Tigra groaned as she came back to the world of the living.
She shifted but couldn't move, feeling something pressing down on both of her arms while she felt pressure all over the rest of her.
Her eyes opened, taking in the dark gray of the metallic ceiling and the slight buzzing of a heater going.
'Entrapta must have finally gotten the heaters working.'
She looked to her left and found the sleeping form of Catra, breathing gently with her hair in front of her face.
Tigra did nothing to stop a smile from spreading to her face.
She laid her head back on her pillow and looked right, only to pause.
In front of her lay a young woman with blonde hair laying down her shoulders, a white outfit peeping out from underneath a dark blanket, and a few freckles laying across her cheeks.
Tigra could feel her breath as she breathed in and out.
'Why is Adora sleeping with us?'
Tigra tried to remember, but the last thing she remembered was breaking that murder virus from her sword.
She went through her sheet and noticed two new things.
[Myth is Real - You have 7 extra lives that will refill your HP, SP, and MP to 50% after 4 minutes when your body dies]
Quest [The Predecessor Returns]
…
'I…I remember getting this quest, but only like I just…know it. Like how I know I'm Tigra or even how I can use magic.' She frowned lightly.
She shuffled lightly to get some creaks out before sighing.
'Can't get out.'
Adora was practically hugging her arm to her chest tight enough that, when Tigra tried to move it, she was moving Adora with that arm.
Catra was the same, except Catra's tail had wrapped around her leg while holding Tigra's arm.
She would have better luck taking an intact First One artifact out of Entrapta's hands than getting out of this position without waking one of them.
So, she simply reached out with her magic to see if any of her magic was still activating any spells.
Shadow Spy dismissed!
Shadow Spy recorded 14 hours of memories.
Shadow Spy gained 600 [EXP/HR] * 4 [Genius & Spell Book] * 14 [HRS] = 33,600 EXP!
Shadow Spy leveled up! LV 45 → 48
[Shadow Spy LV 48 (3200/12000) - You can create up to 5 spies and each can record up to 48 hours. As the spell's level increases, you can reduce 1 hour of memory to 10/48 minutes. 14 hours reduced to ~3 minutes]
…
'Might as well get caught up on what happened while my memory slowly comes back to me.'
She closed her eyes to go through the memories.
____________________________
Entrapta calls a ceasefire between the groups.
…
Entrapta, Bow, Inspector, and Scorpia are doing their best to create machinery to keep a constant check on her body.
It was strange to know that, should Tigra not come back, 'she' would cease to be in about 10 minutes.
Adora is unresponsive for the most part and Catra is doing her best to stay in the moment but is sending distressed looks at Tigra's body every few seconds.
Shimmer is doing surprisingly well by taking control of the situation as well as anyone could.
The magicat - Rani - is covering Tigra's body with red magical energy that seems to be holding Tigra's body functions at bay.
Which would have been helpful if The Myth is Real 's timer hadn't already started.
Regardless of what would happen, Tigra has used one of her lives.
Adora seems to reluctantly turn into She-Ra and a bright light suddenly glows.
If 'she' had not moved quickly to the darkest corner of the room, 'she' is certain that 'she' would have been dispelled.
When the light faded, she traveled through the shadows once more and got another vantage point.
Adora had returned to normal with her hands over her face. A continuous beep went out.
Then Tigra woke up a few minutes later.
Coming off of an anesthetic like substance and no longer had her light filter.
After Catra and Adora left, 'she' wanted to follow, but was created to keep an eye on Entrapta.
The group made an agreement to wait out the blizzard as if they were neutral and headed to bed.
'She' continued to follow Entrapta, seeing as that was how her Creator had made her for and watched as she slept.
________________
Tigra opened her eyes, just as she heard a groan coming from her right.
"Tigra…come back…" Adora whispered, her form slightly folding inward towards her arm.
Tigra about started to rumble to hopefully calm her down, only to be too late.
"Tigra!"
Adora sat up quickly, dragging Tigra with her due to her tight hold on Tigra's arm.
Said movement, caused Catra to be dragged upwards as well, waking her up as well.
Catra hissed and looked around with wide eyes.
"Guess I'm the only one waking up nicely today." Tigra spoke, rolling her eyes with a light huff.
"Tigra!" Both exclaimed before Adora wrapped her arms around her tightly.
"Hey, ease up Princess! She was injured." Catra pointed out.
Tigra glanced at her immediate sheet before seeing that, strangely, her Regenerations are working at 95% when they should be either nullified or limited to 1%.
"Eh, I'm fine now." Tigra brushed it off. "My healing factor seems to be working nearly as well as usual."
"So your HP is back to full?"
"Ye…" Tigra's eyes locked onto Adora. "What?"
"Your HP? Health Points? The thing where you die if it reaches zero?" Adora kept going, making Tigra still more and more.
"What are you talking about?"
"You told us while you were coming off of Scopria's makeshift anesthesia they used while you were healing for roughly 5 or 10 minutes." Catra explained.
"I told you what? " She felt slightly stressed and in disbelief. "What could I have told you-"
"Phoenix." Adora started, making Tigra's eyes widen. "Once a month, if your HP is reduced to zero, you return to 75% HP with a 25% increase in all stats for the next 10 minutes."
"I…I don't…"
Catra shifted.
"The Myth is Real. You have 7 - previously 8 - spare lives and each will restore you to 50% HP, MP, and SP upon resurrecting 4 - used to be 5 - minutes later."
Tigra said nothing while the two of them were waiting.
Tigra's eyes moved to her sheet.
"Double checking your sheet?" Catra asked, a slight smirk on her face.
"Horde damn!" She exclaimed. "What didn't I say!?"
"Well, you've told us that this was your third time dying and we saw every time you died on a technicality." Adora answered.
"That…must have been a shock." Tigra muttered.
"You then demanded that we 'get in the bed willingly' or you would 'drag our asses into the bed.'" Catra tacked on.
"Well, it worked."
"Yeah, right before you declared if I didn't stay in the bed, you would pin me."
Tigra looked Adora in the eyes and Adora felt like she should have left that sentence in mystery.
"Dora, I don't need a bed to pin you."
Adora could not find the words and simply groaned into her hands.
"Oh? Right in front of me?" Catra laid a hand across her forehead dramatically.
"Pinning isn't all I would do with you." Tigra smirked.
Catra's tail thumped the bed harshly while Adora looked up with shock, her flush turning into an actual blush now.
"Are-are you you still on that anesthesia?" Adora spoke softly.
"Fuck no." Tigra got up, seeing as they had released her arms in their shock.
She stretched her arms, feeling several pops throughout her arms while doing such.
"That shit likely got taken care of hours before I woke up."
"Then, we need to have a conversation that none of us are going to like." Adora declared.
"Yeah, yeah." Tigra muttered.
She knew immediately that being killed in front of her Chosen and by her other best friend would need a serious conversation. Potentially just one for each of them separately.
Tigra noticed that they were in her quarters and looked down at her shirt and frowned.
"Man, I liked these shirts."
"You have nearly a dozen more of the same kind." Catra pointed out, her voice slightly higher pitched.
"Yeah, but I'll go through them quickly at this rate." Tigra complained.
She pulled up her shirt, taking it off.
Another thump came from the bed.
She held her shirt in front of her to see if it could be salvaged.
'Yeaaah, probably best to let this be turned to scraps and simply get another.'
The shirt was nearly in two pieces. The biggest section was how it was nearly cut in half from the middle outwards. There may have been half the length of her claw holding the sides together.
"What do you think? Scrap or fix?" Tigra spun around and held the shirt to the side.
"On one hand, I like my shit. On the other hand, I could get another five shirts before this would likely be fixed."
Neither of them spoke, making her raise her eyes from the shirt to them.
Catra was slowly blinking as her tail slowly swished across the bed. Her pupils had dilated and her focus was solely on her.
Adora was looking to the side, her face practically glowing red.
Tigra held back her smirk.
'When did the Princesses turn you into a prude?'
"Dora, I'd like your opinion."
"W-well, uh, I mean…" She stumbled.
"Preferably while you acknowledge me by looking either at me or the shirt in question." She cocked her hip to the side while making sure they both could hear her claws on her feet clicking against the ground as her feet tapped away.
"It's just that…the Rebellion says…"
"Adora." Tigra flatly spoke this time. "We grew up together since we were 4. We all know where my stripes are, where Catra's fur darkens, and we know all about that spot."
Catra cackled briefly, tearing her view away from Tigra and looking at Adora.
"Seriously?"
"Well! After being told how weird or intimate it is nearly half a dozen times, you start forcing yourself to change." Adora commented, looking at Catra.
Tigra frowned at that wording before walking over to her.
"Adora." Tigra grabbed her face gently and turned her face so she was looking her in the eyes.
"It is not weird to me. Intimate? Maybe, seeing as no one besides you two and my medical professionals will see me without my clothing if I can help it."
"What about-"
"That was for your reaction, not theirs." Tigra cut her off.
"What?"
"Tigra submerged herself in lava and burned her clothes completely off." Catra answered, looking back at Tigra.
"In my defense, I didn't realize that Scorpia cared that much about clothing."
"What about Entrapta?" Adora asked.
"She's technically one of my medical professionals. She knows more about my biology than most people in the Horde. Something about how my DNA keeps changing and allows for new developments."
"Which is probably connected to your 'sheet' thing, right?" Catra asked.
Seeing as Adora still seemed slightly uncomfortable about her sudden undressing, Tigra decided to take slight pity and walked back over to her clothing bag.
"Yeah, in a way." Tigra pulled out another black shirt before putting it on.
"Do you want me to explain first or have you answer questions first?" Tigra asked.
"How long have you had this 'sheet' thing?"
"First, the sheet is simply a small display that tells me my Health Points - which you already know. Alongside it are my Magical Points and Stamina Points. If these fall to zero, I can't use magic or dash around with my speed."
"How high are they?" Adora asked.
"I can only compare HP and MP with others. If I compare them with you and Catra…"
[Catra | LV 62]
[HP: 5,760]
[MP: 1,550]
[Adora | LV 62]
[HP: 6,240]
[MP: 13,150]
…
"Horde damn." Tigra muttered, taking the two by surprise. "Guess I never compared my magic with yours when you were just Adora."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I'll just say the numbers. Catra would have roughly 5,800 HP, 6,200 for Adora, and I have 7,000 HP." She started off. "Catra has 1,600 MP, I have 6,000, and Adora…you have nearly 13,000."
"Must be a She-Ra thing." Adora shrugged.
"Adora, that's insane." Tigra stressed. "When I attuned with the Spirit Ember, it doubled my MP."
The two blinked at that.
"But…I noticed something strange just now."
"And that is?" Catra asked.
"The three of us are the same level."
"Well, like you said before. We've been around each other-"
"This isn't the first time I noticed it." Tigra cut her off gently. "When we met in Thaymor, Plumeria, Brightmoon, Cadalia, and here. Each one of those times, we've been at the same level."
"So…what could that mean?"
"I don't know."
"You don't?"
"Hey, just because I was born with this thing, doesn't mean I understand all of it. It tells me Health Points, Magic Points, Stamina Points, Level, Age, Skills, Spells, Traits, Titles, Relationships, Quests, and Milestones." She listed off. "Anything else? I have to figure it out."
"Skills like combat?" Adora questioned.
"Hand to Hand, Running, Dashing, Dodging, Resistances, the works." Tigra shrugged.
"Is that how you get faster?"
"Yep. Questions?"
"Traits." Adora jumped in. "Simple or overtime?"
"Both. Night Vision, Magical, and Huntress. See in the dark, allows me to use magic, and describes how I improve myself. I've had those since I was at least 4. I've gained quite a few more, where you know two others as well."
"Myth and Phoenix you just got? How?"
"By reaching LV 50, I got a special point that let me use it for a trait that anyone from our race has ever had. Apparently someone else had Myth before. As for Phoenix, it was a skill I purchased after mastering several fire spells. I have 33 total traits at this moment."
"Do you buy Titles, like Force General?"
"No. Titles are a section that tells me what could describe me that produces an effect. Force General grants me an additional 40 points of relationship with the Horde and Horde Allies. I currently have 5 titles: Princess Fighter, Force General, Hero of the Horde, One Woman Army, and Conqueror."
"Resistances." Catra narrowed her eyes lightly.
Tigra pointed a claw at her.
"That will make you angry."
"Why?" Adora asked.
"Because she said that they were separate from Traits and fall under Skills. Something that you have to work on to get better at."
Adora understood what she said and turned her own displeased face at her.
"What? I already gained all of them from combat - with the exception of one or two."
"Explain, please."
Tigra huffed and crossed her arms.
"Resistances are my body's way of growing more adept at preventing itself from being hurt from a certain type of damage. Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Water, Light, Shadow, Earth, Pure, and Physical." She listed off. "Surprised that Poison didn't show up."
Seeing as it wasn't harmful intent nor actually hurting you, it did not count and as such, you did not discover another resistance.
'Damn. Going to need to figure something out.' She thought.
"Is that why you're immune to fire?" Catra asked.
She shook her hand slightly.
"Kind of? Resistances themselves stop at Level 99 - preventing up to 99% of damage of that type before other effects. I have to use a different point to get them to 100%. Even then, it only activates for things with harmful intentions. Fireball wouldn't hurt but a forest fire would." She explained.
"But for fire, I've been mostly immune since the day after I met Bolt the first time. I'm totally immune to fire now and I'm mostly immune to Lightning, Ice, and Shadow."
Her eyes stared at Physical Resistance before a new notification popped up.
"Hold on a moment." Tigra asked before reading.
A special moment has been activated!
Seeing as Physical Resistance has reached LV 99 before Pure Magic has, the event has been triggered.
You may choose to be able to purchase a trait that will immediately turn it to 100%. But this will lock out Pure Magic through Trait Points by adding a massive EXP requirement. [This would be 10,000,000,000 for the last level] Your percentage for the last percent will update with how much of the last level you have filled. 5,000,000,000 would increase it from 99% to 99.5%
Or you can do the progressive level up that will have a large EXP requirement for the Physical Resistance instead-
"I'll take option 1."
…
Very well.
Physical Immunity trait has been added to the Trait Shop.
Pure Magical Immunity trait has been locked.
…
Trait Shop - Physical Immunity purchase? (1 point remaining)
[ Y ]
Physical Resistance gained 1 EXP!
Physical Resistance has evolved to Physical Proof.
[Physical Proof - You can not be hurt by non-magical means with ill intentions, such as a blade or throwing knife.]
Quest [More than Resilient] revisited!
Objective: Increase one of your Resistances to Level 100
Reward: 1x Trait point per Level 100 Resistance [5/?]
"Bummer." She muttered.
"What?"
"My Physical Resistance has reached Level 99. Apparently since it and Pure Magic can be incredibly broad, only one of them could give their Immunity trait. The other requires an enormous amount of training to reach their final level."
"How enormous?" Catra asked.
"Well, I leveled up Fire Armor through the method you didn't like."
"Yeah, like I would like hearing that you were burning your body to supply it with magic."
"Wait, what!?"
Tigra waved it off. "Yeah, yeah. I do it when I'm in a safe environment and can always heal myself should I need it. Anyways, when I take a single point of damage from that type, I gain 1 EXP."
"How does that work after the damage is reduced?" Adora spoke. "Do you gain less EXP?"
"No. If I would have taken 100 damage but only took 10, I'd still gain 100 EXP. Don't ask me why it's based on damage and not on how much I actually took. That's just the way it worked out."
"So how much would you need to hurt yourself to be immune to Pure Magic?"
"Using the amount of HP I have right now, every minute, would take me nearly 3 years to reach the requirement."
"Yeah, I'm not comfortable knowing that you would have hurt yourself that badly." Adora admitted. "I'm still on the fence knowing that you've hurt yourself that badly to begin with."
Tigra shrugged. "I could make it go faster if I can combine Lava Armor with it. Doing so should increase my HP and HPR - HP Regeneration - by about 30x."
Tigra activated Lava Armor and Heal at the same time and looked at her sheet, ignoring the sudden jump backwards from the two.
"With this method set to my current MPR and Heal, my HPR out of combat is 89,000. Using it this way, if I can, would decrease that 3 years to about 78 days straight."
"That's still a long time." Catra pointed out.
"Yeah, but that's right now. I'm going to improve and using that method is still much better than keeping all of that going for 3 years straight."
"Oh. I thought that it would take you 3 years to do, not 3 years straight."
"So what, are you going to look like this for a while?"
Tigra let out a short laugh.
"I wish. I don't have the ability to do what I've done for Fire, Ice, Lightning, nor Shadow right now."
"Why not?"
"Armor." Catra answered before she could. "Each one of those elements you just listed have armor spells that you've stated you've mastered. And if that's pure magic, it likely is more difficult to control than normal magic. Given Heal and Haste."
"Correct. So far, Armor spells are the only ones I've found that can increase my Resistances along with a spell."
"Couldn't you just use another spell against yourself?" Adora asked.
The room was quiet for a moment.
"You…you are aware that I don't like pain, right?" Tigra made sure. "Like, despite my insane regenerations, I still feel pain."
"Well, aren't you still hurting yourself?"
"I heal myself the instant damage is being done to me. As in, if my body was being turned into flames, it was already regenerated before the piece could flake off. If it was to freeze hard enough to break into pieces, it broke because new skin had already been created.
Despite what I've done to myself, it has been with the intention to prevent someone else from dealing harm to myself. While what you're suggesting would be the logical thing to do, I'm not a robot."
"Alright." Adora held her hands up. "Didn't mean to get you mad."
"Dora, I'm not mad." Tigra tilted her head. "I'm giving you my reasons as to why I haven't done that. Even if I wanted to, I learn the Control spells first so I know how to properly manipulate that element for future. Why do you think I can do Armor spells so quickly?"
"I just figured it was another spell." Adora shrugged. "Is it not?"
"Lava Armor surrounds me in lava. Anyone else would need to know how much heat to apply, how much magical space is needed between their body and the lava, and how to spread such heat over their body to cover it entirely without having the heat seep into their own body.
Ice Armor will cause hypothermia if not handled properly along with frostbite. If the ice is broken, you need to know how to direct the breakage away from your body. Else you have ice spikes being slammed into your body.
Lightning Armor is electricity with energy being around the range of actual lightning. This makes me faster, but it's deeper than that. It does no good being able to move if your nervous system can't keep up, especially your brain and eyes.
Shadow Armor makes you one with the shadows basically. I can travel through shadows and easily blend in with them. The problem is that if your MP isn't around 2000 or so, it will drain you quickly. That's why it is easier to send magic to darken any shadow around me so it doesn't drain more magic than needed."
"Are you sure you should be telling me all of this stuff? We are enemies, right?" Adora asked.
"Would you destroy the trust I have in you?" Tigra raised an eyebrow. "Would you use this knowledge to cause me harm?"
"No! I wouldn't-"
"That's why." Tigra shrugged. "Because this is going to lead into my conversation."
The girls did not like that.
"Adora, you're first. Simply because it needs to be said before we end up leaving to go back to the war."
Tigra walked back to the bed before getting on it where both of them could see her without making Tigra need to keep switching sides should one of them want something.
"When you transform to She-Ra, your stats slightly change. You gain more HP and you seem to be faster. Your Level increases to roughly 2-3x as before."
"Okay?"
"This is to give background based on what happened yesterday."
Adora winced lightly.
"When you transform, you change to She-Ra with Adora in parentheses. I assumed that that meant that She-Ra was being driven by you. Like She-Ra was an Armor spell, but you are the one using it.
When I started to fight you, that's not what I saw. I saw She-Ra with Infected in parentheses." Tigra stressed.
"Instead of seeing Level 145 like I saw on the bridge, you were Level 620. "
Their eyes were wide.
"Instead of moving maybe Mach 20, which I could understand with all that power behind being 145, you were easily keeping up when I was going Mach 38. Your HP, which should have been maybe 8 or 900,000, was 8 million. Your opinion of me was Nemesis, a rank that means that you would likely never help me, even if the world was ending and I could solve it."
"But-"
"Do you understand that?" Tigra continued on. "It may have been your body, but your mind was nowhere near that conflict. You may as well have been controlled by Weaver."
"Tigra…you died in front of me, with my sword inside your chest. "
"Damn it. You're in your head now." Tigra muttered.
"Imagine it was reversed." Tigra settled on. "Imagine that Catra or I were in your place. I have no control over my body and see everyone around me as an enemy. Do you think Shimmer could survive against me seeing her as an actual enemy? Archer? Entrapta? Scorpia? Catra? Rani? You? "
"That's not the same."
"It is exactly the same scenario. The only difference is that mine is hypothetical. You fought as hard as you could and out lasted me. Make no mistake," Tigra smirked. "Without your battle intellect, She-Ra was all instinct and brawler. With my speed, I easily avoided her attacks until I could no longer keep that speed up."
"That's not going to help my brain." Adora spoke. "It's not going to make any of this guilt go away."
"Fuck no it won't." Tigra bluntly agreed. "But aren't there people whose job is to help you through something like this?"
"You mean a shrink?" Catra asked.
"Yeah. I think there are some but they prefer therapist. Why?"
"Dora, you need one. You have serious trauma."
"Me?! What about you!?"
"Oh, we won't open that ration yet." Tigra shrugged. "I know I've got trauma to work through."
"Figured you would have denied it?" Catra said/asked.
"Please. I've killed over 400 people, grew up in the Horde, grew up under Weaver, and more."
"Over four hundred?" Adora asked.
"300 of which happened during the Battle of Brightmoon."
"Speaking of Weaver…"
"What?"
"We know about your previous deal with her." Catra answered and continued when she saw Tigra go still once more. "Remember that conversation that we never got around to having?"
"The one that you said would suck?"
"We saw your memories of meeting with her."
"...Fuck."
"You're cursing more than usual." Adora noticed.
"Well what do you expect? In one night, I find out that the secret I kept with Weaver was known for nearly half a year, you find out about my strange Power, and to top it off, I straight up told both of you that I died three times and in front of you every time. I think it's fine for me not to be as composed as usual."
"Anyways," Catra interjected. "We can have that talk or you can talk to me next. Either way, all of us are having a talk about past actions."
"Dora?"
"Catra next. That way you can focus on what we say as well."
"Very well."
Tigra turned to focus on Catra more.
"You know how I think. We both know how Adora thinks. I know how you think. This wasn't your fault."
"Obviously." Catra rolled her eyes.
"Hey, no sarcasm or hiding behind falsity right now." Tigra declared. "Otherwise I'll have this conversation as both of us."
"Fine. Explain then. But! Just like Adora, I doubt it will take away any guilt."
"I'll get you a shrink as well. Anyways, this happened because of the murder virus item. Entrapta told us that it simply made She-Ra lose her powers. Granted, it's on us for not thinking a murder virus would make She-Ra murderous. This also isn't on Entrapta because we were the ones to use it."
"Then wouldn't it be my fault?"
"Cat, did you fix the broken virus?"
"No."
"Did you create the virus?"
"No."
"Did you mean for this to happen?"
"No!"
"Did you make me step in?"
"No."
"Would you change anything about what happened?"
"Yes."
"What? What would you have specifically changed?"
"I would have left that virus alone."
"Then I may have used it. Remember, it was a She-Ra off button at the time."
"Break it?"
"You had no reason to and that would have sadden Entrapta and confused the hell out of me."
"Not coming here?"
"Nice try. Entrapta asked so Hordak would have made you."
"Then what!?"
"Nothing. Because you want to know why?"
"Yes. Tell me why I shouldn't change anything that led to you dying."
"1. I learned that there is a strange connection with She-Ra and the sword."
"Yeah? I need the sword to become She-Ra." Adora responded.
"Really? So the sword is She-Ra? I could just pick up the sword and become She-Ra?"
"Well, no."
"Then the sword is doing something that may make it easy to turn into She-Ra, but if you can become She-Ra and I can't, then it must be something about you." Tigra told before returning to Catra.
"2. We all saw just how dangerous She-Ra could have been had it been anyone but Adora."
"How?"
"Imagine that I had it. Imagine my speed and body being improved to the same magnitude as Adora. Imagine if Shimmer had it. Imagine Hordak."
The two of them shivered at the various images she created.
"If I improve the same way Adora does, distance becomes irrelevant and so does any kind of defense. I would have so much more magic. So yeah, I'm glad Adora - who wants to simply bring peace and not conquer Etheria - is the one with the power.
And 3. You both now know why I take more risks when it involves you two. I have the ability to come back from things you two can't. I was nearly split in twain at the chest and now look at me. Just fine in barely a night. Now, both of you hopefully won't panic should you hear I got seriously hurt."
"Alright!" Adora interjected. "Our talk now!"
"Huh?"
"You are too reckless and self sacrificing for your own good." Adora started. "You care for us immensely and, while we appreciate it, you are hurting yourself to do that! The biggest proof is that damn deal!"
"Language." Tigra smirked at hearing Adora curse.
While Catra and Tigra may curse more often, Adora was the one who first learned curses in the first place.
'In order to not say the words that would get us in trouble, we should learn the words first!'
After a week, the three of them knew almost all of the swears. Tigra preferred 'fuck' and 'Horde Damn.'
Adora's narrowing eyes at her told her she saw through her weak attempt at a deflection.
"Modern. Now, while it was sweet, it was fucking terrifying to see a 7 year old Tigra telling Weaver that we didn't deserve to be hurt but you did."
"Well, what else was I supposed to do?"
"Not do that?" Catra rolled her eyes.
"Then all that she did to me would have likely been spread out between Catra and I while using it as a scare tactic against Adora to get her to do what she wanted. This way, you would 'stay in line' without Catra fearing being hurt and she could stay by your side during the times Weaver put an interest in me." Tigra pointed out.
"How can you be that sure?"
"Because I spent long enough with her to understand how she thinks. She wants power and control. If she can't have control of it, she wants the power itself, such as the Garnet. If she doesn't need it's power then she wants control, such as believing that I was too afraid to fight back. So she saw the deal as an easy way to keep a cadet that was only being praised under her command as long as possible."
"But then why did she keep me under her and not you?" Catra asked.
"Easier. I was making waves too much and too quickly. People would start to notice that I would be spending long periods of time with her and that I may one day say that I couldn't train due to injuries."
"Now then, I asked what else I was supposed to do? What else could I have done that prevented both of you from being hurt while keeping in mind that Shadow Weaver wanted control over Adora without using us as bargaining chips that she could lose?"
"You couldn't." Adora answered.
"Exact-"
"And you didn't." She finished. "Even with what you did, did you really think Weaver never said that if I didn't learn something faster, do something better, be better than someone, that she didn't use either of you in a threat?"
Tigra's silence was an answer all in of itself.
"She did?" Catra asked.
"Yeah. While my memory isn't as good as either of yours', I know that threat was brought up at least 20 times in the last two years of the Academy."
"She found a Horde damn loophole." Tigra growled.
"As long as she didn't hurt us magically and kept our safety in mind, she was free to make all the threats she wanted. Because she knew that you would never tell us about that deal and I wouldn't tell either of you about the threats. She could say whatever she wanted but as long as she didn't do anything, she never broke your deal and I would continue to think that I must have impressed her enough even when I didn't meet her conditions." Adora let out.
"So what, I should have just not made the deal? Because as far as I know, she didn't hurt either of you, keeping the deal intact."
Tigra turned back to Catra.
"She didn't, right?"
"No. Worse was her implying that I was a runt who would never be on equal grounds with either of you. Adora due to her ambitiousness and she didn't have to say anything about you Tigra. You were always leaving us behind in the physical parts and magical parts. Only tactically did I get ahead of both of you."
"How about, instead of just saying what you could have done differently, we focus on what you will do differently." Adora suggested.
"I'm not hesitating." Tigra denied. "I can take a lethal hit 7 more times and still be alright. 8 depending on Phoenix. While She-Ra seems able to heal now, that doesn't mean you can take a blaster to the heart and be fine."
"How about, you simply do not throw those lives away. Surely if you have them, you'll need them." Catra suggested. "Besides, we can't always rely on you. The best case scenario is us simply continuing to improve at a rate we wouldn't be a hindrance if we were fighting with you."
Tigra hummed.
"While I can't stop you if you genuinely believe that one of us is in danger, can you…" Adora breathed in and out. "Can you choose not to be reckless with your lives?"
Catra and Tigra inhaled at that.
Choosing was special in the Horde. From the small amount of relationships she read up from outside the Horde, the closest things to choosing to do something are vows. Things that promise each other with the intent of never breaking them if they can.
Catra simply stared at Tigra and waited.
"I…I…"
Tigra was genuinely at a loss for words.
While many outside the Horde would just say yes to that, it's different in the Horde. Nobody knows where they will truly end up in the Horde. You could be a General or be stuck as a Cadet for a decade. So one's word became important to the people of the Horde.
The more you did as you declared, then the more weight your word had. While that is true anywhere, the Horde had made a tradition around it.
The Chosen Time. An event held between two or more people given to the Horde Lord. Instead of the Chosen Intent, where they just inform the Horde Lord about the situation, they now need him to agree with them.
Agree that they may put their loyalties to each other first. Agree to listen to their wording around Choosing to do something.
While it is as flexible as any other word choice, the intent is the same.
You say that you choose to be true with the Chosen? Even Hordak would have to drop his Mean act if he did it.
Choose to run to them anytime you see them? Well, you better be a good runner.
The point was that they don't break them if it is in your power. If you broke a leg, obviously you can't run to them. If you're in front of the soldiers, Hordak would need to keep his Mean act up.
Usually the Chosens say 1 thing to their partner, one thing that they will continue to adhere to as if they would die if broken.
And here Adora is trying to ask her something while they weren't Chosen.
"Catra?" Tigra asked weakly.
"I'll allow it." She answered quickly, crossing her arms. "But no more."
"That's understandable. I'd feel the same." Adora spoke.
"I…I Choose to be more responsible with my lives and not throw them away should I just think that either one of you could be hurt lethally."
"Alright. You got one for me?"
"Adora. If we were Chosen, I'd be pissed at you." Tigra narrowed her eyebrows at her, surprising her. "The whole point is for you to make a choice. Not for the partner to make the choice for you."
"Sorry."
"Until you can figure out what you want to choose to do, just…try to find someone to help you deal with your mess. We don't like talking about our issues, but find someone who isn't attached to us. Someone who can help you see where fallacies aren't the truth." Tigra pleaded.
"Alright."
Tigra clapped her hands together, suddenly smiling, taking both of them back.
"Alright! With all of the heavy talk out of the way, let's go see if we have anything to eat and check up on our groups."
Tigra got up and walked to the door and looked back.
"Come on! Healing naturally like this takes more energy from me than magically. Besides, I don't trust Trap with another mechanical nerd like Archer and not have something go wrong."
The two scrambled out of the bed to follow.
_______________
Tigra
Age: 18
Level 62 (905/15500)
HP: 6980.....HPR: 3141
MP: 6000.....MPR: 3742
SP: 3490...SPR: 1571
STR: 152.....DEX: 579
CON: 349...INT: 300
WIS: 277...CHA: 108
Skill Points: 2
Trait Points: 1
Upgrade Trait Points: 0
Speed: 80.4 MPH
Magical Control: 204%
Skills:
[H2H LV (3)96], [Run LV 74], [Dash LV (3)87, [Blades LV 96], [Spear LV 40]
[Dodge LV 41], [Reading LV 75], [Writing LV 105], [Sneak LV 48]
[Light Res. LV 4], [Air Res. LV 2], [Water Res. LV 18]
[Magic Res LV 42], [Earth Res LV 4]
[Program. LV 35], [Security LV 18], [Hacking LV 27], [Strategy LV 61]
Spells [Tigra still uses]:
Fire Step, Fire Clothing, Fire Breath, Flame Dive, Flame/Lava Armor, Flame Charge,
Flame Fists, Fireball LV 23, Fire Dagger, Fire Arrow,
Fire Falchion, Fire Spear, Fire Clone, Fire Augment
Lightning Armor, Lightning Claws LV 11, Lightning Clone LV 90
Chill, Ice Armor
Darken, Shadow Mask, Shadow Ball LV 1, Shadow Spy LV 48, Shadow Armor, Dark Pulse LV 19
Breeze,
Bubble, Stream LV 1
Haste, Heal
Traits:
[Night Vision], [Magical], [Obsidian Claws], [Huntress], [Primal Instincts]
[You are the Weapon - Multiplies H2H bonus by 2]
[Lightning - Multiplies final DEX by 1.5]
[Smart - Multiplies final INT by 1.15]
[Wise - Multiplies final WIS by 1.15]
[You are Speed - For two minutes a day, your DEX is multiplied by 3]
[Omni-Regeneration II- Multiplies all Regens by 3]
[Pyromaniac - EXP for Fire Spells is doubled]
[Hydromaniac - EXP for Water Spells is doubled]
[Unimaniac - EXP for Pure Spells is doubled]
[Unburnable - You can't be hurt by fire or heat through fire]
[Physical Proof - You can't be hurt by physical means with ill intent]
[Electric-proof - You can't be hurt by electricity through natural or unnatural means with ill intent]
[Ice Proof - You can't be hurt by ice through natural or unnatural means with ill intent]
[Shadow Proof - You can't be hurt by shadow/darkness through natural or unnatural means with ill intent]
[Phoenix - Once a month, if your HP is reduced to zero, you return to 75% HP once with a 25% increase in stats for the next 10 minutes]
[Raiju - Multiply your movement speed by 3x for 90 minutes within a 24 hour period. Lightning attacks do 100% more damage but water damage hurts you thrice as much as normal]
[Grimm - Decreases damage taken by 75%, regenerations increased by 200% but Light attacks deal 3x their regular damage. Works for 30 minutes a day]
[Yuki-Onna - Touching something with HP will do INT*100 ice damage per second. Can be used for 10 minutes a day]
[Fueling the Fire - Increases Damage for Fire attacks by 50%]
[One with Fire - Fire spells take 25% less MP than normal]
[One with Lightning - Lightning spells take 25% less MP than normal]
[The Myth is Real - You have 7 spare lives and will restore you to 50% HP, MP, and SP upon resurrecting 4 minutes later]
[True Heir - Allows you the ability to connect with the Runestone of your home kingdom, or a Runestone should there not be one]
[Over Killer - Due to your ability of overkilling, your threats are more likely to succeed as warnings towards enemies]
[6th Sense [Catra] - You now will know when your fellow Chosen(s) are in trouble]
[Recovery - Your Regens are increased by 50%]
[Control - Allows the use of 4 continuous spells without causing pain]
[Princess of Fire - Multiplies MP by 2, MPR by 1.5, and Fire spells gain 4x EXP]
[Azure Flames - You can use 50% more MP to increase a fire spell's power by 100%. Doing so turns your flames into a brilliant blue]
Milestones:
[Genius - All EXP for spells is doubled]
[Brilliant - All spells do 25% more damage]
[Hare - Increases movement speed by 25%]
[Cheetah - For 30 seconds every 2 hours, your DEX is increased by 50%]
[Eagle - You can now run on air as long as you remain undisturbed]
[Steel Body - Decreases damage taken by 40% after resistances]
[Meditated - MPR remains active at 15% while using spells continuously]
[Confident Aura - Those around you will think you know what you are doing]
[Strong - Increases non-magical attacks by 10% and carrying capacity by 25%]
Weapons:
Dark Flame - A Jian that can channel fire magic to increase its power ~ 3700 damage with no added MP
Shadow Piercer - Dual Daggers dark enough to be hidden in shadows ~ 3500 per dagger