Angella woke up and immediately smiled. She was in her bed in Brightmoon and the moon had risen, shining its glorious light across her chambers. It reflected beautifully on the crystalline walls and, more importantly, on the soft pale skin of her sleeping husband.
The queen was so happy to have her king next to her. She could not quite explain how but it was as if he had been gone for years and had only just got back. Of course, these were unsubstantiated feelings… right?
Angella's thoughts were interrupted when Micah began to stir. He opened his eyes and smiled lovingly at his wife:
"Good morning" he murmured sleepily. Angella smiled even wider:
"Good morning, my love."
Two hours later, when they had got dressed, eaten and started walking towards the throne room, Angella glanced at one of the many murals adorning the hallway. For a split second, she thought she saw the image of someone resembling both Micah and her: a girl - their daughter… This observation gave the queen such a violent headache that she collapsed on the floor, moaning in pain. Without waiting a second, Micah fell to his knees next to her, calling her name. Angella quickly regained her composure:
"It's okay, I'm alright! I thought I saw something…"
"What was it?" The queen looked up and gazed far off into the distance. In the furthest recesses of her brain, she could hear a child laughing:
"Nothing. It was nothing."
The morning passed with no further incidents. The fact that it seemed to pass in a matter of minutes did not worry Angella.
After the cook announced lunch, the monarchs descended from their thrones and headed towards the dining hall. While Micah attempted to make idle conversation about the morning's activities, the queen remained silent:
"…so many of them were convinced someone had attacked their villages - too many! But I don't recall hearing anything about a horde of soldiers-" At the mention of the word 'horde', Angella's head screamed in pain and she fell to the floor once again, clutching her head in her hands:
"Argh! Make it stop!" Micah quickly knelt down and did a healing spell, temporarily relieving the queen and giving her enough time to reach up and grab him by his shirt:
"Something's wrong, Micah. Something's very wrong." It was right at this point that Angella saw her first glimpse of reality falling apart. She then felt Micah's hands leave hers and turned to see that he had inexplicably disappeared.
After a brief search (and several more terrifying visions of the portal engulfing Brightmoon), the queen fled. She remembered that she had had a daughter - and that she no longer had a husband. She also knew that the mysterious horde of attackers was not fake and that she had to fly to Dryl immediately.
If anyone could figure out what was happening, it was Entrapta.
"Hello! Do I know you?" Catra whipped round to try and make out who Entrapta was talking to. She was not sure how long the two of them had been holed up in the princess' dimly lit and rather creepy lab, but it had been long enough for her to start getting jittery. Catra's growing fear was not helped by how uncharacteristically quiet Entrapta was being. This was science – why was she not rambling into her tape recorder? Did she even have her tape recorder?
"N-No…" Catra's eyes went wide as she was bought back to the present by the voice emerging from the darkness. She could not see who had just materialized in the furthest corner of the lab, only that it was someone tall and broad-shouldered. But she would recognize that voice anywhere…
"Adora, stay back!" Catra unsheathed her claws and prepared to pounce. No way was Adora here to help – she was here to fight. She had to be.
Right as the Horde Lord was about to step into the light, Entrapta suddenly rushed forward, cutting off Catra's attack and levitating herself off the ground with her hair:
"This is fascinating! I never have non-robots visit me! " Catra leapt onto the princess' back in a desperate attempt to get her out of the way:
"Entrapta! Get down, you crazy-"
"Argh!" Both the princess and the Force Commander stopped wrestling and looked down at their visitor. Neither of them had gotten a good look at her yet but, now that they had, they could not help but mutually gasp in horror.
Adora was breaking apart. Literally. Half of her had ceased to exist and the rest of her was threatening to go. She was in so much pain that she had collapsed to the floor, crying out from the impact.
All fear and common sense disintegrating, Catra immediately disengaged herself from Entrapta and ran towards Adora. Once she reached her, she gently lifted her up, resting her head on her lap.
Adora whimpered and shook her head in visible discomfort – she was remembering.
Catra pulled her closer, enveloping her in an embrace that she hoped would make her feel better. Then she did what she had always done to calm Adora down – she purred. It worked.
Adora stopped shifting and, for nearly a full minute, there was peace. But only for a minute.
"C-Catra…" The feline looked down at the broken face of her love, trying very hard to hold it together. She whispered:
"… Yes?" Adora, shaking in pain, closed her eyes and whispered:
"H-Help me…"
Horde Prime stared at his screen in mild interest. A portal had opened into a previously lost dimension – a portal which had been created by something within it.
It was familiar and Prime grinned as reports of First Ones and magic appeared before him.
There was yet another world for him to destroy and remake… good. He had been bored.
Without uttering a word, the galactic emperor snapped his fingers and his nearest ship sent a probe straight into the portal. It was imperative that he learn as much as possible about this new world before it closed. He then telepathically ordered his armada to converge on the portal's co-ordinates; it was time to bring peace to this world seeking to destroy itself.
Adora had fallen unconscious in Catra's arms and the feline was hugging her so tight her muscles ached. She was on the verge of crying and the only thing stopping her was Entrapta, who was still standing where Catra had left her, awkwardly shuffling her feet and rubbing her arms.
"What?" Catra hissed threateningly. In all honesty, she did not want to scare Entrapta nor yell at her – the feline was just in so much pain and it was all getting too much to bear. Thankfully, the princess seemed to understand this:
"Your friend seems to have fallen into the unstable portal slowly consuming and warping our reality. I… I don't know if she'll be okay." Catra forced herself to keep purring. If Adora was going to die, this was how it would be – in the arms of the only person who ever truly loved her despite everything she had done and was made to be. Entrapta kept talking:
"An unstable portal is the only thing that would account for all the anomalies I've been picking up in my research. The portal exists somewhere in our world and, as long as it's still open, it's gonna keep destabilizing reality, making things disappear faster and faster, until… there's nothing left..." Catra finally looked up at the princess, eyes wet with pain. She yelled angrily:
"How do we stop it?" Entrapta shuffled some more, as if she wanted to speak but could not. Finally, she gave in and used her hair to carry her back to her screens. She then turned on a very helpful video that provided visual aids to her speech:
"Portals are gateways, wormholes that connect one area of space to another. The only way to turn it off is from the inside. But… whoever shuts the portal down can't leave. They'll be trapped between realities, possibly forever." Catra's eyes went wide. She repeated Entrapta's statement:
"… Forever?" The princess nodded. The feline finally gave up all hope and started crying. They were ugly tears mixed with loud mangled cries. The noise woke up Adora, who was now even weaker than she was before:
"C-Catra?" The feline turned to face the blonde, not bothering to hide her tears. Adora mustered all her strength to give her own sad speech, accompanied by an even sadder smile:
"I… I'm so sorry… for everything… I… I love you… S-See you… back at… the… beginning…" Catra screamed:
"No! Adora!" But it was too late. The blonde vanished and the back of Entrapta's lab disappeared into the void. The princess called out to Catra as everything started to break apart:
"It's the sword! The portal is powered by She-Ra's sword! You need to remove it from the inside! As soon as it's gone, everything will be right again! It was nice being friends with you!" Catra screamed again:
"Entrapta!" But, like last time, it was no use. Entrapta and the whole of Dryl were gone, and Catra was falling, watching as her body began to disappear too… and not caring if it did…
Angella groaned in fear and frustration. The portal had eaten up everything below and around her. It was a miracle she had managed to stay above it all.
She was now flying over what had been Dryl, gasping as she watched it get destroyed. The queen only stopped her gasp when she observed a familiar figure falling through the air – though the reason for her still being alive remained a mystery to her.
Angella flew down and grabbed the survivor under her arms, calling her name as she did so:
"Catra!" The feline jerked her head up, tears streaming down her face. Angella went white – she had never seen Catra like this before. Then again, how else would she be in this situation? The Force Commander began to twist and turn in her grasp, screaming:
"Let me go! Let me die! Just let me go-"
"No!" The queen retorted angrily. Her response shut Catra up and allowed Angella to continue:
"We can still stop this! We have to! Please tell me there's a reason you're still alive?" Catra did not respond. Instead she whimpered and wailed like a literal lost kitten. Angella sighed sadly:
"Fine… that's okay. I'll figure this out…" After a moment of painful silence, Catra finally resigned herself to living a little longer and recovered long enough to say:
"The sword." The queen's eyes went wide at Catra's sudden interruption. The feline's voice was so broken that the words were hard to make out:
"The sword… She-Ra's sword… we have to find She-Ra's sword!" Angella nodded silently, quickly scanning the missing horizon for anything at all. That was when Catra's keen eyesight picked something up in the far distance. She pointed, whispering:
"T-There..." Angella silently obeyed, flying as fast as she could towards what she hoped would be their salvation.
While it only took a few minutes for Angella to reach the floating patch of grass under the portal's mouth, it felt like an eternity for Catra. All she could see was Adora's broken face, tear-stained and writhing in pain, looking up at her as if she really was the only person who could help her – even though she could not. Had not.
Adora's weak voice whispered her apologies, love and another empty promise. Catra remembered everything now. She knew what happened to Adora, what she had let happen to Adora. She knew that while the blonde may have deserved her fate, she, Catra, deserved it so much more.
How could she have been party to so much pain? How could she have inflicted so much on the people of Etheria?
Entrapta had said that the only way to fix all this was to remove the sword, and that the person who did that would be trapped in this hell forever. As far as Catra could tell, she and the queen were the only ones left.
It would have to be one of them – and it was not going to be Sparkles' mom.
As Angella landed on the grass, dropping Catra gently on the ground as she did so, she paused to catch her breath. Catra let her. The queen then turned to look at her and asked:
"So… what now?" The feline sighed and pointed up at the sword:
"You fly me up there and I'll remove the sword." Angella raised an eyebrow in confusion:
"Wouldn't it be simpler if I just flew up and removed the sword? Why do you have to do it?" Catra did not miss a beat as she replied almost robotically:
"Because the person who removes it remains trapped in the portal forever… between dimensions…" Angella gasped and the feline continued, this time with a little more feeling as she turned back to address the queen:
"I know you're a good person. I know you don't deserve this fate. I do. I'm the villain – this is all my fault! Please let me make it right? Let me fix this for you, for your daughter, for… for…" Angella gave a sad smile before finishing the sentence:
"… For Adora?" Catra's eyes went wide and another tear escaped. The queen sighed and said:
"It's not your fault, Catra. You don't deserve this anymore than I do." Catra shook her head solemnly before countering:
"Okay, fine. But I am not more valuable than you. You lead the Rebellion and, now that you and your princesses are in the Fright Zone, the Horde doesn't stand a chance. Take it! End the war!" Angella gasped:
"I beg your pardon?" Catra growled:
"You heard me! End it! End all of it! You'll definitely do a better job than me!" Angella shook her head in shock. She genuinely could not believe the words coming out of Catra's mouth:
"So… you don't want to win?" Catra scowled and looked away in shame:
"No. I want… I don't know what I want. Redemption, maybe?" Angella smiled and silently walked over to Catra, putting her arms around her and giving her the best hug she could manage. The feline, normally so strong and stoic, completely broke down in sobs at the first hint of motherly affection that she had ever received.
The two stood there hugging for a long time.
Finally, Catra pushed herself away from the queen and straightened her uniform. She then pulled off her iconic face guard and threw it into the dirt below her. Angella broadened her smile:
"I'll tell them, Catra. About this. You'll be forgiven." The feline wiped her eyes and looked back up at the sword:
"I don't care. Just look after Adora and end this war." The queen nodded and moved behind Catra, ready to pick her up.
"Are you ready?"
"Let's go! Now!"
Catra could not describe the feeling she felt as she pulled out the sword, watching it disappear from her hands the second she did so. It was almost like peace, fulfilment, happiness… but it was not. In fact, it was the greatest heartbreak she never imagined could exist – and it was so great that the sheer intensity of emotion was tricking her into believing everything was alright.
As the feline finally allowed herself to close her eyes and let out the most feral scream she could manage, her sensitive ears heard something nearby – a mechanical beep.
Catra opened her eyes and was shocked to see what looked like a larger and sleeker version of one of the Horde's bots. It was right in front of her and immediately proceeded to knock her out with a built-in tazer before grabbing her and flying away at top speed.
The first person to wake up was She-Ra. She was lying on the floor of Hordak's sanctum, surrounded by unconscious guards and princesses. Her head ached horribly and her ears were ringing.
The red mist was back even stronger than before but Adora stubbornly refused to let it control her. Instead, she de-transformed and began scanning the room for Catra. Catra, the one she had always loved…
She was not there.
That was when everyone else began to wake up, all simultaneously moving backwards towards to walls, pointing their weapons and magic hands at Adora, ready to fire without hesitation.
But Adora did not care. Where was Catra? Surely she was-
"Adora?" The blonde turned to face the queen of Brightmoon. The angel slowly approached her, holding a piece of metal Adora never imagined she would see in someone else's hands – Catra's face guard.
"Catra's… not here, Adora." With that, the blonde tentatively took the mask into her own hands, cradling it in her arms before losing it completely and keeling over, screaming in agony at the loss of her love. Everyone else simply stared, stunned and utterly confused.
When Catra came to, she was lying on a smooth cold floor. It was dark and smelt as if she was back in the infirmary. Her mind began to wonder whether she had never left and this whole thing had been some insane hallucination. Ha! Now that was funny! What would Adora say?
Catra's heart ached at the thought of Adora and, as she sat up and looked around, the former Force Commander quickly ascertained that she was definitely not in the infirmary.
Then, as if on cue, the lights all turned on and Catra gasped when she realized that she was on the bridge of the biggest spaceship she had ever seen. How did she know it was a spaceship? It was honestly all that made sense at the moment.
Speaking of the moment, Catra's feline senses alerted her to the presence of others on the bridge. She whipped around to see three Hordaks, two of whom were wearing different outfits while the other not only wore a different outfit but had three eyes. Completely disgusted and afraid, it did not take long for Catra to figure out who this was:
"… Prime…" The three-eyed monster laughed menacingly, holding up her Force Commander badge in his right hand:
"Welcome, Little Sister."
