Chapter 10

Catra’s wonderful, marvelous, perfect plan to thread her way through this fraught situation and end up with everything she ever wanted ran into several snags. The first happened when she heard the sound of fighting and explosions and sprang to her feet – then slammed, directly, into Scorpia, who had come to her door on the heel of the alarm being raised.

“Titan-Ra is-”

“Get out of-”

The two girls slammed into one another and Catra sprawled onto her back. Scorpia, aghast, remained standing where she had stopped, her body as tall and broad as a particularly beautiful brick wall. “Oh, sorry, Ca-”

“Can’t you do anything right!?” Catra snarled, springing to her feet. Her hair was a wild chaos, and her eyes – rimmed with red from her crying jag – saw little more than a haze as she glowered at Scorpia. “Get out of my way!”

“It’s just, the castle is under attack, and-”

“I know!” Catra grabbed onto Scorpia’s collar, yanking her down, the big girl bending almost in half as Catra almost spat in her face. “And if you weren’t such a useless incompetent, than maybe, maybe, we’d have stopped this before it started!” She shoved the stunned Scorpia back against the wall, making her stumble and half fall down it. Then Catra was down the corridor, her heart in her throat, her skin burning with anxiety. Titan-Ra was attacking. She had to ... she had to keep Titan-Ra out of the Emperor’s clutches, and ... get Adora to ... she had to...

Argh!

She sprinted not out the front door, but rather, along the interior of the wall, coming to one of the sally ports that had been made for defenders to emerge from the castle and come at any attack sideways. She slipped from the doorway, her breath coming short and swift as she pulled her mask out from her robes, pressing it to her face. She was fairly sure that she could still salvage this.

How? How exactly are you going to fix this? A hissing voice snarled at the back of her head. Mom always said you were a stupid failure.

The funny thing? She had a hard time remembering her mom’s face. It was always in black and white, just like memories of the camp, and the run through the woods. She couldn’t remember hugs, nor kisses, nothing but the stern curve of lips and the glowering expression. She could remember the recriminations, but not ... anything else. Not even color. The thought caused her to pause, moments away from the warehouse.

The second snag arrived there.

“Amity?” Catra asked.

Amity Blight was not aware, when she was laying in bed, writing down her thoughts into her journal, that she was going to be indirectly responsible for ruining Catra’s life. Which was ironic, considering how much of her journaling was actually directly related to the aforementioned angsty lesbian catgirl.

“Amity, dinner soon!” A voice called up the stairs – it was the sound of her father, curt and slightly distracted. It was the tone of voice when mother had told him to tell Amity something and he had forgotten why it was important, but did remember that he had to do it.

A second later, Emira and Emiric leaned in at her door, grinning in like vultures.

“Amity, dinner soon!” Emira said, cheerfully.

“Yeah, Mittens, dinner soon!” Emiric added.

Amity glowered at them. “I was distracted from the dinner bell one time.”

“Yeah, but why were you distracted, again?” Emira asked, sliding into her younger sister’s room. She grinned, impishly, then made to grab for Amity’s journal. Amity, knowing her entire face had gone red, grabbed her journal and jammed it against her chest, the pages crumpling.

“Nothing!” She said.

“Eliza Uh Nothing, that was the full name,” Emiric said, cheerfully.

“It’s that new girl at school, isn’t it?” Emira asked, flopping down onto the bed as Emiric sat behind Amity. “The cat demon girl?”

“No! Shut up! Maybe!” Amity stammered, while her older siblings leaned in, both of them looking quite wicked.

“Amity, get down here!”

That was not father’s voice. That was mother’s voice. Amity pushed her siblings aside and stood, then hurried out of the room. The journal, which she had left behind, landed on Emira’s lap and her older sister grinned eagerly, picking it up – before the book burst into purple flames, singing her fingers. Amity leaned back into the room, glowering at her, pointing her fingers at her eyes, then back to Emira, then to her eyes again. Then she was out again.

“No fun,” Emira muttered. “ ... still, she’s crazy in love with her, based on the four words I read.”

“Aww!” Emiric said. “Good for mittens.”

Amity came down the stairs, and found her mother was rubbing her pendant, her lips turned down into a fierce frown. “Amity Blight, I told you to make sure that those abomatons were purchased and would do their job – so, why, oh why, are my oracular talents telling me that they’re all about to be shut down in a fiery explosion?” She frowned down at Amity. “Did you store them properly?”

“Yes!” Amity said. “I...” She paused.

Titan-Ra.

The thought popped into her head immediately.

“No,” she said, then.

That also popped out of her mouth before she could stop it. She realized, suddenly, that she had lied to her own mother. But ... if her oracular powers had detected the danger, then if she warned Belos ... and ... Amity gulped, then continued, before her mother could stop her. “No, I just realized what I did wrong! I’ll go fix it, don’t worry Mom!”

“You’d better,” Mom said, narrowing her eyes.

Amity rushed for the door, flinging it open and sprinting out into the gathering twilight.

Odalia Blight sighed. “Aladar, you need to design them to be less explosive.”

“I did,” Amity Blight’s father said, emerging from the kitchen, his hands half cleaned from his work in his abomination laboratory. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, then looked at his wife, who looked back at the door, and arched an eyebrow skeptically.

Catra stood before the warehouse, blinking at Amity behind her mask. Amity was panting, looking as if she had sprinted here from the center of Bonesburrough.

Amity blinked, then turned and pressed her back to the door leading into the rear of the warehouse. She glared at Catra.

“I won’t let you stop Titan-Ra,” she said.

Catra scowled behind her mask.

Great.

More complications.

The crashing and banging from within the warehouse got louder and more frantic. There was a series of glittering sparkling flashes, and Catra clenched her hands as she spoke, as calmly as she could. “Listen, Blight. You don’t know what’s going on here.”

“I think I do,” Amity said, her voice soft. “Titan-Ra is fighting the Belosian Empire. And, you know what, Golden Guard? I think she’s right to do it.” She twitched her fingers and some of her abomination goo flowed from a small vial at the base of her hip, clearly getting ready to be used. Catra rolled her shoulders – then felt the same mixture of excitement and annoyed nausea that she felt when she fought Titan-Ra. Which was absurd. Amity was just a tool to her.

“Heh, you want wild witches to run everything?” Catra asked, her voice sneering.

“I think maybe people shouldn’t be judged by what kind of magic they use – or don’t use,” Amity said.

“What the heck does that mean?” Catra snapped.

“You’d never let a witch without a bile sack into the Golden Guards, would you?” Amity snorted, softly. “Coven magic and control is the only thing Belos wants – well ... I think the world needs room for people that don’t fit his idea of what makes the right kind of witch!”

Catra remained perfectly still, feeling as if something had struck her square through the heart.

She’s fighting me ... for...

Crash.

The sound was unmistakably the sound of a Titan-Ra springing through a building. Catra’s ears twitched and she heard the low roaring of fire. Everything seemed to slow down as the first explosion went. Amity jerked her head around, then swept her hand up and, in a flash, a purple orb of glistening abomination goo surrounded her body. Then the entire warehouse went up with a roar and flare of red light. Debris went whipping through the air and Catra ... stood there. She couldn’t do anything but stand there.

Crunch.

She flipped, then crashed backwards.

Her mask went skittering away, rolling and jouncing and coming to a stop, fetched up against a tree.

Amity swept her hand down as the purple orb she had used to soak the explosion thinned, then poured into her bottle. She saw the prone figure of the Golden Guard, stretched out before her. Amity drew a sharp breath, then hurried forward. She knelt down – and ... froze.

Laying on her back, her face exposed ... was Elizabeth.

Amity sat there, frozen. She wasn’t sure which shocked her more.

Elizabeth, underneath that mask.

Or the jagged chunk of wood that jutted from her cheek.

Elizabeth’s eyes opened and she groaned.

“S-Stay ... still...” Amity whispered, horror and shock and fear and disgust warring in her belly. She sat back on her haunches as Elizabeth – as Catra, as the Golden Guard – sat up. Her head lolled a bit to the side ... and she reached up, mutedly. She took the chunk in her hand and wrenched it free. The flaps of skin left exposed hung tattered.

And didn’t bleed.

Amity’s eyes widened and she gaped at Catra as Catra put her hand to her cheek.

“What?” Catra asked, her voice shockingly normal, considering the hole in her.

Amity scrambled backwards. The horror and betrayal were crashing in like waves as she saw Catra holding her hand to her cheek. Those bright heterochromatic eyes looked up at hers – and they were the same eyes, they were Elizabeth’s eyes, there was no doubt. Amity shook her head, unable to even speak.

“W-Wait, I can explain!”

“You lied to me!” Amity hissed. “You’re not ... you’re...”

Her eyes blurred with tears. She stood up, stumbling backwards as flashes of blue lightning seemed to slam into the air around her. It was like the prelude to a painstorm, and she’d have loved to be washed away into nothingness right now.

“I can explain,” Catra whispered.

“Fuck you,” Amity whispered. “I hope you do die.”

She turned and walked – not ran – away, her back held up straight as Catra remained on her knees. Her hand pressed to the dull ache that was her ruined face. And she knew she should have been thinking the obvious questions.

Why am I not bleeding?

Why does this not hurt?

Why am I even alive?

But instead, all she could think of were ... were...

I’m not actually Elizabeth. I’m her evil twin.

Elizabeth is a doppelganger.

This is a curse! I look like whoever you most love.

The lies came fast and tangled up on one another – words colliding, sentences snarling up like snakes. Her tongue felt fat and heavy and she couldn’t so much as say a word past the lump in her throat before Amity was gone – vanished by the heat and light of the fire. Catra stood and stumbled. She moved a wide berth around the warehouse ... and she peered around to see Adora on her knees, her arms chained, her sword shattered and in Belos’ hands.

Catra remained standing perfectly still.

Then she slipped back into the shadows.

Adora’s knees ached as she hung from her chains in the dungeon. She closed her eyes and tried to think of anything – but there’s something about despair. It doesn’t just make it impossible to plan or act, it makes it impossible to even form sentences in your head. Instead, Adora’s thoughts were just the same endless jumble, bouncing between topic and topic, never quite forming into anything as coherent as a sentence. She knew she should cry, but there were no tears in her. She had been wrung out by everything she had learned and seen.

“It’s all your fault.”

The voice that hissed from the darkness was feminine and unfamiliar.

“I’m sorry ... no, I’m not sorry...”

Adora lifted her head. She blinked.

Was there someone else in the cell with her? She couldn’t see them – she could only see shadows and chains and darkness. She shifted in her position, her chains clinking loudly as she swung her head around. She had been brought past Belos’ throne – where a huge heart had been suspended and connected to with cables and wires and complex pumps. There, she had been brought down to this cell. And now, in the gray darkness, she swore she could hear a voice.

“Don’t be! No! She’s ... she stole your family, just...”

“Hello?” Adora asked.

And before her eyes ... some of the shadows moved. They flowed along the wall, like a picture given life. The figure was more suggestion than symbol, blocky and gangly all at once. But it was still, unmistakably, a person. There was a head, and some arms, and some legs. The figure was pinned to the wall by its dimensional nature, and yet, there was a feeling that they were pressed up against some barrier, squishing hard to try and peer at Adora. This blocky fingers spread.

“You can hear me?” she whispered.

The sound of footsteps.

The figure shifted, then shrank back, whispering. “I’m not here.”

Then she was gone – and a light came from around the corner. Striding into the room, his expression grimly amused, was Emperor Belos. His mask had been removed, revealing a remarkably witchy face, though his ears were tattered rather than pointed, as if some old battle had ravaged him. His features were scarred, chipped here, and lined with dark splotches. He looked down at Adora, then sighed. “Well, well, well,” he said. “You are a curious ramification of success.”

Adora glared at him. “You killed my whole family.”

“No, actually, I didn’t,” Belos said, his voice annoyingly smug. “I’ve killed quite a lot of families, and yours didn’t exist to be killed, when I was here.” He reached into his robes, then drew out the hilt of the sword ... and the rest of the sword. It was whole again. Adora’s mouth opened in confusion.

“This blade carries quite a few enchantments,” Belos said, dryly. “It’s, in fact, tied to the Titan itself. Only someone who has been touched by the magic of the Titan could influence it. Once that influence was exerted, an illusion spell was easy enough to manage.” He knelt down, setting the sword so that the tip rested on the ground, his hand cupping the hilt. He leaned against it. “Which means I understand how she got in there.” He nodded to the wall – to the figure, which had left. At that voice, the figure peeked out again.

“How did she? Who is she?” Adora asked, frowning.

“My old enemy,” Belos said, chuckling. “And she’s there because I put here there, Adora Grayskull. And I can do far worse to you as well if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

Adora gulped.

The figure looked away – the shadow projection making it difficult to see eyelines, but the tilting of her head was clear enough to see. Adora looked back at Belos, lifting her chin. She gripped onto her despair and then threw it aside with a mental effort. She lifted her shoulders, then leaned back against the wall, using her legs to give her arms some rest from her hanging position.

“Ask,” she said, flatly.

“How did you get here?” Belos asked.

“A magical portal, obviously,” Adora said. “The same way that Catra got through here.”

“Ahh, Catra,” Belos said, grinning. “You knew her, in the other world?”

Adora realized that if Catra had never mentioned her to the Emperor, she had as much as directly told him that they were friends. Her stomach flopped and she looked horrified – but before she could stammer anything more, Belos said. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew Catra was from the human realm – and the only other realm that the Grayskulls might have sent their child would be the human realm, ergo.”

“Wait, if you didn’t kill them...” Adora asked.

“In any timeline where I exist, I take and keep studious notes, where only I know where to find them,” Belos said, standing up with a soft grunt, using the sword as a walking stick of sorts. He looked down at her. “So, it was the Owl Lady?”

Adora glared at him.

“It’s always the Owl Lady, in some fashion,” Belos said, clicking his tongue. “Still, while it doesn’t explain everything, it’s still enough for me to know my next step.”

“Y-You’re talking like you’re not from here,” Adora whispered.

“He’s not.” The shadowy figure slid along the roof. “Aren’t you. Phillip.”

Her voice was a venomous snarl.

“Huh,” Belos – or, uh, Phillip – said, lifting his head. “Can you hear her?” He looked at Adora, who nodded mutely. “Interesting. I suppose that it is the proximity to the Titan’s Heart. What little blood is still in there weakens barriers between worlds quite marvelously ... in truth, I am now an outsider twice over. Time, it seems, is as easily rewritten as all other laws of our Savior by these vile creatures.” He sighed. “But, one must use the weapon of the arch-enemy if one is to destroy evil, sometimes.”

Adora blinked at him. “T-The Savior? What savior, who are you talking about!?”

“Why our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, of course,” Belos said, then turned and started towards the doorway. “Now, I have an Owl House to destroy.”