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“Where are we, She-ra?” Adora groans, barely hearing the words over the ringing in her ears. Her body feels sluggish and everything hurts. She slowly opens her eyes only to find everything is too bright and metallic. She quickly closes them again. She feels relief when she realizes she knows the throaty voice of the person with her.
“Can we save the questions for when I can actually open my eyes, Wildcat?” Adora keeps her eyes shut and slowly strains her body into a seated position. A wave of vertigo hits and she forces herself to stay still. She chances opening her eyes again, first one then the other. Her eyes slowly adjust to the lighting, and she sees Wildcat sitting on the opposite side of the room, decked out in her black and red bodysuit.
Adora takes a moment to gather her bearings. She touches her face, relieved to find her mask is still there. Other than a rather large bump on the side of her head and body aches, she feels mostly unharmed. The room is empty save for a large metal vault door on one of the walls. Adora refocuses on Wildcat.
“What’s the last thing that you remember?” Adora asks her companion.
Wildcat looks off to the side as if it will improve her recall.
“I got a message from Shimmer saying there was an emergency and that I needed to go to headquarters as soon as possible. She said she was sorry for interrupting my time off. I was suited up and a few blocks away from headquarters and then I woke up here.” Wildcat’s body tenses as she recounts her memory.
Adora lets out a curse as she realizes they have been played.
“I got the same message from Shimmer. My last memory is closing in on headquarters, everything else is just missing. Who would know that we were going to headquarters at that exact moment?”Adora leads her with the question. Wildcat groans as she reaches the same conclusion as Adora.
“Unless Shimmer didn’t message us at all, and someone set us up.” Wildcat drops her head into her hands. “Of course! Shimmer pushed both of us to take a week off, said the Alliance could handle anything that came up. Why would she suddenly call us in for some vague emergency? Stupid!”
She kicks a leg out hitting one of the vault walls in frustration.
“I fell for it too, Wildcat." Adora soothes. "I mean goes to show what chronic workaholics superheroes are huh?” She tries for some humor.
Wildcat lets out a snort.
“I know how to take a break. Bright Moon can’t get enough of She-ra. I like my place in the shadows.” Adora rolls her eyes, knowing that Wildcat was one of the most important and well-liked members of the Alliance, a league of superheroes they both pledged allegiance to for the purpose of protecting Bright Moon.
“Sure Wildcat, you are so mysterious." She waves her off. "So, we got captured by someone. We need to figure out who and get out of here.”
Wildcat gestures to the walls around them.
“This weird vault thing? This has Hordak written all over it. I’ve never seen a room that’s so shiny and drab at the same time.” There was a sudden crack of an intercom system. Both the heroes look up and finally notice a discrete camera in the corner of the room.
“I've never had such rude guests in my favorite vault. Don’t worry about learning manners though, you’ll be dead before you get a chance to deploy them.” Hordak’s voice rang clearly into the vault. That settles the question of who kidnapped them.
“What is your end game this time Hordak? Want to burn down an orphanage? Maybe blow up a government building?” Wildcat snarks as she glares viciously at the camera.
The intercom crackles again.
“I am getting rid of my problems. You two have been a thorn on my side for years and it ends now. Without you two, the Alliance will be significantly weakened, and I will be able to carry out my flawless plans without interference.” Hordak's voice is borderline gleeful in his gloating.
Adora rolls her eyes again. Hordak's a dangerous villain, but his delusions of grandeur are too much at times.
“How about you let us go and save yourself the property damage?” Adora responds, knowing it won't do her much good.
Hordak’s laugh breaks out, grainy over the intercom. It's an unsettling sound.
“You're both in a hermetically sealed vault, inside a war bunker on an island somewhere in the Salinean ocean. It was specifically designed to deal with your pesky little powers. And silly me, I forgot to add vents to the vault, so your breaths are counted.” Hordak pauses, letting the bad news settle in like a fog. “I’m feeling generous, so I’ll let you know how much oxygen you have left. Right now, maybe three hours? I’ll be fighting all your little friends soon, so know that while you sit here, dying, they might be joining you as well. Have a nice rest!”
As soon as the intercom dies down, it's Wildcat's turn to let out a string of curses. Adora moves to sit closer to her.
“We have been in worse scrapes. Remember when Light Hope locked us into her lair, and we fought those giant spiders for an hour before Shimmer managed to teleport us out?” She asks, trying to reassure both of them. She shook off the uneasiness she feels at speaking Light Hope's name. Wildcat lets out a disgusted noise from the back of her throat.
“Ugh, that was the worst! I had nightmares about spiders for weeks.” She stands up, studying the walls of the vault. “Yeah, I’m sure we will get out of here before the oxygen is out. It can’t be that hard can it?”
Apparently, it can be incredibly difficult to break out of a vault, even for a pair of superheroes. The first issue they encounter is that Adora's missing her sword and Wildcat's missing her whip. Wildcat sends flames out of her hand, trying to melt the vault door, but it barely warms to the touch. Adora tries to punch her way through the walls and only earns herself bruised knuckles for her efforts.
A robotic voice sounds through the intercom system.
“You have ninety minutes of oxygen remaining.” Adora groans at hearing the announcement again. Because Hordak's first two loves are science and psychological torment, periodically an announcement blares into the vault with their calculated remaining oxygen.
Adora knows that superhero work is risky. She's always accepted those risks since she joined the Alliance. More than once, she's come face to face with certain death and escaped relatively unscathed. But as the oxygen supply dwindles with no real answer as to how to escape the vault, she gets a sinking feeling this might be her last mission. She puts the thoughts aside for now, knowing she needs to focus if she'll have any chance to get them out of there.
"I don't know how we are going to get out of this one," Wildcat admits in a defeated whisper. She's feeling out the edges of the vault, looking for structural weaknesses for what must be the tenth time this hour. Adora feels her jaw clench.
"The Alliance will find us, they always do," Adora says resolutely. She can’t see Wildcat's face under her mask, but she feels the incredulity rolling off her in waves. She gestures to the vault door sealing them in.
"Did you miss Hordak's big bad villain speech? We are in some bunker in the middle of the Salinean ocean and you know the rest of the Alliance isn't expecting to hear from us right now. We are both supposed to be taking time off!" Wildcat yells, frustration evident as she tersely waves her arms.
Adora frowns at the reminder. Somehow, she forgot she isn't the only superhero who's supposed to be on vacation this week. Before receiving the urgent message from Shimmer, Adora was checking her luggage, just about ready to leave for the airport. She hasn't vacationed in so long she had been looking forward to it.
She isn’t sure where or what Wildcat was planning to do with her time off since that falls squarely into Wildcat’s personal life and none of Adora’s business.
Adora never should've agreed to go on vacation. But Catra insisted they go, reminding her that they deserved a vacation after forgoing a graduation trip three years prior. Adora always struggles with denying Catra her wants. Her heart clenches at the thought of Catra waiting on her to go on vacation right now. She's probably so pissed off.
"Ugh, there has to be a way out of here." Adora thinks aloud. She'd do anything for her sword right about now. She feels so limited without it. Adora thinks about what else they have up their sleeve without their typical weapons but is interrupted by the annoying alarm. Adora rolls her eyes. Once again, whatever annoying bot Hordak has programmed speaks into the vault, the sound echoing about.
"You have thirty minutes of oxygen remaining." The disembodied voice delivers the news with little fanfare, just the crackle of the intercom.
"What?" Adora roars, "the stupid thing said we had over an hour last time!"
Wildcat bangs her head back into the wall in frustration, sliding down and sitting for the first time since they woke up in this nightmare.
"Exerting yourself means you use more oxygen, genius." Wildcat gestures for Adora to take a seat. "We've been moving around trying to get out of this hellhole. If we can't get out of this thing we should try to stay still and alive for as long as possible. It gives us our best shot at a rescue."
Adora sits next to Wildcat. She hates the thought of waiting for rescue, but Wildcat's right. They don't have a lot of options.
“Do you remember when we first met? I thought you hated me.” When Adora first joined the Alliance, Wildcat had been her least favorite person to run into.
Wildcat took one look at Adora, feet crossed on the long desk at Alliance headquarters as she said, "so we are just letting in anyone that gets ready for a costume party into the Alliance? Good to know."
“I didn’t hate you She-ra, I just thought your flouncy skirts and hair poof were a bit ridiculous.” Adora could now acknowledge that her first costume design left a lot to be desired—she stood by the hair poof though.
“No, you definitely didn’t like me. You refused to go on a mission with me for a full year.” She points out the obvious.
“I mean you did an interview with the Bright Moon Inquirer and you were on the magazine cover as the Alliance’s ‘Golden Girl'” Wildcat used air quotes for emphasis. “You seemed really full of yourself She-ra.” She pauses, smirking. “You still are of course, but I’m more used to it now.”
“I’ll have you know that Shimmer organized the thing with the magazine! I was so uncomfortable I thought I was going to die.” Adora sputtered. The joke falls flat as the implication of what she said hits Adora. Wildcat tries to move past it.
“Didn’t know you were so interested in working with me, counting the months till we worked together?” Wildcat teases, her usual move whenever she wants to move the conversation along.
Adora feels her cheeks redden, glad that she is wearing her mask and Wildcat can't see it. She decides to be honest.
“I mean you inspired me to join the Alliance, Wildcat. You were my favorite superhero. Of course, I wanted to work with you.” Adora admits in a quiet whisper, hand reaching to scratch the back of her neck. After Adora realized that Wildcat didn’t like her she felt too mortified to ever admit to being a fan before she joined. Now, that it seems like they might die in this stupid vault, Adora doesn't see the point of being embarrassed any longer.
Wildcat sits stock still for a moment before letting out a sharp breath.
“Wow, um I never would have imagined that.” Her voice is colored with awe. “You know, now you are everyone’s favorite. You really are Bright Moon’s golden girl. And it’s well deserved. You’ve saved a lot of people.”
“We have saved a lot of people. The Alliance has. It’s been an honor to work with you Wildcat.” Adora feels like she's saying goodbye. Wildcat has proven to be an invaluable ally who was fun to work with. They don’t know each other all that well personally, but Adora knows that Wildcat has her back, no matter the situation when they are out on a mission.
"We might really die here. Alone." Adora lets out an involuntary whimper. She was really looking forward to that vacation with Catra.
“Hey! You aren’t alone, I’m right here. Rude.” Adora knows Wildcat's rolling her eyes beneath her red mask. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she does. "I thought you said the Alliance was going to rescue us like they always do? Come on you can't just give up on your optimism, that's She-ra's whole thing!" Wildcat ribs her gently, but Adora can hear how hopeless she really feels.
Adora sighs, looking away from Wildcat.
"You know, the biggest thing I regret is not telling my best friend that I'm in love with her." Adora thought of Catra when they met in college. She had very little going for her beyond being a superhero when Catra burst into her life, turning everything upside down. She's gorgeous and underneath all of her snark lives one of the kindest souls Adora knows. "I was worried that if we were ever together like that, I wouldn't be able to protect her. That she'd end up dead because of me. Now, she'll probably think I abandoned her."
Adora has considered leaving the Alliance so many times, just to be with Catra. Now she wishes she followed those dreams instead. She guesses that their flight out of Bright Moon had to be leaving soon if it hasn't left already. By now, Catra probably knows something's terribly wrong.
Wildcat snorts, shoving Adora's shoulder gently.
"Stars, She-ra you really do love to torture yourself. If this girl thinks you'd just walk out on her without a word, she doesn’t really know you. I only know you when you wear that stupid mask and even I know you're painfully reliable." Wildcat puts her hand back on Adora’s shoulder, this time a comforting gesture.
"She's just been through a lot. Everyone in her life has left her or disappointed her and I promised I wasn't going to be one of those people." Adora feels the need to defend Catra from Wildcat’s criticism. Adora's mortified when she realizes she's holding back tears.
"I'm sure she knows you wouldn't just drop her. I mean being dead is going to suck but it isn't your fault, you know?" Wildcat states in a low, assuring voice. She then lets out a deep sigh. "I also didn't tell the girl I love how I feel. But I don't regret it. Some things are better left unsaid. I knew the moment I met her that there was something special about her."
"Why wouldn't you want to pursue her then?" Adora asks curiously. This is the most she's ever heard about Wildcat's personal life.
Wildcat shifts her gaze towards the back wall of the vault and shrugs one of her spandex-covered shoulders.
"I knew she'd never want me. That's why I didn't tell her how I felt about her." She states with a shrug. It was Adora’s turn to snort.
"Why wouldn't she want you? I mean you save Bright Moon on an almost weekly basis." Adora knows plenty of women who pine after Wildcat, with her bad girl vibes, tight suit, and whip to boot. She sometimes finds herself staring at Wildcat at Alliance headquarters, but she keeps that to herself. Wildcat shakes her head.
"I don't want her to love me because I'm Wildcat. I want to be enough. Me, the woman behind the mask." She explains, her voice heavy with pain.
The vulnerability in Wildcat's voice makes her heart clench.
"I only know you as Wildcat, but I know you're a great person. You've saved my life more times than I can count. This girl would be lucky to have you." Adora insists. Wildcat huffs.
“I’m sure if you knew who I really was, you wouldn’t see it that way She-ra. You'd walk right by me on the street, and you’d never think I was capable of good.” Wildcat turns her head looking towards the far wall instead of at Adora.
She doesn’t know any of the Alliance members' true identities—at least the ones who chose to keep their identities secret—but she knows Wildcat comes from a difficult background given the things she hears Shimmer say. Adora reaches out her hand to touch Wildcat’s. She couldn’t really feel her through both their gloves, but the gesture is enough.
“You might think that, but you’d be wrong.” She whispers. She isn't sure how she knows, but she thinks she'd be friends with Wildcat.
A sudden thud catches Adora's attention a moment before she feels the vibrations of a huge explosion erupting. A split second before the vault door is cleaved off its hinges, Adora throws her body on top of Wildcat's to shield her from the blast.
"Did someone ask for adventure!?" Seahawk bellows into what is left of the vault. Wildcat twitches underneath Adora at the sound of Seahawk's voice.
"I'd rather die than be rescued by Seahawk. This is not a joke." She deadpans.
"Good thing we're all here then!" Arrow and Shimmer appear along with other Alliance members who are fighting Hordak's henchmen. Adora scrambles off Wildcat and offers her hand to help her up. Instead, Wildcat lifts herself off the ground without assistance.
"How did you even know we were missing?" Adora asks, shouting to be heard over the all-out melee.
"When we realized Hordak was up to something I checked your flight and saw you both missed it," Shimmer responds, a strange look on her face as she glances between Adora and Wildcat. As the head of the Alliance, Shimmer's the only Alliance member who knows everyone's identity.
"So are you guys up for helping out? We could really use it." Arrow tosses Adora's sword and Wildcat's whip at them, they both catch their weapons of choice easily. Wildcat lights her whip aflame and looks over at She-ra.
"Ready to kick Hordak's ass?" Catra grins as she strikes her whip against the ground, a sharp crack bouncing off the walls.
Adora grips her sword, eyes glowing.
"I was born ready."
As Adora slashes with her sword, catching Hordak’s henchmen off guard, she notices Wildcat doing the same with her whip. At one point they are fighting back-to-back. It's poetry in motion.
“Oh, how exciting to see you’ve escaped child, maybe now Hordak will see the value in disposing of you in a more permanent fashion.” The deep voice makes Adora shiver, even though it isn't directed at her. Adora can feel Wildcat hesitate as Shadow makes her way toward them.
Shadow gives Adora the creeps, always had, always will. She looks as amorphous as her namesake, her hair billowing in an unnatural way and the rest of her similarly hard to distinguish. Adora doesn’t know why but Shadow always has it out for Wildcat making sure to confront her directly in any fight. Adora steps between them. She starts to swing her sword at Shadow, pushing her backward.
“You want to protect the kitten? Do so at your own peril, lest you end up with claws down your back.” Shadow almost dances around Adora, making it near impossible for Adora to strike her.
“The only person who needs protecting here is you!” Adora manages to glance her sword off of Shadow's arm, but it's too late. Shadow throws some type of teleportation spell that helps her disappear.
Adora notes the fresh blood on the tip of her sword, panting. She glances at Wildcat, who's checking her for injuries.
“I think I got her. Enough to hurt but not enough to kill.” She informs her.
“We'll get her next time. Let’s help the others finish this up.” Wildcat nods towards the few henchmen who refuse to stop fighting.
Hours later the Alliance heads back to headquarters, victorious after stopping Hordak’s latest scheme. He planned to blow one of the day moons which would have made half the planet unlivable. It was very on-brand. What's better, Wildcat and Scorpia manage to convince Hordak's lead scientist, Entrapta, to switch sides.
Adora's back at Alliance headquarters after the debriefing when she sees Wildcat taking off.
"Hey Wildcat, about the vault. When we thought we wouldn't get out." Wildcat tenses as if ready to fight again. "I don't know your girl, but you clearly do. You should take a chance on her."
"Maybe you should take your own advice She-ra. If it would be your biggest regret if you died, talking to your friend is probably worth doing. Superheroes don't tend to live forever you know." Wildcat clears her throat after cracking the dark joke. "To be clear we are never talking about our love lives ever again."
Wildcat punched her arm. Adora rolls her eyes even though Wildcat can’t see it.
"Thank the stars, I wouldn't be able to handle it if you went soft on me Wildcat." Adora jokes bumping into Wildcat again. She chuckles and walks away from Adora, saying her goodbyes.
Adora briefly thinks about what Wildcat said. Maybe she should be brave enough to reveal herself to Catra. Not just her identity, but her heart. Her stomach dips at the thought. Underneath all her bravado and talk about protecting Catra, she's a coward. Ultimately, she is protecting Catra from villains, yes, but she's also protecting herself from Catra’s inevitable rejection. Adora groans, wondering how she's going to explain missing their vacation flight to Catra as she makes her way to her apartment.