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Catra raged, not for the first time, in the empty halls of the Fright Zone as the rank and file were out on training exercises. Adora had left her. Without a second thought. Left her to die by Shadow Weaver's hand. “You told me we'd always have each other! You promised!” She hit a steel wall so hard it bent, and bruised her hand. She barely noticed. “And you go off and throw me away the first time you leave the Fright Zone!” She sobbed, wishing she'd never agreed to go out on that joy ride with Adora. Then everything would still be normal! “We were supposed to be a team!” she shouted to the empty barracks, “We were supposed to be friends!” She curled up on the destroyed bunk, still heavy with Adora's scent, and stared at the drawing she had scratched over in anger her first night alone. Catra whispered, sobs crawling up her throat once more, “Did I mean anything to you...?”
*****
“Why do I even exist when Adora does?” Catra muttered, looking down at a recent captured picture of She-Ra in Brightmoon, surrounded by her real friends, smiling and happy. And in the background, the real gem... confirmation. A familiar robed figure lurking in shadow.
Shadow Weaver chose Adora. Shadow Weaver chose Adora, again, just like always. Just like everyone did. No one ever chose her. No one ever wanted her. Not even Adora. “I hate you... I hate you so much...” she growled to an empty room. “Shadow Weaver, Hordak, Etheria itself... everyone always preferred you, didn't they? I was just the backup. The spare.” Her hand shook with fury as the device began to crack from the pressure, her eyes boring holes into the screen. “They wanted you, and you wanted them. More than me, always more than me. 'Shadow Weaver was right' or 'The Horde is bringing peace' or 'This stupid sword says join the princesses for Etheria'. Would you ever have given up anything for me? Not a chance. You were born to be a princess.” she spat that last word out with all the venom saved up in her soul.
Her ears pinned to her head. “You were born to be important.” She hugged herself, feeling unusually cold. “Everyone wants you. No one wants me. I'm just a replacement.” The cold was replaced with a furious fire of spite and resentment. “I'll show everyone... I'm not just the second choice...” She looked up at the ceiling and cried out, “Do you hear me, Adora? I'm not your shadow!” She threw the device against the wall, feeling none of the desired catharsis in seeing it shatter into a thousand pieces. “I'm not your pet!”
*****
“You really thought you could win this, didn't you?” Catra smirked, looking out over the ocean. The ocean she had conquered. Salineas was her's, and with it, the most vital sea lanes of all of Etheria.
She wished it made her happy.
The sunset, golden and imposing... it reminded her of Adora. Beautiful. Distant. Unreachable. Looking down at her. Catra scoffed. “You can't let me have anything, can you?” She shook her head. “I can't even enjoy winning.” Catra ground her teeth together. “I'm going to crush you, Adora. And I don't even think it'll help.” Her fists clenched, and she closed her eyes to fight back the tears welling up. When she opened them again, they were ablaze with fury and despair. “Why? Why do you do this to me? It's been two years! We're not friends! I don't care what happens to you!” With mercurial suddenness, her voice dropped to a whisper again. “Except I do. Every time I see you... I never know if I want to kill you or protect you.” She put her head in her hands. “I'm such a mess... you were right to leave.” She looked up, as if suddenly noticing an invisible Adora in front of her. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Huh? You were right to leave!” She screamed it into the cove, the echo taunting her with reminders of her own flaws and weaknesses, and all in her own voice. “I'm broken, okay?” she cried, voice turning hoarse with emotion, “I'm the villain! I run the Horde, and nothing's changed! I'm...” Her voice dropped to a shocked whisper. “I'm just as bad as Shadow Weaver.”
She realized... for all her power, she had even less to lose than she did in the Crimson Waste. She laughed. Not a happy laugh. The kind of wide-eyed cackle that comes when a soul realizes that they are well and truly in the event horizon of oblivion.
She leaned her head against the jagged cliffside, gaze empty and unfocused. Her voice was even, tired, and hopeless. “I hope you kill me, Adora.”
*****
She looked out at the dark void of space. Cold and empty as her life had become. She pressed her head against the viewport and sighed, heavy with the weight of her sins. “Adora... I messed up. I've messed up so bad. I've messed up everything. You were right, all along.” She tucked a knee against her chest. “I wish I hated you less for that.” Her tail swished anxiously off the ledge as she let her gaze unfocus in the infinite darkness she found herself in.
“Hey, Adora...” she murmured into the abyss, praying for it to somehow find its way to Etheria, “Remember how we used to wrestle when we were kids? And I'd collapse into a pile of flailing limbs and cry out like I was hurt so you'd come over, all worried that I'd broke something?” Catra chuckled. “I always told you it was just to see the look on your face, but... it was because it was the only way I could really see you cared...” Catra smiled softly. “When it stopped working... I guess that kind of broke my heart a little.” she said, her heart aching with wistful nostalgia. “You just kept calling me Noodle Bones... heh...”
She realized – everything she had done since Adora left had been a spiral towards oblivion. All she ever did was spur it faster and faster. She was a weapon, a living bomb. She had destroyed their friendship. She had destroyed the Rebellion. She had almost destroyed all of Etheria. And now she was on track to destroy the universe.
To destroy Adora.
Her ultimate goal was her greatest fear. Catra set that goal because she wanted to hurt herself. Physically, mentally, emotionally. She hated herself more than she loved Adora. Her protector. Her partner. Her best friend.
Tears streamed down her face. “I wish you still cared... I'd take a real broken bone just to see you again...” She tucked her head into her knees and sobbed, softly and continuously. Could the past few years have been different? What if Catra had just went with Adora, like Adora had went with Catra on so many much worse and much less justified misadventures?
What if Catra was a good friend?
She wasn't a good friend. She'd never been a good friend to anyone. Not to Adora, not to Entrapta, not to Scorpia. She regretted it all. Adora had hurt her. Adora hadn't been a perfect friend. But she tried, always. Even when they were on opposite sides of a worldwide war. She tried. Something Catra only seemed to do when it involved destroying something.
Adora hated her now. Hated her since the portal. She saw the look in her eyes. Catra couldn't even blame her. She almost destroyed Etheria just to spite her. Not for the first time, she wished she had succeeded. At least then, she wouldn't have to live with it. She stood up and wiped the tears from her eyes. It was all stupid. She couldn't change anything. Why bother thinking about it?
In her mind's eye, she saw a little girl run down the hall. A past she had tried so hard to bury. A scared little kitten and her best friend in all the world.
Catra didn't hate her. Never did. Never could. No matter how much she tried. All she hated was not having her by her side, not hearing her dumb laugh, not seeing her stupid smug smile. She hated the hole in her heart Adora left. She hated the pain that haunted her day and night. But never her. Never her...
Even if Adora hated her, Catra couldn't hate her back. She sniffled and choked in a pained breath between sobs. The one person who never abandoned her. Who always came after her, no matter what she did.
“I'll always be your friend.”
Catra stared at the empty hall, last vestiges of doubt wiped from her soul.
She would try. She would try to be the friend Adora deserved. Just once. Just once in her life, like Sparkles said. It didn't matter if she died. It didn't matter if Adora would hate her. She just needed, just this once, to show Adora that...
… that she cared, in the end. About her. About them. About what they'd lost.
More than anything.
*****
A muffled voice on the other side of the opaque wall said, “Stand back!”
Glimmer stepped back in surprise as Catra, of all people, came bounding past the force field over the tazed body of one of Horde Prime's clones.
All she said was, “Don't ask questions. I'm getting you out of here.”