When Adora aimlessly turned another corner for the fourth time, her intended destination stood infront of her.
She had looked for Shadow Weaver, but got lost in thought of what she was going to do when she found her, leaving her roaming the corridors without really looking where she was going. Her feet didn't quite get the order to stop, for her mind was too occupied in what kind of questions should she ask, what kind of answers did she want to hear, and what she would do if she didn't like them.
She would defend Catra, right? Like she always did.
Her mentor took a second to notice the notably upset soldier stop across the hall. The golden child had her gaze glued to the floor, and was visibly aware of the other's presence, but refused to start the conversation until she had a solid line of interrogation.
The mask squinted her eyes after a couple of seconds, and when another more passed, she opened, "Force Commander. Is there a problem?"
She clearly had business with her; she was basically blocking her path, although probably not intentionally. But this... Severity around her. Adora was one of the few people and the only cadet that saw her eye to eye without fear, even if it was mostly out of ignorance. She didn't have this kind of reaction when she told her Catra won't go with her onto the battlefield though, and Adora wasn't the kind of person to bottle up her feelings to later lash out, so what happened?
"Yes," she started with a growl, whipping her face up to meet the mask's gaze "I mean- I hav- Yes. There is, Shadow Weaver," she dropped her voice to her usual self realizing she probably gave a nasty glare judging by her previous tone.
The other woman chose to ignore this out of character behavior. Catra's doing, undoubtedly.
"And what would that be," The voice said; phrased as a question, delivered as an order.
Adora took a deep breath in, grasped the nicest looking question out of the bunch, and breathed out.
"Why... Is not Catra on my squad? Wait, no, that is- Why isn't any of the others on my-" A grunt. "Why isn't Catra Force Commander?!" she finally exhaled, cringing at how she raised her voice on the last part.
"I believe you-" Shadow Weaver started, slightly annoyed at the prospect of repeating herself.
"And I know you said she wasn't ready," Adora dismissed her. "Rogelio isn't ready, the others aren't ready, but Catra beats me almost every time we spar, even our superiors fear her, and the way she cheats to win should be both great qualities in a Horde Force Commander, right? So why did you pick me? We are invading the Whispering Woods with tanks and guns and all Bright Moon does is sending the couple of soldiers they can afford to spare! And I hate an unfair fight, I'm not ready!"
"Soldier, you're just nervous over your first-"
"What did you do to her?!" Adora bursted.
"That came out of nowhere," Shadow Weaver thought with wide eyes.
"...What did I do to-?"
"Catra! She was upset that she wasn't accepted, I know it! Because I was! But she didn't care, she had no intention to fight for it, she..." Adora lowered her eyes onto the ground again with the image of Catra crying on her mind.
The mask had grew menacingly angry at being yet again interrupted, but this put a smile underneath it.
"She finally learned her place, it would seem."
"What?" she looked into the white eyes again.
"She wasn't accepted because she would only slow you. The Sword only proves that you are destined to greatness, Adora, and if that makes Catra realize she doesn't deserve to take a part in that greatness, even better."
"But she does! I mean- Again with this? What did you..." she gulped remembering what she knew for a fact now, but decided that giving her the benefit of the doubt was the best choice "What did you mean when you said 'You were right with me'?" she asked carefully.
"I meant I was right when I took you in. You were different. Better. Des-"
"From where?"
The sorceress blinked, dumbfounded and interrupted again.
"That's besides the point."
"No it's not! We were... We were all taken in, right? Equally. That means all of us are the same! Catra and me, the rest!"
"No, Adora, you were not found like the rest," she gaged her words. "You appeared misteriously at the Fright Zone, and at first-"
"Lies!" A scream echoed.
She fumed, dissapointed and angry that in the opportunity to clear things, her mentor instead chose more lies. If this was something Shadow Weaver preferred to not let her know, then was there any doubt whether everything else Catra told her was true?
The mask was wided eyed again, but was further back. Shadow Waver had taken a step back from her, seemingly for precaution.
She looked down in confusion, and found herself blading the Sword with one hand. When had she taken the thing off her back?
"She looks small from afar, too," She-Ra thought.
"I know," she warned. "I know now," she adjusted her stance and held the Sword of Protection with both hands in a threat. "So I suggest you stop making things worse and tell me what really happened," she finally demanded, the part of her mind incapable of such assertiveness against her superior far gone.
Shadow Weaver eyed the Sword for a long moment before answering, "Adora, the Sword, I think it's magic has an effect on you. If you let me-"
"I said answer!" the tall blonde snarled, worse than the one before it.
The sorceress figured out that the metal corridors echoed the sound far enough to alert someone.
Not that she couldn't handle whatever magic this was. In the worst case, she could easily slip away.
Wagering her best option was to stall the conversation in the hopes someone was coming, Shadow Weaver decided to tell the events in full honesty. She didn't know exactly how much or how little Adora knew after all.
"Alright, if that's what you so desire:
"Every soldier in the Horde comes from another place, in some cases another dimension, through a failed teletransportation machine."
She-Ra scoffed.
"I guess you would call it stealing. Lord Hordak called it a failure, but when you arrived, I knew I was right to convince him to keep the thing running.
"We didn't knew where exactly the things that came out where coming from after all, and it only worked in one way, so we had nothing to lose. I, myself, had hoped the machine worked through time after the catgirl arrived, but no such luck."
"What? What do you-?" She-Ra backtracked.
"But when you arrived, I knew you were not from this world. You didn't feel Etherian, yet some other magic rested deep within you. Through my research of the runestone I learned about the First Ones, and then you came here with that Sword! Do you understand now?" the sorceress finished with exasperation, not comfortable explaining her thoughts in such transparency, yet irritated Adora couldn't just play her role in the grand scheme.
"No! Wh- Why didn't you tell us?!" she demanded in confusion.
"What use was there in telling you? If anything it would've made Catra more jealous of you," Shadow Weaver said with clear spite present in her voice.
"The only one jealous is you! You kept me- us trapped here to serve your war! I don't care for power or whatever it is you and Lord Hordak want; I saw the princesses, and they aren't anything like you taught us, so what is it?!" she blurted out, in the brink of desperation.
The other woman gave a low laugh.
"Of course they aren't, child. Did you really believe that lie?"
"What...? Catra was right?" she lowered her sword, dropping her stance.
Weaver snickered.
"Hardly. She thinks everyone lies to her, this is just something that happened to be true to that."
"She only wanted to be recognized!" She-Ra barked with newfound rage.
"Please, she wants what you have." she said, knowing no one would come; they would've arrived by now.
She-Ra just gritted her teeth, hardening her grip on the Sword and looking angrier by the second.
She was waiting for Weaver to give her a reason to at least partially justify a full-on assault. She was beyond redemption at this point, she reasoned, and someone desperately needed to hold her accountable for her actions.
Adora would've been terrified at the idea of playing judge, but She-Ra would gladly exert the role of executioner.
"We will leave," She-Ra stated before the idea fully formed on her head.
...What?" Shadow Weaver muttered.
"I said we will leave!" the Princess repeated herself, with more conviction this time.
"No! Stop this at once, soldier! I've spent years waiting for this moment to let that ungrateful child ruin it!" the sorceress could feel the shadows converging on her as she let her frustation out.
If Catra had managed to convince her somehow of escaping, there was nothing she could do to convince Adora otherwise. And who knew what effect the Sword was having on her.
No, she had to stop her before she gets the chance to run away. Someone surely would hear the confrontation at that point, in the unlikely case She-Ra bested her magic.
"We will leave, and you will stop talking about her like that!"
"Are you really this naive? When she is done using you, it'll be too late. She'll steal all your talent and leave you on your own! I knew it the instant I saw her, I've dealt with her kind. Jealous of our power... I should have killed her the moment she arrived!" the fallen prodigy spat.
If she was honest with herself, killing Catra, despite solving some long overdue problems, brought many other complications to the table, making the solution not worth the trouble in the long run. She knew this, because ever since she noticed the longing gaze the catgirl directed towards her star soldier, she started considering the idea.
She-Ra, however, didn't know this, but that was part of the plan. Shadow Weaver was baiting the anger out of Adora.
But neither her nor She-Ra accounted for the blind rage that fueled her movements for those moments.
Even when Shadow Weaver managed to not be thrown off by the guttural scream the other woman let out, the sword charged with unexpected speed, cutting through the half-formed magic shield like it was made out of paper in a wide arc swing. The princess wasted no time in capitalizing the momentary panic in her mentor's eyes, kicking her back, crashing with the metal wall, and managing to land face-up on the floor.
The woman on the floor was granted only a couple of seconds to try and recover from the impact before a sword was put on the left side of her neck.
"You will answer my questions, and I will know if you lie," her grip on the hilt tensed even more.
The sorceress didn't know how much She-Ra knew, and she wasn't in a position where she could test her luck either. The only thing she could do was make time; someone had to have heard their exchange.
For this time, she would tell the truth. She'd deal with the aftermath later, when she had control over the-
"Who else knows of the portal?" she firmly asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"Just... Just Lord Hordak and me."
"And only you are aware of our origins, yes? You kept it secret from him."
Shadow Weaver gritted her teeth. How much did she know, and how much was she guessing?
"Well, of course, he wanted to dispose of you-"
"Don't pretend you did it out of compassion. Now, what do you know about Catra?"
She sighed. This wasn't going to end well...
"I'm certain the machine works, or at least worked through time because she is a Magicat, a long extinct species."
"Extinct...? How? When?"
"That I do not know," the sorceress took a breath "but my research on the First Ones hints that they killed them."
The Sword was pushed closer to her neck.
"You're lying."
The mask shaked with a scoff.
"Why would I lie? The Magicat were apparently agressively protective over Etheria's magic, despite not being able of using it. When they found out the First Ones wanted to use the Runestones with their technology, they attacked unprovoked. In response, the First Ones erased them," she chuckled "It's funny, how fitting it is. They couldn't use the power they so righteously guarded, so they dragged everyone to their level, everyone but One."
The sword wasn't pressed against her neck anymore, but the burning sensation confirmed a cut had been made, consciously or otherwise.
Adora had shifted her focus, as if looking through Shadow Weaver. This continued for several seconds, nothing braking the silence between the two.
No footsteps, no shouts, no metal echoes that indicated
someone was coming their way. Against all odds, no one had heard their 'discussion'. No one was going to come.
When She-Ra returned her steel gaze to the sorceress, there was something else in her look. The anger was still there, but less raw and unpredictable. Instead, resolve was evident in her eyes, like she just decided something.
Shadow Weaver wondered if Adora already realized what was going to happen next.
"If we escape, would you leave us alone?" She-Ra asked.
She could feel the faint trail of blood traveling down her neck.
At the end of the day, she regretted nothing.
"No," she said calmly.
"...I had to try."
The Sword was raised in the air silently, and swung from right to left with no opposition.
Catra had spent the last minutes fixing her face from the recent drama display. Tears and fur didn't go well, and she had to even out the trails left under her eyes by the salty water.
She sighed. This was at least the third time a long gaze towards the horizon tempted her to just jump down and run away. Adora would come around eventually, and everything would return to normal. But in the past Catra knew what Adora had stormed off to do. She would excuse herself to train, or Shadow Weaver would call her. Actually, it was normally Catra who left the scene without a word, and the other girl would apologize for a list of different things, each and every single one not the reason Catra was mad in the first place.
But this time it had been Adora who left, and with ominous ambiguity of where she was off to. It sent a shiver down the catgirl's spine.
While Catra debated again why it was important that she waited for Adora in case she somehow got in trouble, her ears snapped around to hear footsteps down the hall, too heavy to be Adora's.
She turned with a hiss on her throat, only to find the tall blonde Princess turning the corner.
She slumped, too tired to try and guess for what purpose would Adora transform. Just as she was going to turn her back at her, she noticed the Sword.
There was blood on the Sword.
She got up and ran towards She-Ra, restraining herself from doing so in all fours in despair.
There was blood on her. Was it hers?
"Adora!" she shouted midway "Are you- Are you hurt?" she asked again once she got close enough to examine her.
The didn't seem to be any wounds on her body, but the red dots were still there.
"No, I'm fine," she replied, a little distant.
Seeing how that didn't stop Catra from staring at the stains on her and the Sword, she grabbed the sides of her arms as gently as possible and repeated:
"I'm fine. It's just..." she released her grip "There is something I need to tell you."
She-Ra always made Catra uncomfortable. She was a sort of exaggerated version of Adora: Taller, stronger, bulkier, blondier. Yet her eyes and her voice remained the same.
When she talked to her, Catra had to tilt her head up. It felt wrong, unnatural to talk to her friend like this. It didn't help that this was the first time Adora looked at her with that expression.
"What happened?" Catra asked, trying to read the blonde's face.
The story of the portal didn't interest her at the moment. Or rather, it didn't interest her, period. She knew Adora was not from 'here', and she knew herself wasn't born here. The only difference was that now she could say what kind of different she was.
Maybe later she would get angry at the world for her species' genocide or something. Now her head was full of anticipation, or more precisely, dread. The whole walk back she glanced towars the Sword, now on She-Ra's bsck, still painted with that red.
Still, none of the dozen possible scenarios that played on her head were even remotely close to the scene around the corner.
She went for a scream, but a yelp came out instead, her voice caught up in her throat.
Too panicked to talk, too shocked to run; she took a couple of steps back, and froze there, on She-Ra's side.
She looked at the body, then at the Sword, then at the head, then at She-
...
Who was she?
"Adora?" she almost whispered.
"She was responsible, Catra. For everything. She wouldn't have left us alone, she wouldn't have left you alone. I needed to stop her."
"A-Adora..." she didn't hear herself speaking for the second time. All she could see were the eyes. The burning eyes.
This wasn't Adora.
"You told me, and I... I should've listened. But I didn't," she grabbed her hands. At some point, the eyes weren't above her anymore, but where they always were "And I am terribly sorry for that."
This was Adora.
She cupped her face with her hands, deepening whatever effect her gaze was having on her.
This wasn't Adora.
"No one, is ever going to hurt you again. Okay?" she said with fierce determination, yet the final question was asked with softness. Almost like she needed permission, a confirmation to seal whatever oath she already swore.
This was Adora.
Catra only nodded. Moments later, she was being embraced, and her trance broke. She was lucid now.
The emotions came. If her claws accidently grabbing unto Adora's back hurt her, she didn't show any signs of it.
Shadow Weaver, their mentor, was dead. Her head laid on the ground apart from the body, and her blood was partially on Adora's Sword, the thing that killed her.
Adora killed her. Because Catra told her to confront her, and now she swore to protect her. Was she going to behead everyone that ever laid a finger on her? What was her plan? What would they do? What would she do? Would she leave Adora? Was this even Adora? She must be, when she held her close, she felt like her. But Adora wouldn't...
The person in question broke the hug and placed her hands on Catra's shoulders, a half smile on her lips.
She seemed content, grim as it sounds.
Catra didn't take her eyes off the other girl that night.
Obviously, in Adora's head, she did the right thing, and there was no other way around it. That was the point wasn't it?
"I wanted to ask some question to Hordak first," the blonde said, her gaze hardening while glancing to the body "But," the eyes looked at Catra again "I'm always the one leaving you behind, I realize that now... So, from here on out, we go together," she chuckled a bit, and took a quick breath steading herself "What do we do now?"
It suddenly clicked: It didn't matter how horrible it was what happened, because Adora thought she did the right thing, and they were a team. No one would separate them now, no one could.
"We conquer the world, no?" Catra breathed out.
So why did she have this sick feeling deep inside?
Author's Note:
I've said this before, but FFN App's Document Manager is jackshit, and I will never see those 1k words again.
AnyHOO, there it is. Thank you for reading this far!
In case you got lost, you must have sensed some Stockholm syndrome brewing there, otherwise I suck at writing. Other than that, the edgyness should feel as justified as possible, and yes, this Shadow Weaver is nastier that canon, along with Adora being more blindly righteous and Catra being more... Dunno, angstier?
Oh, and I'm aware this is censored violence. It will get graphic in some parts, just a heads up, but it won't be the main focus by any means, this is drama/angst/mind break after all.
I have a plot plan, and it's different from canon not just in the characters (Magicats, duh), so if for whatever reason your curious enough about some plotpoints, ask in a review and I'll answer it.
Edit: Formatting.
And what I mean with FFN's mobile doc manager is, I was writing, saving, browsing references/spelling, the app restarted, I say "it's fine cuz I saved it" but guess what, think again dummy because half the chapter is gone! Everything after She-Ra's kick was rewritten, which sucks because writing an execution without it overflowing edgyness is hard.
This isn't a problem with my phone either, I've used three phones over the years and it has happened at least once in each. The most infuriating thing is that I can see the recent version on the list, but I can't recover it.
Why, yes, I'm still mad half a month later, what gave it away?