One More Best Friends Squad Road Trip

by zephyran

After years of suffering, of fighting the demons both inside and out, the Horde has been defeated once and for all. The Best Friends Squad is finally able to take a moment to celebrate the peace they helped bring to the world. But now that the fighting is done, the real work must begin. The work of rebuilding, of healing...and of planning that one last Best Friends Squad road trip.

One More Best Friends Squad Road Trip - A She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Story

By Maureen Leah

Somewhere:

/TELEMETRY ALERT/

/DIMENSIONAL PORTAL DETECTED/

/ETHERIA LOCATED/

/LIGHT HOPE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED/

/LIGHT HOPE DATABASE DOWNLOAD INITIATED/

/HEART OF ETHERIA DETECTED/

/HEART OF ETHERIA TRIGGER DETECTED/

/LIGHT HOPE DATABASE DOWNLOAD COMPLETE/

/LIGHT HOPE DATABASE BACKGROUND ANALYSIS INITIATED/

/HEART OF ETHERIA IGNITION IN T-MINUS 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 0/

/HEART OF ETHERIA IGNITION WINDOW ENTERED/

/HEART OF ETHERIA IGNITION NOT DETECTED WITHIN EXPECTED WINDOW/

/HEART OF ETHERIA IGNITION IN T-PLUS 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16/

/HEART OF ETHERIA IGNITION TIMEOUT EXCEEDED/

/QUERYING LIGHT HOPE/

/LIGHT HOPE TELEMETRY LOST. ATTEMPTING TO RE-ESTABLISH/

/LIGHT HOPE TELEMETRY LOST. ATTEMPTING TO RE-ESTABLISH/

/LIGHT HOPE TELEMETRY LOST. ATTEMPTING TO RE-ESTABLISH/

/LIGHT HOPE TELEMETRY LOST. ATTEMPTING TO RE-ESTABLISH/

/LIGHT HOPE TELEMETRY LOST. TIMEOUTS EXCEEDED/

/HEART OF ETHERIA IGNITION NOT DETECTED/

/ENGAGING CONTINGENCY BETA PROTOCOL/

VVVVV

They'd done it.

The four of them - Catra, Adora, Glimmer, and Bow, laid there laughing on the grass for several minutes, just letting the joy, the adrenaline, the utter relief wash over them. They'd done it. After so many years, after so many millions of miles, after so much sacrifice, Etheria finally had peace.

As the Best Friends Squad lay intertwined, the celebrations around them were deafening. Cheers and embraces, dancing and kissing. People thrilled to be free, to be alive.

After a long while, Bow was finally the one to break the quartet's quiet celebration "Uh, guys?"

"What?" Glimmer said, running her hand along his arm.

"We, um, just said we were gonna take a road trip, right? To, uh...to space?"

"Yeah…" Glimmer said. Adora and Catra seemed to be in their own little world.

"Well, I don't know if we've got any other ships lying around, but...um...Darla's kind of a wreck right now. I don't think she'll be getting us far."

Glimmer sighed. "Let's not worry about that right now, okay?" She rolled onto her side and allowed her head to rest on his chest. "I just wanna stay right here."

Bow couldn't help but grin. And having Glimmer's head on his chest, her hand gently tickling his bare stomach…

He really hoped nobody was looking at him right now.

Lying at their right, Adora and Catra were motionless, except for their breathing, eyes closed and hands interwoven.

Adora felt just a little overwhelmed. Only minutes ago, she had felt hopeless. She was going to give everything up. Her strength, her future, her life...

And then Catra. Catra had shown her that she didn't have to give any of that up. The only thing she had to give up was the one thing she could give up without actually losing it.

She had to give her love.

It was the one thing, until that moment, she had never really believed she could have, and that she was never really sure she deserved. All her life, the closest thing to love had been tolerance. Praise for a job well done. Appreciation from a village she'd rescued, under the guise of She-Ra. Appreciation from her friends, for making it possible for them to survive and even push back against Horde onslaught.

And then Catra.

All their years spent together. Growing up, navigating the various labyrinths of Horde life...especially with Shadow Weaver constantly trying to pit them against each other…fighting robots, fellow cadets, each other…

And yet there was always that undercurrent between them, that connection that she'd never really spent the time trying to put a finger on. More than camaraderie, more than friendship. And then for the last couple years...when they were at each other throats, at times trying to kill each other, even if neither one really wanted the other hurt...somehow it had blossomed all the same.

"All she wanted was you...you broke her heart…"

Horde Prime's words sent chills up and down her body. She shuddered.

"Hey," Catra said. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Adora said. She decided not to remind Catra of Prime. Not now. No matter what Adora had been through as part of Prime's machinations, it paled in comparison to the utter torture Catra had been forced to endure. And if Catra deserved anything, she deserved to be able to forget. If only for a little while.

Adora tilted her head, resting it against Catra's. Right now, in this moment, she finally felt complete. "Yeah, I'm great."

They lost track of how long they'd been there. Really, until this moment they'd had so little time nor desire to bask in much of anything. A few fleeting moments here and there, the occasional respite from war, even some private moments, but this time, right now, was their time.

"Hey guys!"

And just like that, someone came along and ended their time.

The young, excited voice snapped the Squad out of their shared reveries. "There you are!"

"Hey Frosta," Glimmer said, her voice calm and smooth. She wasn't going to let go of the moment that easily.

"It's all really over, isn't it?" Frosta said. "The Horde, the war...everything?"

"Yeah, it is," Glimmer said. With a sigh she sat up. Bow, somewhat disappointed for the break in contact but also slightly relieved he could move again, sat up with her. He slid a hand around Glimmer's waist, and she laid her partially-gloved hand on it. That made him smile widely, and it reddened his cheeks quite a bit.

"Um...Bow? Are you okay?" Frosta asked, studying his face.

"Huh? Y-yeah, yeah, I'm great. I'm good." He tried to pull his hand away from Glimmer's waist in embarrassment, but she gripped it firmly and wouldn't let him go.

Frosta shrugged. "So...um...we were over there talking. Some of us were. The ones who aren't doing all kissy-faces. Bleh." She made a disgusted face and let her tongue roll out.

Glimmer nodded. And waited. And waited. Finally, she said, "You were talking, and…?"

"Oh, right! We were talking, and we've got a lot of Hordaks now. Like, a lot of them. And they seem like they don't want to fight anymore, but they're all acting weird. Like the one you guys brought back from space."

"Their hive mind is gone," Bow said. "It's gotta be traumatic for them. It was for Wrong Hordak."

"Wrong Hordak, right." Frosta said. She glanced around at the disjointed crowd of Prime Clones. "Which one was he again?"

"That's...a really good question." Glimmer and Bow both scanned the crowd of clones. They saw one standing with Entrapta, speaking with a smile on his face. There's Right Hordak, Bow thought. He had no idea what happened to Wong Hordak. "I hope he's all right."

"Me too," Glimmer said. She released Bow's hand and stood. "I think it's time for me to go find him. And...I need to check on everyone. Who's okay and who's...Anyway, it's my duty." She turned back to Bow. "I'll meet you back at the castle by sundown, okay?" She smiled and blushed just a little.

Bow smiled. "Yeah."

After they gazed at each other a moment longer, Glimmer leapt back toward Bow and kissed him deeply on the lips. Bow's shock lasted all of a millisecond, until he closed his eyes and they both wrapped their arms around each other.

"Woo, go Sparkles!" Catra said. Frosta glanced at her and gave her a sour look, but she ignored it. Adora watched her two friends sharing their moment, and realized this was the first time they'd publicly shown their true for each other. Their makeout sessions on the ship didn't count, since Adora was the only one who actually witnessed them.

She squeezed Catra's hand, which was resting gently on Adora's stomach. "Go Sparkles," she muttered, glancing over and smiling at Catra. They leaned their heads into each other's once again.

"Oh yuck!" Frosta said, turning and marching away from the very public displays of affection. "Not you too!"

Glimmer and Bow held their embrace for a long while. When they finally separated, Glimmer kissed Bow's forehead, took a step backward, letting their hands slide apart from each other. "S-see you!" she said, as she vanished into a cloud of sparkles.

Bow sighed as he gazed off into the distance. This was what being in love felt like. He liked it.

"Aww, you look so cute when you're all smitten like that," Catra quipped.

"Yeah…" Bow said, not really sure what he was responding to. Or whom.

Catra laughed. "C'mon, Adora. Let's…" She stepped around to face Adora, and saw her gazing at Bow, that big goofy grin on her face that Catra knew only too well. "Ugh, not you too! Let's go do - something. Somewhere. That's not here."

Adora spun on tiptoes and almost pranced along with Catra as they walked away. "I swear, you princesses'll get googly-eyed from anything."

"And soon, so shall you," Adora said in a voice that was supposed to sound mystical. Instead it sounded like she was trying to imitate an anthropomorphic owl.

"If I do," Catra said, "I give you permission to go dunk me in a lake."

VVVVV

Bow took a bit of time to recover, especially when he realized he was standing, alone, staring at nothing. He cleared his throat, straightened up his outfit (for whatever good that would do) and scanned the crowd. What was I thinking about?

He laid eyes upon Entrapta, walking and holding hands with one of the clones. No, not just a clone, he realized. The original one. The Hordak one. Right Hordak.

He made a brisk pace toward them, trying not to draw too much attention to himself as he approached. They were both smiling as they spoke, about what he couldn't really tell yet, but he could only imagine how much catching up the two of them had to do after their separation. And everything that had happened in between.

"-so many things we can do with them," Bow heard Entrapta say once he was finally close enough. "Your old exo-suit was nothing compared to what I'll be able to make for you now! I mean, once I have a chance to really tinker with Prime's tech. Oh, darn it!" She patted herself down, checking her pockets. "I lost it!"

"Hmm? Lost what?" Hordak said.

"Your crystal! I brought it with us when we went to rescue Catra because I hoped we could rescue you too...and I think I lost it there!" She looked up into the sky, at the floating tree that was once Horde Prime's mothership. She sighed. "I guess I can make you a new one. Maybe Adora'll let me borrow some stuff from the Crystal Castle and-"

As she had been speaking, Hordak slid his fingers under the sleeve of his uniform. He pulled out a purple four-side crystal.

"-oh, but that'll be so hard to remake it just right, and-" She gasped loudly and stopped in her tracks. "You found it!"

"It's how I knew you'd been there," Hordak said. He held it in his closed fist for a moment, and then placed it gingerly into Entrapta's waiting palm. "It - helped me to remember myself. Even after the reconditioning."

"Oh that makes me so happy!" Entrapta exclaimed, wrapping her arms and her hair around Hordak in a tight bear hug. The suddenness of it made him grunt, but he soon smiled and returned the embrace.

"I put so much heart into this one I was afraid I wouldn't be able to ever do it right again!"

"Your...heart is what matters to me," Hordak said. "If I had to choose between the two, I would choose having you with me. But that my finding it makes you happy...it makes me...happy...as well."

Entrapta broke the embrace. "Oh, this is gonna be great! We're gonna make you the best exo-suit ever and then we're gonna make the best lab in the world and we're gonna do such awesome - Oh hey, Bow!"

Bow was so surprised by Entrapta's sudden change in the direction of the conversation that he almost stumbled. Hordak looked over at him as well, and Bow thought he could see just the slightest bit of annoyance in the former warlord's face.

"Um, h-hey, Entrapta," Bow said. "Umm...hi, um, Right Hordak."

Hordak tilted his head, one of his yellow eyes widening. "'Right'...Hordak?"

"N-Never mind,' Bow stammered. "So - listen. I totally didn't mean to - you know - interrupt you or anything. And I know things are kinda hectic right now, I mean with, well, all this going on." He gestured back to the crowds they had been walking away from. The Rebellion members and the dozens of clones milling about. The dropped weapons littering the freshly-enflowered ground. He turned to Entrapta. "Anyway, I was - we were wondering if you might be willing to help us with the ship one more time. So we could, you know, take it to space one more time."

"You want us to fix Darla?" Entrapta cried. The stars in her eyes and wide toothy grin as she shouted the words easily betrayed her sudden excitement. "Do you hear that, Hordak?" She turned to Hordak, two of her hair-arms grabbing his shoulders so tightly he let out a grunt of surprise. "We get to fix Darla for real this time! Oh, she's gonna be so awesome now! With all the new tech we've got from the Horde's ships and we're gonna be able to use real facilities and I'm gonna have my lab partner and we're gonna make Darla the best ship in the universe and she's gonna-" She stopped herself, and took a moment to compose herself. "Um, yes, I think we can do that. Hordak and I have a really important project to work on, but when that's done," she turned to Hordak, "whaddya say, partner? Feel like fixing up our First Ones ship?"

Hordak smiled. "It sounds intriguing."

"Sweet!" Bow cleared his throat. "Um, I mean, that would be excellent, thank you!"

He then noticed Hordak's gaze seemed to be drifting away past Entrapta. At least, he thought it was. It was difficult to tell with those pupil-less eyes.

As he followed Hordak's eyes, Bow could have sworn he saw them darken slightly, taking on an orangeish hue. "My brothers," Hordak said. "They are at a loss for what to do. They have never been separated from the hive mind." He looked downward. "Your people don't appear to be very comfortable around them. I - do not blame them." He turned to Entrapta. "I should do something to help them. If left alone they could - " He hesitated. "They could well turn out as I did. They deserve better."

"Aww," Entrapta said, placing a hair-hand on his shoulder. "But you turned out great."

Bow shot Entrapta a look, which he wasn't sure she even noticed.

"I also did a great many things that...that I now regret. Because I was - I was lonely. Angry. Rejected. I do not wish the same upon them."

"So...maybe you could do some kind of therapy for them or something," Bow said.

Hordak looked at him again, and Bow could swear his eyes had turned even more orange. "'Thera...pee'?"

"Yeah - you know, help them out. Talk to them. Help them figure things out so they don't end up evil-" He stopped himself too late, and frowned sheepishly.

"Yes," Hordak said. "That is logical." He turned to Entrapta. "Your friends are far wiser than I ever gave them credit."

"Yeah, they're like that a lot of the time," Entrapta said. It took Bow a moment to figure out whether or not that was an actual compliment, but he reminded himself that, as Entrapta had once said, she didn't "do people" very well.

"So um - anyway," Bow said, "you'll be able to fix the ship?"

"You betcha!" Entrapta said. "If you can have someone get it home for me we'll start on it as soon as we make Hordak's new suit!"

Bow nodded. "Sure, sure, we'll do that. Thanks."

"And...and also, thanks. For being my friend." she said, extending her hair out to him. "And trusting me." After a moment's hesitation, he took it in his hand and shook it.

"You're - you're welcome," Bow said. "And - thanks for being my friend too."

"Anytime!" She withdrew her hair and then wrapped it around Hordak's shoulder. "C'mon, partner! We've got work to do!"

VVVVV

This entire time, Adora and Catra had been strolling toward the morning sun, not really having a purpose other than enjoying each other's company.

They held each other close as they gazed up into the sky, past the giant tree that was once Horde Prime's mothership. Adora could feel and hear Catra's purring against her chest. It filled her with a sense of something else she'd never felt before - something she'd never been able to articulate before. Contentment.

"Y'know," Catra said, "might be a while before they make that ship NOT a death trap anymore."

Adora chuckled. "Darla did take a hell of a beating. Not that she was in great shape when we started out. We might have to wait a bit before we can actually go anywhere. We should find something to do while we're waiting."

"I think this is good enough right here," Catra said. "Unless you've got somewhere else you wanna be right now."

Adora opened her mouth but then immediately closed it. For the first time in her life, she didn't really have anywhere she HAD to be. For the first time she could remember, her time was hers. She didn't have somewhere else to be. She didn't have somewhere else she WANTED to be. For the first time ever, she was right where she was needed and where she was wanted. And it was where she wanted to be.

"Let's just stay here," she said. "Like, build a house here or something. But around this little patch so, we can still lie down here and look up all the time."

Catra chuckled. "Idiot."

Adora chuckled too. Yes, idiot. All her ambition all her life, all her wanting of something bigger and better and greater, and here she was now, content to just lie in the grass with the woman she loved. "Good thing I've got a smartass like you to keep me company."

They both laughed together. It was the greatest feeling in either of their lives.

VVVVV

Somewhere:

/CONTINGENCY BETA PROGRAM INITIATION CONFIRMED/

/INITIATING REANIMATION PROCESS/

/REANIMATION PROCESS INITIATED SUCCESSFULLY/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 21 MILLION 859 THOUSAND 12 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 21 MILLION 859 THOUSAND 11 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 21 MILLION 859 THOUSAND 10 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 21 MILLION 859 THOUSAND 9 SECONDS/

VVVVV

As it turned out, the ship was almost literally one landing gear in the scrapyard. Bow and Entrapta's tinkering and emergency patching had managed to coax the thousand-plus-year-old ship to perform the incredible feats it had done to get them to, extract them from, and then escape from Horde Prime's ship and his fighters. Not long after they had finally landed on Etheria, though, as if she were finally accepting her work was done, Darla had gone completely offline. The ship started shedding parts from literally every area, inside and out. Transporting it to the Crypto Castle in Dryl had proved quite challenging because of this. They had ultimately had to hermetically seal it, mostly with vines Perfuma had helpfully provide, and transport it very slowly by truck up the mountainous terrain of Dryl to prevent it from leaving a trail of components from its landing spot in the Whispering Woods all the way to Entrapta's workshop.

Even after it reached its final destination, it had taken Entrapta and Hordak weeks just to reassemble it enough to get Darla's basic systems functional again. Then the real work began, as they could finally have Darla's help in sorting through all that needed done to make her space worthy again.

Entrapta, of course, had been ecstatic at the opportunity. Hordak, his old personality having fully returned and now with his new, vastly-improved exosuit, had been intrigued at the discoveries they were making together. Despite the lingering memories of his time as a reconditioned clone and the knowledge he retained of Prime's technology, he had found the First One's technology to be fascinating in the way it wasn't only logical and regimented, as all other known technology was, but also how it required a bit of creativity both to understand and to use properly.

That had been their job in this time after the war, and as far as Glimmer was concerned, she was more than happy for them to stay there and continue tinkering. Even if they ultimately weren't able to restore the ancient ship to operation, the longer it kept the two of them occupied and out of the public eye, the better all around.

Of course, Glimmer had many things to keep in mind, and many things she needed to juggle just to keep her kingdom running.

While Glimmer knew one of her primary responsibilities as Queen of Bright Moon was to hold court, to receive and act upon her people's needs, she had done all she could to limit that time to only a couple hours per day at most. It wasn't that she didn't want to listen to her people and do what she could to help them. It was the fact that she had a gigantic backlog of problems she still had to deal with.

Every day, after she had declared court time to be over, she and her father, King Regent Micah, adjourned to the royal study where they would begin to tackle the mountain of paperwork that lay in wait. Most days they would work well into the night, only to sleep a few hours, awaken at dawn, and repeat the process all over again.

This was one of those typical evenings for the both of them. Her and her father, poring over hundreds of pages of documents and jotting notes down anywhere and everywhere they could find space in their already-filled notebooks. Of all the jobs Glimmer had to do, it was the only one that magic couldn't really help her with.

"I can't believe I thought I'd have time for a 'road trip'," Glimmer muttered as she read over the tenth complaint in a row about the logistical problems her people were having transporting foodstuffs from the Kingdom of Albara. Albara, one of Etheria's primary food-producing kingdoms, had been hit quite hard by Prime's forces near the end of the war, losing nearly all their transport infrastructure to Horde lasers and crashed Horde fighters. Likewise, Bright Moon's own transport abilities had been severely crippled when the Horde took the castle, either to make it harder for them in case they retook the castle, or just out of sheer spite. Her engineers' time was split between rebuilding the damaged portions of the castle and restoring the shipping fleet, and like their rulers, many of them were working long hours and late nights, with few breaks. The kingdom's transport capabilities were so limited right after the end of the war that she had almost faced a rebellion of her own when it became public knowledge that she'd dedicated one of the few working trucks to slowly carrying Mara's ship to Dryl.

None of this even touched on the one subject that kept coming up, which she'd been trying to ignore for as long as possible: What to do with Hordak and Catra.

Between the two of them, they'd caused more damage to the various kingdoms of Etheria than anything in recent history, save for Horse Prime's invasion. Her subjects, and many of the other kingdoms of Etheria, wanted there to be some kind of consequence laid upon the duo. Catra's case was relatively easy; Glimmer had left her to Adora. Adora and Catra had been spending these months since the war ended traveling the globe, helping out wherever they could, and offering She-Ra's strength wherever it was needed. Prime had left a LOT of mess to clean up, and with a lack of working heavy machinery in many kingdoms, a super-strong warrior woman who could lift entire spaceships over her head was a gigantic help.

Adora reported back regularly, and mostly had positive things to say. Catra was able to ride her coattails, if not winning over the locals with her helpfulness, at least earning their tolerance of her presence thanks to her being a sort of "package deal" with everyone's favorite hero She-Ra. Adora also liked to gush about how Catra was doing, how she was coming "a long way" toward controlling her anger, healing from the trauma she'd been through thanks to Horde Prime (along with the abusive childhood she and Adora experienced at the hand of Shadow Weaver, still a slightly sore subject between Glimmer and Adora). Glimmer had done what she could to help, even working with her Aunt Castaspella to arrange for Catra to meet regularly with one of Mystacor's top behavioral therapists. That had been her father's idea, and it amazed her just how smartly his fatherly instincts could extend from his own daughter to her friends, even one friend who had once been her mortal enemy. It made her happy, though, that Catra was getting a chance to heal and that Glimmer was able to play some part in it, no matter how small.

Hordak, on the other hand, was a much more murky subject. He was living exclusively in Dryl with Entrapta, rarely if ever leaving Crypto Castle. She heard no direct reports about him from anyone other than Entrapta herself, and even those were spotty when it came to personal matters. Most involved status updates on Mara's ship, summaries on the experiments they were performing with New Horde and First Ones tech, and the occasional reminders that Emily, the Horde 'bot that Emily had repurposed into her best friend, was now living with Scorpia and helping her with her duties as ruling Princess of the Fright Zone and the Crimson Wastes.

But there were complaints from various kingdoms, those who had not directly participated in the Second or Third Rebellions, that nothing was being done to punish Hordak for not only the invasion that created the First Rebellion, but also for directly setting up the chain of events that resulted in Prime's invasion. It didn't seem to be common knowledge, just yet, that Entrapta's work when she had partnered with Hordak had played a critical part in that as well. That would be the last thing Glimmer needed - the chance that some kingdoms could be tempted to arrest Entrapta or even declare war on her kingdom just to punish her.

She really felt like a juggler, trying to keep dozens of balls in the air while adding even more every minute or so. "I feel like my brain is melting trying to keep this all straight."

"It's not easy, running a kingdom," Micah said. "I'd forgotten just how much work it is to be a king, all those years on Beast Island."

For a fleeting second, Glimmer thought a vacation to Beast Island would actually be a pleasant getaway compared to the pile of work she faced here. She wouldn't dare say that to Micah, though, even in jest. "I can't believe Mom was able to do all this," Glimmer said, "and still have time to run a rebellion and yell at me." She chuckled.

"Your mother made it look easy," Micah said. "She was almost infinitely patient, and she always seemed to know the right thing to do."

"Not so much patience with me," Glimmer said. Then, realizing what she'd said sounded far harsher than she'd wanted, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

Micah smiled, and then reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "She did have her...moments," he admitted, "but she was wise. And she loved you with all her heart."

Glimmer smiled. After a moment of gazing at her father, she turned back to the papers at hand. As she flipped from one page to another, she sighed. "Homeless clones," she said. "Seems like nobody wants them in their kingdoms."

"I can't really blame them," Micah said. "Not after everything that happened."

"No," Glimmer said. "I guess not." She continued reading, but something struck her. "No, this isn't right." She shifted from one paper to another. "This one," she said, showing her father the seal of the royal family of the kingdom of Tarus, "says there are thousands of clones raiding the farms and eating all the animals. But this one…" She shuffled the papers she'd been reading earlier, finding the one with Entrapta's royal seal of Dryl. "This one from Entrapta said that they can't eat meat products. They're not refined enough. Hordak has to stick with this - what did she call it?" She re-read the page. "'Nutrient-rich amniotic fluid' that was produced on Prime's ships. She says eggs are the closest natural equivalent, but even Hordak used to have to process them in special machines before he could eat them. If they were really eating animals, there'd be sick and dying clones all over the place."

"We would definitely know about that," Micah said. "Wait, though - if the clones need this special fluid - they have to be getting it from somewhere, don't they? Or we'd have clones starving to death everywhere." He shuffled through some papers. "I've got reports here that say there've been tiny robots spotted all over the place, wherever there seemed to be clones. Some of the drones are getting shot down because they're spooking the locals and guard forces, but..." He scanned several different pages. "'...filled with a yellow gelatinous material…'" He flipped a page. "'...broke it open and it was filled with some kind of green or yellow liquid that smells of cooked eggs…'" He looked up. "You don't think…?"

Glimmer's eyes went wide. "Wait, I saw something about…" She rooted through the papers, knocking dozens of them to the floor. "'...appearance of a flying drone closer to old Horde technology and not Horde Prime, with what might have been a symbol...resembling She-Ra's Symbol of Hope.'"

"So - wait. Adora is sending these drones?"

Glimmer shook her head. "Adora's smart, but she's not tech-smart. And she's by-the-book. If she knew about this she'd have said something to us. This has gotta be Entrapta."

"Of course," Micah said. "And she used the one symbol every kingdom on Etheria would recognize, to make it clear that their purpose was to help. Your friend truly is brilliant."

"Yeah, plenty brilliant, but she didn't bother to tell anyone about it. Or she forgot. That's Entrapta." She stood, feeling lumps in her behind that told her she'd been sitting far too long. "I need to give her a call."

"Good idea," Micah said, "but before you do that, I think it's time we start thinking about some way to deal with all - this." He gestured to the mess of documents that now littered both the table and the floor. "We were lucky to figure this one thing out, but how many other critical things are we missing by there being just too much to go through?"

Glimmer opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. She couldn't quite figure out what her father was trying to say, nor could she even articulate a question beyond a "Huh?"

"Years ago, before you were born, and before the Horde, we had what they called a 'Council of Princesses'. They used to handle a lot of things like all this. When the Horde first arrived and started invading, it became the first Princess Alliance and was mostly about defending against the Horde." He leaned back in his chair, and Glimmer heard some of his joints crackle. "It might just be time to bring the Council back. Stop with all the papers back and forth and just get everyone together at a table and just talking."

"That's perfect!" Glimmer said. She teleported to her father and hugged him tightly.

"You go talk to Entrapta," he said, "and I'll call your Aunt Casta. The Council was mostly before my time, but Casta played a pretty big part in it for at least a few years."

Glimmer leaped in the air and threw up her hands in triumph. Finally, she felt Iike they would be able to do something constructive. Finally, they might be able to stop having to spend hours every night going blind by reading paper after paper after paper and then collapsing into bed without feeling like they'd actually accomplished something.

And maybe, just maybe, she might actually be able to get the time to go on that "Best Friends Squad Road Trip" they'd talked about after they'd defeated Horde Prime.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt excited to be a queen.

VVVVV

Somewhere:

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 16 MILLION 618 THOUSAND 3 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 16 MILLION 618 THOUSAND 2 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 16 MILLION 618 THOUSAND 1 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 16 MILLION 618 THOUSAND 0 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 16 MILLION 617 THOUSAND 999 SECONDS/

/ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL ACTIVATION T-MINUS 16 MILLION 617 THOUSAND 998 SECONDS/

~~THE BEGINNING~~

Part of the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series: "One Last Road Trip", by Maureen Leah