Chapter Text
Shadow Weaver’s bid for control might as well have been a coup. Although, Catra had never heard of a coup with only one woman. Even when Hordak took control over the last leader of the Horde—now some nobody whose name Catra didn’t even know—he was aided by several different task forces, all of whom he had inspired to follow his command. But Shadow Weaver’s influence wasn’t made up of the charisma and command that Hordak could wield. She did not inspire rebellion; she inspired fear.
Somehow, amid all the chaos, she had made her way to the Black Garnet and rekindled her powers. Catra could only imagine the things she had done to get to it. Thoughts of dead soldiers, Horde and Rebellion alike, littering the path to the Garnet as Shadow Weaver cut and killed her way through flooded her mind. After Adora was taken away, Catra rushed to see it for herself. When she arrived, any bodies that might have been there were already gone, but the blood was not. And the Garnet was glowing a brightly dark, reddish-maroon.
And it had been three weeks.
For three weeks, Catra did not see either Shadow Weaver or Adora. Her insides churned and ached at the thought of what her old mentor might be doing. If Adora was lucky, Shadow Weaver would only wipe her memory. She would forget all about her stupid Rebellion friends and come back to the Horde. Catra could have her friend back. That was, unless Shadow Weaver took the memories of their friendship as well.
No matter what Catra tried to tell herself, her mind kept jumping to how things might be worse. But Shadow Weaver would never torture Adora, right? Not her star prodigy. Not the only person she ever showed compassion to. Right?
She couldn’t take this anymore. Three weeks of bottling up her fears was getting to her a little too much. Catra needed some kind of outlet. And yelling at her task force seemed like the perfect thing.
Lonnie, Kyle, and Salamon were running through a simulation, as they usually did when they weren’t on a mission. Even if they weren’t cadets anymore, they liked to stay sharp and keep their skills honed. Except for Kyle. He was still useless.
Catra strolled into the training area, ignoring the spherical bots that crawled about and tried to attack her task force. She wasn’t in any danger herself. Without a training vest, the bots would simply ignore her. The only thing she needed to worry about was one of them barreling into her without noticing. She watched as Kyle rushed forward to attack a roaming bot behind her, panting and straining as he ran. He spared a quick glance at her before deciding to ignore her and focus on the task at hand.
Well, Catra wouldn’t be having that.
Right as he was about to pass her, she stuck out her foot and caught him by the ankles. Kyle let out a yelp of surprise as he tumbled to the ground, and the bot finally noticed him coming. It shot a non-harmful laser at his vest, and he was out.
“Come on, Kyle! What are you even—” Lonnie started, and then she saw Catra. She let out an irritated ugh and went back to fighting the two bots that had teamed up on her. Catra grinned. This did make her feel better.
She spotted at a broken bot, lying uselessly on the ground. Time to make it useful. She walked over, took hold of one of its heavy metal legs, and pulled as hard as she could. After a few rough tugs and playing with the angles a little bit, it came loose, and she grinned.
Catra yelled, “Hey Lonnie!” Her force member spared her a glare. With a vicious smile, she called out, “Duck!” Then, she threw the metal leg as hard as she could. It sailed through the air like a javelin, and just barely missed Lonnie’s head as the girl dropped to the ground before impaling the bot’s glowing eye. The lumbering thing stumbled to the ground and flickered off. Catra ran forward and leapt onto it, yanking her makeshift projectile out and jumped into the air and smashed it down on the second bot. It fell backward for a moment, and as it tried to regain its balance Catra landed on top of it and started pulling at panels and wires till it collapsed.
As Lonnie scowled at her, she shrugged and said, “Just wanted to show you how it’s done.”
“Easy to say when they can’t see you,” Lonnie snapped back. Then she turned and ran to help Salamon with the bots he was facing down.
As the training exercise wrapped up, the three soldiers tore off their vests, making a clear effort to not look at Catra. The insubordinate nobodies.
“I’m a little disappointed with your performance,” Catra sighed dramatically. “I think you guys may have to run that again. You know, just to make sure you’ve got it down.”
With a scoff, Lonnie said, “I don’t think so.” She stomped over to Catra and said, “If you really want to show off so much, then I think you,” she shoved a finger at Catra’s chest, “Should run the sim yourself.”
Rolling her eyes, Catra replied, “Yeah, no. Maybe you should watch your tone, soldier. Or do you want to get demoted to cadet?”
Lonnie crossed her arms. “I don’t have to do what you say,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re not doing anything to me. I’m not the one getting demoted.”
Her insides froze. “You want to run that by me again?”
“It came from Shadow Weaver herself. You’re not a force captain anymore, soldier. So maybe you should stop acting like one.”
No. No that couldn’t be right. “She can’t do that,” she growled.
“She can, and she did,” Lonnie said. “You don’t have Hordak backing you anymore, Catra. You’re not going to be able to get away with any of the crap you pull anymore.”
This couldn’t be happening. Catra was so close to the top. She was second-in-command. Everything she cared about, she shoved away so she could get what she wanted. She didn’t nearly kill her best friend just to fall back to the bottom.
She couldn’t lose Adora for nothing.
“Yeah, well,” she tried to come up with some reason for why they must be wrong. “If I’m not in charge, who’s going to lead your sorry asses?”
Someone cleared their throat behind her. Catra turned to see Scorpia, looking sheepish and apologetic. “I was, uh, I was going to come find you and tell you,” she said. “Shadow Weaver’s having me take over.” She shuffled her feet and brought one of her claws up to hold her other arm. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Lonnie snorted. “Maybe now you’ll get over your dumb superiority complex.”
Catra had no witty remarks. What was she supposed to say? She turned and began walking toward the exit, her tail hanging limply and her ears drooping. Before she knew it, she was in the barracks, sitting on her bed.
She ran her hand over the sheets and glanced at the scratched-up doodle of her and Adora. She thought back to when her friend had first come down from the top bunk and started sleeping in her bed. Catra had been having nightmares almost every night. It was right when Shadow Weaver started really tormenting her, picking Catra out of their group and projecting all her hate and disappointment onto her. She would wake up crying. When Adora started sleeping in her bed, the nightmares didn’t go away at first. But when she woke up with tears in her eyes and a friend carding their hands through her hair, rubbing gently behind her ears and scratching the back of her neck, she felt a little bit safer.
Then she found out that those moments meant more to her than they did to Adora. Her heart ached. That wasn’t supposed to matter anymore. Catra was supposed to have been better than Adora in every way by now. But even when she finally beat her, she still lost everything that she’d worked for. In the end, what was the real point of it all?
She clenched her fists, her claws tearing into the sheets. Even with Adora gone, she didn’t wake up crying anymore. Even when the nightmares returned, she stayed strong. Catra decided that even if Shadow Weaver took away everything she had, she’d still been the one to beat Adora. She’d done what no one else could, and that witch could never take that away from her.
The urge to vent to someone began to rush through her. She couldn’t face Scorpia right now, not when the former-princess had unintentionally taken everything Catra had. But she had at least one other ally in the Horde.
“Catra! I’m so glad you’re here. This Shadow Lacer lady won’t let me look at the runestone. How am I supposed to complete my research if I can’t analyze our best artifact?”
Leaning back on the metal door as it shut behind her, Catra said, “Nice to see you too, Entrapta.”
The eccentric threw her hands in the air as her hair shook in frustration. “How can any of this be nice? This whole situation is going to set me back months. Maybe even years!”
Catra flicked her tail. “Yeah well, things kinda suck all around right now.”
Entrapta gave a vigorous nod and said, “You’re telling me. Shadow Stitcher has no regard for progress. She doesn’t even care about the strides we could make with my research.”
“Hey, don’t feel bad,” Catra gave a dark laugh. “She screwed me over too.”
“Yeah but she knows you,” Entrapta retorted. “What I don’t understand is what she has against me and my work.”
“You are a princess,” Catra pointed out. Entrapta stared at her, frowning in confusion. Right, sometimes Catra needed to spell things out for her. “The Horde doesn’t like princesses, so Shadow Weaver doesn’t like you.”
Understanding dawned on the scientist’s face. “Oh, okay I get it. But still, I’m helping the Horde, aren’t I l? And she’s taking my life’s work away. If you ask me, that Hordak fellow was a lot more accommodating. Honestly, I don’t really understand what the Rebellion had against him.”
Catra nodded and said, “Hordak was definitely better for us. At least he saw value in real talent.”
Entrapta grabbed Catra’s shoulders with her hair and shouted, “Exactly!”
It looked like she wouldn’t be given an opportunity to speak, she’d have to just take over the conversation. Catra grabbed tufts of Entrapta’s hair and started peeling it off, saying, “I’ve worked my whole damn life to get to the top. Hordak gave me a chance. He believed in me. But Shadow Weaver’s never going to let me be in charge. With her in charge, I’ll never get to be anything.” It felt good to say it all out loud. It was making her angry again, but it felt good to get angry.
Entrapta nodded along. “You know, it did seem like anytime she was involved with a plan it went horribly wrong.”
“Yeah!” Finally, someone who actually got it. “I mean, sure I screwed up sometimes, but I got farther than anybody! I led the siege on Brightmoon! I beat She Ra! And she still doesn’t think I’m as good enough!”
“I’ve never seen anyone squander so much potential, and I worked with the Rebellion” Entrapta agreed. “She has no regard for the long-term. It’s like she doesn’t even care about the future.”
That struck her hard. The future. What future would they have here now? The future was supposed to be dreams and goals and promises. But what happened when her dreams were crushed, her goals were stolen, and her promises were broken for her? Where was she supposed to go?
She wished she could talk to Adora.
Entrapta cleared her throat. “You, uh, you look like you’re thinking about something.”
Suddenly her anger didn’t feel good anymore. How could it only last such a short moment? She had said what she wanted to say, been understood by an ally, actually connected with a person. And still she didn’t feel better. Like everything else, this was pointless.
She crossed, then uncrossed her arms. Then, she stood up straight and said, “Uh, good talk.” She hit the button on the wall to open the door, but before she left, she thought for a moment and said, “Thanks, I guess.”
Entrapta’s hair darted out and wrapped around her arm. “Wait!” she said. “What do we do now? I mean, how are we supposed to get what we want?”
With a sigh, Catra said, “We can’t. Shadow Weaver’s in charge now. There’s nothing we can do.”
“Well that’s just preposterous,” Entrapta scoffed.
“Just . . .” What was she supposed to say? “Just let it go.”
Then she left.
Catra tossed and turned in her bed, trying to find a comfortable position. She had always been a restless sleeper, but it was becoming unbearable. With a frustrated groan, she sat up.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” Entrapta’s voice cut through the darkness. Catra let out an alarmed cry, and Entrapta dropped down under the bed as Salamon yelled at her to shut up already. They sat silently until the demihuman rolled over and seemed to fall asleep, and then Entrapta popped back up and rested her chin on the bed. “So, I was thinking about how to get back to the Black Garnet,” she whispered.
“Are you kidding—” Catra stopped and rubbed her eyes with one hand. “I told you to let it go,” she hissed.
“Well, yes. But I determined that our chances with Shadow Sewer in charge are subpar at best, so I began brainstorming how we can overthrow her.”
She was what?
“Obviously we can’t put you in charge,” she went on, ignoring Catra’s shock. “You’re too unpopular. Nobody would listen to you. Which means we need someone who’s sympathetic to us that people will listen to.”
“Entrapta, what are you talking—”
“The only people I could think of are Scorpia and Hordak. Scorpia’s a little too afraid of Shadow Knitter though, so I think Hordak is the best choice.”
Of course, she was coming to impossible solutions. Then again, most of her ideas had taken them really far. “Go on,” Catra said.
“Getting the Princess Alliance to just give him up won’t work, and even if we brought a whole army to Brightmoon they’d have him too heavily guarded,” Entrapta ranted. “So, I thought we should make a trade.”
Catra nodded. “Okay, I see where you’re going. We trade She Ra for Hordak.”
“Yes,” the princess said. “That sets us back a little in the war, but long-term it’s the most beneficial route. You beat the tall one before, so you can probably do it again. Maybe.” Her pig-tails came together and twisted back and forth like she was playing with her fingers. “Okay, so that part is uncertain, but still I think it’s our best option.”
“Your confidence in me is astounding,” Catra deadpanned. But it wasn’t a bad plan, and it even gave her a new opportunity. She’d be able to confront Adora.