Chapter Text
What a weird thing.
Trust.
She vaguely remembered reading someone compare it to a flower. This thing with potential to become beautiful, but just as quick to wither away and die when not properly taken care of.
Trust reminded Catra more of something like… a rock. A huge fucking rock that she had to keep pushing up a hill, taking so much effort every time that she tended to forget why she was even doing it in the first place. Would there be anything on the other side? Was any of the effort worth it, or should she come to terms with the fact that she was cursed to have the rock fall down and crush her over, and over, and over again for all of eternity. She’d read something similar to this too, back when mundane things such as reading for pleasure were something she had the time to think about.
An image of herself came to mind. Being twelve and sitting in the last row in class at the Fright Zone, staring at Adora as the girl tried to balance a pen between her top lip and nose, her elbows leaning on the cold surface of the small table in front of her. The feline had never been great at paying attention - and frequently paid the consequences for it - but something about the experiment that was being talked about piqued her interest that one time.
Three holograms were projected at a cool toned gray wall at the opposite end of the room, all portraying very similar looking rats with the numbers 1, 2 and 3 displayed above them, while a deep voice coming from a speaker right behind Catra explained the experiment.
Every rat had been placed inside a cage with a button, but every cage and every button was different. Rat 1’s cage was nothing out of the ordinary and, every time it pressed the button, nothing happened. Rat 2’s cage however, sent random shocks of electricity that could only be stopped whenever it pushed its button, a fact the rat quickly became aware of.
Rat 3, however, had it the worst. Its cage also sent random shocks of electricity, but it didn’t matter how many times the animal pushed the button, they wouldn’t stop. The shocks kept coming and, eventually, the rat stopped trying to press the button. The most fascinating part, Catra thought, was that it didn’t matter if they moved Rat 3 to a different cage, where pressing the button would stop the shocks, or if they changed the button to, say, a lever. Rat 3 resigned to sit and be electrified over, and over again, not even attempting to stop the next rush of pain.
That’s exactly how she’d been feeling all these years.
Then the grip Adora had on her hand tightened a bit, enticingly painful, and Catra wondered if maybe Rat 3 would’ve tried to push the button just once more if it had been in love.
“Where is everyone? Why is nobody chasing us?”
“Your annoying friends are doing what they do best; bother everyone so we can get a chance to leave.”
“Hey, my friends are not annoying,” Catra didn’t need to turn her head to know the expression on Adora’s face was a tight frown and a curled lip. “And… What do you mean exactly? How could you know that?”
“Well, that’s the whole plan.”
“Plan?” Disbelief raised the pitch of Adora’s voice, provoking a sigh from Catra as if to say ‘here we go’. “You made a plan with Glimmer and Bow? As in, you spoke to them and came to an… understanding?”
Catra rolled her eyes. “If what you’re trying to ask is ‘how did you manage to have a conversation with them without trying to kill them’, the answer is barely.”
There was no need to look at Adora to know she was smiling; Catra could hear it in her voice. “Actually, I think you’re just embarrassed to admit you need their help.”
“Pfft. Fat chance,” Catra concentrated on ignoring the fact that Adora was probably staring directly at her from behind with that stupid smile of hers. “They just happen to be very convenient.”
“Right.”
Catra swallowed her next snarky remark when Scorpia and Entrapta’s faces appeared in front of them. She dug her heels in, tripping forward when Adora’s chest slammed against her back, but regaining her composure with the blonde’s help as she tugged her arm back.
“Shit,” Catra muttered, eyes fixated on Scorpia’s before Adora’s protective stance in front of her made her step to the side to be able to look at her friend again.
“Catra,” she quickly said at the sight of her, desperate sounding. “Please, not this again.”
“Scorpia, wait. You don’t understand.”
But Scorpia’s eyes traveled from her face to the hand Catra hadn’t let go of, and the feline knew she did understand.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t,” Catra asked, voice firm but pleading, staring intently at her before glancing away and towards Entrapta, or rather the monitor she held in her hands. That’s probably how they had found them. “Haven’t you done enough?”
The pink-haired woman shifted her position, one long ponytail moving to readjust her glasses against her forehead.
“Don’t take your anger out on her, Catra. We’re trying to help you, both of us,” Scorpia tried to explain, shoulders slumped forward in defeat. “But you won’t let us!”
Catra looked up at the ceiling, needing a break from Scorpia’s demanding stare. So she continued. “Why are you risking everything, again? One day I think everything’s gone back to normal, the next you’re being assigned two guards to follow you everywhere because you’ve tried to sneak our prisoner out. You never tell me what’s going on inside your head. Honestly Catra, I just can’t understand you if you won’t be open with me.”
“I know,” Catra pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes in an attempt to isolate herself, suddenly feeling small under the three pairs of eyes fixated on her. “I’m working on it, but you’re gonna have to just trust me on this one.”
There it was again. That word. Years of turbulent relationships had taught Catra trust was the bravest and stupidest act a person was capable of. And even though her friend wasn’t stupid in the slightest, she was one of the bravest person Catra had ever met. If she could request this out of anyone, that was Scorpia.
“We know some stuff that you don’t,” intervened Entrapta at the silence that had settled around them, looking away from Catra and towards Adora. She seemed somewhat embarrassed, as if she didn’t want to say what she was going to say in front of the blonde. “About… Hordak’s plan.”
Catra’s ears perked up, attentive. “Go on.”
Entrapta looked back at her, a more determined expression on her face now. “It’s about She-Ra and what she can do to the woods.”
“You mean what Adora can do,” Catra felt the sudden urge to correct her, refusing to let the figure of She-Ra take credit for what was her wife’s doing.
The blonde pulled a bit on her hand, but Catra refused to look at her. The disgustingly sweet look that must be on her face would surely be too much for her to handle at that moment.
“Err… hate to ruin the moment, but no. I mean She-Ra,” Entrapta slid her monitor into one of the big pouches of her belt, clearly designed specifically for that item, and grabbed a small tablet, quickly vanishing the distance between them and showing the women her screen as she tapped away at it like they were supposed to understand anything that was being displayed in front of their eyes. “You see, it’s not Adora, nor the runestones that have this effect on the planet. I was wrong! It’s actually She-Ra that wields this power over Etheria, the stones are just a way to channel that power, kinda like a tool.”
“So, does that mean that…” Adora started.
“Look, I honestly don’t give a fuck about any of this,” Catra interjected, making use of her well known subtlety to convey that she did not, in fact, give a fuck. She was far more preoccupied with figuring out how the hell to get Adora out of the Fright Zone without getting them both killed in the process. “The thing is, by now every Horde agent is looking for us, so we need to get out of herenow.”
“Wait,” Adora let go of Catra’s hand to press her own palms together, staring directly at Entrapta. “Does this mean that I… we can heal the Woods?” She turned to Catra before continuing. “If this is true, we can bring everything back to normal. No more death, no more hunger. There’s no way to justify another war after that.”
Catra knew for a fact, that as long as the Horde continued existing, none of those things would be completely eradicated. Still, she understood Adora’s point.
“But… why are you telling us all this?” Adora questioned Entrapta once again, visibly confused.
“Well, the truth is that I relayed this information, and my concerns, to Hordak. He has always trusted me and my work. But right now he seems more focused on using She-Ra as leverage than actually helping, even though I’ve tried to tell him that if we don’t hurry up…” Her eyebrows drew together and she shook her head once, her ponytails dancing along with the movement. “Well, there won’t really be a planet left to experiment on,” Entrapta finished with an awkward, dry cackle.
Catra and Adora exchanged glances.
“We really have that little time left?” Catra muttered with her brows drawn together, suddenly overwhelmed by the idea. “But I thought things were getting better, we are even growing our own food over here now. Doesn’t that mean something?”
“Most of the damage is not visible on the surface,” Entrapta insisted on tapping at the screen to show different graphics and numbers with meanings that flew right over Catra’s head. “But the very core of Etheria is, how can I say it so that you understand…”
“Damaged?” Tried Adora.
“I think rotten is a more appropriate word.”
Rotten.
Well, that didn’t sound good at all.
“Does that mean…” Adora continued, breaking the silence, “...that you’re going to help us escape?”
“I mean, the original plan involved more kidnapping than cooperation, but this works too, yes!”
Scorpia pursed her lips in a pained expression that said she agreed with the message, but not the delivery. Her eyes met Catra’s again, who solemnly nodded in an indication that they would resume their previous conversation later. Scorpia’s face relaxed when she nodded back in agreement.
“So what, we need to just trust you?” The back and forth continued, Adora’s voice drawing Scorpia and Catra’s attention. “How can we know this isn’t another ploy?”
“It’s not,” Catra interjected. She knew Scorpia wouldn’t do that to her, which made her feel like shit, because she knew the other couldn’t feel the same way towards her intentions.
The blonde seemed surprised by Catra’s conviction, maybe even hurt by it. Adora hadn’t seen everything Scorpia had done for her, so it was only normal she would feel confused as to why Catra was so willing to trust her. It would be unfair of Adora to expect the same treatment as Scorpia, and yet, that seemed to be the case.
They were far from a position to be arguing. Catra turned to face Adora and put her hands on her own hips, taking half a step back and away from her. She recognized the look on Adora’s eyes, one that said ‘not again’, and it took all of Catra’s effort to acknowledge the exasperation for what it really was; worry.
“Look, we don’t have a choice either way. If you want to have another fight be my guest, but we need all the help we can get. And I know these guys,” she gestured towards the other two, never looking away from Adora. “They’re not liars. If you trust me, then you can trust them.”
And once again; there it was.
Catra had always had a hard time dealing with opinions that differed from hers. Being contradicted felt a little too much like rejection, like making a mistake was the worst thing she could ever do, so she always refused to admit she had ever been wrong in the first place. And still this felt like an admittance of if, of being wrong. If Adora really believed in her, she needed to accept that and not hold it against Catra, whatever happened next.
It was unfair to expect anyone to understand the complicated mechanism of her brain, though, even more when she couldn’t bring herself to put the struggle into words, and yet, there wasn’t a speck of hesitation in Adora’s expression when Catra asked her to trust her for the second time that day. It was like she knew, better than she did herself, how Catra felt. Then again, if anyone in all Etheria could understand Catra, that person was without a doubt Adora.
Something relaxed a bit inside her, still alert.
“Okay,” the blonde finally said, nodding once. “I trust you.”
The woman’s actions had already revealed as much, but hearing the words out loud felt amazing.
“What are we waiting for then?” Entrapta barely waited for Adora’s final word before speaking, rightfully so keeping in mind the nature of things. Adora’s cheeks flushed, and Catra felt the need to look away from her and to her friends to avoid the same happening to her. “I have already disabled the security cameras, but there are still people looking for you. We need to hurry.”
Without waiting for a confirmation, Entrapta dug her nose into her monitor and turned around, swiftly walking away. Scorpia followed and soon so did Catra, before a voice stopped them all.
“Wait,” they turned around to find Adora, knuckles pressed against her lower lip, looking at them with her brows drawn together, “my sword. I need to go get it.”
“We can come back for it later,” Scorpia had to raise her voice to be heard over the sound of the sirens now that there was a considerable distance separating them. “Right now we need to focus on getting you out of here before Hordak finds you.”
“But I will be more useful with it,” Adora pleaded, her eyes traveling across all three faces in front of her. She sounded desperate, like there was more to it than she was letting on. “Please.”
“Adora, there’s no time,” the feline shrugged her shoulders, arms extended out in confusion. “Who cares about the damn sword?”
“I do!” She argued, her look of worry turned into irritation. “You must know where it is, it will only take a moment! Besides, what’s the point of getting me out if I can’t turn into She-Ra? The plan doesn’t even make sense!” The woman sighed, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes before dropping both arms at her sides. “ Look I just… need it, okay?”
The words pained Catra, who just wanted to grab the blonde by the shoulders and shake her, slap her, yell at her to drop the martyr complex already, tell her that of fucking course there was a point to saving her, with or without She-Ra. She-Ra was nothing. But Adora was everything. At least to her.
Catra swallowed hard.
“You don’t need it. It needs you.”
That would have to do.
Adora’s lips parted, eyebrows raised, before pressing together into a fine line. She didn’t deny the claim, but clearly didn’t seem convinced by it either.
Catra rolled her eyes.
“Fine. I’ll go get your stupid sword. You go with them.”
“No,” Adora took a step forward, curling her hands into tight fists. “I’m going too.”
“Listen, what part about we need to get you the hell out is not clicking?” Catra imitated her and took a step. “I’ll go get your sword if that’s what it takes, but you need to go with Entrapta and Scorpia, find your stupid friends, and get out now. I know this place better than you do. Hell,” she scoffed, “I’ll probably be out by the time you make it.”
Adora seemed ready to fight back, uncertain, but Catra didn’t give her the time to do so. She threw a look back at Scorpia over her shoulder and waited for their eyes to meet before turning back around and running in the opposite direction, past Adora, never looking back.
***
“Okay, okay, I’m going!”
Scorpia’s claw finally released Adora’s arm and, as promised, she kept running regardless of the lack of… gentle encouragement.
Alarms kept blaring all around her, red filling every corridor they turned to, and although she was tempted to look back, Adora kept her gaze forward. She knew that, if she did, nothing would be enough to keep her from running back for Catra.
Fuck, she was so scared for her.
All of her memories in that place involved Adora sticking up for Catra. Protecting her. It felt wrong having it be the other way around, Catra risking herself for Adora’s sake. She could picture her small figure, years ago, curled up under the blankets. Powerless, scared. There was nothing left of that little girl in the woman that Catra had become, and in between all the fear she felt for her, Adora felt pride.
Catra wasn’t a kid anymore, that much was clear. It had been hard seeing her put her trust in someone else so easily. Adora looked up at the back of Scorpia’s head as they ran. She imagined her comforting Catra at night, being a shoulder for her to cry on when Adora herself was the reason for her pain. She knew it would be selfish to feel anything other than appreciation for her being there when she couldn’t, but resentment and jealousy crept into her faster than Adora would like to admit.
“She’ll be okay. You need to give her some credit.”
“Yeah,” Adora breathed out after a pause, looking up at the flashing red ceiling above them. “I know.”
They had barely exchanged a few words, but Adora felt immediately more relaxed. She understood a bit better why Catra was so drawn to this woman and her weird calming abilities.
“Not much longer to go!” Entrapta’s voice rose above the blaring of the alarms.
Unable to resist the temptation, Adora stole a quick glance over her shoulder.
“You know,” Scorpia’s voice got Adora to turn her head back around. “I don’t have a problem with you.”
From her position running right behind her, the blonde couldn’t see Scorpia’s expression, which made it hard to interpret her cryptic words.
“Okay,” her voice kept breaking with every running step she took. “But I would understand if you did...”
“I don’t have a problem with you,” Scorpia continued, her tone of voice much different from the one she’d used to speak to Catra just moments before. “But I have a problem with you hurting her. I know you care about her, so I’m sure you can understand that too.”
“I do,” Adora was shocked at her own quick response. “I… I messed up.”
“She did too, you know. She’s told me all about you two,” Scorpia let out a soft laugh. Adora held her breath, suddenly feeling flustered. “Hell, for a few years there she couldn’t talk about anything else. So I know that she hasn’t been exactly the easiest person to deal with. Look, what I’m trying to say is that… even though I don’t want to meddle with your relationship, you need to understand that I care about her. So much. Gosh, I love her. And I know you do too, and I know she loves you back.”
Adora breathed out at that, feeling dizzy from running while holding her breath. She didn’t know what to respond, but luckily she didn’t need to, because Scorpia’s rambling continued.
“But sometimes loving each other is not enough, you know? You need to put in work, talk about things that are uncomfortable to talk about, give in sometimes, argue if you need to. You can’t keep hurting each other again and again, it’s not good for either of you.”
“You’re right,” Adora agreed once she’d found a new breath of air. “Things will change, I promise. I’m already working on it.”
“Okay,” Scorpia complied.
The three women came to a halt at a crossroads. Entrapta tapped away at a screen, assumingly figuring out the smartest next move, leaving Scorpia and Adora to awkwardly stand next to one another. The silence didn’t last for long, as Adora was coming to realize was usually the case with Scorpia.
“I know you’re a good guy, I can tell.”
Adora gave her half a smile.
“Yeah, thanks. You too, you know? Should we, uh… hug it out?”
Scorpia smiled back, wide and toothy.
“I was hoping you’d say that!”
***
“Go, I’ll keep guard here.”
The blaring noise tried to drown out Lonnie’s voice as she threw orders around, guiding confused soldiers along every corridor in frantic search of their objective.
It had been so long since an emergency like this had occurred and they’d been isolated for so many years that as prepared as they may have been in theory, most of these soldiers were just kids that hadn’t had the chance to even go out on their first mission yet. They reminded them of herself, not so long ago.
How eager to put her abilities to the test she’d been, and how quickly the excitement had been replaced by anxiety when the moment arrived. She assumed that’s what those kids were feeling, and couldn’t help but pity them for it.
But if her suspicions were true, and they usually were, there wouldn’t be any trouble where they were heading.
Trouble would be coming to find her any minute now.
And, just like she had expected, it came.
“You really are predictable, huh.”
Bare feet scraped the floor, bringing Catra to a halt. She stood on the next junction over at the corridor Lonnie faced, furry arms separated from her body and her eyes black and full like two orbs. Blue and hazel came to light when Catra focused on Lonnie, her pupils sharp and thin now as if preparing to attack.
“And you really are obsessed with me,” she fought back, fixing her stance as if she hadn’t been completely caught off guard by Lonnie’s presence. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
Lonnie brought her stun baton up to rest on her own shoulder, moving it without turning around so it lightly tapped the door behind her, eyes still fixed on Catra’s. “I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. Covering for this. How about you?”
“That’s what I came to do”, Catra explained, cocking an eyebrow. “So you can go and help find-”
“No need for that, actually,” Lonnie interrupted. “The doors are sealed and no one has escaped, so it’s only a matter of time before Adora gets caught. Again.” The woman immediately caught the twitch in Catra’s eye. “What? Aren’t you glad they’re being caught? Oh, or are you upset because your stupid plan didn’t work… again?”
“Fuck off, Lonnie,” Catra almost whispered between clenched teeth.
“Didn’t try to pretend for long, did you?” The stun baton came down from her shoulder to hang beside Lonnie’s leg as she took a couple steps in Catra’s direction, to which the feline took a defensive stance. “Be a good kitty and don’t fight back, will you? It’ll make things easier.”
“I don’t want to fight Lonnie,” Catra growled back, her hands curled into tight fists indicating otherwise. “Haven’t you done enough? Don’t you think what’s happening in here is fucked up? All of it!” She drew her brows together, as if she couldn’t believe what Lonnie was doing, which made the other woman cackle.
“Now, where did that come from? This is where you draw the line?” Lonnie took a couple more steps, slow but steady, in Catra’s direction, the ghost of a smile hanging off of her lips. “You’re okay with invading, pillaging, subduing, ordering and abusing until… what? Until Adora is involved?”
“This isn’t about Adora. It’s more than that.”
“Of course this is about Adora!” Lonnie yelled, raising her arms at both sides before letting them fall again, her weapon held tight by her left side. Any trace of mockery disappeared from her expression, replaced by stoicness. “That’s what it’s always been about. First she left us - not just you, Catra,” she pointed at her with her baton for a moment before dropping her arm again. “She left all of us.” She took another step. “Then, right after that, Hordak made you his second-in-command for some reason that I still don’t understand.”
Catra took a step back as Lonnie advanced, still speaking. “And instead of leaning on us, working with us, you become a fucking tyrant and make our lives impossible!” The sound of the baton slamming against the metallic wall next to Lonnie echoed through the corridor, bringing chills down Catra’s spine. “And now you want me to listen to you? Work with you? You’re impossible to work with.”
“This isn’t about me, Lonnie.”
“You’re self-centered,” she continued, as if she couldn’t hear Catra at all. “Selfish. A liar. And even worse, a traitor. Just like Adora. Since you hated her so much, I think you can understand how the rest of us are feeling, can’t you?”
Catra felt the need to pause and find her voice for a moment, before replying. “Fine. I’ve been a bitch. I’ll agree with that. But you haven’t been exactly the greatest of friends, have you?”
“I never wanted to be your friend,” Lonnie explained, noting how Catra had stopped retreating. She was glancing to her right from the corner of her eye, something like a nervous gesture. “But since we had to work together, I didn’t want you to be miserable either. I offered my help. Can you say I never gave you advice, tried to reason with you?”
Lonnie could see Catra open her mouth as if to quickly debate her, but she didn’t articulate a word. She knew it was true. She knew Lonnie had never disrespected her while working under her command, always followed every single order, respected every rule. Everything she felt, she left outside of work matters. But the same couldn’t be said for Catra.
She could tell in Catra’s eyes, she couldn’t deny all the times she’d sent her, Kyle and Rogelio out for hours and hours without rest. Meaningless missions, boring tasks, hours spent sweating under the sun. And all they’d received as a response after complaining was little more than a ‘deal with it’.
Lonnie had known how hurt Catra was, hell, she herself still felt the pain of Adora’s betrayal. That’s why, even if they never had the greatest relationship, she’d let some things slide. Even offered words of advice when she’d felt Catra needed it most, only to be made fun of and bossed around as a response.
Catra stood still right past the ‘x’ shaped crossing of the corridors, still nervously throwing glances to the side.
“Enough is enough,” Lonnie was past the point of explaining herself. She’d learned the hard way that, in the Fright Zone, words took you nowhere, and violence was the best answer for anyone capable of it. “Even if you don’t believe this, I don’t want to hurt you. So just leave this to rest once for fucking all, and come with-”
Before she could continue Lonnie felt the air get knocked out of her by an impact coming from her left. She fell to the floor with a thud, involuntarily letting out a grunt, and immediately started to try and get up despite how dizzy she felt.
The task proved impossible, her arms and legs didn’t seem to cooperate, and a quick glance revealed she was wrapped in some kind of thick wire that made it impossible to do anything other than wiggle her body around.
“How’s that-”
“What the fuck were you waiting for!?”
“Hey!” Lonnie looked up to find Bow standing on the corridor Catra had been glancing at. “I wanted to say my line.”
“Just say it now!” Glimmer exclaimed, standing close by his side.
“Oh,” Bow brought his foot back, bending his knees to pose as if he had just shot the arrow that trapped Lonnie. “How’s that for bait! Ugh, forget it, the moment’s gone...”
Out of everyone, these idiots were the ones to defeat her?
Catra’s figure came into view as the other two bickered beyond them, their personalities and attire completely out of place inside the gray walls of their base.
Lonnie needed to squint to be able to look up at the feline, a bright red halo of light forming around her silhouette as she spoke from above her.
“You know what, Lonnie?” She didn’t want to listen to her, but she realized she didn’t have a choice. Her next words, however, surprised her. “You’re right. I have been terrible, to you included. Even if I felt like you deserved it, you didn’t. And I’m sorry I played any part into creating this organization, this… monster,” Catra’s voice almost broke at that word, to which she took a pause before continuing. “But I’m gonna play a part into stopping it now, before it’s too late. And I think you should do the same.”
Something was left unsaid, Lonnie realized as Catra opened her mouth before tightly pressing her lips together, as if fighting it. Instead the woman just turned around and ran.
All Lonnie could do at that point was stare, allowing herself to be handled by Bow and Glimmer when they sat her up on the floor.
“Idiot,” she muttered, her head spinning from more than just the blow it’d received.
***
“No, no, no… fuck!”
Adora’s fists slammed against the metal door, pain ringing up her arms immediately after contact. She still felt weak. Physically, mentally… she wasn’t ready to fight, and a fight was exactly what was coming for her.
She looked around at Scorpia and Entrapta as the former attempted to stick one of her claws into the slit of the door and the latter tapped away on three different devices, her gaze dancing around all of them with familiarity.
There came that familiar prickling in her eyes. She tilted her head back as if examining the ceiling for some reason, to avoid having anyone see her. Here she was, once again, putting everyone in danger. Not only Scorpia, Entrapta and, of course, Catra. But even Bow and Glimmer were somewhere inside the building, fighting for her, their lives at risk for…
What?
Her?
She kicked at the door. Hard.
“Wow,” Scorpia’s voice came low from behind her.
It slowly started to open, and then stopped moving as soon as a small slit of light came through.
“Whoa, did I just-?”
“You didn’t do anything,” Entrapta quickly explained, gathering her devices and putting them inside different pockets until she only had one in her hand. She then started tapping at that one, stealing glances up at the door every once in a while. “Besides maybe breaking your toe.”
Adora’s cheeks reddened from embarrassment.
“There they are!”
All three of their heads whipped around to one side of the corridor just in time to see identically uniformed soldiers running their way.
The sound of footsteps drowned the sirens, soldiers now coming from all three sides of the corridor in their direction.
Backs pressed against each other, the women prepared to fight. They were outnumbered, unequipped and, obviously, Adora would be useless without She-Ra.
“I can’t fight,” she screamed above the sound, sweat forming on her forehead. She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to!”
“I can’t,” she insisted, feeling her lungs refuse to cooperate as she tried to take a breath. “I… The sword…”
“Screw the damn sword,” Scorpia scoffed. “What did you do before She-Ra?”
Between the tenths of faces she could see running in her direction, a couple of them stuck out to her. She could see in their eyes, she stuck out to them as well.
She clenched her fists. Scorpia was right.
Still, those were… quite a lot of people.
With a gulp, Adora raised her fists and prepared to fight. The first soldier was getting closer, baton in hand, and she squinted her eyes as if to predict their next movement. Would they try to hit her from above? The left? If it was her she would fake her out, hold her baton with the right hand and then go for the other side instead.
Suddenly, a crash. A hole in the wall. As if coming out of nowhere, a giant robot was now standing between her and the multitude, deploying something as its mechanical legs scurried back in Adora’s direction. By the time the first soldier noticed and tried to stop, the ones going behind stampeded over them, creating a pile of bodies that was blocked out when an explosion coming from the devices the robot had been dropping knocked down the walls of the corridor to form an impenetrable barrier.
“That’s my girl!” Entrapta squealed, helping herself up with her hair.
“You go, Em!”
Adora turned around, finding solace in the smile spread on her friends’ faces. Okay, so that wasn’t a monster robot sent to murder them and chop them up in tiny pieces.
There were still two corridors full of people that would be more than happy to see them turn into minced meat, though. And after a very brief pause, they were again running full force in their direction.
“Watch out!” Adora yelled, elbowing Scorpia out of the way just in time to avoid her being struck. When the soldier’s hit failed, Adora quickly took the opportunity to grab at their weapon, turning her body around while holding it over her head to twist it out of their grasp.
Now familiarly armed, she felt a bit more confident. She turned the baton in her hand, taking a defensive stance, one foot set behind the other. Before she could strike back, Scorpia’s claw came out of nowhere, sending the soldier flying against the mass behind them and tripping a few others in the process.
“Sorry!” She immediately yelled. “I really don’t wanna do this, but you’re leaving me no choice!”
The fight had officially started. Only fighting on two fronts made things significantly easier; Adora covered for Entrapta as much as she could while the woman worked on getting the door fully open, while Scorpia blocked people off from her side.
The door creaked again.
“It’s working!” Adora yelled followed by a grunt of exhaustion as she shoved someone off of her and followed with a kick.
“It’s hard to overrule the system, my permissions have been withdrawn,” Entrapta chewed at her bottom lip, brows drawn together in concentration. It was as if an entire battlefield hadn’t formed around her. “As soon as you have enough space to squeeze through, do it.”
“Who, me?”
“Of course you!” Scorpia muttered between pants. “We will hold them off, as soon as you’re out of here, we won’t be their focus anymore.”
The door squeaked again. Adora turned to look and saw barely enough space to fit through. Just then she heard Scorpia whine, drawing her attention. Four people were on her now, surrounding her, and she seemed to have received a blow to her stomach that had her bent over.
Adora looked at the door. She had plenty of space to go through now.
She turned around towards Entrapta, then Scorpia, and without any more thought rushed to help her.
Her knee connected flawlessly with one of the soldier’s sides, making them complain and lose balance until they fell on the floor. Someone tried to grab her hand from behind, but she skillfully escaped their grasp, instead holding on to their arm and kneeling as she twisted it to throw them over her head and slam their back on the floor.
The other two were now on her though, and even though she managed to dodge a kick directed towards her chest, the person behind her managed to slam their baton against her back. She almost fell face first on the floor, barely finding the time to catch herself with her hands before her nose connected with the cold metal underneath.
She heard yelling behind her, and turning around she saw Scorpia holding up both soldiers, one from each claw. With an experienced gesture she smacked them together and let them fall on the floor, one on top of the other.
“You’ve got some moves,” she offered Adora her claw.
Adora smiled up at her, accepting it. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Scorpia laughed before quickly sobering up. “Hey, the door!” She practically launched Adora to her feet, who landed startled holding herself on Scorpia’s claws with both hands. “Oh, sorry dude. But seriously, you need to run!”
“Okay, okay,” she took a couple steps towards the door before whipping her head back towards Scorpia, taking another step towards her while jumping in the spot, ready to run, “I, uh. It was great meeting you, really, I didn’t expect you to be so…”
“Nice? I get that a lot,” Scorpia shrugged, still smiling. “I didn’t expect you to be so nice either, I mean everything I heard about you was so…” Even if she didn’t mean them to, the words stung. Scorpia realized this, and stopped herself. “You know what? I have a habit of talking too much, so let me catch myself there. Let’s meet again, hopefully in a less stressful situation, yeah?”
“I’d really like that,” Adora smiled, letting the hurt from before vanish. There was no time for that. “Let’s meet again, the three of us. We have a lot to talk about.”
Scorpia’s smile widenned and she nodded, a sense of security washing over Adora at the sight. Yep, she had no problem understanding why Catra had kept this woman close all that time.
Entrapta acknowledged her from a distance with a gesture of her head, to which Adora responded with a wave, such a basic and meaningless motion in contrast to all she had to tell her.
But this wasn’t goodbye, Adora reassured herself. She would tell her all she needs to know. But that had to wait.
Turning on her heels, the blonde was quick to cut the distance between herself and the door. It suddenly squeaked, threatening to close. Adora didn’t hesitate for a second; she launched herself at the gap, eyes closed and hoping for the best.
From one second to the next, she found herself rolling on the dry grass on the other side. Her body was going to be so bruised after this, she was sure, grunting while getting up to her hands and knees just in time to see the door close behind her.
That was it.
She’d made it.
With the sluggishness of someone that had recently gotten electrified, beaten up, and then had thrown herself on the ground to save her life, Adora attempted to stand. She managed to do so, a stabbing pain stuck to her temples that forced her to squint as she stared far into the distance.
What now?
Turning around she could see the door had closed behind her, maybe because of a mechanical failure, maybe because of Entrapta’s orders. Whatever the reason was, Adora was sure she shouldn’t stay too close.
Even though Scorpia and Entrapta had decided against taking her to the main entrance, where they would surely be greeted by even more troops ready to capture her, this rear exit, mainly used for maintenance work, was clearly not a safe spot. If soldiers had been sent there it’s because there were suspicions that they would attempt to take it as an escape route, which meant it was only a matter of time before more people arrived.
She took a few confident steps away from the door before stopping herself. She turned around.
Glimmer and Bow were still in there. So were Scorpia and Entrapta.
Adora could feel her heartbeat speed up by the second. She remembered how cruel punishments in the Horde were when they were kids. There was no telling what Hordak would be willing to do - or maybe even had already done - to Catra now that they were adults.
“Adora!”
Feeling even more dazed than before, the blonde turned around towards the source of the sound. Her worries banished, even if only for a few seconds.
From different hiding spots emerged the Princesses, slowly approaching her with understandable caution. They were, after all, in the most hostile place they could be.
For her.
“Are you guys real?” She muttered, impossible for them to hear, worried that she had just suffered a very severe concussion that was causing her to hallucinate.
The relief Adora felt at the familiarity of the sight in front of her was indescribable. She had been surrounded by terribly unfriendly faces for such a long time, not only was she happy to see everyone was okay, but that she would be able to count with their help to save Catra.
Adora jogged in their direction, which was already an incredible feat considering how she was feeling, and opened her mouth to begin explaining the situation.
Still quite a distance away from her, Adora noticed a few of the Princesses’ eyes widen, staring at something above Adora’s head. The blonde went to turn around, but before she could do so something yanked her back by her hair with terrible force.
“Here you are.”
A deep voice, long drawn out vowels. Even if there was nothing physically holding her back at that moment, Adora knew that voice alone would be enough to keep her frozen in place.
Hordak.
Perfuma went to run in her direction, but her feet got frozen in place in the safest way possible to avoid her fall. She struggled only for a moment before agreeing that her approach was too dangerous and falling back into a combat position once the ice had been purposefully melted, along with the rest of her friends.
“You thought you had it all figured out, didn’t you?” Adora attempted to stand, but another pull of her hair made her trip and forced her down on her knees again, completely useless. She threw her arms around, not finding contact with anything. “You all prove your foolishness and unreliability, once again.”
“You’re one to talk about being reliable!”
“Let her go, immediately!”
The sound of every voice mixed around in Adora’s head until it became completely unintelligible. If only she had She-Ra, she wouldn’t be in this position. Her hands went up to grab at her hair, feeling the pain in her scalp, but Hordak’s grip was unbelievably strong. Entrapta’s enhancements of the Horde’s equipment had gone much further than they understood, and it terrified her to know what else they were capable of thanks to the help of someone they didn’t deserve in the first place.
If she had She-Ra, she kept telling herself. It wouldn’t matter how strong Hordak was. She-Ra could beat him, she was sure of it.
But all she could be right now, was Adora.
Her biggest nightmare.
Everyone hesitated to move. They knew what could happen if they did. And yet here they had the perfect shot at overthrowing the biggest tyrant on Etheria, and they weren’t taking it because of her.
She wasn’t worth it.
“Just do it,” Adora muttered between clenched teeth, staring at her friends as they hesitated on what to do next.
She was ignored.
“Just do it, asshole,” she repeated, louder this time.
There was another pause, and then a coarse laugh coming from behind her. She was pulled higher, earning a complaint that escaped her lips before she could hold it down. Her hands grabbed at her own scalp, looking for something to relieve the pain, eyes closed shut. She couldn’t find it.
“Excuse me? Could you repeat that?”
“I said do it!” She yelled this time. “You’re all talk, but when it comes down to it, you can’t do anything yourself. You always have to send someone to do your dirty work for you.”
“You think your words mean anything to me?” Hordak peaked above her, entering Adora’s field of vision when she opened her eyes again and glanced up. She held his stare, eyes watering for more reasons than one. “You don’t matter to me, Adora. Neither do your words. I may be everything you proclaim I am, but I don’t believe you can call me a traitor. Can you say the same for yourself?”
There was a mechanical sound behind them, something Adora couldn’t see from her position, toes barely grazing the floor now.
“I have enough reasons to believe your side has been working on a hostile attack towards my people,” he spoke to the Princesses again, as if nothing had happened. Maybe her words didn’t work on him, but sadly his words did work on Adora, who felt powerless to even open her mouth again.
For a moment she genuinely wished he would just… do it.
“What are you talking about!?” Frosta’s voice rose above the rest, mature and full of emotion. “You had Adora captured, you were planning this all along. We know everything.”
“Oh, I know you do,” one could hear the smile on Hordak’s voice. Goosebumps rose all over Adora’s body. “You were spying on us. I found your little… souvenir.”
He held a ball in his hand, extended before him and right above Adora so she could see. She immediately recognized the crystal ball Frosta had given her the day they said goodbye, when everyone had brought her a gift.
“And what?” The woman didn’t seem fazed by the revelation at all, if anything agreeing that it was indeed a spying device. “You’ve been doing the exact same thing.”
“Really? Do you have any way to prove that? Any of what you say, for that matter?” He gave them a few moments to respond and, when no one did, he continued. “Personally I have this, and more than one recording of your dear friend plotting an escape. Of course I see your Queen isn’t here, I assume she’s too busy working on some kind of smear campaign against my cause while you attempt to retrieve your traitor.”
The silence that followed told Adora that he was right.
“With that information in mind,” he continued, voice low and threatening, and yet filled with amusement. He was enjoying himself. “Our treaty is officially over.”
Six red beams of light appeared in Adora’s field of view, one for each person standing before them. She could only watch as one by one Perfuma, Frosta, Mermista, Spinerella, Netossa and Sea Hawk fell to their knees, immobilized. It was something similar to what had been used on Castaspella on their first meeting, which already felt like it had happened in another life, only more advanced and dangerous than its previous version.
In what she herself recognized to be a selfish gesture, Adora tried to tear her gaze away from her friends. It was a terrifying sight; all of them incapacitated by one single person’s wish.
And it was only one person’s fault, as well.
A side of her wanted to fight, if not for herself, for them. It bubbled up inside her, speeding her heart rate, quickening her breathing, as if a beast was attempting to claw its way out from inside her chest.
They didn’t deserve any of this, any of what Adora had brought up onto them. All of this was her fault, and the worst part was that she never had a chance of stopping it. Who she was, where she was born, how she was raised, all of the things that went into defining who Adora was, all those unchangeable traits were what made her so dangerous.
That’s why the other side of her was desperate to give up.
Adora closed her eyes, feeling the urge die down and herself crumble under the circumstances. She’d been trying so hard, trying to be good, to help everyone. She had put herself on the backburner as she attempted to heal everyone else, and in the end, it seemed all her efforts had been for nothing.
The salty taste of a tear reached the corner of her mouth, but she didn’t make a sound.
It may have been over, but she wouldn’t give Hordak the pleasure of hearing her cry.
There were sounds of machinery behind her, and her head was tilted to the side by Hordak’s grip when he turned to look back at its source.
“Just end it already,” Adora complained, squeezing her eyes shut again as if that could protect her from whatever would come next.
“Don’t worry. I’ll end it.”
That wasn’t Hordak’s voice.
As if by magic, the pressure in her scalp disappeared and she fell forward, almost not making it in time to stop the fall with her hands. She rolled on the grass until she was laying on her back, quickly propping herself up on her elbows.
Hordak stood, a handful of hair tightly gripped on his right hand.
Beside him, Catra stood with her back to Adora, holding She-Ra’s sword with its tip now rested on the ground. Her body was slightly hunched forward, as if the movement of slashing through her hair had taken an enormous amount of effort. From her position Adora could see her shoulders rise and fall along with her breathing, and she caught herself matching it, unable to speak out of shock.
Beyond her she caught a glimpse of more people; Entrapta, Scorpia and Emily stood on one side, while Glimmer and Bow faced Hordak from the other, determination washed over their faces.
Catra attempted a second attack, raising the sword and swinging it in Hordak’s direction. He quickly moved out of her reach.
“Leave that alone, stupid child! You don’t know what you’re playing with!”
“I’m not a child,” Catra reprimanded him, her voice raspy and low, full of threat. “And I know exactly what I’m playing with.”
She turned around and quickly nodded. Adora saw Glimmer nod back right before Catra threw the sword in the air, at which the Princess disappeared for a quick second and reappeared the next one just in time to grab it, flashing out of existence once more.
“Stop right this instant!” For the first time ever, Hordak seemed actually vulnerable. He was turning around, looking for Glimmer, arms flailing around as if trying to grab her.
Adora could see Bow pointing his arrow at him, in specific, at the source of those red rays that were keeping the Princesses immobilized; a metal piece attached to the back of Hordak’s suit like a backpack.
Even though he couldn’t get a hold of Glimmer, eventually Hordak managed to slam his arm against her, forcing a grunt out of her and causing her to fall on the floor.
“Glimmer!” Adora knew she had been the one to scream the name, but somehow the voice didn’t sound like hers. That thing, it bubbled up inside her again, filling her with adrenaline. She started to stand.
Right as Hordak was about to grab down at Glimmer’s figure on the ground, an arrow found his arm in the spot between two parts of his armor, burying itself in it. The man barely let out a whine, ripping it out with his other hand.
He looked at the source of the attack and quickly found Bow as he prepared his next arrow, but before he could shoot, a new wave of soldiers poured out of the door behind them, some of them looking terribly battered and bruised, and grabbed at him from behind.
“No,” Adora whimpered, seeing her friend get reduced to the ground. A wave of electricity ran from the top of her head to the sole of her feet, launching her to her feet. She wobbled in place, finding it hard to stand for a moment until she found her footing.
The world was spinning
With a grunt Hordak’s hand slashed forward to grab Catra’s neck, who didn’t even have the time to move as she was risen from the ground.
“You!”
Catra’s hands rushed to cover Hordak’s, scratching, kicking. She opened her mouth, but no sounds came out. His eyes, Adora could tell, were full of fury. Hate.
“Traitor,” he muttered, his voice a threat of what was to come.
Adora felt it again, the pressure inside her chest. That thing trying to claw its way out of her.
She didn't hold it back this time.