Kywa sees teenage Catra and Adora sparring in a training area, Catra runs at Adora bo staff in hand and swings, Adora easily counters, they swing and block for several rounds before Adora ducks under one of Catra's attacks. When she stands back up Catra touches her index claw against Adora's forehead and laughs.

Adora takes advantage of Catra's lapse in concentration and swings her staff, Catra dodges and they start sparring again until Adora grabs Catra's staff and throws her to the ground.

Now I've got her

"Owwwwww", Catra cries. Adora rushes over "are you OK?"

Poor predictably sweet Adora.

Catra smiles and swings her staff sweeping Adora off her feet. Catra quickly gets to her feet and attacks without giving Adora a chance to recover, she blocks Catra's attack

There's no way you can win now

Catra smirks thinking she has gotten the upper hand, Adora looks over Catra's shoulder and smirks back. Catra senses somebody behind her, she quickly turns to block an attack from Lonnie, she caught Catra off guard and almost disarmed her

No no no! This wasn't supposed to happen!

Catra regains her composure and waits for an opening, which arrives when Lonnie flips over Catra's head.

Wait for it…..Now!

She aims for Lonnie's chest plate and hits it with her staff eliminating her from the sparring session. Catra breathes heavily, she was barely recovered when Adora comes in swinging her staff, Catra has nothing left after her fight with Lonnie and can't block her attacks, eventually Adora strikes her chest plate and eliminates her.

WHAT! NO! THIS ISN'T FAIR!

"And there's our winner", Cobalt says as he approaches Adora, she puts out her hand to Catra, who begrudgingly takes it and gets to her feet. Catra marches straight over to Lonnie

"What was that?! Way to gang up on me!",

"You were fighting dirty, I was just levelling the field", Lonnie said, folding her arms.

Adora comes over and puts her hand on Catra's shoulder ,"hey you were awesome!, did I hurt you?"

Catra gives a false smile as she brushes away Adora's hand, "no, I'm fine, you're just lucky I let you win",

Adora says with an eyebrow raises, "Riiiight"

"I'm serious, if I came in first people might expect me to actually start doing stuff around here, trust me second place suits me just fine"

"yeah, ok, come on let's go cool down"

"in a minute, I'll meet you there",

Adora runs over to the others," hey guys wait up"

Second place is not fine.

Catra turns away rubbing her shoulder. She walks into the locker room and clenches her fists before taking off her chest plate and throwing it to the ground.

Why can't I ever beat her?

Why does she have to be the best at everything?

Why can't I be special for once?

She walked over to the sink holding onto it tightly until her fingers hurt, trying desperately to hold back her angry tears.

"Catra, Catra, Catra, I honestly don't know why you bother", came Shadow Weaver's voice from the other side of the locker room. Catra turned around, the tears were starting to pool along her bottom lid now, making it hard to see.

"If it wasn't for Lonnie I would've beat your star student" Catra said sarcastically.

Shadow Weaver laughed,"You need to spend less time daydreaming Catra, You are nothing compared to Adora and you will never beat her at anything, you are not good enough, the sooner you realise that the better"

Catra snarls, "I am not daydreaming!, Adora even said I was awesome today"

Shadow Weaver circled around Catra, "and you believed her? She feels sorry for you Catra you've always been inferior to her and you always will be"

Catra in a small moment of clarity narrows her eyes at Shadow Weaver, "you can't talk to me like that, you're not my mother!"

Shadow Weaver makes herself bigger and holds up Catra's head by her chin,"you're absolutely right child, you have no mother, no one would want….you". She turns around and leaves.

Catra grits her teeth and lets her anger boil over, she flips over a bench and picks up her chest plate and throws it in the direction that Shadow Weaver just left. The door opens and Adora comes in looking around at the mess, "hey? What happened?"

Catra roughly wipes her eyes and pushes past Adora to leave, "Nothing!, leave me alone!".

* * *

Kywa opens her eyes, her heart sank, how could anyone teach a child like that!. Growing up in the Horde seemed to be very similar to growing up on Purrsia, both were military upbringings, but her father never spoke to her like that. His words were always encouraging, not just to her but to everyone.

Kywa shook her head, there was a deliberate cruelty to the way that woman spoke to Catra, like she was making her suffer for something. Replaying it in her mind was making her angry. She looks over to Catra who is distractedly playing with her fur on the back of her hand.

"Who was that?"

"Shadow Weaver, she raised Adora and I, well raised Adora she just dragged me along with her", Catra was trying to hold back tears. Kywa frowned at that response, so Shadow Weaver must have always treated Catra like that. Kywa thought for a moment and touched Catra's hand. "show me the portal"

Catra stared at Kywa's hand, "no. I can't"

"I know you don't want to, but you have to Catra, you owe me that much"

Catra closed her eyes and took a deep breath, put her claw back on Kywa's forehead and began to relive the moment in her mind.

* * *

Catra storms into the room where Scorpia and Entrapta are, "Catra" Scorpia says excitedly.

Not in the mood for your neediness right now Scorpia.

She shoves her out of the way, then approaches Entrapta grabbing her by the shoulders,"why aren't you in Hordak's lab?!"

"Uh", Entrapta says not looking at Catra

She's stalling!

Catra becomes impatient, "there's no time, we need to fire up the portal machine"

Entrapta escapes Catra grasp, "we can't! opening a portal right now would disastrous, it's going to collapse and take us all with it, Adora was right"

Adora was right!

The words reverberated through her brain.

Adora was right!

She's not even with the horde anymore and yet she STILL has to be better than me!

Shadow Weavers voice comes back, "I don't know why you bother"

"you'll never beat Adora, you're not good enough"

Something inside Catra's mind finally snaps, "Adora is right?!", she giggles unnervingly.

I will not be second place ANYMORE!

"Adora, gets everything she wants" she breathes heavily and roughly runs her fingers through her hair, "but not this time, this time I AM going to win, I don't care what it takes, we are opening the portal NOW!"

Entrapta protests, "NO! I won't, I need to tell Hordak he'll understand"

I don't care what it takes!

Catra uses her Horde taser to knock Entrapta out.

What have I done?...No I can't falter now, she was an obstacle, she was in the way of me winning!

"Get her out of here!", Catra says to the Crimson Waste Goon

"What do you want me to do with her?",

Catra is a little more frantic now,"I don't care! Just get rid of her!"

She can't be anywhere near Hordak, She'll ruin everything!

"Put her on the transport to Beast Island"

"Beast Island! You can't!", Scorpia said with concern in her voice

I don't care what it takes!

Catra turns the taser towards Scorpia,"You want to be next?"

Catra leaves to go to Hordak's lab. She enters walking past Adora who was tied up against a pillar, "The princesses are here! There's no time to waste we need to open the portal",

"where's Entrapta, I need her",Hordak said without looking around

You need HER! What about me?! . No, I will not be pushed aside for anyone else.

Catra smirked, "who do you think let the princesses in"

Do you need her now Hordak? Your precious princess!

Hordak slams his fist into the control panel,"But she, she wouldn't"

That's right Hordak, princesses are the cause of all of this.

Catra laughed,"did you really think she was on our side,oh, you can't trust anyone, especially…", she looks over her shoulder at Adora,

she looks scared. Good!

"...a princess, they'll just use you to get what they want, open the portal and let's end this!".

The memory shifts to Catra holding onto the lever, "Catra, please don't!", Adora pleads. Catra concentrates on her face and then smiles

Today Adora...Today I Win

She pulls the lever.

* * *

Kywa lies down in the water, hoping the change in position would stop her head from spinning ,feeling everything that Catra felt that day was too much, she starts to realise part of her frustration and anger with Catra has been misplaced, she wasn't completely guilt free but it became clear who was the true culprit behind Catra's behaviour. She sat up again and looked at Catra who was now crying softly.

"Can i ask what happened to Shadow Weaver?"

"she died, when we were fighting horde prime"

Kywa sighed,"good because I might've had to have killed her myself"

Kywa reached out and held her hands, she expected Catra to pull away, she was pleasantly surprised when she didn't,"Catra look at me",

Catra looked at Kywa, Kywa smiled softly and wiped a tear from her cheek,"You've never been inferior to anyone, the person you were with the Horde isn't the person that is sitting here with me now".

Catra covered her face and cried a little harder resting her head in Kywa's lap,"I almost just killed you"

"well to be fair I haven't had a cat fight like that since I started dating Rogue, so I was a little rusty", Kywa conceded.

Catra laughed sitting up and wiping her eyes, "I'll tell her you said that"

"Uh no, please don't do that".

Kywa looks up at the runestone platform, Catra follows her gaze. They both sit there for a moment hypnotised by the orbiting crystals and enjoying the silence as the hissing shadows slowly disappear back into the walls. Catra gets up first still looking up,"now what?", Kywa stands beside her resting her arm around Catra's shoulder, "now we climb and hope the runestone still doesn't hate us".

After some time climbing up the outer walls Kywa and Catra finally get to the central platform, they both jump from the wall and land on the outer ring. The intricate Tiger's Eye runes that are etched into the grey marble slowly glow as each ring lowers clicking in place, the final ring brings the runestone.

Catra's eyes widened, the runestones were beautiful, the insides looked alive with the way the colours moved around each other within them, dark browns and blacks surrounded by soft yellows and oranges, almost like they contained their own universe, the closest she had ever been to an actual runestone was the black garnet, but that it couldn't even compare to this.

She was automatically drawn to the outer runestone, even though she'd never seen it before it felt familiar to her as she approached, the runestone slowed its orbit until it was in front of Catra then it stopped. She was about to touch it but hesitated. Kywa stood across from her the other runestone, she looked at Catra and smiled,"It's ok, go on".

Catra took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she pressed her palm against the runestones surface, she opened her eyes as she started to feel the warmth from the runestone travel up her arm, a soft dark amber light started to surround her. She started to feel different, as if the runestone had unlocked a part of her, the dark amber light got wider and brighter eventually joining up with Kywa's own light and filling the inner chamber.

Welcome home my darling.

A soft voice came from behind her, Catra looked around but no one was there.

* * *

Outside the inner chamber Magicats were waiting. The air was thick with nervousness. Adora could feel it, her anxiety was just as bad, it had been several hours since Catra and Kywa had gone in.

Please be ok

Tao had resorted to pacing for the past couple of hours, and hearing the same crunching dirt noise under his feet was getting on Adora's nerves.

Tao suddenly stopped pacing as a slow deep rumble began underneath them, Adora stood up and they both looked to the entrance to the inner chamber as soft dark amber light seeped out from under the door and ran across the crevices in the floor. Several of the Magicats began to cheer. Tao scanned the crowd looking for Percival when their eyes met he simply smiled and nodded.

Tao's mouth dropped open, "they did it". The words came out softly as he could barely believe them. He turned to Adora,"they did it!" he grabbed Adora and pulled her into a bear hug, "THEY DID IT, MY GIRLS DID IT!"

Adora giggled and then tapped Tao's chest, "ok big guy, now I can't breathe". Tao released his grip, "Sorry!" the soft glow irradiated their faces Adora could see Tao was crying, "what's wrong?" Tao smiled, "I just wish their mother was here to see this".