CHAPTER 7: SIMULACRA
Last Resort's voice echoed through the vast but empty barracks:
"You have a new mission. Prepare yourself."
Adam stood from his bunk, the only one that had been occupied in centuries, and snapped to attention. "Understood." Behind him, wheels at either end of the bunk spun and straightened out the bedsheets and blanket until it was impossible to tell he'd been sitting there in the first place. "What is my mission?"
"You will hunt down the Horde clone and the Etherian savages, and eliminate them."
"Am I to hunt the Experiment as well?"
"No." Last Resort paused. She finally added, "I will deal with her separately. Fulfill your purpose and kill the intruders."
"Understood," Adam said. After a moment, once he was sure Last Resort had turned its attention elsewhere, Adam squeezed his fists tightly. He squeezed them until his forearms, visible past his rolled-up uniform sleeves, striated with tension and made his stand out prominently.
"You are hesitating."
He started, and released the tension in his arms right away. His anxiety at being caught red-handed made him shudder. "I - I am...calculating how to deal with the giant one," he stuttered. "Her strength and power over electricity are...challenging."
He felt a jolt from behind his ear. It wasn't painful, but uncomfortable. And yet, he felt his anxiety and his shame vanish almost instantly. He regained his composure, standing straight at attention, but not stiffly, and no longer feeling the need to uselessly clench his fists. There was a distorted electronic noise - one that could have been described as a sigh. "I am already dealing with that one. It is - disappointing you needed to ask for assistance." Another pause. "Carry out your mission. Now."
"Acknowledged," he said with a flat tone. He raised one hand, palm open, and his sword materialized. He grasped it, raised it above his head, and said, "By the power of D'Vann!"
Once his transformation was complete, he lowered his sword arm, the tip striking the metal floor and releasing sparks. The gemstones in his sword and on his chest, as well as the irises of his eyes, turned from pale blue to deep red.
"Mission commencing," he said to the empty barracks as he turned crisply and headed toward the exit.
Slowly, Hordak released his grip on Prime's head tubes. "Tell me where I am and how to return," he said.
Prime laughed at Hordak's question. "You have changed so much in such a short time, little brother. Standing before me, demanding answers of me, as if you were my equal." Hordak placed a hand to his chest again. Prime did not look away from Hordak's eyes, nor did his smile falter. "Do you really wish to end your existence? I fear you do not have the courage."
"Do not presume to understand what I will or will not do," Hordak said. He lowered his hand. "But I'm not yet ready to end my life."
"Your end will come along soon enough all on its own. Won't it, Little Brother?"
"Enough of this!" Hordak barked. He shoved "Prime" hard backward. "I've no more patience for First Ones' games!" He turned away and marched back down the bridge away from the throne. The drones at the end of the bridge moved to block him, but he grabbed them both by the head, smashed them together, and with a roar he flung them both off the platform into the abyss below.
Entrapta's latest enhancements had truly helped, he mused. He only hoped he would get the chance to thank her, before-
Several drones roared and charged at him before he could finish that thought. Hordak spun around and immediately began to dodge and weave around their blows. It almost felt to him as if the suit were controlling her actions, because as quickly as he could think of moving an arm or a leg the suit was already doing it. However, the continual movements began turning the dull ache in his muscles into searing pain, causing him to grunt and yelp out at each movement.
After several minutes of combat that felt almost automatic to him, Hordak was standing on a platform littered with Prime clone bodies. His spacesuit was torn and hanging away in many places, tattered by the drones' claws.
There was a sound of clapping. He turned back to Prime, who was seated on his throne and almost gleefully applauding.. "Well done, little brother! Well done! It is no wonder I once chose you as my right hand. The only of my clones allowed independent thought. Of course, if not for that blasphemous mechanical suit you wear, you would not be so capable anymore, would you?"
"No more games," Hordak said. "Tell me how to leave this place and find my companions, or I will find my own way."
Prime tilted his head. "Are they truly yours?" The words had come from Prime, but there was a mix of Prime's voice and another, a female voice. "Or are you theirs? Or are you less than their companion? Are you their prisoner? Or perhaps...their pet?"
Hordak reached down, grabbed a clone, and flung it directly at Prime, roaring in both pain and anger as he did so. Prime disappeared, and so did the throne and the display screen behind him. And then, everything else disappeared.
Hordak found himself standing in a blank space. The only illumination in the room came from overhead; all else was darkness.
"There is no escape for you," came the female voice, now devoid of Prime's seductive tenor. "This is where you are, and this is where you shall remain."
Hordak then noticed the beeping of his sonic trackers had changed. The delay between the high and low beeps was much greater now. The high seemed distant, but the low…
He looked to the floor and saw one of the devices he'd planted on the corridor wall earlier.
It seemed the Last Ones, or whoever was in control of this place, were no fools. He scooped up the tracer, tore away a strip of the damaged spacesuit from his chest, and stuck the device into one of the circular indentations flanking the pink crystal just below his throat.
His fingers brushed the crystal, which had been a gift from Entrapta not long after they'd started their - "partnership". "Where are they?" he asked.
There was no answer. If the entity that had spoken to him was listening, it apparently didn't care to respond.
He tapped the sonic tracer he'd just reinstalled next to the crystal, and then slowly turned his body around. While the light was too dim for him to see it, he could hear the echoes returning to him. It was a large room, featureless and solid.
He knew he could examine the walls for weaknesses, or use his arm cannon to try to blast his way out, but he was already feeling fatigued from the exertion of fighting the fake clones. Conserving his strength and his suit's power cell had to be his top priority for now, lest he leave himself in an extremely vulnerable position when it came time to fight, or to flee.
It pained him to do so, but at this moment, he knew he had to place his faith that Entrapta, or her friends, would be able to find him.
He stopped turning. There was an anomaly in the echo he heard. He turned back slightly, waited, and listened.
There was no mistake - someone or something was standing there, in a dark corner of the room. "Show yourself!" he called out, raising his arm. His arm cannon sprang open from just above his wrist, and the tip began to glow yellow. "I know you are there!"
The figure stepped forward into the light, and Hordak gasped when he saw it. It drew a sword up, pointed it toward Hordak, and said, "Target located."
Glimmer lightly banged the back of her head against the door. She had tried several times to teleport from this spot. Her bedroom, the Moonstone, and even back to the throne room, but while she felt like her teleport was working, she always ended up back in the same spot.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been here. Her thoughts were scrambled. Seeing her mother had affected her far more than she'd cared to admit to herself. She knew she couldn't allow herself to get distracted. Her friends needed her. Her world needed her. She didn't have the luxury to sit here and ruminate over it.
She took a deep breath and tried to clear her anxieties from her mind. It worked, to some extent. Well enough, anyway, to motivate her to get off her ass and do something about her situation.
She stood, spun on her heel, and opened the door. The rain had apparently stopped, and the late-day sun was shining through the throne room and illuminating the corridor in rich orange hues. She turned away from the throne room and strode down the corridor.
She knew all the ways in and out of the castle. She'd spent enough of her childhood sneaking in and out, avoiding the guards' and her mother's attention just to enjoy some time outside with Bow, or even just to get out of the stuffy, suffocating castle.
She reached a pair of ornate double doors, which she knew led to the ballroom. It had seen very little use during her childhood, aside from the time her mother hosted the Princess Prom when Glimmer was only 5. It was kept clean and prepared, but most of the time it was empty and almost forgotten. It had a handy little access door to the tunnels that connected many of the castle's rooms together, allowing her younger, pre-teleportation self almost unfettered access to the entire castle away from the watchful eyes of the guards or her mother. While she was larger now, she might still be able to fit inside them without much difficulty.
It appeared fortune wasn't on her side. On whatever day this place had decided to simulate, there had apparently been a pair of castle guards standing watch at the ballroom doors.
She briefly considered moving on and finding a different way to enter the hidden tunnels, but decided that she would not be forced to shy away from the guards in her own castle. Even if that castle was just a reproduction of the original.
She stopped and faced the guards. They did not acknowledge her presence. That was their typical behavior when she was a child, but as Queen, she would not be ignored.
"Open the doors."
The guards glanced at each other, and then back at her. "I-I'm sorry, Your Highness, we-"
"Now."
"We - we can't do that. Our Queen's orders-"
Glimmer cut them off and marched between them, shoving the doors open. They seemed unsure whether to stand aside or try to stop her, but she didn't care. She knew these weren't real beings, rather some kind of illusion, and she had no qualms against using force if needed.
The ballroom beyond the doors was dark. Not just unlit, but completely dark. She should have been able to see the twilight coming in through the curtained windows, but not even the reflected sunset from the corridor penetrated the blackness within the room.
"Glimmer!"
She spun around in surprise at the sound of her mother's voice.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Glimmer pursed her lips. So much for stealth. It was time for action. She took the staff from her back and held it upright, slamming the end onto the floor. "None of your business, whatever you are." She expected a high-pitched *clack* as it struck what should have been the castle's polished stone. Instead it struck with a dull *thud*.
"Angella" gasped and took a step back. The guards, now standing at either side, raised their pikes and pointed them at her. "Glimmer! Where did you get that staff? Are you - are you threatening me?"
"Enough!" Glimmer said. "Whatever you are, this ends now. I am the Queen of Bright Moon of Planet Etheria, and how dare you use my mother's image to try to manipulate me!" The staff's end began to glow bright blue. "End this right now or I will end it for you!"
Angella's eyes, which had been wide with surprise, narrowed. "Very well, daughter." She clenched her gloved fists, and white light began to encircle them. "I shall show you the punishment for disobeying your Queen!"
Angella spread her wings wide, knocking away the guards, and then launched herself at Glimmer. Her mother's speed surprised her, and she instinctively teleported to dodge. As before, her teleportation only brought her back to the same spot, but the timing had been just right for Angella to pass through her position while she was dematerialized.
She spun around. All she could see in the darkness was the fake Angella, illuminated by the glowing spheres of magic at her hands. She fired them at Glimmer who brought up her staff and deflected both of them.
Angella flung another barrage over Glimmer's head. There was the sound of breaking glass, and Glimmer looked up just in time to see the chandelier falling toward her. She fired an energy ball from her staff toward the chandelier, shattering it and sending shards of it in all directions.
While she was distracted Angella struck her hard in the ribs with another blast, throwing Glimmer through the double doors and into the corridor, smashing her into the wall. She bounced off the wall and hit the floor face-down.
Angella strutted toward her, fresh blasts charging in either fist. "Yield," she said.
"M-Mom," Glimmer said as she pushed herself up to her knees.
Angella stood in front of Glimmer, the toes of her boots directly beneath Glimmer's head. "Have you learned your lesson?"
Glimmer took a deep breath. Then, another. Her chest hurt. Breathing hurt. She was hurt. But more than that...she was angry.
She snapped her staff forward, catching Angella's feet and sweeping them out from under her. As Angella toppled backward, Glimmer fired off a blast toward her. It caught Angella midair and sent her flying back into the room.
Glimmer gasped at what she had just done. She had just attacked her mother. No, she quickly corrected herself. Not her mother. Some First Ones machine pretending to be her mother. Using the image and voice of her mother to try to manipulate her. To harm her.
That helped her tap into her anger. She teleported, but while she still remained in the same spot, it instantly put her back on her feet. It was just in time, as Angella was also back on her feet, rage stretching the skin across her face.
Angella fired at Glimmer. Glimmer spun her staff, deflecting the blasts. Angella fired again, and Glimmer quickly drew a small glyph in the air and used it to catch the magical blast, holding it still in midair. She threw it back at Angella, who raised her white shield and protected herself.
"How dare you, you impudent child!" Angella shouted as she fired again.
"How dare you use my mother's face against me!" Glimmer tilted her staff and the blasts bounced off it, rebounding back toward Angella. Angella again protected herself with her shield, but Glimmer followed them up with a barrage of her own. She fired blast after blast at the image of her mother, marching back into the room despite the sharp pain it triggered in her ribs. Angella's shield blocked them all, but Glimmer kept going.
She adjusted her aim downward, and fired three shots at the floor beneath Angella. Her mother's doppelganger toppled over and its shield faltered. Glimmer continued her barrage, the blasts now striking Angella directly, repeatedly. The fake Angella cried out and flopped on the floor as Glimmer hit her time and time again. Tears began to form in Glimmer's eyes as she piled her rage upon this abomination that had dared to treat her like some incompetent child, that tried to control her, that tried to stop her from doing what she knew was the right thing when-
The floor shook hard, breaking her concentration. She stopped firing.
She then realized with horror that she had stopped thinking of this thing as an illusion, and started thinking of it as her mother. The thought about it treating her like a child...those were her own memories, her own anger toward her mother for patronizing her all those years. And she'd channeled those thoughts into the rage she'd used to mercilessly attack this thing that just happened to look and sound like her mother.
She lit up the end of her staff, and despite the swallowing darkness around her, it fully illuminated the body of her false mother, lying face-down on the floor, her body burned and torn and bleeding all over.
She had done this. Not out of self-defense, nor out of trying to protect others. She'd opened up all her anger, all her hurt, and had turned it against something that, for the briefest of moments, she actually thought was her mother.
"No…" she said. "No, no no no…" Her fingers went numb and she released her staff. It fell to the floor with a dull *thud*, and then she fell to her knees along with it.
Was this what her mother - her real mother - looked like now? Burned and broken inside some kind of netherworld between universes? Adora had never gone into much detail of exactly what she saw in the last moments before Angella had closed the portal, saving the planet at the cost of her own freedom, and likely her own life. But on the darker nights, the nights where she'd missed her mother's voice, her footsteps in the halls of Castle Bright Moon...and so help her, the sound of her mother shouting at her...she had imagined that her mother might have looked like this. Broken, dead, and alone, in the infinite darkness.
Exactly like this. But it wasn't some portal that made this corpse in front of her. Glimmer herself had done this.
She had killed her own mother.
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. What have I done?
"You think I'm afraid of you?" Catra said. She was still crouched, staring up at the rotting corpse pretending to be Shadow Weaver. "Well I'm not. Shadow Weaver's dead. Her stupid stories about hell and all that other bullshit were all to scare us and I don't believe a single one of them. You're not her. You're some kind of weird illusion and I don't give a damn what you say."
"If you don't fear me, then why are you trembling?" Shadow Weaver said.
Catra spit out a foul curse…but she couldn't argue. She was trembling. She wanted to believe it was just adrenaline, the fight-or-flight instinct that had served her so well over practically her entire life. No, she had to be honest with herself. She was afraid. This face being paraded in front of her, the story of "hell" that Shadow Weaver loved to torture the cadets with. The room where she'd emerged. All of it, perfectly picked from her memories to torture her.
She hated the goddamned First Ones for this.
"Shadow Weaver" started toward her. She raised a hand, palm up, almost inviting. "Come, Catra. Come with me, and accept the punishment you know you deserve."
Catra hissed again. "Stay away from me, you bitch!"
"Burn with me, Catra. Let us burn together in the pit of despair. Atone for your many sins, as I must atone for mine."
Catra took a deep breath and tried to calm the fear in her heart. It felt like a dream, a nightmare, and if she could convince herself of that, she could face it rationally.
It seemed to work. The details of the room around her, which she hadn't noticed before, seemed to coalesce into a form of realism. She glanced from "Shadow Weaver" to the overhead pipes, to the re-creation of the Black Garnet, and to the door. Yes, it was as she remembered. She knew how to fight in this room.
She pulled off one spacesuit glove and used her claws to tear at the other glove and boots. She pulled them off, throwing each of them at Shadow Weaver. They passed right through her, her form swirling around them as if it were smoke.
Catra smirked. "Thought so, you fake."
Catra leapt, just barely avoiding Shadow Weaver's grasp, and caught hold of a large pipe near the ceiling. It was as greasy and sooty as she remembered, and she dug her claws into the metal to keep from slipping off. She then released the pipe at just the right moment, flying toward another pipe. She spun around on that one and landed on top of it, crouched on all fours.
"Shadow Weaver" had turned and was looking up at her, but made no apparent effort to attack her. Catra wasted no time pondering on this, tough. She jumped from the pipe and landed on the fake Black Garnet, and then immediately launched herself toward the door.
She made it into the corridor without any apparent word or action from Shadow Weaver. She resisted the urge to look back, and instead started scampering away on all fours, using her claws to keep her hands and feet from sliding in the greasy dust adhering to them.
She darted around the corner to the right, and continued bounding down the corridor. While she was focused on her escape, she took the barest instant to marvel at just how accurate this illusion was. She then chided herself; it came from her own memory so of course it was accurate.
She tried to keep her mind clear so her instincts could guide her. Scampering at the speed she was, if she stopped to think, she'd likely barrel headfirst into one of the metal-and-concrete walls. But she knew she couldn't stop. She didn't know why. She wasn't bothering to think why. She just had to get away…
…or was she going toward? She started sensing something else, somewhere ahead. The smell…that slightly acrid ozone smell. The one that always surrounded Adora when she was in She-Ra form. The one she smelled on Adam when she fought him. It was getting stronger the further she ran, and her instincts were taking her toward it.
The thought was enough to break her detachment from her instincts, and she missed a hard turn, losing her footing and tumbling into the wall.
She yelped out just as she hit, but luckily the remnants of her spacesuit absorbed much of the blow. She pushed herself away from the wall and back to the middle of the corridor. She remained at a crouch, scanning around. She'd lost track of where she was going. Her instincts had been guiding her, but as she took mental stock of her current position she realized she didn't actually know where she was. The corridors of the Horde HQ where she'd grown up were extensive and labyrinthine, but she'd spent her entire childhood roaming them. She knew them in and out. She could navigate them in her sleep.
Her instincts were telling her that she was in a hallway that didn't actually exist.
Growling under her breath, she clawed at the sleeves and legs of the spacesuit and then tore them away, leaving her wearing only the chest piece. He wanted to tear that away as well, to finally be free of the uncomfortable, constricting material, but she knew she'd need the communicator built into the chest piece. There was still the off chance it would start working at some point, and she wanted to be able to contact the others if and when it did.
She pricked up her ears and began sniffing. The ozone smell was still there, and she was sure she could hear something. Rumbles, maybe? And the faintest of *thumps*. She felt the floor seize underneath her for a second or two.
She stalked down the corridor, repeatedly sniffing, listening for the faint noises. The floor seemed to be trembling ever so slightly under her, something she knew she wouldn't be able to detect if she were still wearing those bulky gloves and boots.
She launched herself back down the corridor. She kept running until a flash just to her left caught her attention. She dug her claws into the floor to stop, and as she did she heard a sound like metal scraping against metal. She looked back down the way she'd come and saw something strange, even for this place: the point of a sword appeared out of thin air, swiping sideways, and then disappearing.
In its wake it left...something she couldn't describe. The closest that came to mind was as if the corridor behind it were a painted cloth, and the sword had cut through it, leaving a narrow gash that was slowly peeling downward.
She stared at it, trying to make sense of it. As the "hole" widened, she could see something through it. It wasn't the plain Horde HQ corridor, it was...She-Ra?
It was Adam. She could see as he swiped his sword in blazingly-fast motions while some kind of energy bursts were shooting past him. A few were deflected or detonated by his blade; one of them came through the hole directly toward Catra.
She ducked and rolled, and when she got back up, her perspective through the hole changed. She was now looking at Adam's back rather than his side, and could see some kind of figure further away from him. She watched as one of Adam's energy waves just missed the other figure, the light of the blast illuminating it just enough for her to make it out. She gasped.
It was Hordak.
She stayed there, silently, trying to decide what to do. Whatever had happened between them, she would not leave Hordak to be killed by Adam. This fight couldn't have been going on long, if Hordak was still managing to fight Adam off. She had to act soon, or else Adam would kill him.
She stretched out the fingers of both hands, unsheathing her claws. She watched as Adam started advancing, Hordak's blasts growing less frequent. "Not today, asshole," she muttered. She leaped forward, through the hole, her claws aimed squarely at Adam's unprotected back.
Adora opened her eyes. There was an ache behind them, but the pain she'd been feeling was mostly gone.
She then realized she was lying down on the cold floor, in complete darkness.
This wasn't the first time she'd blacked out in a place like this, but it was still disorienting. She propped herself up on her elbows. How long had she been out? A panic started to creep up from her stomach as she remembered her friends were in peril and needed her, and now she wasn't even sure where she was, or if she could even help them...
She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus ahead of her despite the complete lack of illumination. She thrust her hand out, fingers wide.
Come on, she thought.
She could just barely see small streaks of light appear. They danced there for a moment, but then vanished.
You can do this. You have to do this. Concentrate!
She clenched her fist and pulled it back. She tried to put her worry out of her mind. For her world, for herself. She needed to find her friends, defeat Adam, and she was going to be damned if she was going to let some Light Hope knockoff stop her.
She thrust her hand out again. The light streaks reappeared, more intense now. They began to form the outline of her sword. She clenched the muscles in her arm as tightly as she could, as if sheer strength would be enough to force her sword into being.
"I am She-Ra," she said, her voice rising in pitch and volume. "I am the Princess of Power. I am the last hero of Eternia!"
That shocked her. Her concentration broke, and the sword vanished.
She was engulfed in darkness again. The pit in her stomach grew.
"What...what did I just say?" she muttered.
"Always have to be the hero, don't you?"
Adora gasped. That was Catra's voice! She jumped to her feet. The spacesuit boots on her feet and the ache in her head made it awkward and she nearly toppled over, falling to one knee to avoid face planting on the hard ground.
She swiveled around. "Catra?"
A dim light started to grow around her, but what caught her attention was the pair of spots, glowing faintly. She squinted, and could just barely make out their colors - yellow and turquoise. "Catra!"
"You always get what you want," Catra said. "And to hell with everyone else." The eyes started to get smaller, as if Catra were backing away from her.
Adora got to her feet and started running toward her. "Catra, wait!" The faster she tried to run, though, the harder it was to move her legs. It felt like she was mired up to her waist in a bog.
The light was just enough now for her to see Catra's silhouette around the glowing eyes. "Forget it, Adora. You've made your choice. Now live with it!" The eyes vanished and the silhouette melted into the shadows.
"No!" Adora tried hard to keep running, but she could barely get her legs to move anymore.
"Adora stop! You can't do everything on your own!"
Adora turned to her left. "Bow!" Now Bow's silhouette appeared in the dimness. She turned and tried to run to it, but her legs were done responding."Bow, are you all right?" She reached down and grabbed one of her legs. She tried to pull it, but it hardly moved at all. Likewise with her other leg.
She could hear footsteps, and Bow's silhouette growing larger. By the time he was just a few paces away, the light grew again. Adora gasped when she saw the look on his face - one she could only describe as sheer disgust. "We thought we could count on you. We thought we were a team. But you keep running off and trying to be the hero. If you don't trust us, how can we trust you?"
"Bow, no, I-" She reached out a hand to him, but he, like Catra, vanished into the ether. She lowered her hand, and then fell to her knees. For a moment she began to despair - until it hit her. These are illusions, she thought. That Last Resort thing is trying to manipulate me.
She pushed herself back up to her feet and started to walk. Her legs no longer felt mired in place, and she was able to walk as normally as possible in the cumbersome spacesuit.
"This won't work!" she shouted. "I've seen through your game! So why don't you just come face me?"
"Why should I face you now? I thought you were finished with me."
She gasped again, and spun around. That silken voice, that she had so loved and feared as a child...and she recognized the white glowing eyes to which it belonged.
"No," Adora said. "No, you don't get to use Shadow Weaver against me." She leaned her head back and shouted, "Stop with the games!"
"Oh, but my dear Adora," Shadow Weaver said, reaching out and placing a hand on Adora's cheek. The hand felt cold and dry. "It is all a game. Haven't you figured that out? It is a game of power. And you, my dear, have far more power than-"
Adora cried out in rage and leaped forward, ramming into Shadow Weaver with her shoulder. Shadow Weaver cried out and fell. "Go to hell!" Adora cried, tears of anger starting to well in her eyes. She continued running.
"Stop it, Adora!"
Adora skidded to a halt, losing her balance and falling on her backside, when she saw Glimmer appear in front of her in a flash of sparkles.
"G-Glimmer?" Her eyes were blurred from the tears, and she couldn't tell if this was the real Glimmer or an illusion. "Is that - are you real?"
"What do you mean 'Am I real'?" Glimmer said.
Adora took several deep breaths. "Are you - you? Or are you another illusion?"
"What, are you doubting me again?"
Adora squeezed her eyes shut. Another illusion.
Glimmer marched toward her. "Were you expecting us to wait for you to come find us? So you could prove you're superior to all of us? Like usual?"
Adora sighed and shook her head. "Just stop this." Her rage at Shadow Weaver had all but evaporated, and it left a hole in her heart that started filling with exhaustion.
"You couldn't do it." She looked up and saw Bow again, to her right. "You couldn't live up to it."
"You're not the She-Ra we were promised." That came from Perfuma, standing on her left.
Mermista stepped out from behind Perfuma. "If you hadn't been too busy fighting with Glimmer all the time, my kingdom wouldn't have been destroyed!"
Something struck her in the side and she yelped. She turned back to her right and saw Frosta standing there. "You ruined my Prom and you keep treating me like a child!"
More and more figures stepped out from behind the others. Each had their own accusations for Adora, and each began to blend into the others until it was nothing but a din of voices pointing out Adora's every failure, every insecurity, every inadequacy. Despite the cacophony of them, she could hear and process every single one.
"You're no hero! You're just a Horde soldier with a magic sword!"
"You have no clue how anything works!"
"You turned on us! We were your friends!"
"The Rebellion's in a worse place than ever since you showed up!"
"She has a friend now! A real one!"
"You don't give a damn about anything except your power!"
"You were always the favorite!"
"My sister is dead because of you!"
Adora clutched her head. "Stop it. Please, just stop."
"Everything was going well until you showed up and started swinging your stupid sword!"
"Stop it! Stop!" Adora said.
"How many people would still be alive if you'd just stayed home?"
"Stop stop STOP!" Adora screamed.
The voices stopped. She opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred, but she could see the figures were all gone. No...as her vision cleared, she could see that one remained. Glimmer was still there, glaring at her with pure contempt.
"If it weren't for you my mother would still be here!"
Adora couldn't help it. She curled into a fetal position and started to cry. She hated all those memories, but this one was by far the worst. Hated the thoughts it brought up. Even though she and Glimmer had moved past them, they'd continued to live in the back of her mind, a splinter always making itself known during her worst possible moments.
"Why?" Adora said through her sobs. "Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?" Glimmer's shape disappeared, and was replaced with Last Resort's.
Upon the sight of Last Resort, the near-twin of Light Hope, Adora cried out in anger and grief. Anger at this computerized thing for forcing her to relive all these many failures, and grief for the fact that none of them were made up. All were Adora's failures. She clutched her head and gritted her teeth.
Blue light began to encircle her body and grow in intensity. She let out one last cry and the light became blinding.
When the light faded, Adora pulled her hands from her face. Her spacesuit gloves were gone. These were her bare hands, glowing with a pinkish aura. The golden bracers, the white and gold boots…
She had finally transformed. In her rage and grief, she had managed to get back control of her powers and once again become She-Ra. She stood, still staring at her hands.
"You must let go."
Adora looked up at Last Resort.
"This all holds you back. The devotion to your friends. To that savage planet and its creatures. To the things you see as your failings, which in the end matter little to your destiny. But mostly, you fail to escape thoughts of the one you allowed to take your place - in the hell between universes."
The room changed. It was now a maelstrom spinning around them. She and Last Resort seemed to be standing in midair, and behind Last Resort was Queen Angella. Both her hands were clenched around the hilt of the Sword of Protection, and she was straining to trying to tear it from its position at the nexus of the portal. Bolts of white energy surrounded her as she grunted in her exertion
Adora's She-Ra form flickered. "Stop," she said. "Just stop."
Angella turned, and looked directly at Adora. "Take care of each other." With one more mighty tug, she tore the sword from its position...and then she and the maelstrom were gone.
Adora realized that tears were now streaming down her cheeks.
"So many regrets," Last Resort said, "Over so many useless things."
"Go to hell!" Adora shouted at her. She swiped her sword at Last Resort, but it passed easily through the holographic figure.
"That last memory remains fresh in your mind. Not because it is new, but because you continue to revisit it time and time again. You promise yourself that you will find a way to rescue her, even if you don't understand how, or even if it is possible."
Adora swung her sword again, once again passing easily through Last Resort to no effect.
"Your attachments to inferior beings hold you back."
"Enough!" Adora cried.
"Especially to the one called 'Catra'."
Adora cried out. Last Resort suddenly appeared to retreat away from her. No - Adora saw her boot next to Last Resort, and realized she had grown to massive size. Just like what happened in the Northern Reach. And she was still growing.
In the moment, she didn't think to be afraid. She was too enraged to be afraid. She simply brought her incredibly massive sword down on Last Resort. The hologram vanished and her sword crashed into the floor, cutting a gigantic canyon in the smooth crystal and sending a spray of shards in every direction.
Last Resort reappeared, and then grew until it was eye-to-eye with her. Adora tried to yank her sword out of the floor, but Last Resort raised a hand and the sword dematerialized. Its sudden disappearance caused Adora to fling her hands hard upward, throwing off her balance and sending her crashing to the floor. The force of her massive body hitting the floor made the entire facility shake. After Adora took a moment to process what had just happened, she said, "What...why is this happening to me?"
"The Etherian magic infests you. It stunts your true potential, the true power with which we endowed you upon your creation. When I made contact with you in the snows, I unlocked that potential."
"What potential?" Adora said.
"To be more than you appear to be. To do much more than you thought possible. The power to be the last hero of Eternia."
The frozen image of Angella reappeared, still pulling hard on the Sword of Protection. "The power to retrieve this one from her prison, if that is what you truly desire."
"Wait...w-wait…" Adora was looking between Angella's image and Last Resort, and both started growing larger. She realized after a few seconds that they weren't getting larger; she was shrinking. She felt the aura of her She-Ra power evaporate, but she continued staring at the towering image of Angella. "I - I have the power to save her?"
"Not as you are. But once you fulfill your destiny, and wilfully pledge yourself to your people, you will attain more power than you could imagine."
"No. No, no," Adora said, shaking her head. "No. I've been here before. I fell for this before, and I'm not gonna fall for it again." She turned to Last Resort, who had shrunken back down to its "normal" height. "I let you use me before, as your weapon, and it almost destroyed everyone I love. Not again."
"You speak as if you have a choice in the matter."
Last Resort's eyes turned from blue to red, and immediately a stabbing pain jabbed through Adora's skull. She clutched her head and fell onto her back.
"You are deluded into thinking you are free. You are not. You are property of the Eternian Royal Family, created for a specific purpose. You will act as you are commanded."
Adora wanted to respond, but it was all she could do to keep from retching up, so severe was the pain in her head. It felt as if her brain was being molded, twisted by hands penetrating into her skull. They were pressing her mind into a funnel and forcing it through.
What came out was something she couldn't describe, because she had no concept of it anymore. She had no concept of anything anymore - anything except her duty, and her mission.
"Now stand."
Adora stood. The pain in her head was still there, but it was unrelated to her duty so she ignored it. She tried to think - how could she break free from this? But those thoughts seemed to be fleeing her; she couldn't reach them anymore. Only duty and obedience.
Duty. And obedience.
Last Resort stared into her with red glowing eyes, and her entire holographic form began to take on that same blood-red tint. "You are now prepared to obey."
Adora nodded, the action automatic and occurring without thought.
"What is my mission?"
"You don't happen to have anything for headaches on you, do you?" Bow asked. He was rubbing his temples, trying to will away the ache.
"No, why would I?" Entrapta said.
"Not even in a first aid kit or something?" Bow said.
"Ohhhhh," Entrapta said. "That's not a bad idea. Need to make note of that for next time."
Please don't ever let there be a next time of this, Bow thought.
"Whoa!" Entrapta said suddenly. She started running.
"What?" Bow said, sprinting after.
She held up her pad. "Looks like two of the guys found each other!"
Bow squinted to read the writing at both of the green dots. "Catra and...Hordak?"
"Yeah, and that's right where we're headed!"
Bow followed as Entrapta rounded a corner. "How're we gonna-oof!" He was interrupted as he ran into her just around the blind turn. They both tumbled to the floor.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Entrapta said.
"You stopped in the middle of the hallway!" Bow said.
"But they're here!"
"What?" Bow said. "Who's here?"
"Hordak and Catra, of course!" She held up her pad, and Bow could see that the two dots labeled "Hordak" and "Catra" were practically on top of the dots labeled "Bow" and "Entrapta".
"But - how?" Bow scanned around. They were in just another blank corridor that looked like every other one. "Wait, are they on a different level?" He looked up at the ceiling and then down."
"No!" Entrapta said. "Well - yes. But not another level like you think it is!"
"Wait, what does that even mean?"
Entrapta didn't answer. Instead she pulled the sensing wand out of her belt pouch with one of her hair arms and spun it in a wide circle. The air before them crackled and fizzed.
"What - what the heck are you doing?" Bow said.
"When we got here I detected portal energy, like the one that almost destroyed everything. That was First Ones' tech, but, like really old and we didn't know how to use it. But here it's a lot stronger and the signal's cleaner. I mean, they've had a thousand years to work on it so of course they'd make it better-"
"You're opening a portal!?" Bow interrupted. He watched as a line traced down the center of the circle Entrapta was tracing in the air.
"No, no. I mean, yes, but not like the universe-breaking one. Just a small one. I'm tapping into the First Ones' tech in this facility and using the First Ones' tech in my pad to activate and direct it, making a localized portal in the space-time continuum, opening up to…"
The circle in the air split open as if it were a set of sliding doors, revealing a completely different scene within it.
"Hordak!" Entrapta screamed. Through the new "doorway" they could see Hordak, aiming and firing his arm cannon.
"What?" Hordak snapped his head in their direction. "Entrapta?" He then shook his head and said, breathlessly, "No, this is...another First Ones' trick!"
"It's really me, Hordak!" Entrapta said. "Come on!" She bound toward him, reaching out with her hair arms.
"Wait!" Bow said. "What are you shooting at?"
"Adam is here!" Hordak said.
"What?" Entrapta said. "Hordak, come through now! I can close the door before he gets to you!"
Hordak lowered his cannon and started to turn toward the portal, but then said, "No, not yet." He raised his cannon again and fired. "Catra! This way!"
"Catra?" Bow said. "So she is there with you!"
"Of course!" Entrapta said. "I told you she was. Hey Catra! We're over here!"
Hordak ran off out of view. Entrapta started forward but Bow grabbed her and pulled hard. "No, don't go in there! Adam's in there!"
"And he's hurting our friends!" Entrapta said.
They heard several shots from Hordak's cannon, and what Bow recognized as a couple energy bursts from She-Ra's sword. Adam's sword, he corrected himself.
"We need to escape now!" Hordak's voice said.
"You go, I'll distract him!" That was Catra's voice.
"Catra!" Bow shouted, now having to stop himself from running into the portal after her.
"No, we escape together!" It killed Bow to stand here helplessly, not being able to see what was going on, or to be able to help.
"Arrgghh, fine!" A moment later, Catra appeared, Hordak hot on her heels. They sprinted to the portal and jumped through. Bow had to dodge to keep from getting bowled over.
"Hordak! Catra!" Entrapta said. "I'm so glad we found you!"
Bow pointed to the portal. "Entrapta, close that thing!"
"What? Why?"
Adam had just stepped into view. The rogue, masculine She-Ra was glaring at them through the portal - and Bow noticed he was looking at them with distinctly red, almost glowing eyes.
"Because that!"
Adam started sprinting for the portal. "Close it close it close it!" Catra said.
"But aren't we trying to catch him?" Entrapta said.
"Just do it, quickly!" Hordak said. Entrapta seemed to need no further encouragement. She swiped the sensing wand in an "X" pattern across the portal, and it started to slide shut.
The four of them backed away from the portal when they saw Adam pick up speed. Bow nocked and readied an arrow in his bow, and Hordak trained his cannon on the portal. "Get back, Entrapta!" Hordak said, stepping between her and the portal.
"No, wait!" Entrapta said. She swiped another "X" pattern across the portal, and just as they could hear Adam's heavy breathing, the portal snapped shut.
In the instant before it vanished, they saw that it had closed on the tip of Adam's sword. They saw it rock up and down, twist slightly, and then slide downward. The portal began to re-open, and they could plainly see Adam's glaring, red eyes focused dead on them.
Hordak snatched up Entrapta into his arms. "Run!"
"That's about it," Scorpia said. "I mean, I don't know how all that stuff came out. How did it know those things? What Horror Hall looked like, what the others called me when we went to that party thing? How you…" She paused. "How you, uh, looked back then."
"This place is…the First Ones have this tech that can read your memories." Catra hugged herself and shuddered. "They can dig deep. Pull out things you - you don't want to remember."
"It did that all right," Scorpia said. They walked in silence for a few moments longer, their spacesuits' boots making an uncomfortably loud *clomp* with each step in the barren, endless corridor. Finally, she said, "So, uh…do we even know where we're going?"
"This was the way I came," Catra said. "After I managed to escape from my own - illusion."
"What was it?"
Catra lowered her head. "I - I don't wanna talk about it."
"Oh, okay. Sure."
They continued on, mostly in silence. Scorpia found it quite awkward, and she fought hard to keep from breaking the silence with idle chatter. It was one of the (admittedly many) things she'd realized others found annoying in her. Most others, anyway.
"I wish Perfuma were here," Scorpia said. "I mean - not here with the whole mortal danger thing, but…" She sighed. "Catra, can I tell you something?"
"Of course," Catra said, seemingly distracted.
"I got no idea what I'm doing," Scorpia said. "Most of the time, anyway. I just feel like…like I'm kinda just caught up in things that are happening and trying not to screw up too bad. But when Perfuma's there with me, I feel like I can do anything. I mean - no offense!" She raised her pincers. "You were always the one with the plans back in the Horde. I was a Force Captain for years, but, like, right after you were made a Force Captain you were coming up with all these plans and they were all good. We were doing so much winning when you were in charge, and it made me realize…that time when you told me I was useless, I really kinda was. I never knew what I was doing, really. I mean, I did the whole Force Captain orientation thing, and I tried to be a good Force Captain, but I never felt like the other Force Captains. Grizzlor, Octavia, they were all great leaders. Ruthless, smart…" She sighed again. "I don't even know why they made me a Force Captain in the first place."
Scorpia realized she'd just been babbling, despite trying not to do so. So, she resisted saying anything further.
"You think it was because you're a princess," Catra said. "It was important enough for them to mention it in Force Captain orientation, right?"
Scorpia laughed sadly. "Y-yeah, right," she said. "I guess so."
"Doesn't matter now, though," Catra said. "The Horde's gone."
Scorpia shrugged. "Maybe. But it...I still think about it. I'm supposed to be in charge of a whole kingdom now and I...I don't even know why anyone made me a leader in the first place."
"You could always ask Hordak why he promoted you," Catra said.
Scorpia laughed. "You know, I haven't even talked to him since, wow." She scratched the back of her head. "I think it was when I had to give him a report sometime after the whole portal thing. I was…uh…he was kind of scary after Entrapta…umm…"
"You could have asked him about recovering the Fright Zone," Catra said. "I mean, he's not the most helpful kind, but I'm sure he knows some stuff that could help. He might even know stuff about the Scorpioni."
"Yeah, maybe." Then Scorpia stopped in her tracks. "Wait - you knew about my people?"
Catra stopped and then turned to her. "I - I…"
Suddenly there was an explosion, and a ball of fire that blasted from one of the side corridors ahead. "C'mon!" Catra said, running after it.
"Wait, hold up!" Scorpia said. Catra was lots faster than her, and Scorpia wasn't the best runner to begin with. She made a mental note that she really needed to do some kind of training to get better at that.
She skidded around the corner and saw Catra standing there, staring at what Scorpia could best describe as a hole in the wall…that was standing out in the air in the middle of the corridor.
"What the-?" Scorpia said, panting. She made her way up to Catra and looked through the hole.
Hordak was on the other side of it. Hordak was firing his arm cannon…at the other She-Ra. "Hordak!" Scorpia cried.
Hordak didn't seem to hear her. Instead he seemed to be distracted by something on the other side of him. It looked like another hole in the air, like the one she was looking through.
And then she saw Adam charge at Hordak, appearing to take advantage of the distraction. "Hordak, look out!" Scorpia shouted, but then she saw Adam stop as he fought off another figure that seemed to be running circles around him. Adam was swinging his sword, striking the floor and the wall, sending sparks everywhere, trying in vain to hit…
Catra?
"Wait, what?" Scorpia turned to the Catra with whom she'd been walking. "Catra, what-?" She stopped. The Catra standing with her - her eyes were glowing a very bright blue.
Before she knew it, the blue-eyed Catra grabbed her chest and threw her through the hole in the air. Scorpia curled her tail and pincers underneath herself instinctively, allowing them to absorb some of the blow as she struck the ground on the other side.
She turned around, scrambling to her feet and looked back through the portal through which "Catra" had just flung her.. "Catra?!" The hole in the wall started closing. "You're not Catra!"
"And you are safely isolated," said "Catra", but not in the voice Scorpia knew. It sounded cold, mechanical. A lot like the voice that had greeted them when they'd first landed. The portal snapped shut, and the false Catra was gone.
Scorpia spun around to see Hordak and Catra just as they jumped through the other portal, and at that moment she could see Entrapta and Bow on the other side of it.
"Guys!" She shouted, but they didn't seem to have heard her. Just as Catra and Hordak went through the hole, she saw Adam start rushing toward it. "No you don't!" Scorpia shouted, pushing herself to her feet and running toward him. She was still out of breath from running after the fake Catra a minute before, and her lungs and legs burned as she tried to force herself past her limits to reach the white, glowing enemy. And yet, no matter how hard she pushed herself, it felt like Adam was getting further away - as if the room itself were stretching.
He reached the closing portal far earlier than she could reach him, but she could see the shimmering edges of the nearly-closed hole had clamped down on his sword. He moved it up and down, twisted it, and then pulled it downward. The hole reopened, but this time she could see that nobody was on the other side.
"Stop it right there!" she shouted, as best she could with her lungs burning for air. He turned back to her, stared for a moment, and then jumped through the hole his sword had opened. "No!" Scorpia cried, and tried to push her legs to pump even faster. She could hear the spacesuit tearing in places as she stretched her legs, lengthening her strides, but she just wasn't fast enough. Adam, still glaring at her, stepped through the hole. It almost immediately closed up, and as with the one the fake Catra had thrown her through, the edges disappeared without any hint they'd ever been there.
Scorpia cried out as she turned one shoulder toward the spot where the hole had been, her run now a charge. She barreled shoulder-first into the solid wall, the spikes on her pauldron tearing through her spacesuit and smashing into it, followed by her forearm, her hip, and then her head.
The wall was made of some kind of hard crystalline material, but between her weight, her momentum, and the hardness of her carapace, it gave way ever so slightly. She felt some serious pain in her head and hip where they had struck the wall.
She pushed herself away, ripping the spikes of her pauldron and forearm out of the crystal and sending shards to the floor.
That hole her friends and Adam had gone through wasn't just in the wall; that much was obvious. It was some kind of portal, kind of like the one Catra and Hordak had opened the previous year. The one that had almost destroyed Etheria. She brought her pincers up to her head and rubbed the smooth sides over her temples to try to soothe the ache that was filling her skull..
She looked around. The chamber she was in was dimly-illuminated, but she knew it must be huge. It took her a long time to cross at a full run.
The lights came up slightly, and she realized that it wasn't huge. It wasn't even as large as her Force Captain's quarters back in the Horde. The wall on the opposite side - it seemed way too close for Adam to have been so far away from her. Way too close for how long and hard she had to run to reach this side.
As she was contemplating that, a glowing figure appeared in front of her. No, not just any glowing figure. It was Catra - but the one with the bright blue-glowing eyes.
"There is no escape for you," "Catra" said, again in that creepy electronic voice. "We will dispose of you at our convenience."
"No!" Scorpia said, but "Catra" vanished. She could see the far wall again…and it was even closer than before. She had no doubt about it now - the room had to be shrinking.
"Oh crap," she said. She turned around and looked at the wall behind her. She wasn't sure how, but it looked as if it was less damaged than before. Almost as if it were healing.
"No you don't!" Scorpia said. She punched at the wall, repeatedly, alternating with both pincers. More chunks of crystal chipped and flew off it, but after a minute or so she realized she was making no headway. The muscles in her arms were burning from the exertion, and the ache in her head was growing more intense.
She stopped punching, and instead rested one arm on the wall as she leaned on it. Panting, she muttered, "No…no, it won't…I can't…let it…I gotta…f-find…"
She sank to her knees, her claw squealing as it tore a gouge down the wall. She sat back against it, ignoring the crystal shards she was sitting in, and put her pincers to her face. "I - I failed. I screwed it up, just like I screw everything up. Now my friends are in danger and I can't…I can't…"
She started to weep. "Perfuma…I wish you could hear me now. I need you. I'm about to freak out and I don't know what to do and I'm not strong enough without you."
As she wept, she began to feel something crawling up her legs and her back. She uncovered her face, and while her eyes were blurry from the tears, she could not mistake that the black snake things from before were back - and trying to take her again.
"No," she said. "No. No no no no no NO!"
A burst of electricity shot out from her body in all directions. The black tendrils receded immediately.
She stood. "No. No, I'm not gonna give up. I can't give up." She drew in a deep breath. "I can do this. I can do this."
She closed her eyes, letting her magical energy collect all around her body, and when she opened her eyes she released it. A sphere of lightning expanded from her body. It lit up the dim room briefly, and in that light she noticed that the walls seemed to recede, just a little.
"Whoa, wow," she said. She closed her eyes, summoned up her magical energy, and repeated the process. Again, when she released it, she saw the walls recede even more.
She had to laugh. "Yes! I can do this. I can do this!" She squeezed her eyes shut, and focused her concentration on building up as much energy as she could muster.
And then kept building. And kept building.
I'm coming for you, guys, she thought.
"Where are we even going?" Bow said as he huffed and puffed, doing his best to keep up with Catra, Hordak, and Entrapta.
"Away from him!" Hordak said, pointing back toward Adam.
"Trust me, guys," Catra said. She was bounding on all fours, but pausing every so often to allow the bipeds to catch up. "This is the right way. I smell something. Someone."
"What?" Bow said. "Who?"
"Someone who smells like glitter!" Catra said.
"Huh?" Bow said.
"Oh!" Entrapta said. She held up her pad in her hands as her hair tendrils allowed her to scuttle down the corridor faster than her short legs could carry her. "Glimmer! We're heading right toward her!" She looked up from the pad. "Catra, your senses are really good! You gotta let me study them sometime!"
"Can we not talk about this right now?" Catra said. Just as she finished that sentence, an energy wave burst just behind them.
Hordak turned and fired a barrage from his arm cannon. He wasn't aiming for anything; he only hoped it would serve as a cover fire and gain them a few moments.
"Hordak, hurry up!" Bow said. He turned and fired a couple arrows past Hordak. They exploded, releasing clouds of red and green smoke. The smoke obscured all visibility, and where the two clouds met there was a crackling. The smoke clouds reacted with each other and started generating webbing that sprung across the corridor.
They could see as the white of Adam's aura just became visible through the smoke and the webbing. Adam's forward motion slowed, but then the sound of his sword slicing against the webbing and snapping the tiny strands filled the corridor.
Bow grabbed Hordak's arm. "Run, now! While he's slowed down!"
Hordak debated for a fraction of a second. He considered charging at Adam and again fighting him one-to-one, to give the others - to give Entrapta more time to escape. He knew it would fail, that it would be suicide. But he also knew they could not subdue Adam without their own She-Ra, and if they couldn't reach her in time, he would slaughter them all anyway.
"Move. Your. Ass!" Bow barked at him. Hordak snapped his gaze to the young man. How dare he speak to Hordak in that manner!
But Hordak knew he wasn't that being anymore. And he knew the boy was right. Sacrificing himself now would be a Pyrrhic victory at best, and a waste of time and energy at worst.
He turned and the two of them sprinted down the corridor, following the sound of Entrapta's voice. Hordak turned up the output of his exo-suit's power supply slightly, allowing the leg servos to drive his strides faster. It made his legs feel as if they were on fire, but he was practiced in dealing with such pain.
Further ahead, Entrapta shouted, "Catra, stop!"
Catra dug her claws into the floor and spun around. "What?"
"We lost Hordak and Bow!"
"Dammit!" Catra shouted. She knew that Hordak and Bow had most likely doubled back to distract Adam. If it had just been Hordak, she might have thought he was going back to confront Adam on his own. But if Bow was with him…she knew Bow wasn't foolish or suicidal enough to try that.
So where the hell were they?
"We can't go back for them!" Catra said.
"What?" Entrapta said.
"We have to keep heading toward Glimmer! Just hope that they'll catch up!"
"But Catra-"
"No, if Adam catches us we're all dead. We can't fight him without Glimmer, Scorpia, and Adora!"
"Catra-"
"How far away is Glimmer?"
Entrapta pointed back down the corridor in the direction they'd come from. "About ten meters back that way. She moved."
Catra paused for a moment. "Okay, open that portal thing of yours. Hopefully the guys'll catch up with us and Adam won't."
Entrapta went to work with her pad, while Catra crouched behind her, watching and listening for Hordak and Bow. Her ears twitched and swiveled as she tried to listen for any sign of them. She couldn't believe they'd been so stupid as to go back after Adam. Especially Hordak. Between fighting Adam on his own and now this - he was acting as if he had a death wish.
Footfalls. She finally heard them coming, two sets of them. One set had a mechanical *whirr* to it.
She let out a sigh of relief, and then glanced back at Entrapta. She was twirling her crooked wand-thing in a large circle, and it was creating a circular electric-like field. She turned back the way they'd come, and saw the men had stopped at the she and Entrapta had crossed a minute before, and were looking both directions.
She tapped the communicator on her chest. "Your left!"
To her relief, Bow and Hordak turned her direction and then started running toward her. Of course, she knew that meant Adam was probably right behind them. "Entrapta?"
"Almost there!"
It wasn't more than a minute before she saw Adam reach the T-junction. He turned toward them, and started running.
"Hurry up!"
"Why does everyone keep saying that? You can't rush science!"
"If we're gonna survive the next 2 minutes you'd better find a way!"
"Keep running!" Bow shouted as he and Hordak approached. "Why did you stop?"
"Sparkles is here somewhere!" Catra shouted back. "She's opening another portal!"
"She better hurry!" Bow said as he fired another pair of webbing arrows down the corridor toward Adam.
Entrapta cried out, getting everyone's attention. "Stop pressuring me! I'm doing it!" As she ran the probe around in another circuit, a vertical line formed and bisected the energy portal started to open.
"Get in now!" Catra shouted. She grabbed the back of Bow's spacesuit and threw him through the portal to the darkness beyond.
Inside, Bow fell from a height and landed hard on the floor. He was able to tuck and roll and avoid the worst of the fall, and then quickly got onto his feet. Before he could turn back to the portal and watch for the others, though, he saw a figure out of the corner of his eye. It was Glimmer. She was on her knees, staring at him.
"Glimmer!" He rushed up to her. She didn't get up, remaining on her knees.
"B-Bow?" she said. "Is that - are you real?"
"Yeah, I am," he said. "I, uh - I know this place is kinda weird, but I'm the real me. Not sure how I can prove it, but the others-" He halted abruptly when he saw what was in front of Glimmer. It took him a second, but he recognized the form of Glimmer's mother, Queen Angella. She was lying face-down on the ground, her body burned and lacerated. She wasn't moving. "What? W-what…?"
Entrapta's squeal interrupted his question, but when he tried to turn back to look at her he felt a tight grip on his legs. He looked back. Glimmer had gripped his legs tightly. He could hear her weeping. "I...I killed my mom," Glimmer said. "I killed her. And I...I...wanted to kill her..."
"Glimmer, that can't be the real-"
He stopped when he heard Catra say, "Looks like you found her. Coulda waited a minute for the reunion, you know."
As Glimmer continued babbling, Bow noticed something strange, like she was somehow melting into the floor. It was almost impossible to see in the dark room, though. He pulled out his pocket torch and shined it down at her. He gasped.
Glimmer was almost covered, chest-to-toe, in black snakelike tendrils that were coming up from the ground. He'd seen these things before, and knew it wasn't good.
There was a metallic clank behind him, but he didn't look. "Entrapta, close the portal! Quickly!" It was Hordak's voice.
Catra ran up to Bow and Glimmer. "Look this is touching and all, but we gotta get...moving...what the hell is all that stuff on her?"
"We saw it before, on Beast Island. It's some kind of...thing, I don't know what...that feeds on your insecurity and tries to absorb you." He reached down and put a hand on either side of Glimmer's face. He turned her face up to him. Her eyes were half-closed, tears streaked down from them. Her skin was turning pale. "Glimmer, you have to listen to me. Don't let the despair win. That's not your mother. I don't know what it is, but it's not your mother. Your mom is still in the portal between worlds. She might even still be alive. Remember? Remember what Adora told us? We're gonna find a way to bring her home. But we can't do that without you. C'mon, fight it!" He bent down and kissed her forehead. "This place messes with your head, but you're stronger than it is, I know you are. It knows it too, that's why it's trying to trick you. It's scared of you. But you're stronger than it. You're stronger than me. Stronger than any of us!"
"I - I am?" Color started to return to her cheeks. The tendrils started to recede.
"Yeah you're stronger!" Catra said. Bow mentally noted that it must have pained Catra to say something like that, but he was glad she was at least playing along. "Hell, you always kicked my ass when we fought, and I'm pretty strong!"
Glimmer let out a laugh. And another. She closed her eyes and started laughing harder. The tendrils slithered back down her body. "I so wish I had a recording of you saying that!"
"Portal's closed!" Entrapta said. "No She-Ra sword cutting through this time!"
Bow breathed a slight sigh of relief to that, but he was mostly paying attention to the black tendrils sliding off Glimmer's legs, retreating into the floor. Glimmer took a few breaths, and then stood. "Thank you," she said. Then she looked down at the fake Angella's corpse. "She - it pushed my buttons. I got enraged. I fought it so hard, but...my mom would've never done what that thing did."
"This place makes some...scary fakes," Catra said, shuddering. "Brings up a lot of bad stuff. Probably to use us against Adora, if I had to guess."
Glimmer nodded and wiped away some tears with her sleeve. "Probably right. We need to find her."
Bow turned to Entrapta. "How far away are Scorpia and Adora?"
Entrapta studied her pad. "Scorpia's, like, waaay off somewhere. But Adora's...huh, that's weird."
Before anyone could ask her to clarify there was a crackling overhead. They all turned back to where the portal had been. The tip of a sword was there, seemingly from nowhere. It was moving downward, slicing open the air like a zipper.
"Oh come on!" Bow said. "We gotta move!"
"Yes you do. Get behind me."
They all turned to the doorway leading to the Castle Bright Moon corridor. Standing there, tall and glowing with a pinkish aura, was She-Ra. Their She-Ra. Adora.
"Adora!" Catra and Bow cried. The others had turned back to the portal, through which Adam was now pulling himself.
Catra started toward Adora, but then slowed and stopped when she noticed...the irises of Adora's eyes weren't glowing blue, as they usually were when she was in She-Ra mode.
They were glowing red.