Chapter Text
The fright zone is in shambles.
Everyone saw the beam of light that took away their leader, and many of the wounded soldiers returning from their epic defeat at Bright Moon were around long enough to see that it was Catra and Hordak destroying the city just before that.
They’re onto her.
They know she’s been cut out of the Horde and in the most visible and humiliating way possible. And many who arrived too late think she had something to do with Hordak’s disappearance. No one knows what to think of the ships breaking into their atmosphere, but that coupled with their recent crippling defeat is putting everyone on edge and they’re looking for someone to blame… Catra just happens to be the only authority figure left. So with that, the former force commander escapes. She doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s going to do, but she can’t stay in the Fright Zone any longer.
So she’s gone - running through the Whispering Woods, leaping from tree branch to tree branch. She can’t seem to process what’s happened… She was so close to her goal only to trip at the finish line. Everyone she’s ever cared about has left her alone to die, but she kept on fighting no matter what. And now? No matter how hard she tries, she can never win. Never. And it’s all that fucking princess’ fault.
The cat girl growls and hunches down, pushing herself faster and faster.
Adora.
She wants to scream; she wants to yell. This is all her fault. She had to go and thwart my master plan and turn my closest ally against me. Though, try as she might, Catra can’t quite seem to find the malice she’s looking for. Her thoughts keep spinning around and around but never quite landing on her last conversation with Double Trouble.
“They didn’t need you… left you..” it’s Adora’s face and Adora’s voice, but it’s only a illusion.
Catra halts on a branch as a yell tears itself from her throat. She scrubs the back of her hand across her eyes, because she won’t cry; she refuses. Yes, Adora left her, but that was her decision. She wasn’t good enough for the blonde. Never was. Catra grits her teeth and digs her claws into the bark beneath her. No… I won’t cry over her. Never again.
Taking a breath and steeling her resolve, she continues through the forest, moving quietly through the trees with no destination in mind. She just needs to get away. It was then that she heard it - a twig snapping in the distance. The cat girl investigates, first sniffing and then creeping closer to get a better look… That’s when she finds her.
Adora
Narrowing her eyes, Catra alters course and heads straight for the princess, being careful not to draw attention to herself. She lands on a tree not far off from the princess and listens. Not only does Adora appear to be alone, but she’s limping… Hmmm, she looks like she’s in worse shape than me. That’s when Catra notices the most important detail.
She doesn’t have her sword.
If there were ever a more perfect time to attack She-Ra, Catra’s never seen it. Digging her claws into the branch beneath her feet, she prepares to lunge.
Enough is enough.
The bush catches on her signature jacket, and she pulls her arm free with a grunt. Her eyes are tired; her legs are tired. Ever since the whole ordeal ended, Adora had never felt more weak. She wasn’t She-Ra anymore… She-ra is dead. Now she’s nothing more than a common foot soldier.
Her boot gets hooked on a covered root and she stumbles forward. Thanks to her years of training, she’s learned how to fall with the least amount of damage… but that doesn’t help when your foot is stuck to the ground. The warrior yells then, jerking her foot away from the foliage, rolling and then jumping back to her feet. Once stable, she swings around and starts kicking at the nearby tree with little relief. When her attack on the tree only ends with a sore foot she stops, lifts her head up and yells again… This time putting all of her frustrations to the forest, hoping that someone out there will just swallow her up and put her out of her misery.
No one answers though.
She feels tears stinging at the corner of her eyes, but she brushes them away angrily before trudging forward through the woods once again. She doesn’t even know why she’s heading back to Bright Moon. Is there anything left for her there? She can’t be their hero anymore. She can’t be their anything anymore. Even the title of friend seems to be on the fence these days. When the blonde thinks of Glimmer and Bow, all she senses is distance now... and tension. Things were so tense between them these days. With Adora and Glimmer constantly fighting over trusting Shadow Weaver, and Bow, the poor thing, constantly being caught in the middle. And then there were the other princesses… They obviously sided with Glimmer and went with Shadow Weaver’s plan, despite her warning… Was it even worth it to return?
With each thought and each step, her heart sinks lower and lower. Her energy seems to have disappeared with her strength, and she can’t help but wonder where her place is in the world now?
Do I belong anywhere?
“Hey Adora.”
Oh, fuck no.
Her voice echoes between the trees, causing Adora to look one way while Catra tackles her from the other - Adora grunts and flips them, tossing the cat girl away from her. Seeing her old friend-slash-nemesis again makes her heart squeeze and her stomach drop. “I don’t have time for this,” she grumbles before returning to her feet.
“Of course you don’t.” Catra rolls her eyes with her signature smirk as she pulls herself gracefully off the ground, “It’s been a while… Haven’t you missed me?”
“You’ve lost, Catra. Give it up,” the Rebel's voice is full of hostility, “The Horde has no place here anymore.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Catra’s smirk deepens as she crosses her arms over her chest, “You looked up in the sky lately?”
“Adooora!” Glimmer and Bow’s voices calling in the distance distracts the two girls. They’re looking for her, but definitely not close enough to find her.
“I need to go,” Adora grumbles and turns to stalk off.
“Just leave ‘em. I mean, that is what you do, isn’t it?” The feline feels her smile growing when she sees the blonde’s shoulders tense up as she turns back around, “Leave your best friends behind?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adora's voice is laced with venom. So much so that Catra loses her smile a tad.
Wow, she thought, Guess the idiot’s been through the ringer one too many times. While she’s surprised by the anger she finds there, that doesn’t change anything… this argument has been a long time coming.
Adora stands there, hunched forward while her chest rises and falls rapidly with her ragged breathing. She’s not sure why the accusation struck at her harder than any punch or scratch, but she’s lost too much today and can’t handle this woman who makes her feel too many emotions.
“What’s the matter, A-dora? Don’t like being confronted with the truth?”
Adora scoffs and turns to stalk off in the direction she heard her friends again.
“Here your friends are, trying desperately to find you, not knowing that any day now.. you’ll leave them in the dust as well.”
“That is not what happened!” Adora rounds back to face her.
“Should we tell them?” The cat woman’s amusement is back. Man, she’s so easy. “Should we let them know they’re just your side-kicks? Replaceable… Dispensable.” Catra laughs coldly, “I mean, it’s not like you ever really gave a damn about me.”
“I loved you!”
…Catra’s smile fades completely.
The exclamation is followed by a dead silence.
The minute she yelled it Adora clenched her fists and turned her face away, trying not to curse her own stupidity. Her jaw and eyes also clamped shut as a few tears managed to squeeze out. The only sound that can be heard is the two girls’ heavy breathing in the tense air between them… so tense it feels electric - like some force field is connecting them, pulling them together, though they’re so far apart. For once the woods seem to be silent - all the trees and animals quietly awaiting their next move.
Adora turns to leave again, only for Catra to pounce.
“What did you say?!” Catra is startled and alarmed so she shoves the taller girl. There’s no way she means what I think she means. When Adora rounds back, she blocks a punch the brunette throws at her and then delivers a kick that the girl’s catlike reflexes easily evades.
“Just forget it.” she tries to leave again, only to this time have Catra tackle her and pin her to the ground.
“No! I wanna hear it,” Catra is angry, ears pointed back and tail flicking wildly as she pins Adora’s arms to her sides and closes a hand on her throat. “Lie to me again!”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Adora growls out. “I loved you,” when her voice breaks and more tears slip out, it gives the feline pause. Catra watches the broken woman beneath her for a second, not finding malice or falseness in her words or actions. But it’s not enough.
“Oh really?” Catra’s tone is sarcastic, cold and cutting; her gaze unwavering. This is some cruel, sick joke. She purposefully moves both hands to the ground on either side of the girl while sliding down her body to press their chests together sensuously. “So, you love this do you?”
The cat girl’s voice takes on a gravelly quality, almost purring, that makes the blonde squirm. Adora’s cheeks burn bright red as she tries to wriggle out of her grasp. “Catra.”
“And how about this?”
Before either of them can think about it too long, Catra drops down and plants one on Adora. Their lips collide and both of them stop, not daring to breathe. It’s there, it’s happening. She didn’t plan to do this… but they were so close, and her mouth was right there. What did she have to lose? So many times she’s dreamt of what her old friend would taste like, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the reality. Her lips were soft… so soft. Softer than Adora ever was. The cat girl takes another taste. Mmmmm. And she tastes like fruit. Of course she tastes sweet…. Been hanging around those damn princesses too long.
Adora responds minimally at first, barely capturing the cat girl’s lips with her own, but Catra picks up the pace, kissing her faster and deepening their connection with every turn. Better than I could have imagined. The smaller girl is elated, her thoughts racing - It wasn’t lost on her that her captured target was responding to each move she made in kind. Whenever Catra takes a breath, so does Adora… whenever she moves back to capture her lips again, Adora is right there with her. It’s wonderful. She hardly knows what to do with herself. When she slips her tongue into her mouth, the blonde moans audibly beneath her, loud enough for the reverberations to echo back into her own chest… and Catra feels her heart soar. Everything is there. She really does care about me. The thought humbles her. It’s hers - Everything the brunette ever wanted.
But the next thing she knows, she’s tossed to the side.
She’s not sure what happened - one second she was lip locked with the girl she’s wanted her whole life and the next she’s rolled over in the dirt as Adora towers over her, breathing in angrily.
“Fuck you,” Adora growls before stomping off into the woods.
Shit.
“Adora wait-” She scrambles up to give chase but the princess has already disappeared in the tree line. Catra, determined, was always faster though and she catches up to her quickly. When she gets close enough, she reaches for the girl’s arm… only to be tossed aside… again.
“I cannot believe you,” Adora spits out, “Have you ever cared about anyone other than yourself?!”
“Adora, I-”
“You abandoned me!” the statement slices through her, silencing her as her ears fold down. She sits there, quietly, looking up at the enraged woman. “Yes, I left the Fright Zone, that was my choice, but I asked you to come with me, multiple times, because I needed you!” Adora is furious but her tirade is accompanied by tears streaking down her face. “Everything I thought I knew about myself turned out to be a lie; I turned out to be the very enemy I thought I was fighting. And I needed my friend there with me because my entire world had just been turned upside down. But when I opened myself up to you, you turned your back on me and you left!” The feline is speechless, staring at her with her mouth agape.
The blonde’s chin trembles as she looks at her old friend resentfully. The last part is barely choked out: “Just when I needed you the most.”
“Adora…” Catra’s voice is barely above a whisper. She has nothing to say to that, so she just sits there and watches her oldest friend crumble in front of her.
“I hate you,” the blonde’s voice is quiet, but she hears it all the same - Catra winces like she’s been slapped and her ears fold down again just as her shoulders droop. She doesn’t want to believe it, but one thing is for certain - she can’t sit by and let it be true. As soon as Adora turns her back, she tackles her again and quickly gets the upper hand. Adora tries throwing punches but Catra easily grabs her wrists and pins her down. It’s no wonder Adora can’t swing to save her life as she’s openly crying, tears completely clouding her vision.
“Hey,” Catra’s voice is gentle now as she uses one hand to hold her wrists and the other to wipe her tears. She feels tears of her own welling up now and her voice tightens with emotion. “Adora… I’m- I’m sorry,” She makes sure to look her in the eyes for this, “I’m so sorry.” Adora cries harder as Catra leans down to kiss her again, this time softly on her cheek, thoughtfully trying to kiss away her sadness. She tastes the salt of her tears but that only pushes her forward - she kisses her again and again, each time more lovingly than before while slowly moving down and connecting with her salt stained lips once more.
And then her back connects with a tree and a yelp is torn from her throat.
“Go fuck yourself,” Adora tries to sound angry before jumping up and stalking off to join up with her friends.
Catra rubs the back of her head and watches her leave. This can’t be the end.
…It can’t be.
Adora marches through the forest like a warrior on a mission. She doesn’t know what the hell that was - she has no room left in her mind or her heart to even process what the hell happened back there. And considering everything that transpired before that, she’s going to have more than one fire to put out today, so the last thing on her mind should be whatever the fuck is going on with her arch nemesis… No matter how much her mind wanted to linger on that kiss…
“Adooora!”
There they are. She was definitely getting closer. Instead of taking a minute to pull herself together, she takes off at a sprint in the direction she heard them, hoping to leave whatever those lingering emotions are behind her. It doesn’t take her long to make it to the clearing where her friends had just stopped to check Bow’s tracker pad.
“Adora!” Bow looks up at Glimmer’s exclamation and they both come flying towards her. Adora stands resolute and lets her friends grip onto her as if their lives depended on it. She still hasn’t figured out how she’s going to handle what happens next. Noticing that Adora kept her arms glued to her sides even under the shower of affection, they reluctantly let her go and take a step back.
“Adora, are you okay?” After taking a moment to look her over, Bow can clearly see that their friend is worse for wear.
“As well as I can be considering,” her eyes glance pointedly at Glimmer who takes another half step back and swallows nervously.
Bow looks exasperated by the exchange, but it was to be expected. He himself doesn’t know how to feel about Glimmer’s recent actions. They’d been arguing ever since they set out to find Adora. But they have too much ground to cover. “What happened? I saw all the princesses get super powered up for a minute, but then.. They started screaming in pain…” he stops here to look at Glimmer for confirmation but she doesn’t look up from the spot she’s found on the ground that seems so fascinating. “But then it all stopped, and everyone seemed back to normal.” He waits for her to respond, but she seems lost in thought as well. “Adora?” he prompts again.
She doesn’t know how to say it - she thought about how to break the news to them, but never figured out how she was actually going to get the words out. Instead of saying anything, she removes the satchel strapped to her chest, opens the top and drops it on the ground. Glimmer’s and Bow’s gazes both snap in the direction of what sounds like glass shattering, but… Bow kneels down and lifts up the satchel from the bottom, allowing She-ra’s sword, or what’s left of it, to fall out onto the ground in pieces. Glimmer gasps and he can only stare in shock.
“Adora?” Glimmer’s voice wavers, like she’s on the brink of tears. Bow interrupts her and stands back up to face their friend, “What does this mean?” His voice is as grave as his expression.
Adora’s eyes are glossed over, unseeing, staring at some point far behind them as she shrugs her shoulders. “She-Ra’s gone. We’ll have to find a way to survive without her.”
The three friends stare in different directions, all trying to process where to go from here. Glimmer kneels down, instantly reaching to pick up the shards and trying to piece them back together. When she sees for herself that it’s hopeless, she drops them and turns her face to look up at Adora. With tears staining her cheeks, she pleads, “Adora, this is all my fault… But there has to be a way to fix this?”
“Why don’t you go ask your new BFF Shadow Weaver?” Adora asks her with a hardened expression.
“Wait, hold on… You did this?”
The three best friends jump to attention and look back at the tree line to see the woman just now stepping out of the shadows.
“Catra??!” Glimmer scrubs her cheeks quickly and takes a step towards the intruder, but Adora instinctively steps between them leaving the sparkly princess and Bow both staring at her agape. “Why are you protecting her? You know what she is - What she’s done.”
“Yeah…” Adora’s voice, like her eyes, are dull. All the fight has gone out of her, “And you and her seem to have a lot in common these days.” Glimmer looks like she’s been slapped as she falls a step back. Bow steps up in her defense, “Now hang on a second-”
“What?” Adora’s gaze snaps to their male friend then, “Are you honestly going to try and defend her after what happened today?”
“We don’t know what happened today, because you won’t tell us-”
“Glimmer activated the weapon,” they all turn to look at Catra in surprise. She rolls her eyes, crosses her arms and continues, “Double Trouble was all too proud of the wool you pulled over my eyes. They couldn’t help but tell me all about it. So, let me guess…” Here the cat girl steps around Adora and slowly walks towards the purple haired Queen. Taking a single glance back at the blonde, she turns back to the subject at hand, “Yooou trusted Shadow Weaver, which obviously was mistake number one.” At this Glimmer clamps her eyes shut and turns her face away, trying to hide her own inner disgust, “And then you went and activated the ginormous weapon Entrapta was always talking about… Synced up all the princesses to their stones, sang kumbaya or whatever, and then boom.” Catra steals a glance at Bow before stopping right in front of the Queen, “Giant, super-powered princesses.” Here she stops and waits for Glimmer to meet her eyeline again, “Only I’m guessing Shadow Weaver left out one tiny, but important detail, hmm?” The shorter of the two glares at the former, daring her to say anything else.
“The Heart of Etheria is the weapon,” Adora picks up where the cat girl left off, “The princesses were used to power it.” She wanders off to the side looking pensive and kicking a rock absentmindedly, “And then She-Ra… was meant to be the trigger.”
Everyone watches the despondent girl like a hawk as she turns to face Glimmer.
“The weapon was meant to be used against my will,” a single tear escapes and falls down her cheek, “I had no power over it.” Stopping for a second to brush the tear away, she continues, “So the choice was… Let the universe be destroyed,” here she laughs humorlessly like she actually had a choice, “Or kill She-Ra.” Everyone in the group takes a second to glance back at the broken sword that's still on the ground behind them, “I’m guessing you can tell which one I went with.”
“Adora, I’m so-”
“Wow,” Catra interrupts the princess with a small chuckle while crossing her arms. She looks at Glimmer with a smirk and eyes that can cut like daggers, “With friends like you, Sparkles… Adora doesn’t even need enemies like me.”
“You piece of sh-” Bow jumps in and grabs Glimmer’s arm, pulling her away before she can launch a series of sparkle blasts at the cat woman’s face… leaving the smug feline laughing silently to herself. All the while Adora steps to the side of the clearing, wanting a breather from the quarreling enemies.
“Guys, that’s enough,” Bow exclaims, pushing himself between the two girls. “Adora, let’s go. We need to get back to Bright Moon and assess the damage. And Catra…” here he turns to glare at the intruder once more, “Go home, you don’t belong here - You’re lucky I’m letting you just walk away.”
Catra suddenly loses her smile. “Yeah, about that,” she scratches thoughtfully at her lower lip while turning to glance at Adora.. The sullen warrior only recently turned back to face them but hasn’t moved forward to rejoin the group. “You feel like swearing in a new initiate?? Or whatever it is you princesses do.”
Adora breathes out some semblance of a laugh and shakes her head, not believing what she’s hearing. Bow stares in utter bewilderment and Glimmer sputters back to life, “Wha- Are you.. How.. Are you fucking kidding me? After everything you’ve done?!”
“Catra, you can’t possibly be serious,” the blonde sounds exasperated as she meets her eyes again and the brunette shares a secret smile with the girl. “Oh, I’m very serious.” Though Adora doesn't think she means anything with her tone, her mind flashes back to the moment they shared before and it causes her cheeks to heat up.
Catra, seeing the blush, smirks to herself before she turns back to Bow. “Come on,” she rolls her eyes again, “I’ve seen you guys fight.” Here she stops to glance at each of them, “You could seriously use the help, especially with what’s covering up the sky right now.”
“You said that before,” Adora narrows her eyes at the cat girl. “What are you talking about?”
“Umm… Adora?” Bow questions hesitantly, “Have you not seen what’s going on out there?”
Adora furrows her brows and examines the worry on each of their faces, “You mean something’s happened besides the battle at Bright Moon?” They all stare at her and slowly nod their heads.
Holy fuck, what now?
The trio plus the former Horde commander walk together in silence as they breach the tree line and Adora has her first clear view of the sky since everything went down. Trepidation sends shivers down her spine and a growing pit of dread fills her stomach like a brick as she watches dozens upon dozens of alien Horde ships breaking into their atmosphere and heading straight for their villages.
The princesses are still recovering from their recent battle and the encounter with the Heart of Etheria, the trio of friends are breaking apart at the seams, her ex-friend (ex-enemy?) is now trying a new angle to possibly plot against her, and She-Ra is gone…
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?”