Chapter Text
Adora was running. Faster than she ever had; faster than she ever knew she could. The monster had a head start on her, but who was he compared to the mighty She-Ra? With a great yell, she raised her fist and-
Beep beep beep.
Tumbled out of bed, face first, arm still outstretched towards her nonexistent assailant. With a sigh, she untangled herself from her blankets and blew her hair out of her face.
“Just a dream, Adora, just a dream.” She muttered to herself as she turned her alarm off. She busied herself with her usual morning routine; brushing her teeth, making her bed, anything to distract from the feeling of dread in her stomach. Because that’s all it ever would be; a dream. Adora looked at herself in the mirror and glared at her reflection. There were two fundamental truths about herself that she faced, with loathing, every morning.
Number one: she was the daughter of the two most powerful superheroes on Earth.
Number two: she was completely and totally powerless.
……
It was a complete secret, of course. Nobody knew, least of all her parents. Adora shivered at the thought of their disappointed faces as she went downstairs to their kitchen. How she had managed to fool everyone for this long, she had no idea. She was, as the tabloids put it, “pretty ripped”, but due to her young age, she wasn’t exactly being asked to save whole cities just yet. Had she managed to lift a car one time high enough that an old lady could climb out from under it? Yes, but while her father had assumed it was her powers kicking in, Adora knew it was actually a combination of adrenaline, her natural muscle, and the 7 red bulls she’d had that day.
But today, all of that would change. “Superhero high school”; her parents had called it. Adora had no idea how she was going to continue faking her powers when she was surrounded by a bunch of other teenagers, let alone superpowered ones. Her parents were almost easy to fool; they were never home enough to notice Adora’s ah…problem. Case in point, Adora noticed a note taped to their fridge.
Sorry we can’t see you off on your first day, honey! Evil doesn’t observe “school days.”
We know you’ll make us proud. Love, The Commander and Jet-Stream
Adora rolled her eyes at their superhero names. Being given a superhero name like She-Ra at birth had been embarrassing enough, but she didn’t go around signing personal notes with it. And she probably never would. Unless she could find a vat of toxic waste…preferably before the school bus got here.
HONK
Well, scratch that plan. Adora pulled her ponytail tighter. Maybe if she pulled it tight enough, she’d get a migraine, and could call in sick, and then nobody would know-
HONK HONK
Right, school bus. Outside. Waiting to take her to…well, Hell seemed extreme. Her father had actually been there last year (fighting someone who could make portals was always risky) and said it was actually quite pleasant, once you looked past the lava and the various moats of flesh-eating alligators.
HONK HONK HONK
“Ok Adora, you can do this.” She took a deep breath, and walked out the door.
……
Alright, forget inheriting her family’s super strength. What she wouldn’t give for invisibility right now. She stood at the front of the bus, and grinned awkwardly as every student stared at her, mouths slightly ajar.
“Uh, hi.” She gave a little wave, and immediately dropped her hand. Maybe waving wasn’t cool? Waving had been cool at her old school.
But as she scanned the rows looking for an empty seat, she realized someone in the last row was actually waving back at her. Two someones. The boy wore a massive grin and the tiniest crop top she’d ever seen, and the girl with pink hair could barely see over the top of the seat in front of them. They beckoned her over and Adora dove for their bench, grateful.
“Hi!” The boy held his hand out. “I’m Bow, and this is-”
“I’m Glimmer!” The girl, Glimmer, leaned over Bow to pull Adora into a bear hug.
“Oh wow, hi.” Adora wasn’t sure where to put her arms, so she settled on awkwardly patting the top of Glimmer’s head. “Sorry, do I know you?”
“No, but we know you!” Glimmer beamed as Bow pulled her back across into her own seat.
“Sorry about her, she’s a little aggressive.”
“I am not!” She whacked Bow’s arm and if his wince was anything to go by, she either didn’t know her own strength or didn’t care. Adora bet it was the second one. “We’re just so excited to finally meet you! Adora Grayskull, daughter of the Commander and Jet-Stream. Your powers are super strength, they developed a few years ago but you’ve been going to high school in the civilian world which, I mean, come on, lame!”
Adora weakly laughed. “Ah, yeah, lame.” She looked at the trees they were driving by and wondered how much it would hurt to jump out of a moving bus.
“Glimmer, it’s not lame to not have powers. Your dad doesn’t have any powers.” Bow gently reminded her.
“My dad also cries if he burns cookies.”
Adora smiled. “Your dad and I have that in common.” Bow and Glimmer laughed and Adora’s heart eased up a little bit. “So…does everyone know everything about me? I mean I sort of noticed the…” Adora jerked her head towards the rest of the bus where, sure enough, several kids had turned fully in their seats to stare at her.
Glimmer cupped her hands around her mouth. “Turn around and quit staring, Kyle. Or I’ll tell my mom you’re the one that clogged the boys bathroom last year.”
Kyle, a terrified looking blonde boy, whipped around so fast Adora could swear she heard his neck crack. “Uh, Glimmer, why would your mom care about Kyle’s bathroom…accident?”
“Cause my mom is Angella Brightmoon, duh!” Glimmer smiled, as if this answered Adora’s question.
Adora blinked. “Oh…kay.”
“Your parents didn’t tell you anything, huh?” Bow chimed in.
“Uh, no, well they’ve been really busy recently. There was this giant robot in Budapest, and then they went to Aspen.”
“Yeti problem?”
“No, skiing.”
“Ah.”
Glimmer held out her hand again. “Let me introduce myself properly this time. I’m Glimmer Brightmoon, daughter of Angella Brightmoon, principal of Sky High.”
A lightbulb went off above Adora’s head. “Oh! I read all about her; her magic holds up the school right? And she’s got these huge wings.” Adora found herself glancing behind Glimmer, who rolled her eyes.
“Don’t even bother looking, they haven’t come in yet.” She turns her back to Bow and Adora and lifts up her shirt, enough for Adora to see two tiny pink marks on her back. “My mom said she was a late bloomer too, but I just wanna be able to fly already.”
Bow threw an arm around her. “Glim, you can teleport! That’s almost like flying.”
Adora’s eyes widened. “You can teleport?”
Glimmer nodded. “Since I was four. One minute my dad was tucking me into bed, the next, I was on my favorite swing set in the park.”
“Aww, that sounds nice.”
“It took them three hours to find me, and by then I had eaten a pinecone.”
“Oh, less nice.” Adora turned towards Bow. “What about you?”
Bow rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Oh, I’m nothing special.”
Adora’s heart soared. Maybe she wouldn’t be the only non-powered kid here. But then Glimmer smacked his arm.
“Don’t talk about my best friend like that!” She fake whispered to Adora. “He only realized he had powers a few months ago.”
Bow grinned. “I do a lot of archery, and I realized every single one of my arrows always hit the target. I just thought it was from hard work and practice, but-”
“But we tested it out a dozen different ways and he could hit the target from a mile away with a blindfold on! He physically can’t miss!”
Adora watched the fond smile Glimmer sent Bow’s way; different then her usual one, softer and seemingly just for Bow. “So you guys have known each other for a while then?”
“Basically our whole lives.” Bow said. “Her mom saved my dads from a falling robot head, they invited her to dinner as a thank you, and we’ve been best friends ever since.”
“And now you’re here, and you’ll be put in Hero class with Bow and I, and then-”
Adora could see that Glimmer was still talking but at that word, hero , her mind went somewhere else. She had researched enough about the school to know that there were two possible tracks- hero and loser. Okay, the second one wasn’t called loser, it was called “hero support” but the way her parents talked about it, you’d never know the difference.
Desperate to think about anything else, Adora awkwardly cleared her throat. “Yeah, school! How do we even get there anyway? I mean, I know it’s in the sky, obviously, but like, does this bus take us to a plane, or- why are you looking at me like that?”
Bow and Glimmer stared at Adora with their mouths slightly parted. Bow managed a response first. “Uh, Adora, you might want to turn around.”
She whipped around and gasped. Gone were the trees and cars lining the street; actually, gone was the entire street. She smashed her face up against the window. They were flying high above the city, at a crazy upward incline. Adora smiled as they soared above a flock of birds and for the first time that morning, she was happy she’d gotten out of bed. Maybe school wouldn’t be that bad.
……
As the flying bus touched down on school grounds ( floating school grounds, she mentally corrected herself), Adora became grateful she didn’t get sick flying. Kyle, along with several other passengers, left the bus looking significantly greener and paler than was normal for any human.
“Ta-da!” Bow threw his arms out in front of Adora. “Sky High! You’re gonna have such a good time here! I can’t wait to show you the hallways, and the lockers, and the-”
“You know, I had all that stuff at my old school too.” Adora grinned.
“Okay, but at your old school, did the lockers eat your books if you were late to class?”
“Does…does that happen here?”
“No, but how cool would that be?”
Glimmer looped her arm in with Adora’s and Bow slid in on her other side. Even though she’d just met them this morning, she felt oddly comfortable around the two of them. Huh. She hadn’t made a friend this quick since…
Glimmer clapped her hands and snapped Adora out of her trance. “Okay! First things first. We gotta give you the Mean Girls lowdown. Over there, is where all the senior heroes hang out. And right here is where Bow threw up on his first day because he was so excited.”
“Glimmer!” Bow said. “It’s true though, I did, right there.”
“And over here is where the jocks hang out, anyone with super strength, those types of powers. You’ll probably be chummy with them super quick.”
Adora looked over wistfully at the corner where several students were bench pressing each other. She suppressed a sigh. If they knew the truth, they would probably want nothing to do with her.
Glimmer continued her tour. “Those are the nerds over there, we’ve got a few technopaths and morally gray geniuses, that sort of thing.” She points out a group of kids who stand huddled around a robot. One girl with long purple pigtails takes out a wrench and starts smacking the robot on the head with it.
“And over there are, ugh of course they’re blocking the entrance.” Glimmer groaned with annoyance.
Adora looked over and at first just saw two girls, possibly their own age, standing somewhat near the entrance. Then she realized the tall girl with white hair had a tail that was, as Glimmer had said, blocking the entrance. The girl herself didn’t seem to notice that people were carefully moving away, giving her tail a wide radius.
“Why are they moving around her like that?” Adora asked.
“Her tail is poisonous; but don’t worry! It’s not fatal, it’ll just knock you out for a few hours.” Bow answered.
“And you’ll have an insane headache.” Glimmer shuddered. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about them. They usually keep to themselves, since they’re supervillains.”
Adora stopped in her tracks. “I’m sorry, they’re what?”
“Glim, their parents were supervillains. Your mom is the one that okayed them coming to school! Just because their parents are evil doesn’t mean they are.”
“And just because my mom was cool with it doesn’t mean I have to be. Besides, evil or not, Catra is still a bitch.”
Glimmer and Bow walked ahead of her, but Adora was rooted to the pavement. She must’ve misheard Glimmer. Or it was a different Catra. There had to be other people named Catra in the world.
“Adora, you coming?” Bow shouted back at her.
At his words, the girl next to Scorpia stilled, and slowly turned to face Adora. Their eyes met, and for the first time in years, Adora found herself getting lost in blue and gold eyes. Her heart felt like it was going to hammer out of her chest, and she was vaguely aware of Glimmer and Bow walking back over to her.
But she wasn’t looking at them. She couldn’t take her eyes off Catra, who walked over at a brisk pace, never breaking eye contact. The tall girl trailed behind her; looking confused.
Adora registered Glimmer’s sharp intake of breath as Catra and the other girl stopped right in front of them. Before Adora had time to gather her thoughts, Catra smirked.
“Hey, Adora.”