Chapter Text
For some reason, Shadow Weaver had sent her on Adora’s mission to Thaymor in the hopes of finding the Hordes newest force captain. Something about Catra knowing Adora best and how Adora may have gone to Thaymor to complete her first mission, blah blah blah. And sure, she wanted to find Adora too, she was her best friend after all, but she never thought that finding her would be as easy as plowing a tank through a civilian village. Adora was was clever, she would never do something as stupid as throw herself into the pathway of an oncoming 63-ton-tank unprotected and vulnerable. But somehow, there she was—arms spread wide and stubbornly staring down the metal spike at the front of the tank. Catra stopped the tank so fast she was fairly certain she broke something, flung the overhead door opened, and jumped out onto the roof.
“Adora!”
“Catra?”
She didn’t even think, didn’t question why Adora was there or why she was trying to stop the tank. Catra jumped from the hatch and landed on her friend, knocking her to the ground. If anybody claimed she was purring, she would absolutely deny it later.
“They let me drive a tank! Can you believe it?”
“Catra, I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
“Uh, duh, we came to find you,” she said as she stood, taking Adora’s wrist and helping her up.
“’Cover for me Catra. No one will even know I’m gone,’” Catra said, mimicking her friend. “Seriously, did you just immediately get captured right after you snuck out or—What are you wearing?”
She pointed at the pink flower tucked behind her friends' ear. Come on, a flower? It was stupid. Flowers wilted and died, and besides, the hair poof Adora insisted on having already looked silly enough. She didn’t need the flower’s help for that. Her Adora would never wear something as dumb as a pink flower in her hair. But she’d be lying if she didn’t admit, at least to herself, that Adora did look cute wearing the dumb thing. And the pout on her face as she took the flower out of her hair and tossed it on the ground behind her? Even cuter.
“Look, there’s no time,” Adora said. “We have to put a stop to this.”
“What? Why?”
“Because this is a civilian town. Look around! These aren’t insurgents, they’re innocent people!”
Catra turned away from Adora. She always was about as stubborn as a Horde tank. How did she not see that Catra was trying to help her? As if she would ever leave her friend behind at the mercy of the princesses. And she did not want to face Shadow Weaver’s wrath if she came home without the new force captain—Adora had always been Shadow Weavers favorite, after all.
“Yeah, sure. Innocent people who kidnapped a Horde officer,” she said, taking Adora by the wrist and leading her back towards the tank. “Now come on, let’s get you back to the Fright Zone. Shadow Weaver is freaking out. It’d be funny if she weren't such a terrible person.”
Adora pulled her hand back. “Catra, no. I can’t go back. Not until the Horde leaves this town alone. You have to help me!”
Catra looked over her shoulder, trying to keep the hurt away from her voice. She knew she was failing, as surely as she knew where this conversation was going, and she hated it. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this is wrong,” Adora said. They’ve been lying to us, manipulating us. Hordak, Shadow Weaver, all of them.”
“Duh! You just figured that out? Manipulation is Shadow Weaver’s whole thing! She’s been messing with our heads since we were kids.”
“How could you be okay with that?”
Adora looked so heartbroken that Catra softened her approach. She couldn’t lose her; she’d never forgive herself if she pushed Adora away. Through their whole lives it had always been the two of them, watching each other's backs. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing a friendship like that.
“Because. It doesn’t matter what they do. The two of us look out for each other,” Catra said, placing her hands on Adora’s shoulders. “And soon we’ll be the ones calling the shots. Now come on. Can we go home already?”
That was the moment one of the nearby Horde tanks fired a shot, and a new burst of flames erupted beside them. Adora flinched, one of the civilians screamed, and Catra saw it in her expression. Catra knew. Adora was always too good for the Horde anyway, if she was being honest. She was a far better person than she ever was, and why Adora ever wanted to be her friend in the first place, Catra would never know. She cared about people, more than anyone else in that nightmare of a place they called home—for lack of a better word. The Fright Zone never felt like a home, not really, in fact Adora was the only thing that ever made the place bearable. It was her home because Adora had been there, always right by her side. But now...
“I’m not going home, Catra. I can’t. Not after everything I’ve seen,” Adora said, taking Catra’s hand in hers. “Come with me. You don’t have to go back there. We can fix this.”
Catra ripped her hand away from Adora’s grasp. “Are you kidding? You’ve known these people for what? A couple of hours? And now you’re gonna throw everything away for them ? What happened to you?”
“I don’t know,” Adora said. “But I have to do something. I’m sorry Catra.”
Catra felt the pain and anger build inside of her. She didn’t know why this felt like such a betrayal. Here Adora was, asking her to come with her, to defect from the Horde. But somehow, the fact that she was so willing to leave, even if Catra didn’t come, that she was choosing to go with these strangers over her—over the people they grew up with—felt like Adora was choosing these strangers over her. She swore she wouldn’t return to the Fright Zone without Adora, and here Adora was ready to leave her—she was leaving her. If Catra hadn’t shown up, would Adora have ever tried to contact her, or would she just carry on and start a new life without her? For the briefest moment, something inside of Catra snapped. As Adora turned her back to her and began to leave her behind, she grabbed her taser gun, pressed the metal prongs to Adora’s back, and pressed the trigger button. Adora yelled in pain and dropped to the ground—Catra immediately regretted it.
“Oh man! That was a lot stronger than I thought,” Catra said. “Are you okay?”
Adora struggled to right herself back up. She made it as far as a sitting position when she said Catra’s name, and on impulse she shocked her friend again eliciting another yell. Seriously, what was wrong with her? She hadn’t meant to shock her the second time, and she honestly didn’t realize how strong the first shot would be. The Horde really should start putting some type of intensity setting on these things. But of course, they didn’t, because they were the Horde. Pain was their game after all. And that was what they had trained her for. The Horde and Shadow Weaver had trained her to react, to inflict pain on others before they could inflict it on her.
“I’m sorry!” she said, watching as Adora collapsed again from pain. “It was a reflex.”
“W—why are you doing this?”
How did Adora always manage to do that? To pull all of Catra’s anger out of her body without even trying. She looked so hurt, laying there looking up at her, probably feeling as betrayed as Catra felt. That was currently her problem though. Without her anger, all Catra had left was the sensation of betrayal, the deeply rooted pain in her chest, and a far too familiar ache at the back of her throat that told her tears wouldn’t be far behind.
“Because you left me. And if I don’t bring you back Shadow Weaver is gonna have my head. So, enough with your weird little identity crisis and let’s go home already. Or do I need to zap you again?”
Catra did not want to zap her friend for a third time, and she doubted she had the anger left inside of her for it anyway. Not that she would get to find out, because the words had barely left her mouth when she got a face full of pink sparkles. She shrieked and batted them away, but by time her vision cleared again, some princess was knelt down beside Adora and a guy with his abs exposed riding on some kind of animal fired a net from his bow— with an arrow? —pinning her to the ground and entangling her. Catra aimed her taser gun at the princess and fired, but in the time it took for Arrow Boy to call for them to watch out, both Adora and the princess disappeared in a cloud of pink glitter and the electricity hit the dirt where they had been.
She called for her friend, yelling Adora’s name desperate to have her back. She would not lose Adora. She couldn’t. Did that dumb sparkly princess really think she could just steal Catra’s best friend? Her anger poured back into her and she growled, breaking the ropes as she got back up. Sparkles might not be here to claw, so Arrow Boy would have to do. She pounced, grabbing onto him and knocking him back off of his weird animal and slamming him to the ground— hard.
He dropped his bow and it looked like he was out of arrows, which made this easy. He managed to grab his bow before she landed on him, feet first, not that it did him much good. Arrow Boy was using his bow to try to block her, but she pressed down on it with all of her strength. Something inside Catra had snapped and she could feel it. These people, these strangers , had stolen Adora away from her, the only person she had ever really had in her life that she could rely on. Arrow Boy managed to get a good kick in and toss her through the air. Catra hit the ground with a scream, rolling herself back to her feet within seconds. She turned to see him trying to make a run for it, but the Horde-bots and tanks were already closing in around him. Murder wasn’t something she was keen to put on her list of accomplishments, she was content to just rough him up a little, something to let her frustrations out on. But if the Horde wanted to kill him, she didn’t exactly have the rank to pull to be able to stop them, so she turned away, not wanting to witness the poor idiot get blasted out of existence.
As she was turning, she saw a light appear off to the side. It was way too bright to be anything the Horde had concocted, and she had never seen anything like it before. It was moving towards the center of the Horde’s circle to where Arrow Boy was standing. She squinted, trying to focus on the light, and saw her. An eight-foot-tall blond woman in a tiara. Another princess . Was this one of Adora’s new best friends too? She growled in frustration and began inching forward, closer to the circle for a better look. This new princess moved to stand just in front of Arrow Boy, and without saying a word she hefted her sword and slammed it point first into the rocky ground at her feet. The earth responded by knocking nearly all of the Horde soldiers, bots, and tanks over as it shifted and trembled. In fact, the only part of the earth that stood still was the small circle where the princess and Arrow Boy were standing.
The few Horde soldiers, bots, and tanks that remained didn’t stay that way long. As Sparkles ran back to join her little boyfriend, the new princess demolished what was left of her squads' machinery, and the soldiers turned and ran screaming. The Horde should probably train those morons better before sending them out next time—if they even got a next time. Catra reached the bottom of the ruble and watched as the princess took a step toward her friends, the light faded, and she dropped to her knee. As soon as she hit the ground though, the princess with the stupid tiara wasn’t the one leaning against the sword—it was Adora. The air around them was filled with smoke and dirt from the broken machines and the earth tremors, but for a moment, Catra stood there staring at Adora. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t act. She felt nothing and everything all at once. It was as if her whole world had stopped turning while spinning impossibly faster at the same time. It was only for a few seconds, and then the smoke began to clear and Adora looked up and locked eyes with her.
“Catra.”
Adora’s voice was soft, and she sounded guilty, almost. It was the way she spoke whenever she was about to apologize, or whenever she was consoling Catra after Shadow Weaver had punished her. Something in her voice made her unfreeze. She couldn’t survive an apology right now. She was too broken right now. She had to get away. Catra turned and ran, just like her cowardly squad had done, and truthfully, she was no better than them. She didn’t make it very far before she heard another set of footsteps running behind her—very slow, familiar footsteps.
“Catra, wait!” Adora called. “Please?”
She stopped running, whirling around to face her. “Wait for what, Princess Adora ? For you to show me your new tiara up close and personal? No thanks.”
Adora slowed to a stop in front of Catra. She was breathing hard and barely able to stand up right. “Don’t be ridiculous, Catra, I just want—”
“Your tiara is the only thing being ridiculous right now.”
“Catra, I’m serious. Please?”
“Fine!” she snapped, gesturing with her hand to continue. “What do you want, princess ?”
Adora sighed and took a step closer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know about that before today, I swear.”
“I don’t want your dumb apology, Adora, so if that’s why you chased after me, then you wasted your time. Go back to your new friends before you fall over.”
“I’m not going to fall over. And why do you always have to be so difficult?”
“Somebody has to challenge you, since you're so perfect at everything!”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Because you left me!” Catra screamed. A flock of birds took off in a nearby tree. Adora froze. At least she had the floor now. “ You left me, Adora. You were just going to defect from the Horde and leave me behind. And now, I’m going to be all alone.”
“Catra, I—”
“Don’t say you're sorry, Adora. I don’t need your apology. Just go back to your new best friends.”
Catra hated crying. Crying was a weakness, and she should never let anybody know or see her cry if she did. That was Shadow Weaver’s favorite thing to tell her when she was a kid, and up until now, Adora was the only person she never felt weak crying in front of. But now, having Adora see her cry seemed like the biggest weakness she could possibly display, so she turned to leave before the tears could spill over and roll down her face. She’d only taken a single step when Adora’s hand caught hers, effectively stopping her from taking a second step.
“You’re right, Catra. I was going to defect from the Horde.”
“Great,” she said bitterly, her back still to Adora. “Glad we cleared that up. Can I go now?”
“No, that’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you what?”
“I want you to come with me, Catra.”
She gave a breathy laugh that blended with the choked sob in the back of her throat. “Why would you want me to come with you? You have new princess friends now, don’t you?”
“But they aren’t you, Catra,” Adora said. “You’re still my best friend. I need you.”
“You didn’t need me to take out those Horde tanks, or soldiers, or bots,” Catra said, turning around to face her. “You did that on your own, just fine. You didn’t need me to defect from the Horde. You were just fine to do that on your own too.”
“I was going to defect from the Horde. But leaving you behind? Catra that was the hardest part of that decision. And when I saw you get out of that tank, I was so glad that you were here, because it meant that I had a chance to ask you to come with me.” Adora took Catra’s other hand in hers and took another step closer.
“I can’t be a part of what the Horde is doing—attacking civilian towns like this? I won’t help them do that. But that doesn’t mean I wanted to leave you. You and I have always had each other’s backs. We look out for one another. So much has changed for me today, and my whole world has been turned upside down. I need my best friend, Catra, I need you.”
“I zapped you with the taser gun twice today, Adora,” Catra said with a half smirk. “You really sure that’s best friend material?”
Adora laughed. It was a soft laugh, and Catra noticed that Adora was crying too. Looks like they were both weak by the Horde’s standards.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“You know they’ll probably lock us up as soon as we set foot in Bright Moon, right?”
“Glimmer won’t let that happen.”
“Oh, is that Sparkles’ real name?”
“Does this mean you’re coming with me?” Adora asked.
“You know, I think I liked Sparkles better...” she said, teasing her.
“Are you coming with me or not?”
“Let me guess, Arrow Boy is called something equally as obvious?”
“His name is Bow.” Adora said in defense, then her eyes widened as she seemed to realize the irony of it.
Catra laughed. “Course it is.”
“Catra!” she laughed
“Of course, I’m coming,” she said. “If you can’t see how obvious of a name Bow is for a guy who shoots a bow and arrows, you clearly need me more than either of us realized."