It was Bow. HER Bow.

Glimmer wanted nothing more than to believe it was some trick but it was so unmistakably him. His spacesuit was gone, and she knew every dent in his armor, every stitch around the heart on his chest. She'd watched him move around exactly like this on a million missions. The dip of his head as he looked around the barrels she'd been hiding behind before. The way his feet kept moving in a straight line while his upper body twisted, searching side to side. How he kept his bow low, arrow notched, his finger almost lazily looped over the string. He could have it raised, the string pulled back and the arrow flying at his target before you even realized he'd moved.

But what was that thing on his neck? At first glance it looked like a bug but, when he shifted, it caught the light and the white and green of Prime tech was unmistakable. Wires and veins snaked out of it in vivid green against Bow's dark skin.

What did that mean? Was Prime controlling him? The thought made her skin crawl, but it would explain why he was shooting at her, had SHOT her. Bow would never do that, not unless…

She suppressed a gasp as the image of Hordak's first moments on Prime's ship flashed before her. Prime had done something to his mind, his memories. He'd… erased him.

And then Hordak was gone.

Had Prime done that to Bow? What if Bow was… gone? Her hands were shaking, and she tried to steady them against the side of the ladder. No, no, she wasn't going to even consider that. Prime didn't know how to shoot arrows. There had to be at least something of her best friend left in there.

Didn't there?

Bow had found her wrench. He bent, touching her blood on the floor and bringing it up to his nose. Like she was some animal he was hunting. Her racing heart pulsed in the wound in her arm, hot and painful. The shoulder of her spacesuit was already soaked through with scarlet which was probably not good.

He turned her way . She flinched back out of sight but not before she caught a glimpse of his eyes. Her Bow's eyes were soft and warm and full of life. These were dead and green and full of nothing but venom. Her body went numb as a single hot tear trailed down her face.

"Where are you, Glimmer?" Bow's voice echoed in the large space. He was facing the other direction—thank gods he hadn't seen her yet—but she could still hear that terrible fake smile in his voice. "I could have killed you a dozen times by now and you know it."

He could have. Bow was a master archer and an incredible shot. If he wanted her dead, she would be dead. But they still needed her alive, though that was little comfort as she watched Prime use her best friend like some grisly puppet. Prime's voice in the control room echoed in her head, saying he wanted her to suffer.

Her throat constricted. He'd done this to Bow to get to her. This was her fault. Like everything else. She stifled a sob, but not well enough.

Bow spun around, his bow raised. Glimmer didn't waste time thinking. She rammed her body into the rolling ladder, sending it skidding towards him. He'd already loosed his arrow, but it clattered down through the metal structure and exploded, spattering the bottom of the ladder with goo. The full bulk of the ladder itself slammed into him, the force enough to knock him off his feet.

Glimmer start to run but almost pitched forward. There was a fuzzy edge to everything which had to be from the loss of blood. The longer she waited, the worse that was going to get. She had to get away.

The ship was right there, the ramp still wide open. That had been her goal: grab the ship, get to her friends. But that was before she knew one of her friends was here with her. Her best friend. And there was no way she was leaving him behind.

Bow was still on the ground, his body twisted away from her while he tried to yank his leg free of the goo. She hesitated, giving a final glance to the open door of the spaceship before sprinting over and launching herself at his back. He slammed forward onto the floor, several of the trick arrows in his quiver going off at once. She clawed desperately at the thing on his neck, but it was like it was a part of him, pulsing with his heartbeat. Angry fingers dug into her thigh and the world rearranged itself as he tossed her off.

She hit the ground, hard, the wind knocked right out of her but she forced herself upright, breathless and dizzy. Only a few feet away, Bow was free and pulling himself back on his feet. His quiver was smoking slightly and dripping green ooze, but there was still a very sharp arrow notched in his bow and another tucked between the fingers of his drawing hand.

"Bow… please!" She called, gasping, trying to refill her aching lungs. He stepped forward, his lip curled into a sneer. Those horrible green eyes narrowed on her. He had never looked at her like that before, not even at his most angry. She struggled to her feet. "I know you're still in there. It's me! Glimmer! You don't want to do this!"

She wasn't sure what she expected him to do, but it wasn't laugh. It was like everything else about him, mirthless and cold but just enough like her real Bow's laugh that the sound of twisted her heart. He was still moving towards her, steady, casually, as if he knew she had nowhere to run. And she didn't, not really. Not when she was trapped and powerless and his arrows were faster, even when she wasn't woozy from blood loss.

"Maybe this is exactly what I want to do, princess. Maybe I'm tired of being taken for granted. Maybe I'm done cleaning up your messes and coddling your inflated ego. My life… the whole planet… would be better off right now if someone had done this a long time ago." He was getting closer, his arrow aimed right for her chest. She should run, but his words rooted her to the spot, her legs frozen. "Poor little Glimmer. Your petty insecurities, your selfish pride. Doomed everyone rather than admit you were wrong. Why would anyone ever want to be friends with you? At least your mother isn't here to watch you fail like she always knew you would."

"Y-You don't mean that!" Glimmer's voice shook, but she would not let herself fall apart now. "Bow, you can't really…"

It was Prime. It had to be. Bow would never say such horrible things to her… he couldn't possibly mean… but how else would Prime even know any of that? How else would he know how to play on all her worst fears, to say exactly what would hurt her the most, unless he'd taken those thoughts directly out of the head of the person who knew her best in the world? She'd known he was angry, but the thought that this might be how Bow really felt about her deep down hurt more than the stabbing pain in her arm.

A tear slid down her cheek, hot and ashamed, and she wiped it away.

"I don't care what you say to me. Maybe I haven't been the best friend or queen. And maybe you really do hate me after everything I've done. But even if you never forgive me, I still care about you and I am not leaving without you!"

His bow dipped. Bow grabbed at his head and made a pained sound. When he looked up—Glimmer gasped—his eyes were his own again.

"Glimmer?" Bow sounded tentative, confused, but himself for the first time since they'd been on this ship. "Glimmer, wha—aagh!"

"Bow! No! Fight it!" Glimmer shouted, running towards him as he screamed, clutching his head.

Bow was still in there! He was fighting it! If he could win, then—But she'd no sooner had the thought than Bow jerked upright, his back straight, that same cold smile on his face. She could only watch as the soft brown of his eyes disappeared behind Prime's evil green.

"Are you enjoying my little game, your majesty? I do hope you have learned that just as Prime can be merciful, he will not hesitate to make those in need of saving suffer until they are ready to embrace Prime's light." It wasn't Bow's laugh this time, it was Prime's. That voice she had come to dread after all those weeks on the Velvet Glove coming from Bow's mouth tore at her inside like knives. She saw them now, Prime's white pupils in the center of Bow's green eyes. "You see how this ends now. It would have happened this way far sooner if our poor sister, Catra, had not made her unfortunate decision to betray me."

Prime spat out Catra's name like it was poison. Bow stepped closer to her, his hand tracing her jaw and cupping her cheek exactly as Prime had always done. It didn't matter that Bow's hand was warm and familiar where Prime's would have been cold, it still chilled her to the bone. She froze, terror overloading her system.

Prime's smile stretched across Bow's face, and it was a terrible thing to see. "There will be no more daring escapes, no more… miscalculations. When we finish this lesson, you will be reconditioned and I will crush what remains of your pathetic rebellion with your own powers. You will destroy them all gladly in my name."

Ice filled her veins as she understood. He was going to chip her too. Chip her and take her back to Etheria and force her to use her powers against her friends. Against her planet. She'd lose herself. She'd lose everything.

No. Not after everything that had happened. It would not end like that.

She swatted his hand off her face and balled her fists.

"You want to chip Bow and I? Fine. My friends will still stop you. She-Ra will stop you. You can't chip all of us." She hoped she sounded a lot braver than she felt.

"All of you? Oh, no. I will take those that serve a purpose to me under my control and the rest?" Prime chuckled coldly as he stepped away from her. "You know, I had always believed that all creatures had a place in service of Horde Prime. But I am beginning to think you Etherians are far too emotional to ever truly rise up from the darkness. Take this boy, for instance. Weak, powerless, even by the low standards of your kind."

"Bow is not weak." Glimmer shook with rage and fear. His back was to her, and she tried to tighten her makeshift tourniquet but the blood wouldn't stop sliding down her arm now in a steady line. The sickly sweet metallic smell was dizzying. "You know nothing about him."

"Ah, but you see that is where you are wrong." He'd strolled a fair distance from her now, but she didn't dare move. Not until she could figure out a way to save herself without abandoning Bow. "Prime sees all. The boy's whole simple mind spread out before me. I recognized him at once, of course. Such an interesting reaction you had to him in my dining room that day. Jumped right up out of your chair, elevated heart rate, unsteady breathing. Everything written right on your face. You gave quite the speech about your savior She-Ra, but this boy… There's a rather long history between the two of you, is there not? Not unlike your friend She-Ra and her Catra."

Glimmer shuddered. The thought of Prime combing through Bow's mind, paging through his most private thoughts, made her skin crawl. "Get out of his head!"

"Oh no, I'm afraid I can't do that." Prime twirled an arrow through Bow's fingertips casually, watching it, his tone maddeningly slow. "Do you know that he came back for you? That he tried to bargain for your life over his own. Pitiful. The fool was so ready to die for you. And so he shall."

"No!"

"Why not? He serves no purpose outside of your pathetic Etherian affections, which I will free you of soon enough. Not part of any weapon or great power I can use to bring the universe to Prime's light. His only purpose is this, your majesty. To show you how your attachments make you weak and what happens to those who defy Prime's will."

"So that's it? Because he's not useful to you, you're just going to kill him?" Her entire body was shaking, and she clenched her fists at her side.

"No, your majesty." Prime fixed her with Bow's icy gaze and with a single motion kicked the wrench over to her. It skidded across the metal floor and came to a stop a few inches in front of her feet. "You are."