Chapter Text
Adora would like to say that everything went according to plan. That they looked the place over, decided how they'd attack, and then she calmly said the right words and transformed.
But what happened was she looked over the ridge and saw them dragging Horsey off into one of the buildings and this time she at least panicked in the right direction, holding up the sword and shouting the words in a rush before running in.
She cuts Horsey free.
They did this just because Horsey was there. Just like the trees, just like the village. He's not part of any rebellion. He was there and they hurt him.
She swings a sword through the first tank. It's effortless carving in half what should be impenetrable steel. She shouts at the soldiers around her to stop, to leave, that this is wrong. They charge her and she blocks a baton with her sword.
"Focus, Adora!" shouts Catra.
One of the soldiers turns from She-Ra toward the sound and shouts, "Catra! I should have known you little-" but Catra goes low to avoid the blow and then lashes out. The woman shrieks and falls back, clutching her bloody leg.
She has no idea who it was. The helmets distort voices as well as blocking faces and it'd be quicker to list people who don't want to crack a baton over Catra's skull.
It doesn't matter, right? They're all the enemy. She told them to stop. She told them to leave. She told them and they chose to attack instead.
There's more of them than the last time, but she has someone this time as well.
On the last normal day, she'd gotten mad at Catra at the end of their training mission.
"Did you really show up late and let us do the hard parts? That is low, even for you."
"Aw. You know nothing's too low for me."
But it works. It always worked, whatever anyone said, and now that their lives are on the line it's a relief to know Catra can and will cheat her way out of a fight. When people come at her they're clawed by Catra from behind, and when they try to go after Catra instead, shouting and cursing, she leaps and ducks and dodges rather than meeting their blows properly.
The Horde troops back up, try to regroup. She strikes her sword into the ground, sending a shockwave that knocks them off their feet, and Catra uses the breathing room to crawl into one of the bisected tanks. The front half twists and then it starts firing into the building, shots coming one after another exactly like they'd always been warned not to, because it'd overheat the barrel and cause the entire thing to explode. She almost shouts at Catra for disregarding safety instructions out of reflex.
"Let's move, Adora!" Catra says, landing next to her.
"But -" There's still the rest of the Horde forces here. She's wrecked a lot of their stuff, the building Catra blew a hole in is collapsing, and there's an explosion still to come, but there will still be things left untouched.
"They'll call reinforcements if we stay."
"But-"
"Don't you remember what they taught us?" Catra demands, yanking a hank of She-Ra's hair for emphasis.
To never leave a battle until the objective was complete or new orders come from a commanding officer.
"To stop the rebels from retreating, because they were always slipping away! If hitting and running was a bad idea, Shadow Weaver wouldn't have sounded so mad every time she brought it up. Now move!"
The tank barrel is now visibly bending from the heat. "Right!"
They get all the way over the ridge before it goes off, the sound much louder than she expected. It's almost as loud as Catra's howls of laughter afterward.
"We really -" Catra manages to choke out before dissolving into more laughter. She's bloody but to Adora's relief it's all on her hands and feet.
"We really!" she says to Catra, and she wraps She-Ra's arms around Catra and spins. "Really!" Catra wiggles out of her grasp onto her shoulder, then flops down across her back, still laughing.
And nothing bad happens. They reach the edge of the Whispering Woods and enter again without the Horde appearing out of nowhere and crushing them, without Shadow Weaver, without any consequences at all.
Adora says, "I know I messed it up the first time, but...I want to try again. I understand how to become She-Ra now. And, if that's not good enough, with She-Ra we can escape, and I'll never try again."
"Never?" Catra says with a mocking gasp. "But then how will you be everyone's favorite princess?"
"I mean it, Catra. It'd be better if we could because we don't know anything about how things work here. But if they don't want to listen then I'll stop trying and we'll do this on our own."
Catra's quiet. Then she asks, "So when you show you're a princess like them but I'm still just-"
"Then they're not good either!" Adora shouts. "If they want you gone then I leave with you!"
For a moment, Catra's expression...but before Adora can make anything of it, Catra's laughing again. "Sure, Princess." She smacks Adora's shoulder hard enough to stagger her and Adora laughs and shoves her back.
"She-Ra's the princess. And what've you got to worry about anyway," Adora says. "I'm the idiot who got shot and walked off a cliff. As long as you stay off the giant birds you're unstoppable."
"That wasn't a bird," Catra retorts. "Birds can't be giant or they're not birds."
"That's not how it works!"
"Have you ever seen a bird that's giant?"
"Well, you never saw a giant mouse before either! After we join Bright Moon I'll ask about giant birds and they'll know them and say I'm right!"
"No way you're getting out of it that easy!" Catra sticks a finger in Adora's face. "After we escape, we climb back into Glimmer and Bow's room before leaving and they'll tell you I'm right, he's just a horse!"
Adora grabs the hand and shakes. "Deal!" Then she swings the sword up and shouts, "For the honor of Greyskull!"
She-Ra and Catra leave the woods and walk into Bright Moon.
They're not attacked.
People part before them. They murmur in various tones, and there's words in those murmurs, more and more as the crowd grows, but she blots it out. She focuses on the sword in her right hand and Catra's hand in her left and She-Ra's steps one after another.
They get past the buildings. They go in the front way. People continue to part and murmur and not stop them, even the ones with armor and weapons. They walk into the palace with its high, high walls.
At the back of the room packed with armed people, on a tall seat, there is a woman.
Like Horsey, she's a bird. And that was what the queen of the princesses was supposed to look like, wasn't it? All the hologram princesses were people-sized but the one for the queen had vast wings on either side.
Adora wanted to try. They've come here, and they'll already have to fight their way out if they leave, so she might as well keep walking forward and try. She squeezes Catra's hand and walks closer.
The woman stands. "It can't be… She-Ra."
That's good. That has to be good, right?
"Your majesty," She-Ra says.
And the woman looks at Catra. She looks in the way people look at Catra.
Catra's claws dig into her hand.
"We," She-Ra says, "have come because we wish to join the rebellion. But first, there's something you should know."
She lets She-Ra go and she's just powerless runaway Adora clutching the hilt of a dull sword.
She hears them gasp. She hears, "The other Horde soldier," with even more hatred than before.
The woman turns her head to look at someone. "Fetch Commander Glimmer from her room," she says to them, and Adora hears feet running on the hard floor.
She doesn't know what to make of the woman's expression beyond that it makes her stomach knot. She never realized how much she appreciated Shadow Weaver's calm, impartial mask. Maybe Catra does too, with how she's crushing herself against Adora's side.
"I know you don't trust us. But I've seen for myself the atrocities the Horde has committed against the people of Etheria, and I will fight stop them. I know we can help the rebellion."
The woman looks them over silently. Her gaze drifts to the sword Adora's still clutching. She holds out a hand.
Adora's eyes dart to Catra.
"It's what you came here for," Catra whispers.
Adora lifts the sword, her muscles tense as she tries not to let her arm shake. The woman takes it by the blade and she forces her hand to release the hilt.
The woman examines the sword. Adora can't say what she's looking for. "I know the legend of the warrior the First Ones called She-Ra," she says finally. "They said she would return to us in the hour of our greatest need to bring balance to Etheria. I never thought she was anything more than a myth."
"But she's not!" says Glimmer, materializing at Adora's side and grabbing the arm that no longer holds She-Ra's sword. It's all Adora can do to bite down a shriek. "Mom, this is what I was telling you. This is Adora, and her friend Catra."
The woman stares at them. "A thousand years… Yet you're here now. And in the uniform of a Horde soldier, no less. You would stand with us against those you served?
"Yes. Both of us."
The woman, still holding She-Ra's sword, turns slightly toward Catra. "And what would you say? You've been very quiet."
Glimmer laughs uncomfortably. "Catra's just -"
"You don't trust us," Catra says, looking up abruptly to meet the woman's gaze. Adora can feel her tail is anxiously lashing, striking against the side of Adora's leg. "I get that. But if you actually knew anything about the Horde you would. You could give me a map of your palace with every way in and out, of your entire kingdom, you could send your princess too, and they'd still kill me, because those weren't the orders I got. I couldn't betray you if I wanted to, and does it sound like they gave me any reason to want to?"
The woman is silent but then nods slowly. "Then Glimmer, you would vouch for them and take responsibility for them?"
Adora can feel a tremble run through Catra but it's fine, it's going to be fine, Glimmer says, "Yes."