Catra spent the rest of her day practicing with her newly acquired power. She could definitely appreciate being more powerful - the fire in her gut roaring with approval whenever she so much as made a spark - but she wasn't about to allow herself to grow overly reliant on it. She had too much pride in the abilities that she had to throw them away just because a magic rock decided to mess with her. Dashing from treetop to treetop, she quickly left the Whispering Woods and entered the wasteland surrounding the strange mountain wherein she'd found the stone.
Confident she wouldn't accidentally cause a forest fire, she closed her eyes and searched for that searing warmth, pushing it outward. As she attempted to control it, she couldn't help but think about the stupid blonde who was no doubt waiting for her back at the village. It had taken several late night chats with Scorpia, Entrapta, and Lena, but eventually Catra was willing to accept that just because Adora didn't have to go through what she did, didn't mean that she hadn't been messed up by Shadow Weaver in her own way. It wasn't easy, but eventually Catra had to accept that there wasn't much a young Adora could have done to protect her. It didn't help with the sting of abandonment she felt whenever she thought about her former friend - the same sting that had her returning to the village every night despite every other part of her screaming that she should just leave - but it did help ease some of the underlying bitterness and resentment she had carried for years.
She remembered how Adora had reacted to the sight of her ear, the monster she kept so carefully caged outside of combat rearing its head for a moment, and hated herself for reacting that way. She thought she had been doing better, keeping her mouth shut and not hurting anyone, but two words from Adora and months of work seemingly unraveled in an instant. Those same five words rang in her ear, and she opened her eyes to see she was surrounded by a ring of fire stretching a dozen feet into the air. She couldn't tell if the roaring in her ears was from the flames encircling her or something else, but she allowed the sound to fill her mind, shoving away memories and introspection as she took several deep breaths.
Slowly, she felt the flames shrink until they were little more than embers around her feet. Focusing once more on the warmth inside of her, she tried releasing it steadily instead of pushing it all out at once. Her entire body grew warm, almost uncomfortably so, as she was cloaked in fire. Strength filled her limbs, the fire fueling her as she ran through some basic training exercises, and she allowed herself to sink into the peace offered in movement. When an alltogether different burn started to fill her, Catra stopped her exercises, hopeful - at least, somewhat - that she was no longer a risk of immolating anything around her.
Making her way back through the woods, senses sharp for potential prey, she caught the sound of roaring not far from the village. All traces of exhaustion gone, she took to the trees and dashed towards the roaring as shouts joined it.
"Rhino-saurus!" One of the villages hunters cried as she burst through the foliage. The Beast was one of the larger breeds that roamed the Whispering Woods. standing a good ten feet at the shoulder. Its skin was tough, grey, and leathery, providing exellent defense to go alongside its massive tail, clawed hands, snapping teeth, and single, deadly horn sprouting from the end of its blocky snout.
Surrounding the rhino-saurus were Scorpia and four others. Catra watched as Scorpia drew the Beast's attention, catching its horn between her claws and jamming her tail into its neck repeatedly. The other four hunters dashed around its thick, trunk-like legs, two of them delivering shallow cuts while the other two wove a length of rope between them. All in all, it was going fairly well. In one of her rare visits during the day, she had taken the time to teach the hunters how to use their environment and numbers to take down larger prey, and she was almost proud to see that they were doing so, covering each other as they darted in and out to weaken it while Scorpia's venom slowed it down. They had nearly taken the Beast down when Adora and her stupid friends appeared in a flash that startled the rhino-saurus. Rearing up, it snapped the rope around its legs and swung its tail, smacking three of the hunters away while nearly goaring Scorpia with its horn. It had just turned on the last of the hunters, a human boy no older than sixteen, when Catra burst through the trees, driving her antler-spear into its neck, using her momentum to tug its head to the ground as it fell, narrowly avoiding the boy with its horn as he stood frozen. Snarling, Catra twisted the short spear and yanked it up, cutting the Beast's throat and finally putting it down.
"Always be moving," she said, turning to the boy and looking him over for any injuries. "If something goes wrong, get to the others, then panic." The boy nodded and Catra turned around, reaching inside the rhino-saurus' mouth and yanking out one of its teeth. She froze for a moment when she felt Scorpia's claw on her shoulder, but forced herself not to do anything.
"Thanks for the save there, Wildcat," Scorpia chirped. "We nearly had it, but when those ropes snapped..." she whistled lowly.
Catra bit down on the instinctive urge to say something snarky, taking a deep breath to think about what she would say before doing so. "It exposed its belly when it reared back," she muttered. "Don't be afraid to take risks."
"What's going on, here?!" The sparkly princess shouted.
"Are you all okay?" Adora added, and Catra had to take another deep breath to calm herself.
"Oh, we're fine!" Scorpia replied, waving her claw dismissively. "The smell of blood usually attracts Beasts, so Lonnie had me take a team to check around the village."
"Why didn't you tell us?" The archer asked. "We could have helped."
"I'd have been happy to deal with any Beasts for you," Adora added.
Catra stiffened, but was beaten to it by one of the other hunters. "We don't need your help," they snarled.
"We would have had it if you three hadn't shown up," another yelled. Catra ignored the wounded looks on the Rebels' faces and turned to pin the hunter with a glare. He was a tall, lean, goat-man, with spotted fur, and he flinched at the look in her eyes.
"Don't blame others when the unexpected happens," she growled. "You adapt, and you overcome."
The goat-man quailed under her stare and bowed his head looking away. "Yes, Wild Woman."
"Besides," Scorpia added, cutting through the tension as the other four prepared to drag the carcass back to the village. "Only Catra's allowed to take on a Beast alone. Lonnie's orders."
"Are you coming back to the village with us, Wild Woman?" The boy asked as he helped secure the ropes around the rhino-saurus' neck.
"Still need to find my own kill," Catra grunted, only to find Scorpia's arm wrapped around her shoulders.
"Ah, don't worry about that, Wildcat. We've got plenty of extra already, thanks to you."
Catra wanted to insist, but the look in Scorpia's eye was asking her to stay, and she couldn't find it in her to say no. Heaving another sigh, she nodded and allowed herself to be steered towards the village, ears on a constant swivel.
"So, Catra," Sparkles asked after several minutes of awkward silence. "Lonnie said you mentioned some sort of magic rock?"
Catra rolled her eyes. "Spit it out, Sparkles."
"We were wondering if you could, maybe, show us where you found it," Crop Top asked.
"What did Lonnie say?" Catra asked.
"I told them to leave you alone," Lonnie interupted as they neared the edge of the clearing.
"You just said not two hours ago that you don't speak for Catra!" Sparkles argued.
"Alright," Lonnie replied, rolling her eyes. "Catra, what do you think?"
"That I shouldn't have left in the first place."
Lonnie chuckled and shook her head. "Can't argue with you there."
"Catra, please," Adora pleaded. "I saw the kind of power you were throwing around. The Rebellion could really use that."
Lonnie looked to her, following her away from the group and waiting for an answer as Catra shoved her explosive fury behind the mask of what Scorpia called her Commander Face.
"Could they help protect us?" Lonnie asked.
"Maybe. The Horde is only going to see me as a threat, so they won't hurry to send an entire battalion until they realise they can use you as leverage. You're going to need defences and an evacuation plan."
"We've put a lot of work into this place," Lonnie argued. "Could the princesses help us defend it?"
Catra shrugged. "Not exactly a great use of resources on their end. Plus the villagers might not go for it."
"So, what do you think?"
Catra closed her eyes and focussed, summoning a small flame in the palm of her hand. It unnerved her how quickly the fire reacted to her desires - as if she had been using this power her entire life. "At best, either side getting their hands on power this destructive means more refugees. At worst..." she trailed off, they both knew what the worst case scenario was.
Lonnie looked pensive, staring off into the distance for a couple minutes as she thought things through before returning to the present. "Thanks, Catra."
Catra hummed and nodded. Not only did she mean what she had told Lonnie, but something was telling her it wouldn't be a good idea to share the location of this kinda-runestone with anyone. Visions of burnt wastelands not just around Mount Calinda, but stretching far across Etheria haunted the back of her mind. While she certainly didn't like basically being a walking firebomb, she wasn't about to just start selling tickets so everyone else could see it.
She tried to convince herself that it wasn't just because finally she had been the one given strange new powers, and as she cast an eye across the village, it almost worked.
"So, have you reached a decision?" Sparkles asked as they rejoined the Rebels - Scorpia and her hunters having gone behind the center building to start rending the rhino-saurus.
"We need Catra here to help prepare for when the Horde retaliates," Lonnie declared.
"But the stone -" Crop Top began only to be cut off.
"Isn't a priority. If you really want to fight the Horde, then you know where the front lines are."
Adora groaned and stepped forward. "Lonnie, you don't understand! The Rebellion needs -"
"The Rebellion can go fuck themselves, along with the Horde!" Catra snapped, the claws on her feet digging in the ground to keep her in place.
"And what are you going to do when the Horde wins and comes after you?" Adora challenged,
"What's Mystacor going to do?" Catra fired back. "An entire city of Shadow Weavers, and you're all concerned about a rock!"
"A rock that has apparently given one of our worst enemies magical fire powers!" Sparkles shouted, entering Catra's personal space.
"And unless you want to see those powers up close, Princess, I suggest you get out of my face."
Adora unsheathed her sword and stepped between Catra and Sparkles. "Back off, Catra. This is between you and me."
Catra was seconds away from slashing Adora's stupid beautiful face when a tendril of purple hair wrapped around her wrist.
Entrapta and Catra's relationship largely consisted of Entrapta speaking at a hundred words per minute and Catra trying to keep up. Every once in a while, however, Entrapta would quiet down, and allow Catra to speak her mind, hardly speaking as she did so. It was those moments where she offered Catra only a handful of sentences that had the biggest impact. Catra would bare her soul, and Entrapta would simply sit and listen, offering a word or two just to help her make sense of what was going through her mind. Even now, Entrapta didn't have to say anything, a simple look was enough for Catra to take a deep breath and sheathe her claws.
"Whatever," she grumbled, trying hard to ignore the patch of burnt grass at her feet. "You're not getting the rock. So, either help Lonnie or leave, I don't care which."
*(OoO)*
After a brief conversation with the Queen about the recent developments, Adora, Bow, and Glimmer stayed in the strange settlement for another two weeks, helping out wherever they could. The villagers had warmed up to them, slightly, but they were still wary of them, never leaving them alone whenever they were working. Surprisingly, it was the defectors from the Horde that treated them with the most warmth. Every morning, Kyle would greet them with a smile as he prepared food for everyone, and Scorpia would sit with them, happily telling them about her plans for the day while they ate. It was strange for Adora to be treated with such distrust ever since she had become She-ra, and Glimmer outright couldn't believe the way some of the villagers acted towards them.
"We're helping protect them," she exclaimed one night in their little camp on the edge of the clearing. "The least they could do is not treat us like some sort of vermin!"
"They're just scared," Bow said. "Most of them are refugees."
"I would be too if I spent every day around Catra."
"Catra is barely around most of the time."
"And that doesn't make her scarrier? I'd rather know where she was, rather than just wait for her to sneak up on me."
That much was true. Over the last two weeks, Adora had been quietly following Catra whenever she could, trying to figure out what she was up to. From her observations, she knew that Catra spent a part of each day simply going through the necessary motions - collecting food and water for herself . She never touched the stores in the village, sticking to a much more basic routine of survival than the villagers who seemed like they were trying to carve something of a life out for themselves in the little clearing. Adora kept her distance, trying to be as discrete as possible, but, every day, she would lose Catra somewhere in the trees, only for her to return at night either with food she had hunted, or supplies she had acquired from who knew where. Once, a family of four had stumbled into the village, saying they were rescued from bandits and directed there, and Adora had caught the glow of saphire and gold watching from the shadows as Lonnie greeted them and offered them shelter.
To Adora's surprise - besides the occasional burn mark on the ground or in a tree - there was no sign of Catra making use of her strange, newfound powers. Everything Adora knew about her said that Catra should be reveling in this new boost, showing off in the flashiest way possible, and making sure everyone knew how much better she was than them. In fact, aside from during that first day, Catra barely spoke to or interacted with any of them. That, alongside the disturbing tear in her ear made Adora wonder just what had happened to finally push Catra into leaving the Horde, and why she hadn't joined her in Brightmoon.
Finally, after two weeks of waiting for some kind of confrontation, Adora took it upon herself to speak with her former friend. The Queen had contacted them, saying that Spinneralla and Netossa were coming to join them on their way to the front, and she knew that she was running out of time to convince the others that Catra wasn't a threat. That morning, after eating breakfast with Scorpia and Entrapta, Adora grabbed the Sword of Protection (in case of the very real possibility of it coming to blows), and snuck off to the stream where Catra collected her daily canteen of water, waiting in the bushes for her to eventually show up.
It took over an hour, and Adora was about to give up, but eventually Catra dropped down near the riverbank, appearing as if from nowhere without a sound. Steadying herself, she took a deep breath and stepped out from her hiding place as Catra leaned down to fill her canteen.
"Can we talk?" She asked.
Catra stilled, but the way she reacted told Adora that she knew she had been there all along. "What do you want?"
"I'm just trying to understand, Catra," Adora pleaded. "You've barely said two words since I've gotten here."
"What's there to understand?" Catra asked. "The Horde sucked so I left. Scorpia and the others decided to tag along."
"Why didn't you come to Brightmoon? We could have helped you."
Catra scoffed. "Yeah, right."
"I'm serious, Catra," Adora said, taking a step forward. "All I've wanted... ever since I left, was to have you with me." Catra sighed, still not turning to face her, but Adora cheered internally when her tail slithered out to wrap around her wrist.
"It hasn't been... terrible, seeing you here," Catra muttered, dragging the words out as if they hurt to speak. "But I'm still not taking you to the rock."
"Catra, come on!" Adora groaned. "The Horde is evil! Even you have to have seen that! We need every advantage we can get if we ever plan on beating them!"
"Forget it!" Catra snarled, her tail lashing back to wrap around her waist. "You may be happy being someone's lackey, but I'm not!"
"Catra, you're being selfish!" Adora yelled, her anger starting to get the better of her. "You really think the Alliance is going to just let you and the others go about your lives after everything you've done? You need to show them that you've changed!"
"Or else, what?" Catra challenged.
A powerful gust of wind stopped Adora from responding before a glowing blur slammed into Catra, flinging her into the stream as Spinnerella and Netossa stepped out from the behind a tree.
"Told you I could sneak up on her," Netossa bragged.
"Only because I kept us upwind from her," Spinnerella countered before turning to Adora. "Hello, Adora. Thanks for distracting her for us."
"I - what?" Adora spluttered. "What are you two doing here?"
"The queen told you that we'd be dropping by," Netossa reminded her. "She didn't want you three dealing with a super-powered Horde baddy on your own." She held out her arm and raised it, levitating a soaking wet Catra out of the stream. One look at her face told Adora that Catra was seconds away from losing it.
"Come on," Spinnerella beckoned. "Bow and Glimmer should have already dealt with the rest of them."
"B-but the villagers..." Adora stuttered, chasing after the two women, trying her best to look apologetic to Catra, who was being dragged along the ground.
"Don't worry," Netossa replied, waving her free hand. "Our troops are taking care of them as we speak. We'll make sure they all find nice homes in Brightmoon."
Adora glanced at Catra, only to find her with her eyes closed, taking deep, trembling breaths. They arrived back at the little village to see a squad of soldiers surrounding Scorpia, Entrapta, and the other Horde soldiers, while another spoke with the villagers, helping them pack their few belongings.
"Adora!" Glimmer shouted, teleporting to her and wrapping her in a hug. "When Spinny and Netossa got here and we couldn't find you, we were so worried."
"Everything is secure, and we're ready to take these people back to Brightmoon," Bow added. "They'll be safe there."
"You can't do this!" Lonnie shouted, standing between a couple of soldiers and Kyle, who was clinging tightly to Rogelio.
"What, take Horde scum prisoner?" Netossa asked. "Considering you all shoot first and ask questions later, I'd be more grateful if I were you."
"What are you doing with Catra?" Entrapta asked loudly.
"Let her go!" Scorpia shouted, stepping forward.
"Scorpia, don't," Catra called, her voice cold and collected even from her position on the ground.
"But Catra," Kyle yelled, only to be silenced when he met her eyes. Rogelio hissed something, but Adora couldn't make it out.
"Keep him safe, Roge," Catra replied.
"What are you going to do with them?" Adora asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Those three will be taken back to my kingdom," Netossa explained, indicating Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio. "The Alliance has a prison there for captured enemies. These three," she pointed to Scorpia, Entrapta, and Catra, "the queen wants to see for herself."
Adora watched as the villagers and prisoners were loaded on seperate wagons. The few lights strung between the meager huts in the clearing were shut off, and they began making their way back to towards Brightmoon. Just as the last house, the most recent addition being built for the family who had just joined them, was about to disappear behind the trees, Adora watched as its roof collapsed in on itself with a soft thwoosh. Before the dust had even had a chance to settle, it disappeared behind the trees.
"All in all, I'd say this is a win," Bow cheered, wrapping an arm around her and Glimmer.
"Beat back the Horde," Glimmer listed. "Took some prisoners, and now we're going to give these people a better place to live than some dirt huts in a Beast-infested forest. I'd call that a win."
"Well, when you put it that way," Adora muttered, but her heart wasn't really in it. Everything Glimmer said was technically true. They had done a good thing here, hadn't they?
She wanted to believe it, but for some reason, all Adora could think of was Thaymor, an innocent, peaceful village that had been nearly razed to the ground because of the war.
A/N: So, I really wanted to show that, despite having left the Horde, and starting to work through some of her issues, Catra isn't suddenly a good guy. She recognizes she hurt people who didn't deserve it, especially when they stuck with her, so she's feeling indebted. She's not good at the whole 'being nice' thing, so she just settles for not saying anything, rather than opening her mouth and hurting them, or driving them away. Now she's got these weird new powers that basically turn her into a walking time bomb, and before she even has a chance to get her balance the war ends up back on her doorstep, bringing her dumb, gay crush with it. Anyway, updates will slow down once you all catch up to where I am in writing it, so I hope y'all won't be too disappointed. Don't forget to review and tell me what you think!
TTFN