Chapter 8: Overtures Across Time and Space

Catra woke when a sharp feeling pinched her arm. She blinked the sleep out her eyes and looked down. A thin alien, dressed in white and wearing a surgical mask, sat on a rolling stool and pushed a needle into her forearm.

"Get away from me!" She yanked away and hissed, causing the doctor to scramble backward in the stool with a yelp. The syringe dropped to the floor and shattered, dashing the liquid inside across the linoleum and sending the needle skittering off somewhere under the bed.

"Miss, you are not well," the doctor said, putting his hands up for her to see and inching forward once more. "Please, if you will just let me—"

"Don't come any closer!" Catra leapt up into a crouch atop the bed with every hair on her body standing on edge. "Where am I? Where's Glimmer?"

When the doctor hesitated, a door in the corner of the room slid open and a woman in a sharp military uniform walked through.

"You're in one of the private medical wards in the Emperor's citadel," she said, taking off her cap and stowing it under her arm. "The same one Glimmer went to when she got sick."

Catra studied the woman's face. "I remember you from the observation deck," she said, although she couldn't remember the name Prime had called her by at the time.

"Well at least you aren't hallucinating anymore. That's a good sign." The woman turned to the doctor, who looked to be at a complete loss for what to do next. "That will be all. I can take it from here."

The doctor nodded and hurried out of the room, relief plain on his face. The woman approached and Catra gave another hiss in warning. The room then lurched and spun, and all of Catra's efforts suddenly went into keeping her from falling off the bed and faceplanting into the floor.

"Relax," the woman said, pulling up the stool to sit on and digging through a wire rack of drawers next to the bed. "My name is Taline. Not that this will make any sense to you right now, but I'm a Battlemage of the Enclave, a protectorate within the Galactic Horde. I've been sent to assimilate your world into the empire and lead a research team in studying the Heart of Etheria."

She pulled another syringe and a second small vial filled with liquid from the drawers. Catra's mind screamed danger at her as she watched Taline stick the syringe through the top of the vial and draw out its contents, but the room now spun so fast she couldn't do anything about it.

"This is a sedative," Taline said, turning to face her. "A mild one to help with the vertigo and the nausea. Your brain is still sorting itself out after the Emperor's little romp through it." Without waiting for her go ahead, Taline grabbed Catra by the arm, swabbed her with an antiseptic pad she hadn't even seen her pull out, and plunged the needle in while Catra reeled from the smell of alcohol that overpowered her nose.

Catra tried to pull away and hiss again, but Taline's grip was too strong. She panicked, thinking she for sure was either going to die or fall unconscious and wake up strapped to another interrogation chair. But by the time Taline emptied the syringe's contents into her, the room had stopped spinning, and Catra already felt better.

"Huh," she said, flexing her fingers in front of her and tilting her head to test her equilibrium. "That works so fast."

"Glimmer will be at the communications bridge," Taline said, pulling away and disposing of the syringe. "You should be in good enough condition to walk after a few minutes. We'll head over there and meet up with her when you are."

"Communications bridge?" Catra asked. "You let her wander around outside alone? What the hell were you thinking?" She always had the nagging feeling in the back of her mind the cell was as much for their protection on the citadel as it was for Horde Prime to keep them in one place. It was why she never fought against being locked up in the first place.

"She'll be fine, since both my Sentinels are watching over her," Taline said.

"Both your what?" Catra shook her head. "Never mind, just…as long as she's safe. Whatever. Why is she not in our cell anymore?"

Taline brought Catra up to speed on what had happened, although speaking with a tone of voice that implied her patience was running empty. "Your queen helped me persuade the Emperor to let us use some of the holographic projectors he's already set up on the surface," she said as she wrapped up. "My men are escorting her to communications so we could record a message for everyone still resisting on the planet's surface."

"She's not my queen," Catra said, her tail twitching in irritation.

"No? She seemed to care a great deal about you. And that wasn't just out of skepticism for me, although I don't blame her for that in the slightest. She agreed to cooperate if I brought you to her and proved you were okay. I guess she thought I might have done away with you as soon as was convenient for me."

Catra didn't know what to think of that. Glimmer wanted to know she was safe? They had been acting almost like allies during their captivity so far, sure, but she had chalked that up to both of them leaning on one another for survival and nothing more. Catra didn't actually matter, so why did Glimmer care if she was safe or not?

"She convinced the Emperor to help, huh?" Catra asked, trying to distract herself from thinking any further about it. "Forgive me if I find anything you say hard to believe. Horde Prime just laid waste to all of Etheria and practically conquered the planet, according to you. I've seen the army of ships he has orbiting the planet. Why the hell would he listen to anything you or anyone else has to say?"

A look spread across Taline's face—one that Catra recognized the meaning behind immediately. She had made the same face before: once, months ago, when she had been trying to finalize battle plans for an upcoming assault and Scorpia tumbled through, trying to balance two teacups on the ends of her pincers before dropping them. She had also made that face on the multiple occasions she had tried to keep Entrapta's focus on an important project, only to find her thoroughly distracted by some piece of scrap or new tech off in a corner.

It was the look of someone far and away overwhelmed with what they felt was a flood of inane roadblocks, while doing everything they can to keep from falling apart. Yes, Catra had been there many times before, but seeing it on another person's face was a new experience.

"Horde Prime is a sadistic pain in the ass," Taline said. "I've said as much to Glimmer. And you're right to think he'd normally ignore anyone's opinion but his own. But he's not suicidal. In fact, his instinct for survival is strong enough to override even his pride. Once Glimmer helped soothe his ego, and I reminded him we don't have the luxury of getting distracted conquering planets, he came around and remembered why he agreed to let us lead Etheria's assimilation in the first place."

Taline looked at her as if that explained everything, and didn't instead fill Catra with more questions than answers.

"Okay?" Catra said. "I don't understand how that makes anything clearer for me."

Taline sighed and rubbed at the crease in her brow. "I came in with twenty-three warships maybe four hours ago. The Emperor has over a thousand hovering above this planet alone. And yet, he's agreed to defer to my authority here despite how irritated he feels about it. What in the world do you think would cause him to do so?"

"Oh, I don't know," Catra said exaggerating the sarcasm in her voice. "How about nothing? There's nothing that would get him to do that, and you're just manipulating me. Is there a prize for guessing the right answer?"

"Stop thinking with your fear and start thinking with your brain," Taline said. "You're a smart girl. You're intelligent enough to already have asked some good questions, so don't stop because you're getting frustrated. Why would Horde Prime back off?"

Catra paused. Had she just complimented her? No one had ever called Catra smart before, even in the obscurely condescending way Taline had put it. Catra pressed her lips into a thin line and considered what they had talked about, rolling the words 'instinct for survival' and the image of Horde Prime's massive fleet around in her head.

"There's a threat," she said at last. "One big enough he'd rather have your cooperation than lose it going against you."

"There you go," Taline said. "What else?"

Catra looked away before Taline saw how her encouragement affected her. It was pathetic, really, how the words of a stranger—especially one who had drugged her moments earlier—affected her. But what could she say? Aside from Adora, she hadn't gotten an ounce of positive reinforcement growing up. She was starved.

"I don't understand how you're expected to help if you've brought even less firepower than Horde Prime already has," Catra said. "And why would he need help in the first place if he has such a strong military? Something that can threaten a force that size has to be…unprecedented."

"'Unprecedented' is putting it lightly," Taline said with a grimace. She pointed to the badge on the front of her officer's jacket. "You see this insignia?"

Catra nodded. She had noticed the instant Taline walked in. Everyone aboard this damned citadel wore the Horde insignia—upturned wings flanking a diamond in the center. This new insignia, however, was the opposite: a smooth, stylized chevron with wings that pointed down instead of up, and a teardrop shape in the center instead of a diamond. Unlike the stark red of Hordak's forces or the dull grey of Horde Prime's, Taline's shone bright silver and cut a sharp contrast when placed against the black of her uniform.

"This is the crest of my order, the Enclave Protectorate. And this"—she angled herself to the side and pointed to another insignia there: a truncated pentagram within a circle, also embroidered in silver—"marks me as a battlemage within that order. It's one of the highest military ranks you can attain. My peers refer to me as the Seraph of Archanas."

"Congratulations," Catra said, trying to mask her interest by forcing her voice to go flat. "That supposed to mean something to me?"

"I'm not telling you this to flatter myself," Taline said. "All of this should be telling you why Horde Prime is willing to disengage despite being, you know, Emperor of the known galaxy."

More memories, senses, and emotions that had been swirling in the fog at the back of Catra's mind came to the forefront, almost as if Taline's words helped massage them free. "I met your colleague," Catra said. "Salas. Prime introduced him as his advisor, right before he helped him with the mind probe. You Enclave aren't just extra military….Prime relies on you for your expertise. But in what? Magic?"

"You catch on quick," Taline said. "We're a protectorate, which means we retain full autonomy as a vassal state. In exchange the Emperor consults with us when magic beyond his understanding comes into play. It's a good system, as long as he doesn't ever feel like his 'divine omnipotence' is threatened by our presence."

"So this threat that has him putting you in charge is what? A magic army?"

Taline laughed and shook her head. "If only it were that simple. You'll find out soon enough, but we've spent enough time sitting. You should be fine to walk now and we need to go. The sooner we get Glimmer's message out the—"

A buzz at Taline's wrist interrupted her, and she extended her arm to expose a thin bracer of electronics underneath her sleeve. When she tapped at it, a holographic screen sprang up in front of her, and she cursed under her breath.

"What is it?" Catra asked.

"Do all you Etherians have some sort of death wish?" Taline asked. "First everyone in that castle seemed to think it was a better idea to bunker up and fight off a thousand orbiting ships instead of surrender, and now this." She tapped at the screen and what had once been a blank white panel—ostensibly to keep whoever was sitting opposite her from looking at its contents—turned transparent. "My tactical officer got a visual of the inside of the castle."

Catra perked up at the still image: a blurry photo of eight people standing around an enormous design painted on the floor. It looked not unlike the one she saw beneath her during her interrogation. She squinted and leaned in closer, trying to identify everyone. Lonnie and Rogelio were there with Scorpia, checking out a cart of tech. Adora stood nearby with Arrow Boy—wasn't his name Bow?—and they were both embracing each other. Someone she didn't recognize, likely Glimmer's dad, stood there too next to Entrapta, tapping at a comically large tablet strapped to her arm.

Then Catra saw Shadow Weaver and that nauseous, nervous feeling that had followed her constantly since childhood returned. She backed away from the image and felt the room begin to tilt again.

"Do you recognize that rune?" Taline asked.

Catra shook her head and immediately regretted it when that threatened to fling her off the bed. She gripped the mattress harder to steady herself.

"That's a teleportation spell," Taline said. "Judging by how complicated it is, they're going to try and do a recall without a mark to anchor their exit."

"I don't understand what that means," Catra said through gritted teeth.

"It means they're going to teleport without a concrete beacon to help them reappear where they need to be. It's extremely dangerous, like trying to land a cargo-liner on an ocean platform with zero visibility or instrumental guidance." She zoomed the picture to focus on the rune and pursed her lips. "This is ridiculous. It looks like they're going to try and come out right here in the station."

Catra forced a laugh. "That sounds about right for that group of idiots. They're always doing crazy shit without thinking it through."

"That's not all," Taline said, her frown deepening. "Glimmer is still in the throne room, mouthing off to the Emperor."

Those words struck Catra hard enough to almost make her forget her vertigo. "She's what!?"

"My men sent me a note about it. I told her to head to the communications bridge and meet us there, but she's gone and done something stupid instead."

Catra struggled to breathe. Images of Prime combing through her mind atop in the interrogation chamber flashed through her head, and a sudden, unshakeable fear that Glimmer would push him too far grabbed hold of her. She knew exactly how unbalanced the Emperor was from seeing into his head. Glimmer had no idea what she was poking at.

"She's going to get herself killed," Catra said, kicking her legs out the side of the bed. "We should go. Now."

"She'll be fine," Taline said, sounding more irritated than worried. "Unless she says something particularly egregious, he won't risk an incident with my Sentinels there." Taline gave her a look. "Hey, are you okay? I might have misjudged…you don't look steady enough to—"

Catra pushed off to stand and felt her legs turn to jelly the moment her feet touched the floor. Taline snapped forward faster than Catra thought her capable of moving, sending the stool clattering backward and catching her under the arms before she fully collapsed to the floor.

"Alright, I'm fully convinced. All of you are crazy and do indeed have a death wish. Nothing you say can convince me otherwise." Taline manhandled Catra back onto the bed.

Catra's mind raced. She couldn't keep up with the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions. She was herself one moment, then was Horde Prime the next—she was here, in the infirmary during one beat of her heart, then somewhere else in time and space before she could get her bearings. Images flickered before her eyes one after the other, each throwing her off balance and thrusting her into a deepening spiral of decay. She was drowning.

Adora was reaching for her…begging Catra to follow her to the Rebellion.

Catra was on some distant planet, leading a siege against an alien fortress, commanding her clones. She'd slaughtered millions already on this world, and would slaughter millions more before the campaign was done.

Shadow Weaver was standing over her, terrorizing her for staring at the Black Garnet again. She should have known better than to let herself get caught.

She was at the head of a military tribunal, screaming at the defendants: a young man and a young woman—Taline's sister. Taline sat to her right, one of the seven justices in the court proceedings. She looked…conflicted.

Glimmer and her were fighting. She had found Catra in her secret base and was coming for her. Catra had to escape, before everything burned down around her.

She was outside, on the steps of the Enclave's massive judiciary. Soldiers and other battlemages were fighting to keep the insurrectionists from escaping, and she watched Taline let loose a blinding fork of magic lightning at the man who was standing on the defendant dais only moments earlier. She probably wouldn't win the fight—not when Catra knew who the man was—but she hoped, nonetheless.

Catra was hiding behind a pile of rubble on Horde Prime's citadel. She watched him approach Glimmer, watched him lay a palm against her cheek. It was a lie…Catra had to stop him before he killed her.

A hand cupped the side of her face just as she watched Horde Prime do the same to Glimmer, and the visions dispersed. She was back in the medical bay, looking up at Taline, who's own expression bored into her with concern. Catra yelped and tried to jump away but Taline shot her hand forward, gripped her behind the head, and held her in place.

Catra swung at her with extended claws. Taline threw her other arm up and blocked, twisting the moment their bodies made contact to grip at Catra's wrist like a vice. Catra yelled, ready to scratch with her other hand, to ram her forehead into Taline's face, to kick and bite and scream to get away.

In one smooth motion, Taline let go of her wrist and pushed a palm gently against Catra's forehead. A light appeared there, and Catra felt a cool sensation cascade down her body, calming her. Finally, the room stopped spinning, and she stopped fighting.

"Why didn't you tell me you were spiraling again?" Taline asked. "I could have helped stabilize you before all that happened."

Catra pulled away and Taline let her go. "I don't need your help," she said.

"Clearly. You do a good job hiding yourself, pretending everything is okay. I really didn't catch on until you almost dumped yourself to the floor."

"I have plenty of practice pretending things are fine when they're not," Catra said. Another image of Shadow Weaver flashed by and she suppressed a shudder. "Kind of had to."

"I know."

Catra looked over and saw her staring back with a hard expression: Taline must have glimpsed the same visions Catra was having. Those eyes of concern from earlier were gone, replaced with a look of barely concealed anger. Not at her, but at what she had experienced. Catra didn't know why she suddenly felt ashamed. Why should she care what Taline thought of her after seeing glimpses of her pathetic life?

"Come on," Taline said, urging her to stand once more. "It's only a small spell, but it should brace your mind and prevent more flare ups in the short term. We should get to the throne room now, before Glimmer finds something more stupid to do."

"They're not going to go for it," Catra said as Taline headed for the door. She stopped and turned with a confused expression on her face.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the Rebellion. They're not going to go for surrender, even if you get Glimmer up on a giant projection asking them to." Taline's frown deepened and Catra pressed on.

"It's just like you said. Everyone on Etheria is crazy. Them especially. I would know, since I've been fighting them for a while. The Rebellion has never surrendered. Even when I had them up against impossible odds, they've always come out on top, and it's given them a hugely inflated sense of invulnerability. I think they'd sooner try and teleport up here to attack Horde Prime directly than surrender to you, even if you do parade Glimmer out there as bait."

"They're all going to die," Taline said, fully turned around to face Catra again. "What can I do to get them to stand down?"

"Who's to say they aren't going to die anyways if they do surrender?"

"I do," Taline said, her voice devoid of any humor. "I'll promise you like I promised Glimmer—no harm will come to them if they lay down their arms."

Despite how foggy much of her still felt, Catra furrowed her brow and thought. She didn't trust Taline—that would be stupid, after all. Especially after seeing that she had a few suspicious appearances in Horde Prime's memories as well. But, surprisingly, Catra found that she didn't distrust her.

And she was right: if the Rebellion didn't stand down, they would die. She had seen the Emperor kill countless without blinking, after all. She hated the Rebellion. They took everything from her, including Adora, but that didn't mean she wanted to see them and everyone on the planet slaughtered. What could they do to get them to stop fighting?

Strangely, she found when she wracked her brain there were…more memories than just the ones she saw flash before her earlier. More memories of an irate Emperor, sitting on his throne, contemplating his empire. They had the technology to shove great fleets into the void and pluck them out on the other side of the galaxy faster than even light could travel. It had frustrated him they couldn't locate Etheria in Despondos before it emerged on its own.

The scientists had said it would be easier to locate a single person and return them from the void than to do that for something as large as a planet.

Catra gasped, pulling herself out of the memories. She had let guilt get the better of her one day, and Hordak surprised her by answering her question for once: Queen Angella wasn't technically dead, just…lost beyond where anyone could reach. She was gone for good.

But that was then, and this was now. The Horde Empire—the true Galactic Horde Empire—could obviously do a lot more than Hordak could in his dinky lab she had trashed to bits when they fought.

"You've thought of something," Taline said, still looking her in the eyes. "We have some time. Crazy as your friends are, if they know magic well enough to craft that rune, then they'll spend several hours testing it before they do anything. Talk to me."

Catra bit her lip. Was this crazy to suggest? Would it really work? "If, hypothetically, someone got stuck in one of those portals, like they tried cast that teleportation spell and couldn't come out the other side…would you be able reach in and grab them?"

Taline cocked an eyebrow and pulled the stool around to sit on it again, clearly intrigued by her line of reasoning. "It's not easy."

"But not impossible, right?" Catra sighed and decided there was no going back. "They won't just listen to Glimmer, since they'll think she's just being forced into saying whatever. But if you were to start talking about what you could do for someone they lost? Someone they'd do anything to get back? Well, that'd be a different story, wouldn't it?"

"And if my mom were here, she'd kick your ass too," Glimmer said, enjoying the thoroughly annoyed expression on Horde Prime's face as he stared at the intel on the screens around his throne instead of her. "But that's okay, because She Ra is more than enough to take you, all by herself even."

Glimmer didn't know why she was doing this. Intentionally trying to get a rise out of the Emperor was probably the dumbest thing she could have chosen to do. She should have listened to Taline and gone to the communications bridge; she should have just gotten in the elevator like the Sentinels had urged her to, but something about being left to her own devices with an armed guard demolished her better judgement. She was just surprised Narre and Miri hadn't picked her up and carted her away by force. Instead, they had followed her back to the throne.

Prime finally turned away from the screens and looked at her. "Was all that groveling and cowering you did moments earlier just a ruse? You would have made a good actress, were you born into my empire rather than a queen on a backwater planet."

The muscles in his jaw tightened with each word he spoke, and Glimmer felt a tinge of adrenaline shoot through on noticing. She was getting to him.

"You've never met She Ra, have you?" she asked, ignoring his dig at her entirely. "You don't know who she is."

"Should I have?" Prime asked, his voice, clipped. "It doesn't really make a difference who she is. I've conquered more worlds than you can imagine. Each of them had their own champions they put forward, confident they'd put a stop to me. All of them failed."

Glimmer smirked and pushed her tone to be as smug and condescending as possible. "I'm sure you have, but I bet none of them could hold a candle to She Ra. She's eight feet tall and all muscle and magic. You wouldn't like her. Like I said, if it were you and her in a fight, she'd beat you to a pulp."

Salas, who this entire time had been standing next to Horde Prime amidst his clone guards, sighed and looked off in the distance. He looked paler and clammier than before up in the interrogation room, like at any moment he'd keel over from anemia. He also looked like he'd rather slit his own throat if it meant he didn't have to stand there listening to her bicker with his emperor.

Glimmer felt strangely proud of that. She had no idea what he had meant back on the observation deck telling her to stay in the chair. It sounded like he was trying to help, but she couldn't look past the fact he essentially facilitated Catra's torture, and it felt to Glimmer like she had turned the tables on him somewhat, subjecting him to this argument.

Horde Prime rolled his four eyes. "Little girl, I've lived for thousands of years and conquered tens of thousands of planets in my life, like I said. By contrast, your entire lived experience thus far is but a flicker before my eyes. Do you think your words scare me? I've known many, many people—proud people who have thought like you and lashed out irrationally in some vain attempt to wrest back a semblance of control despite their circumstances. All of them are dead now, and their worlds are under my rule. Or did you miss that part when I said they failed to stop me?"

Glimmer flinched. Prime had seen through her even when she herself couldn't figure out what had come over her. Everything clicked into place all of a sudden. She had felt so helpless up here for days, unable to escape, unable to use her powers, unable to even help Catra in her time of need. The need to feel in control of at least something amid that sea of helplessness had overwhelmed her, and now she was 'lashing out', as he had put it. And that realization did nothing to tamp down her frustration.

"I may only have been alive for so long," she said. "But even I know when someone is too proud to admit they're scared. Too weak to admit it."

Prime narrowed his eyes to slits. "What was that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Glimmer asked, drawing on what Catra had shared with her about him in the cell after being probed. "An all-powerful Emperor, absolute ruler of tens of thousands of worlds, torturing a helpless girl strapped to a chair for hours on end? Normally I'd just peg you as a sadist and leave it at that, but then someone comes aboard to take over your invasion, and you just let her?" Glimmer gave a harsh laugh. "I don't know what it is, but you're afraid of something. Afraid enough to let Taline come here and order you around."

Horde Prime tightened his hands around the arms of his throne hard enough the metal crimped. Salas' eyes darted to the same place, and he took a tentative step forward.

"She is not ordering me around," Prime said, voice low enough to be a growl.

"No? She comes here saying she doesn't have time to conquer the planet and neither do you. She tells you to stand down and manipulates you into giving her access to your projectors so she can call a ceasefire. Who's subordinate to who here?" She scoffed and gave a flip of her hair, hoping it looked as obnoxious as it felt to do. "It's probably better for you in the long run she wants to negotiate. If my friends refuse then you'd end up meeting She Ra on the battlefield, and then you'd know I was right about her being able to kick your ass."

Prime jumped to his feet, eyes flaring and tendrils uncoiling from around his head. Glimmer stepped back in spite of herself. For all her swagger, Horde Prime was a truly ferocious sight, and this was the first time she had seen him fully lose his composure. His clone guards looked to each other, startled, and the Sentinels, who until this point had stood quietly behind her, put themselves physically between her and Prime, unhooking the rifles they wore strapped to the front of their breastplates.

"My Lord," Salas said, taking a confident step toward the Emperor and resting a hand on his shoulder. "It is like you said. She is naïve and brash, and she is lashing out for control. Control that you will be giving her if you respond to her provocations."

Glimmer looked to the Sentinels as if noticing they were there for the first time. How was it she was acknowledging the stupidity of her original idea only after it had already worked? Taline had told them to protect her against any threat, and while Glimmer hadn't really believed that applied to the Emperor himself, the fact it had was nothing short of awe inspiring to her. Glimmer had no idea how the command structure in the Enclave worked, but if Taline's people followed her orders to the letter like this, then maybe she was mistaken to have doubted her in the first place.

Feeling strangely embolden, Glimmer laughed again. "What did I say? Now even your own advisor is giving you orders? Be a good evil conqueror and do as he says, won't you?"

Horde Prime snarled and took a step toward her. The Sentinels snapped their rifles up, aiming them straight at his chest. The clone guards moved to stand in the line of fire, their staves held high and poised to throw.

"Lord Prime!" Salas' voice cracked in the air like a whip. The tension in the air was so palpable Glimmer didn't dare move or breath. "We cannot risk an incident. Not with the Enclave, not now. Please, employ some of the restraint that got us through the last crisis. We need it now more than ever."

Horde Prime tensed further and Glimmer was certain he'd ignore Salas' words. Then he relaxed and sat back down in his chair.

"I believe you were told to be on the communications bridge," he said, voice eerily calm once more. "I suggest you find your way there while you still have two functioning legs."

Glimmer bristled but knew she had lost. Unable to get a rise out of the Emperor, she instead glared at Salas for interfering. Salas merely regarded her with a weary look before shaking his head at her. Glimmer then turned on her heel and marched toward the elevator at the back. She heard the Sentinels fall in behind her, but otherwise paid them no attention. Her mind was elsewhere, trying to recover even a sliver of the dignity and control she had felt earlier before Salas had ripped it away.

She stopped midstride. Something didn't feel right. She glanced around, trying to figure out why she suddenly heard static and felt goosebumps form on her skin. Judging by their body language when Glimmer checked behind her, the Sentinels had picked up on it as well.

Miri suddenly lunged toward her, while Narre jumped and rolled away. Light exploded right next to her, just as Miri grabbed her and threw her in the air away from the blast. She yelped and sailed through the air before crashing into the floor at Narre's feet.

Dazed and blinded, she let Narre help her up. Several people were yelling in the distance, sounding as if they were at the other end of a long tunnel. When Glimmer focused enough to look up, Miri was nowhere to be seen. Standing in her place, inside a smoldering circular scorch mark in the floor, were reinforcements.

Adora, Lonnie, Rogelio, Bow, and Scorpia were crouched low in a tight formation inside the circle. Standing at the circle's edges, were Shadow Weaver and her father, King Micah of Bright Moon.

Footsteps thundered past her as dozens of clone soldiers surged forward to confront them. Even more purple spider bots crawled out from where Glimmer's friends and family now stood, fanning out to meet them headlong in battle. Purple and black magic flared at her father's and Shadow Weaver's respective fingers. Adora gripped the staff she held in both hands, and the rest readied themselves with determination glinting in their eyes.

"Now!" Adora shouted. The throne room descended into madness as Rebellion clashed against Imperial Horde.