Chapter Text
“For the last time, where is Adora?” Shadow Weaver demanded, looming over her. Catra had to bite her tongue for a second, she wasn’t about to give the hag the one thing Adora had told her not to, but she couldn’t let her know who told her to keep quiet, either. Shadow Weaver’s shine on Adora was as much a curse as it was a blessing, she knew this, no matter what that jealous twist in her gut said.
If she knew Adora was defying her on purpose, that would only mean a worse punishment. For the both of them, even if Catra would still take the worst of it.
“For the last time, I don’t know!” Catra shouted back, letting that resentment in her chest take hold to keep up the act. “You think I keep her on a leash?” Shadow Weaver’s cloak shifted and trembled like it was growling.
“I know you’re lying,” she hissed. “You two are close.” She spat it like it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard and Catra’s resolve hardened a little. “She would never depart without telling you.” That was Catra’s queue to act. She turned her head aside, let her voice lower so she sounded properly heartbroken, and tried not to think about how Adora might really be gone.
“Then I guess she let us both down, huh?”
Shadow Weaver’s tendrils writhed again and she let out an exasperated sound that was closer to a snarl than a sigh.
“Have it your way,” she spat, turning to the pedestal in the center of the room. “I already know where she is. We’ve been tracking her.” Catra blinked, this was a trap, and she’d walked right into it. A bitter edge crept into her thoughts, at least she’d made sure not to drag Adora down with her.
“Uh, then why did you ask me?” She asked, bracing herself for punishment.
“To see if I could trust you to bring her back to me.” Shadow Weaver sneered, “obviously, I cannot.” She wheeled on Catra, grabbing her by the chin. The contact made Catra freeze, a part of her howling to fight back but it was drowned out by the terror of knowing Shadow Weaver only deigned to touch her if she was beyond furious. “So you will be staying here while I remind you why you should never lie to me, and someone more capable retrieves Adora.”
Catra closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain.
This was a lot more chaotic than the training sims had prepared her for. Adora jumped and ducked around fallen pieces of building, dodging potshots from the robots. She just had to find whoever was in charge of this attack and she could set the record straight.
She could still do that, right?
Her mind practically skipped a beat every time she thought too hard about this. Thaymore was supposed to be a fortress, a weapons stockpile, anything but what it was. Just a bunch of people living their lives. Living better than the Horde from what she’d seen.
And this had been her first assignment as Force Captain, Shadow Weaver had wanted her to do this. She had to swallow heavily to keep herself from tasting bile.
Then there were Glimmer and Bow. Even as their prisoner they’d been better to her than Shadow Weaver was on a good day, especially Bow. It all made her head hurt. She had to sort this out, so the world could start making sense again.
She wished Catra were here, Catra was always so much better at dealing with the unexpected than she was.
She rounded a corner and found herself almost running nose-first into a tank. There was a moment she wanted to throw herself aside, but a tank meant a pilot. So instead she waved her arms and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Don’t shoot, I’m friendly!” She gestured to the Horde issue clothes she was wearing. The hatch popped open and an unfamiliar woman popped out with a shock of white hair and red armoured plates.
“Oh hey! Blond hair, cadet top, you must be Adora!” The woman raised a frankly enormous pincer and waved back to her, beaming from ear to ear. “I’m Force Captain Scorpia, Shadow Weaver sent me to pick you up.” Scorpia pulled herself out of the tank to stand in front of her, “and to tidy up the whole missed launch thing. Man, it’s lucky you were here, huh? Two birds with one stone.”
“Uh, I guess,” Adora blinked up at Scorpia. Everything about Scorpia was just Big and it was more than a little intimidating despite her attitude given all the explosions still going on. “That’s not the point!” Adora shook herself and stood up stock-straight to put her mind back on track. “Something’s gone wrong. We had bad intel or something, Thaymore was supposed to be a rebel stronghold, this is just a civilian town. Force Captain, you have to get these troops to turn around.”
Scorpia spent a couple seconds just staring at her, the look on her face confused and more than a little pitying. Adora had to do her best to keep herself from bouncing with impatience.
“Who told you this was a stronghold?” Adora couldn’t contain the flinch at that. “I mean, it’s important to the Rebellion since it’s right on the most stable road through the Whispering Woods, but it’s just a pit-stop.” Scorpia shrugged and Adora was absolutely certain the fact that they were steamrolling innocent people’s homes meant nothing to her. “I wouldn’t call it a fortress or anything like that.”
“But that’s what Shadow Weaver told-” Adora cut herself off. Shadow Weaver lied to her. She lied about something everyone else already knew. Did the rest of her squad know? Did Catra?
“Tell you what,” Scorpia broke her out of her thoughts, stepping closer and holding out a pincer with surprising tenderness. “Come on home with us and you can talk to her about it yourself.” The impulse to refuse nearly seized Adora. Even without the sword, how could they catch her if she managed to get back to Glimmer? If Shadow Weaver had lied to her now, what would stop her from just lying more when she got back?
Then a thought stopped her cold. Catra. She’d promised Catra she’d be right back. Shadow Weaver knew the two of them were close, Catra would have been the best choice to retrieve her, why hadn’t she sent Catra? If Scorpia was here, where was Catra?
Adora felt her stomach sink into her feet. If she wasn’t here, that meant she hadn’t told Shadow Weaver where Adora had gone. Which meant Shadow Weaver had found out some other way and was probably taking it out on Catra right now.
With an all too familiar bitter twist in her gut she realized that just like always there was nothing she could do about it.
She couldn’t do anything, but maybe, the Scary Lady could.
Adora had always worn her thoughts on her sleeve, she hadn’t really felt the need to hide them before, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when Scorpia nodded. “Looks like you’ve made up your mind, you coming?” Adora shook her head and took a deep breath to settle herself.
“I’ll go with you, but you have to promise to leave these people alone.” Scorpia winced a little and tapped her pincers together. “This isn’t a fortress and these people aren’t soldiers. It’s not like you left them anything to return to already. Just let them leave without hurting anyone and I’m all yours.”
“I dunno,” Scorpia hissed through her teeth, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’ve gotta make a call before I can authorize that.”
“Fine, I need to get something anyways,” Adora nodded. Scorpia nodded to her and she turned to go find Glimmer and Bow.
The scene she found them in was a little strange. They were surrounded by broken bots, but Bow was out of arrows and Glimmer looked exhausted, sitting against the remains of a wall behind them. There were still around five active bots looking at them, but they weren’t shooting. Scorpia must have put out the standby signal already in case she was allowed to pull them back.
“Adora!” Bow cried, his face lighting up, “you’re okay!” Glimmer just nodded to her, trying to catch her breath. Adora didn’t think she had the energy to deal with a long-winded explanation right now, she’d keep it quick.
“I think I can stop this, but I need the sword.” She said firmly.
“Heh,” Glimmer let out a tired chuckle, “gonna turn into the big lady and chase them all off?”
“No,” Adora replied, to a chorus of surprised shouts from the two of them. “They’re here for me more than they are for the town. If I go with them they’ll leave you guys alone.”
“Then why do you need the sword?” Glimmer demanded, glaring at her a little. Adora couldn’t blame her, it probably looked like she was betraying them and taking the sword with her. She took a deep breath and thought about what Shadow Weaver must be doing to Catra right now.
“There’s someone in the Fright Zone I need to go back for. I can’t just leave her there, but I’m going to need the scary lady to get her out.” If the way Bow was looking at her was any indication, her expression was probably less than kind. “I made her a promise, and now I think I know how to keep it.” She stepped forward and kneeled down to where Glimmer was sitting, “I think I can trust you to help me keep it. Please,” she reached out her hand. “Give me the sword, and let me try.” Glimmer hesitated.
“You’re coming back.” It wasn’t a question, or a statement, it was a command. One Adora didn’t think would be too hard to follow.
“With a friend,” Adora nodded and Glimmer pressed the sword into her hand, a small smile tugging at her face.
“Then I trust you.” Adora had to choke back a rather confusing mixture of feelings at those words but kept up a strong face as she took the sword.
“Three days, tops. Meet me here.” She glanced over to Bow, he looked like he might cry. “If I’m not back by then… it was great to meet you both.” She gave the two of them a grateful smile and stood up, strapping the sword across her back and schooling her expression into a grim determination as she turned to go. “Goodbye.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Bow called out after her, his voice choked and cracking, “you can do it! We’ll see you in two days.” Adora felt her stone expression crack and waved back at him.
“One day!”
By the time she got back to Scorpia she looked every bit the loyal soldier once again. It was what she was good at, after all. Scorpia looked a little agitated, but mostly relieved.
“Good news!” Scorpia said brightly, “Shadow Weaver says I can call the retreat order, so you can come back the easy way.” She pulled up the hatch for the tank.
“That’s great,” Adora said back, not moving. “Do it now, then.”
“Right now, now? Okay,” Scorpia shrugged and reached into the tank to press something. “Mission accomplished, fall back for extraction.”
A veritable flood of robots and soldiers came rushing out from between the buildings, heading for the outskirts of town where they’d come in. “Shadow Weaver never mentioned you were so fussy,” Scorpia said as Adora climbed into the tank. “No wonder she thinks you’ll be a great Force Captain, good eye for detail.” Adora would rather not think about what Shadow Weaver thinks right now.
As the tank rumbled back towards the Fright Zone, Adora got the feeling she would have liked Scorpia two days ago. She was nice, when she wasn’t siccing soldiers on civilians, anyways. Right now, the constant drone of her attempts at small talk were making it hard for Adora to think.
She needed a story for when she got back to Shadow Weaver, and she needed to stick to it.
When Catra woke up she almost wished her throat felt as raw as the rest of her, but Shadow Weaver had long since perfected the art of hurting her without leaving a trace of it. Even the ache she left behind was all in Catra’s head by this point.
Shadow Weaver didn’t want Catra bringing down the squad’s times because she was too hurt to perform, after all. Catra thought bitterly as she slowly opened her eyes. She was still in Shadow Weaver’s office, splayed out on a table she could remember seeing dissected specimens on before all too clearly.
“You are uncommonly fortunate, Catra.” Shadow Weaver’s voice sounded from somewhere out of sight and Catra jolted up straight, looking around wildly until her eyes settled on the softly flowing tendrils of cloth poking out from around the bottom of a tall chair on the other side of the room. “Force Captain Scorpia was able to retrieve Adora with little difficulty, I won’t have to punish you further. They’ve just arrived back.”
Catra shuddered and Shadow Weaver let out a dry, humorless chuckle, “I wonder if your luck will hold up against Adora’s testimony.” Catra didn’t dare say anything yet. She hadn’t cried through her entire punishment, but she wasn’t going to say a word until she could be sure her voice wouldn’t tremble. “Either way, I trust you’ve learned your lesson?”
She was trying to coax out words, but Catra knew even with her back turned Shadow Weaver could see everything she did. At least in this room, anyways. So she just nodded carefully, trying to keep herself from baring her teeth. “Good. I expect you to keep quiet while I debrief Adora. Though I don’t expect even you could fail in that simple task.” She turned the chair slightly so that Catra could see one of her narrowed eyes through the mask.
Catra nodded, Shadow Weaver nodded back and stood, moving to put herself between Catra and the door. Catra decided to take the opportunity to grab her aching head.
The door slid open and Shadow Weaver began speaking before Catra even had the chance to look back up. “Adora,” she said in that stupid fake-pleased voice that made Catra want to gag. “Welcome back. You had us worried.” Catra’s lip twitched hard enough to show off fangs as she looked up. “Catra told me everything, of course, but we know how spotty her memory can be. So tell me, where were you all morning? ”
Adora looked different, she normally folded in on herself or jerked into a parade rest when Shadow Weaver was near, averting her eyes just enough to be respectful. This time though, she met the witch’s stare head on, her shoulders squared almost aggressively and a sword almost as long she was tall strapped to her back. Something had happened.
Catra blinked as Adora’s eyes flicked to her over Shadow Weaver’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but the question was obvious enough. Catra shook her head slightly, she hadn’t told Shadow Weaver anything.
“I went to the Whispering Woods to find something and got lost.” Adora said, plain as anything, just another debriefing, like she hadn’t been gone all night.
“And why,” Shadow Weaver all but snarled, reaching out to press a hand against Adora’s shoulder, “would you be looking for anything in the Whispering Woods?” Adora’s eyes flicked to Catra again, she shrugged.
“Last night I convinced Catra to come with me and took a skiff out there, to celebrate my promotion, ma’am. While we were out there I saw this,” she pointed to the sword, “and ran into a branch while staring at it. It’s a good thing Catra was there,” Catra felt a bit of a smirk coming on, at least Adora had her back after the fact. “I had hit my head pretty badly, so she took control of the skiff and brought us home. I told her not to tell anyone about it,” for the first time since walking into the room Adora’s posture slumped a little, “I was embarrassed.” Shadow Weaver took her hand off of Adora’s shoulder as she turned slowly to look back at Catra.
“What she said,” Catra said, belligerent as she could muster without calling down another zapping.
“That does not explain why you were out this morning, Force Captain,” Shadow Weaver said pointedly, turning back to Adora who was now meeting her gaze again. “If Catra brought you back, why were you still gone?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about the sword, ma’am.” It wasn’t just that Adora was looking straight at her, there was a steel in her eyes and her hands kept flexing at her sides. Adora was really, really mad at Shadow Weaver. Catra had seen Adora angry before, but never right in Shadow Weaver’s face. “I wanted it, but I knew Catra would be too worried about my head injury to let me go back. So I snuck out once she was asleep. I had intended to be right back, but I was attacked by some kind of bug creature while retrieving the sword. It destroyed the skiff so I had to find my way back on foot.”
“The Whispering Woods can be quite treacherous on foot,” Shadow Weaver admitted through grit teeth, her own fingers starting to crook in the way she got when she wanted to punish someone but hadn’t thought of an excuse to do so yet. “And what of the two Rebellion soldiers you were seen with? Did they capture you?” Adora’s eyes narrowed a little when Shadow Weaver dismissively looked away.
“No, I spotted them first, they weren’t a threat, but they knew how to navigate the woods and I didn’t. My jacket doesn’t have an insignia on it, I just removed my badge, turned my belt around and asked for directions to the nearest road. They were…” Adora glanced at Catra again but this time she couldn’t read the question in her eyes, “surprisingly cooperative.”
“And they brought you to that backwater hamlet?” Shadow Weaver asked, gliding over to her basin and looking down into it.
“They escorted me to Thaymore , yes.” Shadow Weaver stiffened a little, glancing sidelong towards Adora. Adora didn’t flinch, but Catra had to contain the urge to move back a little. As far as Adora went when it came to talking back to Shadow Weaver of all people, she might as well have just screamed at her. If Adora was angry enough to be that out in the open about it, Catra was worried it was only a matter of time until Shadow Weaver had enough and decided to make an example of Catra again.
“I see,” Shadow Weaver said, her voice nonchalant with an edge of ice beneath. “Where are your badge and jacket now?”
“I lost them in the chaos when your retrieval team arrived. To a civilian town.” Catra could practically see Adora’s teeth grinding, so that’s what this was about. Adora’s hero complex was finally clashing with how things were around here. “With cannons blazing.”
“You were missing, Adora. With a Princess and a Rebel, I feared the worst.” Shadow Weaver turned and moved towards Catra, “and Catra was worse than useless on the matter.” Adora finally faltered as Shadow Weaver raised a hand and Catra tried not to visibly brace herself.
“As you can see, uh, I’m fine. Ma’am.” Catra couldn’t see it but she was absolutely certain Shadow Weaver’s face was twisting into the most disgusting grin under her mask. “And I’m back, so Catra and I can get to work wherever you need us.” Adora was wringing her hands now and Catra almost rolled her eyes. No matter how mad Adora got, she was always a suck up. “Right away. Now.”
“You will go to orientation, Force Captain.” Shadow Weaver commanded, “I still need to have words with Catra.” Adora hesitated and threw Catra a look, a hand twitching up towards the handle of the sword before she forced it back to her side. Catra blinked, was she offering to help? What had happened out there?
Catra just shook her head very carefully, Adora tensed but gave Shadow Weaver a nod and left the room. Catra released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when the door closed and Shadow Weaver moved away from her back to the pedestal to stare down into it.
Of course Shadow Weaver couldn’t just tell her what she wanted up front. Instead she let Catra stew in the tension of the room for a while.
“So-” Catra started when it got to be too much for her.
“You will speak when I tell you to, Catra.” Shadow Weaver snapped but didn’t move from her spot over the pedestal basin. “A shame, I had hoped she would take a shine to Scorpia, but it seems I’ll have to make do.”
Shadow Weaver stood up straight and turned to glare at Catra. “She is lying to me. About things of more consequence than just your involvement. So I have a… task for you.” She said it like it was physically painful and Catra wanted to tell her to stuff it just out of spite.
Shadow Weaver made a quick motion for silence before Catra could finish opening her mouth and she nearly bit her tongue as a tendril of darkness pushed her jaw shut. “Complete this task effectively and I may have finally found a proper use for you.” The tendril withdrew and Catra glanced cautiously at Shadow Weaver’s eyes before she spoke.
“Okay, what do you want?” She said as carelessly as possible. There was a part of her- one she wished would just shut up already- that was listening a lot more intently than she wanted to.
“She trusts you, completely.” Shadow Weaver’s eyes narrowed, “and it would seem that trust was at least somewhat well earned.”
“Was that a compliment?” Catra couldn’t help the petulant grin spreading across her face at Shadow Weaver’s glare.
“I’m sure it’s as obvious to you as it is to me that something happened to her out there. You will find out what and report it to me.” Shadow Weaver was suddenly much closer than she had been a second ago and Catra jumped slightly. “When she has told you what happened, go to one of your disgusting hidey holes and contact me with this.” She shoved a small device against Catra’s chest and left her fumbling to catch it before it hit the ground. “She’ll grow suspicious if I begin calling you here regularly, or you begin visiting of your own free will, and if there’s anything I can trust you to do properly, it’s skulk.”
“I didn’t know you thought so highly of me,” Catra drawled, already planning how to ‘accidentally’ break the thing. Like she’d ever go rat on Adora.
“I don’t, but do this correctly and I may.” Catra felt herself freeze, that part of her that held onto Shadow Weaver’s every word now at rapt attention.
She couldn’t mean. “That’s right,” Shadow Weaver spoke in the too smooth voice she usually saved only for Adora. Catra wanted to hate the thrill she got from hearing it directed at her- she was asking her to betray Adora’s trust. But… didn’t she deserve some of the credit for once? “This is the only chance I will ever give you. Prove yourself now and I assure you, you will be rewarded.”
“...Force Captain?” Catra felt herself speak more than she intended to ask.
“If you want to think that small, Spymaster.”
Catra wished she could say she refused right there, she wished she could say her tail didn’t swish happily at the thought of being Spymaster, that the thought of bringing Adora down a peg or two didn’t make the part of her that wanted Shadow Weaver’s praise more than anything practically cheer at her. She wished for a lot of things, but all she could say was that the promises and hearing Shadow Weaver call her by a title that didn’t sound like a curse hadn’t quite sold her.
It sure as Hordak put her on the fence about something that had seemed so certain just an hour ago, though.
Catra closed her hand tight around the little device and she could tell Shadow Weaver’s smirk was back. “Good. Don’t disappoint me.”