AWOL

Contagious

For the Sake of a Princess

~ Forenote ~

I know I could have posted this one and the last one together but that stopping point felt too good. Enjoy.

Shout out to Chuck Winanaki for his request that I flesh the dialogue out just a bit.

Previously

They left the Fright Zone, the sword thingy messed up their skiff, now they're stranded, captured by a princess, and to top it all off, Adora's out cold! Worse, Catra has no idea why she's out cold.

It was only a few minutes of Glimmer struggling to pull the net along behind her, before Adora woke up and wriggled out of Bow's grasp. The princess had tried to get Bow to pull her, but when he asked if she wanted to carry the unconscious one, Miss Sparkles changed her mind.

"What happened?" Adora asked in a daze.

"You took a nap in the middle of a fight, and I ended up being shot with a trick arrow." Catra's tone clearly conveyed that she blamed this all on Adora. "Quiet horde spy!" Glimmer dropped the rope that tied the net together and marched back to them.

"Adora, this is Glimmer and Bow…" Catra spoke matter-O-factly, grinning as she knew what she said next would annoy them. "Glimmer here, is a princess and is the daughter of the queen of brightmoon. She was grounded, meaning confined to quarters, but snuck out anyway to prove she should be allowed to fight. Bow is her best and only friend and he managed to find that sword thing that crashed our skiff with a vid-pad that has a map of the woods on it. They were hoping to give it and now us to their queen in exchange for a pardon for whatever it was that got the princess grounded."

She gave them a smug look as both of their eyes went wide.

"That proves it! You are spies!" The princess shouted at them.

"Bigger ears means better hearing." She shrugged.

Adora sighed heavily, "Catra stop antagonizing our captors." Then turning towards the princess, "We aren't spies, we had no idea you were looking for the sword too. We just went on a joyride and saw it. After it crashed our skiff, we thought it might be something important so we investigated. It doesn't belong to the rebellion or the Whispering Woods either. It belongs to someone named Lighthope and she gave it to me."

When even Catra was staring at her like she was crazy, neither of their captors believed her.

"Ri~ght?... And this Lighthope, was it?, She wouldn't happen to be around here to confirm what you're saying would she?" Glimmer looked around suspiciously, but settled a disbelieving deadpan at Adora a second later.

"No. Actually I think she lives inside the sword." Adora's response made all of them blink.

"Da~mnit! I knew you were brain damaged!" Catra groaned. "I should have made you go to the infirmary, I should have ignored what Shadoweaver would have done to me, and made you go!" Her bemoaned complaints continued for several more minutes before the princess shouted that she had heard enough.

Adora was willing to walk and that left Glimmer with the sword pointed at her back, while Bow dragged Catra.

They were clearly lost.

And the two of them argued about it almost non-stop for most of the trek. The few times Bow attempted to speak with them, Adora either snapped angrily at him, or Catra would say something that made all of them mad at her.

Finally they arrived somewhere.

Or somewhere that used to be a 'somewhere' anyway. It was a ruin of a village that had clearly been destroyed by the horde's bots.

The princess whimpered at the sight, And Adora… Poor clueless Adora, had no idea what this place was. "What happened here?"

At Adora's question the princess rounded on her. Screaming and shouting about how bad the horde was.

Adora refused to believe it was true. She argued that the horde wouldn't do this, that they were trying to make things better, and Catra could only sit silently in her tangle of sticky net as Adora was dragged over to a destroyed horde bot. Even still the blonde kept saying that it had to be a mistake.

Catra tried saying her name. "Adora." Then repeated it louder. "Adora!" But Adora continued to argue with the princess. Finally, Catra shouted in frustration from her struggling position inside the net. "Adora! This was the horde! This is what they do!"

Both Glimmer and Adora looked at her in shock. Then Bow slowly, gently pulled a couple threads and the net came loose… Mostly. It was still sticky all over her, but she could pull herself out now. And so she yanked the rest of the netting off as she stood.

"Adora, we weren't raised to make things orderly, we were raised to fight and destroy. Why do you think we never got taught how to build a road or how to make rations?" Catra stopped pulling at the remnants of the net goop, all her attention focused on Adora with the most piteous expression Adora had ever seen her make.

"So~ what? What?! Has Shadoweaver been lying to us this whole time?!" Adora sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "Are we really the bad guys for doing what we were raised to do?!"

"Duh! It's Shadoweaver!" The feline exclaimed. "Manipulation is her whole thing! You might not have seen it as much as the rest of us because you're clearly her favorite, but she's been messing with our heads us from the moment she kidnapped us! Or do you think we were just left at the horde's doorstep?"

Adora's look of shock was painful enough. But the look of accusation that followed cut into Catra like a knife. "How could you possibly be okay with that?" She jerked her head at the ruins. "With this!"

Catra knew that her next words would change how Adora saw everything. From the way she was reacting, there was no way Adora could return to the horde if this is what she'd be ordered to do. Catra had to choose what she said carefully or risk losing her friend forever.

"I'm not." It was a defeated admission. One Adora would see was the genuine truth. "Do you remember ever seeing me okay? I hated it in the horde. I spent every waking moment trying to skip out or duck our training! I have been waiting for the day we got to the front so we could leave! The only reason I didn't try to go AWOL sooner was because I couldn't get you to come with me!" By this time Catra's voice had reached an upset not-quite-shout, and suddenly she was whispering. "Besides, I had you… And you know…We promised."

Her words finally hit Adora. Guilt covered the girl's face as she realized that there had been no mistake. That this was exactly what the horde did.

As they spoke, Glimmer had gone silent. Her arguements dying in her throat as she realized that Adora genuinely had no idea what the horde was. The princess settled on looking between them as if she was waiting for them to say more but neither of them spoke.

This time, Catra didn't resist as Bow tied her hands. And she was surprised when he pulled some medical supplies out of his shoulder pack to splint her finger with a broken arrow shaft.

Finally they left the village.

They were just outside it when there was a rumbling sound from behind them.

The ground just between them and the ruins bulged up and split open releasing a massive monstrous bug.

All four of them were knocked off their feet.

The bug attacked faster than anything that large should move. It attempted to impale the princess with its spiked leg, but she sparkled away, dropping the sword.

Catra immediately ripped her bindings off with her teeth and launched at the thing before it could reach Adora.

The blonde rolled under it and grabbed the sword. Then both of them retreated. A quick swipe and Adora's hands were free too. Catra was ready to just get out of there, but Adora caught her arm.

Bow and Glimmer were trying their best to fight it off, but they ended up bouncing off the same tree in less than a second. "We can't leave them, they'll be killed!" Adora spoke while looking back at the princess making a last effort to protect Bow.

Just as Catra had done for Adora.

With a groan Catra followed Adora. "Are you really going to make us do this?" She complained as she turned and followed the blonde back towards the fight. "I guees that's a yes! You're actually making us do this!" She shouted as began to run on all fours headlong at the beetle thing.

She was fast enough, and had enough momentum to pass over it and bounce off a tree before it realized she was there. She slashed one of the thing's legs on her way under it and snatched another off the ground as she passed back out the other side, forcing it to tilt before it got its balance again.

By that time Catra had landed on its head and stuck her good hand right into one of its eyes.

Adora was pulling Bow up to his feet and Glimmer took one of his shoulders as they began to run.

Seeing them out of its path, Catra leapt up into a tree, hoping the thing couldn't climb. She had hoped wrong… While the thing didn't climb the tree, it did knock the whole tree down! Catra tried to dodge out of it's rampage only to be smacked out of her leap and sent rolling over the ground. The wind was knocked out of her in an agonized yelp when the leg impacted her. That left her with no air to cry out with when her bouncing off the ground gave a crunch.

Adora shouted for her. Just in time to warn her that she needed to move.

Wincing at the pain in her ribs, Catra had to roll away from the spike that came crashing into the dirt where she had just been. Before the thing's other leg could impale her, one of those trick arrows hit the giant bug and Glimmer was by her side. Then suddenly they were in the treeline. Adora had her arm and they were all running.

But she was flagging behind.

Her side ached, and her vision was blurring. She couldn't get any air! It was only a few meters before her foot caught something and she and Adora hit the ground.

They had been so close to escaping! Adora stood over her and raised the sword in defiance. The moment the monster's spear-like leg made contact with Adora's swing there was a blinding light and where her friend had once been was a mass of golden hair with a red cape!

"What the?" Catra tried to stand but the pain in her side overtook her.

Then Adora was back, landing on her butt and shaking the sword like it had burned her and she couldn't get it off.

The bug had stilled. Completely unmoving.

Glimmer appeared in front of them and yanked at the sword. Attempting to take it from Adora. "What did you do to me?!" Adora shrieked. "I didn't know being a princess was contagious!"

"Me?! You did something!" Glimmer shouted back.

"NO! I just swung the sword at the monster! And then Poof! I'm in a tiara!" Adora's voice reached a higher pitch than Catra had ever heard it go. Even as children it had never been that high. Catra would have laughed at it, if she wasn't hurting so bad.

"You think maybe we could finish this after we get away from the giant bug monster?" Catra wheezed. With a glance at her friend trying and failing to get up, Adora let go of the sword.

The moment she did so, the bug roared!

It was moving again.

"Okay, you can have it back!" Glimmer put the sword in Adora's hand and grabbed Catra, teleporting them both over to Bow. Adora ran after them and caught up just ahead of the bug. With Bow and Adora both carrying Catra they managed to outrun it just long enough to reach a cliff.

"Everybody down!" Bow shot an arrow with a rope trailing it into a tree at the bottom, "Glimmer take Catra, Adora follow me!"

And they were at the bottom. Bow and Adora sliding down the rope to join them.

But the Bug followed without slowing. Before it reached the bottom of the ravine they were running towards some building.

The door wouldn't open until Adora said some magic word that somehow only she could read.

And they were safe.

After a few moments of breathing, Bow sat up and asked "So Adora have you always been able to read first one's writings?" Then he looked at Catra.

But before he could ask she interrupted him. "Don't look at me. They don't teach that in the horde, I couldn't even tell it was anything more than cracks in the side of the wall."

"Maybe it was because you turned into the scary lady in the cape?" Bow offered.

"If it's not a horde thing, then that has to be it!" Glimmer agreed. "So I guess you wouldn't know how you understood the writing anymore than how you turned into a princess?" While her tone was sarcastic, she looked worried.

"So I guess you wouldn't know how to get out of here either would you?" The princess asked doubtfully.

Catra had the answer to that. "Easy enough," Catra explained "We just rest here for a bit and catch our breath. Then in an hour or two, hopefully that thing will have gone away and Adora can just say her magic word again and we leave out the way we came in."

"Sounds good to me." Bow added.

Adora shook her head. "But how do we know that thing won't just be waiting for us out there? Besides, you took a pretty bad hit, a few of them actually. I think you might need more than just rest." Glimmer winced at the comment.

"So you guys really didn't know what the Horde was doing?" She asked.

"Well Adora didn't…" Catra answered. "I don't know about Kyle or Rogelio but Lonnie figured it out."

"Who are they?" Bow was interested now.

"Our squad, you know, we ate together, trained together, we were supposed to fight together…" Adora trailed off as she realized what they were actually supposed to do.

Swallowing, she was about to ask what they knew about Thaymor, her assigned first mission, but Bow continued their current topic. "So I guess they're like your siblings? You said you were found as a baby right, So they must be the closest thing to family you have."

"Yeah, we don't think of ourselves as family." Catra butted in. "It's more like, they are our competition, and the one who does the best gets a promotion while the one who does the worst doesn't eat."

Adora wanted to argue with Catra's view of the squad, but thinking of how everyone treated Kyle… Maybe she was right.

They chatted like this for well over an hour before Adora tried the word again. "Eternia!"

Catra had recovered enough to stand ready while the door opened and they were relieved to find out the monster was gone.

"So where are you two going to go?" Bow asked as he put his arrow away.

"To be honest it hadn't crossed my mind." Adora replied.

"I mean," Catra added, "It's not like we know our way around the forest, and our skiff was destroyed so... "

"Not that we even want to return to the horde. Look I need to find out what's going on, what's happening to me." Adora looked between Bow and Glimmer. "This can't be normal, and I guess I have just always had a part of me that I never knew about."

"Well, My mom knows more about the first ones than anyone else. If she can't find an answer then there probably isn't anyone left who can." The princess wasn't looking at them as she spoke, but the way she stood was enough to tell she didn't know if it was a good idea or not. "Come on, there is a village somewhere not too far from here where we can get a ride to Brightmoon." Glancing back at Catra, she added "And we can have someone look at Bow and Catra's injuries."

~ Note ~

~ Catra said what she did because part of it was true, and she knew that it would keep them together. She didn't mind leaving if she was the one who brought Adora with her, instead of the other way around.

~ So because Catra was there and explained to Adora that this actually was what the horde does, Glimmer accepted that Adora had no clue much sooner. At the same time, Adora, realizing they were the bad guys, stopped defending the horde.

~ Because Catra took a bad hit from the bug, in order to save them, Glimmer helped to save her too.

~ After they worked together like they did, they were willing to get along in the ruins. Without Glimmer and Adora at each others throats, Bow had a much easier time getting them all to bond.

~ Catra is actually hurt, but is toughing it out. And since they never went deeper into the ruin Glimmer still has most of her power and none of them know about She-Ra yet.

~ Now they unknowingly head to Thaymor, not realizing what else is on its way to the peaceful village. How will things change? Who will be leading the assault? How will Catra react to her first party?

~ Find out next time!

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