Catra stayed far from Loo-Kee, even though it meant she would go hungry. She deserved it after what she'd done to Adora.
She almost stayed away from work, too, except her life literally depended on it. She earned enough to buy a few groceries from the run-down corner store each day to keep her going, but it was not enough to keep her already low energy reserves from dwindling. That and the chaos of her emotions made her lightning production spotty and unreliable, even with twice her usual dose of má, and she failed to meet her quota most every day.
Weaver kept giving her more chances to prove herself, which was surprising until Catra realized that the bitch was only keeping her around as an outlet for her sadistic urges. She collected bruises in exchange for work hours until her back looked like camouflage.
She couldn't afford any new má once her supply was spent; not if she wanted enough money for food (which was debatable, but Catra's survival instincts won out over her hopelessness). It was ironic that her last stock was the leaf she'd bought with Adora's cash.
She used it, because she wasn't about to let the biggest sacrifice of her life go to waste, but it only sent her deeper into the grayish twilight hell that had become her reality. Where once it had made her feel better, now it just reminded her of Adora's face and her betrayal in endless repetition, each time hitting her as squarely as if it were the first. It was so painful she didn't even smoke her very last joint; just left it on the rickety table for it to haunt her like her mistakes.
She didn't have the energy for anything except that sad, unbreakable cycle: work poorly, eat poorly, smoke poorly, sleep poorly, repeat.
It was rapidly nearing the point of unbearable.
Nobody was around to care.
She wondered if Adora would ever find out if she were to disappear.
…
She was walking the same route home she always did. It took her longer, now that her feet dragged and her back was bowed with the pain of every step.
She hadn't had any má in days, and it was all she could think about, besides Adora.
The pain in her head made anything else difficult.
She had her hood up and her head down, uncaring of who she met in the back alleyways. Any mugging attempts would be laughably unsuccessful and any murder attempts would be welcome, so she saw no point in forcing herself into awareness anymore. She'd even let her nails grow out so they were almost even; she wanted no reminder of what she'd done to Adora the last time they'd seen each other.
It hadn't even been that long, but Catra was forgetting her face.
She'd already forgotten the feel of her touch.
It made her feel empty.
She wanted to see her again. Actually—what she really wanted was to have Adora back, to have some constant in her life, to have some glimmer of light to hold onto in the midst of all this darkness, but—
That was impossible. She'd made sure of that.
The emptiness grew.
If she had been a husk of a person before, now she was nothing more than a walking skeleton. A useless pile of bones. Good for nothing except scavengers to chew on, except if they tried, they'd starve too.
Lost in a fog as she was, she didn't hear the voice calling her name from a side street at first. Then, when she did hear it, she dismissed it as a hallucination and kept walking.
Then it got louder and clearer rather than going away, and she ground to a halt.
"Catra!" someone called again. It was familiar, although it was not the one voice she wanted to hear.
After a long moment of debate, she turned and faced whoever's footsteps were now approaching over the cobbles.
She recognized the tall, lanky silhouette in the evening dim and matched it to the voice: Shady Shin, her dealer.
She considered just walking away, fearing the frustration of facing má without having access to it would be too much, but she didn't have the resources to outpace him in her current state, so she just stood there and let him come.
"Catra!" Shin called again as he swaggered up the sidewalk toward her and came to lean against a wall a safe distance away. He still had a hold of his street sense, it seemed. "Haven't had your business for a minute."
Rather than answering, Catra pulled her hands out of her pockets and with them, the meager few coins she had to her name. She showed Shin, and he clucked his tongue and shook his head.
"That explains it," he said. "Sorry to lose ya. What happened, anyway?"
It took a long pause for Catra to gather enough energy to speak. When she did, it was hoarse and painful, and she realized she hadn't spoken to anyone since…since she couldn't remember when. Assuming screams of pain under Weaver's switch didn't count.
"Made a mistake," she croaked out.
Shin made a harrumph in the back of his throat. "What's new?" he said offhandedly, and Catra couldn't bring herself to get angry over that. Then he reached up and scratched his chin and added, "Ain't got anything to do with that girl you were with, has it?"
The first flicker of life she'd felt in a week sputtered in her chest. She felt defensive, annoyed, but that was all smothered under a mountain of regret. "What's it to you?" she growled. Nobody had the right to be talking about Adora to her right now. Nobody. She didn't want the girl's name anywhere near Shady Shin's mouth.
Instead of rising to meet that provokation, Shin let the hint of a smirk curl his lips and went on: "Ain't she got the final round of that tournament tonight?"
The question hit Catra like a ton of bricks square in the chest, squeezing all the air out of her. Her shock must have shown on her face, because Shin chuckled a wicked little laugh.
"That's what I thought," he drawled. He took a coin out of his pocket—Catra couldn't bring herself to care that that single piece was more than everything she owned—and began flipping it back and forth across his knuckles slyly. "Say, if you show up there tonight and, ah, smooth things over with her, would that put you back in my ledger?" he asked, more of a deliberate nudge than a question.
And, Catra hated him for it. She hated him most for bringing Adora to the forefront of her mind when any thought of her already brought Catra so much pain. She hated him secondly for planting the idea that maybe there was hope for her in Adora, because there wasn't. And she hated him too for using the prospect of má to guide her toward that idea.
She hated him—but she had to admit, he was good at what he did.
"Fuck off," she grumbled darkly and turned to go on her way again, pretending like she had anywhere better to be than at Adora's fight tonight. Pretending that Shin hadn't just shot an arrow straight to her heart and twisted it just for the sake of a few extra yuan.
Pretending like she wasn't about to go and do exactly what he'd suggested, because the past miserable week had woken her to the truth: she didn't just want Adora back. She fucking needed Adora back. Razz had been right this whole time; they were destined to be connected, and Catra was literally wasting away with that connection severed.
But Shin's laugh followed her out of the alleyway, and she knew that he'd seen right through her ruse.
…
She stole the fifty-yuan entry fee off of a businessman wandering the backstreets, obviously lost.
Actually, she stole a hundred just in case, but when she retraced her steps to the now-familiar deserted storefront, descended the wooden stairs, and paced down the dirt tunnel to the entrance to the Underground, the bouncer still only demanded fifty. She handed it over and ducked by him quickly, face shrouded under her hood, shoulders draped in the cloak she'd fashioned from a tattered cloth in the corner of her den to hide her identity.
She sat in the back where the shadows blanketed the stands, more frightened that Adora might see her than that any lowlifes might try to take advantage of her. People stayed clear of her, perhaps wary of any nameless stranger in a hood. She glimpsed Shin a few levels down and over and pointedly turned her face away so there was no chance he would recognize her. She still got the feeling that he knew she was here.
She'd arrived late to minimize the chances of running into Adora before the fight, so she wasn't sitting long before the floodlights on the center cage brightened and the skint-elbowed announcer commandeered the space to introduce the night's fight.
"Welcome, one and all, to the final round of the annual Quántóu Underground tournament," his familiar voice boomed. It was funny how everything down here continued on like normal even when Catra's own life had been overturned. "Tonight is the night that one fighter will come out on top and claim our grand prize of two hundred thousand yuan! Get ready for the fight of your lives, because tonight's challengers are the best of the best.
"First up, it's Shira, the warrior goddess, who's defeated everyone who dared enter the ring with her before! Will she do it again tonight? Stick around to find out."
And, Catra had been preparing herself for a shock at Adora's entry, but spirits—
As the sun-haired girl emerged from the lockers, still limping slightly on a wrapped ankle and sporting a pair of new facial scars, Catra gasped with the shot of physical pain that entered her chest. As she watched, Adora coughed at exactly the same time, and her head tipped back abruptly to scan the crowd and Catra dared think that maybe, maybe, she had felt it too. She pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders and tried to sink back into the shadows, breath catching as those blue-gray eyes roved over the place she sat.
Adora didn't seem to notice her. She returned her focus to the path to the ring with a small shake of her head and resumed her entrance. As always, her routine was minimal and stoic, and the huge tournament crowd ate it up. The announcer had to strain to be heard over the din to continue his introductions:
"And next, her challenger: last year's reigning champion, Rong Stonefist!"
The man who entered next was bulky and built, and his fists may well have lived up to their name. He looked vaguely familiar, presumably from last week's semifinals, but truthfully, most details of the past week had slipped from Catra's mind since then.
Stonefist's trot to the ring was much like Adora's: stiff and straightforward. There was a smirk on his face, though, that made him look much less regal than his opponent the warrior goddess. Catra narrowed her eyes at him, already stewing with dislike. Shira would knock that smirk off his face soon enough.
The referee who came forward to initiate the fight was not the usual one. Catra thought it slightly odd that he would miss the finals, but maybe this ref was better qualified for the responsibility or something. He stepped in as the announcer retreated a safe distance, and a tense pause hung over the arena as the fighters lined up and he waited to call the start.
Come on already, Catra grumbled, hating all the extra ado that came with a championship match. Maybe the officials just didn't want it to be over in the seconds it'd take for Adora to beat Stonefist's ass. Got to give the crowd its money's worth, she supposed.
The audience was hushed, hanging on the edge of its seat until finally:
"Begin!"
Rong Stonefist didn't even wait until the word was out before leaping into action. He lunged across the line into critical distance instantly, swinging a heavy hook at Adora's head. She was so startled she had to drop into a backward roll to avoid it. When she came up, though, her eyes were flashing like the stormy sky. Won't catch me off guard again, they said.
And Rong didn't. Every one of his attacks from then on Adora met with the cool, calculated precision that had become her trademark. The crowd cheered as she slipped back into the skin of the invincible Shira they knew and loved.
The only thing she couldn't rectify was the slight limp that kept her from moving comfortably. Rong had noticed it quickly, and now his assaults were concentrated on her weak side, forcing her to put weight on the injured ankle, compromising her maneuverability. It wasn't very sportsmanlike, but this was the underground, after all.
Something else about this Rong Stonefist gave Catra a bad feeling too, though. Independent of his poor sportsmanship, something about his posture; his moves seemed to grate on her, and she couldn't place why. Her instincts were just telling her that something was wrong.
What…?
Catra leaned forward to the edge of her seat, forsaking the safety of the shadows to zero in on the source of her anxiety, and her gaze landed on—
His eyes.
They were green, flat, lifeless.
Familiar.
No. Oh, no.
Catra felt a surge of sickness rise up her throat as the pieces fell together, and it was all she could do to stay in her seat and keep watching the fight with growing horror. She could see it now: the slope of his shoulders, the movement of his feet as he fought—it was all the same as the figure's who had led the ambush against them many nights ago. She couldn't say she was shocked to see him here. Of course he was after the gold; that was the only prize worth attacking his opponent in an alleyway for. It gave Catra a flicker of pride to see Adora facing him down on fair ground now, meeting his cheating ass blow for blow despite all odds—but it was quickly extinguished and replaced by fear.
If he was willing to hurt Adora before, what was stopping him from doing it again?
She didn't trust the referees of the Underground to keep Adora safe.
She stared intently at the other girl's back; that swinging gold ponytail; those strong hands wrapped in cloth, and wondered if she had recognized him too.
Come on, Adora.
As she watched, Adora stumbled on her weakened ankle and almost took a shot to the head. In the second that she spent recovering, Stonefist crowded in and let his other fist fly. Adora again barely avoided it. She was quickly losing ground.
Stonefist was backing her against the corner of the cage. Catra could see it clear as day, and she knew that Adora could too, but that ankle was slowing her down and she couldn't juke from side to side like she usually could have and Stonefist was pressing her hard.
Catra had her attention locked on Adora's ankle, so when a pile of pebbles on the arena floor nearby shifted without being touched, she was the first (maybe the only) one to notice.
Wait.
Stonefist launched a lunging kick, Adora dodged, and as he returned to his regular stance that pile of pebbles shifted again—towards him. Catra's jaw dropped and she sat forward till she was almost out of her seat. Was he—
It couldn't be. Benders weren't allowed to fight down here.
But as Stonefist adjusted his stance to bring his back heel right above the little pile of debris, and the pebbles jumped a hardly noticeable half-inch to cover his sole in a subtle layer of rock-hard armor, it was unmistakable. He was an earthbender, and he was cheating.
"No," jumped from Catra's throat. She could see what was coming. She could see Stonefist winding up, pressing in on Adora to drive her deep into the corner so she had no escape. "Adora, no!"
Stonefist let loose with a vicious tornado kick to her chest with his rock-clad sole. Adora had nowhere to go
The blow would have thrown her back several feet, except the cage wall stopped her so she collided with the slats with a crunch that had to come from her ribs. Catra saw her head snap back against the metal, hard. When Stonefist's foot (and the rock that he had cheated with) fell away, the warrior goddess Shira crumpled to the ground and didn't move.
A hush fell over the stadium. More than a few spectators rose to their feet outside of the regular pit, distress on their faces as they watched Adora fail to rise—probably fearful of losing their bets.
Catra jumped up for another reason entirely.
She strained to see over the heads of the rest of the crowd, eyes locked on the girl she—on Adora, suffocating.
Please get up. Please get up. Please—
Her ears were ringing, the sounds of the crowd growing dim and fuzzy. She found a break in the throng and suddenly had a perfect view of her fallen angel and the—
The man who'd dealt the blow, walking toward her, his fists still raised.
No.
Adora must have recognized him. He must have known. Now he was going to make sure she didn't tell.
Catra whipped her head across to look at the referee, who wasn't doing anything.
Now that Catra looked closer, she recognized him too.
He was lanky, with a crooked jaw.
No.
"No, no, no," Catra mumbled frantically to herself, beginning to push her way toward the front of the crowd, bounding down each step with energy she hadn't felt in ages. Her pulse was rapid in her ears, her breath short. "No, no, please." She shoved through the mass of bodies pressed together in the pit with effort, fighting off grabbing hands and jabbing elbows and cursing mouths, uncaring of what happened to her so long as she got to Adora. "Let me through!"
Her shout was only met with laughs and jeers, but their derision wasn't enough to stop her from forcing her way to the front.
She stumbled free of the sweaty mob and found herself right upon the cage, where she grabbed the nearest slats and clung on. From here she could see the cold malice in the man's green eyes, the divot in the dirt behind him where he'd used earthbending to cheat. He was standing over Adora, flexing and posturing to the crowd, riling them up in anticipation of his big victory.
Of Adora's defeat. Catra was afraid to find out just what that entailed.
"Get away from her!" tore from her throat, but it was lost in the clamor. The man didn't stop his approach.
Catra swore and began skipping along the perimeter of the cage toward the entrance as fast as the press would allow, keeping her eyes on Adora the whole time, panic rising as her window of opportunity rapidly dwindled.
"Get away!" This time she screamed so loud that the green-eyed thug heard her and whipped his head around to follow the sound, focus momentarily shifted off Adora. Good. Every second helped. "Can't you see she's hurt?" she demanded of anyone who would listen, which was still few, but all she needed was a little more time. "Can't you see he cheated?" She was almost near the entrance to the ring.
All of the pain and despondency and heavy gray haze of the past week had caught ablaze and turned to angry desperation to fuel her through this moment. She'd spent days agonizing over losing Adora; now she was in danger of losing her for good and there was no way in hell she was going to let that happen.
The false referee was on his way to the entrance to stop her. As she bulled up to the opening from the other side, he tried to block her path, but she let her rage flood her veins and lend her new strength. She struck out at him quickly; doubled him over as her fist connected with his gut; jabbed her knee into his throat and pushed by him as he fell.
The crowd was growing loud in outrage—now, not when the favored fighter was cheated into a life-threatening injury, but as soon as someone interrupted their entertainment—and several pairs of hands began tugging at her limbs and her cloak to keep her out of the ring, but Catra pulled back, harder. She could hardly hear them over the now-deafening rush in her ears. Their preventing hands were just stoking the fire in her middle, pushing her toward the brink of hysteria, keeping her from reaching the one thing she realized she needed in this world, and she could not let that happen again. She felt her chi thrumming through her veins, brought to the surface by the fever pitch of her emotions, and still those grasping claws tried to hold her back, but as she looked across and locked eyes with the man who had hurt Adora not once, but twice, and cost her the reward to a grueling career—and he smiled—
She snapped.
"Get away!" she roared one final time, letting loose all the flaming heat boiling beneath her skin as a literal flame that arced out from both hands as she swept them toward the angry crowd. It illuminated their shocked expressions in orange light and sent more than a few figures stumbling, their clothes smoldering, and—
That made them back off.
In fact, suddenly Catra was standing alone in the middle of the ring, her hands smoking and her chest heaving as she continued to stare down Rong fucking Stonefist. The spectators that had been so bent on stopping her now stood back at a distance they assumed safe.
At first it was silent in the cavern, but it didn't take long for the murmurs to start:
"She's a bender."
"A bender, in the Underground!"
"I thought we were safe!"
"Outrage!"
"Cheating—"
"Oppressor—"
"Amon would make sure she doesn't hurt anyone else."
"Get her!"
"No, she's dangerous!"
Catra whipped around to breathe a furious jet of fire over their heads just to prove that last point. It was too late to keep up appearances, anyway; everyone in the place had now seen her face outlined in burning orange and wouldn't forget it soon. She took a bitter pleasure in the way the mutterers gasped and pulled back from her again.
If she was going to go down, she was going to make this worth it.
And she was going to make sure Adora could keep going without her.
While everyone was still reeling, Catra turned and sprinted to Adora's side. Stonefist let her go without putting up a fight. He knew he'd already won. Catra knew it, too, and vowed to make him pay for it. She communicated that through a deadly glare as she knelt over the limp form of her companion, and only her urgency to escape kept her from fulfilling that vow right now and wiping that fucking smirk off his ugly face.
But Adora was more important.
Catra knelt by her and shoved her arms beneath her body, frantically grasping for purchase on her taller, heavier form. Pure adrenaline lent her the strength to gather her legs under her and push to her feet with Adora in her arms. That golden head lolled against her shoulder and Catra spared a glance toward Adora's face, noting the ashen color of her cheeks, the bruises spreading on her skin.
Hold on, she pleaded. Then she hefted the other girl's dense body in her arms and ran for the exit as fast as she could with such a heavy burden.
A few belligerent Equalists from the crowd made as if to block her path, but Catra quickly scattered them with another haphazard stream of flame from her throat. It shot above their heads—Catra didn't need any charges of murder piled on top of the debt she already owed—but it did the job. No one dared touch her as she bore Adora's beaten body down the path to the exit and out into the tunnel.
Her breath was ragged in her lungs as she jogged through the stone passageway and toward the door to the staircase, energy waning as escape came within sight.
Please, please, please, she begged any benevolent beings who may have been listening. Don't let them follow us. She was so close. They were almost out. They were almost safe.
Well—Adora was almost safe. Catra knew that she herself had probably just painted a huge target on her back. Now that an amphitheater full of Equalists had caught a glimpse of her face; witnessed her fury; had their eyebrows singed off by her fire, they would not rest without retribution. They would sic Amon on her trail, and her bending would be done for.
Right now that didn't bother her as much as the sickly hue of Adora's unconscious face or the blood now staining her shirt over her ribs.
Catra hardened her resolve and kept running, swearing to herself that she would save Adora before she let any Equalist take her down.
She reached the opening to the staircase, bounded up the wooden steps, struggling over the gap she'd made on her first trip here, and arrived at the landing feeling like her chest was bursting.
Shouts and footsteps were echoing down the tunnel she'd just vacated. Apparently Amon's fanclub had rallied.
Catra went to one knee and lowered Adora to the ground to rest her arms for a heartbeat. Then, as the noises clamored closer, she turned and whipped out another jet of flame to sweep the foot of the stairs. The old wood caught like a match and flared up, painting the ugly stairwell in orange. Catra watched the flames rise grimly. How different her first time here had been. Adora had been leading her, silent and stoic, toward an uncertain fate, their argument still fresh in her mind, and yet she still turned to catch Catra when she fell. So much of their relationship was like that—Adora forgiving her over and over for worse and worse fuckups, but this time—
This time the path was burning, and she doubted it would ever be repaired.
As the heat fluttered against her face and the stairs blackened and crumbled below her, Catra looked down at Adora and felt her heart flutter, too.
"I'm sorry, Adora," she whispered onto deaf ears, her voice rough from running and smoke.
Adora didn't stir.