"Well? What happened?" Netossa squirmed as the doctor set her broken leg. Spinerella held her wife's hand and whispered:
"It's okay, it's okay…" When it became obvious neither of the princesses were going to answer the queen's question, Swift Wind stepped forward:
"There was this one Horde soldier – they were crazy! They just ran forward and tackled Netossa, forcing her to ground! Spinerella blew them away but Netossa's leg was broken! That's when I swooped in the save the day, but the soldier leapt up super high and tazed me with their stun baton! I fell to the ground and don't know what happened after that…" Spinerella sighed, finishing the story:
"Netossa saved Swift Wind by wrapping him in a net and dragging him over to us. Meanwhile, I did my best to hold the soldier off…but they were incredibly strong! And while this fight was happening, an entire troop of Horde soldiers just stood still watching us – like the whole thing was some awful experiment!" Netossa, who was now recovering from the doctor's treatment, squeezed her wife's hand reassuringly and said:
"The Horde has changed tactics. They're not leading with bots anymore. They're leading with soldiers – more specifically this one. We need to be ready for them. If we work together, we can-" Juliet, who had been doing her best to keep her cool, finally lost it:
"What? Defeat one soldier?! What about the other one hundred? We've just received confirmation that the Horde is marching on Brightmoon – they'll be here in a few hours!" Angella put her head in her hands. No one had spoken about it yet, but a terrible storm was blowing outside the palace. It was unnatural, defined by its deafening thunder and bright red lightning, and it was originating from the Fright Zone. Not only that but there was an awful snow storm in the Whispering Woods, and the moving landscape had frozen in place. If it had not been for Swift Wind's quick recovery, there was no way he and the two princesses would have escaped. Angella then whispered:
"I'll activate the distress beacon. Maybe Princess Frosta will come…she's all we have left…" Juliet then turned the queen and almost yelled:
"With all due respect, Your Majesty, that's a terrible plan! We need to leave – we can't stay here! We need to go to Princess Frosta, not wait for her to come to us! I hate to state the obvious but we're all that's left of the Rebellion! Mermista, Perfuma, Entrapta…your daughter…they've all been captured or worse! Adora is…dead…and Princess Frosta has made it very clear that she does not want to be involved in this fight! The best we can hope from her is sanctuary – nothing else! We don't even have Bow or Mermista's friend - whatever his name was! It's hopeless. It's completely hopeless…"
Entrapta laughed giddily as the Black Garnet glowed even redder from all the energy it was consuming. Bow was handcuffed to a pipe in the corner of the room, watching helplessly as the princess literally hacked the planet.
Hordak had dropped by at least three times since this whole operation began. He was clearly quite taken with the princess and her incredible skillset. Bow was amazed by it too, but he could not help but feel really hurt by what Entrapta was doing.
Bow understood the princess better than most people (being a bit of a science geek himself). He knew how exciting it was to explore, discover, design and create, but Entrapta did not seem to have a moral compass to guide her scientific endeavours. Not only that but she seemed to actually enjoy working with Hordak, as well as causing untold damage outside the Fright Zone.
Bow tried to yell at Entrapta again, but it was no use. The rag he was gagged with was tied so tightly he could not even move his mouth. Bow slumped back down to the ground in despair. He thought of Adora, all alone in a cell in the deepest darkest depths of the Fright Zone.
Bow shed a tear. She-Ra was defeated and he still had no idea whether Glimmer was even alive. It was hopeless. Completely hopeless…
Glimmer groaned in frustration. While she now seemed to be cured of her electrical spasms, the snow storm had gotten so bad that she and Scorpia had had to stop and shelter themselves in a cave somewhere in the Whispering Woods. The former Force Captain had spent the last ten minutes trying to revive Perfuma with no success. Glimmer had been doing the same with Mermista, also with little to no effect.
The princess finally turned to the Force Captain, yelling:
"Okay, seriously, what was in those drugs?!" Scorpia shrugged her shoulders sadly:
"Shadow Weaver made them…I have no idea…" Glimmer growled angrily:
"Great! Just great! Not only did that bitch kill Adora and take my powers, but she's also poisoned the only two people left who could've actually stopped you – I mean, the Horde!" Scorpia lowered her eyes, mumbling:
"What about Princess Frosta? We-I mean, the Horde, doesn't have her…"
"No! You've just got everyone else! I mean, come on! Aren't you satisfied? Haven't you got what you wanted?! Etheria's on its knees!" Scorpia curled up in a ball, hugging herself with her pincers. Realizing that she had disregarded the Force Captain's decision to leave the Horde, Glimmer blushed in embarrassment:
"Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to yell at you like that! If Bow was here, he'd be really mad I did that..." Glimmer teared up thinking about her missing friend. Scorpia looked up at the princess:
"Did you say 'Bow'?" Glimmer nodded slowly. Scorpia tried to give a reassuring smile:
"He's okay. At least, I think he is. He was still in his cell when we left for Salineas, so…" Scorpia stopped talking when Glimmer suddenly started to sob:
"It's hopeless! It's completely hopeless!"
Catra sat in the back of yet another tank with Adora once again seated in front of her. Unlike last time, however, Adora was not nervous. She was oddly confident, cleaning her trusty stun baton and grinning malevolently whenever it buzzed with electricity. Catra tried not to stare at her but she could not help it.
Everything finally made sense now. Shadow Weaver had not only wiped her mind but left something behind – something evil and uncontrollable. It had taken a while to fully develop, but, just like Hordak had said, all Adora had needed was some actual fighting to get her head in the game. The feline's thoughts were interrupted by her communicator ringing. It was Grizzlor:
"Force Commander! I'm calling to confirm that my troops have surrounded Brightmoon. Shall I give the order to attack?" Catra sighed, saying:
"No, let me call the queen first. A surrender would be better for our troops." With that, Catra hung up. Feeling Adora's judging eyes glaring at her, Catra looked up at her friend:
"We don't have that many reinforcements. Now put your helmet on." Catra then began ringing the channel Hordak had used to initially contact the queen after Princess Prom. She received an answer almost immediately:
"What do you want?" The person who had answered was a woman with dark hair and pointy ears, dressed in full armour. Catra was a little taken aback. This is not what she thought the Queen of Brightmoon looked like. She quickly regained her composure and said:
"I'm the Force Commander of the Horde. My troops have you surrounded. You are outnumbered and outgunned. Do yourselves a favour and surrender." The woman frowned angrily, almost yelling:
"I know who you are, Catra! Why don't you do Etheria a favour and-"
"That's enough, Juliet!" A regal figure with large wings emerged behind the woman in armour. Catra's eyes went wide. She had not been talking to the Queen of Brightmoon after all... Angella pushed past Juliet and looked sadly at the screen:
"If we surrender, do I have your word no one will be harmed?" Catra was about to lie and nod, but Adora suddenly grabbed her communicator and growled menacingly through her helmet:
"You're gonna die no matter what! Your reign of tyranny is over!" Catra tackled Adora and took the communicator back, fighting the urge to yell Adora's name. She then glanced at the screen, observing both Angella and Juliet's pale faces. Pinching her nose, Catra turned back to Adora:
"Force Captain, go outside now!" Adora slowly got up, opened the hatch and climbed out of the tank. Catra then turned back to the leaders of the Rebellion:
"As I was saying, your people will be safe. As will your soldiers. I…I can't guarantee what'll happen to you…" Catra did not know why she felt so bad. Was it because she did not recognize Adora anymore? Or was it because she did not believe in what she was fighting for?
Catra had never bought into the Horde's mission. She despised Hordak and hated Shadow Weaver more than she could say. She would have left in a heartbeat if it had not been for Adora. And now, once again, Adora was the main reason the feline was still here.
Collecting herself once more, Catra continued:
"Surrender is still your best option. I'm a soldier, a commander, and I know how many of our men and women will die before this battle is over. Hand yourselves over and none of them get hurt." Juliet's expression changed from one of pure hatred to one of surprise. Angella then took a deep breath and nodded:
"Alright. We surrender."
The rain had finally started. It was pelting down outside the palace and Catra honestly did not want to have to do this outside. However, the surrender had to be public and this was the most effective way for it to be done.
The Brightmoon guards had already marched outside and dropped their weapons in the water. The Horde's soldiers, under Grizzlor's command, had moved in closer so they were visibly surrounding both the town and the palace (the town was empty, presumably evacuated long before the Horde arrived).
The doors of the palace opened once more and the queen and her general slowly began to walk across the bridge to where Catra's tank was waiting. When the drivers told the Force Commander the queen was coming, Catra turned to Adora who was now back in the tank and sulking.
"I'm going to go outside and deal with this. You are going to stay in here, no matter what happens. That's an order!" As Catra braced herself for the cold rain that would definitely fall directly in her face the second she opened the hatch, Adora growled:
"Hordak gave orders too. Have you forgotten them, Force Commander?" Catra stared at her friend in disbelief. Flexing her claws aggressively, Catra snarled:
"You're a Force Captain, Adora. I outrank you – don't forget that!" With that, Catra clambered out of the vehicle, immediately getting drenched in water. She could barely see more than halfway across the bridge, only making out the outline of Angella's wings as she approached.
Catra grimaced when she thought of what she would have to do to the queen. The feline had always been ambivalent about the idea of killing someone. She figured she would if she had to, but she would need a very compelling reason. Meanwhile, Adora (before Shadow Weaver scrambled her brains) had been completely against it. It was one of the very few things she had argued with Shadow Weaver about.
Adora had always believed that true power came from giving life – not taking it. She had probably been right. And now no one wanted to kill more than Adora…
The second Catra jumped to the ground, her badge beeped. The feline gasped: it was Scorpia.
"Scorpia? Is that you?"
"Hey Wildcat! Yes, it's me! I'm sorry I missed your call earlier! I've only just got away from Glimmer and the others. Is everything alright?" Catra felt like she was going to cry. There was something about Scorpia's cheerful voice that really offset the feline's depression.
"No…it's not. Are you in Brightmoon yet?" Catra could hear Scorpia move her head and then realize that the Force Commander could not see whether she was nodding or shaking it.
"No, no we haven't got there yet. We're stuck in a cave the Whispering Woods. I just stepped outside to talk to you and…it's…really cold…" Ignoring Scorpia's obvious suffering, Catra quickly said:
"That's fine. Look, you can't come to Brightmoon! I'm here now and I'm about to accept Queen Angella's surrender. Hordak has said he doesn't want any prisoners and Adora's on the warpath! You and the princesses need to stay away!" With that, Catra hung up. The queen and her general had got close enough to hear her last sentence. Juliet sneered:
"Are you calling your soldiers 'princesses'? I didn't realize you respected us so much." Catra scowled:
"They're an elite fighting team of utterly repulsive insect hybrids. They're also about to eat your soldiers alive unless we get this over with." Catra genuinely had no idea where that lie had come from, but she had always been good at thinking on her feet. Angella then sighed and shouted so everyone could hear her:
"I, Queen Angella of Brightmoon, hereby surrender my kingdom to the Horde!" Juliet then offered a large decorative staff to Catra, muttering:
"This belonged to King Micah. Don't drop it." Catra frowned at the general, accepted the staff and held it high above her head, yelling:
"I, Catra, Force Commander of the Horde, accept your surrender!" A particularly large crash of thunder, followed by a nasty flash of red lightning, served to emphasize Catra's words. The feline then began to examine the staff in her hands, muttering:
"So, does it do anything? Or is it literally just a stick?" Juliet scoffed and Angella gave a sad smile:
"It's designed for magic wielders. It fires magical blasts." Catra raised her eyebrow and mumbled to herself:
"Well, I better keep it away from Shadow Weaver then." The feline then looked up at the queen and her general, both of whom were so soaking wet and defeated that it made Catra pity them.
The Force Commander turned to Juliet, pointed to where the entirety of her army was sitting despondently on the grass outside the palace, and said:
"Go over there. Lead your soldiers north to where my Force Captain is waiting. He'll let you and your army go." Juliet looked shocked:
"You're…you're not going to imprison us?" Catra rolled her eyes:
"I told you nothing would happen to you. Just drop your sword in the water and go." Juliet nodded slowly. She then turned to Angella and gave one final salute before marching down to her troops. When the army saw her coming, they all slowly stood up and started to follow her towards the forest.
Catra and Angella watched awkwardly as the last occupants of Brightmoon walked away. After a few moments of silence, the feline turned back to the queen:
"I assume the palace is empty? The staff, flying horses, extra princesses…they're all gone?" Angella nodded. Catra took a deep breath. She then looked back down at King Micah's staff.
"Do you want this back?" The queen looked confused:
"It's…it's the royal sceptre…it's yours-"
"Just take it! I'm not killing an unarmed woman!" Angella's face went white as she gasped:
"So…you are going to try and kill me?" Catra threw the staff at the queen, unsheathing her claws as she did so. The queen caught it somewhat clumsily.
"It's nothing personal – Hordak's orders." The queen looked at Catra with a look of absolute despair. She then took a deep breath of her own and dropped the staff on the ground, muttering:
"I'm not fighting you. The Horde took my husband and my daughter…what do I care if it takes me too?" Catra's eyes went wide. She began to panic. Never had she not wanted to kill someone so badly.
The feline began to debate wildly with herself: what if she called Hordak and begged? Surely there was some way she could spin this to make the queen's survival necessary? Or maybe there was some way she could get the queen angry enough to fight her? That would not be too difficult – Catra was great at getting people angry…
Before Catra could decide on what to do, the hatch of the tank behind her opened and a crazed Force Captain jumped out. Their helmet was on and their war cry was loud:
"Die, Rebel Scum!"
Adora had sat still inside the tank for over ten minutes. She had thought that would be more than enough time for Catra to accept the queen's surrender and then kill her. However, as more time passed, and the drivers informed her that Catra had just returned the queen's weapon to her, Adora knew the Force Commander was too weak to finish the job.
The Force Captain decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. In one swift motion, she opened the hatch and climbed out, seeing Catra frozen in front of the defeated leader of the Rebellion.
Adora's heart filled with hate and she started to see red. This woman was the tyrant Hordak had been fighting for so long – no one deserved to die more than she did! With that, Adora cried:
"Die, Rebel Scum!" She then activated her stun baton and ran forward, leaping off the tank and landing right in front of the Queen of Brightmoon.
Angella simply stared at her in mild surprise, not really caring whether or not the Force Captain was going to kill her.
Adora faltered for a second. While she had no qualms about killing this woman, it was rather unsatisfying that she was not pleading for mercy. That second's hesitation turned out to be a mistake, as Catra grabbed Adora from behind, pushing her to the ground.
"Adora! Stop!" Adora looked up at her friend and kicked her hard, pinning her down once she fell:
"Stop? Why did you stop? You have the Queen of Brightmoon on her knees! She has to die!"
"Adora?" Both Catra and Adora turned to look at Angella, who now looked like she had seen a ghost. There was something wrong with the way the queen had said her name…as if she knew her… The Force Captain stood back up and pointed her stun baton at Angella's face:
"How do you know my name?" Catra gave a gasp of exasperation:
"Because I just said your name like the idiot I am!" With that, Catra jumped back up and onto Adora's back, forcing her to the ground once more. Then three things happened at once:
The moonstone, which had been slowly turning dark every time it was hit by the horrid red lightning, finally turned off for good.
Angella, who had previously not shown any interest in fighting, suddenly raised her staff and hit Adora's helmet with an astonishing amount of strength, causing it to fall apart.
And Catra's badge began to beep, followed by Scorpia's voice yelling:
"Catra! Mermista woke up and she's on her way! She's got Glimmer with her! Catra? Catra?!"
Angella could not believe it. The soldier was Adora. Her hair was short and her eyes were angry and distant…but it was her…
In an impressive show of strength, Adora pushed Catra off her and charged at the queen. Angella flew out of her reach, hovering as the blonde began madly swiping at the air with her stun baton. The Force Captain then threw her weapon at the queen and would have hit her…had it not been for Catra. The feline jumped in the way, getting tazed instead.
Seeing Catra's unconscious body fall back down to the ground, drenched in rain and bruised from the fight, made Adora stop for a second. She looked at her friend and then at the queen, who looked just as surprised as Adora did at what the feline had just done.
Finally finding her voice, Angella muttered:
"It's so good to see you again, Adora. Look after Catra…she's not as bad as you think..." With that, the queen flew away. Once she was high enough, she saw a giant tidal wave making its way to Brightmoon. She flew down to it.
There was no sense in freeing Brightmoon now – the best the Rebellion could do now was fall back and regroup.
As the queen stopped her flight in front of the advancing wall of water, the wave suddenly stopped to reveal Mermista. The water princess then said, in her signature monotone voice:
"Your Majesty, you're alive. How thrilling." Then a face Angella never thought she would see again emerged from behind Mermista: her daughter.
"Glimmer!"
Grizzlor ran up to the bridge, having been called there by Force Captain Adora. The rain had died down but was still falling lightly. The storm itself seemed to be passing...
Once Grizzor got there, he found the Force Commander lying unconscious in Adora's arms. The blonde was holding Catra's badge in one of her hands, staring at it intensely. Grizzlor growled:
"What happened? Where's the queen?" Adora turned to face him, revealing the tears streaming down her cheeks. She spluttered:
"She-she escaped! Catra helped her! I had to knock her out – I had to!" Adora then began to cry into Catra's mane. Grizzlor, visibly uncomfortable with this show of weakness, walked up to the Force Captain and slapped her hard on the cheek:
"Pull yourself together! You're supposed to be an officer! I don't know whether or not you had any right to do what you did, but it's not for me to decide! Protocol states that Hordak himself handles every officer dispute – which includes this. I'll take over here. Both of you are going back to the Fright Zone!" Adora nodded slowly, wiping her eyes and getting back up. She then lifted Catra bridal style and headed back to the tank.
Adora was scared. She knew that what Catra had done was punishable by death. She did not want Catra to die… no matter how much she deserved it… Maybe Hordak would be merciful and simply punish her? Or maybe Adora could try and protect her? Honestly, it was hopeless… completely hopeless…