Chapter Text
In the weeks following the battle of Bright Moon, rumors began to circulate amongst the rebellion about a merciless new force commander attacking civilian villages. Those rumors quickly gave way to more rumors, each one more fantastical and horrible than the next. Stories about a clawed demon that pounced around the battle field striking down friend and foe alike as it went, spread through rebellion camps like wildfire. Then there were rumors that the hoard had torn Entrapta’s brilliant brain from her charred corpse, and was keeping it in a jar hooked up to some diabolical machine that used it to create new and deadlier weapons, like the new trap tanks and enhanced hoard bots. These were quickly followed by the rumor that these machines were piloted by the disembodied brains of any rebellion soldiers the hoard had captured.
These rumors decimated the rebellion’s morale, even so soon after such a decisive victory as the battle of Bright Moon. Things did not improve when confirmation came that at least one of the rumors was true. There was a new commander of the hoard, and it was none other than the leader of the Bright Moon attack, Catra.
Unlike the previous Force commander, the “Mad Cat of the hoard” as most of the rebellion was calling her, was in the fray of every battle she commanded. She seemed to refuse to use any of the constantly improving weaponry the rest of her soldiers had at their disposal. Instead, she leapt about the battlefield using nothing but her own claws to tear into any misfortunate she happened to lay eyes on, sometimes even attacking her own troops if there were no rebellion soldiers about. This unique form of encouragement drove her troops to constantly seek out rebellion soldiers to fight, lest they be found unoccupied by their commander.
Glimmer could tell Adora didn’t want to believe the news about her former best friend. Adora had never tried to pretend that Catra was the best person, but the horror stories coming from the battle fields were of a down right monster. When the Princesses and Bow finally arrived on the scene and got a chance to see Catra in action first hand, they saw that the rumors hardly did her justice. Whenever Catra saw She-Ra she would fly into a feral rage, loosing focus on nearly everyone and anything else around her. This quickly proved to be a double-edged sword, for while it took Catra out of the battle, it also took She-Ra out too, leaving Glimmer, Bow, and the rest of the Princess Alliance to deal with the ever evolving Hoard army. These battles would rage until either the Rebellion forced the hoard back and someone, usually Scorpia had to physically drag Catra away with them as she continued to fight to get at Adora, or (as was becoming far more often the case,) the hoard would force the Rebellion to retreat and She-Ra and her friends would only manage to escape Catra’s wrath by the slimmest of margins.
The hoard was pressing its advantage, and the handful of captured hoard soldiers from the few battles they had won seemed almost grateful to be locked in a prison cell, so long as it meant being far away from Catra.
Things were becoming desperate for both sides.
Finally, the day came when the hoard marched on Bright Moon again. There was no Etheria shattering apocalypse this time, just Catra and her hi-tech army marching along the path they had cut through the forest before. This time the rebellion forces laid a trap and met them in the woods before they made it to Bright Moon and, to the rebellions good fortune, it worked and the battle of the Wispering Woods began well in their favor.
As the battle raged on and Glimmer pulled her father’s staff free from another destroyed Hoard bot, she looked around for She-Ra and Catra. Everyone usually gave them a wide birth during the battles after Catra had shown she wasn’t above using human shields to gain the upper claw. Glimmer found the two battling fiercely in a small private ravine below. At least, Catra was fighting fiercely. She-Ra’s face was wracked with grief and pain as she blocked and parried Catra’s barrage of claws and insults with her sword.
“What’s the matter, Adora? Don’t know how to fight someone on equal footing?”
Even at a distance, Glimmer could see that Catra’s mismatched eyes were half glazed as they fought, and her face seemed stuck in a gruesome half grin. It was a hideous sight.
“Catra, stop! Please!” She-Ra pleaded, taking another step back under the assault. “This isn’t you! You’re not like this!”
“You know nothing about me!” Catra raged, her grin twisting into a snarl and her eyes nearly bugging out of her skull with rage. “You never did! All you ever thought of was yourself, and how you could use me to make yourself look better! Well how do you look now!”
With speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye, Catra slashed a claw at She-Ra’s face. She-Ra put up her sword to block it, but Catra’s hand swerved in midair and sank her claws deep into She-Ra’s hands where she gripped her sword. She-Ra cried out and felt Catra sink her other claw in and yank She-Ra agonizingly down to her knees by her impaled hands, bringing her down to eye level with Catra.
“You’re nothing,” Catra spat. “Just a pretty face who’s had everything handed to her on a silver sword. You’re pathetic. An eye sore.” The edge of Catra’s lips twitched and then pulled back in a wicked grin. She ripped one of her hands free of She-Ra’s with a cruel twist, eliciting a scream from She-Ra as she did. She raised her blood dripping hand high above her head and stretched her claws out wide. “So how about we put your eyes out?”
“NO!”
Glimmer was next to them in an instant, staff raised and teeth gritted. Her sudden appearance startled Catra just long enough for Glimmer to knock her away, ripping She-Ra’s other hand free as she went. The pain was too much and She-Ra lost her concentration, changing back into Adora and dropping her sword as she attempted to clutch feebly at her bleeding hands. Glimmer did her best not to look at her friend, and kept her attention fixed on Catra.
Catra meanwhile was staring at Glimmer, as if seeing her for the first time.
“You,” she said quietly, slowly getting to her feet, her gaze never wavering from Glimmer. “You were the one she rescued.”
“Stay back,” Glimmer warned, pointing her staff at Catra while she desperately tried to channel enough energy to blast Catra further away. She gritted her teeth, but Catra’s wide eyed stare was so haunting it made it difficult for her to concentrate.
“You’re the one who took her from me,” Catra continued, taking a zombie like step towards Glimmer. “It’s all your fault!”
Catra’s eyes blazed and her face contorted into a primal snarl of pure rage as she pounced. Glimmer’s first instinct was to teleport away, but with a helpless Adora directly behind her she had no choice but to put up her staff and try to fight. Catra crashed on top of her like a typhoon of teeth and claws. She snarled and roared as she swiped madly at Glimmer’s face, while the smaller girl held her just out of reach with her staff.
“Glimmer!”
Glimmer tore her eyes away from Catra to look at Adora, who was frantically trying to pick back up her sword. Her grip was too weak, and she could hardly close her fingers, much less raise the sword above her head to change back into She-Ra. Then Glimmer saw something that made her blood run cold. Adora looked up from the sword and her face hardened into her patented “I’m out of options so I’m about to do something suicidaly brave” face, and focused on Catra.
Glimmer quickly realized that she had to put some serious distance between Catra and Adora if either of them were going to survive the day. So she shut her eyes, cleared her mind as best she could, and disappeared in a flash of purple light, taking the still howling Catra along with her.
One of the many benefits of teleportation, was that the teleporter was able to adjust how they, and everyone they took with them arrived, (providing that they had the mental clarity to do so.) When Catra and Glimmer reappeared, Catra was still on her knees clawing at mid-air, but Glimmer was now standing behind her with her staff at the ready. Glimmer swung down with all her strength, but this time Catra was ready. Her ears twitched ever so slightly, and an instant later she turned around and grabbed the staff with her bare hands. Glimmer gasped in shock. The force of the war staff’s blow should have been enough to shatter Catra’s wrist, but she had stopped it as easily as if it had been a piece of straw.
Catra’s manic grin nearly doubled in size.
Before she could do anything else, Catra ripped the staff out of her hands and threw it aside. Then she pounced on top of Glimmer and pinned her painfully down by the throat.
“Now you die,” Catra said, her eyes wild and unfocused. “Die, die, die!”
Glimmer fought and struggled as Catra slowly crushed her windpipe. Panic started to fill her mind as the edges of her vision began to darken. All she could see was Catra’s terrible, insane face. It seemed close to both laughter and sobbing at the same time. Glimmer closed her eyes and put her hands against Catra’s chest, trying to push her away. She tried to summon enough magic to blast Catra off, but her hands merely flashed with light. She reached deeper into her core, trying to find the well of power that had let her break free from Shadow Weaver’s prison and save Adora.
Adora. If she died now, she’d never be able to see her again. Or Bow, or her mother! Glimmer’s mind snapped into focus. She would not die here, not after everything that had happened. She still had so much more to do. She needed to be there for her mother for the anniversary of her father’s death next week, and Bow wanted to show her the new arrows he had been working on, and she still had to make Adora understand that when a girl took you to see something as romantic as a meteor shower you were supposed to at least kiss her at the end of the night and not just run off to do some ‘night training’ and leave her standing on the balcony! She definitely could not die after that!
A torrent of power burst from Glimmer like water breaking through a dam. It surged out of Glimmer’s hands and through Catra’s body like lightning, forcing Catra to let go of her and throw her head back, her mouth open in a silent scream. Purple light shot from her mouth and eyes as Glimmer’s magic poured through her. Glimmer only faintly acknowledged that Catra had released her throat. All she could do was let her power surge forth as she tried not to lose consciousness. She had no control over it, no way of stopping it, and no clue what she was even doing! She was locked in place just as Catra was until the last spark of her magic ran out.
Glimmer felt her arms drop dead to her sides. A second later she felt Catra fall off of her and on to her side with a dull thump. Glimmer tried to open her eyes and sit up, but the drain was too great, and she passed out into the comforting dark oblivion. Catra lay motionless beside her. Her eyes and mouth continued to glow for a second or two more, then the light faded away. As it did Catra’s eyes closed and her body deflated. A second later she took a long deep breath.
It was the deepest breath Catra had ever taken in her life, and it made her smile gently as she unconsciously adjusted herself, and settled in for a long and much needed catnap.