The proximity alert whooped again. Adora growled, minimizing her friends' vitals, Glimmer's now solidly tipping into the yellow danger zone, to pull the radar back up. It felt like she was abandoning them every time she looked away from the screen. Watching the little lines at least made her feel like she was doing something. She tapped the alert, trying to get a visual. Maybe they'd luck out and this one would be a false alarm.

No such luck. Adora watched as another of Prime's small scouting ships edged slowly alongside the cargo ship Darla was hiding under. The bits of the first scout were still floating just outside the big window alongside the very last, now badly warped, apple. She turned to point out the ship, but before she could even open her mouth, Catra had already fired a pulse and blasted the thing to bits.

"We can't stay here much longer. Prime'll know we're here for sure now," Adora said, mostly to herself.

"Fine! Next time I'll let the thing find us." Catra jumped up from the chair, throwing up her hands.

"I didn't mean…" Adora rounded on her. Catra had stormed halfway out the door. "Hey! Come back here. What is your problem?"

"My problem? You're the one who can't even keep track of your own stupid friends. I don't know why you even bothered to come get me if we're just going to sit here and wait for Prime to capture us all over again. I'm surprised you haven't called him up and offered to trade me back for them."

That's it! Adora was done. She's been trying to cut Catra some slack after everything she'd been through but Entrapta still didn't have the transporter working, she couldn't seem to call up She-Ra no matter how hard she tried and every second they sat here doing nothing saving Bow and Glimmer felt more and more hopeless. All the fear and fury and frustration she'd been building since she realized her friends were gone exploded at once.

"Of course. Of course you're being a brat about this. Do you understand that Bow and Glimmer didn't have to agree to this? That they would have had every right in the universe to go home back to Etheria once we got Glimmer back and not risk their lives for a person who's tried to kill them a hundred times. But they didn't. They came on what might as well have been a suicide mission, Glimmer back to the place she only just escaped, to rescue someone who's done nothing but hurt them."

Catra wouldn't look at her. "Just because you all get off on playing the hero—"

"Stop that! They did it because they are my friends and they love me! Bow and Glimmer may be the best damn people I have ever met in my life, and I love them, OK?"

"Then if they're so freaking great, why didn't you go off with them and leave me alone? That's why I sent you your damn princess back, so you could go back to your stupid perfect life of castle sleepovers and cake in the middle of the night. You and I both know that whole little happy world you've built for yourself with them doesn't include me."

"That's because… I asked you so many times… You're the one who… ARGH!"

Gods, why was Catra so absolutely infuriating! Adora growled and kicked the wall. To her surprise, a panel lifted and Entrapta emerged from it, followed closely by Wrong Hordak. Entrapta was in her own little world, mumbling into her recorder, and she ignored them both, heading straight for the control panel.

Wrong Hordak gave them a cheerful "Greetings, brothers!" before following her.

Adora turned to exchange a look with Catra, but she was still half turned away, her arms crossed. Was she… about to cry?

Adora exhaled, the complicated knot of emotions in her gut unraveling. "I love my friends, Catra, but I love you too. Shit, I called up an ancient warrior woman out of absolutely nothing to save you! Do you think I could have done that if I didn't care about you? How I feel about Bow and Glimmer and how I feel about you is completely different. I… You're…" She wasn't sure she was ready to finish that thought, so she let it hang there. "And you're jealous, but the whole terrible joke here is… even after everything my friends have done for me, now, when they really need me? I won't even be able to help them."

Adora slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. Something new was beeping, but whatever it was, Entrapta could deal with it. She extended her hand and tried again— gods, she'd lost count of how many times she'd tried— but She-Ra felt farther away than ever. If the transporter doesn't work right, if Prime's done something to them… What good was having the power to heal if you couldn't use it on the people who mattered the most to you?

She hung her head between her knees and tried not to cry. She loved her friends. Why wasn't that kind of love enough?

"Could that sound be more annoying?" Catra still had that obnoxious edge to her voice, but now that Adora knew it was only out of insecurity, all the fight was out of her. Besides, that new warning sound was ridiculous. It blared across the bridge like a digital shriek. "I'm shutting that thing up."

"Ahaha! Success!" Adora looked up to see Entrapta in front of her brandishing an apple, badly distorted by the vacuum of space but otherwise mostly intact. All in one piece, no charring and not even smoking a little. "Now we just have to run a few more tests to account for any variables but just a few more minutes and—"

"Uh, I don't think we have a few more minutes." Catra was standing by the control panel, which was blinking a very worrisome looking red.

Adora jumped up, her heart in her throat, and ran over to look at the screen. There were the little stick figures with Bow and Glimmer's vitals, both of them red and pitching rapidly downward.

"Bow, Glimmer… They're dying! We had to get them out NOW."

Everything happened very quickly then, from Entrapta frantically recalibrating the transporter to their friend's signals and Catra leaping back into the captain's chair to get them ready to get the hell out of here as soon as they had their friends back on board. All the while, the tiny lines that represented the lives of her best friends dove lower and lower.

"We're running out of time!" Adora shouted.

"I'm starting the transportation sequence… now. Adora! I'm sending them directly to Mara's room. That's where the medical supplies are. She-Ra better get ready to meet them because it looks like they're going to need her!" Entrapta's hair and fingers danced over a dozen buttons at once.

Adora nodded. She gave the screen of vitals, red and desperate, one last glance. Then she clenched her fist and started for Mara's room.

Bow and Glimmer needed her. They needed She-Ra. Desperately. And she was going to fail them. She hesitated at the doorway to Mara's room, reaching out for the sword, but it she might as well have been trying to grab a handful of mist.

When she opened the door, she saw the faint blue glow of the transporter beam above the floor. As the glow resolved into shapes, she felt a sudden stillness wash over her. There was Glimmer, so brave and strong and broken, who had already been through so much. And Bow, steadfast and smart and kind, who never forgot that they were the good guys and that friendship was worth working at

She wouldn't have stayed, wouldn't have changed without them. The story of She-Ra really started, not with the sword, but when someone who had only known the world as cruel found two of the nicest best friends anyone could ask for who showed her things could be different. They'd transformed her more than the sword ever had.

And she loved them so much for it. Not less than the way she loved Catra just… different. And then something swelled in her chest that felt like love at first but bigger and she felt it overtake her in familiar golden light. And there was She-Ra at last.

Taller and stronger because she was shaped by the love Adora held for her friends.