She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Haunted
The fact that Catra was lost was easily an understatement. She didn't know where she was or how she even got where she was, all she knew was that place she was in was vast and dark, with no sign of Adora or any of her friends anyway. As she walked through the misty area, she glanced left and right at the pillars on both sides of her.
"What the heck is this place?" she wondered aloud. "Hello!"
Her voice echoed throughout the desolate area. No one answered.
Catra didn't know why or what it was, but something seemed to be urging her to keep walking. So that's what she did, she walked, for what felt like forever. She didn't know when she first started walking through this new location or for how long exactly, but whatever the case was, she didn't know what she expected to find at the end of it or even if it even had an end.
Her frustration growing, she finally stopped walking and picked up a rock before throwing it as far as she could into the darkness. She waited, ears raised, but she didn't hear the rock clatter on the floor or hit any kind of wall. Just pure silence.
"Where is the end of this place?!" Catra exclaimed, her voice echoing once more.
Suddenly, her ears perked up the moment she heard movement behind her. This sudden sound and movement not only startled her but also caused her to quickly turn around.
"Hey! Who's there?!" Catra demanded.
A shadowy figure once again zipped by without her looking, causing her to turn in that direction when she heard it.
"Come on already! Show yourself!"The Magicat called out.
Then, whoever or whatever it was finally spoke.
"Why? You don't tell me what to do. No one does."
Catra's tail briefly stood up on end. The voice seemed to be coming from every direction, which meant she couldn't pinpoint where the stranger was exactly.
"Who are you?!" Catra questioned.
"Oh, you know who I am, Catra."
"I do?" Catra inquired, raising a brow in confusion and surprise.
"That's right. And I know you. I've known you your whole life really."
Catra immediately felt her fur and tail stand up on end. "Shadow Weaver…?" she gasped.
The mysterious voice just laughed. "Ha! You wish!"
"Hey! If you knew her like I did…!" Catra began to say threateningly.
"Oh, I knew her alright. Just like I know Adora too."
"What…?" Catra gasped softly.
"As well as Sparkles, Arrow boy, Scorpia, Entrapta, Hordak, Lonnie, Kyle… everyone you know, I know."
"How?!" Catra demanded, getting more frustrated with yelling at nothing.
"You still haven't figured it out yet? Wow, and I thought Adora was an idiot."
Catra snarled. "Don't call her that!"
"Why not? I mean, you do all the time, or should I say… we do all the time."
"We?" Catra echoed, puzzled. With a gasp, Catra's eyes widened. "Wait…"
"Looks like you're finally starting to put it together. About time. But just in case you haven't…"
Before Catra could say anything or react, something from out of the darkness suddenly kicked her in the back and knocked to the ground. She rolled across the stone floor for a while before finally stopping. When she did, she immediately got herself on all fours and turned to face whatever or whoever it was that attacked her, even baring her fangs with a growl.
The fierceness on Catra's face quickly vanished and became replaced by shock when she finally did get a good look at the attacker.
"Maybe this will help."
Catra couldn't believe what she was seeing right now. Standing before her wasn't some kind of alien or monster, but someone whose arms were currently folded and sporting an evil grin that she knew all too well. After all, she used to wear it on her own face all the time, a face the owner of the mysterious voice shared.
The dichromatic Magicat stared with completely wide eyes at the figure before her, who seemed to be an almost splitting image of herself. The only differences were that this second Catra was three years younger then what she was now and wearing the outfit she wore during the first years of her and Adora's separation, complete with her old headpiece.
"Who… who are…?" Catra tried to say, however she couldn't quite find the words.
"Huh, guess I was wrong. You still haven't figured it all out yet, even when the answer's staring you in the face." The other Catra mocked her. "And to top it off, said answer has the exact same face as you!"
Slowly, Catra rose to her feet before cautiously approaching the apparent duplicate of herself, who continued to grin both smugly and in amusement.
"Heh, go ahead," she urged as the short haired Catra inspected her all over and even sniffed her before looking her in the eye. "Pretty freaky, huh? Just like looking in a mirror, right?"
The older Catra jumped back a bit. "You're… me?!"
"That's right. Only I'm clearly not as weak as you turned out to be." The younger Catra boasted.
"This… this is crazy! You can't be me! I'm me!" Older Catra exclaimed.
"Ha! You sure about that? The way I see it, I'm the true Catra. You on the other hand are just a fake. A lie. A mask to hide the real Catra inside; me." The other Catra stated, pointing a claw at the wide eyed and short haired Magicat in front of her.
"You are not me!" Catra yelled before she charged at the duplicate before leaping towards her, but the other Catra easily dodged the older one's attempted pounce. The older Catra hit the floor hard and turned just in time to see her evil twin raise a heel, preparing to deliver an axe kick. Rolling out of the way, Catra barely managed to evade the other her's heel as it hit and broke the ground on impact.
"I'm not you, huh? What? Looking at your reflection makes you feel sick? I agree." Evil Catra stated. "But really, you really should stop lying to yourself."
"What do I have to lie about?!" Catra questioned in an irritated tone as she stood back up.
"Hmm, gee I don't know… how about telling everyone that this is who you are. That you're a 'good person' or some nonsense like that." Alternate Catra scoffed.
"It's not a lie! This is who I am!" Catra insisted. "I promised Adora I would be better, and I have!"
Her other self laughed, mockingly. "Better? You mean weaker! Look at yourself! Fighting with the rebellion, alongside people we hated, and worse of all; doing whatever it is Adora wants us to do just because she said so." Young Catra said in disgust. "It's pathetic! We were gonna crush the Rebellion and rule over this world! Not to mention, prove that we're better then Adora! We spent our whole childhood trying to be better then Adora, remember?"
"If you're really me, then you should know that all of that stuff wasn't what we really wanted!" Catra stated. "What we wanted was Adora and nothing more!"
"Adora? Oh, you mean the girl who abandoned us for a bunch of strangers? Even after she promised we would always look out for each other?!" The other Catra snarled, bitterly. "Oh, we 'want her' alright. Want her out of our lives forever! That's what we want. What you want."
"No!" The short haired Catra yelled before she immediately pounced on her other self. The two rolled across the ground a couple of times before Catra finally pinned the evil clone of herself down and slugged her across the face.
Younger Catra just smirked, as if the punch didn't phase her at all. "The truth hurts, doesn't it?"
"Stop messing with me!" Catra growled before punching her old self again.
"Face it, you hated her the first moment you met her." Evil Catra stated, which earned her another punch, though it still didn't phase her. "After all, she's just a princess wannabe who thinks she's better then everyone else, especially us!"
"You're not me!" Catra shouted as she raised her fist and brought it down quickly. But before she can make contact, the young Catra suddenly vanished into the floor while the older Catra's fist punched the ground hard enough to make a crater. The second Catra realized what just happened, her eyes widened in shock. "Huh? What the…?"
Catra is even more surprised when multiple holographic screens started popping up all around her in a circle. Each of the screens showed different footage, which Catra immediately recognized the second she saw Adora, Shadow Weaver and many others. While no sound came from them, Catra still knew what was being said thanks to her memories.
"Wait… these are…" she began to say before her former self's taunting voice spoke up again.
"That's right, our memories. Of all the times Adora. Betrayed. Us!"
One screen showed the memory of the time Adora first fought against the Horde as She-Ra and joined the rebellion. Another one was Adora going in to retrieve the failsafe despite her protests. There were even memories showing all the times Adora beat her in combat when they were cadets in the Horde.
"She left us. Betrayed us. Abandoned us. Threw us away like trash! Our entire lives, she's done nothing but make us miserable, let Shadow Weaver torture us every time we lost!"
As her other self spoke, Catra saw all of those particular memories on the screens as well. Just watching her child self be struck by Shadow Weaver's power and berated for being a nuance was enough to make Catra cringe and shiver.
"We would have been the favorite. We would be leading the Horde. We would be ruling the whole planet if Adora hadn't been there to take everything away from us!" Young Catra said, her angry voice echoing throughout the dark area she was in.
Catra bared her fangs before standing up and making the screens all disappear with one swipe of her claws. "No! I told you, that was never what we wanted! We never even believed in what the Horde's was fighting for in the first place!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, we wanted 'Adora'." Evil Catra responded in a disinterested tone before reappearing in front of her older self again. "If that was true, how come we didn't go with her when she asked us to come with her in the first place?"
"I…" Catra began, trying to find the words but couldn't due to her other self cutting her off."
"As I recall, she gave us tons of chances to leave the Horde and go with her and every time we turned her away. Why is that? I'll tell you why, because what the Horde was doing, hurting those towns and everyone on the planet? We liked it!" Her long haired self said with a mad grin.
"No…" The short haired cat girl said with wide eyes as she shook her head.
"Because we knew with Adora gone, we could finally get out of her shadow. Her leaving was really the best thing that ever happened to us!" The alternate Catra declared.
"Now you're lying to yourself!" Catra barked. "We both know full well what it was like when she left. It was the single worst part of my life and hurt far more then anything Shadow Weaver ever did to me!"
Before older Catra could react, her younger self grabbed her by the throat and carried her all the way to a column before slamming her against it.
"Didn't stop you from taking Adora's long sought position and doing whatever the bosses told you. We conquered towns, kingdoms, almost the whole planet! Never hesitating. Why? Because we enjoyed it!" Catra's evil twin stated.
Catra struggled to breath while trying to break her other self's grip on her neck, but it seemed almost impossible since her evil clone's grip was like a vice. "Ok! Ok! Yes! I did! I did like it!" she confessed, making her other self's grip loosen finally. "Other then Adora… I never cared about anyone, and then… when she left… I felt hurt, broken, and alone… I wanted to end that pain. So I got the stupid idea in my head that if I got rid of Adora and everything and everyone she loved then that pain would go away. But it never did! It just made it worse. But you know that, don't you?"
Angered, other Catra turned and threw her older self away. Catra rolled and tumbled across the ground before hitting the base of another column so hard it cracked. Still, the short haired Magicat managed to get up unfazed.
"You're right… Adora did give me a chance to go with her… and I refused. Why? Because I was scared!" Older Catra admitted, stunning her young and evil self. "Scared, stubborn and stupid. Because I thought there was no leaving the Horde. It was all we… I… had ever known. I couldn't picture being anything else, or maybe… I just didn't want to…"
"And why's that?" Younger Catra questioned her with a raised brow, though her tone suggested that she already knew the answer.
"Because… because I didn't I deserved anything better." Catra finally said. "All those times Shadow Weaver tormented me, called me distraction, 'Adora's pet', saying I was no good and junk like that… it happened so often I actually started to believe her…"
"Yeah… and you know what's funny?" Catra's old self inquired.
"What?"
"She was right."
"Huh?!"
Catra couldn't believe the words that came out of the mouth of her younger self, who was now back to smiling evilly. "I mean… look at us! We're not like them. We're freaks. Oh, and don't get me started on all the bad things we… or rather… you did," she said with a sadistic tone.
"Please, don't…" The older Catra began to say, she knew where this was going, and she knew in her gut that it wasn't gonna be pleasant at all.
"Begging, Catra?" Her evil self commented in amusement before sneering. "How weak and pathetic you've become."
In a flash, young Catra grabbed her older self by the face and slammed her into the column again. Catra grabbed the arm of the younger Magicat with both hands, trying to break free but her evil duplicate's grip around her face was as tight as a vice.
"How about a trip down memory lane?" Evil Catra offered in a creepy manner.
Groaning in pain, the older Catra widened her eyes. "No…" she muttered in fear before all the memories she had been trying so hard to forget came flooding back one by one.
Catra struggled against the grip of her past self, but it was futile. Images bombarded her, each flashing vividly and unrelentingly. Every hurtful word she'd spat at Adora, every heartless decision she'd made, every friend she'd betrayed. Memories tore through her like shards of glass, each a brutal reminder of who she had been—and what she had done.
Scenes began to flood her vision, each one sharper than the last.
She saw herself turning on Adora time and time again. She remembered punching her in the gut, calling her weak, clawing at her with anger she couldn't contain. The pain she saw in Adora's eyes when she left her desperately hanging to the ledge still haunted her, and Catra's chest tightened, each image slicing deeper into her heart.
The memory shifted, and she saw herself unleashing the Horde on the Kingdom of Salineas. Mermista, Sea Hawk, and the entire kingdom—all of them defenseless against the Horde's attack that she had led. She could still hear the cries of the people, feel the weight of her own ruthlessness as she turned away, barely flinching as the kingdom she had crushed fell to ruin.
And then there was Entrapta… Catra remembered vividly how she had convinced herself it was necessary to betray Entrapta, to leave her to the mercy of Hordak and lie about it to cover her own tracks. She'd felt powerful in the moment, convincing herself it was a strategic move, but looking back, all she saw was Entrapta's face as she realized she had been left behind. Catra shivered at the memory of Entrapta's trusting smile—a smile she'd destroyed with her own selfishness.
Her other self laughed darkly, her grip tightening as another scene flooded Catra's mind. She saw the moment she'd opened the portal, defying every warning, just to prove she could be the one in control. She'd nearly destroyed Etheria, shattered the entire fabric of reality—just to show she was stronger than Adora. And Queen Angella… she made the ultimate sacrifice, trapped in the endless void to protect her daughter and everyone she loved.
"You remember that?" her younger self sneered. "How you almost tore the universe apart? All because you wanted to win. You nearly destroyed everything and everyone, including Adora."
Catra gritted her teeth, tears welling in her eyes. "I know… I know I did," she whispered, barely able to face the truth. "I didn't care who I hurt, as long as I could make Adora feel as much pain as I did."
Her younger self's eyes glinted with satisfaction. "And you did hurt her. Over and over. You told her she was a failure. You said she should have left you alone, that she was nothing to you. Remember? Remember all the people you've hurt. Adora, Scorpia… everyone who ever tried to care for you. They trusted you. They believed in you. And you just threw it all away."
The words echoed through Catra's mind, and she felt herself break. Those moments, those wounds she had inflicted on Adora, had never truly left her. She could still see Adora's face as she told her to come with her and join the Rebellion, she could still hear the hurt in her Adora's voice when she begged her to help her while she was hanging for dear life.
"Yes, I hurt her. I hurt everyone," Catra choked, feeling her body go weak. She could barely look at her past self, who was grinning triumphantly. "I was angry. I was jealous. And I thought… I thought that hurting them would make it hurt less."
Her past self scoffed, releasing her hold. "And what makes you think you deserve to be forgiven? After everything? You're not one of them. You're not a hero. You're nothing but a selfish, hateful coward."
Catra's legs wobbled, but she forced herself to stand, breathing shakily as she met her younger self's bitter gaze. "You're right. I made so many mistakes. I hurt everyone I cared about, and I can't take any of it back."
Her past self's grin faltered, an uncertain glint flickering in her eyes.
"But," Catra continued, her voice steadier, "I'm done letting that pain control me. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore. I don't want to hurt me anymore. And if Adora and the others can forgive me, maybe… maybe I can start to forgive myself too."
Her past self's expression crumbled, and for the first time, Catra saw the pain behind her sneer, the loneliness and hurt that had festered for so long. Her younger self's voice trembled. "But… but all those things we did—how do you just forget?"
Catra softened, stepping closer. "I'm not forgetting. I'll carry it with me, but I don't have to let it define me. I'm choosing to be better, not just for Adora, but for us. We deserve that, don't we?"
Her past self's expression twisted as tears welled up in her eyes, her tough facade finally breaking. "I… I just wanted to be strong… to be someone important…"
Catra reached out, gently touching her past self's shoulder. "You are strong. And you are important. But not because of what we did to hurt people. You're important because… you survived it. We survived it. And now… we can let it go."
Her past self's shoulders began to shake, and she leaned into Catra's embrace, releasing all the pain she had held on to for so long. Slowly, her form softened, dissolving into a faint light that merged with Catra, filling her with a profound sense of peace.
Catra opened her eyes and found herself back in her room, the familiar warmth of the bed grounding her in the present. Adora lay beside her, peaceful and serene, her golden hair glowing faintly in the early morning light. Catra sat up, reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Adora's face, a small smile forming on her lips.
Adora stirred, rubbing her eyes as she also sat up. She blinked a few times before focusing on Catra, a gentle smile spreading across her face. "Morning," she murmured sleepily.
Catra smiled back, her eyes soft with gratitude. She leaned forward, pressing a short but tender kiss to Adora's lips, pouring all the love she felt into that single gesture.
"Whoa. Now that wakes me up." Adora expressed, pleasantly surprised. "Everything alright?"
Catra wrapped her arms around Adora, holding her tightly. "It is now, dummy. It is now."
Adora just smiled, and returned the embrace with the same amount of affection.
In that moment, Catra felt a profound sense of calm, a sense that the wounds of her past had finally begun to heal. For the first time, she truly believed that she was worthy of love—and ready to leave the darkness behind.