A/N: Final Word Count: 13.4k Pre-A/N's.
All I can say is... let me know when the tears stop flowing and when they start. Good luck, people.
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...
...
"Okay, so let me see if I got this straight." Catra groveled as she paced around in front of the Force Captain as she leaned her back against the tree, hugging herself a little. "The Fright Zone is totally destroyed, there's nothing left over there, and some white void on your end is getting bigger and threatening to consume all of Etheria, correct?"
"Essentially." Adora nodded with a small frown. "I thought everything was perfect in this life like you did, and it was at first. But then people started disappearing left and right, and before I knew it... I was the only one left." It still pained her to think back to the beloved friend known as Scorpia, one who sacrificed herself for Adora's life without a second thought. She didn't even get enough time to thank her, to show her appreciation, as she was erased from existence. "When did you notice something was wrong?"
"Well, I didn't notice much as far as the guards went." Catra admitted, scratching at her head. "As far as I know, none of them disappeared. Then again, I didn't really know any of them personally, so I wouldn't have noticed." Like Adora, the young magicat slowly brought her arms together as she hugged herself. "But then someone I cared about..."
...
"Wh-Where did they go?"
"Where did who go?"
"The girls, the ones that were just here!" Catra yelled a little in frustration. She couldn't catch a single scent from either of them, or pick up on the sound of Lonnie's footsteps.
"Girls?" Glimmer asked looking to Bow, the archer shooting back with a small shrug in reply. "Catra, it's just been us for the last few minutes."
"Wha- No it wasn't! We were just talking to them a minute ago! Lonnie. Kim. Ring any bells?"
"Are... you okay, sis? I think the heat's starting to get to you." Catra tensed up as she heard Glimmer repeat the exact same thing the last time she swore something was one way instead of the other way around.
"This isn't funny, stop goofing around!" Catra yelled, grabbing Glimmer's shoulders.
...
"... You get the idea." Catra muttered. She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, not when it only brought her pain and guilt.
Both girls had been through a harrowing experience that neither of them wanted to recall. It was nothing short of luck and persistence that the two managed to find each other in this dreamworld to begin with as their separate skiffs crashed into the forest at the edge of the Whispering Woods. With Adora just having entered the tranquil forest and Catra just passing her from behind, the two could've gone straight passed each other without realizing it if neither of them were aware of the other's presence.
Needless to say, the introduction the two girls had was a bit of a rocky start, but one that appeared to pave over rather quickly as they noticed the similarities the two shared. The shattered past the two were struggling to recollect, being among the first and possibly only pair within this world to notice everything wrong with this shattered paradise, and the loss of someone dear to them that made them all the more aware of their dire circumstances.
With what little aggression the two could recall from each other's pass, the two were willing to hear each other out for the time being, focusing on the bigger task at hand and the dire state that the world was in.
"So, can you fix this?" Adora asked hopefully, walking up to her. "You knew something about the portal before all of this happened. You have to know how to stop this."
"Ngh... I can't..." Catra grumbled, squeezing at both sides of her head. "I can barely remember anything recently that happened, I don't even know how this all started."
"Mmmh..." Adora rubbed her chin with the tip of her thumb as she crossed her arms. "But there has to be something..."
"What about you?" Catra asked looking back. "You know about the portal Hordak was working on, so you have to know something."
"Nothing that can help." Adora shook her head in dismay. "The more I try to remember the recent events, the farther they push away. It's almost... wait a minute." A flash of revelation shimmered in Adora's eyes as she lifted her head.
The leader grimaced as he lowered his head again in personal disgust. "Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a suitable power source, something strong enough to hold it open for more than ten seconds-"
"A power source..."
"Huh?" Catra's ears twitched at the sound of the small muttering. "What power source?" She watched as Adora stepped past her, still looking to be in a train of thought.
"Before Hordak could test out his portal tech this morning, he told me he was missing something." Adora explained as she looked back. "A power source, something that could generate the power in the first place. If we could find that power source again and get it running, then maybe-"
"Maybe it could reverse everything and set it back to normal!" Catra exclaimed with an eager look, one shared with the same Force Captain who stared at her.
"But what kind of power source could it use? There's no records of something like that existing in the Horde database, and even if it did, we wouldn't know where to look."
"... The power source..." As she muttered to herself, Catra came to a lone memory she had yet to forget.
...
*aaang*
*aaang*
The alarms flashed within the hologram behind Mara, the She-Ra looking back in fear before staring off ahead. "You have the sword now. It is the Administrator Key to our planet. With it, you can activate a portal. So I'm begging you. Don't do it. Leave us here. If you open a portal, death and destruction will follow-"
...
Flashing within the cortex of her mind, Catra slowly pulled out the sword from her sheethe. In a lot of ways, it represented what Catra always knew best about herself. She was a warrior, a fighter, someone who relied more on brute strength and agility than any magical capabilities she could ever muster. But now she came to realize there was another reason she felt so connected to using a sword, a different sword that held the same reflection.
That's when she remembered it, remembered when it all began.
...
*Whack!*
"Ahhhhhh-!" The few feet of space Catra traveled to shove Adora out of the way-
...
That was when a strange glow suddenly caught her attention.
"Huh?"
...
The moment she touched the tip of the hilt though, she let out a gasp as everything around her began to be engulfed in a blinding light-
...
"... The sword..."
"The sword?" This time, it was Adora who drew curious to Catra's vacant expression.
Shaking her own head, she gestured the blond to the sword in her hands. "The sword! That First Ones sword! It's just like Entrapta said!"
...
For a moment, Catra was actually scared of how she was going to react as she slowly reached to flip up her mask.
"Of course I can!" She smiled. "Did you miss the whole sword makes the portal machine work thing-?"
...
"The sword was used to power up the portal, I'm sure of it! It's what started all of this! We found that sword together in the woods, right around here!"
"We found it?" Adora wondered, trying to recall anything about them finding a sword.
"Well, I did, but that's not really the point. My point is, I don't have the sword anymore because I was raised within Bright Moon this time! We were never friends in this world, so we never went to the woods and found it in the first place!"
"Then... Then we can just find it again and fix all of this in an instant!" Adora beamed happily. "We just have to find it again like the first time, figure out some way to reverse the portal, and everything will go back to normal!"
"Exactly!" Catra smiled in turn at this as she beamed with pride. Not two minutes together again and the two were already working on the same side, just like they used to back in the other world... before their unexplained falling out.
The two stared with silence at one another before their expressions dropped, turning their uneasy expressions away from one another. It was prevalent all throughout their planning that no matter how much they needed to work together, that they were still bitter enemies on both sides. One being a princess, and the other being a hardened Force Captain who fought for the Horde.
When this was all over, they knew what their fates would be. They would return to their own sides, assuming the Horde would return, and they would be enemies once more. Either that, or they would return to the real world where they were still bitter enemies, and still be fighting against each other for reasons they couldn't understand right now.
No matter how much they were willing to work with one another at this moment, nothing could amount to the chaos that would ensue if the two formed a small friendship out of this ordeal.
They would never be able to look at each other in the eye if they met on the battlefield, they wouldn't be able to fight against the other with all their heart. They couldn't risk any relationship with one another if either of them showed an ounce of care.
Catra was a princess.
Adora was a Horde commander.
And that's the way it was going to stay.
*Ka-Rumble*
The ground beneath them shook violently before the two pairs of eyes were drawn to the white void out side of the forest. Even at a slow pace, it was still a menacing sight to behold as they watched it slowly approaching, stretching as far as the eye could see into the sky, and widening with each expanse.
"How long do you think it'll be before it reaches the forest?" Catra asked, keeping her eyes on the wall of light.
"At its current rate? I'd say about ten minutes." She turned back as she felt Catra grab her shoulder.
"Then we need to leave now. Wherever the sword is, it wasn't that far from the border of the woods. Let's go." Catra stated, directing the girl as she began to run down the pathway. Preparing to follow behind her, Adora briefly looked back.
That wall was a representation of everything. The end of the world, the end of the fantasy life behind her, and the end of her dream. It's the very void that Scorpia gave her life to save Adora from, one that she still hasn't forgotten, regardless of how recent it was. She owed it to Scorpia to fix everything before they met the same fate as her.
All she wondered though, as she quickly ran ahead to catch up with Catra, was a singular thought.
Would everything return for the better once it was fixed...?
...
...
"So... How's the world on your end?" Adora asked as the two continued to talk. Within the first two minutes, they discovered that utter silence was more unnerving than the wall of death that slowly approached them. Without anything else to keep their minds preoccupied, there was nothing to distract them from Etheria's imminent doom, especially when it was towering above them at a snail's pace. "Compared to how it was, I mean."
"Eh, hard to say." Catra shrugged casually, throwing her hands behind her head as she walked. "I have the whole princess life going on, so that's good, I guess. Got adopted by the Queen and King apparently, making Glimmer my step-sister. Beyond that, I don't really know. I can't recall much of everything that happened after finding the sword the first time, just some of the people I actually cared about, and..."
"... And me?" Adora's curious question was answered for her as she saw Catra shift her eyes away, a brief flash of a blush over her cheeks.
"... Yeah..." That was still one of the many mysteries that eluded Adora at this very moment.
What happened between them? What came between the two that tore them apart so emotionally? Catra confessed her memories of Adora, an enemy on the opposite side, and even risked her life to come out here and save her. Adora remembered a good portion of her early life as a child growing up with Catra, the bittersweet memories still feeling like a blessing as they walked, and a curse as she feared what was to come.
With everything that was happening, what would she be like if they regained all of their memories again? Would they go back to wanting to kill each other without a second thought? To be scorned at the mere sight of each other, forgetting everything from this world, including this moment?
Or... nah, that was just Adora's hopefully thinking.
"What about you?" Catra asked turning her head back a little. "Any differences with the Horde?"
"Mmh, still hard to say, but a lot of things are different than I remember it." The thought of it actually made Adora chuckle a little. "Rogelio has a pair of wings now and can fly, Scorpia was, apparently, my friend since childhood in this world, and, pffft, Kyle actually became something of a stud in this universe. He has his own little fan club of girls and everything."
"Tch, you're kidding, right?" Catra snickered as she lowered her arms to the side. "You're talking about Kyle, right? "Kyle", Kyle? Big dork, pale hair, usually hanging out with Rogelio, Kyle?"
"Mhhm, that's the one."
"Oh gosh, I wish I could've seen that." Another boast of laughter came between the two girls as they compared what they knew about Kyle now to what they knew about Kyle before.
"The only thing missing from my end was Lonnie." Adora quipped, looking to the sky as if it would bring her the answers. "Nobody seems to know where she is."
"Oh, Lonnie? She's- well, she was back in Thaymor before she disappeared."
"Really?"
"Yup. Apparently she was sick of how the Horde was treating her and she ran away at some point." It still irked her a little at how much Lonnie appeared to have change, a Lonnie with no history with Catra compared to the Lonnie that bullied her on a daily basis. She still wished some form of her remained in that girl, one she could get payback towards as her new Princess. "I guess without using me as a punching bag, she didn't have any way to gain respect from the others."
"... About that..." Adora paused as she spoke, rubbing a thumb under her chin as Catra waited for her. "I don't think this world differs solely on the fact that you weren't a part of the Horde, Catra."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, given everything that's happened up until now, I don't think your absence affected everybody like a timeline being altered. I think this world, whatever it is, grants peoples' dreams and wishes to whatever they want the most in life."
"Whatever they want most?" Her ears lowered a bit as she tilted her head downward, contemplating the very thought.
"Yeah, just think about it. You existing or not wouldn't have had any effect on Rogelio having wings, right? Maybe that was just something Rogelio wishes he was born with. And even if you didn't exist, I still wouldn't have met Scorpia in this world like I-"
"Do you wanna be friends?" That was the one question that sent Catra over the edge. She remembered doubling her cries of misery and sobbing as she laid her head into the girl's shoulder, holding her tightly like she would disappear if she didn't. She was the first one to ever say an F word to her that wasn't Freak, the first person to ever make herself feel wanted. She couldn't remember what was going through her head at that time, just that she didn't want to be alone at that moment.
"... Like I met you." Another flash, another memory, came to her in that instant. Another endearing memory that Adora had yet to remember till then.
As Catra pondered the circumstances, another rush of questions flooded Adora's mind that she hadn't thought of. If this was a perfect world and everything, if this was supposed to be some hopeful paradise to everyone and anyone around her, then why did it erase her memories to do it? Wouldn't she want to remember the good memories that came with this new world of Catra, even if it meant she didn't exist in this Universe?
Something didn't add up to the girl, something that made her heart quiver with fear. Whatever was effecting her in this Universe that made her dreams and wishes come true, it wasn't the cause of Adora or Catra losing their memories around here.
It was something else.
"But... That's..." Catra turned away from the girl as she rubbed the side of her neck against the palm of her right hand. "That doesn't make any sense. That couldn't be the reason behind all of this."
"Why not?"
"Because if..." She wrapped a tail around her waist as she crossed her arms. "Because if this place really grants everyone's wishes, then I'm not the one who wished to have a family."
"You didn't?"
"No. I mean, after having one for the first time, then yeah. I... actually wouldn't mind having a family again after this." She admitted as the two continued down the path. "But I didn't even know what it was like to have a family up to this point, so I couldn't have wished for it myself."
"Then how or why did you end up living as a Princess?"
"I don't... I don't know. I just know that I didn't wish for it. Come to think of it... I don't even know what I wished for." Wow, even in this Universe, Catra came to realize, the world was conspiring against her. Why is it the one time she entered a land of wonder, where all the dreams she had could come true, that she couldn't remember her very own wish? "What about you? What did you wish for?"
"I... don't know either." Adora muttered as she walked along Catra's side. "Maybe it was just to gain more respect? From Lord Hordak?"
"What? So you wanted a little more respect from your leader to make your day perfect?" Catra grinned teasingly. "I bet that must've felt a little refreshing."
"Nothing happens within the Horde without me knowing, Force Captain." He emphasized what he already knew as he rubbed the edge of his thumb around her glove. "I can never accept a commander who can't take care of herself, nor can I allow failures to rise through the upper ranks of my army. So tell me, Force Captain, are you reliable, or a failure-?"
"... You have no idea. Or maybe it was to have a mother that actually loved me? So many great things happened on my end throughout the morning. It's hard to tell how much of it came from a single wish or how much of it was affected by... you not being here."
"Mmmh..." It didn't help getting constant reminders of their circumstances by the absence of one person in particular. Catra had already seen a lot of this world affected by her own existence in another life, a better life, than she previously had. Being told that so much had changed for the better since Catra wasn't around her, though, was unnerving. Exactly how much of the girl's life had Catra ruined by being there?
... How much of it had been improved by Catra not being there?
*Ka-Rumble*
The ground shook violently again as the two gazed back to the impending wall of light. By now, the width of the mighty void had stretched out severely on both sides, preventing Catra or Adora from seeing anything past the wall as they used to. The trees themselves shook fiercely against the planet's slow collapse, with leaves fluttering to the ground and with birds and wildlife scampering across the field.
"We need to hurry." Catra stated as she ran a little ahead. "If we don't get to the sword before the wall reaches it, we might not be able to stop it." Like before, as the girl ran ahead, Adora paused as she gazed at the approaching wall. This time, her focus wasn't set solely on the wall itself, but of the lone figure she saw standing in front of it.
Her double.
The Doppelganger.
The very person who appeared in Adora's view every time the situation became more and more unnerving.
Unlike before, she didn't say anything this time or seem to move as she was slowly enveloped by the wall of light coming in behind her, like she wasn't affected by the wall in any sense. She just stood there, menacingly, as she waited for Adora to make the first move, any move, that could get a rise out of her.
Yet, Adora didn't move, not towards the wall at least. Just standing there, watching the girl watching her back, she remembered. Nothing outside of this strange world related to her, nothing about this strange individual who appeared to be haunting Adora at every turn, but of the very few words she spoke of before she last disappeared.
"You really don't remember a thing, do you?" She asked, raising a curious brow. "Or are you just playing ignorant to everything?"
Ignorance was Bliss. An old saying from long ago, one that seemed more relevant than ever before in Adora's life.
She didn't know who this strange double of hers was. She didn't know what she wanted, what she was trying to tell Adora, or why she kept harassing her. All she knew was that for every occurrence where this stranger popped up, another piece of memory came flooding back to Adora's mind.
And this time, it was unbearable.
...
"You traitor!" Adora screamed. Writhing the darkness collected around her arms, she formed the gargantuan fists she had at the start of this second round, slamming it straight into Catra's entire stomach from her shoulders, all the way down to her waist, pressing her back further inch by inch into the statue with each strike.
*CRASH!*
"Everything that's ever happened!"
*CRASH!*
"Has been because of her!"
...
"What do you want?" Glimmer cried out asking.
"I want to know how to break the spell you put on Catra." Adora replied firmly. "By the time this session is over, you're going to tell me exactly what I want to hear!" A small portion of her anger rose at that, no matter how hard she tried to keep it down.
"I don't know anything! There is no spell!"
"Liar!"
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!*
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Her entire body wracked with pain as the surge continued.
This, was Adora's payback. This was the device that was going to solve all her problems. Watching as the princess cried out in pain, she proceeded with the electrocutions.
...
"We are going to summon Hordak's army. We are going to finish the portal, and destroy the Rebellion once and for all." The shadows around Adora's face squeezed even closer to the center of her head, nearly touching as she repressed all the rage building up inside of her.
"And we are going to BURN! THEM! ALL-!"
...
"Ah-!" Adora gasped for breath as the memories ceased for now. She was panting as if she had ran a marathon, hugging herself in comfort as the sweat dripped from her brow, and eyes trembling as the bangs of hair dangled over her vision. "Wh... What was that?" Adora breathed trembling.
Those memories- no. No, no, they couldn't be memories. Not memories of her. They... they must've been visions of some kind, visions of... maybe another reality? Not the one she and Catra came from? Yeah, that must be it!
How else... How else could Adora explain the bizarre... unsettling... demeanor of that girl she just saw? The one who stared daggers of fire into the eyes of her enemies? The one who held no disregard for who she put through misery, opting to get the results out of her efforts rather than the risks of failure?
The one who said they were ready to burn everything and everyone, all for a spot of satisfaction of some sort?
That... That couldn't have been her! Lifting her head up again, she saw the double continuing to smirk at her as she was finally engulfed in the white void, an action she doubted had any effect on her for some reason. These memories, these depictions of cruelty, they... they must've been hers! Yeah, that made sense! They were her memories, not Adora's!
Did this mean Adora knew the girl? Did she have a sister she didn't know about? Or was it-
"Hey, Adora!" Catra yelled ahead, distracting her from her thoughts. "What are you standing around for? Hurry up!"
...
But this? THIS was the final straw. Every opportunity she had to get rid of her, she didn't. Raising her claws slowly behind the girl, anger growing beyond control inside her, she had to ask herself why this stuff continued to happen. Like every time she did, she knew the answer. It was because she was soft. It was because she didn't have it in herself to end someone's life, not when her anger wasn't flaring up like this.
And perhaps, that ended now.
...
"Catra...?" Adora mumbled before squeezing her eyes shut. She couldn't remember it, she couldn't force herself to remember it, not now.
Pushing away the memories as best she could, she attempted to empty her mind as she sped along the path, catching up to her former- her friend, as fast as her legs could carry her.
That was not her. Period. She was positive of this. She didn't recognize the girl who harbored such hatred for everything else, for someone like Catra. Even if they were on opposing sides right now, she wasn't the kind of person that could go along with everything, the kind of person who could contemplate killing her own friend.
... Right?
...
The two steadied their breathing as they came to a stop. Wasting no time in their efforts to find the mysterious sword that started all of this, that could end all of this, even if they didn't know how. By their own estimates from when they started walking together to where the wall was now, they had less than three minutes to find the sword before they lost their one chance of putting everything back together that could be salvaged.
Thankfully, from Catra's point of view, that chance was soon upon them.
"Okay, it's not too far from here." She stated with a small smile, pulling back the familiar brush of leaves. "This is where I fell when I found the sword the first time."
"And you landed on the sword?" Adora guessed.
"No, it was shining a little ways away." She corrected, looking in all directions. "I fell down here, woke up a bit later, then I found it... Ah! There!" Grinning, the magicat pointed out the familiar direction as she took the lead, still never noticing the uneasiness falling over Adora's face since she last saw her.
"C-Catra, wait-" Adora sheepishly pleaded, only to fall on deaf ears as the magicat grinned back.
"Don't worry, it's a piece of cake." She commented, gesturing for her to follow. "The sword was just stuck in a bundle of thorns but it wasn't guarded or anything."
"I-I know that, it's just-"
"Once we find the sword, we can fall back to Bright Moon, find Entrapta, and-" All the hopefulness, all the curious optimism. All of it was drained away from the magicat's face as she finally turned the corner to the sword's location.
The sword was gone.
"W... What..." She mumbled, speeding up to the exact spot as Adora reached the site behind her. "No, no, no!" She looked in all directions, feeling her hands against the ground as she tried to feel for some indent into the earth, a familiar scent she might have recollected before, a sign of SOMETHING that proved that the sword was here. "It was here, it was right here! I'm sure of it!" She exclaimed, checking the sides of the tree just in case.
"Catra..." Adora lowered her head a little in dismay, just not for the reasons Catra thought she was.
"Maybe... Maybe it as somewhere else, actually?" Looking back on it, she had almost forgotten that the Whispering Woods was notorious for getting travelers lost, making them appear in one location and disappearing into the next half a mile into the forest itself. For all she knew, seeing how she was a Horde soldier at the time, the forest might've taken her all the way to the other side of the woods in the blink of an eye. "Let's just look around for a minute, before the wall shows up. We have to find it soon, or-"
*KA-RUMBLE!*
The vibrations increased immensely as Catra looked back. To her irritation, to her despair, the wall was already touching the border of the Whispering Woods if the vibrations were any indications. "We're out of time..." The girl growled as Adora walked to her side, staring up at the white void.
Ugh, typical! They finally found the spot where the sword previously was, were ready to grab the sword, head back to Bright Moon, and find a way to stop Etheria's destruction, and what happens instead? They don't find the sword, they don't know where it's located, the wall is already on its way, and they don't have a single clue about where to progress next.
Somehow this feeling of failure was one of the few irritating sensations Catra couldn't forget.
Shaking her head, feeling the brush of the void's suction blowing her mane on all sides, she turned to her questionable friend as an unfortunate reality struck her thoughts. "There's no time. We need to get back to Bright Moon now. The sword doesn't exist around here." With that statement, the magicat already took off running... for about five feet, before realizing she wasn't being followed. "Adora?"
The girl was standing there, gazing up at the large white wall with her right hand over her left arm, rubbing it soothingly. The girl showed no signs of fear, even if Catra could only catch her look with her back turned to her. Her knees didn't buckle, her gaze remained solely on the wall as Catra tried to get her attention, and she didn't seem the least bit bothered by the dreaded wall that could erase them from existence.
"Adora, what are you doing? We need to go, now!" Catra stated, brushing a hand to her friend's shoulder.
"... W... Why?" She mumbled as she lowered her head, staring passively at the floor.
"Why? What do you mean "why"? Do you not see the giant wall of death coming towards us?!" Also typical. When she was the only one who was acting with any sanity, everyone else around her was acting borderline confused. "We need to get away from here before we're sucked in, too!"
"I... I know that, b... but..." She finally peered into Catra's eyes with a profound sense of sorrow and... curiosity. "What if... What if we just stayed?"
"Stayed?" No matter how crazy things were, Catra refused to believe she heard her correctly. "You want us to stay and get sucked into that thing?!"
"I-I know it sounds bad, but think about it." Adora tried to waver as she grabbed Catra's shoulders in comfort. "Why would we want to go back to the real world? Why would we want to go back to being enemies? Back in the real world, we were always fighting, always at war with each other. We put so many lives in jeopardy just to spite each other. But around here, in this place? We have no history here, Catra. We can live out our fantasies until everything disappears."
"Live out our... fantasies?" Catra's ears drooped, perplexed and concerned, as she pondered what Adora meant.
The same girl gave her a small nod and a tearful smile at this. "Yes, our fantasies! You can go back to living with your family, you can pretend everything's all right, and I... I can stay here and just... just disappear like Scorpia did." As she gazed back into the wall, the ponytail of her hair slipped out of the bundle of her hair, allowing her long golden hair to breeze in the distance. "Nobody knows this thing is approaching, they don't see it as long as they give in to their desires. And you can do the same. Just forget about everything and move on, and you'll be able to live happily with a family like you always wanted. Wouldn't you prefer that instead?"
What was she supposed to say? "No" and continue to move on with everything outside of this craziness? Of course Catra wanted to live in this world with her new family, she wanted to have a family to return to after this was over! To know what it meant to be cared and loved for by those around her, to remember everything in her false memories before she inevitably disappeared compared to going back to a world full of war and chaos? Who wouldn't want the same thing!
And... sadly...
"What? No!" Catra yelled, pushing her hands off of her. "Are you out of your mind!? What's the point of waiting around to disappear like this? What's the point of doing any of that if it just means we'll disappear in a few hours or a few days?!"
"But, Catra, just think about it-"
"No!" Catra yelled firmly, now grabbing Adora by the arms with a small pleading look. "We can't ignore what happened in the past, Adora! It wouldn't make things right! I tried to do that, and I lost people I cared about! How can you even think that after Scorpia gave up her life for you?"
"That's exactly my point!" Adora countered, shaking her arms back. "She was so much happier disappearing with these fake memories than not!"
"For what it's worth," Scorpia said softly with a small sniff, "I'm glad I got to have a life's worth of memories to share with you." She said, rubbing her eyes with her free claw. "Even if they were fake."
"Don't you get it? This is our chance to disappear peacefully for a change! To enjoy our life instead of spending every waking moment fighting against each other! Don't you want that?"
"Of course I want that, Adora, but I can't ignore everything the Horde's done!" Gazing back at the wall as she felt the vibrations increase, Catra recalled the many times the Horde's cruelty knew no bounds, the devastation she bore witness to, experienced for herself. "There's no forgiving what the Horde's done!"
...
The environment didn't have much of an effect on Catra, the young catgirl just looking almost bored at her surroundings. There were ruined pieces of rubble here, a busted droid that definitely came from the Fright Zone there. There was nothing to be gained or used by standing around this place. She even thought Bow making a small memorial off to the side using the scattered belongings of this place's inhabitants, yet Catra was unaffected by that all the same. Everything about this place screamed depressing and not one thing here got to Catra.
Except for that. Over off to the side she saw what appeared to be the burnt remains of a small woolen doll. If there was a woolen doll like that, that definitely meant there must've been children here when the attacked happened. For just a moment, a tinge of guilt pang through Catra's chest-
...
Catra lunged the Force Captain as fast as she could, too little too late as Adora slipped the radio off her list and into the water below them. There was no going back from this point. Reacting quickly, Adora backed away several feet before Catra could swipe her, creating a good gap between the two as they stared at one another.
*BOOM!*
Catra had to cover her ears from the sudden ring that went through it. As much as she wished against it, back at the Barrier the two stood in front of, there was a gaping melted hole in the bottom left portion of the barrier, the massive canon from the ship having fired another massive burst of green energy at the mystical wall. Like last time it slowly reassembled itself, though at a very much slower pace, as it reconstructed it's shield.
Also like last there, there was another surge of electricity from the control core behind Catra, the cat gritting her teeth with worry as she saw the sparks going off and several lights around it starting to dim. If she didn't work fast enough the barrier was going to run out of power, and something in her head told her she wouldn't be able to fix it if the entire thing was destroyed.
...
-She screamed angrily.
All at once, like before, a rain of destruction was showered upon the barrier, with the lights and waves of its energy bouncing across the points of impact. As expected by the Force Captain, one that slightly frightened Scorpia, seeing the extreme anger rising through her friend, the beams of energy that were blasted at the tank were bounced back in multiple directions, each shot of energy being directed harmlessly towards the sky, or, in some unfortunate cases, back at the tanks and droids that fired in the first place.
Dozens of the soldiers found themselves scrambling for their lives as they tried to dodge the incoming fire, feeling like they were out in the open for hunting season, as they had no means to protect themselves from the tanks' and droids oncoming blasts. Noticing the panic building up behind her, Adora decided to create her own barrier out of the shadows, one that was minuscule in comparison to Catra's, but one that protected a large portion of the soldiers who ran behind it as the droids and tanks took the rest of the rebound energy.
As expected from the Force Captain, just as she was starting to wonder if the barrier could ever be taken down, she grinned as she saw holes and tears starting to form around the bubble, ones that tried to regrow itself in a futile effort to protect the castle. Large beads of sweat started to pour from Catra's forehead as this went on, struggling to maintain her concentration on the barrier, even more so now that she could feel the tears in the barrier as if they were in her own mind.
...
"Forgive, forgive, forgive," Adora taunted as she spat, "that's all I ever hear from you guys."
*Ka-Rumble*
"Why is it when we're the ones attacking you we're the evil ones and when you're the ones attacking us, you're the good guys?!" Frustration built upon the corners of Adora's mind as she lowered her brow a little. This feeling, this anger welling up inside of her, was familiar to her somehow.
"Because the Horde's EVIL Adora!" Catra yelled. Adora squeezed her hands over her ears as she shook her head back and forth to this, trying to block out the sounds.
"Shut up."
"I won't shut up!" She declared, pulling her hands away from her ears. "Look at this Adora, look around you!" Adora's eyes wavered a bit as she looked back, seeing everything disintegrating that came into contact with the void. "All of this stuff that's happening? Everything that's being erased? Does that seem like something the good guys would do?!"
"Stop it!"
"All this stuff that's happening? All this stuff that's going to happen? It's on you! It's always been on you! Like when you pulled the lever!"
...
"With this portal... Hordak's army will reach Etheria, and that will be the end of that. Then, with their help... they will take everything you have, Catra. All of it-"
"I want you to feel what it's like to lose everything around you, to have someone else take things away from you against your control-"
*CRANK!*
...
"Why did you do it, Adora?!" Catra continued to shout as Adora tried to block out the sounds. She couldn't help herself, she couldn't bottle it all up. As the memories flooded back to her, so, too, did all the pain, all the trauma, that she experienced at Adora's hands. "Why did you pull the lever?"
"I-I don't know!" Adora yelled back as the vibrations intensified. She couldn't bare to look at her, to speak to her at that moment. She just needed silence, anything, to calm her nerves. The memories that came flooding in, the look her own face as she declared her desires. She refused to believe that any part of it was her. "And I don't want to know! This is what I'm talking about! I don't want to go back to this!"
"We don't have a choice! We need to fix this, Adora, before everything around us disappears!"
"I said, SHUT! UP!" With a roaring shout and a burst of tears, Adora angrily slammed her foot against the ground. As if the world was reacting to her anger, towards her aggression, the ground began to quake. All around the clearing, small pillars of light erupted from the ground. A fist in size, but continuing to expand at a snail's pace, all the while the Force Captain glared directly into Catra's eyes without concern. "What is it with you always trying to ruin things? Why can't you ever just leave me alone?!"
"Because I already made that mistake before, Adora." Catra confessed, grabbing Adora's hand as she started to slowly pull her away from the erupting side of the forest. "I broke that promise once, and all of this happened. I'm not going to break that promise again!"
"That... promise...?" And with this, Adora's mind finally snapped. Like a great flood washing away all beneath the clouds, the memories, the pain, the promises, all came back to her as her head felt heavy. She tried to push her head again, as if it would contain all the unnecessary and unwanted thoughts and feelings, but it proved for naught.
No matter how much she wished otherwise, she could never forget them.
...
* The simple five-year-old Adora smiled to her blanket-covered friend as she hugged her. "You look out for me and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen to us as long as we have each other."
"You promise?"
"I-"
...
"-still haven't forgotten our promise, okay?" She felt a great warmth wash over her as she raised a pinkie between the two of them, seeing the small smile it managed to grow over the young Adora's face as the eight-year-old Catra squeezed her pinkie.
"I look out for you..." Adora spoke, taking hold of Catra's pinkie with her own.
"And I look out for you." Catra replied, tightening her pinkie against Adora's as they shook. "And I'll always be by your-"
...
"-side!" Catra promised, trying to snap her friend out of this insanity. "If I didn't break that promise to begin with, none of this would be happening!"
"You... You kept breaking..." Adora hiccuped to herself as the tears pried through her squeezing eyes.
...
Catra was finally home.
*sniff*
"I've missed you..."
"..."
"..."
*sniff*
"...I'M SORRY!"
With that, the realm of fantasy was shattered. In that instance she let her guard down, in the moment she welcomed Catra back with all her heart, her world of dreams came to an abrupt end. The magicat, her friend, reached her arm over to Adora, and embraced the second thing she came across.
Her sword.
Slipping it out from Adora's grip, Catra hastily ran back over to Glimmer, picking her up in her other arm as she made her way back to her feet. She couldn't believe what she had done. Glimmer couldn't believe what she had done.
...
"-BECAUSE I CARED ABOUT YOU THE MOST!" All at once, everything became silent to Catra as she could only see and two things: the sound of Adora's whimpering as her lip trembled.
"I cared about you... for over ten years, Catra." She sniffed. From this, Catra finally stood up from the girl, never taking her eyes off her for even a moment. "And for you... for you to finally pull all those memories away... like they were nothing... I died inside, Catra. I honestly, honestly, died." From this, Adora rose to her knees, squeezing her fists out of sorrow and anger.
...
"-every one..." Adora bit down on her lower lip as she dropped to her knees, the hair falling past her face as she ignored the tremors rushing between her veins and the ground beneath her.
"But I'm not breaking them any more." Catra tried to push through to her, squeezing a hand over her left shoulder. How many times could she apologize to her before she understood? She was sorry! She was regretful! She wanted to change everything she did if it meant Adora would forgive her! And how much longer would she have before the void consumed them both?! "Every time I turned my back on you, it hurt us both. I swear, if you'll stop this, I won't abandon you again!"
"..." Silence stirred from Adora's lips as she exhaled. The memories, the promises, everything that's happened up to this point. Adora finally understood it all, understood what she wanted. "I... I remember Catra..." She sniffed. "I remember all of it."
"Adora..." She didn't know if she should take that with relief or concern as she gazed back at the wall of light. "We need to keep moving. It's too dangerous to stick around here-"
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!*
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" Catra cried out in pain as thousands of volts were shocked through her system, leaving her to collapse on the ground. Her fingers twitched, her tail froze, her knees continued to buck as she tried to regain her motor controls again. As she opened one eye, standing right above her, she saw it.
The look. The pain. The hatred. Everything stemming from Adora's tear-filled eyes. "I remember all of it!" With another shout, the blonde soldier attempted to drive the stun baton directly at Catra's head. With what little functions she could control, Catra rolled onto her back, throwing her hands in the air as she grabbed Adora's tightening grip over the baton's base, and struggled to keep its tip from reaching any closer to her neck. Seeing it sparkling several inches away from her alone was terrifying enough. "It was all you! It was always you!"
"What are you talking about!?"
*KA-RUMBLE!*
Like the gods whose anger affected the scenery, the two continued to struggle against one another with bouts of anger and sadness, pushing against each other's grip as the environment slowly became undone around them.
"I'm talking about you! You and your way of messing things up!" Adora shouted, trying to lean over the butt of the baton as she applied more weight to it. "Whenever you're around, bad things happen to me! Whenever you're involved, you mess up everything I work towards!" Seeing the resilient magicat continuing to push away with all of her strength, Adora changed her tactics.
In a matter of seconds, pulling herself off of the warrior, Adora used Catra's momentary confusion to her advantage as she picked her up by the scruff of her neck. In one mighty push, getting the cat girl up to her feet, she shoved Catra against the bark of a large tree before charging straight at the girl again baton-first. Catra barely had the time to grab the edge of the baton's tip, struggling against the Force Captain's brute strength and the small slip of the baton pushing between her hands.
Seeing how the girl still refused to give up, Adora growled, pushing against the girl's shoulder with her left hand as she continued to jam the baton towards Catra's stomach as far as she could. With little option in the mix, eyeing the environment around her, Catra used the blonde's own strength against her as she pulled her arm, tilting her to the side.
Combined with the vibrations of the erupting forest, the two girls were knocked off balance as they began to tumble down a small hill to the left, scattering them across the ground for several yards until they finally came to a stop. With the vibrations worsening by the second, it took Catra a moment to realize when the two had stopped rolling and when the tumbling was even over.
For Adora, it was never over as she shook her head, glaring back at the girl.
"Adora, we can't do this!" Catra yelled over the howling of the tremors. "Look at this place! Is this really what you wanted?!"
"You think I care!?" With another roar, Adora lunged for the magicat, forcing Catra to defend herself as she drew her sword to block the overhead strike. "You think ANY of it matters to me anymore!? Nothing I do matters as long as you're near me! As long as you're there to ruin everything I've worked on, to turn everyone against me, nothing I do matters!"
Without care for her own safety, even against the sharpness of the sword, Adora swiped at the blade with her free hand, wrapping her fingers against it tightly as she pulled. Either from the sheer force of it, or catching Catra off guard once again, the magicat found the hilt of the sword slipping through her hands as Adora tossed it away, barely giving the girl enough time as she grabbed the length of her shirt, tossing her to the ground behind her.
It didn't do much to damage the magicat, or to knock her to the ground as her reflexes rolled her to her feet, but as she started to back away from the menacing friend, she found the predicament Adora had put her in; she was stuck between a Force Captain who knew all of her moves and tricks, and an approaching white void that grew stronger with every breath.
She was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"Adora, just look for a minute!" Catra shouted, gesturing to all around her. With her own safety seemingly secured, Adora gladly followed the magicat's directions, taking in the beautiful wall of nothingness that approached them. "You're going to let the whole world be destroyed at this rate!"
"I don't care! Let it be destroyed! I'd rather let the world come to an end than live in one where I can't trust anyone!" Catra. Frosta. Her Mother. There wasn't a single person she felt like she could trust, and those she did trust? Why bother giving them her trust? They were just going to betray her anyway later on in life, weren't they?!
Why bother with such an existence!? Why live somewhere where her worst enemies were her best friends, her family? It was a nightmare she could never wake up from, one where nobody came to save her when she screamed! All she had was herself and no one else! AND EVEN THAT WAS BEGINNING TO WAVER AFTER ALL THAT'S HAPPENED!
"But what about everyone else, huh?" Catra gritted her teeth as she slid further to the edge of reality, the white wall closing in on her from all directions behind her. "You're just going to let everyone die because of what I did? Because I made a mistake? Because I came back to save you?!"
"Heheheheh... Hahahahaha!" That was, without a doubt, the funniest thing Catra had said up till now. Even as her eyes continued to pool with streams of tears that flowed down her cheek, she continued to laugh. "You think it's because you made a mistake that I can't stand you? That I'm laughing my lungs out because you came to save me? Don't you get it already, Catra!?" Refusing to give her a moment of reprieve, Adora charged the girl again, forcing Catra to grip onto the body of the baton as she struggled, pushing back with all her might as her feet skid across the ground.
"I'm doing this because of you! Because even in an entirely knew world full of dreams, you still couldn't make mine come true!"
"Your..." Catra blinked, the sensation of fear clouding her mind as her ears lowered. "Your dream?"
"Yes, my dream! My wish! A wish you still managed to break with your own two hands!" Adora's pushing became more forceful as Catra found the both of them nearing the wall of light that continued to burst through the forest. "Haven't you figured it out yet? Why you never appeared back in the Horde? Why we don't seem to know each other in this world?" Her face tightened with rage at the prospect, doing everything she could to end the one making her suffer.
"Because that was my wish, Catra! I WISHED I NEVER MET YOU!" Catra gasped at the revelation, the crux of the matter finally revealing itself as the world burst around them.
As if it was the planet's way of protecting her, a small pillar of light burst through the ground, one no bigger than a baseball, as it snapped clear through the stun baton, breaking it in half. Adora nearly fell forward if she hadn't angled herself to the side at the last second, falling to her right side as she backed away from the erasable pillar of light.
On Catra's end, the magicat nearly jumped at the sight of the pillar bursting in front of her, nearly falling back into the white abyss that had grown up to her heels. With the threat of the baton away from her, the magicat quickly rounded the corner of the pillar to her right, trying to distance herself as far as possible from the impending doom of the white pillars.
The ground's tremors continued to roar with an unshakeable need for destruction, multiple pillars of light already bursting throughout a dozen portions of the Whispering Woods as far as Catra could see. She needed to think of something, think of a plan, something to get Adora to snap out of all of this.
Unfortunately, the girl showed no signs of slowing down, or letting Catra potentially escape. Just ten feet from where she ran, the magicat tripped, finding something ensnaring the calf of her ankle as she fell to the ground. Looking back, she saw Adora, still burning with hatred and tears in her eyes, the very ones Catra struggled to hold back, as the ground started to give way around them.
"Adora, stop this-!" Catra tried to warn, already seeing the ground cracking around them. Adora chose to ignore the girl as she pulled Catra closer to her, the magicat digging her claws back into the ground behind her to slow her down, attempting to suck her into the void behind her so the two could finally disappear together.
Instead, fate had other options.
Just as Adora had stretched her left arm out to Catra's knee, ready to drag her further, it finally happened. From twenty small cracks in the surface around them, covering Adora's front, the ground finally gave way, opening an abyss of nothingness and whiteness below her as the void drew near, as gravity began to drag her down. For a moment, Adora felt nothingness within her as the world slowly pulled away from her, as if it was moving itself and not the other way around.
And the next moment, she felt something. A powerful grip over her left hand as she felt like nails were digging into her skin. Lifting her head up, she saw Catra struggling. Struggling as she held onto the outgrown root of a large tree right next to her with her arm around it, and using her left hand to maintain her hold over Adora's wrist.
"Hold on!" She stuttered, trying to pull her friend away. It was like she was struggling to pull her out from the force of a tornado, the very aspect of nature itself attempting to consume her.
Even with this, Adora refused to relent as her brow narrowed, slapping at Catra's hand in order to loosen her grip. "Let go!" She screeched. She never even noticed as a small slip of paper started to poke out from the chest of her coat, something she had stuffed inside of it not too long ago.
"Agh, stop that!" Catra hissed, struggling further as her grip nearly loosened. "I'm trying to save you!"
"I don't want you to save me, Catra!" Adora yelled angrily, not once losing the stream of tears that continued. "I want you gone! I want you out of my life!"
"I don't care!" Catra yelled over the howling winds that continued to pull them apart. Her own tears were getting swept up with the wind. "I made that mistake last time as your friend, and it caused all of this. I'm trying to make it right!"
"Friends...?" Adora squeezed her other hand in anger as she looked on with disgust. "How... could I ever be friends with you? You've taken my home... my friends... my family... all you've ever done is take from me since the day we met, until I wind up with nothing. Does that sound like a friend to you?!"
*KA-RUMBLE!*
"Ahh!" Catra yelled as she nearly lost her grip. From the side, on the other end of the large tree, another massive pillar burst from the ground, practically exploding as it already expanded to the side of the tree that it touched. The vibration and force of it was enough to shake Catra's grip enough. Enough to make her temporarily lose her hold on Adora's hand, rushing her to lean in as she barely grabbed on again.
All that was separating Adora between oblivion and her traitorous friend, were the three fingers they had wrapped around each other, the feline still refusing to let her go.
And, as Adora's face wallowed with sadness, it still wasn't enough to move Adora's blackened heart.
"... I... hate you... so much..." And with nothing else left, Adora did it for her as she unfurled her fingers.
She let go.
"ADORAAAAAAAAA!" Catra shouted in tears as she watched her friend being sucked into the void.
She couldn't believe it. She refused to look away from this scenery. Adora, the one she still cared about, the one who held such a petty grudge over a lifetime of mistakes from long ago, chose death. She had proven to Catra, no matter how much Catra cared, no matter how much she changed over the given months, that she would choose death over the life of her friend.
She didn't show a single ounce of care for her friend. Not of her achievements, not of her changes, absolutely nothing. Adora would've gone to any lengths just to distance herself from the magicat, even if it meant fading into oblivion just to get away from her.
And somehow, it wasn't even the most painful part of it all.
*fwip*
Ears twitching, Catra saw something being blown in her direction, carried off by the force of the wind that pulled it back as it pushed Adora away. Reaching an arm out, Catra slowly collected the piece of paper as it blew into her hands, unfolding it as clear as she could as she tried to catch a glimpse of the message that could've been left behind.
It was a message she was never expecting.
It was a picture of her. And Adora. Both their heads. Drawn in a crude fashion, resembling the drawings along their bedside that the two once shared, one that Catra could never forget. Catra's eyes continued to water as her lip trembled, unintentionally gripping the paper tighter in both hands as she saw the two heads, saw the idea that it still meant something to Adora, that she would keep something like this even after all the two had been through. And even it didn't want anything to do with her.
It wasn't until it was too late that Catra realized she was squeezing the paper too tightly. Mixed with the wind that was trying to blow everything away and the void that was trying to suck everything in, the force of it all finally tore the paper in half, separating the heads at long last. The mere sight of it suddenly tearing apart before her very eyes made Catra flinch, so much so that the right half of the page, the half that depicted Adora's face, slipped right out of her hands, returning to the void from whence it hailed from.
"Adoraaaaaaaa!" Catra cried out again as the paper disappeared into nothingness, just like its predecessor.
There was nothing left for her here, she realized that no matter how much it hurt. She couldn't allow herself to get sucked into the void like... like Adora was just now. Even when it felt like she had nothing left to do around here, her legs picked her up from the ground for her, Catra's body acting almost instinctively as she forced herself to run away.
With the slowness of the void and the pillars of light starting to become less frequent, after a solid straight minute of running, Catra finally collapsed. On her arms, on her knees, she cried. "Eeeeeeeggggggggghhhhhh! Ehhehehhh... eheh..." She tried to hold it all in as she leaned her forehead to the ground, processing all that had happened, all that was continuing to happen, and all that she lost in what was supposed to be a "dreamworld".
Adora was gone. The Sword was gone. Any hope she had of fixing this, of making up for what happened to Kim, what happened to everyone before and after, had been swept away into the void. She had no means to do this on her own, nobody else could remember what she knew, it was all hopeless! And it still didn't get rid of the pain that she just suffered through!
"Ehhehh... eheheh..." Her tears soaked the ground under her eyes, still leaning her head against her arms against the ground. She didn't even have the single scrap of paper anymore in her hands, most likely losing it, like EVERYTHING she's continued to lose, since she regained her memories!
What was the point of it all? Trying to fix everything that she started to begin with? For what? A world that was doomed to die on her within days, maybe hours? She wasn't a friend, she wasn't a hero, she wasn't anything she tried to be.
She was just somebody who failed, who always came in second even when it meant she needed to win the most.
She was Nothing.
"Oh, is that you, Mara?" Catra opened her eyes again, quickly tilting her head back up as she came face to face with a familiar old hag. "You made it after all." She smiled adjusting her glasses, ignoring the butterflies flying around her.
It was at that moment that Catra finally remembered, finally recalled, the memory of the old hag at long last.
"Ah, good morning sunshine." The replied completely oblivious to Catra's insult. "It's nice to see you finally up and ready for the day."
"... M-Madame Razz..." Catra whimpered, growing a minuscule of a smile over her face.
*clonk*
"Ow!" Well now she had another reason to cry as she yelped, like rubbing over the small bruise the old lady's cane indefinitely left over her skull.
"That was for thinking Madame Razz is an old hag!" She quipped, pointing her cane at her accusingly.
"How do you even know about that?"
"It was written all over your face." The anger that seemed to fluster over Razz's face was quickly switched with a look of cheer once more as she smiled to the girl. "It's been such a long time since we've seen each other... or... I guess not here, no. But in the other one... which one, I now wonder?" The old lady puzzled herself as she crossed her fingers against one another, raising a brow in contemplation. "Ah well. Let us be off, Mara. There's still more work to do."
"Forget it." Catra mumbled. Sitting up again, the girl raised her knees into the air as she hugged herself, regret overwhelming her expression as she chose to ignore the old hag. "What's the point of going anywhere anymore? I failed. I keep failing. I-"
*clonk*
"Ow! Stop that!" She yelped again, grumbling a bit as Madame Razz prodded her to stand up with her cane. Once she was back on her own two feet, the cat growled lightly to her as she continued to push her forward.
"No more negative talk. Only future talk! We must discuss what to do now."
"Yeah, like what?" She gruffed, rubbing the side of her tear-riddled face against her shoulder as she crossed her arms. She had never felt as empty as she did right now, never feeling such a sense of despair that made her ears sink to her side. "I already failed to stop the portal, I failed to find the sword, and i couldn't even save Adora! Or Kim. And at this rate, I won't be able to save anybody!"
"It is not too late." Somehow, in some way, Catra's chest instantly beat again at the mention. From the casual way Madame Razz spoke, the calmness of her voice. Not a spot of doubt remained inside of Razz's tone. "You can still bring them back. But you must act quickly."
"And how would you know?" Catra asked as the old ha- woman, jumped atop another overgrown root, beaming down at her.
"Because this has all happened before." She revealed, helping Catra up the pathway as she offered the end of her cane to pull her up. "I remember it like it was yesterday. For Madame Razz, it was yesterday." She grinned cheekily.
"Before..." Catra's eyes opened a little more as she realized what she meant. "You mean with Mara!"
"Yes, dearie. When she moved Etheria and took away the stars. Heh, it was crazy."
"And she's still a better She-Ra than me..." Catra grumbled a bit, the events of the past starting to make her tear up again. "I did everything I could to stop myself from being another Mara, to be better than Mara, and all I did was follow in her footsteps! I destroyed the world, I put everyone in danger, I-"
*clonk*
"Okay, that's seriously getting annoying!" Catra spat. Strangely enough, it actually felt a little gentler than the previous times she bonked her on the head.
"Destroy the world? No, ho, ho!" Razz chuckled at the thought. "Mara saved the world. And so will you."
"Give me a break. If it wasn't for me, none of us would be in this mess!" She wanted to scream, to shout, to claw at anyone or anything at that moment to release her anger. But how could she release her anger when she had no one to blame but herself? "This all started because I wanted to get stronger, and I wanted to be a better She-Ra." She frowned slightly as she looked away from her. "You were right about before, all right? I am a bad She-Ra."
"Madame Razz never said you were a bad She-Ra, kitty." The old lady retorted as she poked her in the forehead. "Razz said that you are not a very good She-Ra. Not that you were bad."
"Like there's a difference! If I was a better She-Ra, I'd be a better hero. Plain and simple."
"You keep thinking that She-Ra and hero are the same, kitty." Razz said as she brought two hands to her front, gently clapping both of them together against each other. "Being a better She-Ra doesn't make you a better hero. You need to be a better you to be a better hero."
"A better me. Right." If there was never a good excuse for Catra to roll her eyes at something, there was now. "The person who started all of this by stealing someone else's sword. The one who can never beat Adora no matter how hard she tries on her own. The one-"
"-Who ventured all the way to the Fright Zone to stop this nonsense." Razz interrupted with a smile. Catra felt a little unguarded as the old woman stroked her head. "The person who risked everything to come back here to save her own friend. Is that not what a hero does?" Catra had to admit, as annoying as the old lady was, she wasn't wrong... entirely.
She didn't come to the Fright Zone to get her sword back. She didn't come out all this way in the hopes for an answer, to find a solution to their current problems. She came out all this way, against any odds that were stacked against her, in order to save someone close and dear to her, somebody who rejected her at all cost.
And she didn't even have a She-Ra by her side.
Personally, she thought it was just her own stupidity nearly getting her killed again.
"You need to stop thinking of the ifs and the past." She said softly, tilting the girl's chin with her fingers to get her attention. "You need to focus more on what you can do, and what you should do, kitty."
"... Like what?"
"Like, going back to the beginning. You need to find the sword. That is the only way this will stop."
(A/N: Highly recommended to listen to dramatic theme that plays during this scene until stated)
"Uggghhh, I already did that!" Catra groaned, losing the optimism she had of thinking this woman was more sane than she appeared. "The sword wasn't where I thought it was, and the Horde's been completely destroyed! There's nothing to go back to!"
"No, that wasn't the beginning." The old Razz smiled even as Catra felt a sharp breeze coming towards them. To her concern, she could see the wall of light already approaching them as it widened throughout the forest. "You need to go back to the very beginning."
"What do you mean the very beginning?!" She squeezed her head as the frustration welled up inside of her. "I did all I could. I don't know what else to do!"
"That's all right, dearie. You don't need to know to understand. You just need to remember..." Holding Catra's hand gently, she walked to the girl's side as she smiled at the approaching wall, Catra's eyes narrowing as her mind began to tremble like the soil.
"To... remember..." It was like an echo within a canyon, a drip of water splashing against a silent stream. Through this lady's craziness and soothing voice, to the very actions that brought her here, and the sword that lead her to her destiny, she started to recall.
To recall the day it all began.
To recall the actions she took that brought her here.
To recall the very people who still meant so much to her life, that depended on her even now.
The voices were silent to her as a waterfall began to fill her mind, one consisting of memories of the people she needed to save.
...
The two figures gasped simultaneously at the sight. Their eyes instantly locked on to Catra's very own, all three of them going wide-eyed at the sight of each other, each of them taking several seconds to so much as respond.
...
Catra nearly choked at the comment, a small blush forming on her cheeks. She stammered.
...
Glimmer instantly cried, hugging herself into Catra's stomach as she cried heavily. Catra let out a small cry as Glimmer threw her arms around her torso as she sobbed into her chest.
...
A part of her wished she shared in Bow's foolish optimism. To be able to look something like death in the face like this multiple times, to always have a strong backbone after all the beatings he took, the noticeable bruises and scrapes against his arms and armor as he spoke to her, it was almost endearing to see from anyone in these dark times.
It really was his greatest quality.
...
And now that life was gone. Everything that Catra had in her past life was over now. Despite telling herself that she had a new life to move on to, it did nothing to quell the rain of sadness spreading in her heart, no matter how warm the group's hug came to be. It was comforting, and exhausting, all at the same time.
...
With a smile, she spoke quietly, closing her eyes as she held back a trickling tear. It had been over a month since the Battle of Bright Moon, a day that took its toll on all of them. She was still dealing with scars from that fateful day, both physical and emotional. But after all of this, and everything she's been through in the last month, she felt something she hasn't felt in quite a long time.
Peace.
...
Glimmer let out a small gasp as she and Catra looked at each other. Without giving the girl a chance to decide for herself, she quickly pulled Catra by the wrist, jumping over to the small hugging squad as they held one another warmly.
Here, Catra was the only one who felt the odd one out. Not because she didn't appreciate the moment or the gesture, not because she was the magicat among regular people, but simply because she couldn't understand. She couldn't understand any of this or this "happy-sadness" she was feeling for the first time. It needed an explanation, someone to describe this feeling to her.
And for the first time in her life, she didn't care. She smiled a little as she closed her eyes, deciding to embrace the moment for now instead of questioning it. She didn't know what this feeling was, and she was more than happy to keep it that way if it meant it would stick with her. As long as she remembered this feeling throughout the day, then she was fine with it.
For once in her life, as if a distant memory, she came to realize how warm it felt to be loved for by others...
...
"Bow... " Catra gasped as she realized. "And Glimmer! They... They're the ones I started this with. It all started with them, not the sword!"
"Indeed. You better go on, dearie. Quickly!" Madame Razz urged with her cane, smiling for Catra as she began to run. Catra gave the old woman a small look of concern before giving her a smile, continuing on her way as she ran through the forest.
It was a sight most beautiful to Madame Razz and she smiled sweetly.
The girl who had been through so much, who has had so much of her life taken from her, continued to struggle for so long, so hard, against every odd, to be the best hero she could be. She cared more about trying to be the best She-Ra of them all when all she needed to do was to be the best hero she could be. Against all odds, against everything that stood in her path, Catra never let it bring her down.
Catra was the hero the sword never expected, but she was the She-Ra that everyone needed. And Madame Razz couldn't be more proud of the sight as she disappeared before her eyes.
She was the best She-Ra of them all.
With acceptance in her own heart, Madame Raze gazed back as she approached the void that consumed all in its wake. She knew what would happen, she knew she would cease for a moment, and she didn't care. She trusted Catra with her path, with her choices, and was ready to embrace what was to come with a warm smile.
Catra would be the one to save them.
(A/N: End theme)
...
...
Floating. Drifting. Was there really any other sensation to describe it as? This was how Adora found herself as she flew through the void, wavering in and out of consciousness, almost questioning if this was the void itself or the afterlife. Was the afterlife peaceful like this? Was disappearing supposed to be this genuine?
She didn't know. And she didn't care.
Nothing else mattered to her anymore. If disappearing meant she would no longer have to put up with the pain that continued to assault her heart, if it meant she could slowly disappear with the rest of the world, then she was ready to accept it. All of it.
Which didn't bode so well with another individual who floated above her.
Feeling the shadow over her face, Adora slowly opened her left eye, the other still disappearing along with the void. "... Aroda..." She whimpered, twitching her finger a little, too powerless to raise it any closer to her. She finally remembered her, just as Aroda wanted as the double grinned.
"Sorry, Adora." Aroda smirked to her as she grabbed her hand. Even in this dimension, in a void where power was everything and nothing at the same time, Aroda was still a part of Adora that Aroda could never allow herself to part with. "But I'm not done with you yet." With a girl grip over her left hand, the force that caused Adora to disappear slowly ended, replacing the girl's missing portions with a renewed energy, a dark one, twisted by Aroda's own magic.
Grinning, the force within her mind began to drag her through the air, back towards salvation of a land that was still falling apart.
"And until I get what I want, you'll never be rid of me..."
...
...
...
A/N: And now, we reach the epic conclusion of Part 1, as we move on to not just part two, not just the season finale, but the HALFWAY POINT OF THE ENTIRE SERIES! (also small reminder, i've yet to see season 4 yet, so please refrain from spoilers)
Ughhhh, its been hectic folks. Between jobs, school, outbreaks, cannibalism... which I had nothing to do with... it's been a wild ride. I'm running out of things to say, things to mention, and i gtg work on the yard for like 2 hours now XP So before all that (and apologies for the brief rush towards the end), I will just say this- I hope you're all prepared and ready for the dramatic conclusion of the final episode this season, and are just as prepared as I am to write it X)
With that said, hope you all enjoyed and stopped tearing up at some point. Leave a like, fave, follow, and review, and hope to see you soon!