Catra didn't know how long she was asleep when a sharp beep woke her up. She recognized it as the chime to her door.
"What is it now?" Catra mumbled in her sleep, raising her voice to answer the visitor, "Who's there?!"
The only response was another loud beep from the door chime.
"Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow morning!" Catra called out, "Leave me alone!"
The door chime chirped one more time and Catra groaned as she got out of bed and limped over towards the door.
"This had better be urgent!" Catra snarled as she pushed a button on the wall and the door hissed open, "WHAT?!"
Catra looked at the open door and saw only the dark, empty corridor outside. She poked her head out and looked left and right for any sign of life and found nothing but the low rumblings of the exposed pipes pumping heat into the fright zone hallways and the soft whirr of machines working in the distance. Catra growled softly as she closed the door again and turned back towards her bed when the door chime chirped once again.
"Alright, smart guy!" Catra shouted as she turned around towards the door, "When I find out who that is, you'll be getting sewage duty for a month! Got it!"
Catra opened the door once more and looked out the room again, this time watchful for any movement along the corridor and carefully scanning for any possible hiding places.
"Come out now, and I'll only make it a week!" Catra yelled, "Is that you, Lonnie?! Kyle?! ...Entrapta?!"
Catra's eyes fell towards the vent on the floor outside her room and she quickly scampered towards it, breaking it open with her claws and searching inside.
"Where are you?" she cursed under her breath.
Catra felt around the pipe for only a few moments when she pulled her arm out to see it covered in black grease.
"Greaaat..." Catra growled sarcastically, getting up off the ground and walking back towards her room.
As Catra approached the doorway, it closed in front of her with a soft hiss. She pushed the button to open it, only to be met with the harsh buzzing sound to indicate her access was denied. She tried again, growing frustrated as the buzzer sounded once more. In the darkness, the two lights on the control panel looked almost like Shadow Weaver's mask. Catra shook her head to rock the vision from her mind and tried to open the door one more time. When the door once again refused to open, Catra growled in rage and smashed the control panel with her fist. Although the destroyed panel sparked and fizzled with electricity, the door to her quarters still refused to open.
"Wonderful..." Catra grumbled to herself, "Now, I need to get someone to fix this... but first I need to find somewhere to clean this gunk off me..."
Catra slowly limped down the corridor as the control panel to her room continued to spark and pop.
~*~
The lights turned on automatically as Catra stepped into the communal showers. She walked over towards the sink, turned the water on and looked over herself in the mirror. In the mirror, Catra saw the figure of a tall woman in blue robes and a hood standing behind her and she quickly spun around to attack her ambusher, only to find her claws passing through empty space. Catra stood perfectly still, not even breathing as her eyes carefully scanned the apparently empty room, but could find nothing there. When she finally began to calm down, she returned to the running sink and began washing the black grime off her arm, wiping it off with a towel as she worked. When she was finally satisfied it was gone, she turned off the sink and walked over to the laundry hamper to throw away the dirty towel.
When the black towel hit its dirty compatriots, the room erupted with what could only be described as a cacophony of noise. It grew so loud Catra had to cover her ears as she fell to the ground and curled up in a ball on the porcelain floor. The din was unrelenting. Catra recognized the sounds of squealing pipes and whirring machines, electrical sparks and pops and bangs, the rattling of chains and the scraping of metal against metal and the computerized sounds of a door chime chirping and buzzing. The noises continued for no more than a minute, but for Catra it felt like an hour at least.
"Stop it!" she cried out, "Make it stop! Please!"
And as suddenly as it started, the noises stopped. Catra opened her eyes again and looked around the room and in the communal showers with her was a bright blue glow that hurt her eyes to look at. She got up off the ground and shielding her eyes with her claws, squinting as she tried to look at the impossibly bright light. Slowly the light began to dim and Catra saw a blue glowing figure appear before her. It took the form of a blue woman in blue robes and a hood, as Catra looked closer at her features, she saw they were made up of angular geometric shapes with harsh points and edges. Even her clothes were flat and static, not even moving slightly in the air and maintaining a perfect geometric shape. The woman stood at least a foot taller than Catra and stared down at her with a blank expression on her face.
"Who are you?" Catra asked the spirit, "Are you like... a ghost or something?"
"A Ghost?" the figure repeated, its voice calm but somewhat cold and disjointed, like that of a computer, "Yes, I have been called a Ghost before. I am Light Hope, and you are the one known as Catra, correct?"
"So what are you doing here?" demanded Catra ignoring the spirit's question, "Are you haunting me?"
"Haunt: to visit habitually or to appear frequently," the ghostly woman defined, "No, this will not be a regular occurance. I am here to complete a task and when I finish I will not return."
"Sounds fine by me..." Catra grumbled sarcastically, "So what do you want?"
"Firstly, I wish to ask you about this Etherian holiday you call Christmas," Light Hope explained, "I am aware of its importance to Etherian culture but my database is lacking in its most pertinent details."
"Well, I'm the wrong cat to be asking about that," Catra admitted, turning away from the ghost to leave, "So I'm just going to go back to bed now and try to forget about this whole hallucination."
"Hallucination?" Light Hope repeated, "You do not believe in my existence?"
"No, Creep, I don't believe in ghosts," Catra answered, walking out of the showers into the hallway, "So you can go away now that I've stopped listening to you."
"I am confused," stated the spirit, floating behind her, "What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?"
Catra just shrugged her shoulders while making a quick 'iunno' grunt and continuing to walk away.
"For what reason do you doubt your senses now?" asked the spirit.
"Because a tiny little thing affects them," Catra snarked, "I'm probably in bed right now having a bad dream, probably caused by those painkillers I took. Or maybe you're just something I ate that disagreed with me, some undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. You're probably more gravy than grave, whatever you are..."
The specter floated quickly in front of Catra, passing through her as she turned to face her. Catra felt an immense feeling of cold where it came through her and began s Catra quickly drew back from her, her claws extended and her tail standing on end.
"You are afraid..." Light Hope observed, "Tell me, Catra of the Fright Zone, do you believe in me or not?"
Catra's eyes looked at her extended claws and her ruffled hair from her frozen stance and she tried to calm herself down.
"Alright, fine!" Catra shouted, "Say I do believe you, what do you want from me?"
"I have already stated I require more information on the Holiday you call Christmas," Light Hope explained, her face betraying no emotion whatsoever.
"So look it up in a computer or something," Catra called out, "I told you I don't have anything you want to hear. Christmas is just some fake nonsense for babies. A total humbug."
"What I must know cannot be retrieved by your primitive electronics," Light Hope insisted, "You have the information that I require, whether you realize it or not. Follow me please."
The spirit turned around and floated down the hallway, turning towards a closed door and passing through it ominously.
"That's just a storage warehouse..." Catra grumbled as she pushed a button next to the door and went inside after the ghost.
~*~
As the door closed behind Catra, she saw the room was brightly lit as though it was operating normally. Inside she saw a short chubby little girl, no older than a toddler, with blue eyes and her blonde hair in a ponytail, wearing a junior cadet Horde uniform.
"Adora?" Catra said softly.
"I know you're here somewhere," the little girl replied, "I'm not afraid of you."
A small box fell off the shelf and landed behind her, and the infantile Adora let out loud scream as she jumped in the air. The young horde soldier carefully walked towards the box and slowly opened it, forcing her eyes shut as she slowly drew her head towards the opening. When she finally opened them to look, her frightened expression quickly turned into a satisfied smile.
"Aha!" Adora squealed in delight as she looked inside, "I caught you! I knew there was a monster poking around here!"
Catra hovered over the little girl to look over her shoulder and saw a small ball of brown fur with two eyes in the box staring back at her, one eye blue, the other gold. The creature was much smaller than the girl and looked emaciated, shivering in either fear, the cold or both.
"You know, now that I see you, you don't look all that scary..." Adora thought aloud, "Actually, you look kinda cute. You're not a real monster, are you? You're just hungry, aren't you?"
Adora reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny ration bar. She carefully waved it close to the creature who drew away from it.
"It's okay. It's just food," Adora reassured the creature, tearing off a chunk of the ration bar and putting in her mouth, "See?"
The small creature slowly drew its tiny paw up to ration bar before quickly snatching it from her hands and shoving it into its mouth.
"There you go," Adora said, reaching inside the box to pet the creature, "You don't have to worry about anything anymore. I'll take you to see Shadow Weaver. She'll know what to do with you."
Adora picked up the creature by its armpits, its skinny legs and tail dangling over the box. When the creature was close enough, it opened its mouth and began licking Adora's face. Adore giggled in joy and let it climb onto her shoulder, holding onto its bottom with her other arm. Adora ran excitedly out of the warehouse into the corridor, the older Catra following after her.
"Shadow Weaver!" Adora called out, "I caught it! I caught the monster in the warehouse!"
Catra turned the corner after Adora and froze in her tracks when she saw a familiar sorceress with long dark hair wearing a pitch black mask and flowing crimson robes.
"Adora, put that down!" Shadow Weaver scolded, "You don't know what that thing is!"
"It's okay!" Adora argued, holding out the creature in front of her, "It's not dangerous at all! Look at it!"
Shadow Weaver bent over to examine the creature in Adora's hands, her white eyes squinting in distrust at the small creature. The creature strained itself away from the sorceress, visibly uncomfortable.
"So what is it?" Adora asked, "Can I keep it?"
"I don't know..." Shadow Weaver mused softly, reaching her hand out to take it from from Adora's hands, "But no, you may not! I will take this pest to be properly disposed of!"
"No! Don't get rid of it!" Adora whined, snatching the creature back into her arms, holding it tightly against her chest, "Let me take care of it! Pleaaase, Shadow Weaver! It can be my Christmas present! I promise won't ask for anything else this year! I'll clean it and feed it and I'll make sure it doesn't hurt anyone! Just don't get rid of it."
Shadow Weaver continued to eye the creature suspiciously, but the expression on her eyes softened when she looked past it to Adora's pleading face.
"Alright, Adora..." Shadow Weaver acquiesced, her tone resigned before firming quickly, "But I will hold you to be completely responsible for it! And you must promise me it won't interfere in any of your duties! And you must really do something about that smell..."
"I'll take really good care of it, Shadow Weaver," Adora assured her, petting the creature as she held it, "I promise!"
"Very well, then, Adora," said Shadow Weaver, "You can keep it..."
"Yay!" cheered Adora, spinning around as she held the creature up in her outstreched hands, "We're gonna be best friends, okay? You look kinda like a cat, so I'm gonna call you Catra. Do you like that name?"
"As always, your boundless imagination is staggering to behold..." Shadow Weaver snarked as she stood up and turned around, slowly floating away.
The older Catra found herself staring silently at the younger Adora and herself until they too slowly began to fade away, leaving her alone in the now darkened corridor. Well, not completely alone.
"That was your first Christmas together, was it not?" asked Light Hope.
"Wah!" Catra screamed in surprise at the apparition floating beside her, "How long have you been there?"
"I was always here," Light Hope replied, "I have been analyzing your responses to this stimuli and have found the results to be most enlightening."
"Great," Catra grumbled, "Are we done here?"
"Oh, no..." Light Hope answered, "There is much more I need to learn. I require further observation."
"Graaah..." Catra groaned, "You're worse than Entrapta..."
"I fail to see the comparison between myself and the Dryl Princess," Light Hope commented, before quickly floating past her, "This way please."
Catra simply stared at the apparition as it turned around a corner out of sight and the soft blue glow it was eminating faded down the corridor, further darkening the already gloomy hallway. Catra heard a small clang behind behind her and began sprinting after the spirit in a panic.
"Hey, wait up!" Catra called out.
~*~
Catra chased the singular source of light in the Fright Zone corridors as Light Hope stood patiently in front of a closed doorway.
"We can't go in there," Catra warned, "Those are the cadets quarters."
"I do not understand," Light Hope stated, "As a Force Captain, do you not have authorization to enter these quarters?"
"Well, yeah, but..." Catra stuttered, "It's the middle of the night. They're probably all sleeping right now. We shouldn't bother them."
"Incorrect," Light Hope reported, "As instructed by you, they are currently performing training simulations in the rooms below us. Except for the one you call Kyle, who is currently stationed outside and above us attempting to find a scraping tool that he dropped. There is no one inside to 'bother'."
And with that, the ghost passed through the doorway and disappeared.
"Uggh," groaned Catra as she opened the door and went inside.
Even though she lived in these quarters not too long ago, Catra felt like an intruder in here. Each of the beds had socks hanging from the top bunk, their lumpy appearance suggesting small gifts had been placed inside. Catra walked over towards the lone bunk that did not have socks hanging from it. She sat down on the bottom bunk and looked at the wall it was set against. She placed her hands on the claw markings, the poorly drawn figures of a girl with a ponytail and hairpoof next to a cat face scratched out by more recent claw marks.
"Hold still, Catra, okay?" Catra heard a voice beside her command, "I'm almost done."
Catra looked beside her to see, instead of a dark empty room, a bright bustling center of activity. Horde soldiers were putting up festive decorations on the walls, the junior cadets were hanging up stockings on their bunk beds and sitting beside her was a small child with blonde hair in a ponytail, brushing the messy hair of her pet cat creature. The creature was still naked apart from the copius amount of messy fur that covered her body. The older Catra noticed how much taller the creature had grown since her adoption into the Horde and how chubby she had gotten, a far cry from the tiny, skeletal creature Adora found hiding in a box. The creature winced with each stroke as Adora forced the brush through her tangled fur.
"I know you hate it when I brush you," Adora told her, "But I want you to look pretty when I show you off to Shadow Weaver for inspection. Did you know it's been almost a full year since I found you? You've been such a good girl, haven't you? And if you keep being a good girl, I'm going to get you something really nice for Christmas, okay?"
The creature looked down at its body as Adora continued stroking her. She looked over at the other horde soldiers until they finished up and turned to leave.
"I want to try wearing clothes..." the creature mumbled under it's breath, "Like the ones you have..."
Adora froze in place midbrush and her eyes dilated in shock, for a moment it looked like she forgot to even breathe.
"Did..." Adora stammered, "Did you just talk?!"
Adora quickly got up and ran around the bed to look the creature in the eyes. The feral Catra averted her gaze.
"Can you talk, Catra?" asked Adora, reaching behind Catra's ear to scratch it, "It's okay if you can. I just want to know."
"Um... meow?" purred the young Catra unconvincingly.
Adora's expression turned sour as she looked at the creature, unimpressed.
"Well, I guess I was just hearing things," Adora lied, "Looks like it's time for another bath."
"No! You know I hate those!" the creature shouted, covering its mouth almost immediately after speaking.
"I knew it!" Adora screamed in satisfaction, "Could you talk all along? Is this a magic thing? Is it a Christmas thing? Tell me!"
"I don't know..." Catra answered softly, "I've only been trying for a little while now. I thought I wasn't supposed to..."
"I can't wait to tell everyone about this!" Adora cried out, running towards the door, "Lonnie is gonna freak!"
"Wait!" called out Catra, "Don't!"
But Adora was already gone. Left all alone, the creature held its legs up to its chest and buried its face in its knees.
"That was where everything went wrong, isn't it, Adora?" the older Catra commented, "If I had just kept my big mouth shut, I could have just kept playing dumb as your precious little pet, living fat and happy off of you while you took care of me. No Shadow Weaver, no Hordak, no responsibilities. Just you and me. But I had to be the one to screw up the good thing we had going, didn't I? Is that why you left me in the end? Because you didn't have to take care of me anymore?"
Catra reached out to her younger self to pet her, only for her claw to pass completely through her own head. The image of Catra's younger self glitched and flickered as her older self waved her hand back and forth.
"Why does this feel so familiar?" asked Catra.
"Why should it not?" Light Hope responded, "Did these events not happen as you remember? Are my simulations inaccurate in some way I did not account for?"
"Not that!" argued Catra, "I mean this whole deal with digging through my past with ghosts and mirrors! I literally just went through something just like this right before the Battle of Brightmoon!"
"That is correct," Light Hope assured her, "It was part my defensive protocol in response to your intrusion to the Crystal Castle."
"Your what?!" Catra exclaimed, getting up from the bed and backing away from the ghost, "You work for Adora! This is all just some trick to get info out of me, isn't it?! Adora sent you here to spy on me!"
"Spy: to observe secretively or furtively with hostile intent," Light Hope defined, slowly floating towards her, "I disagree with your assessment. I have been nothing, but open to you about my intentions. And Adora has no relevance on my purpose here. She is not even aware of my presence in this place."
"Get away from me!" Catra screamed, fruitlessly slashing at the ghost with her claws, "I'm not telling you anything else."
"This behavior is unproductive," Light Hope stated firmly, her face glitching and flickering as Catra clawed at it, "You cannot harm me here, and you cannot stop me from completing my objectives. You will comply."
"I'm not doing anything for you!" Catra declared, leaping on to all fours as she sprinted out of the room and down the hallway, "I'm sounding an intruder alert!"
~*~
It didn't take long for Catra to find what she was looking for. She stopped by a wall panel and pulled the alarm. She looked around the dark corridor, waiting for something to happen, but the complex remained dark and silent.
"It was a simple matter to infiltrate your security system," Light Hope explained, flickering into existance in front of her, "Your technology may be advanced by Etherian standards, but it was a simple matter to overwhelm your electrical systems in order to force a systems reboot."
"Alert!" Catra called out, continuing her flight away from the hologram, "We are under attack! The Princesses are hacking into our systems!"
Catra kept running and running until a doorway quickly sealed in front of her, and when she turned around, the door behind her sealed shut with a clang. She was trapped. Catra ran up to the closed door and pushed the button to open it, only to be met with the same access denied buzzer that kept her out of her bed in the first place. She pounded against the door with her fists as hard as she could and let out a primal scream.
"Let me out!" Catra cried out, "I'm not helping you anymore! Let me out!"
"It is quite useless to resist," Light Hope told her, appearing through the wall, "There is no one here to hear you, and nothing they could do even if they came. Please stop this behavior and we can continue our observations. I will not leave until my objectives have been met."
Catra simply continued pounding on the door and screaming until her voice was hoarse and her arms were bruised and sore. She fell to the floor, exhausted. Unable to do anything, Catra closed her eyes and curled up into a ball, hoping all of this was a bad dream she could wake up from. When she finally opened her eyes, the dark corridor she was in had changed to a brightly decorated one from a different section of the complex. And she now saw the two familiar figures of herself and Adora as children standing facing one another, both wearing junior cadet uniforms.
"Come on, Catra!" Adora told her, "It's the rules! You have to do it!"
"The rules say we have to kiss?" the younger Catra asked in confusion.
"Yep!" Adora confirmed, "When two people meet under a Mistletoe, they have to kiss each other. It's tradition. It doesn't have to mean anything... I mean, unless you want it to."
"Alright..." the younger Catra said, "I mean, if it's the rules, we have to, right?"
The two girls closed their eyes and forced themselves towards each other. They both puckered their lips, shaking as they drew closer to one another. But because they had both closed their eyes, they missed each others lips and Adora's chin bumped into Catra's nose.
"Ow," the young Catra cried out, rubbing her nose, "Achoo!"
"Aw!" Adora said, "You're really cute when you sneeze..."
"Shut up!" yelled Catra angrily, "That was stupid. We should try again!"
"Again?" Adora chuckled, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah..." Catra said in an annoyed tone, "I mean, if we've gotta do it, we haveta do it right, right?"
"Whatever you say, Catra," Adora giggled, "Let's try to keep our eyes open this time."
Adora and Catra moved much faster and steadier this time, holding each other's hands for support and tilting their heads to avoid the other one's nose. Their lips touched for less than a second and they both took a step back to look at each other in the eye.
"Right," Adora gasped, breaking the silence, "We need to go now. We're already late for inspection."
"Huh?" exclaimed the younger Catra, as if being woken up from a dream, "Yeah... right... of course..."
Adora took the younger Catra by the hand and the two of them ran down the hallway, passing through the older Catra and the door behind her.
"That was your first kiss, was it not?" asked Light Hope.
"I'm not talking to you," Catra grumbled.
"There is no need," Light Hope explained, "I can make an accurate judgement of the information I need by recording and analysing your physical reactions. But my work will proceed much faster if you answer my questions."
"My reaction to what?!" Catra exclaimed, "You heard Adora! It didn't mean anything! It was just a stupid tradition we had to follow!"
"It was my assessment that this interaction meant something more than what was stated out loud," Light Hope theorized, "After all, Adora had attempted to repeat this action every Christmas the two of you were together."
The corridor changed again and again, the same two cadets facing each other, kissing one another, and walking away hand in hand. Each time they kissed, they got noticeably older until the Catra that Light Hope conjured looked exactly like the Catra wearing pajamas and sitting curled up on the floor.
"I'm not the one who put the stupid thing up there," Catra growled softly, "It was just something we had to do on our way from the barracks to the canteen."
"It does seem to be an inefficient path," Light Hope noted, "The southern pathway provided a much shorter distance."
"It's just the way we went there! Stop overthinking it!" Catra shouted, getting up to scream at the ghost, "It was just a stupid made up tradition for stupid little babies! It didn't mean anything! It couldn't have! If it did, Adora wouldn't have left me!"
The words echoed down the corridor as Catra stared defiantly at her captor. As hard as she tried to stand firm and look hardened, she couldn't stop a tear from dripping down her furry cheek.
"I need to get out of here!" Catra said to herself, hyperventilating as her head darted around the room, looking for an escape, "Let me out of here! You got what you wanted, now let me out!"
"No," Light Hope stated, "There is still one more experience that must be observed."
Catra's eyes fell upon the grate on the floor and she clawed open the vent before climbing inside onto her back.
"Entrapta got me into this mess," Catra whispered, "Now she's going to get me out."
~*~
Catra crawled through the pipe using the claws on her hands and feet to propel herself, ignoring the black grease that surrounded her. She kept moving carefully in the tight confined space so as to not get stuck.
"Hey, Catra, why don't we try climbing through the vents?" Catra complained as she squeezed through the pipe, "After all, Entrapta does it for fun, how hard can it be? At least, now we get to know what an MRE packet feels like..."
Progress was so slow that it felt like hours. But when she saw light in the distance above her head, she sped up and climbed as fast as she can, not realizing the pipe tilted downward until she began to slide down it uncontrollably.
"Aaaaah!" Catra screamed as her claws dug into pipe in an fruitless attempt to slow herself and she fell out the hole into the cold winter air.
Catra reached for something anything to grab as she fell down multiple stories along the red iron building. Her eyes caught a stray cable hanging between the wall and a nearby building. Catra reached to grab it and managed to hang on, only for one end of the cable to snap off and she swung down towards the other building. Catra continued to scream in terror until she crashed into a closed window, cracking the glass but not breaking it.
"Ugg..." Catra groaned, feeling sore in the side of her that hit the building, but unwilling to let go of the cable with either hand.
As Catra slowly spun around on the cable, she looked at the cracked window and saw no way to open it from her side. Struggling against the cable, she pulled herself up and placed her bandaged feet against the glass, her bandaged foot smearing blood against the window.
"As much as this is gonna suck," Catra told herself, "I just don't see any other way down."
Catra looked up and down the building to double check if there was any other way to get back inside, and then began to kick the cracked window with her good foot, thumping rather uselessly against the glass.
"Come on!" Catra shouted, as she kept kicking the window, "I know we make these thing specifically not to break, but I really need to get back inside there!"
Catra paused for a second to catch her breath and looked back up at the cable holding her up then looked back at the window.
"Alright, you asked for it..." Catra grumbled, crouching down against the window, "Yippie-Ki-Yay, Mr. Window!"
Catra leapt off the window to swing along the cable and prepared to smash through in with a double kick. Once again she landed with a pathetic thump and the cable above her snapped. Catra didn't have time to react as she once again began to fall screaming down the side of the building, landing in a pile of snow on the ground. Catra was buried completely underneath and had to stand up to poke her head out. Catra shook herself as she climbed out of the snow, leaving a black imprint in the pile where she landed and spot of red in each of her footsteps.
"Great..." Catra cursed, examining her bleeding foot, "The bandage must have come off in the snow. Well, I'm not gonna waste time trying to look for it."
~*~
Catra continued limping through the snow, looking for a way to get back inside when she heard voices in the distance. Catra followed the sound to see trenches dug into the snow, with sandbags piled on top. It was a defensive fortification facing the frozen dead trees of the Whispering Woods.
"Catra..." she heard a gruff female voice whisper harshly to her, "Get down!"
Catra instinctively dropped prone behind the sandbags and saw a horde soldier in snow camouflage lying beside her. The Horde soldier removed her helmet to reveal a dark skinned face wearing dreadlocks.
"You look terrible," Lonnie observed, "Did Adora get you?"
"Adora?!" Catra repeated in shock, "She's here?!"
"Of course!" Lonnie answered, "She's hiding in the woods, just up ahead. Kyle tried to get a good look at her position, but didn't last too long."
Lonnie motioned to the other side of Catra where another camouflaged soldier was groaning in pain, covered in ice and snow.
"I knew it..." Catra said, poking her head above the sandbags to take a look towards the woods, "The Fright Zone's under attack. The princesses are here."
"What are you talking about?" asked Lonnie, not waiting for an answer as her eyes drew up to the treeline, "There she is! Attack!"
Catra ducked back under the sandbags as Lonnie got up and prepared to fire. Except instead of the Horde's usual armaments, she picked up and hurled a ball of compacted snow towards forest.
"Snowballs?!" Catra called out, "Where are the guns?!"
Lonnie didn't respond as she continued throwing snowballs, reloading from a pyramid piled up beside her. Catra gave her a confused look until Lonnie grunted in pain from a ball of white powder hitting her in the face and she fell backwards to the ground. Catra slowly reached over to her, and found her hand pass through her, the image of Lonnie glitching and flickering at Catra's touch.
"Another ghost..." Catra realized, "But that means..."
And then she remembered, this had all happened before. This was another memory of what happened last year, when an outdoor training session devolved into a giant snowball fight between teammates, Adora was the last member standing from her side, but had managed to almost squeak out a win all by herself. Catra scanned the treeline again looking for the ball thrower and surely enough spotted a familiar face with blue eyes and blonde hair poking out behind a tree. In the back of Catra's mind she knew this was all a trick, knew this was all an illusion, but something inside her had stopped caring and she leapt out from the barricades and sprinted towards the Whispering Woods on all fours. Adora threw snowball after snowball after her, but Catra was able to deftly dodge each throw. After all, she already knew where each shot was going to hit. After running out of ammo Adora ran deeper into the woods, but Catra continued to chase after her. Slowly, but surely, Catra closed on her target and leapt into the air knocking Adora to the ground.
"Facewash!" Catra teased, grabbing a clump of snow and shoving it into Adora's face.
"Pleh!" Adora gagged, spitting out the snow onto the ground beside her, "Dirty move, Catra!"
"Whatever it takes to win," Catra said, grabbing another clump of snow from the ground, "Now surrender, Princess scum!"
"Okay, okay!" Adora said, holding her hands up submissively, "You win, I surrender..."
"Good..." Catra said, climbing off her former teammate and lying down on the snow behind her, "Because I don't think I can move another muscle."
Catra and Adora laid still, looking up and the snow falling down on them.
"What do you think is going to happen to us next year?" asked Adora.
"I don't know..." Catra lied, "What about you?"
"I heard from Shadow Weaver that Hordak is planning a new offensive against Brightmoon over the coming months," Adora said, "And he's going to need new officers to handle all the smaller operations."
"Oh, of course he will," Catra sighed, "And I suppose you think you're gonna be next in line to become the next Force Captain, don't you?"
"I just do what is expected from me," Adora replied, "To fulfill our duty to protect the Horde."
"Spoken like a true people pleaser sucking up for that sweet promotion," Catra chuckled.
"Haha... yeah..." Adora laughed, "Did you write up your requisition request to Santa this year?"
"Don't tell me you still believe in that garbage," Catra scoffed, "You know it's just Shadow Weaver leaving us those presents. Why else do you think she insists on reading each of our lists and why I always get stuck with a lump of coal every year?"
"I mean, you can be pretty cruel sometimes, Catra," Adora said diplomatically, "Like just last week when you tore up Kyle's face because he was snoring too loud?"
"That was an accident!" Catra declared, "I didn't mean for my claws to come out, I was just trying to smother him until he passed out..."
"Yeah, that is... so much worse..." Adora groaned.
"Whatever..." Catra sighed, "Don't tell me it wasn't driving you up the wall, too."
"Well, yeah," Adora admitted, "But don't you think that was a little extreme?"
"Maybe..." Catra said, her tone quickly turning dour, "Hey, Adora?"
"Yeah?" replied Adora.
"We're still gonna be together next year, right?" Catra asked, "No matter what happens?"
"Of course!" Adora replied, "We're always gonna be friends. Me being Force Captain isn't going to change that."
"Don't lie to me, Adora..." Catra grumbled, "I already know what's going to happen. You gonna make some new friends and leave me behind the first chance you get."
"How can you say something like that?!" Adora shouted, visibly hurt, "I've always been there for you and I'm always gonna be in your corner! If anything changes between us, it'll be because of you acting all weird about it!"
Catra stayed silent for a moment and turned her head away from Adora, frowning.
"Besides you've seen what the current crop of the Horde's 'best officers' are like," Adora joked, "They're all super macho lugheads with egos so big you wonder how they managed to cram it in their thick skulls."
"Sounds to me like you'd fit right in, Adora!" Catra shot back.
"Oh, shut up!" Adora giggled.
The two girls laughed loudly as they lay on the ground, and continued to watch the snowfall come down from above. Catra never wanted this moment to end, she just wanted to stay here with Adora in this moment of time.
"Okay..." Adora said softly, getting up from the ground, "Let's get back inside and get warmed up! Shadow Weaver's probably gonna freak when she finds out what we've been doing."
"Okay, Adora..." Catra promised, "I'll be right behind you..."
Adora got up and walked away and Catra was alone again apart from the glowing blue light beside her.
"So is that it?" asked Catra, "Are you done torturing me now?"
"Yes," Light Hope answered, "I have completed my assessment and have come to my final conclusion."
"Great..." Catra said, slowly getting up off the ground and wiping the snow off herself, "I really need to get back inside, I've already been out here for too long. So... umm... which way is home?"
"I am afraid I cannot tell you that," Light Hope answered.
"What do you mean you can't?" Catra inquired, "How can you not know where we are? Haven't you been following me this whole time?"
"You misunderstand," Light Hope corrected, "I am perfectly aware of our current location, but I cannot permit you to return to the Fright Zone."
"What?!" Catra shouted, "But you can't just leave me out here, I'll freeze out here!"
"That is correct," Light Hope confirmed, "Judging from the low temperature, your many injuries and your lack of protective clothing, I calculate a high probability you will cease life functions very shortly."
"So help me!" demanded Catra, "You're the whole reason I'm out here in the first place!"
"I am unable to comply," Light Hope responded, "I have finished my assessment and have come to the final conclusion that you, Catra of the Fright Zone, are a direct threat to the She-Ra's task of balancing the Heart of Etheria. You are a danger to our plans for this world and must be destroyed promptly before you do anymore damage. You will die here and when your body is found, it will be assumed you chose to take your own life by recklessly venturing into the Whispering Woods without any proper equipment."
"But that's not fair!" Catra shrieked, "I did everything you asked of me! You said you were going to leave me alone and never come back!"
"That is correct," Light Hope confirmed once again, "I will now leave you to your fate and will not return. Goodbye, Catra of the Fright Zone."
And with that, the ghost flickered and faded from existence, disappearing into the fog and falling snow. Catra looked around herself to find any clue of which way she came from, but her footprints had long faded from the falling snow and she could barely see anything further than a few feet from her, shrouded the many dead trees and the fog and snow that surrounded her.
"I hate ghosts..." Catra grumbled as she soon picked a direction at random and began walking deeper into the cold wilderness.