"Glimmer?"

"Yeah, I see her, Bow."

"Oh, so you two can see her as well? Good, I was afraid it was just me."

Adora was confused. The beetle was towering over her, its jaws inches away from her face. She should have been scared, but for some strange reason she knew it wouldn't attack her. Why would it attack its Protector? The beetle closed its jaws and lowered itself down onto its stomach. It seemed to be fascinated with her. She looked over and saw Glimmer, Bow and the Doctor staring at her with the same expression of disbelief and awe. Is there something on my face? Then she looked down and screamed. With that, the effects of whatever spell she was under broke, and she transformed back into her proper form with a flash of light.

"Adora!" the Doctor ran over to her. "That was—well, I don't know what that was, but that was—wow!"

Glimmer teleported between the two of them and grabbed the sword from Adora's hand. "Give that!"

Adora held on, playing tug of war with the sword. "What did you do to me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't know being a princess was contagious!"

Bow and the Doctor joined in, trying to pull the two apart. "Calm down! Just calm down!" Bow said, his own voice decidedly uncalm. "How did you do that?"

"Yes, how? Hang on, where's my screwdriver." The Doctor searched his pockets, then noticed something on the ground. "Oh…" he picked up the crushed and bent remains of his screwdriver. "Well, that's unfortunate."

"I didn't do anything! I just picked up the sword and WHOOSH! I'm in a tiara!"

"I don't care how she did it, all I know is we can't let her do it again!" Glimmer succeeded in pulling the sword from Adora's grasp.

The Beetle seemed to take offense to that. It reared up on its hind legs and roared.

Bow grabbed the sword from Glimmer and held it out to Adora. "Quick, do it again! "

"I don't know what I did!"

"Then run!" The Doctor shouted.

The four took off into the woods. The trees and vines slowed the beetle down somewhat, but it was still keeping pace. Abruptly, the trail ended in a steep slope. The Doctor screeched to a halt, but Adora, Bow and Glimmer piled into him, sending them all rolling down to the bottom.

The Doctor pulled himself out of the dog pile and looked at where they'd landed. A hundred yards ahead of them was a vertical wall of stone. Inset in the wall was a triangular door. He pulled Adora up while Bow helped Glimmer "In there!"

They reached the door but found another obstacle. Bow searched for a knob or a handhold but found none. "There's no way in!"

"Everyone grab on, I can get us in there."

Bow shook his head. "Absolutely not. Glimmer, you've never teleported three people before, let alone four."

"What's written on this door?" The Doctor stepped back to get a better view. "Some sort of password, I bet."

"Can you translate it?" Glimmer asked. "Surely you can read all sorts of space languages."

"The TARDIS usually does it for me. It looks like it's related to Gallifreyan, only with more corners. I can do it, but I'll need some time."

The beetle broke through the treeline and was sliding down the steep slope towards them. "We don't have 'some time', Doctor!" Glimmer shouted.

"I can read it," Adora said.

"THEN READ IT!" Glimmer shouted as the beetle bore down on them.

"Eternia!"

The doors abruptly swun open inward, sending the four of them tumbling through the doorway. The doors swung shut behind them, just as the beetle lunged in for the kill. They held their breaths and listened as the beetle battered its head against the doors, but they held fast,and after a minute the creature gave up and scurried away.

"That was too close," Bow whispered.

"Bow, where are you?" Glimmer shouted out.

"Don't shout, I'm right next to you!"

"Sorry, I just can't see a thing. Does anyone have a light? I can't see anything!" Glimmer said.

"Maybe there's a lightswitch?" Bow said, feeling around the wall. "Or maybe you can voice activate it again, Adora."

Glimmer scoffed. "Oh, what do you expect to happen? She'll say 'Lights On' and they'll just turn on at her command?"

"Lights On."

The lights promptly flickered on. "Oh, c'mon!"

They were standing in a long, cavernous hallway, the walls lined with massive purple crystals. Bow wiped his finger on one of the gems and inspected it. "There's no dust," he said. He looked up at the ceiling. "And no cobwebs."

"I guess someone's been doing housekeeping," Glimmer replied.

"That's impossible." Bow gestured to his data pad. "The scanner isn't picking up any signs of life in here."

"No," The Doctor said quietly, "Not someone: something."

Adora groaned. "Please tell me we didn't escape one beetle to stumble into another one's lair."

Glimmer shook her head. "I think this is a First Ones ruin."

"What's a First One?" Adora asked.

"Oh, so you know nothing about the First Ones and yet you can read their language perfectly?"

"I guess so, Princess. Why does that matter?"

"The First Ones are the original settlers of Etheria," Bow explained. They disappeared a thousand years ago, but they left behind all of these old ruins and artefacts, like that sword."

The Doctor studied his reflection in one of the gems. Blimey, those ears. "So what happened to them?"

"No one knows. They just...disappeared."

"How do we get out of here?"

They'd been walking for hours, lost in the labyrinth of corridors and chambers. They stopped to rest in the next room they entered, a cathedral-like room with a massive mural on the far wall.

And what a mural. "Adora, that looks like you!" Bow exclaimed. "Well, no you you, but big-glowing-princess you."

"That's what I looked like?" Adora stared in awe at the mural. "Wow."

"I don't think it does you much justice," The Doctor said. Adora stomped on his foot. "Ow! What? It doesn't. You're much less geometrical."

"You can read Eternian, right?" Bow pointed to some writing at the base of the mural. "What does it say?"

Adora read out loud. "She-ra."

At that, the mural lit up, the light spreading through the walls and across the floor to reveal more of the unusual writing.

"Greetings, Administrator." Adora, Bow and Glimmer shouted in surprise and jumped back from the hologram that had appeared in front of them. "What is your query?"

Bow stepped forward. "Uh, hi. What is this place?"

"... What is your query?"

The Doctor stepped in. "Let me try. Let's see. Reset Administrator, Password 123456."

The hologram turned red. "Administrator not detected. Lockdown initiated."

The Doctor swallowed as the lights began to flash red. "Well, I guess they changed the default password."

The security system had gone a thousand years without maintenance. As a result, the room didn't lockdown so much as collapse . It had taken Glimmer using the last of her magic to teleport the four of them out of the ruin. They all lay groaning in the dirt, all of them ruing the day they'd gone in search of the sword. Except for the Doctor. Everything was hunky dory in his book.

Then he looked up.

"Where are the stars?"

The sun had set while they were trapped inside the ruined temple. The Doctor now had his first look at the Etherian night sky.

The Doctor spun around to face Adora. "Where are the stars?!"

"What stars?" Glimmer asked.

"The stars!" The Doctor's voice cracked as he waved furiously to the dark heavens. "The little white lights in the sky! Where are they?"

"Doctor, there are no stars," Glimmer replied. "There have never been stars. My mom said they used to be there, but no for thousands of years."

The Doctor turned to Adora. "You said there were stars when I first met you!" He grabbed her by the arms. "You said there were hundreds of them!"

"I lied!" Adora replied as she pulled out of his grasp.

"Why did you do that?"
"I thought you were crazy!"

"But there have to be stars! Each star is a sun, each sun is a solar system. Without stars, there is no universe." The Doctor sat down in the dirt and pressed his hands to his temples. "No stars. That's why the TARDIS malfunctioned when I tried to take it off of Etheria. There was nowhere else for it to go. Oh, where is she? Why did she leave me here?" He looked like he was about to cry.

Bow sidled up to Adora. "Is he gonna be alright?" he whispered.

"I don't know. I think he's having a nervous breakdown."

"What? Me? Never!" The Doctor popped back to his feet, expression firm. "Onwards and upwards, I always say. Well, no, I've never said that, but I do now!" He ran over to Glimmer. "Your mother said they disappeared. How? Where did they go?"

"I don't know, Doctor. You'll have to ask my mom that."

"All the more reason for both of you to come to Brightmoon with us," Bow said. "You both want answers. Maybe you can find them there."

"Then let's go! Double-pace, shall we!"

He started walking, but Bow grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. "Doctor, it's getting late. Maybe we should rest and head out tomorrow?"

"I think there's a village not too far from here," Bow said, studying the landscape. "We can go there tomorrow and try and contact Brightmoon. Glimmer and I will take shifts through the night while we sleep."

Adora huffed. "Are you afraid I'll try to steal the sword and run off in the night?"

"Were you going to try and steal the sword and run off in the night?" Glimmer asked.

"...Well, yes, but."

"Then I'll take the first watch," Glimmer said, grabbing the sword and planting herself down against a tree trunk.

"For the last time, where is Adora?"

Tendrils of darkness drifted through the air, twisting their way around Catra. She didn't let her fear show. She was pretty good at hiding her fear around Shadow Weaver. She'd had years of practice. When in fear, act fearless. "And for the last time, I don't know." Catra could feel the dark energy flaring around her. A tendril began to wrap its way around her elbow. It took all of her control not to pull away. "What am I, her mother? I thought that was your job."

Shadow Weaver turned her attention to the bubbling cauldron in the center of the witches chamber. "We both know you're lying. You two are close; Adora would never depart the Fright Zone without telling you where she was going."

Catra's mask slipped for just a moment. "Then I guess she let us both down."

"It doesn't matter, I know where she is. I've been tracking her." Shadow Weaver scratched the surface of the cauldron with her finger. The swirls of color began to form an image. "Her and her new friends."

"Then why did you ask me?"

"Because you're going to bring her back to me."

"I don't think so." Catra turned to leave but was stopped in her tracks as her muscles seized up. Sparks of red lightning traveled up and down her body, pinning her in place like a mammoth in a glacier.

She felt hands on her shoulders. The grey, taloned hands of Shadow Weaver. "Your insolence will not protect her." The witch whispered in her ear, each word sharp as a pin. Catra's mask began to crack, her panic rising. "You will do as I ask."

"O-or what?" She tried to sound defiant, but she knew what she really sounded like. A scared kitten.

Shadow Weaver grabbed her jaw and twisted her head back to make eye contact. In Shadow Weaver's blank white eyes, Catra could see the punishments in plan for her, each one more unpleasant than the last. "Or you will suffer the consequences in Adora's place."

Once Catra had left, Shadow Weaver turned back to the bowl. Thanks to the Horde's intelligence network she was able to identify one of Adora's 'captors': Princess Glimmer, the daughter of Queen Angella of Brightmoon and her foolish husband. The second one was just an archer, some palace servant or guard, although he looked to be very young for the job.

The third one, however...she couldn't place him. She ran a finger through the water, cutting through his face and sending ripples across the basin. "Who are you, Raggedy Man?"