Mmmmm hi! So, I came up with this AU premise, but only the beginning of it. But it's kind of an interesting premise and there's lots of room to play around with it, so here's the deal: if you read this oneshot and you feel inspired to write something based off this AU concept, you are welcome to do so! You can think of this as a starter kit, LOL. All I ask is that you mention me and my fic in the ANs of yours (and a link to your fic would be appreciated, I would love to see it!)
I've got more She-Ra fanfics planned out, so if you like this one, hit that follow button! (I also have works in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Gurren Lagann, and Noragami, among others!)
It happened really, really fast. Then again, things tended to happen fast around the Fright Zone. It was an active military base, go figure. But this happened really fast. Entrapta was turning away, making a break for the door (or maybe the vents?) and Catra was there, between them, her slender back rigid with tension as she advanced with the stun baton in her grasp, and the baton was pointed right at Entrapta's back, and then- and then- and then Catra let out a choked noise, and her whole body stiffened, went slack, pitched forward, and hit the ground.
Scorpia didn't even realize what had happened till she saw her own tail from the corner of her eye. She gasped and grabbed it, clutching the traitorous thing to her chest. Entrapta paused, shoulders hunching up, glancing slowly backward. Her eyes went round at the sight of Catra facedown on the floor, the crackling stun baton still clutched in her fist.
In the doorway, "Kyle" the goat-lady (what was her name, anyway?) stumbled back in horror. She sputtered in wordless shock, then spun on her heel and bolted.
"What... what just happened? Catra...?" Entrapta's voice came out small, fragile, quavering.
That snapped Scorpia out of it. "Go!" she shouted. "Go warn Hordak about the portal! He'll listen to you, I know he will! Go, now, hurry!"
Entrapta cast an anxious look at Catra's prone form, then back to Scorpia. She nodded, turned, hoisted herself into the vent, and was gone.
It was only then that Scorpia let herself look down at Catra.
"Oh... oh, gosh," she murmured. Her pincers trembled. "Okay, ohhhhkay, I just gotta... I'm just gonna..." She started pacing. "It's fine, it's fine, Catra's been under a lot of stress and she just- she just lashed out a little, she didn't mean to... she just needs... ooooooh, Hordak is gonna be soooo maaaad if he hears about this... okay. Okay." She knew what she had to do. She knelt and gently rested her pincer on Catra's back. "I'm sorry, wildcat... but don't you worry, I'll take care of this."
When Catra drifted back to consciousness, her bunk felt unusually hard and cold, even by Horde mattress standards. Her shoulder and hip ached from resting against it; how many hours had she been asleep? She didn't remember going to bed. And she hurt all over, and...
Oh. She hadn't gone to bed. She remembered the sudden surge of rage and panic when Entrapta had said Adora was right, and she remembered her adrenaline-boosted pulse hammering in her ears and throat, she remembered pointing the stun baton at Entrapta's back, and she remembered... a sudden, sharp sting right between her shoulder blades.
She groaned, slowly opening her eyes. Yep, she was in a prison cell. Which was actually almost a surprise; if Hordak knew what she'd tried to do to his precious little pet princess, she figured she would've been either dead or on her way to Beast Island. Which meant he probably didn't know (not yet, anyway, it'd be a miracle if Entrapta didn't spill the beans about it). That, or somebody (probably not Entrapta this time) had intervened on her behalf. That, or he was so angry about it that he planned to make her suffer some more before he finished her off or banished her to Beast Island.
Catra groaned some more and sat up, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. She was shackled, because of course she was. Slumping back against the wall, she stared listlessly at the shackles. She sat, and stared, and she absently flexed her hand- the hand that had gripped the stun baton. When a stun baton was active, if you held it barehanded, you could feel the thrum of electricity up the bones and tendons of your arm. Catra could have sworn she was still feeling it.
At some point, she wasn't sure how long, a conspicuous throat-clearing at the door of her cell shook her out of the daze she'd sunk into. She dragged her head upward; it felt so heavy, like a huge lump of metal. Scorpia stood outside her cell, pincer-tips steepled under her chin, smiling sheepishly.
She gave a little wave. "Heh heh, heyyyy! Hi, Catra! You're awake, good!"
"You stung me."
Scorpia looked away guiltily. "Yyyeah..."
"You put me in here." It was less of a question and more of an observation.
"Yeah, I- I did do that too." She tapped her pincer-tips together. "Um, look. You've been under a lot of pressure lately- I mean, you work harder than anybody else around here, anyone can see that! And I get that you were rolling with the punches back there and making a spur-of-the-moment choice, and hey, look, I respect that! Sometimes you gotta make tough calls, it's totally understandable! But, um..."
"But?" Catra echoed dully.
Scorpia sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. "Maaaaybe it wasn't a great idea to try and zap our friend? Our friend who's friends with our very scary boss? I mean, for one thing she's our friend, and then there's the other thing where our scary boss would not be too happy about it, and you know he tends to get shouty and banish-y when he's mad. So, I uh, I thought it might be a good idea for you to lie low for a few hours. So you'd have some time to cool off."
Catra scoffed. "To keep me safe from the wrath of Hordak?"
"That, yeah, that, and... to keep you safe from... you," Scorpia said quietly. "You scared me back there, wildcat. Entrapta told you how dangerous it'd be to open a portal, and... you were going to do it anyway. You were going to hurt Entrapta so she couldn't stop you."
Catra scoffed, scowling at the floor.
"You weren't really gonna open that portal, were you?" Scorpia asked tentatively.
"Why not?" Catra growled. "Somebody had to do something, and apparently I'm the only one willing to take any risks around here! Pff, even Little Miss Science ran a few tests and got scared and bailed on her oh-so-exciting portal!"
"I mean, those tests did look pretty bad..." Scorpia mumbled.
Catra snorted. "I almost don't wanna know, but: what happened after?"
Scorpia winced, rubbing the back of her head with one pincer. "Well, uh, let's see here. I mean, I wasn't there, I was, heh, kinda busy hiding you and all? But, uh, Entrapta told me about it, and, uh... well, I guess she made it to the Sanctum and warned Hordak about the portal, but then Shadow Weaver showed up with the sparkly princess and the arrow guy, and I guess Shadow Weaver and the sparkle girl teamed up? And those two kept Hordak busy while the arrow guy freed Adora, and then those two tried to get the sword from the portal but Entrapta was protecting it because she thinks maybe she can find a way to have it not destroy reality, and... I guess what happened was, uh..." She paused, clearing her throat. "So, to sum it up, Shadow Weaver took Entrapta hostage with her weird scary magic and said she'd kill her if Hordak didn't stand down, and Hordak... um... just kinda froze up I guess? And then Adora grabbed the sword. And then three more princesses showed up too, but by that point the whole room was basically shaking apart from the portal energy or something, I guess, so apparently Shadow Weaver just threw Entrapta at Hordak (and I mean seriously, I heard she threw her, like, really hard) and then the sparkle girl and Shadow Weaver did a magic thingie and they all poofed away... so, uh... yeah."
Catra's hands clenched into fists as the rage boiled up in her blood, hitting her so hard and so fast that her stomach churned and she felt dizzy. Her breathing came harsh and shallow. She slumped forward against the wall and thunked her forehead against it, once and then twice, and she felt a scream boiling up in her chest... and then, instead, she laughed. And then she couldn't stop. A sound halfway between laughing and sobbing wrenched itself out of her throat, tears streaking down her cheeks as she went a little bit insane, possibly.
Distantly, she heard Scorpia's worried voice.
"Of course!" she gasped through the hysterics. "Of course he lost Adora and the sword! Of course he did! Is there anything Hordak's not a total failure at?! Seriously, how has the war even lasted this long?!" She clutched at her head with shaking hands. "I handed him She-Ra, I handed him the key to his stupid portal, and he handed it all right back! What, just- just because some old hag threatened pwecious widdle Entrapta?! Ugh!"
"Catra," Scorpia protested, "I think Shadow Weaver was really going to kill Entrapta if-"
Catra leaped to her feet and lunged against her tethers, yanking them taut, her teeth bared. "SO WHAT?" she snarled. "This is supposed to be a war, isn't it?! War is supposed to be all about sacrifice and tough choices, isn't it?! So why is it that I'm the only one who ever has to LOSE ANYTHING?!"
Scorpia retreated a step back from the cell, shock showing plainly in every line of her face and posture. The shackles dug into Catra's wrists and she flexed her hand again, hardly even aware she was doing it. The palm of her hand tingled and thrummed with the ghost of an electric current.
"I... I should, uh, go," Scorpia said half-heartedly. "Those princesses, they sure know how to leave a mess, heh, am I right? Lots of cleaning up to do. Lotta damage."
"What, you're not gonna let me out?" Catra jeered.
Scorpia looked away, shuffling sideways a step or two along the walkway. "Listen, you've been really stressed lately. Understandable, but... look, what happened earlier, it was..." She heaved a sigh. "It's late, so, um... get some sleep, okay? Just... just rest for now. I'll be back tomorrow, once things have quieted down. Okay?"
She bailed without waiting for an answer. Catra stared out at the now-deserted walkway. The anger and frustration were draining away, leaving in their wake... nothing. Just a cold, hollow feeling, as empty as the space Scorpia had just vacated outside the cell. She slouched against the cell wall and slid down to the floor, staring at nothing.
The palm of her hand tingled. She'd been willing to do what needed to be done. She'd been willing to make the tough call. Someone had to be. Her fingers flexed and curled.
True to her word, of course, Scorpia was back the next day. She put on a cheerful front as she filled Catra in on what she'd been missing, which amounted to not much: cleaning up the damage left behind by the princesses' invasion, mostly. Catra sat, not looking at Scorpia (or at anything, really) and let herself be talked to. Eventually Scorpia's fake-happy prattling trailed off into awkward silence.
"Um... so!" Scorpia said after a painfully quiet few seconds. "Ready to get back to it? I think it's fine now, so... I mean, as long as you're not gonna try to open any reality-destroying portals, am I right? Eh, eh?" She chuckled uncomfortably.
Catra didn't answer. She figured she was pretty much done for, anyway. Hordak hadn't intended for her to come back from the Crimson Waste, after all, and she'd be nothing but food for the monsters on Beast Island if he heard about the stun baton incident. So why bother? She was starting to understand why Shadow Weaver had given up once she'd been in these cells, why she hadn't worked with Catra to find a way to make herself useful again.
Scorpia took her leave once more.
The hours went by. Slow, fast, didn't matter. Catra took no notice. The only indication of time passing was the daily ration delivered to her cell. She moved from one spot to another sometimes, going as far as the tethers allowed. And through it all, she felt... nothing. Oh, there was something simmering under the surface, though. She ignored it.
Scorpia was the one delivering her rations, bringing the latest chatter with it. Catra sat silently and was talked to.
On what Catra thought might've been the fourth day, something changed.
"Yeah, things have been pretty slow around here," Scorpia was saying. "Not many new orders coming down. We've just been holding the line, really. Actually, people are starting to get pretty antsy, heh. Just kinda sitting around. Hordak's been even scarcer than usual, I think he and Entrapta have been trying to figure out the portal problem, and I think she said something about some other projects they're planning too, now? Some sort of new robots, or weapons, or maybe both? And new transports? And something to do with the power grid? Whew, boy, I tell ya, that gal has a lot of ideas. Can't even keep up with half of what she says! And I guess he's teaching her about... space? Not quite sure what that means but Entrapta was pretty excited about it. I dunno, I haven't seen much of her since the... you know... that..."
And as she talked, an idea started to take shape in Catra's numbed thoughts. She nodded along mutely as Scorpia rambled, making the occasional sound of acknowledgement. And by the time Scorpia returned the next day, she'd gotten it all figured out, and she was ready.
After all, if there was one thing she'd learned from Shadow Weaver, it was this: find their weakness, dig your claws into it, and use it.
"Hey, Catra," Scorpia said tentatively, "how are you feeling today?"
Catra lifted her head, and smiled. "I'm feeling better, actually. I think you were right. I think I needed rest."
This time, for the first time since the incident, Scorpia's smile was genuine. "That's great! Oh, I am so glad to hear that! You really had me worried there for a few days, you know."
"I'm sorry I worried you. And... thanks for stopping me. I want to be able to make the tough calls, but I let my anger get in the way and I almost made a horrible mistake," Catra said, and she meant it. The new plan she'd come up with was good, maybe even good enough to finally score her a major win. And she was going to need all the pieces in place.
Scorpia beamed and blushed, waving a pincer in modest dismissal. "Aww, you! That's what best friends do for each other! Maybe not the stinging thing, but- ah, you know what I mean! So, ready to get out of there?"
"I am. Actually, before you let me out, could you do one thing for me? Do you think you could bring Entrapta up here?" Catra smiled her best and brightest smile. "I owe her an apology."
It took a while, but eventually Scorpia returned with a visibly reluctant Entrapta in tow. She sidled up to the force field at the door, one hair tendril on her welding mask, braced to pull it down.
"You wanted to talk to me...?" Entrapta asked. Her eyes kept darting sideways towards the exit, and Catra knew she'd have to act fast, before she lost Entrapta's flighty attention span.
Catra stood up and walked a few steps closer. "Yeah, I do. Thanks for coming up here. I've heard you're pretty busy these days and, well, I'm probably the last person you wanna be talking to right now, so I'll make this quick. I was really bad to you the other day. I didn't listen to you, and I tried to hurt you. I was wrong, and I'm glad Scorpia stopped me. I'm sorry."
Behind Entrapta, Scorpia beamed proudly, looking teary-eyed.
Entrapta's tensed shoulders relaxed a little. "So, you're not mad at me?"
Catra blinked, thrown out of her head-in-the-game mindset by being suddenly and genuinely confused. "Ma-? Wait, what? Mad? Wait, why would I be mad at you?"
"You did seem pretty angry when I told you we couldn't open a portal," she pointed out.
Catra sighed heavily, looking away. Her throat felt tight all of a sudden and she didn't like it. "It wasn't your fault, I wasn't mad at you, it was..." Yeah, no, she wasn't touching that tangle of live wires. Not with a ten-foot insulated pole. Not right now, or ever. She needed to stay on task. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am for what I tried to do."
Entrapta gave her a small, tentative smile. "Thanks. I'm glad Scorpia stopped you, too, it would not have been fun if you'd hit me with that! I've taken plenty of shocks but those stun batons pack a real punch!"
Catra smiled. Time to go for it. "That reminds me, I heard you're working on some new projects?"
Entrapta's eyes widened. "You wanna hear about our experiments?" she asked, perking up.
"Sure!" Catra said, nodding. "Scorpia tells me you've got a lot of big ideas."
"Oh, 'a lot' doesn't even begin to cover it!" Entrapta gushed, and she was off and running. Catra smiled and nodded along solicitously, making appropriately impressed noises as Entrapta rambled.
Eventually she ran out of steam, and by then she was back to her usual cheerful self. "Well, I should probably get back to the lab. Science waits for no one! I swear, if I could invent something that'd add more hours to the day-!"
"Right, right." Catra paused, then added, "And of course, I'm sure it doesn't help that Hordak has all those leadership duties to attend to."
"That's true," Entrapta agreed, eyebrows furrowing. "He does have to take breaks from our experiments to do other stuff."
"Approving promotions, deciding where to send troops, drawing up strategies, signing off on this and that... not to mention all the other boring stuff, I'm sure," Catra said, sighing. She draped herself against the cell wall. "Must be a real bummer, huh? Having to take breaks while he tackles all that paperwork?"
"Oh, I just keep working by myself," Entrapta assured her. She hesitated, then added wistfully, "Working alone isn't as nice as it used to be, though. I worked alone all the time when I still lived in Dryl, of course, and I didn't mind, but... now that I have a lab partner, it really is nice having someone to share ideas with and work next to."
"I bet!" Catra said. "It's really too bad it can't be like that all day, every day, huh? Although..."
She cocked her head. "Although, what?"
Catra shrugged. "I dunno, I was just thinking, it'd free up a lot of time if Hordak delegated some of that work to his officers, don't you think? Even offloading just one or two tasks would make a difference."
Entrapta nodded slowly. "It would free up more time..."
"It would, wouldn't it?" Catra agreed.
"Oh, but I'm sure that leadership stuff is important too," Entrapta said regretfully, twisting the end of one pigtail between her gloved hands.
"It is, but there's no reason why Hordak has to do all of it himself," Catra said. Granted, she herself had been resentful of having to do Shadow Weaver's paperwork before, but it had given her a lot to think about over the past few days.
"You are right, logistically speaking," Entrapta admitted. Her brows furrowed more, her mouth twisting to the side as she mulled it over.
Catra smiled and rested the side of her head against the wall. "Besides, Hordak's time is way better spent on tech, don't you think so?" She made her voice velvety soft, the same voice she'd used when she'd reeled Entrapta in the first time around. "What a shame, to waste the mind of a scientist and an inventor on paperwork, especially if somebody else could be doing it."
"Well, you do have a point," Entrapta said slowly, "I always say, use the right tool for the job..."
"Exactly. And just think of all the things you two could build and invent if you had more time," Catra purred. She idly traced little nonsense patterns on the wall with one clawtip. "More time, together..."
Entrapta was staring off into nothing now, mouth slightly open and eyes shifting as she ran the math in her head. "It would be nice to have more time..." she said wistfully. Catra smirked. She had her. Entrapta looked back at her and smiled. "You should stop by the lab and suggest that!"
"I would, but Hordak isn't exactly my biggest fan these days," Catra said, shaking her head in profound sadness. "I've made some mistakes lately."
"You mean, losing Shadow Weaver and then lying about it?" Entrapta asked.
Catra grimaced. It was almost impressive how Entrapta managed to be totally blunt and yet also totally without malice. "Yeah... that. Anyway, the point is, Hordak and I don't always see eye to eye on stuff. But he listens to you. He trusts you. Trusts your judgments. I mean, if it wasn't for you, I'd have been dinner on Beast Island." Entrapta was listening intently now. Catra grinned. "Ooh, I know, why don't you run the numbers and put some data together? Figure out exactly how much more time you'd have for lab stuff if Hordak offloaded some of his other duties. How about it?"
"That's a great idea! Data never lies, I always say it 'cause it's always true!" Entrapta exclaimed, bouncing excitedly on her pigtails.
She hurtled off without another word, and Scorpia stepped in to take her place, smiling from ear to ear and carefully dabbing tears from her eyes with the back of her pincer.
"That's my wildcat! Eyes always on the prize!" she exclaimed tearfully. "Now let's get you out here, huh?"
"I'd like that," Catra agreed. She grinned sharply. "I'm ready to get to work."
Two days later, new paperwork arrived for her: she was to draw up and submit a strategy guide for deploying troops to a small coastal outpost. Good ol' Entrapta, Catra thought smugly.
She could work with this. Hordak had always been detached, distant, to put it politely; "useless shut-in" was a more honest way to put it, in Catra's opinion. He wasn't exactly the hands-on, involved kind of leader. His orders and threats of dire consequences usually came down through various officers (and formerly Shadow Weaver, of course). Until the day of her fateful promotion to Force Captain, the fearsome Lord Hordak had been more of a vague concept to Catra than a real person. There'd been a few years when she and Adora were kids where Catra had firmly believed he wasn't real, just a scary story Shadow Weaver made up to keep the cadets in line. And really, who could blame her? The guy was a recluse. When was the last time he'd been to the front lines? When was the last time he'd seen combat? Catra herself had gone toe to toe with the Rebellion more often in the past year than he had in... well, ever, as far as she knew. During all her years growing up in the Horde, she'd never once heard of him going out into the field, that was for sure.
And now he was even more useless and even more of a shut-in. He was holed up in his stupid little lab with his stupid little lab partner, totally preoccupied with their stupid little experiments or whatever. Hordak was distracted. Bad news for him, fantastic news for Catra.
And while the science nerds were playing around with bots, half the Fright Zone was cooling their heels while their leader neglected the war they were supposed to be fighting. If she played things right, their loyalty could be up for grabs. Scorpia would come in handy there; she was a people person. Catra would need that.
If she did this right, Hordak be none the wiser as to what Catra was up to behind his back; this was where Entrapta fitted into her plan, to keep him busy with their science projects, to keep his attention on the lab and off the rest of the Fright Zone. But, luckily for Hordak, Catra was going to need Entrapta once this was over; as fun as it would be to throw him to the Rebellion once she officially took control, she knew she risked losing Entrapta's tenuous loyalty if she did. Catra planned to put Entrapta in charge of the Horde's tech development, and if having her weird lab partner around would keep the tech geek happy and focused, well, Catra could make that happen. Entrapta would be allowed to keep Hordak, as long as he minded his manners.
Really, she'd be doing Hordak a favor. He clearly wasn't any good at this warlord thing, anyway.
By the time Hordak realized he wasn't in charge anymore, it'd be way, way too late. Because Catra was not distracted. She was more focused than she'd ever been. And she was going to take the Fright Zone from him, piece by piece.
And it was going to be fun.