Chapter 10
Catra remembered a time long past, where she and Adora were so carefree. Where they would hide from Shadow Weaver behind boxes full of weaponry and armour with stolen nutrition bars from the kitchen. They've both changed so much since then but there was something that would never change, something Shadow Weaver couldn't beat out of them. Something deep within their soul.
There was a time when Catra and the team were due a training drill in the simulation room. Whenever Lord Hordak designed new weapons or tech, they were tested out on the cadets. He had created these robots, they were bug-like with eight legs on sharp points. They had loads of eyes, all of which fired red hot lasers every which way and a fairly round body. Nothing too fancy or elaborate, which was Hordak's whole theme in general. He usually just threw a bunch of bits of metal together with a gun and hoped for the best. That was one experiment that didn't quite go as planned.
Anyway, so he deployed those new weapon robot things and the team were in the simulation, fighting them off, as per usual. Adora had charged head first, sticking her polearm into the robot's eyes, destroying gun after gun. Catra was leaping between bots, smashing in through their eyes to grab hold of the wiring and then severing the cords. Glass shattered, sparks flew. Sometimes Adora gave Catra a boost when leaping up or Catra would shove her out of the way when she wasn't paying attention to where the robots were. A target on her back. Sometimes they would deliberately put all targets on Adora and then they'd lure the bugs together so they shot at each other and destroyed themselves.
Afterwards, Adora had said, "Hey, Catra!" she waved, gleefully proud of herself. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" she would ask. Of course, Catra would always deny it if she were hurt, she'd never let Adora see it if she was.
"Everything's fine," Catra said, brushing some dust off her arm. A robot bug thing had blasted one of the pillars, causing some debris to fall. "Oh, you're welcome, by the way, for letting you win."
Adora scoffed. "You didn't let me win, I could have handled that all by myself," she proclaimed.
"As if," Catra said, playfully shoving Adora. "Bet I can beat you to the locker rooms!" she took off towards it. Adora chuckled, sprinting as fast as she could. Just as they got to the opening into the lockers, the two of them tried to shove each other out of the way. Catra slipped by her, winning the race.
"Cheater." Adora laughed as she opened her locker to change into clothes that weren't coated in a thick layer of sweat. Catra tugged on her ponytail, sitting high on her head, dirty blonde strands shimmering in the harsh light. "Stop playing with my hair. I got you toys to play with."
"Those toys aren't as fun as your hair," Catra said playfully.
"Why don't you just admit you like me and get it over with," Adora said with a smug look on her dumb face.
Catra shoved her. "I don't like you." Adora chuckled, her laugh always sounded so sweet when mixed in with the malicious shadows constantly watching them.
"Hey, it's a full moon, or so Kayleigh said, wanna go see it?" Catra gasped, eyes a light with something akin to joy. The full moon!
"Yes, let's go." She grabbed Adora's hand as soon as she clipped her belt with the Horde badge, and dragged her through the Fright Zone. To Catra's senses, she still stunk of sweat but it didn't matter. The two of them excited the building, out into open hair and helped each up to climb the tall structure. About three quarters of the way up was a little lookout landing thing which was where they often spent a lot of their time, hiding from Shadow Weaver or the other cadets. Catra sometimes went alone, when overwhelmed with feelings.
Shadow Weaver always taught them to bottle feelings up, they were a pointless, emotional distraction that often left people confused. Unfortunately, it meant that the array of emotions that Catra had no idea how to control, often burst free of that bottle and she couldn't let anyone see. Not even Adora. That was why Adora was so cold half the time, in order to quell the rising flames inside her, she froze over. Yet she always had enough warmth stored for Catra.
At the top of the lookout landing, they sat on the edge together looking up as Etheria's two moons. They only had one sun. Both were magnificent, big and round and just oozing light like blood from the veins.
There were no stars in Etheria, the sky was just empty blackness. Catra always liked to think of her and Adora as those two moons. Cold and distant, deadly and wicked. Always together, not a night goes by when those moons aren't together. There was a period of about eight minutes when both moons overlapped each other, merging as one. It was a beautiful dance. The moons would fall apart as morning drew near and as darkness reigned they fell back together. Like two puzzle pieces.
Catra looked at Adora, seeing the reflection of the moon in her eyes, hearing her steady and strong heartbeat, fingers gently grazing her soft hand. "If we stay too long, we'll miss dinner," Catra said. Her words did not distract Adora from the beauty of the moons.
"Do you want to head down?"
"No," Catra said.
"Then we miss dinner," she replied, never taking her eyes off the sky, but inching her hand closer to Catra's, it was sitting neatly underneath the cat's palm. Catra's own heart rate betrayed her.
Catra and her team made it home to the Fright Zone days later. They had to trek across the desert on foot as their van was lost somewhere in those woods and she was not going to search those awful woods to find it. The whole way home, her mind was on Adora and how she just left her behind with that giant bug. And still in the hands of the Rebellion. She'll go back, she'll take a small army and she'll march on the damn Rebellion. She'll rip the entire land apart to get to Adora.
She was severely annoyed, sticky and hot from the trek through the harsh desert, tired and in a lot of pain. That flower princess really packed a punch. It didn't help Catra had to be paralysed a couple times by Scorpia because she was being rowdy and difficult, but that's beside the point. It gave Catra great pleasure in knowing she'd bitten and scratched a few princesses for good measure. She utterly adored the fact that Perfuma looked so much better without one eye. That should teach them not to mess with the Horde.
Her exhausted team collapse in their bed, dehydrated, hungry and covered in wounds from being subjected to torture. Catra looked at Adora's empty bed in the dorms. She could only imagine how nightmarish her nights are without her, Adora needed her. If she's not back by nightfall, then tomorrow she's marching on Bright moon. They're going to regret having ever laid a hand on them.
She was just about to curl up in Adora's blanket, her scent still heavy within the worn threads when she received a fright.
"Force Captain," Shadow Weaver said from behind her. She hissed at her at first, having not realised it was the sorceress.
"Oh, Shadow Weaver, it's just you," Catra replied, rather disappointed that it was her.
Her eyes narrowed. "No need to sound so excited to see me. Where have you been? I expected you back days ago."
Her heart thrummed painfully in her chest, a single bead of sweat trickled down her back. She did not want to tell Shadow Weaver the truth. "We ran into trouble. We were captured by the rebellion and tortured. My team barely made it out with their life."
"You're team," the sorceress repeated. "I don't see all members of your team present in the dorms." Of course she was asking about Adora, she always favoured her over everyone else. It was never 'Oh Catra are you okay?' it was always 'suck it up, Catra.' Then she'd coddle Adora. That was something Catra always pitied about her, the fact she got most of Shadow Weaver's attention and as a result, the brunt of her anger.
"Adora is still in the hands of the enemy."
"What!" Shadow Weaver practically screamed, a burst of vicious shadows going everywhere like she'd dropped a jar of marbles. She then grabbed Catra's throat, shadows creeping over her body. She shivered from the chill it gave her. "You came back without her?"
"Yeah, obviously." The shadow punched Catra right in the gut, knocking the wind out of her for several dangerous seconds.
"Don't talk back to me. Explain what happened right now."
"The rebels questioned us about a 'She-Ra', but none of us knew anything about that. They were about to execute us when a giant bug sprang out from underground and tried to kill everyone. Adora stayed to use the sword's magic to kill it and I ordered her to return home immediately after it's death. If she's not here soon, then I'm going back for her."
"If she's with the rebellion then you'll never get her back. All we can hope for is that she's not compromised." Shadow Weaver threw her away. "Leave Adora to me, I will bring her home."
"You don't think I'm capable?" Catra bared her fangs at the sorceress in a snarl.
"You have no power to take down princesses."
"Then give me an army and I'll attack Bright Moon. We have robots, we have soldiers, we have technology."
"All out of date, our best shot was Adora."
"Yeah, well the Rebellion has out of date stuff too, just because they have her captive doesn't mean they have an advantage in this war. She's still on our side." This argument was boring her and it was pointless.
"Leave it to me, I'll be able to bring her home without the need of an army. There's no point in wasting good soldiers when this can be done from afar. Was her sword still green the last you saw her?" Catra nodded, she actually had no idea because she didn't see said sword but she also had no reason to believe that it wouldn't be green. She didn't understand what even made it green to begin with.
Shadow Weaver turned to leave but Catra stopped her, jumping in front of her to block her path. "Before you go running off, I have a question for you." The sorceress waited rather impatiently. "Those rebels were convinced we had She-Ra, I've never seen or heard about this before in my life. So tell me, Shadow Weaver, what is She-Ra?"
There was a tense moment of silence where Catra held her dark gaze. There was a part of her that thought the sorceress would dissipate into shadows and leave without uttering another word but no, she replied.
"If you want to know the truth so badly," she said darkly, "follow me. I'll tell you about She-Ra." The sorceress went down a dark and creepy hallway, because of course she does. Why wouldn't she? Catra followed her, eager to know what the rebels are dying to get their hands on, yet also afraid of what this information might mean. And how did Adora connect to it all? She must do since she held the sword of She-Ra. That was the only piece of info Catra had gathered from the rebels but that was it. It was time to learn the truth.
