Magic of Etheria

Chapter 3 | A New Quest

'Come on, Adora, you're going to be late for your suuuper important Princess tea club.' Catra giggled and she ran on ahead of me toward the Princess Alliance meeting room where everyone would no doubt already be waiting.

'It's not a tea club!' I shouted back defensively, 'It's a strategy meeting.' I ran after her, trying to grab her as she sped down the hallway, 'I think.'

'Yeah, sure, whatever you say,' she continued down the hallway, keeping out of reach, 'Though I don't believe you for a second.'

The last couple of days had flown by and I had spent most of them together with Catra. I had also managed to find Swift Wind and talk with him about what happened. He explained to me that he had sensed She-Ra appear and tried to tune-in to gauge what was happening in case I was in danger, but the sensations and emotional feedback he received were... not was he was expecting. Catra and I had appeared not long after he found Scorpia and Perfuma, catching all three of them off-guard during their discussion. Us being together was definitely not a secret after that, but no one seemed surprised – apparently everyone except me had picked up on it already.

We spent most of yesterday outside the city, flying around on Swift Wind. After I explained to her that it was his way of apologising, Catra seemed to warm to him and he seemed to become protective of her in turn, no doubt responding to the way I feel about her.

As we neared the meeting room, I realised that I had barely seen anything of Glimmer, Bow and the others since we got back. I had been so enchanted by the thought of spending time alone with Catra that it hadn't even occurred to me to see how the others were doing.

Catra managed to dodge my last attempt to catch her before she bounded through the open door into the meeting room, the murmur of voices stopped almost immediately. I followed her into the room and found her stood stock-still. I looked around the meeting table counter-clockwise, there was Scorpia, Perfuma, Frosta, Mermista, Sea Hawk, Bow, Glimmer, Micah, Castaspella, Spinnerella, Netossa, Entrapta, and unexpectedly... Hordak. Two empty chairs remained in-between Scorpia and Hordak. Catra was staring at him in stunned disbelief, 'Why is he here?' she growled, before moving forward and taking the seat next to Scorpia.

I heard Scorpia whisper, 'Hey there, Wildcat,' as I sat down in the chair between Catra and Hordak.

Catra deadpanned a 'Hey,' in response, not averting her gaze.

Entrapta rose out of her seat, but before she could speak Glimmer stood up and spoke first, 'Hordak is here, for now, because he's volunteered to be Entrapta's lab partner. They will be heading off to Dryl to continue their research soon.'

Catra folded her arms, glaring daggers at Hordak, who simply sat still, neither moving nor speaking. 'Yeah, sure, whatever. As long as he stays far away from me.'

'I'm sure he will,' replied Glimmer. 'Now that that's out of the way... we have a few things to work through. I'll start with the matter of the Horde ships.' Bow held up his pad and pressed a button, then a hologram of the planet appeared in the centre of the table, surrounded by small red blips. 'Thank you, Bow. We received reports from across Etheria over the last couple of days that the clones have vanished. We think it's safe to assume that they have teleported back to their ships. But the fact that they're still there is a concern. Do we have any ideas?'

Mermista raised her hand, 'Yeah, why don't we just get, like, She-Ra to blast them with that massive energy beam or whatever?'

Catra laughed, 'Oh yeah, I'm all for making them burn,' she said, closing one hand into a fist.

'I'm not going to do that! I don't even know if I can do that again.' I protested.

Catra turned to me, 'Why not? You saw what they did to me!'