Chapter Text
Adora stared up at the sky, not quite comprehending the stars shining above her. Or the ships floating among the million points of light. She had failed. She-Ra was gone.
What were they going to do?
She started limping along, managing to regain her legging as she moved out of the woods. It had been less than twelve hours since they’d found Entrapta on Beast Island. Since Adora’s destiny had been revealed to be a lie. She wasn’t meant to be a hero, just a tool. The key to destroying the world she had given up everything to protect. Her entire life had been one lie after another — first Hordak and Shadow Weaver, then Light Hope. And even Glimmer. She couldn’t help the small flare of anger in her chest. If Glimmer had just listened, just trusted her, they’d still have the sword. They wouldn’t have an invasion literally over their heads. They would—
“Adora!”
She turned to see Bow and Glimmer running toward her. And, despite her budding anger, she was so relieved to see them. She didn’t hesitate to hold out her arms and accept their hugs as they threw themselves at her.
“Are you okay?” Bow asked, pulling away to search her expression, and then look her over for injuries.
“She-Ra’s gone.” It wasn’t an answer. But it was the best answer she could give.
“What?” Glimmer gasped. “What happened?”
And the anger was back. “I had to break the sword.” Adora’s voice was a little clipped, and she wouldn’t look Glimmer in the eye. “To stop the Heart from activating.”
Glimmer wilted, also looking away. “We should… get back to Bright Moon,” Bow said after a moment. “There’s a lot we need to figure out.”
“Right,” Glimmer murmured, resting a hand on both their arms. They appeared in the throne room a moment later, and were left to stew in an awkward silence for only a second.
“Glimmer?”
The young queen blinked, a little bewildered, and slowly turned to see the man standing behind her. He was unfamiliar for only a moment, until Glimmer looked passed the long hair and beard.
“Dad?”
Micah suddenly looked nervous. He coughed, clearing his throat, rubbing the back of his head, and after a moment he held out his hand, as if to shake. Glimmer almost laughed as she bypassed the hand and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. Bow and Adora exchanged small smiles. They were mad at Glimmer, but this… this was nice.
“Where did Shadow Weaver go?” Adora asked, looking around. She didn’t like the idea of the sorceress being out and about. Micah’s expression hardened a bit.
“I had the guards take her back to her cell. She was annoying me.”
“Aunt Casta!” Glimmer said suddenly, pulling away. She disappeared in a shower of sparkles, then appeared again with Castaspella. The poor woman looked dazed — the look of someone who had been unceremoniously grabbed and teleported by Glimmer without warning.
“Glimmer! What could possibly—“
Casta stopped mid-sentence when she saw her brother. Micah smiled weakly, waving. Adora and Bow turned away to give the siblings some privacy.
“What are we going to do?” Bow whispered to Adora.
“Let’s get the rest of the Alliance here.”
Things had changed significantly in the last few hours. The most important thing was to make sure everyone was on the right page.
Everyone looked exhausted. Frosta was sleeping on Scorpia’s shoulders while Perfuma rested against her pincer. Mermista was slumped on Sea Hawk. Entrapta was sitting by herself, tinkering with Emily. Netossa and Spinnerella were holding hands and looking sadly around the rest of the table. It had been a long day for all of them.
“So… the king’s alive,” Mermista finally said in her best, uncaring drawl. But even her tone was weak. “Welcome back, I guess.”
“What happened?” Netossa added. Bow and Adora looked at Glimmer, who shrunk in a little on herself.
“I activated the Heart of Etheria. I thought it would stop the Horde, but… I was wrong. It was a trap. Light Hope just wanted to use it to destroy the planet.”
That woke everyone up. There was a sudden burst of words as everyone tried to voice their anger at the same time, mostly at the idea that Glimmer would do this without telling any of them. Glimmer, to her credit, took verbal lashing without trying to defend herself. There was no defense. She had been so, so very wrong.
“What about Catra?” Scorpia asked quietly, cutting through the din. Adora looked at her, then at Glimmer. What did Catra have to do with anything?
“She wasn’t there,” Glimmer said. “I found some other soldiers — Adora’s old squad, I think? — and they said she disappeared after the Salineas invasion. No one’s seen her in days.”
“What, so she deserted?” Frosta asked in disbelief. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t either. One of them said she’s been kind of… off recently. Like, maybe not all there.” Glimmer looked at Scorpia. “Do you know anything about that?”
Scorpia hesitated, looking away. “I didn’t get the sense that she planned on deserting, but I guess I don’t really know her. She’s sort of been throwing herself into work and planning, actually.”
“Maybe something changed after you left,” Bow suggested.
“But where would she even go? I don’t think she has anywhere outside of the Horde.”
She didn’t. Adora didn’t know much about Catra’s time before the Horde. She’d found her curled up in a box of supplies when they were only two or three, alternating between crying and hissing at anyone who tried to come near her. If Catra knew anything about where she had come from, she had never talked about it. And that had been so long ago, there was no way she remembered anything now.
“Adora?” She shook herself out of her stupor to look up at Bow. “Can you think of anywhere she might have gone?”
“No,” Adora said quietly and without hesitation. “She has nowhere else to go.”
“Let’s just assume she isn’t a problem anymore,” Glimmer said dismissively. “There are bigger issues.”
“Bigger issues you caused.” Adora couldn’t stop herself from spitting the words out.
“I know.” Glimmer’s voice was equally clipped. “So let’s not worry about Catra anymore. Wherever she is, she’s not part of it now.”
She was right. Adora hated it, but Glimmer was right. Catra wasn’t a priority — to the Alliance. But the idea of her out there somewhere, alone and possibly in danger, made Adora feel sick.
“What now, then?” Netossa was already moving on. “I don’t think the alien invasion over our heads is going to wait for us to recover.”
A tremor ran through the room almost on cue; they all jumped and looked to the nearest windows, and saw a spire in the distance, burrowing into the ground. “Doesn’t seem like it, no,” Perfuma agreed quietly. They all watched as doors opened at the base of the spire, and things started streaming out.
“Okay, that’s a lot,” Frosta said. “But we have magic. And She-Ra. That’s definitely stronger than…”
Her voice drifted off when she saw Adora shaking her head. “I broke the sword to stop the Heart. She-Ra is gone.”
A long silence followed. “Well,” Mermista said after a moment. “That’s great. Should we just surrender now?”
“We can fight without She-Ra,” Glimmer insisted. “It won’t be easy, but—“
“We wouldn’t even be in this situation if you’d just listened for five seconds,” Mermista shot back. Glimmer flinched.
“Let’s not argue,” Perfuma, ever the wannabe peace keeper, said.
“It might not be worth getting into right now,” Spinnerella agreed. “Unless someone actually wants to surrender, we should be focusing on fighting and finding more allies.”
“Who else is there?” Scorpia asked, looking around. “All of the kingdoms are already involved, right?”
“Not all of them.” Netossa looked at Micah. “Think you could work your charm on C’yra and Lyra?”
“Who?” Glimmer asked, frowning. Micah sighed.
“The queens of the Magicat kingdom, Half Moon. They withdrew from the war and closed their borders after their daughter disappeared… I guess it’s been almost twenty years now, huh?”
“How does an entire kingdom manage to hide for all that time?”
“Half Moon is an underground kingdom. The Horde never managed to find it. I was the only one in the Rebellion who knew where it was.” Micah looked at Netossa. “Did they ever find their daughter? Do you think they’d be willing to re-join the war effort?”
“No clue,” Netossa admitted. “But it’s worth a shot, especially since you can actually find them and talk to them.”
Micah nodded slowly. “They should at least be updated on the current situation. We’ll go first thing in the morning.” He looked at Glimmer, giving her a small smile. “Think you can teleport to the Crimson Waste?”
Glimmer perked up slightly, latching right now to the idea of having something to do. “Yes. Absolutely. Why don’t we go now?”
“It’s late, and you all need a chance to rest. Half Moon will still be there in the morning.”
Rest wasn’t usually at the top of Adora’s priority list. But Micah was right — it had been a long, terrible day, and everyone else looked like a light breeze would knock them over. They needed a break.
“He’s right,” Bow said before Glimmer could protest. She wilted a little, but nodded.
“Yeah. Okay. Everyone get some sleep. Dad and I will go to Half Moon tomorrow.”
Adora didn’t sleep.
She didn’t really try. She spent a few hours walking around her room, pausing to stare at the broken sword every now and again and reflect on the events of the day. Then she walked to the balcony and stared up at the starry sky. Stars. That was still so weird.
Then she looked out into the woods, and she thought about Catra.
It sounded like Glimmer had talked to Lonnie — or Kyle, but more likely Lonnie. If Catra had been there, Lonnie wouldn’t have defended her, or even lied for her. Which meant she was gone. Really, really gone. But gone where? Was she just wandering around, trying to find a place to hide? Had she been found? Caught? Was she okay? The questions chased themselves around Adora’s head until they made her dizzy, and she couldn’t think about it anymore. She’d tried so hard to avoid thinking about Catra since Elberon, and before that since the portal, because it hurt too much. But Scorpia’s appearance had brought it all to the forefront, and now Adora couldn’t stop. It felt like she was going crazy.
Finally, after nearly five hours, she tried to sleep. But that brought with it a completely new slew of thoughts. The sword was gone. She-Ra was gone. She hadn’t had a choice. It had been the only way to save everyone. But now what? How was she supposed to fight without She-Ra? Sure, Adora could fight, but She-Ra was the one who had led the Rebellion this far. She-Ra was the reason they had been so close to winning — the reason they had gotten as far as they had. And now she was gone. Could they even still win? Maybe against the Etherian Horde they’d still be fine — especially without Catra there to do all the planning for them — but against an alien invasion?
The sun was rising when Adora finally gave up on the idea of sleep and went downstairs. She was surprised to find Glimmer, Bow, and Micah in the dining room already, talking quietly. Micah had showered and shaved at some point, making him look presentable for going to speak with queens. They paused when she walked in.
“Um… morning,” she said uncertainly. “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” Bow assured her. “We were just talking about Half Moon.”
“Are you joining us?” Micah asked. Adora hadn’t really planned on it, but she was there, so she nodded.
“Yeah, if that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
“Dad was telling us about the Magicats.” Glimmer looked a little giddy when she said Dad. Micah’s eyes were shimmering. “They could really give us an advantage if we can convince them to help.”
“C’yra and Lyra are reasonable people,” Micah said. “If I’d still been here, I think I would have been able to convince them to re-join us. But after everything that happened… I guess Angie didn’t want to push it.”
“But you think you can talk to them?”
Micah shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. It’s been years. But I can try.”
“How do you know the queens?” Bow asked, tilting his head.
“Lyra grew up in Mystacor, and we met C’yra when she was still the princess. Her parents sent her to learn more about magic before they let her bond with the Tiger’s Eye — the Half Moon runestone.” Micah chuckled. “It was love at first sight, but they were both absolutely hopeless. Casta and I spent months trying to get them to just talk to each other. Lyra was convinced she wasn’t good enough for the princess, and C’yra was convinced Lyra thought she was an idiot. It was kind of sweet. But we finally managed to get them talking, and they never stopped. Lyra left as soon as she was old enough to join C’yra in Half Moon.”
“That’s sweet,” Glimmer said with a small smile. “So you knew them really well?”
“They were my best friends,” Micah said. “I couldn’t really begrudge them pulling away when they lost their daughter. It was devastating. I don’t know what I would have done in their positions.”
“Well… hopefully they’re willing to listen now.”
They adjourned their unofficial meeting, and stood up to leave. Adora noticed Bow keeping a careful distance from Glimmer even as he reached out and touched her shoulder. He was upset. A little surprising, given that it was Bow, but not overly so, given what had happened. Adora took Glimmer’s offered hand.
They appeared in the Crimson Waste. Micah looked around to orient himself, then nodded. “We’re not too far. This way.”
Horde Prime’s ships were still in the sky, but they hadn’t descended upon the wasteland quite yet. Maybe they could find Huntara and start working on setting up protections… if the people of the Wastes would even accept it.
“Here we are,” Micah said finally, stopping in front of a large cliff wall. Adora looked up at it, then at Micah, and remembered how weird he’d been when they’d found him. Maybe he hadn’t quite recovered from his ordeal yet.
“Uh… Dad? That’s a wall.”
Micah smiled, drawing a spell circle in the air. “I told you the kingdom was hidden, didn’t I?”
Glyphs appeared in the wall, glowing the same shade of purple as Micah’s magic. Then the rock split down the middle, and the sides started to slide away, revealing a large staircase which led into darkness.
“Whoa,” Adora said, wide-eyed, as she started to step forward. Micah grabbed her arm to hold her back.
“Hang on, they might be a little suspicious about—“
Two lean figures appeared out of the darkness, claws flashing, muscles tense and ready to jump. Adora’s breath caught in her throat. They looked… like Catra. Not exactly — one had grayish-white fur and green eyes while the other was all black and had blue eyes — but they had the ears and the tail, and their eyes glowed in the darkness, just like hers did.
The gray Magicat straightened up, looking at Micah as if he had just seen a ghost. “Micah?”
“Hello, Tao.” Micah smiled politely. “May I beg an audience with the queens? Or at least safe entry into the kingdom? Being out in the open isn’t particularly safe at the moment.”
Tao eyed him for a long moment, then nodded to the other Magicat, who disappeared. They stepped inside, and the wall slid shut behind them, leaving them in darkness.
“This way,” Tao said.
“Humans, Tao,” Micah reminded him patiently. A purple light sparked to life from Micah’s hand, illuminating the cavern.
“Ah, yes.” Tao sighed, but he looked amused. “It’s been so long, I’d forgotten how limited your eyesight is.”
He drew a circle in the air as he spoke. The air shimmered and seemed to open up into more darkness. “Shadow roads,” Micah explained to the baffled trio. “They’re perfectly safe as long as we stay with Tao, don’t worry.”
“You’ve neglected to introduce your companions,” Tao pointed out as they started through the portal. He sounded amused. Micah chuckled.
“Right. Tao, this is my daughter, Glimmer. And these are her friends, Adora and Bow.”
It was cold inside the portal. Tao didn’t seem to notice. “We received word about Angella,” he said softly. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
Micah sighed, shoulders falling. “Thank you. Honestly, I’ve only had a day to try and process it myself.”
“You’ve been back for one day and you’re already throwing yourself back into the war? If I ever needed proof you’re who you say you are, that would be it.”
Tao stopped, drawing another portal. This one opened into a throne room. Tao stepped out first, stooping into a bow and saying, “Your majesties.”
Micah followed, with Glimmer, Bow, and Adora right behind him, glad to escape the suffocating darkness. There were lights lining the walls of the room, giving them a little more illumination. The room was painted in soft yellows, with murals on the walls, and at the head of the room was three thrones. Two of them were occupied. One of the queens was a little shorter, her fur dark brown, her hair even darker, hanging around her shoulders. Her eyes were a strikingly familiar amber. The other was taller and thinner, with blonde fur and long red hair, and cool blue eyes. Adora’s breath caught in her throat as she looked between the queens. Those were Catra’s eyes.
“C’yra.” Micah bowed as well. “Lyra.”
The queens stared at him, eyes wide. The tall one stood after a moment, slowly descending the dais and stopping when she was in front of Micah. He straightened up slowly, letting her search his expression.
“Micah?” She spoke in an exhale, her voice quiet, as if she couldn’t raise it any higher. Micah gave her a gentle smile.
“In the flesh.”
The Magicat queen let out a disbelieving laugh that almost turned into a sob as she threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. The other queen stood, but she seemed a little more hesitant to accept what was in front of her.
“I’m sure you understand that we—“
“C’yra,” her wife protested, breaking away from Micah to give her a small glare.
“It’s okay,” Micah said quickly. “I would’ve been more surprised if C’yra didn’t ask for proof. Let’s see… oh, your first date—“
“Can’t you find other ways to prove your identity?” C’yra asked loudly while Tao laughed.
“Would I be me if I did?” Micah asked with a smug smile. C’yra huffed, giving him a baleful glare before she finally stepped down and swept him into a hug as well. Lyra smiled, then looked at the trio waiting behind Micah.
“And you must be Glimmer.” Glimmer straightened up a little, surprised to be recognized. “I’m sure you don’t remember us, you were barely up to my knee the last time we saw you…”
“A shame you seem to have inherited your father’s height,” C’yra said dryly. Lyra lightly slapped her arm.
“You’re hardly one to talk.”
Micah chuckled. “This is Glimmer, yes, and her friends Adora and Bow. They’ve been leading the war effort.”
All good humor immediately drained from the queens’ faces as they exchanged looks. “Does this sudden visit happen to include an explanation for why the Tiger’s Eye suddenly activated last night?” C’yra asked. Glimmer winced.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize — Mom never told me about Half Moon.”
“Probably because she knew you’d try to find it,” Bow pointed out. He wasn’t wrong — if Glimmer had known there was another kingdom out there, with another Runestone, she would have dug straight through the sandy landscape to find it.
“We’d heard Angella withdrew into her own borders after the first Princess Alliance fell,” Lyra said.
“You seem to hear a lot,” Adora said, frowning. “Have you just been keeping up with the war while you hide down here?”
Glimmer and Bow looked at her in disbelief. C’yra narrowed her eyes. “I don’t expect you to understand—“
“No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can know there’s a war happening, and people are getting hurt and dying right over your heads, and you just not do anything about it. Angella at least tried to keep fighting.”
Lyra rested a hand on C’yra’s arm, fingers a little too tight to simply be comforting. “Adora, was it?” she asked, her voice calm. Adora nodded. “We’re not proud of our actions. Unfortunately, we found out too late there was a traitor among our ranks, and we handled it poorly in the wake of losing our daughter. Like most, our focus became our kingdom.”
“I’m not sorry,” C’yra added. “We had spread ourselves too thin. It left us vulnerable.”
“Everyone did what they had to do to protect themselves,” Micah said. “There’s no point in dwelling on it. But things have changed. It’s not just the Horde anymore. The Rebellion needs help now more than ever.”
C’yra and Lyra exchanged another look, but the sound of a door opening broke the silence before they could speak.
“Mom? Mama?”
Adora felt like she had been punched square in the stomach. That voice… it was soft in a way she had never heard, but she would know it anywhere. She could forget everything else, including her own name, but she would never forget the sound of that voice. She turned, holding her breath, to seek out the speaker.
Her hair seemed softer — not quite the wild mess it had been her entire life, but not the same, unnatural way it had been slicked back the last time Adora saw her. The mask was gone, making her face seem more open and a little rounder, like when they had been kids. Her eyes were wide and openly curious, as if the innocence hadn’t yet been beaten out of her.
“What’s going—“
Glimmer was across the room in the blink of an eye, grabbing Catra by the collar of her robes and slamming her as hard as she could into the wall. Catra huffed, momentarily winded, her expression cycling through emotions before finally settling on anger.
“What the hell?”
“That’s my line,” Glimmer snapped back. “What are you doing here?”
Adora knew she should step in and stop Glimmer — there were guards appearing around them now, ready to strike. And Adora knew from experience that being tagged by those claws hurt. But she was frozen where she stood, trying to process what she was seeing. Catra was here. Catra was here. How was Catra here?
“Queen Glimmer,” C’yra said loudly, her voice cold. “We would appreciate it if you would unhand our daughter.”
“Your what?” Glimmer, Adora, and Bow spoke at the same time, turning to look at C’yra and Lyra. Catra took advantage of the distraction to shove Glimmer way and… run. She ran. She ran to the closest guard, not quite hiding behind him, but definitely putting him between herself and Glimmer. The sight of her hovering behind someone else for protection nearly broke Adora’s mind. Micah was looking between everyone, trying to make sense of what was happening.
“Look, I don’t know what she’s told you,” Glimmer said, teleporting back to the queens between words. “But she is not your daughter. We know her, she’s evil. She’s like the worst person who’s ever existed, she’s… she’s just the worst!”
“She is the princess of Half Moon and if you want any help from us, you will respect that, and refrain from attacking her again.”
Catra hadn’t spoken. She was still standing warily with the guard, looking at Glimmer like she thought the queen might be crazy. She hadn’t so much as spared Adora a glance.
Micah looked at Catra, narrowing his eyes slightly, then back at his old friends. C’yra sighed. “Tao, can you escort Catra to dinner? We’ll be there after we finish this meeting.”
“Wait a second,” Catra finally protested, standing up straight. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“We’ll explain later,” Lyra assured her. Tao approached Catra, offering his arm. She looked at him, shot one last glare at Glimmer, then took the offered arm and let herself be escorted out of the throne room. C’yra turned toward a door to their left, silently walking toward it. Lyra nodded to everyone else to follow.
“What the hell?” Glimmer demanded as soon as they were behind another closed door. “Why is the Horde’s second in command here? Since when is she a princess?”
C’yra sat in an armchair, rubbing her eyes with one hand. “C’yra,” Micah prompted gently, looking between the wives. “Lyra. What happened?”
“Do you remember Percival?” C’yra asked. Micah scowled. “I’ll take that as a yes. We discovered that he had been leaking information about supply routes to the Horde, which is how they were always able to find and ambush them. During one of the last ones, he gave Catra a drug to put her to sleep, then hid her in one of the boxes for the Horde to take her.”
Adora let out her breath in one short huff. “I found her in a box,” she whispered, earning a few confused looks. Glimmer moved on fast.
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain how she got back here.”
“She left the Horde,” Lyra said. “We found her several weeks ago, just wandering the Wastes. She was…”
“Dying,” C’yra said flatly. Lyra winced. “She’d been out there for a couple days at least, and from what she told us later, she hasn’t been taking very good care of herself. It seemed like she walked out into the desert just to die.”
“But how do you know she’s your daughter?” Glimmer demanded.
“Her eyes,” Lyra said. “Heterochromia is rare, and her combination of colors in particular is almost unheard of.”
“She has your eyes,” Adora said, looking between the queens. “Both of yours.”
“Yellow is a common eye color in my family,” C’yra said with a nod. “Not so much outside of it.”
“But she’s not… she’s acting different,” Adora said. “I know Catra, I’ve known her my entire life—“
“She certainly had a lot to say about you.” C’yra’s voice was dark. Adora winced. “She told us everything about growing up, about what she did in the Horde…”
“Did she tell you she killed my mother?” Glimmer asked.
“Yes. It didn’t seem like she was trying to hide anything.”
“It seemed like she was… confessing her sins,” Lyra said quietly. “Like she was waiting for us to judge her. To punish her, maybe.”
“What did you do?” Micah asked. His voice wasn’t accusatory or suspicious, just matter of fact. He knew the queens had done something. He wanted to know what it was.
“We offered to help her. To make the memories hurt less. We thought we could give her space to heal, but she… she wanted to forget it all.”
Adora’s stomach dropped to her toes. She wanted to forget. “You… You erased her memories?”
Lyra nodded. “She was desperate to escape. We gave it to her.”
“So she just gets to walk away from everything she did?” Glimmer wasn’t ready to let it go, of course. “All the people she hurt? The homes she destroyed? The portal?”
C’yra stood, holding herself up at her full height. “If you’re unhappy with it, you can feel free to leave and never come back. If, however, you attempt to harass her or force her to remember, I will see to it that you’re never able to find this kingdom again. Do I make myself my clear?”
Angella was the only queen Adora had ever known, until Glimmer. And it was painfully obvious, in that moment, what the difference was between someone who had ruled for a less than a year versus someone who had been ruling for maybe too long. Glimmer shrunk back slightly, wide-eyed, for once not able to argue. C’yra had held onto a kingdom for over twenty years, had seen her people through thick and thin, had fought a war… and had lost her daughter. And that was clearly something she wasn’t going to risk again.
“You know this isn’t the answer,” Micah said, looking at Lyra. She shook her head.
“If you were given the chance to fix every single problem in your daughter’s life… wouldn’t you?”
Micah looked at Glimmer, then sighed and closed his eyes. “At least consider re-joining the Alliance. Now more than ever, Etheria needs to stand together.”
C’yra nodded once. “You know our terms. Decide amongst yourselves if you think you can abide by them. We’ll be waiting.”
“What?” Frosta slammed her hands on the table in disbelief, standing in her chair. “That Horde Scum is a princess?!”
“And what, we’re supposed to just pretend she hasn’t been trying to murder us for three years?” Mermista scoffed. “Pass.”
“This all seems very… extreme,” Netossa said slowly. “I know C’yra and Lyra were devastated to lose their daughter, but are they really sure Catra is theirs? And if she is… do they really think erasing her memories will help in the long run?”
“I always thought her eyes seemed a little familiar,” Spinnerella admitted. “But I never got close to look.”
“Grief does weird things to a person,” Casta said. “But I am surprised they would go this far. Lyra was always very careful about consent, especially after Light Spinner.”
“She said Catra wanted it,” Bow said.
“Then that’s probably all that matters?” Perfuma hedged a bit. “If it’s what she wanted…”
“That doesn’t make it okay!” Scorpia burst out, throwing her pincers up in the air.
“And we’re not debating the ethics of it,” Glimmer added. “We’re trying to decide whether we can work with Catra after everything she’s done. And for the record, I vote no. We don’t need the Magicats. We can win on our own.”
“Bit of a tall order, all things considered,” Mermista said. “But yeah, I’m not working with her.”
“Me neither,” Frosta said, flopping down and crossing her arms.
“I think we can all agree that working with Catra would be difficult given the past,” Perfuma agreed. “But if she’s… different now, then maybe—“
“So we’re just all going to be okay with them erasing Catra if it makes her easier to deal with?!” Adora interrupted.
“I’d be okay with anything that makes it so she’s not a pain in the ass anymore,” Glimmer said. “Besides, it’s just Catra. Who cares?”
“I care,” Scorpia said immediately. “Look, I left the Horde because I wanted to find help for Entrapta, but Catra’s not… I wouldn’t be okay with fighting her, and I don’t think I’m okay with this.”
“I find it hard to believe Catra would be okay with this, either,” Entrapta added. “All of my observations seemed to indicate that she was very vested in making and keeping her own identity. She worked hard to establish herself as a force captain and stand out from everyone else. But… I don’t know what happened after I went to Beast Island. More studying would be required.”
“I’d definitely want to forget if I was the worst person in the entire universe,” Frosta grumbled.
“It doesn’t matter if she wanted it or not,” Adora insisted. “If she wanted us to kill her, would that make it okay to do it?”
“I mean—“
“Don’t answer that.” Adora didn’t mean to snap at Glimmer. Or maybe she did. “I’ve seen what you do to your friends, never mind your enemies.”
“That’s maybe a little unfair,” Perfuma said before Glimmer could retaliate. “Glimmer did what she thought was best.”
“And look where that got us.”
“You wouldn’t care if it was anyone else,” Glimmer snapped. “But it’s Catra, so of course now it matters.”
“It’s Catra, so it automatically means I’m wrong because you don’t like her.”
“Okay, maybe we should—“
“No.” Adora cut Bow off, standing. “I get it. Someone come get me when my opinion matters again.”
She stormed out of the war room without another word.