Work Text:
They led her away from the throne, down the many corridors lining the inside of the ship. She kicked and thrashed and bit and clawed but the grasp on her stayed firm. Her and the ensemble of clones reached Glimmer’s old cell and, once the force field had receded, chucked her onto the pristine white floor.
Then, they turned on their heels and the lime green barrier fell back into place.
Catra’s arms and hands ached from struggling for so long and her legs were too weak for her to support herself. She sat there on the floor, her heart aching, her chest heaving. Her mind raced at a million miles a minute, going over the sacrifice she had just made. Her plan was a terrible one, and it should have failed horribly, but it didn’t. She helped Sparkles escape, saved Adora and managed to redeem herself in one fell swoop. She’d done one good thing in her life, and now she would die at Prime’s hand. It was fitting, she supposed, to be finished off by the ideology that broke her in the first place.
Minutes, maybe hours passed her by. Catra couldn’t tell. She’d spent the time with her knees to her chest against the back wall, trying to hold back tears. She had to be strong, she had to go out in a blaze of glory and not let fear take control. Prime could not win, not now. But it got more and more difficult to keep up the pretence of indifference as the moments passed.
She knew the clones would return and when they did, she’d be led to that pool to be “freed” from her suffering. She didn’t know what that meant specifically, but it couldn’t be good. Prime wouldn’t have shown her something for no reason, and it served as a warning. Now, she was going to experience what that clone had, only ten times worse. Catra shuddered at the thought.
***
Two faint outlines of bodies appeared outside her cell, and Catra couldn’t help but feel her chest constrict and her heart race as she considered what that meant for her. The chartreuse barrier dissolved and the clones stepped inside. Catra’s teeth were bared and her claws unsheathed almost immediately. She was ready to fight in any way she had to. She would keep surviving, goddamn it, just like she always had.
Suddenly, one of the clone’s bodies began to convulse. Their bones cracked in and out of sockets and their head rolled back. Catra sat and watched the scene unfold, terrified. Then, it stopped almost as quickly as it started and two pure white pupils backlit by acid bore into her skin.
“Little Sister, do not make this any more difficult than it needs to be. I would hate to have to use alternative methods to calm you,” Prime’s voice leaked from the clone’s mouth, sounding as smooth as syrup.
Catra stilled, taking in his words. “Alternative methods?” she croaked, hating how weak her voice sounded in comparison.
Prime used the clone’s mouth to produce a sickening smirk in response. Then, he walked forward, grabbing one of her arms and yanking her upward. She gave a quick yelp and then the other clone was on her too.
This was her final straw. She bore her teeth like the wild animal she was always told she was and bit down on the Prime-possessed clone’s shoulder, hard. She growled gutturally as she let go of the flesh between her teeth.
He didn’t even give her the satisfaction of a scream, instead she was left with the taste of tar in her mouth and black blood dripping from the gash in the clone’s shoulder.
“Tsk tsk. Poor child. I gave you a chance,” Prime mused, wiping the blood away from the gushing wound, and creating a large black stain on the once pristine Horde uniform. “Now you’ll see what happens to my children when they do not do as I ask.”
The second clone brought her back down to the floor and held her there despite her struggling, and she could hear the sound of footsteps pounding down the corridors. More clones were coming.
Prime exited the room for a short while. When he returned the clones had all but jumped on Catra, pinning her to the floor with their bare hands as she growled and gnashed her teeth. It was all for nothing. The possessed clone walked towards her, holding a vial of transparent liquid and a syringe.
He poured the solution into the empty syringe chamber, replaced the plunger and bent down to jab the needle into the inside of Catra’s elbow. She squirmed and resisted and let a few stray tears escape as the needle was removed. She was so terrified. Prime just kept smirking wickedly down at her.
But oddly enough, she was beginning to become rather tired. She fought to stay awake.
‘Please! I can’t fall asleep here!’
However, her eyes began to slowly droop closed and she drifted off into a dreamless bout of deep sleep.
***
Catra awoke to a bitter taste on her tongue and fire in her chest. She tried to speak, but something was preventing her throat and mouth from working. Her hands felt tingly, and the rest of her body was numb.
Her mismatched eyes opened, and she was met with the sight of a wide, transparent tube down her throat and a leathery chair underneath her. She was sitting upright, with her head resting against a hard slab of metal. On top of her was a thin white sheet, preventing her from seeing the rest of her body. Not that she could feel it anyway.
Gold and turquoise eyes scanned the dimly lit room, but all she could see was a shimmering green forcefield acting as an entryway and pale grey walls. A metal table stood beside the chair, holding a few instruments of some kind. Catra couldn’t tell what they could be potentially used for.
At the foot of the chair was the silhouette of man, no a clone , she remembered now, standing over her. Blazing lime eyes with bright white pupils stared right through her. Panic set in as she quickly realised where she was, and she attempted to remove the offending plastic in her mouth but was met with resistance around her wrists that she couldn’t see.
“Ah, you’re finally awake, Little Sister. Now we can begin.” The clone said.
Prime , Her brain helpfully supplied as he moved to the side of the chair. Another clone entered the room holding an open, dark green box. Inside was a round metallic plate, akin to a microchip. It held a blinking green light, the same colour of all of the clone’s eyes, that flashed at odd intervals with six razor sharp barbs spaced out evenly at its edges. Catra tried to swallow her spit, move her tongue or show her teeth but to no avail. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead as the box was passed from the clone to Prime, and from Prime to the metal table beside him.
He moved his hand to pick up a pair of sterile silver scissors and she watched as he edged them closer and closer to her body. “It’s strange,” he began, lightly tracing a finger down a blade’s edge, “All this technology, all this power in my palms and yet all I need to complete this task is a simple tool invented by your kind,” he paused again, opening and shutting the scissors almost rhythmically. “Fear not, Little Sister. The plans I have for you will separate you from the people on your insignificant planet, and raise you high up above them. You will be pure, and pain free. Is that not what you’ve always wanted?” His question hung menacingly in the air, his smile was full of teeth as Catra’s eyes grew wide.
Her mind raced with scenarios of him ripping her skin open and tearing out her organs one by one or plucking her eyes from their sockets and displaying them like prized jewels in his trophy room.
“However, as I'm sure you can imagine, your Etherian biology was not made to be compatible with my technology and therefore your purification will require extra steps,” Prime casually informed her, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
She wanted to ask what that meant, but obviously couldn’t. A gurgle of a scream was stuck in her throat. Then, without any more warning, Prime opened up the scissors next to her head and she scrunched her eyes closed to brace herself for incoming agony.
When no pain came, she opened her eyes one at a time to find something even more gut wrenching.
He was cutting her hair. Chopping away at it like it was some sort of wild mane, which it was but it was hers . The only thing she had ever liked about her appearance was being stripped away from her, strand by strand.
It fluttered around her like falling feathers plucked from a chicken, forming a muddy coloured halo around her shoulders as he snipped away at her long locks. Tears rolled down her cheeks, she was too weak to stop them.
***
After Prime was finished with her impromptu haircut, he slicked it back with industrial strength hair gel to match that of the other clones. Next, he moved around to the back of the chair. Catra attempted to careen her neck to see what he was doing, but felt firm hands from another clone around her head, keeping her in place.
“Now, Little Sister, you will be absolved.” He declared as a piece of something cold met the back of her neck. She felt red hot needles pierce through the skin there, and choked cries of agony soon became muffled sobs as the plastic in her throat held itself steady.
Then, all she felt was eerie numbness as black spots clouded her vision.
When she came to, she found herself kneeling before the large bubbling pool of acrid green fluid. It seared her senses, sending shockwaves of dread down her spine until it reached the ever growing pit in her stomach. It was then she realised that the tube from earlier remained lodged in her throat, the taste of sterile plastic growing more and more intense as time wore on.
She looked down and was surprised to find that her clothes she wore as the Horde’s second-in-command was no longer shrouding her. Instead, a tight white bodysuit encased her body from her neck to her feet. Her hands were bound before her, and she felt herself trembling.
Clones upon clones surrounded her, hooded and waiting. Their soulless green eyes were the only other light her mismatched orbs could find in the room. On the opposite side of the pool stood Prime, leering at her like she was an experiment. A poor creature that he could use as a mindless puppet for a while and then discard when she was no longer needed.
This realisation shook her and brought her back to herself. She was going to die, and no one would know. No one would care.
Catra, once the fearless second-in-command of the Etherian Horde army, now hung her head in sorrow and shame. If she could go back and make things right, she would.
***
Strong hands gripped under her armpits and yanked her forward along the narrow platform before the pool. She wasn’t even bothering to fight, now. One last heave, and she was flung into the pool face first. The clones dotting about the outside of the pool began their bone chilling chant of ‘cast out the shadows’ as Prime looked on.
He regarded her as a vessel, nothing more. She was a means to an end, a tool to be used to advance his mighty empire. She was helpless before him.
The liquid met her nostrils and tore a pathway through her blood vessels, filling her with green electricity. Her vision was clouded with hazy green, and the blood in her veins was icy cold. The tube down her throat did little to prevent the fire in her lungs and was probably only there so that she wouldn’t drown completely. Prime still had a use for her, after all.
Her arms, still bound, flapped uselessly in the water, searching for a handhold that did not exist. Her legs flailed and kicked as she tried to touch the bottom of the pool, clawed toes stretching out to find purchase. Prime watched over her like a hawk as she struggled, enjoying every moment.
Then, the piercing pain in the back of her neck returned and numbness washed over her like a tidal wave. She stopped rapidly kicking her feet and let herself float, now feeling nothing.
One by one, moments of her life flashed before her eyes like a film reel. She saw A tiny, chubby Adora, discovering her in a cardboard box outside a storage cupboard in the Fright Zone. She witnessed the blonde reach out a soft hand to guide her to the barracks, declaring that they were now ‘best friends’.
A slightly older Adora, chasing after her down endless muddy green corridors. Catra, calling her the ‘world’s slowest person’ and giggling as she watched the small blonde girl swing from the ceiling. She knew what happened after, and could still feel lingering jolts of crimson lightning shooting through her veins.
“Don’t you see?” A man’s voice boomed, momentarily dissolving the numbness. “Your Adora causes all of your pain. She watched you be punished for the same thing she did and let it happen. Hand yourself over to me, and you will be free of this,”
‘no. I don’t want to be free of her.’
The remnants of the voice faded away, and the nothingness returned.
The scene jumped and shifted. She was now standing in the clearing in Thaymor, she was glaring at Adora through the dust and smoke. She felt the ache of betrayal course through her arteries until it consumed her. Then, she ran away.
His voice returned, shouting louder this time. “She left you, betrayed you. Your Adora isn’t coming back. Let go of this grief, step into my light,” Catra’s ears roared, and her eyes streamed. A piece of her still kept fighting.
‘No. I don’t want her to come back. I don’t want her to be hurt by you. I am doing this so that she never has to.’
A promise swam to the forefront of her mind. You look out for me, and I look out for you. Catra was finally holding up her end of their sacred childhood deal.
The next snippets passed by rapidly. She-ra sending a tidal wave of rainbow magic towards her, sweeping her off her feet and slamming her into a cliff face, Adora punching her in the face with the portal swirling ominously around them, Adora’s piercing gaze as Catra backed away from the now disabled portal mainframe.
These moments merged into one huge lump of hurt and betrayal and anguish. It was almost enough to completely break the spell of numbness cast over her body, but not quite.
More memories passed her by, here one minute, gone the next. Never around long enough for her to latch onto. It felt like she was being drained, every moment stolen from her mind and replaced with blinding white.
She could do nothing but float in the bubbling lime green water and let it happen.
“Your rage at these memories have fueled you for a long time, and now is your chance to give it up. Let me expel the darkness from within you, and you will find peace,” His voice was softer now, more charming. He was making a promise, and she was close to believing it.
‘Come on then. Take me. Discard my rage, fix my messiness, break my brain. It’ll be worth it.’
Although Prime had tried so hard to dispel it, one word still remained lodged in her mind, it had lost all meaning but felt important. She clawed her way towards it, clamouring to claim it. It was the only thing she had left, and she would not let it go.
It was a word filled with anguish and grief, but held so much more than that. It had been held on angry tongues as prisoner but also caressed with the softest of hands. It was a word that could be found on the battlefield, said with so much bitterness behind it that it physically pained the speaker. But then there were days long ago where the word had meant love and protection. A light in the darkness of the world around them.
It was a person. It was a feeling. It was someone Catra wished she could find and hold for the last time. If she could she’d apologise properly, hold her close and promise to stay, to be better.
Adora, Adora, Adora. The word echoed around in her mind, bouncing off of the sterile white walls. No face came to mind now. Just a flicker of warmth and a flare of anger. Nothing more.
Adora. Adora. Adora.
Don’t come here, no matter what.
With an empty heart and a broken soul, she surrendered herself wholly to him. Prime had won, and he could have his way with her. She had suffered to become pure.
***
She was a soldier, basking in the glory of Lord Prime. She was chosen, beloved and devoted to no one but him.
Everything about herself reflected him in some way. The smooth, gelled hair that was cropped to her ears mirrored her brothers and she relished the way it made her feel like part of a family. She belonged here. Sure, her body was not that of a clone’s but it didn’t matter. She still bore the same emerald eyes, the same clear, sharp connection to the hivemind. Better still, there was no memory of all her grief, all her pain before her purification. All she felt was bliss, and she was eternally in Prime’s debt for casting out the shadows that once lived within her.
The hivemind was loud, but surprisingly easy to navigate.
‘clone #0479, take the next left then enter room 3024’
‘servers are standing by’
‘clone #0362, dissipate landing bay barriers, ship incoming’
‘ soldier #1000, clone #0912, clone #0539, please escort our guest to Lord Prime’s throne room’
A flicker of panic flared in the soldier’s chest, but was extinguished by a rush of Prime’s light. She began her ascent to Prime’s throne room, flanked by two of her brothers. They had a visitor.
Once she reached the bridge leading to the throne room, her and her brothers paused. They had to wait for the signal from their Lord, lest they ruin the moment. She pulled her hood up to cover the top half of her face.
‘Soldier #1000, Come to me’
The soldier obliged, her brothers following closely behind her. Every step invigorated her, lit a flame deep within her. This was her destiny, her purpose. She would make Prime proud.
Once she reached the top of the walkway, she pulled down the fabric distorting her face and opened her eyes.
Bright green met ocean blue, and the soldier smiled serenely as she uttered:
“Hello, Adora.”