Betrayals and disappointments

Dilayla felt disgusted with herself. She was a traitor, and of the worst possible kind. Most betray for some benefit. Money, position or something similar. Others were motivated by envy or old grudges. There were even those who took excuse in the Ephemeral Greater Good, whatever it might be. However, she betrayed out of cowardice. And not because someone was threatening her loved ones or even herself. She was scared to make a decision. Take the risks, knowing that whatever choice you make will have consequences. She was a mercenary who fearlessly threw herself into battle, but she was afraid to take responsibility for what might happen. This could have had a relationship, after all, throughout her life someone else had been telling her what to do. First her parents, then the Order, and finally those who paid her to risk their lives and... take them from others. She realized it was an easy life, in a way she never had to truly grow up. All she had to do was listen to orders and go with the flow, and she would have peace of mind. Even Bina's children , with all their unruliness and chaotic nature, were more adults than she was.

She was a traitor three times over. She betrayed herself. She served Iomadae, the heiress. Her goddess demanded of her followers to be brave, truthful and above all, to stand up for the weak and oppressed. And she simply broke all these rules by remaining silent. She was not worthy of serving the Goddess. Iomadae was gracious, but even she could not tolerate such a betrayal of her orders.

But she also betrayed her friends. These poor kids were at the mercy of such a twisted, vile creature. Okay, these weren't just defenseless kids, in fact they were dangerous and a little scary. They looked more like a squad of mercenaries than a best friends squad. But they couldn't do much against the dark sorceress. He probably stays close to them because he wants to use them as hostages or as a human shield, although in this case he may make a mistake, they will not be willing to allow themselves to be subdued, anyone who tries this will regret it bitterly. But evil Hag can manipulate them to suit its purposes. Bina's protégés were hotheaded, and Rosie, naive and good-natured, found it easy to use lies and deceit to exploit them into doing what she didn't have the strength or courage to do, as corrupt leaders often did. Others have always been just tools to them, extensions of themselves at best, damned shadows that exist only to do their will. Over the course of almost a quarter of a century, she's encountered many similar bastards who treat others like things. She even got rid of a few herself.

She also betrayed the inhabitants of this planet. She didn't owe them anything, after all, they weren't her compatriots or someone she had promised to protect. However, the inhabitants of this planet were nice, as she could see during their expedition.

The five of them set off immediately after landing. They took one of the anti-gravity vehicles of the local faction of the Horde, which seems completely unlike Prime's technology, which they could see, for example, in that monastery. The driver was a short hedgehog or echidna person who radiated a laid-back attitude. The vehicle was agile and surprisingly fast, making Lady Cala's hair flow in the wind like bright yellow ribbons. If it were anyone else, she would probably be charmed by the sight, but not in the case of this bitch. She didn't like her from the very beginning, long before hook discovered who her mentor was. She was too perfect, inhumanly perfect, though not invincible, as Rosie had proven, but the white-haired girl was an enigma in her own right. There was evil hidden in her. Not Darkness, darkness sometimes hid in the souls of quite decent people. Some people just managed to fight it within themselves. As the followers of Serenae said, true goodness lay in the hearts of those who were able to break free from the shackles of vice, not those weak, arrogant Puritanicals who in their pride claimed that sin had no access to them. Lady Cala was pure evil. Cheerful, simple and easygoing, hidden behind a veil of benevolent nobility. Now that she knew that Miss Daisy was a Shadow Weaver. This tried to look at things from a different angle, but many things did not fit what one would expect from someone like the person in Wrongdak's story. Lady Cala did not at all look like a girl intimidated by an evil sorcerer. Their relationship was... more equal. Under the guise of pretending to be a well-born maiden and her noble and wise mentor, there was something completely different. There was mutual dislike between them, contempt bordering on hatred, as if they were rivals forced to cooperate by a greater, much more significant power. But who or what was she? Could it be Lord Admiral Antares, another monster they brought to this beautiful place. Although she had to admit that it all didn't come together very well. The Lord Admiral and Lady Cala had a distant respect for each other, but an air of superiority that was unlikely in a master and a servant. They could have pretended, but according to her experience, such prideful and arrogant people could never agree to be subordinated to someone who had no direct control over them.

And there was something else. After learning who Antares was, Miss Daisy fell into depression for several days, accompanied by drinking spree. It had made sense to her at the time, but now she saw it from a completely different perspective. Perhaps it wasn't out of guilt for collaborating with a war criminal, but if she was associated with the Horde and that Horde Prime... Or rather Wronghordak's brother… She wasn't sure what the relationship between the clones actually was. Maybe she was just jealous that that bastard Antares would take away her planet, which she intended to conquer only for herself. But her words, her assurances that there's a much bigger game at play here... Fuck! She was just a regular mercenary, not a damn hero. She decided to believe the one thing Shadow Weaver said. "And what she wants most is to bathe in blood." Every time she looked at that beautiful, gentle face, blue eyes and gracious smile, she knew it had to be true.

They saw a town, small by galaxy standards, their driver said.

"I'll take you there, you still have to find another means of transport. I don't feel like driving you all over Etheri because I don't want to camp under the moons, especially since now it's said that strange beings wander the lonely places after dark. Shadows and ghosts. I tell you, shadows and ghosts." he shouted overly dramatically. Arkan-tar nodded in understanding.

"The undead plague old ruins like rats plague landfills. In my profession, you have to be able to deal with these kinds of problems." he smiled at the hedgehog , who scratched his cheek in surprise.

"Usually everyone tells me that I've heard too many scary campfire stories, but here you go, foreigners believe me."

"These foreigners may even give you good advice." Rechiza said in a serious voice. "Don't approach the shadows without a flaming weapon, and if you encounter a ghoul, a humanoid monster with long claws and fangs that reeks of rotten flesh, run away, because if it hurts you, you may contract a disease that will make you one of them. So if a ghoul scratches you and there's no healer blessed by the righteous gods, you'd better take your own life."

Their driver stared at Lashnti with his mouth open, probably hoping she was joking, but the Warper was, as always, completely serious.

"Back to more... pleasant matters, would you mind selling this vehicle to us?" Lady Cala asked, smiling gently.

"For how much?" driver asked in a skeptical voice

|Three thousand swords." Lady Cala said. The hedgehog whistled in surprise. It must have been a considerable sum of money, since they paid twenty swords to rent a vehicle for the day. Although their currency was not easily converted into the local one, and their equipment could be sold here with multiple currency exchange rates, it was still an absurd extravagance. Previously, she would have simply suspected that the aristocrat ostentatiously did not care about money, but now she knew that there were dark intentions behind her decisions. The hedgehog thought for a moment and then shook his head as he answered.

"Uh, no. It's a lot, but I would quickly spend that kind of money on stupid things, and then I'll be poor. I'd rather save up for a house slowly, or I'll buy another one and employ my brother." he said, ending the conversation, but Ldy Cala did not want to let go.

"You might be interested in the amount of four thousand swords."

This time their driver turned towards them and started twitching his black nose, clearly curious. However, she sensed that the other participants of their expedition did not like the aristocrat's extravagance, so she decided to take advantage of the opportunity and interfere.

"I know that the noble lady is used to being driven everywhere, but unfortunately during such a trip you have to give up comfort. I can walk everywhere there on my own. I suspect the rest of my companions don't mind either."

Arkan-tar nodded, smiling sadly.

"We all get used to comfort very easily, but with such limited resources, we will probably have to give them up."

"When we agreed to this undertaking, we accepted that we would have to face much greater adversities." said Rechiza. The Warper had been strangely somber since meeting Adora.

Lady Cala looked at the mercenary as if she had only just realized that the other woman could talk. She smiled at her sadly and somewhat indulgently, as if she were a child who didn't understand anything.

"I'm not the pampered aristocrat you want me to be. I can, if necessary, endure hardships that people like you cannot even imagine. However, I believe that the mobility provided by such a vehicle is crucial to achieving the goal of our mission. Besides, Dr. Quin needs this vehicle to transport his things. " she pointed to several boxes with strange devices that were supposedly necessary for the scientist. Ysoka nodded at the aristocrat and said.

"That's true. If Rosie hadn't turned out to be such a stinking lazy, or if you had let me keep Palidus Valgus as a volunteer intern wouldn't be a problem, but I would have to abandon extremely expensive equipment, paid for by the government, to the savages living on this backward planet."

The hedgehog person gave Dr. Quinn a very offended look and Dilayla rolled her eyes.

"This "Palidus Valgus' name is Wrongdak, you should have learned that by now, and if you're worried about your gadgets, I can carry them. I finally have power armor, all you have to do is pack them nicely and I can carry them to the other end of this continent." she said in a tired voice. The scientist considered her words for a moment, then nodded.

"Sure, at least you won't be as lazy as that deaf girl."

Rechiza felt disappointed... even though she should have felt happy. Just like that, any fears about what Etheria might be disappeared like mist in the wind, revealing a beautiful summer morning. Now she could explore Etheria's secrets as she pleased, or not, nothing forced her to do anything. There were Lictor's orders , but they could wait. She found no convincing evidence that Miss Daisy or Lady Cala posed a threat to their expedition, although she had to admit that she hadn't been keeping a close eye on their activities lately. Other things were on her mind.

She met one of the First Ones... For her, it was something much more important than meeting one of the gods, although for such Anacites she was probably a god. Throughout her life, she researched the secrets of this extinct race. Or rather, a race that everyone thought was extinct. She never thought it was possible to meet a representative of an ancient civilization just like that at a marketplace... Even though these kids were the first who met her... Just wandering around the wilderness of Icarus. Perhaps she should be jealous, if it weren't for the fact that this Adora turned out to be such a... Disappointment. One would expect the last representative of one of an extinct, eldritch civilization to exude wisdom accumulated over millennia of enlightenment and knowledge beyond mortal understanding. That her body and mind would be the epitome of perfection. And she was such an ordinary young woman. Yes, athletic, as far as she could tell, quite attractive, but otherwise more than ordinary. Lady Cala is a more wonderful creature in every way, if she claimed that she was a full-blooded representative of this wonderful and terrible species, she would believe her without hesitation. But that woman was so full of doubts, so unsure of herself, lacking faith in her own power. And she undoubtedly had this power. She saw it when she transformed into this She- Ra person . This being... was a fragment of divinity, the seed of a god that was yet to sprout and reach its full glory. Only the gods were not supposed to be so human, so mundane. It was not the kindness and love of ordinary beings but the unshakable, unwavering power that evil feared the most. And yet everyone claimed that she was the one who defeated Horde Prime. It questioned everything she had been taught and what any reasonable being believed.

The city had at most a few thousand inhabitants. It was built on the trunks and branches of several gigantic Baobabs or similar trees, but several newer and more modern buildings were built on the ground. It looked like something straight out of a children's fairy tale. It was called Treehouse, what great creativity in choosing the name, and it was located on the border between the wastelands and the Singing Jungle. The surrounding areas were a forest steppe, a bit friendlier and more densely populated than Wastes. The city looked friendly, which shouldn't surprise her, so it was a perfect base. Here they also made their first, although absolutely unexpected, discovery.

They stopped at what looked like a parking lot for similar vehicles to the one they had rented. There was a notice board nearby. The first one to notice it, of course, was looking at the large poster and adjusted his glasses a few times, and then said, smiling with the corner of his mouth.

"That's interesting... Look. – he called to them. As they approached, she saw the announcement of the wedding that the AI had mentioned. There was a winged girl with purple and pink hair who had something familiar about her, a tall and handsome dark-skinned man, Adora, whom they already knew and…

"It's impossible..." she said quietly in disbelief. At first glance, she took her for that cat-like girl from Bina crew... She thought her name was Eti. She didn't look closely at the girl, she was too unstable to associate with, but the person on the poster looked remarkably similar. Not identical, but very similar. Like siblings or cousins at best.

"I think someone was hiding something from us." Arkan-tar said with a dark note in his voice, but Dilayla let out a broken laugh and said with undisguised contempt in her voice.

- If you took the trouble to make friends with our captain and her charges, you would know who she is.

"Well, I noticed that you have developed a very close relationship with this Bina. Would you kindly enlighten us? – said Arkan-ta with his inseparable smile. The mercenary ignored his insult and began to explain.

"Her name is Catra, it even says it here." Dilyla pointed to the inscription on the poster. "As far as I know, she's sort of Eti's sister. Both were created by Bina's Father. Catra was born as a baby twenty-something years ago, but Eti was born as a teenager. For some reason, did not like Jantar Catra, andsold her to Doctor Sidonius, who used her in an experiment that brought her to Etheria. I know the rest from the stories of Wrongdak, who doesn't know everything. She was found by the Horde from Etheri and placed under the "care" of Shadow Weaver, a dark sorceress who was the right hand of the local Horde leader and the brother of our dear Wrongdak. This dark bitch was extremely cruel and mean to Catra. She was also close to Adora and probably not in a sisterly way since they want to get married after all Catra overthrew that dark bitch and practically led the Horde herself until Hord Prime came along. I'm not entirely sure what happened next, but I guess she got lucky because, hey, she's a grand marshal and she's getting married, so she obviously made better life choices than I did." the mercenary rubbed her chin in somewhat theatrical thought. She and Arkan-tar stared at Dilayla in disbelief, so she added. "Do you see how much you can achieve when you are just nice and talk to your fellow passengers?"

Dr. Quin was paying no attention to their conversation, and Lady Cala… She had the kind smile on her face, as usual, but out of the corner of her eye, he saw that she was clenching her fist so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.

"This is disturbing information, although I'm not yet sure what it might mean." said the Aristocrat thoughtfully. Well, she wouldn't care about the fate of both cat girls if it weren't for their connections with Dr. Sidoniu , who created her cybernetic eyes. Nidy didn't trust the ancient vampire, if only because he was an ancient vampire, but now it turned out that he knew about this planet and was trying to find a way to get there. She shouldn't have felt surprised, because after all, he wasn't her friend, or even her ally, just someone who gave her cybernetic eyes, probably as part of some experiment, but she still felt disappointed, although probably due to her own ignorance. So far, she has been accustomed to being the best-informed person, someone to whom others turn with questions, but recently she has come to the conclusion that her ideas about the world around her have little in common with the reality surrounding her. A damned uneducated mercenary whose worth was measured by how many people she could kill or maim in an hour knew more than she, who had devoted her life to discovering ancient and dark secrets. Something like that took away my confidence in my own competences.

"Well, Miss Dilayla gave us an enlightening lesson on friendship, cooperation, and openness, and we were able to gain information that we otherwise would not have been able to obtain. Congratulations. Now maybe we will look for an inn or hotel to rest and prepare for the purpose of our trip." said Arkan-tar with a smile. She sighed and nodded.

The inn was large and a bit empty, but it was surprisingly pleasant. She felt the aroma of apple pie wafting around her, making her mouth water. If someone had told her a few weeks ago that she would drool on Etheri smelling the apple pie, she would have thought him crazy. The sanctuary was run by a pair of Strix, winged, lightly feathered people with bird legs. These two had feathers like colorful tropical birds. They were happy to see them. They learned that many guests had gone to Brightmoon for the wedding and Victory Day. To her surprise, the owners looked at her with sadness and compassion.

"Oh, you're Vespa, but I guess you're not from here because of those metal eyes... We didn't know that representatives of your people live in the empire. Horde Prime did not like your race. Here you managed to hide in the depths of the Singing Jungle thanks to the power of Princess Sweet Bee, she is also one of you. But you didn't have princesses... It must have been hard for you... Giving you a free apple pie..." she smiled friendly, and she smiled back at her with as nice a smile as she could muster, but the effect was moderate, and she said.

"We are not from the empire, but from the Pact Worlds. Only recently did we learn about its existence."

The owner of the Inn's eyes widened.

"We had a few non-Etheri people here, but no one from outside the Empire. We didn't even know anything existed outside the empire. Horde Prime claimed to be the ruler of the known universe.

Then Arkan-tar sat down next to him, bowed courtly and said.

"Megalomaniacs like Horde Prime often claim that they have divine attributes. This is the defining characteristic of megalomaniacs, and I am Arkan-tar, a scholar from Kemanis University." Verthani smiled, in his opinion, disarmingly, but the woman obviously liked it, because she blushed and asked.

"Oh, university! This must be a great place." she said with delight. She wanted to roll her eyes, but even her natural eyes couldn't do that because they were faceted .

"This is one of the greatest universities in the galaxy. It is located on Absalom Station, the largest space station in the Galaxy. It is the center of the galaxy and over two million creatures live there permanently, but if we include guests from all over the galaxy , there will be at least twice as many."

"You used the word galaxy three times too many in one sentence," she thought sarcastically.

Soon, the owners husband joined the conversation with Verthani, who started telling stories to both of them. She snorted contemptuously. Such an intelligent man should focus and not allow himself to be distracted by such mundane matters. Soon they rented five rooms and had basically nothing to do until the morning.

Two hours later she sat at the table feeling broken. She ordered an apple pie and devour it all herself. Now she was looking gloomily at Arkan-tar, who was telling his owners about one of his numerous and probably imaginary adventures, and she was eating date bread with honey and drinking hibiscus tea. It was already dark outside, and Lady Cala went out to look around or do something similar, in her current mood she didn't really care. Fifteen minutes after the aristocrat left, Dilayla approached her with two mugs of cider.

"I'm not interested in women." she said harshly and the mercenary she glanced first at Arkan-tar, then at her, and raised an eyebrow.

"I just noticed who you're interested in. And I really don't want to fuck every woman I approach. Even in Bina's case, I had to drink half a bottle of elven wine first, really good..."

"What do you want from me?" she interrupted the half-elf, a bit concerned about her talkativeness.

"Well, now when Lady Cala's left us... I have to tell you what else I found out." the half-elf took a large sip of cider, as if she needed to give herself courage. "Miss Daisy is Shadow Weaver."

She felt as if she had hit the ground after falling from a very high height. Previously she felt that she knew too little, now she realized that she knew absolutely nothing.

"How did you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?" she said slowly, trying to sound more confident than she felt. The mercenary smiled not very cheerfully and said.

"Shadow Weaver was a dark sorceress and, surprisingly, the ruler of shadows. Her face was scarred and she had fangs and claws. And I saw Miss Daisy's real face. Moreover, this woman knows things that the tutor of such an aristocrat should not know. And her suspicious interest in Eti, as if she recognized her as her pupil, or rather someone very similar to her."

She listened to the half-elf's argument in silence, thought for a moment and spoke.

"It's only circumstantial evidence. Strong circumstantial evidence, I must admit, but still circumstantial evidence on the basis of which we should not draw such far-reaching conclusions..."

"She confess it when I asked her about it." Dilayla interrupted her.

Now she just stared at the mercenary until she simply asked her.

"How did she confess?"

The half-elf shrugged.

"I went to see her right after we landed here. I admit that at first I wanted to kill her, but she managed to talk me out of it. She simply said it would be pointless and might even make things worse."

Rechiza laughed briefly. She turned out to be an idiot. She assumed that Mr. Daisy was either an Old One cultist or a member of the Dominion in Black. But something so mundane and yet extraordinary was beyond her comprehension.

"And what now? Next you're going to tell me that this woman intimidated Lady Cala and now we have to save the beautiful woman." She asked But Dilayla shook her head.

"No... It's Lady Cala that we should all be afraid of. " the fear in the mercenary's voice made her shiver.

Calamity knew this planet to be a great disappointment. Yes, it was quite nice here, but there was nothing here that could be used for heated battles. She guessed it had to do with her inability to use Magic. Nyarlathotep, in their infinite wisdom, decided that she should not have access to this power, leaving her with only limited psionic abilities . She couldn't understand it, but even she was just a weak pawn in the game of great powers and had to come to terms with their will.

She was glad that the younger monster had gone his way, although she didn't like that Shadow Weaver was left with that scabrous bunch, but that was the will of the Creeping Chaos, they wanted the dark Sorceress to try to carry out her plan . She had no intention of standing against her.

And today she finally saw this masquerade. She had a rightful contempt for Adora and was disgusted by the little monster, but when she saw Catra she wanted to put out her claws and tear that face apart, even though it was only a poster. This being had stolen her destiny and condemned her to this meaningless existence. She swore to herself that she would not leave this planet until she turned that creature's life into a nightmare...

But now she had to fulfill the will of the creeping Chaos. She sensed where she needed to go. She could feel places. Where rituals were performed in the glory of blasphemous entities. At first she considered letting her hosts wait and hanging the carrier by his own intestines, but she decided that would be terribly petty. In the future, she will make a rug from the skin of his entire family.

The meeting was to take place in the primary school building, which must be admittedly a surprising but ingenious choice. She entered the classroom and was dismayed to notice that there were children's drawings hanging on the walls depicting an idiot, a mascot, or a glitter queen. Eight cultists were waiting for her here, under normal circumstances it would have been pitifully few, but on this planet cut off from the rest of the galaxy, it was all she could count on.

"Welcome and rejoice, for you stand before the face of Calamity, Perfection Incarnate."