrooms? "Uhh... I mean there's just me, and..." And you date someone and there's someone else you mgiht be pining to patch things up with to boot. "Two bedrooms, just in case? And, the common room sounds pretty good 'cause apparently I have to start going to school, and I have no idea how to study when it's not combat training. And..."

Catra arches an eyebrow upwards, "I didn't realize Riventon was your brother, but... Adora was my best friend in the Horde and then when she left we were sworn enemies, so it's not like I don't understand complicated relationships." She pauses, and her tone drops, "I do wish I knew how to... patch things up though. But she's got... other friends now."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Give it time," Mamoru says seriously, finally holding out the package-- which, yes, is sashimi-- and drifting down the hallway in the direction of 'way upstairs from the cat cafe'. It's the other side of the building from the cluster of apartments that have already been claimed, but on the same floor as the bulk of them, with the common room in between.

It's that that they're drifting through now, and it's spacious and clean and bright, and still in the process of slowly being decorated. Welcoming, but not a hell of a lot of character yet. That'll be the empty apartment -- at the far end of the hall, Mamoru stops, and he points to one side, "Back of the building with a balcony you can superjump off of? Or front of the building where you should really only do that in the small hours of the morning?"

Catra has posed:
"Oh, back, definitely." Catra nods once, "Being able to move around properly at any time of day would be pretty great. ...One of the things I kinda seriously hate about this planet is not being able to just, y'know, be myself all the time and having to hide behind that stupid illusion. ...Even if I can get away with it sometimes and just say I'm wearing a really good costume WHICH IS EQUALLY STUPID actually."

Catra accepts the package, but doesn't open it yet; not that she has any confusion as to what's in it, her nose has that sorted (as was clear from the way she sniffed the air a couple minutes ago, not that she'd ever admit to it).

"Dunno how much time I've got to give it, but I guess I haven't really much choice but to give it time anyway," she admits, quietly.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Fortunately," the older boy says with a smile, warmly reassuring, "we're working on killing the Fade, which will help an awful lot with the time ticking away thing. Hinoiri-san and Rashmi-san have a bunch of information on it, and there's plenty of room for more people to work on it."

He turns to the door in the back half of the building and punches in the same code as the one to get in the building. "You can change that, the instructions are posted inside the door. The code I mean."

The door opens, and... it's totally empty. It's spacious, it's clean, the walls are painted a cream color and there's a kitchen door right there and a bathroom-closet-laundry hall next to the genkan and two bedrooms and a big room, and, "You can literally decorate it any way you want. There are a bunch of people who can help you move stuff. I'll get you hooked up with the places where I bought the used furniture in my place upstairs, there's such cool stuff at them."

Catra has posed:
"Wait, the Fade is alive and you can kill it? Well, neat, that's cool." Catra shrugs her shoulders lightly. "I'd been wondering how it would affect me when I got old enough. It's not like I can forget that I'm a cat. My ears and tail and claws would kind of remind me I think."

Or maybe they wouldn't. Who can say?

Catra meanders about the open space, and once again her mind is working with that quiet intensity. Is she memorizing the layout? Not that that's really hard, of course. Or maybe she's planning a layout in her head that's tactically advantageous in case she gets jumped in the night, by like... Joker or something. Or something not quite as bad. There's literally nothing worse than Joker. Not even Shadow Weaver.

"This'll be great," she says at last. "Way better than the place I had in Obsidian Tower. And uhm, I wouldn't worry super hard about helping me move stuff, I like... outside of clothes and my motorcycle I basically own enough stuff to fit in a backpack."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"If it makes you feel better, we can steal a bed from the school and squirrel it away. I mean, can I just send you with Neph to pick some things out, furniture-wise? Because it would be rude as fuck for me to offer an apartment and then expect you to sleep on the floor." The guy's laughing, he's laughing, but it's a self-deprecating thing. "If you want new things, we can get you new things instead! It's just that old things are usually more comfortable."

Mamoru shifts from one foot to the other, then leans against the wall. "Just-- if you could avoid using dark energy in the building, I and a few others would be really appreciative. We have a number of allergies to it in the building, and a civilian besides. I don't think you've used it in a while, but just in case." He sounds a little apologetic, but firm. "No smoking either. Pets are fine, clean up after yourself, garbage day and whatever and the common room chore rota are posted in the common room by the fridge." He grins. "Willlll you let us get you furniture pleeeease."

Catra has posed:
Catra holds up both hands, "I can put your mind at ease -- I haven't touched Dark Energy in months, it's basically just incompatible with the Spirit Ember, and it seems like it's basically just one or the other. I did use both at first but it's... it doesn't really seem to work long term. And the Spirit Ember doesn't make me feel like I'm being a horrible person when I use it so I like it better."

She shrugs, and drops her hands back to her sides, "I don't smoke, that smells so disgusting I can't even tell you." She pauses, looking over her shoulder at the place, hands pushed back into her pockets, and finally bobs her head.

"Okay we can do furniture."