Chapter 14

A subtle gesture from Princess Frosta was all it took for the musicians to begin playing – the music was somewhere between fancy and dancy and Luz had a momentary lock-up in her brain as she looked squarely at (well, slightly up at) Adora. Unconsciously, she swung her jacket off her shoulder and tossed it to a robed guard, who caught it and looked rather annoyed to be put into coat guard duty. Luz barely even noticed – her brain was instead spinning around a single point.

What frigging dances do they even do here?

Luz prided herself in being at least somewhat decent at dancing. In truth, this was due to a crippling and only semi-treated case of impostor syndrome when it came to social interaction, inculcated by a childhood of people freaking out about ... oh, running down the list would be too long for an aside. Spiders. Folding her eyelids back and going ‘bleep bloop’ at them. That one time she had tried her improvised pyrotechnics for the thanksgiving day pageant. The sausages.

Reality, when viewed from, say the eyes of Amity or Camila Noceda, or any of the people who loved Luz and could perceive her from outside of her own skin...

Luz Noceda was a spectacular dancer. Lithe, graceful, poised, able to read the movement of her partner’s body with a flash, it was part of the same athleticism that her time in the Boiling Isles had honed and refined – a feedback cycle that left her quite possibly the most talented dancer in the entirety of the Princess Prom.

Adora glanced away from Luz as the music started up, and Glimmer, who was busy holding back Bow from his explosion of questions, made a vague gesture at her. Out of the corner of her eyes, Luz saw some of the other people in the crowd beginning to dance – and it was one of those where people mirrored the actions of the others. Hand up, twirl, twirl, hand up, arm to arm, eyes to eyes. She grinned and pressed her forearm against Adora’s, feeling the iron deep strength even through that little touch.

Luz’s brain felt like it was skittering from point to point on a diagram. Okay. I just need to – keep secrets – then once I – and now I just need to – make Adora think – then I-

She fell back on the personae she had adopted. First One. Luz Noceda, witch extraordinaire. Badass. She smirked at Adora, but Adora spoke first.

“When did you join the Evil Horde? And where did you come from?”

“As I said, another universe,” Luz said, casually.

“No one comes from other universes!” Adora hissed. “There’s just one!”

“Mm, so you think. Curious.” Luz smirked back at her, as they circled. Luz stepped in close, putting her hand on Adora’s hip.

“Catra put you up to this. Didn’t she?” Adora’s breath was soft and her blue eyes were fierce and probing ... and concerned. Luz could see it, buried deep in there. She wanted to immediately start babbling – but would Luz Noceda, First One, babble? No. And more importantly, would Luz babbling about everything she thought and know get noticed by Catra. Would Catra set off the bomb she might have hidden in Luz’s nice suit? Luz didn’t gulp or flinch or freeze. Instead, she slid an arm around Adora’s back as the dance shifted subtly in character – everyone else was backing off, but she didn’t. She instead twirled Adora around, holding her close as she grinned at her.

“Ah, Catra! The girl you abandoned to the ... what did you call it again? The Evil Horde?” Luz asked. “And let that awful Shadow Weaver do whatever she wanted to her? That Catra?”

“I-I...” Adora stammered and Luz realized, with a lurch, that she had let real anger flash into her voice. But why not? Adora had to have seen what Catra was going through. Right? Except Adora was fighting for the good guys, against the Evil Horde. Luz mentally kicked herself. She had to find a way to fix this. Adora shook her head, then pushed back – stumbling into some of the other dancers. “I didn’t abandon her! I asked her to come with me, but-”

Luz snatched her hand, yanking her back into the dance. Her voice was soft. “Well, she’s not here. Which is something I did want to talk about.”

Adora, her cheeks flushing, her eyes flickering with hurt, allowed herself to be swung around as the music slowed and then came to its flourishing finish. The dancers stopped in their movement – some heading off to pick up food, others waiting for the next song to start, laughing and talking.

“What is her plan? What is she doing?” Adora asked.

“Something flashy, I bet,” Luz said, shrugging one shoulder as she did so. Her voice softened and she leaned in. “But I think that we can help her, if we work together.”

Adora frowned. “Help her do what?”

Luz glanced to the side. Once the music started, she could whisper the words – or maybe mouth them. But before she could, Bow slid into the conversation like a wrecking ball and annihilated any chance that she could tell Adora that she wanted to rescue Catra from the Evil Horde and get her somewhere where she could do good instead of, uh, evil. Bow, his eyes shining with excitement, was holding a kind of sleek ... tablet! He had a tablet computer! Luz’s eyes widened as she saw it, while he said: “You’re a First One! Uh! Can you tell me if my tablet is up to snuff, I built it at the Etheria Maker’s Fair inspired by some old First Ones components that they had there-”

“Bow!” Adora hissed.

Luz barely registered that a tall, pretty blond (the same one who had restrained Bow earlier) was glowering at her as if she was made of snakes.

“Wow, this looks ... exactly like the kind of, uh, hand terminals I would use back on my starship,” Luz said, taking the tablet and turning it around in her hands.

“Starship!?” Bow squeaked, while a gasp and then a sound of slapping footsteps, then a new face peered in from the corner of Luz’s vision: She was a cute, skinny looking girl with purple hair, dressed in a rugged outfit that looked more suited for working in a machine shop than dancing. She had a pair of goggles that she had swung up to her brows, and her hair was long. Like, long enough to reach down to her back and done up in two pony tails. Then, before Luz’s eyes, one of her ponytails reached out and snagged a tiny treat from one of the food tables, bringing it to her hand, which then transferred it to her mouth.

“You have a starship? Which propulsion did it use – fusion power or some kind of magical energy tap, did it travel faster than the speed of light and, if so, which method did it use, a warp drive? Hyperspace? Telespatial portals? Was it armed? With what? What defenses did it have?”

Luz blinked, then started to tick them off on her fingers, drawing on mostly Episode 8, Season 2, Nacelle, which had mostly been the engineering girl’s turn for the spotlight. She had to force herself to not slip into a rustic, Texan twang when she practically quoted Chief Trina Teller from memory. “Antimatter/Matter reaction for realspace, 5^th space folding using Neckland Field Generators – using wormholes, obviously. The armament were two gravitic imploder lancers, three plasma cannons, and an atomic nuclear torpedo launcher.” She nodded. “Defenses were primarily plasma shielding, mass screens, and some point defense using kinetic spalling launchers.”

“Woooooooooow!” The purple haried girl took out what seemed to be a small notepad and started scribbling. “Gravitic ... Imploder ... Lancer, I can probably begin working on tha-”

“How did you get stranded here?” Bow asked.

“Oh, there was this huge jerk named, uh ... uh ... Emperor Belos,” Luz said, realizing she didn’t even need to make up a name to sound like she was staying in character. Adora frowned at her.

“Emperor Belos?” she asked, sounding skeptical. “Right, sure. It sounds to me like you’re just making a bunch of stuff up that no one can even check or verify.”

Luz, who had been making up a bunch of stuff no one could check or verify, scowled at Adora. “Fine then, do you want me to demonstrate my ... First One-ey-ness?” She asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Sure,” Adora said, nodding. “Or, maybe...” She grabbed onto Bow, jerking him close, whispering to him. Luz’s ears perked as hard as she could, so hard that she nearly grew points like Amity’s ears. But the music had just started and the dancers around them were giving the cluster of people rather fishy looks. Luz wanted to slip into the conversation between Bow and Adora – but before she could, the purple haired girl grabbed onto her arm, shaking her slightly.

“First One girl,” she said, firmly. “I need to know, what other technologies did you have in your First One ship.”

“I, uh-” Luz started, but before she could respond, Adora had grabbed onto her other arm.

“Come on,” Adora said, her voice firm.

“Aww,” the purple haired girl said as Luz allowed herself to be dragged away by a big beautiful amazon. The fact that she was not currently fainting with delight was because her heart was hammering in her chest and she felt sick to her stomach. Adora and Bow glanced around nervously – and a few guards gave them the kind of stern, monitoring look that could only come from people in face concealing helmets and robes. Luz forced herself to look less dragged and more led away eagerly, while internally, her brain was going from point to point again.

If they want to hear the truth, and we’re alone, try and subtly indicate that you might have a booby trap on you. Wait, no, you got rid of your jacket, was the bomb on the jacket? If it was, then where was it now, in a coat room somewhere? Auugh!

They came to the corner of the big ballroom, and there, Adora shoved Luz into the wall with enough force to drive the air from her lungs. Luz blinked – did Adora know her own strength? – but before she could say anything, Adora said: “What did you mean by helping Catra?”

Luz breathed in, then reached up and tugged her collar flat. She wished she had suspenders to snap too. Note for future dressing up games.

“I meant,” she said, hesitating. How do I say leave the Horde without saying leave the Horde? How do I do this all without exploding? Then Luz realized, grimly, that she would just need to take the risk. The longer she spent twirling her wheels and trying to play both sides as safely as possible, the more likely it was that Catra would do something stupid and irrevocable. As it was, she had already done enough being a distraction.

But...

It was one thing to say that, in your head.

It was another thing to speak when you had a good chance of exploding. Or...

Worse.

There was a worse, and it hit Luz’s brain like a sledgehammer.

What if Catra learned that Luz had ‘betrayed’ her. What if she had to flee the Fright Zone. What if she had to spend the rest of her life here, on Etheria, fighting the Horde and never, ever, ever getting home. The image of Amity growing older and sadder and more distant from her was almost as horrible as the image of Amity being crushed under Belos’ heel as he consumed the entire Boiling Isles. Both images tormented her in that moment.

If I stay with the Horde, I can get home, definitely. They have portal technology, Hordak is working on it, he said so himself.

“ ... I meant...” Luz said, again. All those thoughts had flashed through her head at a million miles a second – it had only felt like she had spent an eternity thinking. But even at her heightened rate of speculation Bow and Adora would only wait for her to finish her sentence for so long.

Which is why it was both kind of nice and absolutely horrible that the room chose that moment to quake like it had been hit with a half a dozen explosions at once. The ceiling shuddered and bits of ice-chips and fragments came spilling down onto the crowd. People started to rush for the exits as Princess Frosta stood, her voice shockingly calm considering her age. “Everyone remain calm! Head for the exits, and guards, to me!”

“Catra...” Adora whispered, then snapped her head around to glare at Luz. “You liar!”

“I wasn’t lying, honestly!” Luz said. “I just ... was ... sent here to distract you.”

“You’re not even a First One, are you!?” Bow sounded just as horrified.

“Well, technically, I could be!” Luz said, grinning weakly.

Adora let her go and turned, sprinting towards the sounds of the explosions – while Bow hurried after her.

“Wait!” Luz said, hurrying after them. “Wait, wait, I do want to-” She lunged, managed to get her fingers around Bow’s arm. He staggered – and was perfectly still and distracted for a sudden jabbing stinger, which punched into his back. He stiffened, then fell into Luz’s arms. Luz held him, her eyes widening. “Whoa, whoa whoa!” She looked around and saw that the stinger had come from Scorpia, who grinned confidently.

“Gottem!” she said.

“Uh...” Luz said, then yelped as two guards advanced on them.

“Unhand that guest!” one said.

“Cover me, Luz,” Scorpia said, grabbing Bow and slinging him over her shoulder.

Luz blinked – and realized she’d have to start talking really fast. The guards were both dressed in thick blue coats, with white fringe around their helmets that reminded her of fur. They also had ice spears. Ah man. That was cool. Luz spread her hands.

“So, uh, I can ex-” she started as they advanced on her, speartips at the ready. She jerked left as one thrust at her, while the other grabbed for her arm. Luz yanked herself backwards and, reflexively, reached into her pocket, yanked out her runing paper and her stylus, and then sprang back to land lightly on a table. “Don’t make me use this?”

“A pen?” one of the guards asked.

“Yeah!” Luz said. “The pen is mightier than the ice spear!”

The two guards scowled and advanced forward again.

Luz scrawled, then slapped down the rune on the edge of the table, then leaped to the side. The rune exploded with a wave of black lightning, sending the two guards stumbling backwards as the table – itself made of ice – turned into a fine must. One of the guards fell fully onto his back, clutching his arm, hissing in pain. Luz felt sick, even as she turned to run after Scorpia, who was at the exit out of the ball room.

I can fix this, later, I can fix this! Luz thought, frantically, as more screams filled the building.

“Awesome job, Luz!” Scorpia said, cheerfully, as they came out to find Ronnie, Kyle and Rogellio - all wearing definitely 100% stolen Snow Guard uniforms – waiting for them. Bow was tossed to them, and Scorpia turned to face Luz. “Go to the roof – Catra told me she wanted you up there.”

“R-Right,” Luz said.

She started into the confusion and the panic of the collapsing structure – the bombs, whatever they had hit, had caused everything to go haywire. The floor was growing slippery under her feet, as if the ice was beginning to melt, and the walls showed cracks. Luz’s heart thudded in her chest as she pushed past screaming guests as they rushed for exists, then started up some stairs, taking them three at a time, her hands on the frigidly cold banisters – just in case she hit a patch of slippery ice. Her breath was fogging by the time she reached the roof and came out onto the sheer surface that looked out over the Kingdom of Snows’ and all its blue and white and auroral glory.

The cold was getting sharper, despite everything looking more melty. Whatever magic Frosta had used to sculpt her castle was going completely ... hay...

She blinked.

For just a moment, in the fog of her breath, she swore she could see a rune.

“Another rune from a runestone...” Luz whispered.

“You!”

Luz spun around. “Me!”

Adora had reached the roof too – through a different method, it seemed. There were chunks of ice beginning to float up and up around the building – and Adora was clinging to one.

Another was carrying Catra. She hopped cheerfully from the ice and landed beside Luz, her arm snaking around her shoulders as she grinned at Adora. “Ah, you’ve met Noceda? My new... friend?” she asked, cheerfully.

“Uh-” Luz said, while trying to squish the part of her that was squealing and kicking its legs at the way that Catra had emphasized friend.

“I knew it!” Adora said, her eyes flashing. “You are a liar, Noceda!”

“Oh, what did you tell her?” Catra asked, laughing. “The last time I saw Adora get that mad, it was when I beat her at the finals.”

“I wasn’t mad then!” Adora said, then shook her head, scowling. “What was the plan? Distract me with your new ... new ... new ... girlfriend!? Then blow up the Princess Prom?”

“Girlfriend!” Catra gasped, faux shocked. “Luz, do you think we have that chemistry?” She asked, pressing herself against Luz’s side, her hand slipping along Luz’s belly. Luz spluttered.

“I-I-” she started.

Adora shook her head. “Well, it’s not going to work, Catra. I won’t let you get away with this.”

“Heh, Adora...” Catra said, grinning as her hand slid up and down Luz’s tummy, feeling her up quite openly – and Luz had never felt quite so objectified in her life. She felt a cold anger boiling inside of her as she saw Adora’s hurt and anger and how gleefully Catra was stoking it up with every purring touch – every cuddle. Every bit of pressure. “ ... I already did?”

Then she shoved Luz backwards. Luz yelped and fell straight off the roof.

And crashed directly into the armrest and seat back of the cockpit’s left chair in the flier that had taken her to the Princess Prom in the first place, her head bonking directly into one of Kyle’s arms. “Hey Kyle!” Luz said, panting. “I think Catra just tried to kill me.”

Then Catra dropped down with the light grace of a cat pouncing onto a smaller, more bisexual cat whose fursona was that of an otter. Her nose almost bumped Luz’s nose as she grinned – and only Luz might have thought of the Cheshire Cat in that feral grin and those gleaming eyes.