Chapter 18: Avengers, Assemble!
Everyone looked on in shock and horror and the revolting scene before them. The decaying ichor drenched corpse of Santos rose into the air, puppeted by the being known as Inpetratio. Catra herself nearly vomited seeing her mother in this cruel state, knowing now that this.. this thing was the cause for all her torment, all of the neglect she suffered was because of this thing. her catlike senses were urging her to run but either through fear or rage she was paralyzed only able to snarl at the macabre puppet master.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY MOTHER!" She shouted in a blind rage.
The demonic force simply chuckled and tilted Santos's head, causing a sickening crack sound. "I will… once Adora Submits to me." It replied. Catra quickly moved in front of her friend and gave off a hiss. As she did, the other Avengers gathered around the two, ready for a fight, each glaring angrily at the puppet-master.
"You won't lay a finger on Adora as long as we stand." Steve announced, raising his shield.
"Indeed, back to whatever Hell spawned you demon!" Thor triumphantly cried, twirling his hammer.
"Then you shall stand no more..." Inperatio boasted, firing off a much more vicious Lightning blast than Santos herself was capable of and the team dispersed. Tony made the first attack, flying around, dodging the Lightning fired by the Dark being.
"JARVIS, Scan that thing!" he yelled out.
"I...can't exactly get a read on it sir. It's not really HERE." The AI responded, sounding legitimately concerned.
"Well that's just fucking great." Tony groaned, firing his repulsers and rockets at Inperatio, who seemed to take and deflect the hits without any worry.
Natasha rolled behind Inperatio and fired her pistol through Santos's spine. The bullets hit the corpse, but did nothing to slow the god controlling it. "Yeah I had a feeling that wouldn't work." She deadpanned.
"Not your brightest moment Nat!" Clint said, firing a few exploding arrows to keep the tendrils at bay. Thor flew in and began striking at the shadows with Mjolnir, even landing a solid hit to shatter the corpse's arm, but the horrid puppet-master simply forced the bones back into place and swatted him aside.
"This thing is insane!" Steve yelled, throwing his shield and being stunned when the shadows caught and threw it back. The Shield embedded into the wall. Hulk roared and leapt into Santos, tackling the body before being restrained by the shadows and given a brutal point blank shock. He powered through it to punch at Santos, before being thrown through the nearby wall. Adora threw her sword which managed to embed itself in the corpse's back, but still the puppet would not stop.
"There's gotta be something we can do!" Adora yelled out, barely dodging another blast. "Those bolt's are very clearly stronger than Santos' were!"
"Yeah no shit Adora! Without mom's influence she's not holding back anymore!" Catra replied. She barely dodged an attack of her own and looked at the mask, the thing that started this whole mess. Her eyes widened. "Guys! Her power comes from the gem!"
Clint immediately aimed an arrow and fired at the Garnet, Tony aiming a rocket for it as well. Both her easily deflected. "Gonna be easier said than done kitty..." Clint Deadpanned as he twas knocked into a wall.
Natasha made her own move to shoot out the gem, but couldn't line up a clear shot and quickly shoved Adora out of the way of one of Inperatio's tendrils.
Inperatio began to cackle as it swatted the Avengers aside like flies. "This is much to easy. Even this useless corpse has more than enough power to destroy you before it decays." It boasted, turning its glare to Catra. "And without your pathetic mother to hold me back, I can finally be rid of you, annoying beast." Catra's eyes widened as Inperatio raised Santos' hand and charged up another blast. "Farewell Catra."
Catra closed her eyes as the bolt was fired. However, before it made Contact, Adora threw herself in front of Catra and took the full force of the attack, screaming in pain. "C-Catra! NOW!" She managed to say, standing her ground against the sting of the lightning. Catra quickly took her chance and ran up Adora's back, launching herself into the air and falling towards Santos' body.
"This is for everything you've put me through!" She yelled out, raking her claws downward. Before Inperatio had the chance to stop her, the claws sliced clean down the mask and through the Black garnet, Shattering it. The moment Catra landed, and the shards of the Garnet hit the ground, Santos' body began to convulse and shrivel up. The Shadows puppeting her body spiraled around the room and zoomed inside the shards of the Garnet, all while Inperatio cried out in rage and agony. The body of Catra's mother collapsed to the ground below and decayed to dust in front of the Avengers.
Catra barely had time to react to watching her mother crumble to dust, before she noticed Adora had collapsed. She ran over to her friend and shook her by the shoulder. "Adora! Adora stay with me...please don't be dead. I just got you back.." she yelled in a panic, pulling Adora into a hug. Her pleading was answered with a cough, and Adora slowly opened her eyes and gave a pained smile. "You Idiot! Why did you do that!"
"Because I made you a promise Catra." Adora weakly said, coughing again. Catra just hugged her tighter and teared up happily.
"I uh, hate to break up this reunion..." Tony said walking over. "But Adora's gonna need some medical attention, and SHIELD is gonna be arriving any minute now."
Sure enough, SHIELD Agents soon walked in to check on the damage, Kyle at the lead with his gun drawn. "Oh uh...seems like I'm a bit late." He commented, walking over.
"Not much you coulda done to help Kyle. Good to see you." Adora deadpanned with a grin. The SHIELD agents quickly loaded Adora onto a stretcher and Kyle approached Catra, with a pair of handcuffs.
"Sorry ma'am, Protocol. We just have to make sure you're not a danger." He apologized. Catra simply held her hands out to be cuffed, and Kyle slapped them on her wrists. "I'm sure Adora's gonna put in a good word for you."
"Don't know if I deserve it. Done some awful things for this place." Catra commented quietly as she and the Avengers were lead into the nearby Quinjets. Natasha offered to ride with Catra and Adora as the rest of the Avengers boarded the second Quinjet. As the jet began to take off, Adora drifted off to sleep, resting off the pain from the fight.
Natasha looked over Adora's injuries, mostly the burns from the Lightning. Though her suit was slightly torn from being thrown around by Inperatio's tendrils. "Adora really cares about you." she told Catra, who was sitting patiently across from her.
"We did grow up together..." Catra replied. "Though after how things have been between us-"
"No." Natasha interrupted. "Don't you dare beat yourself up over this. Adora does that enough." Catra was surprised and quickly quieted down again. "Adora's...got a bit of a perfectionist problem. She feels like she needs to be perfect, needs to be a hero. And if anything goes wrong its her fault." She calmly explained, brushing some of Adora's hair out of her face.
"Guess some things never change." Catra commented dryly, chuckling a little. "Natasha…. How did you guys get Adora to join you."
Natasha sat up and leaned forward a bit. "We talked." She began. "When SHIELD first apprehended Adora, she didn't speak for days. Poor girl just sat silently in an interrogation room, never saying a word." She looked at Adora briefly. "And Then, after I got her to eat something, I told her my story. She opened up slowly as I did, and we just talked. Not about her work, per se, just her in general."
"You just talked?" Catra asked, tilting her head. "What did you tell her?"
"The truth." Natasha replied. "My life in the Red Room." Natasha began to run through the horrors of the red room once again, with Catra as her audience. Catra listened intently to the story, her face falling as she began to realize just how similar She, Adora and Natasha are. Adora was right, SHIELD really was the best thing that happened to her. And As far as Catra knew she blew her chance at happiness four years ago.
"Natasha..." Catra began, hanging her head. "How fucked am I?"
"What do you mean?" Natasha asked.
"I worked with a terrorist organization, attacked an Avenger…. Done a whole bunch of bad shit." She replied. "You gonna just lock me up? Throw away the key?"
"There's no need to be so dramatic Catra." Natasha replied, looking out the window. "SHIELD will keep you in custody until they figure out what to do with you. Adora, when she recovers, will likely be asked by Nick Fury what to do. He'd trust her judgment in this case." She explained. "Everything will be alright, I promise."
Catra chuckled a bit, "A promise huh? Used to think I couldn't trust those."
A Few Days Later:
Catra was sitting quietly in a SHIELD interrogation room. They'd moved her from her cell for an 'Important Meeting' as the Agent Adora identified as Kyle had said. Catra figured they were probably going to inform her of her life sentence, or even throw her off the Helicarrier. She was honestly impressed by the engineering work put into the Helicarrier. She just knew Emily would have loved it.
Her attention turned to the door as Nick Fury walked in, with Adora at his side. "Catra was it? Director Nick Fury, head of SHIELD." He introduced, sitting down across from her. "We have something to discuss."
"How long is my prison sentence going to be." Catra deadpanned.
"Pessimistic today aren't you Catra." Adora quipped as she slid some papers across the table. "Know what these are?"
Catra looked over the papers and her eyes widened. "A Full pardon for all actions under the command of the Followers of Inperatio." Nick explained, slightly smiling. "Adora gave me the rundown on the situation you and the other children there were in. SHIELD is working to rehabilitate them and give them relatively normal lives. The Shards of the Black Garnet have been gathered and spread across Europe to make sure that if any sort of freaky magic shit still remains in them, the gem won't ever be rebuilt." He turned to Adora. "All in all, everything is wrapped up nicely."
"ALMOST Everything." Adora added, walking around the table to uncuff Catra. "There's still the matter of where you can go."
Catra was at a loss for words. Her eyes darted between the Pardon, Adora, and Director Fury. She was practically Elated at how well things were going for her. Fury then continued, "Catra Claudine Santos… I'd like to talk to you about the Avengers." She nearly fainted at that sentence.
Adora gave her friend a reassuring smile. "The team could really use your skills Catra." She said, offering her hand. "And we can work together again, like we used to."
Catra smiled widely and shook Adora's hand. "I'm in! No doubt!"
Fury smiled as well and stood up. "Now, there's still the small matter of getting you to a SHIELD Therepist. You very clearly need a bit of help considering the ordeal you've been through. After that's all settled, Adora will show you your new home in Avengers Tower."
Adora opened the door to her Apartment, and Catra stared in awe at the size of it. "Welcome to our home Catra."
"You LIVE here?" Catra commented in surprise.
"No of course not." Adora said, before putting her hand on Catra's shoulder. "WE live here. This is gonna be your home too." Catra gave Adora a hug and began to look around the room quickly. "Even better, I made sure to have some clothing picked up for you before we arrived. No more wearing that crappy uniform."
Adora then proceeded to give Catra a tour of the apartment, before finally showing the bedroom. "The bed's really big Adora." she said looking it over.
"And very comfortable." Adora added. "Look, you've gotta be exhausted after the last few days."
"Like you would not believe." Catra admitted, chuckling nervously.
"Well, I could use a nap myself."
The two napped peacefully, Catra at the foot of Adora's bed, just like old times. They were finally reunited. And they couldn't be happier.
TO BE CONTINUED….
And with that, the Shadow Weaver Arc has come to an end. I am so sorry if this is an underwhelming finale, this chapter was a BITCH to write. Thanks to Penumbranox for the first paragraph, his help allowed me to finally get this freaking chapter off the ground. Catra is now officially an Avenger, She's back on good terms with Adora, and both have a bright future ahead of them. Also it is 3:00am when I'm posting this. I'mma pass out now.
I do not own She-Ra or the MCU, Please do not spoil anything in She-Ra I have yet to see.
Leave some feedback if you enjoyed ^_^
NEXT TIME: Time for Relaxation