Chapter 19

Adora was inches away from holding onto She-Ra's hand when something dark grabbed her arm, twisted to the point where it hurt and held it behind her back. A hand came upon her neck. She blinked and saw her reflection. She was purely Adora, and behind her, holding her at bay from the golden She-Ra, was a figure that looked the exact same, only she was onyx and not gold.

Like a Dark She-Ra.

She grunted as she struggled to get away, she reached out to the light She-Ra, urging her to come closer. "Let go," Adora said. "Please, I need to heal. It's the only way we're getting out of Dryl alive."

Both the Light She-Ra and the Dark She-Ra became engulfed in a strange aura. The Light one was golden and the dark one was black. Like the sun and moon. Pain surged through her, both chilling and searing. Her fingers grazed the Light She-Ra and a flash of blinding white light caused her to fling open her eyes.

Bow and Glimmer were looking at her, faces creased with worry. She looked down to see her wound outlined in a golden light. Piece by piece she was healed, yet she still felt the cold hand of her dark side gripping her neck.

She did it though, she managed to finally touch the golden figure of She-Ra. It wasn't a full connection but a start. She made a note to ask Light Hope about that when she began her training with her.

She-Ra stood up, fully healed, with an extra shot of energy coursing through her. She felt stronger after touching the light She-Ra. "I'm fine."

Bow released a sigh of relief, handover heart. "Good."

"I'll go deal with the rest of the Horde, keep Entrapta safe." She-Ra marched towards the door, her sword glowing a little more than it did earlier.

"Here, I'll open the door for you," Entrapta's hair pressed a button on her keyboard by the millions of monitors and the door groaned, being pried apart by a rusty mechanism. She-Ra stepped through the doorway, greeted by Horde soldiers a plenty and her old teammates. The door shut with a loud bang behind her, the only place left to go was through the crowd and down more dumb hallways.

"Adora," Lonnie called her name whilst holding onto the taser. It had a long black handle and two points at the end where electricity crackled, ready for use. "Can't believe you left us for them." Honestly, neither could she. Lonnie swung the taser at her, She-Ra pulled back the sword which built up energy, and then she stabbed. Lonnie was flung back by a blast from the blades top, an impression of her made on the wall.

She-Ra used her sword to cut through the stone beneath and as if it were a shovel, she pulled up. Great big spikes emerged from the ground, pinning the others back and impaling a few soldiers on the way. Soldiers came at her from all sides, having climbed past the spikes, and made to taze her. She stabbed them with her sword, red blood soaking the wide blade.

Her sword cut through the flesh and bone of one soldier, and flung his dead body into the next soldier, flinging him to the ground. As she spun to deal with another, her sword tip caught on the end of the taser. It zapped the sword but the power within it diminished the electrical currents. She kicked the guy in the stomach, which forced him to lower the taser and in one clean cut, his head rolled. With a massive swipe with her golden sword beam, she flung the rest back.

Surprisingly, someone had jumped onto her back and backflipped off it. Pain rippled through her shoulders, she cried out in pain. Catra snickered.

"Didn't think this was over, did you?" she said, laughing sweetly from the shadows. Adora always did love it when she laughed, it was the cutest thing ever. Not this time though. Catra shifted into her predator form, growling and snarling, claws elongated.

They circled each other, eyes pinned against a stone gaze. She gripped her sword tighter than ever and hoped she didn't lose her connection to She-Ra. While she was powerful, Adora could feel the legendary warrior slipping away from her. She couldn't stay in this form forever, and Catra was counting on that.

The wildcat lunged for her with her powerful jaw open and ready to rip her throat out. Her giant paws knocked her to the ground, pinning her down. She-Ra brought the sword up to her neck, so that Catra chomped down on that and not her skin. She struggled to keep Catra at bay.

A memory surfaced, many memories in fact. Catra always pounced on her, she loved it. Loved knocked her over, holding her down with a huge grin on her face, purring softly. She did it mostly when she got overly excited about something, like if Shadow Weaver let her test drive the new tanks and blow up a building, oh she was insufferable then. Normally Adora looked forward to it, because it meant she was happy. But in that instance, as Catra's eyes held only painful revenge within amber claws, she feared her the most. Never again would Catra pounce on her out of overflowing joy, but instead overwhelming anger with the intent of killing her entirely.

Adora missed hearing her soft purrs, it almost hurt to think about it.

With all her might she pushed the wildcat off her and it was then that She-Ra began to slip away. She tried so hard to hold on but it wasn't enough. When the warrior fled, all that was left was Adora, hair free of the bobble, left loose, clinging to her face with the sweat beading. Clothes ripped, shredded, filthy and coated in old blood. Catra couldn't smile in the form she was in, but Adora imagined her doing so. A crooked grin on her perfect lips.

Catra stalked her, lips pulled back in a vicious snarl. Unexpectedly, a large laser blasted through the door, Catra and Adora ducked on either side of it and when she looked up, there was a massive hole throughout the whole castle.

"Sorry!" Entrapta said from within her lab. The metal around the door had turned into liquid, still piping hot. Catra hissed violently. The castle shook as if an earthquake had hit. Adora looked up, the metal framework holding the heavy stone of the castle was buckling, collapsing, as some of the framework had been melted by the blast.

Bow appeared through the hole in the door. "We have to evacuate. This place is going to collapse!"

"Do you have enough of Entrapta's stuff so we can continue work elsewhere?" Adora asked.

"Glimmer took care of it," he said, stepping out into the open. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along, ignoring the angry kitty. She roared but Bow wasn't sticking around.

They raced down the halls until they found the picture of a cute purple cat, then Bow clicked a button on its collar and the wall turned. One of Entrapta's many secret hallways. That hallway led to the destroyed courtyard.

"Wow," Bow said as they ran by it, careful not to trip on debris. "You and Catra must have had a good talk."

"Yeah," Adora replied, recalling the conversation. "It was a very good talk." It had dawned on her then that no matter what she said, Catra would always choose the Horde over her. The thought made her heart sink to the deepest canyon of the ocean. The destiny forced upon her was hard enough to accept, but now because of this forced fate, she'd lost her... she'd lost Catra. They're sworn enemies now, through no fault of her own.

How can someone be born with a destiny? How can someone just fresh from her mother's womb already have her fate decided? A cruel joke. She wasn't sure if it was Teela Na or She-Ra or whoever imposed this destiny but once it was all over, she'd find the truth. And she'd get her own revenge.

Adora and Bow had gotten as far away from the crypto castle as possible, far enough to watch it collapse and fall off the side of the mountain. Glimmer appeared next to them, out of breath and out of patience.

"What happened?" Adora asked.

Glimmer took a deep breath. "Entrapta finished installing First Ones tech to the robot, it immediately fired, and I had to teleport her, her bot, and all her scientific supplies back to Bright Moon. I am exhausted."

Adora stared wide eyed. "I'm impressed you managed to teleport all that stuff all the way home."

"Oh, it wasn't easy but Entrapta wouldn't leave without her stuff and I wasn't keen on death. So I had a lot of motivation," she said with weary eyes. "Good news is though, we do now have a giant bot that can fire lasers and also do other things as well. It will be a huge advantage for us."

"Then let's go home," Bow said.

"I don't know if I can get us home, I might need a minute or two." He placed a caring hand on her shoulder. An act Adora's never had. They had no such thing as 'caring' gestures in the Horde, the only soft touch she ever got was Catra. Usually when she was mocking or teasing her. Or when she knocked her over, and shoved her occasionally, but they were gentle shoves.

Shadow Weaver didn't do anything gently.

"We passed a village on the way here, let's rest there." Glimmer nodded in approval at Adora's suggestion.

"By the way, you okay?" Glimmer asked as they walked together along the mountain pass. "Not to be rude or anything, but you look like shit." She brushed her hair back out of her face with her fingers.

"Uh, got tossed around a lot but I'm fine." She rolled her shoulders back to relieve built up tension however pain ruptured right through her back. Oh, bad idea, don't do that. She thought.

Glimmer touched her arm gently in a kind of 'are you okay?' type of way but the touch made Adora flinch. Bow and Glimmer eyed her up, searching for something.

"I'm a bit sore, sorry. Looks like we could all use the rest."

"Adora, we won't hit you," Bow said, sincerity in his eyes. Her heart stopped. "I saw you flinch. Look, I know we haven't got along in the past but we're friends now. And we don't hurt our friends."

"No, it wasn't you I was flinching from, I'm sorry," Adora said. "Just... we don't have kindness in the Horde, so, ugh, I don't know what I'm trying to say here. Shadow Weaver would have whipped me if she saw me behaving like I did on the battlefield today. I had so many opportunities to kill Catra and I didn't." Adora was crestfallen. "She'd be disappointed in me."

Glimmer very carefully placed her hand on her shoulder, not squeezing, just resting, and Bow did the same. She didn't flinch that time. "You don't need to worry about her anymore," Glimmer said. "You've got us." She smiled warmly.

"If she ever tries to hurt you again, we'll make her regret the day she was born," Bow promised. Currently, Adora regretted that. Being born. "Now come on, let's go get food. It's on me!" he said excitedly.

"We should get cake too!"

"Cake?" Adora asked.

"Yes, to celebrate taking back Dryl!" Glimmer said, grinning. That wasn't what she meant, she legitimately had no idea what cake was.

Bow groaned. "Technically, we collapsed Dryl."

"Technically, Entrapta collapsed Dryl," Glimmer pointed out, very matter of fact like, "but we won't get into specifics. Either way, the mountain range is ours." It was their yes, but for how long? Hordak was talking more and more land every day, he's already captured most of Etheria.

Was it already too late for Adora? Had she waited too long to connect with She-Ra?