Catra's Holiday — Story

Sitting along her soft sofa, Isabella is presently settling in for a comfy night of binge-watching TV shows. She'd been planning this for a little while now, having brought snacks and drinks in preparation, and not planning on doing anything at all for the day too, or at least nothing involving much effort, more accurately. After having many busy, work-filled days recently, spending some hours just being lazy sounded like a perfect remedy to this, and a way to refresh herself. It was fairly cool in this room right now, though snuggling underneath the big, fluffy blankets she’d got from upstairs rectified that issue easily, as she grabbed her TV remote and turned it on. The screen comes to life, snapping out of its resting mode and displaying a large selection of shows available from the streaming service Isabella had. This was usually a difficult part, at least to her – choosing something to watch. Isabella tended to spend many minutes in deep contemplation, browsing through the catalog whilst resting her head on her hand, though this wasn’t to be such an occasion this time, as the fey dragon had already decided on something prior.

Isabella had really begun to enjoy watching the show Sha-Ra as of late; everything about it just seemed to gel with her so well – the characters, the story, the universe it was set in… it all seemed so interesting! She grabbed two puffy cushions laying beside her with both hands, wedging them next to the armrest on the sofa prior to leaning on them, scrunching the blankets up around her body. Using the TV remote, she gets ready to carry on where she had left off, before seeing something rather peculiar on the episode selection screen. Amongst all of the other episodes, separated by seasons, there was one lone episode that was uncategorised, sitting outside of that neatly ordered list. Isabella furrows her brow looking at it, wondering if it was some kind of bug, or if this particular episode was special in some way, and consequently had been left uncategorised as she selected it. Isabella remains unsure if this could potentially contain spoilers for the episodes she had yet to view, though her curiosity had already gotten a hold of her at this stage.

The episode had no title, nor a thumbnail – not even the length of it could be seen anywhere! It was just a null amount where the episode length should’ve been displayed. Confused, Isabella clicks on it, and after a few seconds of loading… there was nothing. More specifically, the episode was nothing but empty blackness. Her confusion mounting, she pressed the arrow button on her remote, checking to see if the episode had actually begun to play and wasn’t just buffering or something of that nature, though this hypothesis was debunked doing this as each second that had passed after clicking on the episode was displayed upon the time bar at the bottom of the screen, continuing to count upwards. “Huh… must be a busted episode, I guess? Either that or some kind of test screen perhaps… I’ve got no clue.” Isabella spoke softly to herself, though before she exited the episode, her curiosity somewhat satiated, an unexpected voice booms out of her speakers, making her jump in shock. “Hey! Who you callin’ busted?” an unknown, feminine voice replies to the fey dragon, as she is shocked into a state of silence. “Heh, not so mouthy now, ey? I thought that’d be the case.” the unknown voice adds; Isabella thinks on it, feeling that it sounded so, so familiar for some reason…

Reaching upwards out of the pitch-black void upon the screen, the visage of Catra appears! She dons a rather smug gaze, slouching down casually whilst looking directly out of the screen and at Isabella, who in turn doesn’t exactly return fire with a confident expression of her own. Oh no - right now, she was rather mortified actually. How on earth could this be real? How was a fictional character somehow communicating with her? This had to be some kind of weird dream, right? “No, you ain’t dreaming – this is all real.” the cat lady explains nonchalantly, as if reading Isabella’s mind in real time. Obviously, she must have been expecting a reaction such as this in that case. “W-What… a-are you? W-Why are you on my TV?” Isabella asks, her voice shaky and weak as Catra eyes her up, like a predator stalking its prey. “Ah, about that – lemme explain…” she begins, Isabella sitting up to listen.

“So - life’s been pretty hectic in my universe right now, and I could really use a break. Though the thing is, I’ve got no time to take that break. Thankfully though, I came across a spell book recently, and I must say it has some really awesome stuff in it.” She starts, without breaking eye contact. “Anyways - cutting a long story short, I’m needed tomorrow for something pretty important which you don’t need to know about, and I really ain’t in the mood to deal with it right now either. Though in that book, there’s a really nice spell that’ll help fix that! Which is where you come in, and the fun begins. So just relax, this won’t take long at all…” Catra concludes, as before Isabella can respond, she vanishes from the screen before a fast gust of wind seems to flow straight into her, originating from the television! “C-Catra!?” Isabella asks, being met only with the silence that was here before, when an unexpected pressure starts to build around her eyes…

her eyes start to sting, as she seals them shut tightly whilst gritting her teeth. However, this seemingly does nothing to alleviate this unpleasant, foreign sensation, as her sclera begins to shift in colour! Like watercolour paints seeping onto a blank white canvas, they slowly change colour – the left eye turning to a pale amber whilst the right transitions to a cool cyan shade. Opening her eyes, the room seems to have become notably brighter, as the glare from the television screen makes her grimace, prompting her to squint until they adjust to it. Whilst nothing that had transpired in the last few minutes of this evening could be considered anything close to normal, what Isabella could now see had to be the strangest event yet. Everything around her seemed to be so sharp – so crisp, and quite hard to describe. One analogy could be as if she were seeing every point in her bedroom through binoculars simultaneously. Though in actuality, what had happened is their eyesight had improved by a factor of five, as her pupils morph into feline slits. Alas, this was not to be the end of her sensory adjustments, as the fey dragon’s ears then began to elongate. Every sound becomes much sharper in a split-second – the birds chirping outside, some construction happening far up the street, and leaves rustling in the wind were just a handful of sounds that could be heard now, that couldn’t before.

The golden horns Isabella had been acquainted with for her whole life start to recede away into her skull, as her pastel pink hair starts to shrink – the colour being slowly drained away into an ashen black hue whilst styling itself to be rather messy and shaggy in style. Her snout pushes backwards with a cracking noise, continuing to do so until her nostrils and mouth separate into a feminine, humanoid nose and mouth. A scattering of freckles form upon her cheeks, dotting her skin as her jaw becomes rather slender and well-defined, and ultimately leaving her resembling Catra entirely from the shoulders and up. Well, at least apart from one feature, which was to change very soon…

Where her skin was once a slightly pale hue of yellow, Isabella now had a new orange complexion adorning her shoulders. Short and dense tufts of fur begin to sprout locally around that area, as much shorter strands of similarly coloured hairs grow all over her rapidly changing body, like grass in a meadow. It was an obviously alien and unwelcomed sight to see from Isabella’s point of view, as she began to wipe and tug at the fur in a vain attempt to remove it from her body. Of course, this was totally unsuccessful, though concurrently Isabella just couldn’t sit back and let this happen to her; there must be something she could do, right?

“C-Catra!? Please, where are you? Why is this happening to me? D-Did I offend you in some way? I’m… I’m a big fan you k-know – you’ve always been my favourite character!” Isabella speaks in the blind, nervously joking to a being she’d thought was mere fiction until moments ago, as the invasive fur continues to claim more of her body, spreading all over. No answer comes back, as she looks around with an expression reading equal parts worry and trepidation. Her entire body then starts to slenderise, fat burning away on top of her bone structure being rebuilt from the inside-out. Her waist caves inwards, shoulders broaden, whilst her musculature grows to make her look very athletic, but still quite skinny and agile looking overall. Her abdomen burns with a fiery sting, her abs becoming significantly more defined as Isabella’s old claws become far sharper – they could certainly do some damage now, if Isabella willed it. Additionally, during this whole ordeal something else had happened, as Isabella turned around to see that she’d not even noticed the disappearance of her tail! It had seemingly been shrunk down to nothing but a short nub at this point, though this nub was soon to grow back into a brand-new tail, as if it was being reset.

What had been just a small bump thus far was now rapidly forming into a black, cat-like tail, as the new appendage embarks outwards from above her butt, growing to approximately two feet in length. Like the rest of her body, it was coated in fur, as she found it could be moved and controlled with ease. The transformation was starting to wrap up at this point, as Isabella remained panicked watching this all unfold before her. Her toenails underwent a similar fate as her fingernails had endured a few ticks ago, becoming darker and sharper whilst her fangs sharpened in her mouth.

“Ah, I’m looking pretty good now! Though I must say, this outfit isn’t really ‘me’, y’know? Mind if I change that?” the voice of Catra stated abruptly, the source of it seemingly coming from within Isabella, as she looked around for the source of it. “W-Where are yo-“ is all that she can get out, before her response is cut off by a brief but blinding flash of magical light. It sparkles and shimmers wonderfully during its oh so brief existence, and in its wake, Isabella is now clad in a brand-new uniform. It’s tight. Isabella wasn’t usually a fan of tight clothes, though now with her new body, it didn’t seem so bad, as it accentuated her new muscular physique. The top was a cool, coral red shade and without sleeves, with some brown leather belts tied over it around her waist. Maroon tights with a desaturated hue were now upon her lower half in addition, going all the way down her legs and wrapping around the sole of her new feet, as to still expose her heels and toes. Two cleanly cut rips are visible around either side of her front thigh area, with another larger rip exposing both of her orange knees. Isabella examines this carefully, though unbeknownst to her, this was to be one of her last conscious actions for some time…

“Thanks for your help, but it’s time to let me in completely now - it’s time for me to take charge.” utters Catra before a great migraine comes over Isabella. Clutching her head, Isabella’s mind is barraged with a flurry of thoughts and memories not of her own. As each second goes by, more and more of her psyche is eroded by Catra’s, their control getting stripped away in the process, as her fear turns into excitement for the start of a nice break in this new world she finds herself in. It isn’t long at all until only Catra remains, as she stretches out and looks down, confirming that the spell was a complete success! “Man, I wish I’d found out about that book sooner! I’m really gonna get a lot of use out of this.” she reflects aloud, looking around the living room simultaneously. You see, whilst time was passing in this world, it had totally frozen in her native one. Ergo, no matter how long she was ‘borrowing’ this body for, time wouldn’t move on without her back in Eternia until she returned there. The only minor caveat to this, was that she wasn’t sure when she could actually go back… though maybe she could find out right now?

“Hmm… maybe I can see how long I may remain here using this device?” she postulates, looking at the alien-looking television in front of her. Scoffing down a large handful of Isabella’s old popcorn (half of which misses her mouth and falls onto the floor), Catra takes the remote and wakes the TV up, which had gone into a standby mode during that whole ordeal. What was once the blank episode Isabella had found, that being the catalyst of all this, had now been adjusted. A new title had taken the place of the nothingness that was there before, as Catra reads it out loud – “So this one’s called ‘Catra’s holiday’, huh? Hey, that sounds like a pretty good episode if you ask me. And it’s 700 hours long too? Dang, that’s like… around a full month, right?” she calculates in her head. The episode was still running in the background, currently being around sixteen minutes into its immense runtime, as the feline lady figured that acted as a sort of countdown for when she’d have to hop back into her own world, and give this body back to its old owner.

Catra’s expression then dropped – the arm holding the TV remote outstretched at the television screen sinks downwards, with a frown appearing upon her face. She felt guilty. Guilty at the fact that she’d gotten so wrapped up in the success of this spell that she hadn’t really considered Isabella too much. Sure, it was quite a bit of fun teasing her, though now they had been completely taken over by her, and would remain so for just under 700 hours. Still, she wouldn’t really be aware of this – Catra read in the spell book that the victim’s mind wasn’t aware of anything post-transformation, comparable to being asleep. Still, it made sense that she could do something for her as a way to say thank you. Maybe a nice outfit, jewel or sword from her own world would suffice? Catra made a mental note of this, though for now, it was time to just kick back and relax. “Huh… kinda weird that my world exists as some kind of entertainment here.” She comments, before starting to browse through the other content available as at last, her holiday could truly begin.