WARRIORS

by CROSSOVER KING

We feel the evil coming

On the mystical and mysterious planet of Etheria, another beautiful morning was about to begin. The big bright sun had begun to rise in the east, the birds were chirping with excitement, and there was a light soothing breeze in the air. Needless to say, it was a truly peaceful period of time for everyone currently residing on the planet.

Well, ALMOST everyone currently residing on the planet.

Making their way through the Whispering Woods was a band of thugs led by Catra, a ferocious feline warrior and a Force Captain under the service of an oppressive intergalactic empire known as the Horde. She was accompanied by a humanoid goat, a four-armed humanoid lizard, and Catra's partner and fellow Force Captain, Scorpia, a normal human equipped with a scorpion-like exoskeleton. All four of them were headed towards the Horde's base of operations in Etheria, known as the Fright Zone, while also transporting a gagged prisoner with bound hands named, Adora, a Horde deserter and the latest reincarnation of the protector of all Etheria, named "She-Ra".

As they continued to walk towards their destination, they started pondering on both what had happened in the past few days and what would happen once they would reach Fright Zone. Catra could not wait for their arrival as, in that moment, she wanted nothing more than making Adora suffer by giving She-Ra's sword to the Horde's leader, Hordak, so that he could use it to open a portal and bring the rest of the Horde forces to Etheria, allowing both him and Catra to conquer the entire planet and eliminate every single one of Adora's friends in the Rebellion. Even though Catra and Adora used to have a strong friendship since childhood, Catra had recently become very enraged by Adora leaving her in Fright Zone all by herself, her constantly preventing Catra from achieving her true potential by beating her at everything, and most recently, their former commanding officer and mother figure Shadow Weaver leaving Fright Zone to find Adora and thus, causing Hordak to severely punish Catra for it. As a result, Catra had simply no semblance of love for Adora at that point and all she wanted to do was to to return all the pain Adora had caused her whether it was intentional or not.

As for Adora herself, she was extremely afraid of what could happen when the Horde would manage to open a portal. Before being captured by Catra's crew, she had listened to an ominous message left behind by her predecessor, Mara, which explained that death and destruction would follow if the sword is ever used to open portals. While she did not quite understand what exactly Mara meant to say with that message, she was thinking that it could be a warning about the Horde using a portal to send the entirety of its army to Etheria in order to conquer the whole planet, kickstarting global devastation in the process. Therefore, she was feeling even more guilty than before about causing the huge rift between herself and Catra, and the fact that Catra was willing to commit such a huge atrocity to the entire world due to her thirst for vengeance was making Adora question whether or not she was really worthy of bearing the title of She-Ra.

Meanwhile, Scorpia was actually conflicted about her and Catra returning to Fright Zone. The few days they had spent in the vast desert known as the Crimson Waste fighting thugs, forming their own gang, and throwing a party for their victory against Adora was the only time she had seen Catra genuinely happy. The fact that they were leaving all of that behind and going back to a place where Catra was constantly abused by both her peers and superiors was really making Scorpia concerned about her friend's mental state. Even though Catra had said numerous times that she did not consider Scorpia as a true friend, it did not really matter to Scorpia all that much. She was greatly enjoying Catra's company and was trying very hard to be closer to her. In fact, she had pleaded with her to let them stay in the Crimson Waste with their gang so that both of them could be happy there for the rest of their days. However, since Catra was so obsessed with getting her revenge on Adora, Scorpia was forced to follow her back to Fright Zone and despite her being saddened by this turn of events, she still wanted to keep Catra out of harm's way however she could.

---

By the time the sun was halfway to its peak, the band had arrived to the very edge Whispering Woods and were almost at the borders of Fright Zone. Then, as they finally got out of the forest, they suddenly encountered a sight none of them were ever expecting to see.

The entirety of the base was covered in a thick wax-like substance and there were several large objects resembling cocoons attached to each building. By far, the most heavily affected structure appeared to be the main operations building and on top of all that, there seemed to be strange winged creatures perched up on rooftops and flying around the cocoons. While the band could not exactly make out what these things were from a distance, they did see that the creatures were rapidly flapping their wings like bees and that their bodies looked like that of small horses.

Gazing at all this insanity had caused the jaws of Catra, her followers, and even Adora to instantly drop. It was extremely hard for them to comprehend what was going on and all five of them were struggling to come up with theories on what might have caused all that. A handful of seconds later, however, Catra did come up with a theory and, unsurprisingly, it had something to do with her rivalry with Adora.

So, while Adora was held by Scorpia's claws, she shot a fierce look at her former friend, removed the gag on her mouth, and exclaimed, "Start talking! What are those things? Did you send them to attack Fright Zone while you were snooping around in the Crimson Waste?"

"What? What are you talking about? I've never seen such creatures in my whole life", Adora confusedly replied.

However, this just made Catra even angrier and she grabbed Adora's throat before shouting, "Don't you dare lie to me! How am I supposed to know they're not some kind of First Ones monsters you found in another temple and unleashed them to wreak havoc on the base, huh? I still remember those bugs in the temple we found in the middle of Whispering Woods, you know."

"Um, Catra? You told me those were large spiders and technically, spiders aren't bugs. They're arachnids", Scorpia suddenly interjected. "Also, while I haven't known Adora for as long as you have, I don't really think unleashing bugs or any kind of monster on the Horde is something she would normally do."

Though she was initially bewildered at her partner defending Adora like that, Catra did think on her words and eventually came to the realization that they were true after all. Therefore, she let out a deep breath, released Adora's throat, and said, "You're right. This isn't Adora's style at all. With that said, we still have no idea what those things are and how they managed to take over the entire Fright Zone while we were away. I guess we need to find out the old fashioned way."

Upon hearing that, the other two members of the band looked at each other with immense shock before the humanoid goat asked, "Boss Catra? Are we seriously walking into that place? I'm not questioning you or anything, but how do we know those creatures won't attack us as soon as they see us?"

In response, Catra let out an irritated sigh and declared, "Just follow my lead and don't make any sudden moves or loud noises. These things are animals and an animal only attacks when it's provoked. You got that?"

Both goons nodded in approval and began following Catra as soon as she started to walk towards the now-infested Fright Zone. As for Adora and Scorpia, they briefly gave unsure expressions to one another before rejoining the group on their new quest. They continued walking until they reached the perimeter of the base and quickly looked around to see if the road ahead was safe to cross. To their surprise, there was not a single creature on sight and even the ones that were flying around the structures a few minutes ago had mysteriously disappeared.

The band nevertheless decided not to lower their guard and started moving with caution towards the main operations building while continuously looking around to both examine the damage the creatures had caused to Fright Zone and see whether or not they were still lurking in the shadows. Even though none of them were in sight, Catra could still feel their presence around every corner due to her feline nature granting her senses of smell and hearing far superior to an average human. Despite this, she continued to move as quietly as possible so that she would not attract any unwanted attention or provoke the creatures into attacking her group. As for the others, they were trying their best to walk as stealthily as her, though it was quite challenging. The humanoid lizard even accidentally kicked a tin can, which caused the rest of the group to immediately stop moving and look around for a short while with immense terror before letting out deep sighs, briefly glaring at the lizard, and continuing onwards.

Several minutes later, they finally reached the main operations building, made their way inside a large hall, and quickly saw that the situation there was just as creepy and disgusting as it was outside. The wax-like substance had spread to every single one of the walls and, upon closer inspection, the group, to their absolute shock, discovered that each of the cocoons (which were also on both the ceiling and the floor of the building) were, in fact, occupied by an unconscious Horde soldier. While her companions continued to gaze at this horrifying sight before them, Scoria noticed a certain young woman trapped inside a nearby cocoon. She had olive skin, long lilac-colored hair, heavy gloves, steel-toed boots, arm covers, a welding mask with red lenses, and a pair of overalls worn like pants.

As soon as Scorpia realized who that was, she dropped Adora to the ground, and rushed towards the cocoon while shouting, "Entrapta! Just hang in there, okay? I'll get you out of there!"

Unfortunately, the moment she tried use open the cocoon with her claws, the ceiling lit up with dozens of blue lights and each one of them turned out to be the eyes of a creature as a large swarm of them rapidly descended upon the group and pinned them to the ground. Even though Catra lasted the longest and put up a short fight, she was nevertheless subdued like her companions.

While they were held captive by the creatures, the group managed to get a good look at just how disturbing their appearance really was. Every single one of them had moderate arctic blue eyes, dark arctic bluish grey neck fins, sea greenish black chitins, and dark blue carapaces. On top of all that, each of their mouths had a pair of white razor-sharp fangs, there was a single curved black horn on each head, their legs were full of holes, and as they violently hissed at their captives, their tongues appeared to be similar to that of a snake.

As the band unsuccessfully attempted to escape from their predicament, their captors suddenly became silent upon noticing the arrival of a creature with a slightly different appearance. Unlike the others, this creature had moderate blue violet eyes, deep crimson neck fin, very dark grey chitin, and dark violet carapaces.

As soon as he landed near the prisoners, he asked with a gruff voice, "What in blazes is going on here? Her excellency is greatly disturbed by the commotion here and demands to know the reason behind it."

Then, one of the creatures stepped forward and explained, "Apologies, General Pharynx. We caught these Horde soldiers trying to free their comrades. At first, we chose not to attack them, because we thought they had come to surrender. In fact, one of them has her hands bound by a rope. Turns out, it was all a ruse to get inside the hive and make a rescue attempt."

Upon hearing all this, Pharynx briefly examined the prisoners before looking back at the soldier and replying, "I see. Take them to the throne room, then. Queen Chrysalis would like to see them before she passes judgement."

The soldier responded with a nod and gestured at his peers to get the prisoners up. They immediately did so and right after that, they started pushing them towards the corridor that was leading to the chamber where Lord Hordak's throne and laboratory were supposed to be. However, once they reached that chamber, they found out that the throne had been completely changed and that something that was not resembling Hordak at all was sitting on it.

She looked similar to Pharynx and the other creatures, and yet, she was much larger than all of them and had some very distinct features. Her eyes were moderate harlequin with dark grayish opal pupils, her mane was dark cerulean, her chitin was very dark grey, her carapaces were gradient from dark arctic blue to moderate green, and her eyeshadow was very deep opal. Moreover, her horn was longer and less curved than the others, and her mouth contained four fangs instead of two.

The moment she laid eyes on the prisoners brought before her by her minions, a wicked smile appeared on her face and she asked, "Well, well, well... Now, what do we have here?"

"Trespassers, my queen", Pharynx replied while he and the other soldiers were bowing before her. "They were caught trying to rescue their friends in the feeding area."

Then, Chrysalis let out a laugh that sounded so sadistic that Adora and Catra gave each other horrified expressions, both of them really afraid of what was in store for them in the near future.

Comments

[PoNyFICTIon12]

It's...AWESOME!!!!!
I be waiting new part this great story! Author,thank you so much!

[CROSSOVER KING]

10335882
What can I say except... YOU'RE WELCOME!