CHAPTER 6: TUNNEL VISION
Adora stared at the door. She didn't know if that was where the voice came from, but she had no other place to look. With one simple sentence, it felt like this place had turned her life upside-down.
"Wait - her birthplace?" Glimmer said. She turned to Adora. "Adora?"
Adora didn't answer. Couldn't answer. She didn't even notice when Bow placed a hand on her arm. "Adora? Are you okay?"
Whether or not Adora was going to answer, a loud hum began reverberating through the ground and they all felt it in their spacesuits' the door split in the middle and started to slide open. Air rushed out at them, sending the remaining wisps of green mist swirling away.
"You will enter now, She-Ra."
Catra grabbed Adora's other arm tightly. "Adora…" she said. When Adora didn't answer, she practically shouted, "Adora!"
Adora gasped and turned to her.
"Are you okay?" Catra asked.
Adora blinked, paused, and then said, "I - uh...I don't know."
"That voice is expecting us to come inside," Scorpia said.
"Well I hope I'm not the only one who saw the word 'trap' written on that door," Catra said.
"Wait - you can read First Ones' language too?" Scorpia said. Catra shot her a look. "What? Oh, right, you're being-"
"Entrapta, Hordak, you picking up anything?" Bow interrupted, turning back toward them. He withdrew his hand from Adora's arm and used it to smack the side of his tracker pad. "My pad's acting up even worse now, can't pick up a thing."
"There are high amplitude signals matching First Ones signatures, coming from the other side," Hordak said.
Entrapta was saying nothing. She was standing there with her eyes open wide, staring through the doorway, mouth in a wide toothy grin. A tiny squeal was coming over her communicator. Hordak was gripping her shoulder tightly with his free hand, just in case she decided to wander on in her excitement.
"Well she's excited," Glimmer said. She moved so she was standing directly in front of Adora. She placed hands on either side of Adora's helmet and turned it toward her. Adora's eyes finally focused on her. "Adora?"
"He's in there," she said. "So is Light Hope. I - I think."
"Wait - Light Hope?" Bow put his pad away. "I thought you said she was wiped out when you destroyed the original sword."
"I - I, uh…" Adora managed, before hesitation took hold of her tongue.
"Adora, listen." Glimmer placed both hands on Adora's shoulders. "This all is - this is beyond us. This place - somehow, it's where you came from. What do we do?" She took Adora's hands in her own and lifted them up to chest-level. "It's your call."
Glimmer's words seemed to strike a chord in Adora's mind, snapping her out of whatever trance the voice had put her under. "Right, my call." She took a deep breath. "Let's go," she said. She took a step forward, but then stopped. She turned back to face everyone. "But...listen. If I - if I start doing something...bad...will you guys...will you guys promise me…?"
Catra stepped in front her, beside Glimmer, and placed her hand on top of Glimmer and Adora's. "We've got your back."
Bow took position on the other side, likewise placing a hand on Glimmer and Adora's other interlinked hands. "We'll keep you safe."
"You betcha," Scorpia said.
Entrapta, still staring in the open doorway and struggling in Hordak's grip, said nothing intelligible. Hordak, for his part, said, "We cannot wait here indefinitely."
Adora turned back to him, and nodded. "Let's do this." She let her hands fall to her sides as her friends released their grips, and together they walked forward through the immense doorway.
The chamber beyond was lit only by the sunlight from the cavern, but from the way their footsteps and the beeping of their equipment seemed to echo back in their communicators, it certainly seemed vast.
Entrapta and Hordak switched on the headlamps on their helmets, and the others followed suit. They could see each other in the illumination, but the darkness seemed to swallow the light just beyond them.
Glimmer raised her staff and fired a ball of magical light. It rose above their heads, but vanished shortly afterward. "What the-?" She fired off another ball of light. It vanished as well. "That's...not good," she said.
"Trap," Catra said, the hair all over her body rising straight out as well as possible inside the restrictive suit. As if responding to her, the floor started to shake and the gigantic door started to close behind them.
"Well, last chance," Bow said. "Leave or stay?"
"We didn't come all this way to run away," Scorpia said.
"Danger always comes with discovery!" Entrapta said.
"I guess we're staying," Adora said. "Stay close. If we get separated in this dark…" She trailed off, not sure she could even guess what would happen. If this place was anything like the Crystal Castle, anything could happen.
"Yeah," Glimmer said. She was still processing how this place had somehow managed to negate her magic.
They watched as the door's opening narrowed, taking with it the fallout-filtered sunlight. Finally it clamped shut, leaving them with no illumination except what little came from the lamps on their helmets.
Suddenly there was crashing sound from all around them, and they were each bathed in a pillar of light, coming from some source far overhead.
They all looked up, their helmets' visors darkening against the bright light.
"I can't see anything!" Catra said. She reached for her helmet.
Over the comm channel, Bow could hear the sound of her struggling with her helmet seals. "Wait! Don't take it off!"
There was the sound of several helmet seals breaking and air hissing. "It's okay," Entrapta said. "The radiation here's nominal." She pulled off her own helmet and latched it to her belt. She aimed her pad's sensing device upward. "I can't tell what those lights are, though. It's weird...they're giving off signals kinda like the portal device did."
Scorpia clipped her own helmet to her belt, having to try a couple times due to her pincers' awkwardness. She shielded her eyes from the brightness overhead and looked around. She saw the spotlights shining down on each one of them, and only on them, from directly above. "Guys, this-" The light above her went out, and her voice went immediately silent.
"Scorpia?" Glimmer said. She rushed to where Scorpia had been standing. The light above Glimmer's head followed her as she moved. When she reached the spot where Scorpia had been, though, it was empty. Scorpia was gone. There was no sign she'd even been there.
Then the light over Hordak's head winked out. "Hordak!" Entrapta said, reaching out for him. He, like Scorpia, was gone.
"Guys, huddle up!" Adora said. She reached out for Catra and Glimmer. Their lights both went out at the same time, and all Adora felt was air. "No!" she cried.
Entrapta started running toward Adora and Bow, her boots causing echoing footsteps. Her light went out, and the sound of her footsteps disappeared, leaving only echoes.
Adora immediately grabbed for Bow, and was relieved when her gloved hand received purchase on his arm. She pulled him close, and he likewise grabbed her.
"Don't let go," Bow said, his voice muffled from behind his visor.
"What happened to them?" Adora said.
"I don't know," Bow said. He brought up his tracker pad with a free hand. "I can't read anything anymore. It's like there's so much here it's just overloading it or something."
"I hope they're okay," Adora said. She turned away from Bow for a moment, trying to find any sign of the others. She suddenly noticed the absence of Bow's hand on her arm. She snapped her head back toward him. "Bow, don't let-"
He was gone.
"No…" Adora said. She fell to her knees and tore off her helmet. She put her hands to her head and took a deep breath. Another. One more. Then she stood. "Please be safe, guys. I promise I'll find you, wherever you are."
"They are auxiliary to your purpose."
She was then blinded as the entire chamber was suddenly illuminated. As her eyes adjusted she could see that the chamber resembled the main antechamber for the Crystal Castle, but much larger in scale, with more crystal pillars along its periphery and more elaborate crystalline formations along the walls and ceiling. In the section where she was kneeling, the space was large enough for a ship to fit easily. However, the chamber was empty...except for Adora herself, and the voice that had spoken to her.
"Who are you?" Adora said, standing up.
No answer.
"What did you do with my friends?"
Only her own voice echoed back to her.
"Dammit," she muttered. Taking another deep breath, she scanned the room around her. Far to the other end of the chamber was a dais with a pillar, similar to that at the Beacon. There were a few doors dotting the walls, though not nearly as many as the Beacon's antechamber.
Realizing there wasn't much else for her to do at this point, she started toward the pillar.
"-looks like something..." Scorpia continued, but trailed off.
Everyone was gone. The lights were suddenly on, and she could see she was alone.
"Hello?" she called out. "Guys?"
She couldn't explain what had happened. She'd been in that large chamber with the others, these weird lights shining over top of everyone's heads. And then she was here - wherever here was. It looked like some kind of corridor, with slanted crystalline walls. It reminded her of the corridor in that Crystal Castle place where they'd chased after Adora and Adam. Where she was standing the corridor ended with a solid wall; there was no hint of a door or anything else. At the other end, probably a few dozen meters away, there was only darkness.
She pressed the communicator button on her suit's chest. "Guys? Anyone hear me?" Only a brief burst of static responded to her. Well that's not good, she thought.
"Scorpia."
She looked up. "Huh?" She spun around. She was still alone in the strange corridor.
"Scorpia!"
It was definitely a voice calling her name, one she didn't recognize - but it could be coming from only one direction. She started walking toward the darkness at the end of the corridor. "Hello? Who's there?"
The mysterious voice didn't respond.
"Hello?"
Her echoing footsteps were the only thing that responded to her. The darkness at the end of the corridor was getting closer, and as she observed it she realized it was an abrupt darkness. She didn't know how else to describe it. It wasn't the light fading away; it was just stopping. It wasn't much unlike what she'd seen back in the huge chamber a few minutes ago, before everyone else had disappeared.
She raised her arm, pincer covered by the rigid material of her spacecuit's "glove". She placed the point right where the light ended. After a moment's hesitation, she pressed forward.
Her arm disappeared partway up to her elbow. She opened and closed her claw. It felt like it was still there. She just couldn't see it. She pulled it back through, and it looked intact. The glove wasn't damaged any way she could tell, and wasn't covered in scorch marks or smoking or anything like that.
She glanced to the empty corridor behind her. "No point in staying here, I guess," she muttered. "Here goes." She stepped forward.
It was literally like stepping through some kind of veil, or a thin curtain. It offered no resistance, but once on the other side of it she was immediately inundated with a different kind of light from the corridor behind her. It was sunlight. She looked up, and the ceiling of this new chamber seemed to be transparent, and the sun was high overhead. It gave the room an intense dry warmth that bathed her face. She found it quite pleasant. As her eyes continued adjusting she could see that she was in a large chamber, one that was very familiar to her.
She gasped when she realized it. She was standing in Horror Hall, her family's old home. The ruin she'd visited so many times over her life, and which she'd only just started rebuilding. But this was different. It wasn't battle-worn and crumbling, nor marked with Horde graffiti, like those ruins she'd explored so often. It looked well-cared for, polished, like it must have been during the days before the Horde.
Like it was when her family ruled the Fright Zone.
"Hello, Scorpia."
She snapped her gaze toward the far end, a wall upon which she remembered a mural of the royal family. Her family. Instead of a crumbled pile of rubble, though, an intact, elaborately-decorated stone throne sat in front of it.
Sitting in that throne was a man whom she didn't know, and yet felt like she recognized. She gasped when she put it together. She glanced up at the mural, and back down at the man. No wonder she recognized him.
"G-Grandfather?" she said.
Hordak spun around. The others were nowhere to be seen. "Entrapta!" No response. "Anyone? Answer!"
Only his own voice reverberated back in reply.
Another trick, in a long line of First Ones' traps. He understood why Prime had hated the First Ones so much.
The corridor he was in looked somewhat familiar. He didn't remember having seen it personally, but perhaps a leftover memory he'd absorbed during his time as part of the Horde hive mind. It was blocked off at the end, near where he was standing. The others were gone. Most of them he didn't care about, but Entrapta…
He had to hope she was all right.
The corridor, he observed, was lit all the way to the other end, where an oily darkness seemed to swallow up any illumination.
He narrowed his eyes. If they think I will walk meekly into their trap, they are mistaken. He opened a pouch in his suit, retrieved a small circular device, and stuck it to the slanted wall next to him. He took several steps down the corridor and placed another device. The two devices beeped once in unison, and then went silent. He pulled two wired earpieces from his suit's collar and stuck them into his ears. He could hear the regular, faint chime of the two devices, one in each ear, and the delay from one chime to another allowed him to instinctually sense his position.
He may be dying, but fortunately his echolocation instincts were still as sharp as the day he first emerged from his cloning tube.
He continued on toward the dark end of the corridor, his leg muscles burning more and more with each step. He willed the discomfort away, as he'd learned to do over many years, and for now he was able to continue ignoring it.
He stopped just where the light disappeared. The shadow seemed to stand like a barrier before him. He pulled another small device out, stuck it to the wall, and then stepped forward.
As he emerged from the darkness, he found himself in a new room he knew all too well. It was one he'd been in only months before.
"Welcome, Little Brother."
Hordak narrowed his eyes. He recognized this throne room, a gigantic chamber that was a testament to his "older brother's" enormous ego. "Horde Prime. You are looking well, for someone who is dead."
"Dead? Oh, no…" Prime chuckled. "Oh, much of me was destroyed, yes, but a small piece of me lived on within you." He raised a hand. "Come stand before me."
Hordak had no desire to follow the orders of Horde Prime, or of whatever it was pretending to be him, but he also wanted to get to the bottom of this. He stepped forward, toward the bridge that led to the floating platform upon which Prime's throne was perched. It was flanked by two of his blank-eyed "brothers".
The two clones reached out to grab his arms but Hordak shrugged them away. "Do not touch me or I will end you."
Horde Prime laughed out loud. "Oh my, such assertiveness. You truly believe you have grown beyond me, Little Brother." To the clones, he added, "Let him pass."
The clones at the bridge stepped aside, but Hordak kept an eye on them as he walked past. Prime could easily pass them a telepathic order, if he wished, and Hordak had no qualms against making good on his threat.
As Hordak reached Horde Prime, he stood firm. Horde Prime remained seated, legs crossed. "How very commanding is your presence," Prime said. "If only you were not so flawed, you would have been my perfect vessel."
"My imperfections are beautiful," Hordak said. "Something I learned when I stopped conquering and gained a friend."
Prime laughed heartily. "Your imperfections...beautiful! Oh, how wonderful. But, of course, not everything can be 'beautiful', can it?" He stood and reached out to touch Hordak's face. Hordak held his ground, staring into Prime's yellow eyes. When Prime touched him, he slapped the hand away.
The clones flanking Prime's throne immediately switched to battle stances, but Prime waved them off. "Beautiful," he said. "Beautiful, such as the exoskeleton that is literally keeping you alive? Beautiful, as in the organs within your shriveling body, no longer capable of sustaining your life? Perhaps if you'd stayed with me, we could have found a cure. You could have lived on."
"I am not your slave. I will not be your slave. I would rather die free."
Prime nodded. "Then die free you shall, little brother." He grabbed Hordak's arm. "But I shall live on!"
Hordak slapped a hand to his chest. Something underneath his suit began beeping. He then grabbed two of Prime's head tubes. "No you won't," he said. "In fifty seconds, my exo-suit's power cell will overload and kill us both. If you are real, the charge will pass from me into you and destroy us both. If you are only within my head...then you will die when I do."
Prime released him. After several more seconds of staring each other down, Hordak twisted the control underneath his spacesuit. The beeping stopped.
"It seems we are at an impasse," Prime said.
"It seems we are," Hordak said.
"Guys, huddle up!" Adora said.
Instinctively, Glimmer grabbed Catra's arm - but an instant after she clasped her fingers around it, they passed right through. "Catra!" She shouted...but Catra was gone. She turned to Adora and Bow, but they were also gone.
She was alone. The corridor around her looked very familiar...just like the ones she'd seen inside the Beacon, and in the catacombs beneath Mystacor. Cleaner, less dilapidated, but otherwise identical.
She couldn't tell if she had moved, or if everyone else had. The corridor was just suddenly there.
She tapped her communicator. "Hello?"
No response.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to envision the chamber where everyone had been. As she'd become more adept with her teleportation power, she had developed an almost instinctual sense of location. In essence, if she'd been there before, she could teleport there. Now, though, the sense seemed to be scrambled...a little. It felt almost as if she were already in that chamber.
She took a deep breath, teleported away...and found herself back in the corridor. Or, at least, a corridor identical to the one she'd just left.
She tried again. Again she found herself right back where she'd started.
She pursed her lips. Okay then, she thought. She raised a hand, traced a glyph in the air with one hand, and then pressed it into the wall. After observing it for a moment to ensure it remained in place, she tried teleporting again.
As before, she was right back in the corridor. The glyph was still there.
Well great, she thought. There was one more place she had a feel for, even though she wasn't completely sure where the ship was, relative to her current position. "Emily," she muttered, "I hope you're not skittish." She teleported away...
...and found herself back in the same corridor, wall glyph and all.
"Dammit," she growled, waving at the wall glyph and dispelling it.
She took a lay of the land - the end of the corridor near her was sealed with a blank wall. The rest of the corridor was lit, up until a darkness at the end that looked like it was swallowing the light..
She bit the inside of her cheek, teleported...and found herself standing with the darkness directly in front of her face.
"Well that's something," she said.
"Glimmer? Is that you?"
Glimmer's heart leapt up her throat. That voice, with the slightest of echoes, seemed to come from the darkness in front of her. No...no, it can't be… "Mom?"
"Commander Glimmer, stop hiding and come here this instant!"
Glimmer raised a hand and pushed it to the darkness. It felt insubstantial, like the air around it. She pulled her hand back, drew a basic glyph, and tapped it. The glyph floated forward, but once it touched the dark veil, it vanished. She could sense that it was still there, still moving forward, but she couldn't see it.
She took one more look at the corridor. Catra was right about it being a trap, she thought. Am I better off stuck in this trap, or in whichever one might be past this? After a moment's hesitation, she took a deep breath and then stepped into the darkness.
She suddenly found herself standing in the throne room at Bright Moon. It was lit but not overly brightly, and there was a kind of crackling sound all around. Guards were standing at their normal posts, encircling the diagram of the moon phases embedded in the center of the chamber...and her mother, tall and regal, seated on the throne that floated freely in the air through the open archway at the far end from where she was standing. She turned around, but the dark veil through which she'd entered was gone. All that was there now was the massive arch that led out toward the entrance bridge. She noticed it was raining outside, rather heavily. The magical shielding around the castle's openings, though, prevented the rain from intruding upon the throne room.
"Glimmer, what are you staring at?"
She turned back around. Her "mother" was still seated, chin resting on her hand and elbow propped on the armrest. Just as Glimmer had remembered seeing her so often throughout her lifetime - until...
She shook her head. This isn't real. This is some kind of First Ones' memory projection or something, like Adora told us about.
"Are you going to stand there, or are you going to follow my command and stand before me?"
Glimmer straightened up her stance. Illusion or no, she was an adult now. She was queen now. And she would act dignified, even if her mother and this court were only memories.
She glided forward. "As you command, Your Highness."
Even at this distance, she could see Angella's eyebrow raise. She straightened up in the throne and shifted her position slightly. Once Glimmer made it to the foot of the steps leading up to the throne, she knelt. The gesture was a bit awkward in the restrictive spacesuit, but she tried her best to maintain its elegance.
"Where have you been?" Angella asked. Her tone was halfway between annoyance and concern, and it was one Glimmer knew all too well.
She wasn't sure how to answer. If this was a memory, did she remember what she'd been doing on this day? Could she even remember what day this was? There had been so many days when her mother had dressed her down in front of the court. So many days it had been raining while her mother had dressed her down in front of the court.
So, why not a little honesty? "My friends and I have chased a dangerous fugitive across the stars to a ruined First Ones' world. We found a hidden chamber but got separated. And now I find myself here, though I'm not certain where 'here' is."
Angella's eyes went wide. There was silence between them for a long moment. "Are you - are you mocking me, Commander Glimmer?"
"I'm telling the truth, Your Highness."
"Get up!"
Glimmer stood. She'd forgotten just how frightening her mother could be, but she did not allow herself to look away. Not out of defiance, but out of regal command. She would not allow her mother, and especially not some illusion of her mother, to frighten her. They were staring each other down, and despite "Angella" being in the superior position, Glimmer did not feel intimidated. What she felt was anger, that someone or something would use the image of her mother to try to confuse or manipulate her.
Glimmer could see the fire in her mother's eyes. It was a very familiar sight, yet for the first time in her life, she was not intimidated.
"I don't know where you come up with these stories, but I will not tolerate flippancy in my court!" Glimmer stood firm, staring at her but saying nothing. "Have you anything else to say?"
"No, Your Highness." Glimmer maintained her even tone. As a child, she never could have imagined being able to speak to her mother like this - as one queen to another. The thought of it now, though, made a lump form in her chest. She forced herself to ignore it.
For the briefest moment, Glimmer thought she saw something in Angella's eyes that she had never, ever seen her mother allow her court to see.
Confusion.
It was gone in an instant, though. "Retire to your chambers. We will speak later."
Glimmer bowed her head, took three steps backward, and then turned toward the corridor leading to the living chambers. "Have you exhausted your magic, Glimmer?"
Glimmer, unsure of her ability to teleport in this facsimile of her home, had not wanted to test it while under scrutiny of her "mother" and her royal "court". Several responses swirled around in her head, but in the end, she chose none of them. She continued her dignified, silent march toward the corridor, waiting to see if her "mother" would further yell at her.
No such yell came, so she continued unabated. Once clear of the throne room, though, and clear of the eyes of any guards, she ducked into a side room.
Once there, and finding the room empty, she surveyed it. It was one of the servants' maintenance rooms, used for storing cleaning supplies. The room was large and luxurious, for a custodial closet; as she'd learned in her travels, the custodial closets of Bright Moon tended to be larger and more glamorous than the living quarters in most inns, homes, and even other castles she'd seen.
Bright Moon, she'd learned, was uniquely opulent, a fact which had not gone unnoticed by many common folk in her kingdom and beyond. It was something she'd had to learn to deal with early on as a teenaged Commander, interacting with her mother's subjects all across the continent.
Despite its size, she knew every room in Bright Moon; she'd become extremely skilled in hiding from her mother, sometimes when playing games, other times when avoiding her wrath.
She leaned back against the door and slid to the floor. Seeing her mother again, after all this time… Her dignified countenance started to crack, and it was all she could do to stop from bursting into tears. She forgot how much she loved her mother, how desperately she missed her. Oh, she'd moved on. She'd had to. The Queen of Bright Moon, after all, did not have the luxury of mourning, especially when the kingdom was at war. But secretly, when she was alone in her chamber, lying in bed or bathing, she still let the tears flow.
By the time that war had ended, and her father had returned, they'd shared more of a celebration of Angella. Each sharing their best memories of her, bringing her back to life if only in conversation. Yes, there had been difficulties between her and her mother, but she most remembered, most cherished, the love and the trust, the good times.
She stopped resisting, and let the tears flow. Both grief and anger welled up inside her. Whoever or whatever had chosen to reintroduce Glimmer to her mother in such a way was exceptionally cruel, and she would make sure they paid for it.
For now, though, she needed to understand where she was. Then she could figure out how to get out of there, back to her friends, and then deal with whomever was in charge of this place.
She sniffled, wiped her face as best she could with her spacecuit's sleeve, and took a few deep, cleansing breaths like Perfuma had taught her.
She, of course, knew where her bedroom was in relation to this room. She could walk or teleport there with her eyes closed. In this particular version of the castle, though? She teleported away...
...and reappeared back in the same spot.
"I'm sure you think this is funny, whoever you are." She stood. "Don't you think for a second you're going to stop me from finding my friends."
Catra felt Glimmer grab her arm, but then the sensation disappeared. She turned toward where Glimmer had been, and saw the indentations in the flexible metal mesh of the suit covering her arm. Glimmer was gone. So were Adora and Bow. And the blinding light from overhead.
She was alone, and the suddenness of that feeling sent a chill down her spine. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to push away the anxiety and let her fur settle back down. After a moment, she opened her eyes again.
She was in a corridor, the look of which she recognized instantly and which made her fur stand on end again. It was definitely a First Ones-type hallway, and she had absolutely no good memories of places that looked like this.
She glanced about furtively and dropped into a crouching position, very much on edge and her survival instincts in high gear. The end of the corridor where she was crouched ended in a solid wall, and she jumped immediately toward it, pressing against in the corner and preparing to spring off it if needed. Her ears perked up and she sniffed the air, trying to get some sense of where she was.
She couldn't smell anyone. Not Adora, nor Glimmer...just a clean, sickenly metallic odor. It didn't smell like the corridors in the Beacon. Those had the added must and dust that had attacked her senses. Even the halls of the Fright Zone, which reeked of smoke and chemicals, did not offend her senses like this did. Here, it was so sanitized and unnatural that she just knew, in her gut, that it was wrong.
She tapped her communicator. "Code-five, code-five if you read. Anyone?"
No response.
"Code-five, code-five."
She'd used the Horde Army voice codes out of habit. A lifetime in the Horde Army brought with it, among other things, a way of communicating that others (she'd learned) found strange. Still, it was efficient and unambiguous. At the very least, Adora or Scorpia would understand and respond by clicking their mics twice. Maybe Hordak as well, if he'd ever bothered to learn the things his commanders had taught his soldiers.
No voice response. No click-hisses of microphones being triggered. Just dead air.
"Shit," she muttered. Guess I'm on my own for now.
The spacesuit was incredibly uncomfortable, and it drastically hampered her flexibility. She wanted to tear it off, get these clunky boots off, and be able to explore this new location in a way she was comfortable with. She knew, though, that she'd probably need the suit again, if she wanted to get back to the ship without getting a major dose of radiation.
There was a darkness at the far end of the corridor that she found quite foreboding. And, she realized as she eyed the corridor, it was probably the only direction she had available to go.
"Knew it was a trap," she muttered. She approached cautiously on all fours, sniffing, her ears rotating, trying to pick up any sort of indication as to what she was being led into. The walls, floor, and ceiling were seamless, as if carved from a single giant piece of crystal. Just like those First Ones - make something as creepy as they possibly could.
She just barely picked up a deep, deep thrumming of machinery. It sounded far away. And all she smelled was metal - until she got closer to the dark veil. Once there she started to pick up a slight burning scent, like what comes from electrical sparks in the air, but a bit less acrid. It reminded her of the scent she got from Adora whenever she was in her She-Ra form.
She reached out a hand, fighting her anxiety and flight instinct, and touched the veil. It had no feeling to it, no substance. She didn't expect to feel much through the clunky gloves, but she at least expected some type of resistance. There was nothing. not even the slightest tingle of her hairs standing on end, if there had been some kind of electric field like the ozone-like smell made her expect.
"Dammit." Her choice was to either stay here, in this creepy corridor, or go through and see what was beyond it. She hated going into the unknown, but she more hated the idea of being caged. She took a deep breath, and leaped through.
Once she saw what was on the other side, she wished she'd stayed in the corridor. She tried to jump back through it, but her backside struck something solid. She turned to see the veil was gone, replaced with a reddish, smooth metal wall.
She was in Shadow Weaver's room, the "Black Garnet Chamber" as it had been called, back in the old Horde HQ. It was a room that was part of a building she knew had been destroyed; she'd seen it with her own eyes, and even helped dismantle and haul away mangled pieces of it.
She hissed and bared her teeth. Of course, this had to be was another one of those stupid First Ones' illusions. Which, of course, meant the tall, lithe figure standing in front of the Black Garnet, facing her direction, was also an illusion. She had personally watched as, only a few months ago, that figure exploded into magical energies and became no more. It seemed someone, or something, in this place wanted to torture her with awful memories,
"Welcome, Catra," Shadow Weaver said, raising her slender arms in a gesture that might have been welcoming if done by any other being. "It seems all your roads lead back to me, don't they?"
"Stay away from me," Catra said, doing her best to be ready to pounce, despite the spacesuit's cumbersomeness. "Whatever you are."
"Always with such disrespect," Shadow Weaver said, her voice sliding quickly from silky down to a threatening growl. The white eyes on Shadow Weaver's mask seemed to narrow. "You've not got Adora here to protect you now."
"I didn't need Adora when I kicked your ass last time," Catra said, a pang in her stomach when she said the words. She couldn't let that memory, that empty feeling, distract her, though.
"Indeed," Shadow Weaver said. She lowered her arms to her sides. "You have grown far beyond my expectations, for certain. Despite your - obvious inferiority."
"What are you?" Catra said. "Where am I?"
"Well, since I am dead, then there is only one place this can be. Somewhere in which you've earned your place, just as I have." Shadow Weaver reached up and pulled off her mask, revealing a face underneath that was grotesque enough for Catra to gasp. She had seen Shadow Weaver's scarred face before, but now it appeared completely mangled, with one eye socket an empty dark hole, half the nose missing, and holes in the cheeks revealing the rotted teeth within. All over the skin was mottled, with sores oozing thick, dark blood. The ichor rolled down her neck and into her robes.
"You, my dear Catra, are in Hell."
"Adora!" Bow cried as he felt her arm vanish under his hand. She was gone.
Or - had he gone? The dark chamber and blinding overhead lights were gone. He now found himself in a corridor, a very familiar-looking one. The same kind he remembered seeing in the Beacon back on Etheria. It looked a lot newer though, more well-cared for. Or even brand new. It was lit from overhead, and went for a ways until it seemed to end in darkness further down from where he stood.
Sighing, he reached up and loosened the clasps on his helmet. He pulled it off, clipped it to his belt, and took a few test breaths.
"Hello!" he called out. "Anyone there?"
"Bow?" He spun around to see Entrapta running at him. "Oh I am so glad you're here!"
"Entrapta! What happened?"
She skidded to a stop when she reached him, grabbing his arms. "I think we got teleported somewhere!" She pointed to the black veil at the end of the corridor, from where she had come. "There's a really weird kind of forcefield down there. My pad doesn't know what it is, but there's something on the other side of it!"
She grabbed his arms with her hair and practically dragged him back toward the veil before he could even respond. She stopped abruptly when they reached it, and Bow had to stop himself from tumbling forward into it. "See? Scan it!"
Bow hesitated, but pulled out his tracker pad. He tried to open the scanning app, but a red ROOT PANIC error message appeared, covering the entire screen. "The hell?" He smacked the side of it, and it started booting back up.
"What? 'Cha break it?" Entrapta tried to grab it from him, but he yanked it away.
"It's - it's just been acting weird the last few days." After a moment it was back to its main screen. He launched the scanning app again, and the pad again crashed.
"Okay, never mind," Entrapta said. "Look, just stick your head in and see what's there!"
"Wait, what?" Bow tucked his pad away. "Stick my head through that?"
"It's fine, I did it already," Entrapta said. "Just do it!"
Bow hesitated, then reached out a gloved hand. It passed right through the veil. He pulled it back, flexed his fingers, and then looked at Entrapta.
"See? It's fine!"
Bow drew in a deep breath, and then stuck his head through. "Whoa!"
"I know, right?" came Entrapta's voice from behind him, with a slight echo.
He was looking at his home. The home where he'd grown up. The Library, nestled deep in the Whispering Woods.
He was immediately on guard. He remembered all too well the kinds of illusions these First Ones ruins could project, as well as their tendency to pull things from one's own memories to generate them.
He then saw Entrapta's head poke out from the darkness next to him. "See? It's...huh…"
"What?" Bow said.
"It looks different now. Fascinating…" She stepped through. "Whoa! Your head is sticking out from the wall!"
"What?" Bow said again. He looked down. On this side there was no dark veil; it indeed looked as if his head were sticking out from the eggshell-colored wall.
He thought about pulling back into the comparatively small corridor, but stopped himself. Entrapta was now fully on the other side of it, and if he went back, they might get permanently separated. Whatever this was, whatever was going on here, it would be best if they stayed together. He took another deep breath, and then stepped the rest of the way through.
"So what is this place?" Entrapta said her voice wistful and her eyes wide. "So many books..."
Before Bow could answer, a deep voice rang out. "Bow! There you are!" He spun around to see his father, George, descending the stairs from the upper level. He chuckled. "What on Etheria are you wearing? And who's your friend?"
"It's a - a spacesuit," Bow said, after a moment's hesitation. He turned to Entrapta. "And this is, uh, Princess Entrapta."
George's countenance turned grim. "Bow! You know what we think about Princesses! And I don't want to hear you joking about them!"
"Joking?" Entrapta said. "He's not joking, I'm really-" Bow clapped his hand over her mouth.
He laughed nervously. "Y-yep, joking. Ha ha! S-sorry Dad." He turned to Entrapta and hissed, "Let me do the talking, okay?" Entrapta nodded, and he took his hand from her mouth. "She's my friend, Entrapta."
Entrapta raised a hand and waved. "Hi," she said, awkwardly.
"Hello," George said. "I see you're both wearing those 'spacesuits'. I'm so glad our Bow is finally making friends!" He approached them but stopped a few paces away. He eyed Bow and then Entrapta for a moment, and then his moustache curled up and he laughed heartily. He turned around. "Lance, come meet Bow's new friend!"
"Just a moment!" came Bow's other dad's voice from the upstairs hallway. "I can't wait to see Bow's new friend!"
Bow closed his eyes. This brought back memories. They'd both been quite the doting fathers when he was young. Well, younger, anyway. They'd only stopped doing it when he'd introduced them to Glimmer and Adora - and finally came out to them as a soldier in the Rebellion. If he had to be honest, he didn't miss the doting.
At least this gave him an idea of what this illusion was, and when it was supposed to be taking place.
"Okay, let me see this...oooooooo-" Lance said as he appeared at the top of the stairs. He stopped and placed his hands to his cheeks. "So...adorable!"
Play along? Bow thought. Or not? There was a very good chance his friends were in danger. He sighed. "Dads, look. There's...something going on here. This…" He gestured to the scene around them. "This is all an illusion. A First Ones illusion. And our friends are trapped somewhere. I think. Anyway, we need to find a way to get to them."
There was a pause, and then Lance said, "Hear that, dear? A First Ones illusion! Okay then...let's go find your friends!" He walked down the stairs. "Where do you think they are?" He sauntered over to a corner hidden by a pair of lavender drapes. "Could they be...here?" He opened the drapes theatrically, revealing Bow's hidden play spot, complete with his little stuffed animals and illuminated with the string of star-, moon-, and heart-shaped crystals.
"Why, I do believe you've found them," George said. "They seem safe to me!"
Bow sighed again and covered his face. "Okay...um...wow…"
"Ooooh, Bow's got a little hidey-hole!" Entrapta said. Bow elbowed her, and she yelped in surprise.
"What's wrong, son?" George said, placing a hand on his arm.
"This is not gonna work." He pulled his tracker pad out of his pouch. It was stuck mid-boot, with some error message he didn't recognize. That was especially strange to him because he was the one who'd built and programmed it. "And now this thing won't either!"
"What's that?" Lance said. "Is your toy broken?"
Bow ignored him and went to the coffee table. He set the pad down on its screen. "Entrapta, do you have-" He was interrupted when Entrapta held out several different tools with her hair arms in front of his face. "Uh, thanks." He selected the correct tool and started unscrewing the back of his pad.
"Bow, don't go losing parts to your toy in here," George said.
"Got it, Dad," Bow said, not looking up. Once the last screw was loose Bow popped the back off. He looked over all the wire connections, making sure they were secure and in good shape.
"Looks fine," Entrapta said. He glanced up to see she had put on a pair of goggles with green illuminated lenses. "No broken leads or damage to the mainboard."
Bow sighed. "All right, lemme try safe boot." He reached back into his pouch and pulled out a small square. One side of the square had a metal prong sticking out, matching a socket on the pad's main board. He pulled one wire loose from the board, and a small green light on the board winked out. He attached the square to the matching port, and then reconnected the loose wire.
He flipped it back over and watched as the pad booted up. Status messages scrolled down the screen for a few seconds, and then it switched to the home screen.
"Looks fine now," Entrapta said.
"Yeah," Bow said. Suddenly an alert popped up in red:
FOREIGN SOFTWARE DETECTED
"Well that's not good," Entrapta said.
"Explains why it's been acting up though," Bow said. He tapped the warning, which shrank into a small red circle. He dragged the circle to the edge of the screen, and a new message popped up saying:
FOREIGN SOFTWARE ISOLATED TO EXTERNAL STORAGE
He flipped the pad over, pulled the square back out, and tucked it back into his pouch. "Gonna have to take a look at that later," he mumbled.
As he reassembled the pad, Entrapta turned to George and Lance, who had been standing over Bow and staring. "So - uh - Bow's dads," Entrapta said. "You, uh, don't happen to know if a tall man with white skin and big red eyes came through here?"
Lance blinked. "A - a what?"
"Don't bother," Bow said. "This is all an illusion. Just like at the Beacon back in the Whispering Woods."
"Oh. You know, I never got to go there," Entrapta said. "What was it like?"
"You're not missing much," Bow said. He stood and handed her back the tool. "C'mon, let's find a way out of this."
He brought up his pad and Entrapta took out hers, and they began scanning the "library". "Over there," Entrapta said, pointing toward Bow's play cubby. "The holographic matrix is weaker over there."
Bow rolled his eyes. Of course it's in there. "Just...don't look at the stuff in there, okay?"
Entrapta bound across the hall toward the cubby using her hair arms, beating Bow there by several seconds. She crawled inside. "Yeah, I think I see it!"
Bow breathed a sigh of relief, and then glanced back at his dads. They were staring at him, not moving. The jovial expressions on their faces were gone. Then their eyes started glowing red.
"Uh, Entrapta…"
"Hang on, I'm trying to disrupt it so we can climb through!"
"George" and "Lance" started sprouting additional red eyes all around their heads, and then they both leaned forward. Additional arms sprouted from the sides of their chests, and pincers emerged from their mouths.
"Entrapta!" Bow called, reaching for his bow.
"Almost there!"
"Hurry!" He moved so he was in front of the cubby, pulled his bow from his back, and nocked an arrow.
"You can't rush science!" Entrapta barked back.
"This is survival now!" Both of the mechanical spiders sprayed white goo from their mouths. Bow fired an arrow that burst once it contacted the two streams, sending the sticky white material flying in all directions. He turned his back, making sure to cover as much of the cubbyhole as he could with his own body. Several strands struck him, and he felt himself yanked backward. "Entrapta!"
"Almost!"
Bow rolled over and struggled to draw an arrow from his quiver, which some of the strands had hit and which was being pulled away at an odd angle. He managed to grab one arrow before the quiver was yanked fully from him. "Aw no!" he said, when he noticed which arrow it was. Still, he nocked it, drew, and fired directly at one of the two spiders' faces. It exploded, throwing out confetti in a dense cloud and making the sound of a party horn. Still, it was enough to distract the spiders so he could grab his quiver. He drew another arrow, this time more satisfied with his choice. He nocked, drew, and fired directly at the floor.
The tip exploded into a green, hissing liquid that started bubbling as soon as it made contact with the floor, and the white silken strands that were dragging Bow along the floor. The strands snapped. Bow scrambled to his feet, scooped up his quiver, and dove into the cubbyhole.
His head struck Entrapta squarely in the backside, where she must have had something hard and metallic because he immediately saw stars. He felt dazed, and for the briefest second couldn't see beyond the redness in his eyes.
He felt himself being yanked hard, and just as his vision cleared he could see he was no longer in the cubby, but in some kind of dimly lit room.
"Made it!" Entrapta said.
He was lying on his back on a smooth, hard floor. He looked down toward his feet and saw a hole in the wall...or in the open air, he couldn't tell...through which he could see the spiders clambering toward them.
He grabbed another arrow and fired it at the hole. It exploded just inside the hole, expanding into a mass of gray that expanded and filled the hole, completely sealing off the library illusion from - wherever they had just ended up.
"Whew, that was close," Entrapta said. "You didn't have to shove, you know."
Bow sat up, shook his head, and ran a hand along his scalp. He drew in a sharp breath through his teeth when his gloved fingers grazed a knot at the crown of his skull. "Gonna feel that one for a while," he said. He glanced around. Wherever they were, it somewhat resembled the corridor where they'd started out, though the overall lighting was dimmer, and what looked like glowing circuitry zigged and zagged along the walls. "Where are we now?"
"No clue," Entrapta said, staring at her pad. "But it's a different place than before, so that's good, right?"
"Right," Bow said. He stood, feeling a tad woozy, but was able to keep his bearings. "Wish we knew where everyone else was."
"Oh, I know that," Entrapta said.
"Wait, what? Bow said. "How?"
"I put tracking devices in everyone's suits," she said. "Didn't I tell you?" She showed him the screen of her pad, which had 7 green dots at various points around a rotating series of interconnected squares, circles, and rectangles. He noticed two of the green dots were practically on top of each other, but the rest were spread out relatively evenly.
Bow had to laugh out loud, despite that causing his developing headache to worsen. "Know something, Entrapta? You're awesome."
"Aww, thanks little buddy," Entrapta said. She patted Bow on the head with One of her hair-arms…right on the bump. He winced, but she didn't seem to notice. "C'mon," she said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. "My scanner says there's a junction this way."
Bow touched the bump tenderly, but then followed Entrapta as she led them down the corridor, toward what they hoped would be the route to their friends.
Every step Adora took she watched and listened, trying to prepare for any surprises. Once she finally reached the platform, though, she felt as if something took control of her limbs. Her doubts and worry, even about her friends, felt like they were being pushed into the back of her mind. She wasn't sure how, but decided not to argue with it as she continued, single-mindedly, toward the pedestal.
She stopped just a few paces before it. "Eternia."
Nothing happened.
"Administrator."
Still nothing.
The confusion broke her concentration, just enough for her worries to resurface. Her brief bout of confidence began to wane.
"Um…Light Hope?"
No response.
After a moment's wait, she took a deep breath and stepped toward the pedestal. She then shrieked as a bright reddish light suddenly surrounded her. She jumped backward, briefly forgetting she was wearing her cumbersome spacesuit, and fell hard on her butt.
The light coalesced into a figure, which then gained definition as it further morphed into a humanoid shape. A very familiar humanoid shape. The image of a tall woman, covered in a cloak and hood, with glowing white eyes and mouth.
"Light Hope," Adora said. The only difference between this hologram and the one she had known on Etheria was the color; instead of blue, this was reddish-pink.
"Welcome home, She-Ra," the hologram said with that familiar voice. "I am known as Last Resort."
"L-Last Resort?" Adora said. "You mean...you're not Light Hope?"
"The program you refer to as 'Light Hope' was the holographic companion assigned to assist Mara, your predecessor, in her mission on Etheria. I am an upgraded version of the base OS used to generate Light Hope."
Adora paused. "I saw you, didn't I? Back on Etheria, before Adam and I fought in the snow."
"You are correct," Last Resort said.
Adora narrowed her eyes. "So it's your mission to destroy our home planet?"
"It is not your home planet. This is your home."
"I told you I don't care about that!
"Then why did you follow Adam and me here?"
"To stop him. To stop you."
Last Resort tilted her holographic head. "You cannot stop us, Your purpose is our purpose. Your fate is tied to ours."
"No, I've already been through all this with Light Hope! I'm not a weapon, I don't believe in destiny, and I don't belong to you!" She stood up directly to Last Resort and glared up into her holographic face. "Tell me what you've done with my friends."
"Your - companions - are currently occupied. We needed this time to speak without their interference."
"I'm not interested in anything you have to say. Tell me where my friends are, and tell me where Adam is. Now!"
Last Resort stared down at her with an impassive countenance. Despite the fact she knew she was arguing with a computer, Adora almost felt as if she could sense a smugness from Last Resort. "Adam is here," Last Resort finally said. "This is where he belongs. As do you."
Adora shook her head. "I belong on Etheria, with my friends. And that's where we're all going after you give me Adam. Or I take him." She briefly considered summoning her sword and transforming into She-Ra, but her inability to do so back on the ship made her hesitate.
"Why do you wish to take him back to Etheria? Did he not repeatedly defeat you and your savage companions?"
She was really getting tired of people referring to her friends as "savages". "To make him answer for what he did. For the people he hurt!"
"He did those things on my orders, of course."
Adora stepped back. "What?"
"The She-Ra acts at my command. It is his purpose. It is my purpose." Last Resort moved closer to Adora. "It is also your purpose ."
Adora shook her head. "No. No, I've been through this before. With Light Hope. And with… Look, give me Adam, and give me my friends. Right. Now."
Last Resort stared at Adora, saying nothing.
"What, did I scramble your circuits? Tell me-" She stopped, a sudden jolt of pain in the back of her head She clenched it and fell to her knees.
Last Resort continued watching, wordlessly.
"What - what's happening…?" Adora managed through clenched teeth.
"I will tolerate no further insubordination," Last Resort said.
"What did you...do to me?" Adora said, pressing her hands into her skull, trying to stop the pain that made it feel as if it would explode.
"Calm yourself and the pain will pass."
Adora muttered a foul curse, one she hadn't heard since her training back in the Fright Zone, and almost immediately the pain doubled.
"Unhelpful speech."
Adora forced her eyes open, seeing the red Last Resort looming over her, her form blending into the red that filled her entire view, before the red turned a vast blur and then into black.
Scorpia's grandfather stood from the throne and raised his arms, at the end of which were massive red pincers. Just like hers. "Come before me, child."
Scorpia felt like she was in a trance. Without being aware she was doing it, she walked forward, slowly at first, but then breaking into a run.
She leapt into his open arms. She squeezed tightly, and felt the strength of his embrace matching, exceeding hers. It was such a comforting hug, and for the first time in a long time, she felt like she could just let loose, squeezing him as hard as she possibly could.
"Welcome back, granddaughter," he said. "I've waited so long to finally meet you."
"I - I never thought I'd get to meet you," Scorpia said. "I mean, I know you gave the Fright Zone to the Horde, but - they never told me what happened to you after."
"It's…a long story, my dear. In short, the Horde betrayed us. Hordak betrayed us. Scattered us to the sands while he used our Runestone to spread his armies across Etheria. All the while as he kept you, our only royal heir, as a hostage to prevent our rising up against his tyranny."
Scorpia was stunned into silence. Of course, none of this was news to her. She'd learned, or at least suspected, that Hordak's takeover of the Fright Zone had been far from the peaceful alliance she'd been told, but to have it spelled out, bluntly, hit her hard. Especially since Hordak had redeemed himself - kind of. He'd helped Entrapta, anyway, and he'd even traveled with them on the ship to-
She stopped herself. The ship. They'd come to this planet on a ship. It wasn't Etheria, and this wasn't the real Horror Hall. It was almost like a dream...and now she felt like she was waking up from it.
"My child, is something wrong?"
"Huh?" Scorpia said. "Uh, no. N-nothing's wrong." She paused. "No, that's a lie, something is wrong." She stopped. She couldn't bring herself to say it. Even if this was some kind of dream, even if it wasn't real, she couldn't say what she was thinking to this man, to whom she had looked up nearly all her life.
"Please, tell me."
Scorpia gulped. This felt wrong. She knew she wasn't the brightest, but her instincts were usually on point when she actually listened to them. Clouds rolled in overhead, robbing the hall of much of the sunlight that had been illuminating it. "What's my name? I mean - the name you guys gave me. Before the Horde took me."
Grandfather chuckled. "Why, surely 'Scorpia of the Scorpioni' is fitting enough, wouldn't you say?"
Scorpia chuckled, but then said, "Really, though."
"Grandfather" touched her on her chin. "We named you Lynda, my dear."
Scorpia's lip twitched, but then a smile crawled across her face. "Right, of course! Lynda. Lynda - D'Ream, right?" She sighed. "You know, I really loved that name. When my friends made it up for me." She pushed herself away from him, frowning. "Who are you? What is this?"
"Grandfather" shook his head. "Oh, my dear Scorpia. I knew sending you to the Horde would give you some brains. Not many, but enough." He grabbed her and then literally threw her across the hall. She skidded onto the stone floor a dozen meters away.
As she started to get up, she felt something pressing down hard on her shoulders. Two feet, one booted, one bare, were practically standing on her shoulders. She tried to push herself up from the ground, but they kept her firmly in place. She looked up to see two shapes bathed in shadow, one with glowing red eyes, and the other with dimly lit, mismatched eyes of yellow and turquoise.
The larger of the two shadows leaned down toward her. "Pathetic. If not for your potential to connect to the Black Garnet and your sheer brute strength I'd have sent you to die on the front lines long ago."
The other, whom Scorpia could just barely see had crossed arms, said, "See, I told you. Worthless."
The clouds above began to move away, letting the sun back in. As it did, the two figures finally became visible: Hordak and Catra. Not the Hordak and Catra she knew, the ones who had traveled across the stars with her. This was Hordak the conqueror, decked in the robe he once wore when his forces had marched across Etheria, and Catra, his second-in-command, her long, wild hair just barely held back from her face by that red metal mask she used to wear.
"Hordak" reached down, grabbed her by the front of her spacesuit, and pulled her up so she was facing him. He shook his head.
"Catra" grabbed her chin with two clawed fingers and pulled so the two were eye-to-eye. "I told you before, Scorpia. You're useless. So useless you couldn't even see this trap, even after your friends warned you. And now you, and your friends, are all going to die."
Scorpia stared into the mismatched eyes, and though she knew they did not belong to her Wildcat, that this was some kind of dream, the harsh words being delivered in that voice stung deeply. So deeply she did not even notice, at first, as black tentacles began rising from the ground and started curling themselves around her legs.
"You're not Catra," Scorpia said. "Yeah, she said the things you're saying, but that was a long time ago. She was in a bad place, but now...now…" She started to lose her train of thought. She felt tired all of a sudden, sleepy.
It was then she felt something rub against her chest. She looked down and saw the black tendrils, snaking their way down her arms. "What - what is this?"
"Just be calm." Her "grandfather" was now standing behind her. "Let it happen."
"It will be all over soon," said the fake Hordak.
Scorpia growled as she strained against the black tendrils, even as she realized they were the reason her strength was waning.
"Just give it up," the fake Catra said. "You're not strong enough. You're not smart enough. You think you'd have figured that out by now."
Scorpia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then when she opened them, they were glowing brightly and solidly white. Red electricity started to crackle over her entire body. "You're...not...CATRA!" she shouted. Electricity exploded from her, throwing the two doppelgangers and her "grandfather" away from her. She tore one arm free and grabbed at the tendrils crawling over her torso, tearing them away and snipping them easily with her pincer. With the other arm free she was able to cut away the remaining tentacles. She jumped away from where the tendrils had been emerging from the floor, and then slammed a pincer into the floor and fired off another barrage of lightning. She watched as the fake Catra, Hordak, and her "grandfather" flickered briefly.
She glanced around herself, seeing the entire image of Horror Hall pixellating and fading away in places. She heard something hit the floor next to her, and glanced down to see her space helmet - what was left of it anyway - falling away from where it was clipped on her belt. Broken pieces of it littered the floor around her.
"That's not good," she muttered, and then glanced up to see her "grandfather", "Hordak", and "Catra'' all approaching her slowly. Their eyes were now all glowing red. Behind them, she could see other figures, some cloaked in darkness, but others visible in the sunbeam from overhead. Familiar figures - people in Horde uniforms, people with claws and tails like Scorpia's...and even old friends long-gone like Lonnie and Leech. All of them glaring at her, and all of them with glowing, red eyes.
She felt something tug her arm. She looked over to see Catra...the real Catra, not the illusion standing before her, gripping her arm and pulling. "Scorpia, come on! I found the way out of this."
"Wildcat!" Scorpia said, fighting the urge to pull her into a tight hug. "Am I glad to see you!"
"Talk later, run now!"
Scorpia let Catra lead her away from the approaching horde, into the shadows at the hall's periphery. There was a portion of the wall missing, the broken edges jagged but regular, as if it were made out of tiny squares that had been torn away. "Through here!" The tiny Catra leaped through the gap easily, even clad in her relatively bulky spacesuit, but Scorpia had to stop. She wasn't sure she could fit, especially not with the spacesuit covering her already bulky frame.
"Scorpia, what are you waiting for?"
"Stand back!" Scorpia said. She clamped onto the upper edge of the hole in the wall with both pincers and pulled with all her strength. Jagged lines formed at right angles around her gloved claws, and finally a large chunk tore away…and completely vanished as she released it. "Whoa," she said.
"Scorpia!"
Scorpia glanced behind her. The "whatever-they-weres" were approaching, very close now. Almost close enough to grab her. "Yikes!" she said, as she leaped forward through the hole in the wall.
She fell hard on the floor on the other side, but saw as the hole in the wall seemed to suddenly close up before the figures on the other side could reach it. Once the hole closed, the final jagged lines disappearing into the otherwise plain smooth wall, there was silence.
Scorpia let out a sigh, and then looked over at Catra. "That was close," Catra said. She offered a hand, and Scorpia took it, though careful to not pull on Catra for fear of sending her flying. "This place...it's crazy."
"No kidding," Scorpia said. "There were these weird tentacle things that tried to grab me. Don't wanna know what would've happened if I hadn't gotten free."
"Yeah, I ran into - something like that," Catra said. "I got away though, and managed to figure out how to break out of the illusions. C'mon, let's try to find the others."
"Right there with ya, Wildcat," Scorpia said. "You, uh, won't hold it against me if I hug you, will you?"
Catra laughed. "Save it until after we've found everyone else."
Scorpia noticed this corridor looked somewhat like the one she'd suddenly been in, before she entered the fake Horror Hall, but more dimly lit and with strange glowing lines zig-zagging along their length. The lines stretched down the corridor, a distance beyond the limit of her vision.
As the two of them walked side-by-side, and as Scorpia was straining to see what was at the end of it, Catra's eyes briefly flashed light blue before returning to their normal yellow-and-turquoise.