Chapter 3; Freedom vs. Freewill
Catra grimaced with distaste as she went down the line of villagers standing before her. They were a weak and pathetic lot. They smelled as well. Of sweat and manure. Her upper lip curled in disdain and she growled softly. She hated farmers.
"Rowww, is this the best you could do?" she purred to Mantenna.
"Leech is rounding up the rest of them right now force captainnnn'." He rumbled back in his irritating metallic whine.
"Very well, hmmm." She went down the line sizing each villager by musculature and health, they were 'recruiting' workers for the mines of Mondor. Many had died recently due to poor living conditions but the demand for the Etherium they extracted had not decreased simply because the number of workers had.
Hordak had been very explicit in telling her to take only the strongest specimens, leaving the rest to harvest foodstuffs the town produced to feed his troops. Pointing to a group of six men standing shoulder to shoulder she gestured that they should be taken and continued down the line. A slight smile parting her lips as she listened to the wails of a woman standing nearby.
A particularly large lad wouldn't look up at her so she grasped him by the chin and forced him to. He must have just gone through his growth spurt. The first stages of manhood were upon him. He wouldn't last a year in the mines with those fine lines. His back arched gracefully and though his muscles were not extreme he was molded of fine sinews with no ounce wasted to fat. He was beautiful. If allowed to grow to manhood here he'd become an exceptionally good looking young man.
In the mines his back would grow stooped from endless days of heavy labor and his eyesight weak from the constant dark. She looked into his eyes. He had a fire there. It reminded her of the Sea Hawk, a man she had once desired for herself.
Her smile slipped and she gestured that they take him as well. That fire would die soon. The slave drivers would extinguish it quickly.
"Nooooo!" This came from a young, blond peasant woman in a blue tunic. "Please I beg you, don't send him to the mines! He's just a boy!" Catra's smile returned and she purred in delight. She loved toying with a victim.
"Rowww, would you like to go in his place, I'd be purrfectly willing to strike a bargain with you." The woman looked at her son hopelessly, tears streaming down her face. Her son shook his head negatively.
"Mother I'll be fine, you care for Julie, she needs her mother." Sniffling softly in anguished protest the woman backed away, but not before shooting Catra a venomous look of pure hatred. Catra's patience, always in short supply snapped and she reached out, grabbing the woman by her hair and shoving her towards the troopers.
"Guards, take this one too," then she turned her menacing gaze on the crowd, "let that be a lesson to you all. Never question the wisdom of the Horde again." She began to walk away when a familiar voice stopped her cold.
"Now, now, that's a bad pussycat, why don't you let the nice people go." Catra whirled around her emerald eyes narrowing to slits of menace. Adora, flanked by two of her rebel friends, the succulent Bow and that annoying brat, princess Glimmer of Brightmoon.
"Troops! Get them!" Catra lowered her mask and her blood burned with liquid heat as she transformed.
"I've got her Adora," shouted Glimmer, "you free the villagers!"
"Right." Adora sped off towards the transport. Glimmer found her center, where the magic slept nestled inside her, then forcing it outward in a burst of hyper-focused concentrated energy, lavender beams writhed their way around Catra's cat form lifting her high and hurling her thirty feet through the air into a stack of ale barrels. Catra lay there, dazed, in the dirt, struggling to regain her wind and reorient herself. Glimmer smiled slightly.
Mantenna on the other hand shot out his insectiod yellow eyes and began aiming a red beam at her making her lightheaded. His tinny laughter echoed in her ears as she fought to stand.
"My balance distortion ray will make you helpless, heee-hee-hee!"
"I don't think so bughead! Not while I am around to stop you." Bow lifted his sleeping powder arrow taking swift aim at Mantenna's face before firing. The Pouch burst on impact, knocking Mantenna to the ground, he weaved a bit before collapsing unconscious.
Bow went to tie him up.
Glimmer went after Catra who was still recovering in her feline form, as Glimmer ran over to Catra a saucy smile flashed across her face. Passing a booth belonging to a fishmonger she grabbed one of the papers used to wrap fish in and rolled it into a tight cone. Coming alongside Catra she gave the violet panther a hard whack on the nose.
"Bad kitty, bad girl. No more slaves, no more." Catra sneezed violently until her mask flew off. Glimmer smacked her again for good measure as she transformed back into a human. It slapped Catra smack in the center of her face, she howled in rage and would have leapt at her had Glimmer done nothing, but with the last of her power Glimmer released another wave of telekinetic energy lifting Catra and hurling her the fifty yards to the slave transport, slamming her against the metal hull. Catra slumped, unconscious, to the ground.
Meanwhile Adora ran over to the two troopers loading people onto the slave transporter. One took aim and fired at her twice. She dove to the ground and rolled, never ceasing her momentum as she rose to her feet and continued running.
Before he could get off another shot she slid to the ground, rolling onto her back and kicking the freeze ray out of his stunned hand with one foot, then bringing it down swiftly and using a scissor-like motion, slammed her leg into the front of his ankles while slapping the other one into the back of his knees, causing him to fall. She grabbed his shoulders as leverage as he went down to shoot her up quickly and knock the stun gun out of the other guard's hand. He reached for her but she ducked while drawing her sword which she slammed, flatside, into the back of his head. The tincan went down and did not get up.
Sheathing her sword she grabbed his stun gun and turned to the people who were now fleeing in all directions. Her gaze peered out over the crowd, searching for her friends when she spotted a disgustingly thick- lipped blue face staring at her.
Leech.
As soon as she spotted him the coward turned to run. She tried to get a shot off over the crowd but the people kept getting in her way. Cursing softly she used the gun to shove people aside as she tore off after him.
Bow had just finished tying up Catra when he saw Adora shoot by him in a blaze of scarlet. "Glimmer you watch these two while I help Adora." Then he ran off after her.
Adora saw Leech duck down an alley just ahead so she renewed her speed and followed him knowing that the alley dead-ended. Bow was right on her heels. They had him cornered.
They had him cornered. As soon as Adora saw him Leech knew he was in trouble. Sneak attacks were his specialty. If he could get behind a person and stick his suckers to their head he could absorb their neurological energy and make it his own. The more powerful the person, the sweeter the Hi; he knew Adora would be sweet indeed, but he'd never get a hold of her in a fair fight.
So he ran.
Sweat rolled off his blue wrinkled form in malodorous waves and dribble spilled from his mouth as he contemplated the wall in front of him. Adora would have him soon.
Once again she would conquer him and he would be humiliated in the eyes of his people and the horde and worse Hordak would punish him. Hordaks punishments were often painful and sometimes meant loss of a specific body part and or cybernetic implant. He knew Adora wouldn't kill him, he sometimes wished she would.
Almost.
Adora came racing around the corner. Knowing it was useless Leech leapt at her anyway. She fired the stunner. He fell to the ground unable to move but hearing everything.
"Well Adora, we make a pretty good team, don't we?"
Adora laughed lightly, "yes Bow we do indeed, although taking down a goon like Leech is hardly worthy of a team effort. Besides," she smirked, "you didn't do anything." Leech seethed. They were laughing at him.
"I guess your right, ol' suckerpuss didn't even put up much of a fight, actually I'm kinda' disappointed."
"Not me," Adora remarked, the disdain in her voice echoing in his ears, "Leech did exactly as I expected. He never does anything on his own. He's a coward through and through and doesn't have an original thought in his head not put there by his commander. Spiritina could take him, on a bad day, without breaking a sweat- so long as he didn't sneak up on her." They both laughed.
Leech burned with shame and indignation. To be a joke, a laughingstock to his enemies was bad enough, but to have them speak so as if he couldn't hear them when he was right there enraged him. Every time he had ever been humiliated by Adora or the rebels and then punished by Hordak flashed through his brain like molten lead being poured on an open wound. He began to quiver with rage. Hordak was going to hurt him when he returned to the fright zone. There was no escaping that. The others would be punished but they had not run. He would be hurt and these rebels were laughing. He'd show them. First chance he got he would show them just how original Leech could be.
"What should we do with him?" Bow asked as they contemplated their prisoner.
"Just stick him with the others I suppose." Adora said. "He can pilot the slave transport back to the fright zone after Glimmer disables the weapons systems."
"Should we tie him up?" Asked Bow frowning.
"No, if we hold a stun gun on him and keep it pointed at his yellow back, we can walk him back to the transporter like a doggie on a leash." Bow frowned not approving, but unwilling to voice his dissent in front of their captive.
"As you wish Adora. Get up you sniveling bottomfeeder." Bow snapped as he drew back his foot and kicked him in the stomach. Slowly and painfully Leech rose to his feet. He burned with shame and anger but did exactly as Adora had said he would. Everything would have proceeded from there nicely except for one thing.
As the townspeople looked on in glee from the sidelines they thought the danger was over and they cheered to see the rebels lead such a villain to the transport so easily. A small boy ran over to Adora and threw his arms around her leg. Adora wobbled and lowered her gaze to the child, Leech spun around and grasping the child at the temples his suckers expanded and began to glow.
"Come no closer rebel scum. If you shoot me I will drain the life from this boys body and you will be responsible for his death. It doesn't take much, just a little added focus to one thought and he'll be dead in a second!" He began to make gleeful sucking sounds assured of his triumph. "You two drop your weapons and stay right here I'm leaving. You will find the boy at the edge of town, maybe alive, maybe not."
He laughed a hateful and revolting sound, slobber issuing offensively from his fanged orifice. "Who's the trained doggie now?! Who's too afrfrfraid now! Who doesn't do anything on his own?!" He laughed evilly taking the boy and heading away. Then he rounded a corner and was out of sight.
A woman began wailing, why did they always do that? Bow and Adora made eye contact, both nodding slightly, then Adora ran to a building front and began to scale the walls as Bow ran after Leech.
Adora wanted to change to She-ra but there was no time, she had to reach that boy. She'd been a fool to show mercy to that wretch Leech. Now an innocent might suffer because of her. Effortlessly Adora leapt from rooftop to rooftop, her mind awash in recriminations. They shouldn't have taunted him. He was in a rage now, there was no telling what he might do. He had obviously taken exception to their disparaging remarks about his character but to harm a child was beyond the pale. Adora had never wanted to kill before but if Leech hurt that child because of her she would cut him open herself. She made it to the last building and flipped to the ground and began running to the woods. Leech was just disappearing but it wasn't him she was after.
It was the body of the fallen boy.
He lay on the ground, his face drained of color, his limbs motionless, still as death. Panic engulfed her as she fell to the ground, searing her lungs with white agony as she felt for a pulse she didn't really expect to be there. There was one but it was thready and weak. Bow skidded to a halt beside her.
"Where's Leech!" He demanded out of breath.
"Don't worry about him! Bow run back and fetch the healer quickly!" His Hazel eyes widened as they took in the boys pallor.
"Is he-"
"Bow! Hurry, Go now! His life depends on your speed!" Bow didn't hesitate a moment longer. He ran as if the Horde Master himself were at his heels. Adora didn't even bother to wait until he was out of sight.
She raised her sword above her head, its glinting tip piercing the golden sky in starlit defiance.
"For the Honor, Of Grayskull" A golden aurora of shimmering sparks flared to life all around her, creating a vortex of awesome power, swirling energy in violent waves. Slowly her sword lowered as a vacuum inside of her opened up to swallow Adora, all frail and weak and full of doubts, to release the mighty warrior within.
And She burst into blazing battle-glory being. A golden Valkyrie from the Norse myths of her mothers home world Earth. She was legend and dream and power and hope and wonder given form.
"I am She-ra!"
The whole universe exploded in a blazing shower of power, the vacuum disappeared with Adora and She-ra stood in her place. Beautiful, calm, focused, deadly. But She-ra was more than simply a powerful warrior.
Being woman her heart was full of endless compassion and love. She was a gifted healer and empath. She lay her hands on the boy's head. Tears flowing unchecked and unquenched from sapphire eyes as she absorbed his pain and made it her own.
He was nearly dead.
It was a miracle he lived even now. She-ra fought that fight that no one wins with every ounce of her existence as she knocked death away from the boy and pulled his soul back from that dark brink. A soft moan issued from her throat. Her head was afire, it burned all the way to the veins within.
"For…the…honor of….Grey..skull…" The pain slowly began to ebb to a dull throb then nothing. She-ra looked down. The boy's color had returned to normal and he was breathing deeply. He had not awakened but she knew he was well.
No one had appeared yet. Raising her sword yet again she changed back into Adora then picked the child's limp form up from the ground and began walking back to town. Bow met her halfway back, the boy's mother and a healer at his side, Glimmer and a mob of concerned citizens at his back. At the sight of her walking, with the boy hanging limply in her arms, the mother assuming the worst collapsed to the ground shrieking in anguished sorrow.
Bow gazed at Adora his eyes begging her to deny it. She didn't look at him, she went straight to the grief stricken woman's side.
"It's alright. She-ra saved him." The woman's sobbing intensified she all but snatched the child from Adora and clutching him tightly to her breast she began rocking him back and forth, kissing his brow.
Adora stood, her face a cool mask of barely contained rage as she faced the people of Gunthor. A town which had refused to aid the rebellion either with supplies or volunteers. Her steely voice rang out into the now ever darkening evening, cold and unflinching and unforgiving.
"See. This is what serving the Horde has cost you. Loyalty to the Horde gains you nothing, at least siding with us you fight for a chance to grant your children and their children freedom."
"We thank you for saving us, " an old man whom Adora knew led the town stepped forward to act as their voice, "but we again say we will not risk our lives or our town to help you. Please understand, we are afraid. We merely want peace." Adora gazed at him. Mute with shock. She gazed stricken across the crowd. Not many would meet her eyes. Fury coursed through her.
"Is this peace!" She cried, her arm making a wide sweeping gesture over the woman and her child. "Is this what you all want, to live with the fear that some angry Hordesman will try to steal the lives of your children?! Etherians, awake. You do not want peace. You seek to be slaves! You seek to sacrifice your children to the craven appetites of the Horde because you're too afraid to fight for what's important. This is not peace!" Not one person would look at her a few started to walk away.
Adora drew her sword.
The metallic hiss of metal against leather caused many to look over and many were shocked as she raised the sword above her head in a threatening gesture. In a calm and gentle voice belying the cold light in her eyes she softly spoke.
"Step aside ma'am. I need to have a clean stroke." The crowd gasped. Bows mouth dropped open, his eyes widening in absolute shock. Glimmers face whitened. Whimpering the woman clutched her son tighter to her chest.
"Ma'am, move aside please, believe me this is for the best."
"Adora stop, this is madness-" Bow began, but Adora turned on him a look so feral that he nearly bit his tongue, he stepped back unsure what to do. She was his leader but he would not allow her to hurt that child. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and prepared to fire on a woman who was dearer to his heart than any he had known for many years.
"Bow, it's better this way," Adora spoke gently in a voice awful with its quiet conviction, "don't you understand. I offer him a quick death. Clean and easy. These people" and she spat the word as if it befouled her mouth, "they offer him a life without hope, without freedom, without joy. They will kill him a little bit at a time. It is so much uglier that way." Bow spoke just as gently.
"It is their village Adora and their choice to make not yours."
"But it's the wrong choice!" She flared.
"But theirs. Not yours." Bows tone was firm. He pulled back his arrow getting a bead on her throat. Perspiration breaking out across his forehead to drip down his cheek. 'By the Ancients,' Bow prayed to himself, 'Adora, don't make me do this!'
Adora's arm lowered slightly. She reached down with her free hand to caress the sleeping child's cheek. The mother whimpered but made no move to stop her. There was a new sadness in Adora's eyes behind her fury.
"Very well. So be it." Bow breathed a sigh of relief only to choke on it as she whirled around and pointed her sword at the hushed crowd.
"You're all sheep." She said it softly with great sorrow but her voice gained in volume as she continued. "Bow is right it is your choice. To be free or to be sheep. Very well. I leave you all to your peace. The Rebellion will never again aid even one person from this village. She-ra will never again aid this village. You are all dead. And not one drop of rebel blood will be shed, not one tear will be cried and not one wink of sleep will be lost pondering the fate of the animated corpses of Gunthor, for we know your fate."
She paused for effect, giving the people time to absorb her words before continuing.
"You are the sheep to be slaughtered on Hordaks throne, your blood shall color the banner of tyranny he waves over the land. It is over." Total silence greeted her proclamation. She sheathed her sword and gestured for Bow and Glimmer to follow her, which they did.
In silence they mounted their horses and headed back to camp. Each one lost in troubled thoughts.
Catra grimaced with distaste as she went down the line of villagers standing before her. They were a weak and pathetic lot. They smelled as well. Of sweat and manure. Her upper lip curled in disdain and she growled softly. She hated farmers.
"Rowww, is this the best you could do?" she purred to Mantenna.
"Leech is rounding up the rest of them right now force captainnnn'." He rumbled back in his irritating metallic whine.
"Very well, hmmm." She went down the line sizing each villager by musculature and health, they were 'recruiting' workers for the mines of Mondor. Many had died recently due to poor living conditions but the demand for the Etherium they extracted had not decreased simply because the number of workers had.
Hordak had been very explicit in telling her to take only the strongest specimens, leaving the rest to harvest foodstuffs the town produced to feed his troops. Pointing to a group of six men standing shoulder to shoulder she gestured that they should be taken and continued down the line. A slight smile parting her lips as she listened to the wails of a woman standing nearby.
A particularly large lad wouldn't look up at her so she grasped him by the chin and forced him to. He must have just gone through his growth spurt. The first stages of manhood were upon him. He wouldn't last a year in the mines with those fine lines. His back arched gracefully and though his muscles were not extreme he was molded of fine sinews with no ounce wasted to fat. He was beautiful. If allowed to grow to manhood here he'd become an exceptionally good looking young man.
In the mines his back would grow stooped from endless days of heavy labor and his eyesight weak from the constant dark. She looked into his eyes. He had a fire there. It reminded her of the Sea Hawk, a man she had once desired for herself.
Her smile slipped and she gestured that they take him as well. That fire would die soon. The slave drivers would extinguish it quickly.
"Nooooo!" This came from a young, blond peasant woman in a blue tunic. "Please I beg you, don't send him to the mines! He's just a boy!" Catra's smile returned and she purred in delight. She loved toying with a victim.
"Rowww, would you like to go in his place, I'd be purrfectly willing to strike a bargain with you." The woman looked at her son hopelessly, tears streaming down her face. Her son shook his head negatively.
"Mother I'll be fine, you care for Julie, she needs her mother." Sniffling softly in anguished protest the woman backed away, but not before shooting Catra a venomous look of pure hatred. Catra's patience, always in short supply snapped and she reached out, grabbing the woman by her hair and shoving her towards the troopers.
"Guards, take this one too," then she turned her menacing gaze on the crowd, "let that be a lesson to you all. Never question the wisdom of the Horde again." She began to walk away when a familiar voice stopped her cold.
"Now, now, that's a bad pussycat, why don't you let the nice people go." Catra whirled around her emerald eyes narrowing to slits of menace. Adora, flanked by two of her rebel friends, the succulent Bow and that annoying brat, princess Glimmer of Brightmoon.
"Troops! Get them!" Catra lowered her mask and her blood burned with liquid heat as she transformed.
"I've got her Adora," shouted Glimmer, "you free the villagers!"
"Right." Adora sped off towards the transport. Glimmer found her center, where the magic slept nestled inside her, then forcing it outward in a burst of hyper-focused concentrated energy, lavender beams writhed their way around Catra's cat form lifting her high and hurling her thirty feet through the air into a stack of ale barrels. Catra lay there, dazed, in the dirt, struggling to regain her wind and reorient herself. Glimmer smiled slightly.
Mantenna on the other hand shot out his insectiod yellow eyes and began aiming a red beam at her making her lightheaded. His tinny laughter echoed in her ears as she fought to stand.
"My balance distortion ray will make you helpless, heee-hee-hee!"
"I don't think so bughead! Not while I am around to stop you." Bow lifted his sleeping powder arrow taking swift aim at Mantenna's face before firing. The Pouch burst on impact, knocking Mantenna to the ground, he weaved a bit before collapsing unconscious.
Bow went to tie him up.
Glimmer went after Catra who was still recovering in her feline form, as Glimmer ran over to Catra a saucy smile flashed across her face. Passing a booth belonging to a fishmonger she grabbed one of the papers used to wrap fish in and rolled it into a tight cone. Coming alongside Catra she gave the violet panther a hard whack on the nose.
"Bad kitty, bad girl. No more slaves, no more." Catra sneezed violently until her mask flew off. Glimmer smacked her again for good measure as she transformed back into a human. It slapped Catra smack in the center of her face, she howled in rage and would have leapt at her had Glimmer done nothing, but with the last of her power Glimmer released another wave of telekinetic energy lifting Catra and hurling her the fifty yards to the slave transport, slamming her against the metal hull. Catra slumped, unconscious, to the ground.
Meanwhile Adora ran over to the two troopers loading people onto the slave transporter. One took aim and fired at her twice. She dove to the ground and rolled, never ceasing her momentum as she rose to her feet and continued running.
Before he could get off another shot she slid to the ground, rolling onto her back and kicking the freeze ray out of his stunned hand with one foot, then bringing it down swiftly and using a scissor-like motion, slammed her leg into the front of his ankles while slapping the other one into the back of his knees, causing him to fall. She grabbed his shoulders as leverage as he went down to shoot her up quickly and knock the stun gun out of the other guard's hand. He reached for her but she ducked while drawing her sword which she slammed, flatside, into the back of his head. The tincan went down and did not get up.
Sheathing her sword she grabbed his stun gun and turned to the people who were now fleeing in all directions. Her gaze peered out over the crowd, searching for her friends when she spotted a disgustingly thick- lipped blue face staring at her.
Leech.
As soon as she spotted him the coward turned to run. She tried to get a shot off over the crowd but the people kept getting in her way. Cursing softly she used the gun to shove people aside as she tore off after him.
Bow had just finished tying up Catra when he saw Adora shoot by him in a blaze of scarlet. "Glimmer you watch these two while I help Adora." Then he ran off after her.
Adora saw Leech duck down an alley just ahead so she renewed her speed and followed him knowing that the alley dead-ended. Bow was right on her heels. They had him cornered.
They had him cornered. As soon as Adora saw him Leech knew he was in trouble. Sneak attacks were his specialty. If he could get behind a person and stick his suckers to their head he could absorb their neurological energy and make it his own. The more powerful the person, the sweeter the Hi; he knew Adora would be sweet indeed, but he'd never get a hold of her in a fair fight.
So he ran.
Sweat rolled off his blue wrinkled form in malodorous waves and dribble spilled from his mouth as he contemplated the wall in front of him. Adora would have him soon.
Once again she would conquer him and he would be humiliated in the eyes of his people and the horde and worse Hordak would punish him. Hordaks punishments were often painful and sometimes meant loss of a specific body part and or cybernetic implant. He knew Adora wouldn't kill him, he sometimes wished she would.
Almost.
Adora came racing around the corner. Knowing it was useless Leech leapt at her anyway. She fired the stunner. He fell to the ground unable to move but hearing everything.
"Well Adora, we make a pretty good team, don't we?"
Adora laughed lightly, "yes Bow we do indeed, although taking down a goon like Leech is hardly worthy of a team effort. Besides," she smirked, "you didn't do anything." Leech seethed. They were laughing at him.
"I guess your right, ol' suckerpuss didn't even put up much of a fight, actually I'm kinda' disappointed."
"Not me," Adora remarked, the disdain in her voice echoing in his ears, "Leech did exactly as I expected. He never does anything on his own. He's a coward through and through and doesn't have an original thought in his head not put there by his commander. Spiritina could take him, on a bad day, without breaking a sweat- so long as he didn't sneak up on her." They both laughed.
Leech burned with shame and indignation. To be a joke, a laughingstock to his enemies was bad enough, but to have them speak so as if he couldn't hear them when he was right there enraged him. Every time he had ever been humiliated by Adora or the rebels and then punished by Hordak flashed through his brain like molten lead being poured on an open wound. He began to quiver with rage. Hordak was going to hurt him when he returned to the fright zone. There was no escaping that. The others would be punished but they had not run. He would be hurt and these rebels were laughing. He'd show them. First chance he got he would show them just how original Leech could be.
"What should we do with him?" Bow asked as they contemplated their prisoner.
"Just stick him with the others I suppose." Adora said. "He can pilot the slave transport back to the fright zone after Glimmer disables the weapons systems."
"Should we tie him up?" Asked Bow frowning.
"No, if we hold a stun gun on him and keep it pointed at his yellow back, we can walk him back to the transporter like a doggie on a leash." Bow frowned not approving, but unwilling to voice his dissent in front of their captive.
"As you wish Adora. Get up you sniveling bottomfeeder." Bow snapped as he drew back his foot and kicked him in the stomach. Slowly and painfully Leech rose to his feet. He burned with shame and anger but did exactly as Adora had said he would. Everything would have proceeded from there nicely except for one thing.
As the townspeople looked on in glee from the sidelines they thought the danger was over and they cheered to see the rebels lead such a villain to the transport so easily. A small boy ran over to Adora and threw his arms around her leg. Adora wobbled and lowered her gaze to the child, Leech spun around and grasping the child at the temples his suckers expanded and began to glow.
"Come no closer rebel scum. If you shoot me I will drain the life from this boys body and you will be responsible for his death. It doesn't take much, just a little added focus to one thought and he'll be dead in a second!" He began to make gleeful sucking sounds assured of his triumph. "You two drop your weapons and stay right here I'm leaving. You will find the boy at the edge of town, maybe alive, maybe not."
He laughed a hateful and revolting sound, slobber issuing offensively from his fanged orifice. "Who's the trained doggie now?! Who's too afrfrfraid now! Who doesn't do anything on his own?!" He laughed evilly taking the boy and heading away. Then he rounded a corner and was out of sight.
A woman began wailing, why did they always do that? Bow and Adora made eye contact, both nodding slightly, then Adora ran to a building front and began to scale the walls as Bow ran after Leech.
Adora wanted to change to She-ra but there was no time, she had to reach that boy. She'd been a fool to show mercy to that wretch Leech. Now an innocent might suffer because of her. Effortlessly Adora leapt from rooftop to rooftop, her mind awash in recriminations. They shouldn't have taunted him. He was in a rage now, there was no telling what he might do. He had obviously taken exception to their disparaging remarks about his character but to harm a child was beyond the pale. Adora had never wanted to kill before but if Leech hurt that child because of her she would cut him open herself. She made it to the last building and flipped to the ground and began running to the woods. Leech was just disappearing but it wasn't him she was after.
It was the body of the fallen boy.
He lay on the ground, his face drained of color, his limbs motionless, still as death. Panic engulfed her as she fell to the ground, searing her lungs with white agony as she felt for a pulse she didn't really expect to be there. There was one but it was thready and weak. Bow skidded to a halt beside her.
"Where's Leech!" He demanded out of breath.
"Don't worry about him! Bow run back and fetch the healer quickly!" His Hazel eyes widened as they took in the boys pallor.
"Is he-"
"Bow! Hurry, Go now! His life depends on your speed!" Bow didn't hesitate a moment longer. He ran as if the Horde Master himself were at his heels. Adora didn't even bother to wait until he was out of sight.
She raised her sword above her head, its glinting tip piercing the golden sky in starlit defiance.
"For the Honor, Of Grayskull" A golden aurora of shimmering sparks flared to life all around her, creating a vortex of awesome power, swirling energy in violent waves. Slowly her sword lowered as a vacuum inside of her opened up to swallow Adora, all frail and weak and full of doubts, to release the mighty warrior within.
And She burst into blazing battle-glory being. A golden Valkyrie from the Norse myths of her mothers home world Earth. She was legend and dream and power and hope and wonder given form.
"I am She-ra!"
The whole universe exploded in a blazing shower of power, the vacuum disappeared with Adora and She-ra stood in her place. Beautiful, calm, focused, deadly. But She-ra was more than simply a powerful warrior.
Being woman her heart was full of endless compassion and love. She was a gifted healer and empath. She lay her hands on the boy's head. Tears flowing unchecked and unquenched from sapphire eyes as she absorbed his pain and made it her own.
He was nearly dead.
It was a miracle he lived even now. She-ra fought that fight that no one wins with every ounce of her existence as she knocked death away from the boy and pulled his soul back from that dark brink. A soft moan issued from her throat. Her head was afire, it burned all the way to the veins within.
"For…the…honor of….Grey..skull…" The pain slowly began to ebb to a dull throb then nothing. She-ra looked down. The boy's color had returned to normal and he was breathing deeply. He had not awakened but she knew he was well.
No one had appeared yet. Raising her sword yet again she changed back into Adora then picked the child's limp form up from the ground and began walking back to town. Bow met her halfway back, the boy's mother and a healer at his side, Glimmer and a mob of concerned citizens at his back. At the sight of her walking, with the boy hanging limply in her arms, the mother assuming the worst collapsed to the ground shrieking in anguished sorrow.
Bow gazed at Adora his eyes begging her to deny it. She didn't look at him, she went straight to the grief stricken woman's side.
"It's alright. She-ra saved him." The woman's sobbing intensified she all but snatched the child from Adora and clutching him tightly to her breast she began rocking him back and forth, kissing his brow.
Adora stood, her face a cool mask of barely contained rage as she faced the people of Gunthor. A town which had refused to aid the rebellion either with supplies or volunteers. Her steely voice rang out into the now ever darkening evening, cold and unflinching and unforgiving.
"See. This is what serving the Horde has cost you. Loyalty to the Horde gains you nothing, at least siding with us you fight for a chance to grant your children and their children freedom."
"We thank you for saving us, " an old man whom Adora knew led the town stepped forward to act as their voice, "but we again say we will not risk our lives or our town to help you. Please understand, we are afraid. We merely want peace." Adora gazed at him. Mute with shock. She gazed stricken across the crowd. Not many would meet her eyes. Fury coursed through her.
"Is this peace!" She cried, her arm making a wide sweeping gesture over the woman and her child. "Is this what you all want, to live with the fear that some angry Hordesman will try to steal the lives of your children?! Etherians, awake. You do not want peace. You seek to be slaves! You seek to sacrifice your children to the craven appetites of the Horde because you're too afraid to fight for what's important. This is not peace!" Not one person would look at her a few started to walk away.
Adora drew her sword.
The metallic hiss of metal against leather caused many to look over and many were shocked as she raised the sword above her head in a threatening gesture. In a calm and gentle voice belying the cold light in her eyes she softly spoke.
"Step aside ma'am. I need to have a clean stroke." The crowd gasped. Bows mouth dropped open, his eyes widening in absolute shock. Glimmers face whitened. Whimpering the woman clutched her son tighter to her chest.
"Ma'am, move aside please, believe me this is for the best."
"Adora stop, this is madness-" Bow began, but Adora turned on him a look so feral that he nearly bit his tongue, he stepped back unsure what to do. She was his leader but he would not allow her to hurt that child. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and prepared to fire on a woman who was dearer to his heart than any he had known for many years.
"Bow, it's better this way," Adora spoke gently in a voice awful with its quiet conviction, "don't you understand. I offer him a quick death. Clean and easy. These people" and she spat the word as if it befouled her mouth, "they offer him a life without hope, without freedom, without joy. They will kill him a little bit at a time. It is so much uglier that way." Bow spoke just as gently.
"It is their village Adora and their choice to make not yours."
"But it's the wrong choice!" She flared.
"But theirs. Not yours." Bows tone was firm. He pulled back his arrow getting a bead on her throat. Perspiration breaking out across his forehead to drip down his cheek. 'By the Ancients,' Bow prayed to himself, 'Adora, don't make me do this!'
Adora's arm lowered slightly. She reached down with her free hand to caress the sleeping child's cheek. The mother whimpered but made no move to stop her. There was a new sadness in Adora's eyes behind her fury.
"Very well. So be it." Bow breathed a sigh of relief only to choke on it as she whirled around and pointed her sword at the hushed crowd.
"You're all sheep." She said it softly with great sorrow but her voice gained in volume as she continued. "Bow is right it is your choice. To be free or to be sheep. Very well. I leave you all to your peace. The Rebellion will never again aid even one person from this village. She-ra will never again aid this village. You are all dead. And not one drop of rebel blood will be shed, not one tear will be cried and not one wink of sleep will be lost pondering the fate of the animated corpses of Gunthor, for we know your fate."
She paused for effect, giving the people time to absorb her words before continuing.
"You are the sheep to be slaughtered on Hordaks throne, your blood shall color the banner of tyranny he waves over the land. It is over." Total silence greeted her proclamation. She sheathed her sword and gestured for Bow and Glimmer to follow her, which they did.
In silence they mounted their horses and headed back to camp. Each one lost in troubled thoughts.
