"Over the Edge"
A/N: The angst is strong with this one. Hope you're ready.
The sun never shone over the Dark Mountains.
For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the Dark Mountains remained unsettled and unpopulated by the people of Etheria. The paths were treacherous, the caves were deep, and the skies were consumed by a perpetual thunderstorm that produced endless lightning, but never any rain. As for the mountains themselves, it was said the pitfalls and canyons of the Dark Mountains were bottomless, and any who fell into their depths would never be seen again.
Of course, this made the Dark Mountains ideal for the Horde.
For almost two decades, the Dark Mountains had served as a labor camp for the Horde, where prisoners of war were routinely sent in order to harvest precious iron from beneath the surface of the earth. This was to become their lot in life: to work themselves to death providing for the very people who destroyed their homes and enslaved their families.
The Rebellion sought to change that.
The assault on the Dark Mountains began just as the enslaved laborers were being roused for another day of work. What the Horde supervisors initially mistook for unusually loud thunder proved to be otherwise when a wave of Rebel soldiers poured into the camp, quickly overwhelming their first lines of defense. At the head of the Rebellion was none other than She-Ra, legendary Princess of Power, sword aglow and cape billowing in the wind.
The objective of the assault was ostensibly to free the prisoners of war bound to the camp and hopefully break the Horde's hold over the Dark Mountains entirely. Not only would this provide the Rebellion with thousands of new soldiers eager for justice, but it could cut off their main supply of iron and provide the Rebellion with yet another strategic base of power. It was a good plan, all things considered, provided there didn't happen to be any Horde reinforcements in the general vicinity on the day of their attack.
Unfortunately for the Rebellion, and for the thousands of innocent souls enslaved by the Horde, Force Captain Catra and her primary battalion just happened to be passing through on a routine inspection the same day of the assault.
What the Rebellion had hoped would be an easy victory quickly descended into chaos as Catra's forces entered the fray. Rebel soldiers and Horde troopers alike spilled into the labor camp, transforming it into a battlefield in no time at all. For the Rebellion, this was no longer about liberating the camp; now it was about sheer survival.
While the armies fought in the camp, however, their commanders found themselves dueling atop the darkling peaks of the Dark Mountains themselves. It was something soldiers on both sides of the conflict had simply learned to expect; whenever She-Ra and Force Captain Catra met on the battlefield, it was inevitable they would end up fighting one another. Thus, while men and women fought and died on the battlefield, She-Ra and Catra were instead locked in an epic duel for supremacy, one that had taken place before time and time again.
"I don't want to fight you, Catra!" Adora said as she swung her sword in a dangerous vertical arc, missing her opponent by inches and instead slicing through nothing but air and earth. "You aren't my enemy. We don't have to keep doing this."
"Maybe I'm not doing it because I have to, Adora!" Catra countered as she lunged at the eight-foot tall warrior woman, claws gleaming against the darkness of the storm clouds obscuring their vision. "Maybe I'm doing it because I want to!"
The two had been fighting for almost an hour, and their duel had taken them to the very peaks of the mountains themselves. Thunder roared around them, and the air was alive with lightning, but neither of these things deterred the warriors; theirs was a dance of death by definition, and neither feared the lightning more than they feared each other.
"This isn't you!" Adora exclaimed as she dodged Catra's lunge, instead grabbing her former friend by the tail and throwing her into a nearby boulder. "You're better than this, Catra! You're better than the Horde! You always have been!"
"I am the Horde!" Catra shouted back, recovering quickly and climbing back up onto her feet. "The Horde made me strong. The Horde gave me a home. Not like you. Before you left, I was only ever second best. But now? Now I can be whatever I want!"
"Then be good," Adora begged her. "Please. I know there's good in you, Catra. I know you aren't too far gone. I want you to be the hero I know you can be!"
"This is war, Adora!" Catra hissed, scowling and preparing for yet another attack. "There are no heroes in war, only winners and losers. And I won't lose ever again!"
She lunged again, and this time Adora met her head-on. Claws slashed against blade as the Sword of Protection was used to deflect or parry each and every one of Catra's strikes. Both struck out at the either time and time again, but neither ever made contact; they had fought too often, knew each other too well, that it was almost like fighting themselves.
"Catra, all I want is to make Etheria a better place for everyone!" Adora pleaded with her, blocking yet another barrage of Catra's attacks with her own blade. "Including you. Please, help me! You can still join the Rebellion. You know I would vouch for you!"
"Why would I ever join your stupid Rebellion?" Catra asked, dodging one of Adora's swings before slashing back. "Why would I ever leave the Horde?"
"Because it's the right thing to do!" Adora told her as her sword transformed into a shield in order to better defend herself against Catra's claws. A bolt of lightning in the sky above illuminated them both for a moment, accompanied by another roar of thunder. "The Horde is evil, Catra. You know that. But you aren't. You're stronger than that. You care. It's not about winning or losing…it's about fighting for what's right!"
"I don't want to do what's right!" Catra retorted, drawing her laser-staff once it became clear she wasn't going to get close enough to tear Adora apart with her claws. "Don't you get it, Adora? I don't want to be like you! I never did!"
"Then what do you want?" Adora asked angrily, once again engaging Catra in close-range combat, sword against staff, sending rainbow light and crimson electricity flying all about them. "Tell me what you want, Catra!"
"I want to win!" Catra finally exclaimed, throwing herself at Adora with everything she had. Rage fueled her actions as she delivered strike after strike, each and every one of them deflected by She-Ra's accursed sword. "I want the Horde to conquer Etheria. I want the Rebellion to fall. And most of all…I want you dead!"
As she spoke, Catra's last attack finally made contact with Adora, brushing past her sword and striking her directly in the chest, delivering an agonizing electric shock. Adora cried out in pain as she felt the crimson energy of the staff surge through her form before it threw her backwards, off-balance and seemingly defenseless.
Catra smirked as her opponent fell to the ground, shrinking in form until she was no longer She-Ra but Adora once again, ordinary Adora, just a poor naïve girl wielding a sword much too big for her. She groaned as she sat up, still clutching her sword despite how badly she was shaking. Catra noted with some satisfaction that she was also dangerously close to the edge of the canyon they had been fighting above, leaving her no room to maneuver.
Time to finish this, Catra thought. Once and for all.
As though she could read Catra's mind, Adora looked up at her with pleading blue eyes.
"Catra, please," she begged weakly, barely even strong enough to stand. "If you do this…there's no coming back. You don't have to do this."
"I already told you, Adora," Catra replied as she tightened her grip on her staff. "I'm not doing this because I have to. I'm doing it because I want to!"
With that, she threw herself into the air, laser-staff crackling with deadly current and eyes locked on Adora, intent on delivering the finishing blow, the one that could end the legacy of She-Ra once and for all.
Unfortunately for Catra, she launched her attack just as a bolt of lightning struck the ground directly between Adora and herself, one so bright that it temporarily blinded Catra…and sent her flying past Adora and right off the edge of the Dark Mountains. One moment, she was about to win the war; the next, she was facing the bottomless depths of oblivion.
Adora's eyes widened. "Catra!"
What Adora did next she did without thinking, without pause, and without regret. Watching with growing horror as Catra flew right over the edge of the cliff, Adora reached out and grabbed her former friend by the waist, just as she had done at Frosta's palace during the Princess Prom almost a year ago. She thought nothing of herself or the war or even for her own safety, so consumed she was by concern for Catra.
Adora threw herself backwards with the last of her strength and, with one last cry of exertion, tossed Catra back onto the mountain peak. A moment later, both of them were lying on the edge of the cliff, hearts pounding in their chests, keenly aware of just how close they had come to certain doom.
"You…saved me?" Catra asked once she had caught her breath, slowly climbing to her feet. "Why?"
"Because you're not my enemy," Adora answered, using her sword as leverage in helping her stand back up. "You're my friend, Catra. You always will be."
"But you could have won!" Catra argued, feeling the fury build up inside of her. "Like it or not, Adora, we are enemies! We're at war! We're supposed to kill each other! That's the point! So, why? Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep trying to save me?
"I already told you," Adora replied with a small smile, fully aware of how closely she was mimicking Catra's own words. "It's not about winning. It's about doing the right thing."
That's when the ground gave out beneath them.
CRAAACK!
Weakened by the same lightning strike that had blinded Catra only moments before, the entire section of cliff upon which Catra and Adora were standing suddenly began to collapse. Great fissures ran through the earth, dividing the cliff from the rest of the Dark Mountains and dooming those upon it to fall into the seemingly bottomless abyss.
Because she was farther away from the edge of the cliff, having been thrown there following her rescue by Adora, Catra was merely thrown off-balance and onto her rear when the ground began to give way. Adora, unfortunately, was not.
As Catra watched in horror, the earth beneath Adora's feet fell out from under her. Adora had just enough time to look up at Catra before the entire section of cliff broke away from the rest of the mountain and disappeared over the edge. She spoke once, only once, before she fell into the bottomless darkness.
"Love you."
And then she was gone.
For a few moments, Catra sat in silence, as though in shock. Her heart pounded in her chest, her lungs burned for air, and her eyes seemed frozen to the spot where last she saw Adora. She found herself waiting for Adora come back, to climb up over the edge of the cliff and reveal she was okay. So she sat there, in silence, and waited.
But Adora didn't come back.
"I want to win!"
"Adora?" she finally asked so softly she could barely hear herself. She rose to her feet for a better vantage point, but still saw nothing. "Adora?"
Silence.
"I want the Horde to conquer Etheria!"
With tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat, Catra walked over to the edge of the cliff, careful of her footing, and looked over the side. She would find Adora there, she knew, hanging on for dear life, or in the middle of climbing back up. She would be there; she had to be.
"I want the Rebellion to fall!"
But all she saw was darkness. There was no Adora, no She-Ra, not even the Sword of Protection. She saw nothing but the bottomless depths of the Dark Mountains.
"Adora?!" she shouted into the abyss.
Silence. Darkness. Nothing else.
"I want you dead."
As her eyes widened in horror, Catra realized she got exactly what she wanted.
A/N: Reviews and comments welcome, as always!