She-Ra: Codename Resurrection

CHAPTER VI: Red-Eye Flight

It had been a rough morning. This was fine for Scorpia, who was used to it - drills, announcements, accidental explosions. But as Glimmer herded everyone onto the ship the next morning, she was still visibly frazzled. "One moment, please," she'd said to Bella, physically restraining her voice. "I have to talk to my crew in private."

Of course, when everyone told Adora what happened the next morning, she freaked out. Catra didn't help. If anything, her freaking out aggravated Adora's freaking out, and then it became this vicious cycle until Glimmer had to yell at them. But finally, she managed to wrangle them into a calm, awake meeting. As the airstairs closed, she turned to them with her serious face on. "Okay," she said, her tone measured. "We're gonna discuss this like civilized adults. No shouting, we listen to each other, all that good stuff. Alright?"

Catra was standing almost defensively in front of Adora, who was leaning on the commander's chair, scowling and thinking with her arms folded. Neither of them said anything.

"Adora, you can go first."

Adora stepped forwards, primed to speak, but controlled herself at the last second. "Alright," she began. "We need to take the long way. We'll deal with Automa on our own schedule. It's safer than letting Bella accompany us, especially with that guy."

Glimmer waited.

"Listen," Adora continued, "Bella has only claimed that she knows people. Right? I can use She-Ra to attract some attention, and then we can know people instead. We don't need a middleman." She turned. "Catra?"

"I'm done trusting people like her," Catra said, spitting the words out. Scorpia felt the anger like a burst of electricity. "And I can't believe you're falling for it."

"Catra," Glimmer said, putting her hands together in front of her face. She hummed a little. "I explained that I do not trust anyone here. Too many suspicious things have happened in the last day for me to jump into this blind. However. Imagine for a second that aliens come to Etheria. They ignore the people they make first contact with, demand an audience with all of the Princesses, and say they found something inside our planet and want to take it out. How would you respond?"

Scorpia turned back to Catra, unsure of exactly what to do with her claws. Rather than replying, Catra simply narrowed her eyes.

"Now imagine that they were friendly with the first people they met, and those people led them to us instead. You'd be willing to listen to them more, right?" Glimmer put her hands on her hips. "What I'm saying is that this may not be necessary, but it's the path of least resistance. If we don't want to rock the boat and, you know, accidentally declare war or something, we need someone who knows the planet. Even if she has bad intentions."

"What if she lies to the leaders?" Catra interjected. "What if she tells them we're here to declare war anyway, so they can arrest us and we leave Etheria unprotected?"

"That's where we rely on She-Ra," Glimmer replied, gesturing to Adora. "You saw her destroy Horde Prime's soul too, right?"

"That's - that's not what happened -" Adora said quickly, waving her hands.

"But what I mean is that if something goes wrong, you know..." She glanced around at the rest of the crew. "We're the Best Friend Squad. The Super Best Friend Squad. If we want to save this planet and stay out of danger at the same time, we have to at least be nice to the people here." She lowered her voice a little. "You know, maybe the reason Bella comes off the way she does is because we don't know the local customs. Did you ever think of that?"

Adora closed her eyes and leaned back on the commander's chair. "Bow, you've been quiet."

He looked up, clearly reluctant to speak. "... I'm scared," he said simply. "I'm scared that this is going to turn into something we can't handle. But I also believe in us." He put a hand on Glimmer's back and smiled a little. "Like I said, as soon as Bella does what she said she was going to do, and introduces us to the leaders she knows, then, if we still don't trust her, we can continue our mission on our own. Right?"