Queen Angella

Crazy Lady & The Easy Start

For the Sake of Purpose

~ Forenote ~

{Warning: Mature Content: Including but not Limited too; Strong Language, Violence, and Adult Situations. — May cause Physiological Trauma.}

Previously

They have arrived in brightmoon! Kyle has been tended to, and unknown to the bestfriend squad, the Queen has discovered their surprise. But they Still can't summon She-Ra intentionally. And to make matter so much worse! They somehow transformed the horse into Horse-Ra!

"What! Did! You! Do!" That voice was the Queen's! All three of them looked up towards the palace. "Bow take Adora and go stop Horse-Ra! Maybe if she can become She-Ra she can fix it. I'll… get yelled at by my mom." Glimmer cringed as she realized that she had to make the sacrifice if they were going to escape.

"Hors~e-Ra?" Bow gave her a quizzical look and Adora could only shrug when he glance at her.

"Just go!" Glimmer shoved them both in the direction the newly transformed Horse-Ra went.

So while he pulled Adora after the horse, Glimmer turned and stood her ground.

The two of them raced after the horse as it flew out of the clearing and over the trees.

It landed in a large camp on the outskirts of the city… A camp full of people who had survived attacks from the Horde.

A wild, winged, rampaging horse, crashing through their tents and smashing supplies and wrecking everything it found, would make most people panic to begin with… Add on to that two people that the Queen had ordered to be imprisoned… And these people got mad really quick.

This only got worse when one of the guards that had surrounded them when they got to the city shouted that Adora was a Horde soldier!

There were shouts of prisoners, and escaped, and detain them up until then… But once they realized they had cornered someone from the Horde those shouts changed to Horde Soldier, Spy, Assassin, Etc. And get her, capture her, kill....her. Bow realized he would have a better chance of calming them down if Adora went after the horse.

She argued… Until an arrow tore through the robe he'd given her.

0o0o0

Glimmer thought maybe if she tried explaining about She-Ra before her mom began yelling, she might not be so angry about her helping the prisoner escape. "Mom, I know what you're going to say, and I have a—"

The Queen looked down at her without even landing "Glimmer, Now is not the time for this argument, we must corral that beast before it does anyone harm! You can tell me how you managed to find She-Ra when I have finished yelling at you later. Do you understand?!"

"Mom you're not listening to me! She's not just—" Glimmer hiccupped as she realized what her mother had just said… "You know she's She-Ra?"

Her mom raised an eyebrow. "For the Honor of Grayskull? The entire palace has been listening to her basically announce her identity for the last two hours!"

Glimmer hadn't realized it had been that long. Why hadn't anyone reported their escape to her mom?

"Don't think you're getting away with everything, I am going to yell at you at length this evening. But I just spent this entire time watching you and her try to invoke the magic of Etheria just to convince me to let the girl stay. Right now I think it's time I trusted you enough to see how you actually handle yourself in battle."

Glimmer was still confused about the part where her mom knew about She-Ra, but what she just said knocked all thought of that right out of her head!

The Queen drew herself rigid as if giving a speech to the public. "Commander Glimmer! You will help evacuate all bystanders out of the path of the… You called it Horse-Ra correct?... I will attempt to follow its path and steer it away from the people."

Nodding her acceptance of the order, Glimmer felt her pulse race. Her mom was finally letting her prove herself!

Teleporting after Bow and Adora, Glimmer appeared in the outer camp. The place had been trashed by Horse-Ra. The people staying in the camp were shouting in anger, and chasing a Horde spy! That had to be Adora!

"Mom! You have to go help Adora! She's being chased instead of Horse-Ra!" The princess shouted at her mother. The Queen nodded her agreement and changed course, flying in the direction of the mob.

As the horse smashed through a tent and tore out of the fabric on the back side, Glimmer teleported behind the tent and began grabbing people and poofing them out of the way. She tried to get ahead of the horse, but it changed it's direction so many times she ended up teleporting people who didn't need to be teleported.

Then she saw Bow. He was surrounded by the mob and dodging a lady minotaur. Appearing beside him, she created a flash of light bright enough to stun the crowd.

"By order of the princess of Brightmoon stop!"

Her shout seemed to do the trick.

At the order of her mother, most of the guards had begun calming the people down and forcing them to cease their chase. The rest had followed after the Queen to find and calm the winged horse. Now that everything settled down, Glimmer thought maybe she should join the guards in their pursuit of her mother... Or start looking for Adora.

0o0o0

Adora tried to follow after Horse-Ra, but with the mob of angry people and the cliff that she hadn't seen until it was too late, and now all the trees that kept moving on her…

She was lost.

Again.

Her robe had been torn off and she could only be thankful that she hadn't dropped the sword. But she had no idea where she was and didn't hear any more crashing from the horse's stampede.

She had no idea where she was going. But there was a sound in that direction, so that direction was where she would go.

What she came upon was a curtain hung over a hole in the side of a large hill under a tree. And an old woman with a broom talking to herself.

Adora attempted to greet her and ask if she'd seen a flying horse… it sounded crazy, she already knew that.

But realized it didn't matter when the woman recognized her as someone named Mara. She gushed about how she was happy to see her and literally dragged her into the enclosure. Adora tried to shake her hand off her arm but the woman admonished her for being late already! She had been about to go berry picking alone it seemed.

Adora had no idea who the woman was and tried to explain that, but she insisted they had made plans. Letting go of her arm the hunched old woman jumped around her home picking things up and putting them in a basket. Then paused as she picked up a helmet, as if she remembered something awful the woman's cheer sombered. "This isn't the right time for my Mara is it? You don't know Madam Razz do you?"

The woman walked over to her and pulled her into one of those hugs Glimmer kept giving her. "Don't worry, You have the sword now, and you will learn to use it as my Mara did. You'll save her just as we talked about with the ghostly one."

She knew about the sword!

Her cheer suddenly returned and she looped a basket on Adora's sword then began pulling her back out into the woods.

As Adora followed she tried to get more from the crazy old toad, but she just leapt away telling her to keep up. Her questions about the sword only resulted in Mara being laughed at. And when she asked who she was going to save, and who the ghost was, Madame Razz didn't respond at all.

Finally they arrived where Razz had been leading them. A first one's ruin.

She couldn't describe what followed in words unless she tried for hours and hours. Razz climbed a wall there was a flash of light, and stars and a baby laughing, she knew it all, she had seen all of it before, but she had no idea how or where or why or… or…

Then Razz was hugging her again… "I know you miss them. The stars used to be everywhere. We would always come out here to look at them, but you never would invite that friend of yours to join us."

"What friend?!" The only friend she had was dead! Who ever this Mara woman was, maybe she had a friend, But Adora's only real friend had been Execu—

"Why, Catra! Of course!" Razz exclaimed "You are always so~ upset about missing her, but she never got to see the star's with us. Maybe this time you'll invite her."

Adora's mind couldn't quite process what Razz had just said. And by the time it caught up to her, Razz had run off again.

Razz somehow knew about the sword and about Catra! Could Catra be the one who needed saved? Did that mean she was alive?

Adora chased after Razz pushing herself to follow the leaping woman through the trees and giant roots. She had to know what Razz knew. "You have to keep up, he is this way."

By the time she caught up to the spry old creature they had come to a clearing in the woods where all the tree's had been cut down or blasted away. There were tanks filling the area.

Razz began again talking to Mara, Explaining how the Horde would destroy and erase what it could not control.

Adora saw the town of Thaymor in her mind as she walked through the tanks. "This is wrong! They can't be allowed to destroy everything like this!"

Adora had realized it already. The moment she saw the tanks and was reminded of Thaymor, she figured out why She-Ra was possible. She-Ra was meant to protect Etheria. And all her heart could do since the battle ended was cry and hate the Horde for what they had done. For taking Catra away from her.

But she also knew it was her fault. She was the one who left, who told Catra to stay, who broke the promise.

Adora heard the whinny of a horse, and realized it must have been Horse-Ra!

"You know what you must do now don't you?" Razz asked as she turned back towards the woods. "Go Mara, go save your friend."

And She-Ra descended onto the outpost.

0o0o0

The Queen and her daughter had handled the excitement in the camp effectively. No one had been hurt, not by the horse anyway. Bow had been required to choose between taking a hit from an opponent or letting the woman smash herself against several different surfaces and he chose not to get crushed by the woman's massive horns. As a result, the one casualty was a massive headache which if he was being honest was mostly her own fault.

He had been saved in the end when Glimmer announced a ceasefire by her royal authority… And somehow it worked.

Though…

That might have been helped along by the Queens orders to the guard to settle the crowd and aid her daughter.

The Queen herself had taken to the air and was now chasing the trail of broken branes and noise of a panicking horse. He was Not calling it Horse-Ra until they confirmed there wasn't a better name for it.

Glimmer wanted to go after her, or to find Adora, but Bow suggested that she stay and help the people while he would follow Adora, in case the blonde tried to sneak back to the palace.

0o0o0

The battle was all but over. The only thing remaining was to bring the building down and destroy any Horde machines within it.

She-Ra made quick work of everything she faced. And finally did a sweep of the rooms and compartments to ensure no one was left in the building before she razed it.

Entering a maintenance compartment, She-Ra found the last person left in the outpost. A service tech cowering behind a pavilion with a communication relay vidport mounted on it. He was probably trying to call for help when she'd smashed the battle doors open. The screen was playing a recent speech Hordak must have made addressing the failure of Thaymor.

She simply stood to the side and watched as the tech fled around her and towards one of the holes she'd made in the walls. Looking at the screen, She-Ra was ready to drive her sword into it when the image of Hordak glitched and reset to an image of Catra!

For the briefest of seconds she thought Kyle had lied and Catra was alive. Hope flooded her heart as she realized she could save the feline! Madame Razz had been right!

Then she took in Catra's condition.

First was the fact that her right eye was closed and had streaks of blood caked down her cheek. A trickle of red still streamed from the deflated lid. Her other, yellow tinted, eye was wide with terror as her whole face trembled.

She was covered in bruises and bleeding burns mottled up her arms and legs. Her arms were stretched out and bound to a rod that lay across her shoulders and was suspended just a little more than the feline's height. Her legs dangled as if completely limp, feet clamped together, hanging only just off the ground.

The video tekan was in the assembly chamber, where mass announcements were made… And where executions were held…

"This is a traitor to the Horde." Hordak spoke. "Her insubordination and disloyal behavior have been overlooked too long. For crimes of attempted desertion, and intent of treason against the Horde, she will be made an example."

Hordak gave a wave of his hand, and Octavia stepped forward. Her head was wrapped in bandages just as it had been back when Catra had clawed her. She was carrying a baton with a much larger powercell rigged to its end. The tentacled woman knelt and presented the weapon to Hordak.

Adora knew what would come next and as much as she wanted to look away, as much as she wished she could forget this sight, she forced herself to watch Catra's final moments.

Hordak took the baton with a flourish and he ignited the static charge. As casually as snapping his fingers, he thrust the electrified prongs into Catra's spine just above her tail!

She let out a throaty, and graveled, scream as her lungs compressed and every muscle in her body constricted. Her tail went straight and then spasmed as it tried to curle in multiple directions at once. She continued to convulse until he pulled the baton away. But her open eye had lost its sight only halfway through.

Catra's body went limp and the video feed focused inward, on Hordak. "This is what happens to those who betray the Horde, who abandon their purpose, who forget their place!"

Adora didn't know when she had lost She-Ra, but the sword dropped from her hand, and she fell to her knees, letting her butt land between her feet. As she watched Hordak monologue she pushed herself away from the pavilion, as if she could somehow distance herself from the pain that the sight brought her.

Then the screen glitched and Catra was alive again. Hanging from the rod across her shoulders, her left eye wide in terror. Looking from the audience to Hordak and back.

Having pressed herself against the wall, Adora brought her knees to her chest and curled herself around them, Wanting to drive her face between them but unable to look away as Catra died all over again.

0o0o0

Queen Angella flew over the trees, following the path of the frightened creature. She had lost sight of it some time ago, but felt she could tell where it was heading. After the several corrections she and the guards had made, a path had formed in her mind. The sounds of battle confirmed her direction.

The poor panicking beast had flown straight into the Horde.

A familiar glow flashed through the canopy and the Queen slowed. She-Ra had appeared, the horse would be rescued. Gliding to the cliff above the Horde encampment, Angella watched as Adora in her princess form, saved the beast, and turned her sword against the canons, and the tanks, and the bots. She devastated the base with ease.

It wasn't long before she turned on the building itself. Slashing her way in, and destroying whatever lay inside. Massive chunks of the building burst off of it on all sides. A stream of fleeing Horde soldiers stumbled and sprinted out of the newly created exits. When the last of the Horde soldiers fled out of the rubble that had initially been a heavily fortified entrance, Queen Angella decided to invite herself upon the battlefield.

Flying down, she made her way quickly into the structure, in search of She-Ra. The pangs of loss echoing through her finally began to make sense.

What she found was the young Horde girl.

And a video looping on a viewport.

An execution.

Adora was sitting against the wall opposite the viewport. Her knees pressed to her chest, arms wrapped around them and her face only visible above them because her eyes were locked on the screen.

She was crying.

She was the one who had been grieving, and the Queen must have felt her pain through the magic of Etheria. That probably meant it was being channeled through the runestone. Which meant Glimmer had felt it too. Could the other princesses have felt it?

"Was she a friend?" Angella asked gently.

Adora flinched and glared at her with what the Queen could only call hatred. Then her expression turned to shock, relief, and then settled with resignation.

"When the rebellion began to fight against the Horde, my husband, King Micah, was one of the first to fall in battle. I have never forgiven myself for allowing him to die." The Queen understood exactly what this girl was enduring. Which gave her a clue as to why she'd had such trouble invoking the power of Grayskull. "You must realize that the might of She-Ra was meant to protect Etheria. It can never be used as a weapon of revenge."

"Yeah," Wiping her eyes, Adora pushed herself to her feet and drove her sword through the screen. "I figured that out."

The Queen could only nod her understanding. "Would you like me to fly you back to the palace?"

With a breath of focus, the blonde forced herself back under control. "No your majesty. Thank you, but I have to find the horse I transformed and fix him. I'll return as soon as I can."

0o0o0

Shadoweaver was reviewing the incoming reports of their destroyed outpost in the whispering woods, when she was summoned to Hordak's laboratory. Her first instinct was that Hordak wanted to punish her for yet another loss at the hands of She-Ra. Instead, she was greeted with the sight of the naked corpse of Catra floating within a tank of dark yellowish, nearly green, bubbling liquid.

"Now we shall see whether you will be punished for your failure or not" Hordak warned her.

The panel at the base of the tank displayed healthy vitals and life indicators! When he immediately began preparations to execute Catra, Shadoweaver had not understood his intentions. But now she knew how he had planned to break the girl from the start.

Shadoweaver watched in disgust as Hordak's machines pulled the once dead feline from the re-animation tank. She recognized the tank as one of the ones that held his failed abominations. His attempts to clone a new body for himself had only succeeded once in the creation of the little gargoyle spy of his.

Which left him with an unused tank. He had repurposed it in order to revive the girl after her execution. The very concept of such a thing revolted Shadoweaver in a way her old colleagues must have felt at her own actions. Their warnings came to mind as she repeated the sentiment. Some things were simply not to be done!

The gelatinous dark yellow slime that filled the tank, dripped off the girl in blobs and clumps, leaving a trail as she was moved to the wall where Hordak had constructed five mechanical restraints. Each of the girl's limbs and even her tail would be locked in place and pulled taut.

Once her wrists and ankles were set in the thin frames, the restraints moved. It's outer tube extended over each of her forearms and then the inner mechanisms pressed onto them, extending just past the outer shell. Once all five limbs were attached, the outer shell retracted, compressing the grip of the restraints on her limbs until she couldn't force any slack. This drew pained whimpers from the girl.

Catra was trembling. Though Shadoweaver knew the colder air of the room would be shocking to her system after the hours within the tank, she could tell the trembling was from terror. Catra's remaining yellow pigmented eye was opened as wide as it would go, staring at the tank.

"You~, No~, I~... How?" The girl whimpered in disbelief.

"Yes, I executed you. No, you didn't live through it, you died. I brought you back." Hordak answered the questions the girl was unable to ask herself. He sounded amused.

Shadoweaver felt sick. Swallowing the bile, she reminded herself of all the horrible things she had done. She shouldn't feel so sick from this.

"The process isn't without its side effects. Every time you are re-animated a little bit of you simply won't come back. It will be lost for good. Most of my trials with this concept could no longer be revived after four to six deaths. But it only takes two or three to damage the mind beyond saving."

His clinical apathetic explanation of the nature of his horrific creation only served to terrify the feline more.

"But!" He continued. "You don't need to go through that again."

Hordak lifted her chin with a gentle hand, appearing benevolent and merciful, in contrast to the cold ruthlessness of her execution. "All you have to do is answer my questions, and you'll be free to return to your station, completely pardoned of any wrongs."

Even as stubborn as Catra was, she couldn't hide the hope on her face.

"Let us begin with what we know, tell me about the sword." Catra's flinch was all the proof Hordak would need to justify further questioning. Shadoweaver could see the girl's motives shifting and thoughts falling into place.

Hordak knew about the sword, which put Adora in danger… Since it was her brain damaged dream that had mentioned it. Shadoweaver had been so close to finding out what Catra had been hiding when she had been forced out of the girl's mind. That one brief image of their joyride was all the sorceress hand managed to obtain.

And just like with her own failed attempt to break the delinquent, Catra's resolve solidified.

"I'm not telling you anything!" She growled through clenched teeth.

A look of puzzlement appeared on Hordaks face. It was as if he didn't actually believe the words she had just spoken. He blinked, and gave his captive a look of approval. Had he been impressed that she hadn't broken from death itself?

"In that case, we shall begin with something easy." Hordak let go of her chin and stepped back to the controls of his new interrogation platform. From within the restraints there was a clicking sound, and the outer shells began to turn. Catra took in a breath and began violently pulling against her own limbs. A small trickle of blood dripped from the lowest edge of her arm restraints. Trailing a line down past her elbows and traveling to the pits underneath. Shadoweaver could safely assume the same wounds had been inflicted on all her limbs.

Pressing a few buttons, Hordak extended six mechanical apparatus from the walls. The three thin spindly arms on either side of the struggling girl, drove their paired needles into Catra's flesh. They had aligned just below her ribcage so that each needle pierced two finger widths apart on the sides of her lower abdomen.

The feline hissed in pain.

"Electrocution." Hordak continued, as he turned a dial. "Something your dear, merciful, commander has often used to discipline you."

There was a static crackle and Catra yelped, gasped and choked on her air. Her body began to shake violently, just as it had last night, during Shadoweaver's attempt to break her.

But Catra's reaction to it was on a level of pain, the sorcerous had only elicited on the rare occasions she went too far.

Returning the dial to its previous position, Hordak allowed Catra to gasp for breath before speaking.

"You will realize that, unlike with her magical use, I can increase the voltage, while reducing the amperage. Making it much more painful, while preventing any truly permanent damage."

Catra's shaking form slowly calmed. But instead of pleading or shouting insults, she turned her face away from him. Her jaw tightened and her remaining eye clenched shut.

Hordak turned the dial forward, and began to slowly increase it every few seconds.

The sight of Catra writhing as the needles in her sides slowly seared their entry points, felt like physical pain to the masked woman. She couldn't remain and watch this! But she didn't have the option to leave.

~ Note ~

~ It looks like it's going to be two chapters per episode. This one was just getting too long and I needed a break. So I split it in half.

~ Queen Angella recognised She-Ra on sight in the show. I assume that means she'd recognise her battle cry as well.

~ The Queen was willing to put more trust in Glimmer because she read the reports of the Battle in Thaymor. Including how Glimmer helped evacuate the town instead of throwing herself into the fight.

~ One thing that I have seen a lot when authors are writing about LightHope and Mara, is that they don't account for Razz! this lady exists outside of time! Meaning whatever events happen in the present will carry backwards to at least be mentioned in Mara's time! which will explain how and why Light Hope changes from the one in the show from the beginning of the story. Adora says something here, Razz confuses Mara about it, Mara relays her thoughts when attempting to figure it out, to LightHope, Light Hope develops new protocols based on the ramblings.

~ I usually write based on the butterfly ripple effect. And Madame Razz gives this world a new level of rippling.

~ Yes, Catra did in fact die! But she was brought back!… The Execution lined up with the sudden terror, Adora and the others felt.

~ Hordak Executed her because they had two deserters from her age group and she was known to cause trouble, add on to that Shadoweaver's own suspicions, It was a good move. Especially when knowing that he could re-animate her and if she'd been broken by it, she would then have the Proper Motivation he had mentioned previously. He was fully prepared to simply forget her crimes if it turned out she could be made loyal. But she didn't break. That's right.. She died for Adora and kept on struggling.

~ No I'm not being Emo/Angst/DramaQ'tic. This is actually based on some Original Material I tried to create in the horror genre, with Psychological Trauma at its core. I gave up on it and was later inspired to adapt some of it to this world. You can read more about this on my profile.

~ Okay so this is where the mature content begins.

~ If anybody thinks they can make a good picture of the Catra scene or of Enraged Avatar State She-Ra V.S. Shadowhag, please post it to my FB page!

~ Kyle's lie has come true! Adora has proven herself, Horse-Ra is still on the loose, but it's only a matter of time. How long will Catra hold out against this new darker form of questioning? Will Adora ever learn of her true fate?

~ Find Out Next Time!

~ Please show your support & review. Help motivate me to keep my momentum going!

~ You can find me on FB /Jordan. Tesla. 1