Stranger Things on Heaven and Earth

"Okay!" I said. "Short, simple, and sweet: There's a piece of, uh, First One's tech that is basically able to rewrite reality the way most people rewrite books. It's broken into three pieces and someone who is real evil knocked me out and stole one of the pieces -- if he can trick my friends into trusting him, which is possible, he's gonna combine all the pieces and use them to take over not just Eternia, but everywhere else at the same time. He's going to absolutely fucking wreck everyone's life for his own petty need for control. Sound familiar." I shot a look at Catra, who hissed at me.

Adora frowned. "Even if I trusted you..." she said. "How would we be able to stop him?"

I gulped. "I have a plan. But it'd take all of us working together." I looked at Catra. "And Catra, I promise, if you help us..." I took her hand, then stepped closer. I leaned in and whispered in her ear. "I'll get Adora back to you. I promise."

Because...

I'd seen She-Ra.

And it was real obvious to anyone that, at the end of the day, Catra didn't really care about controlling the world or becoming the leader of the Horde (evil or not.) All she wanted, everything she did, was predicated and built around Adora. Catra snapped her eyes to look at me. Her eyes narrowed. She looked like she was thinking furiously. Then, quietly, she hissed. "If you stab me in the back..." She put her claws to my throat. Adora tensed, her hands gripping her sword tightly.

"Sounds fair," I said.

***

"Ugh, how do Horde soldiers wear these things?" Bow asked, his hands pressing to the belly armor of his borrowed uniform. Glimmer, who fit into her stolen armor even less comfortably, grumbled considerably more profanely than I think her mother would have appreciated. Catra, meanwhile, was casually seated on the prow of the skimmer, while Adora gripped the rudder. She had her helmet off, her hair rippling in the wind as we flew towards the Fright Zone.

"Can we trust her?" She murmured to me, glaring at Catra.

"Catra's damage is pretty specific," I whispered back to her. "I think we can trust her on this."

Adora flinched. I blushed. "Listen..." I said. "I don't want to play armchair psychiatrist but...you're doing the best you can with this. But I am a strong believer in both the childhood friends to lover and the enemy to lover tropes." I smiled at her.

Adora turned bright red -- and then hastily jammed her helmet back on as we cleared the desert surrounding the Fright Zone and began to sail above the vast, conglomerated metal buildings. Catra rolled herself over her shoulders and back into the main cockpit. "All right," she said. "We just head for the lab and see if we can talk Entrapta around. You?" She pointed at the three disguised Princess Alliance members. "Say nothing. Don't take your helmets off. Got it?"

Adora, Glimmer and Bow nodded -- though Bow had to be elbowed to get his helmet on.

The skiff landed and we started away from the skiff, with Catra grabbing Kyle by the scurf of his shirt and thrusting him at the skiff. "Get it fixed," she snapped -- stalking forward. We followed after and, after what felt like an eternity of walking, we came to the laboratory. There, we found Entrapta, still sitting at her console, still tapping away happily at her computer. She craned her head back, her face covered with the sleek black facemask with red eyes that made up the goggled on it.

"Hey Catra," she said. "Hey Adora, Bow, Glimmer. Strange Dimensional being."

Bow snatched his helmet off. "How did-" he started.

"Hah!" Entrapta kicked away from the desk, her chair skittering and bouncing. "What a silly question." She leaned up and examined my chest. "Whoa, I think someone almost died here..."

"Yeah, about that," I said. "Do you think that Hordak's portal device will work if you combine it with Glimmer's teleportation abilities and targeted it using this?" I asked, reaching into my belt pouch and tugging out the one thing that Master Li had overlooked: The communication cipher that connected me to the Normandy. It looked like a tiny crystal and it glowed with an inner light.

Entrapta cocked her head, then flipped her mask backwards and beamed at me.

***

The portal slammed me face first into the hardened deck of the SSV Normandy -- and I lay there, groaning, for a few seconds too long. Because a half second later, Adora's not inconsiderable weight smashed into my back. I wheezed. Then Glimmer landed on Adora, who grunted. Then Bow landed on Glimmer, who squeaked.

Catra sailed past all of us and landed primly on her feet, her tail twitching from side to side.

Catra let out a snorting giggle.

Adora, weakly, pointed: "Mouse."

"Where!?" Catra snapped her head around, then scowled and kicked at the pile of groaning flesh that our party had become. Everyone rolled off me -- which let me gasp in some breath. The room we had landed in was the cargo hold, right between the Eldar fighter and the Mako. I started to stand -- but then the door to the cargo hold bust open. Tali, Festina...and me came through.

The me pointed at me.

"He followed me!" he said, in my voice, even as I stumbled to my feet.

"Oh you asshole!" I said. If I could translate to look like, well, like me if I had been trained by a Rogue Trader dynasty, did that mean that Master Li could deceive the Strange enough to make himself look like me? Well. Obviously, then answer was yes. I stumbled a bit, then pointed at the other me.

"He's Master Li," I said.

"No, he is," Li snapped, pointing at me.

Festina, who had pulled out her stunner, swung the stunner back and forth. "Goddamn it," she snarled. "Tali?"

Tali stepped backwards, lifting her omni-tool. "Both of them have the same sternum damage," she said.

"Oh you dick!" I snarled.

"Oh that's exactly what a fucking imposter would say!" Li said.

Shit.

He did sound like me.

"Fine!" I said, slapping my chest. "Stun me, stun him, let god sort-" I stopped, my brow furrowing.

Fzzt.

Sst.

Oh fuck.

"Good point," Festina muttered. "Okay, weirdoes, step away from the possible imposter." She aimed the hypersonic stunner at me.

"Catra!" I looked at her. She was snapping her head around -- almost as if she had heard a mouse. Or heard something else. "Can you see it?"

Catra hissed. "No, I can just hear it," she said.

"Hear what?" Festina asked.

"We may need to repaint the walls," I said.

The other me looked confused.

Festina swung her pistol around. She pulled the trigger -- and a wave of hypersonic energy rippled out, invisibly, towards Master Li in disguise. Master Li reacted with cobra fast instincts. But rather than dodging or diving aside, he instead drew himself up into a combat position. He slammed out his palm and let out a loud bellow: "Tempest Magic Style!"

A gale of wind met the hypersonic stunner's cone of effect and shattered it visibly, then flew backwards and hit Festina square in the chest. Our feisty Admiral was sent flying backwards and smashed into the wall beside the Mako with a groan. Tali yelped and sprang backwards, reaching for her pistol -- but then something invisible slashed at her, hard and fast. Blood sprayed from a huge cut along her arm.

"Bow! Got anything that shows invisible shit!?" I asked, sprinting towards Master Li in my form.

Bow was already firing an arrow into the ceiling. It thudded home and then unfolded a pair of glowing bars, which shone and revealed something I had been worried about. Shadows rarely went anywhere without being in pairs. But it seemed when Darth Sion had infiltrated the ship, he had brought more than just one friend. He had bought four. One of them grabbed at Catra, who dropped to the ground as bonelessly as any cat in the world. Another charged at Glimmer, who teleported out of the way.

"For the honor of Grayskull!" Adora shouted.

And as she exploded with golden light, I slammed, shoulder first, into Master Li's crossed arms. Master Li skidded backwards while grabbing onto me with both hands and then he pivoted into a twisting, twirling move that sent me flying through the air as if I was a big old sack of potatoes. Very light potatoes. I hit the wall back first and collapsed to the ground, while She-Ra charged straight at a pair of Shadows, her sword still crackling with golden white light. Blade met chitinous claw, while glowing eyes and nearly invisible forms buzzed and snapped with discharges of energy that defied description.

Throughout the ship, I could hear screeching noises. And the high pitched squealing roar of Bobbie's forearm mounted gattling gun. And the foosh-roar of Verse's fire magic. And, under it all, a tinkling squoosh noise that I was pretty sure was Twilight strutting her stuff. I shook my head to try and clear it from the ringing that was still buzzing in my ears -- and then saw Master Li stepping through the chaos, walking towards me.

He clenched his fist and a glowing, holographic light flared to life around his wrist. An omnitool, fabricating one of the omni-blades that entered into the Mass Effect lexicon with game three. He grinned, casually.

"Focus," he whispered.

And he shot towards me at ludicrous speeds -- as if time had decided to slow down for him and no one else. I threw myself to the side, rolling out of the way, but he tracked my movement as if I was a fumbling newbie. His hand lashed out and he grabbed onto my hair, then smashed me back against the wall. He lifted his other arm, aiming the omni-blade at my chest. His eyes were pitiless and cold -- and he didn't offer me a single shot at last words or pontifications.

Which was why it was rather surprising when Master Li exploded into chunks.

One second, he was there -- looking like me with a wicked smile on his face -- and the next, his head exploded into red ruin, his shoulder split apart, and his chest was torn to shreds, like someone was taking an invisible, over sized melon baller to him. His ribs shattered into fragments and finally, the arm with the omni-blade thumped to the ground with the flaccid looseness of a pile of half finished sausage.

His legs thumped backwards a second later.

I gaped.

I looked right.

Festina Ramos -- her hair mussed and her nose bleeding -- sat on the turret of the M35 Mako IFV, her hands settled onto the controls for the 155mm mass accelerator cannon and the coaxial 50mm mass accelerator machine gun. Which she had just used. Festina shook her head. "You okay, Malik?"

My head bobbed so fast that I nearly dislocated my shoulder.

"Yah!" She-Ra snarled, her blade sweeping an arc through the air. Another severed, chitenous head hit the deck, rolling and tumbling along the ground. Panting, She-Ra leaned forward onto her thighs, breathing shallowly and quickly, while sweat and blood beaded on her arms -- the blood coming from several shallow cuts. Well. One was not so shallow. AS the Shadow collapsed to the ground, pumping black blood onto the deck of the Normandy, Catra casually stepped backwards and away from the corpse of the creature she had been distracting.

"And that's three," Catra said.

"You can't...claim...kills...that...I got..." She-Ra panted, her body glowing brilliantly and then collapsing back into Adora. I noticed that, when she did so, her wounds didn't seem healed. I winced and reached down, picking up what was, in effect, my severed arm and started to tug the omnitool off the wrist.

"I did all the hard work," Catra said. "The dodging, the flipping, the distracting, the actual thinking part."

Adora glared at Catra.

"Oh, just kiss already," Festina said, standing up and hopping down out of the Mako.

"Do you know them too?" Bow asked -- the black teenager was standing next to the fourth Shadow, which had a dozen arrows in its chest. Next to him, Princess Glimmer had her hands on her knees and was breathing heavily.

"Never met them before in my life," Festina said, sniffing and wiping at her nose. She tapped on her omnitool -- everyone was getting fucking omnitools. "Bobby, sitrep?" As she spoke, she knelt beside Tali, who was hissing and rubbing her slashed arm, but already applying medigel. I started to futz with my omnitool, tapping at holographic buttons to try and find the medigel button. It turned out, it was the red + symbol. I pressed it and made a little 'aha!' noise as Bobby's voice came over the Admiral's omnitool.

"The ship's clear. They were fast fuckers -- how did they get onboard?"

"These suckers were probable on the instant Darth Sion was launched onboard," I said, stepping away from Adora, who smiled at me, then flexed her newly patched up arm. Catra, who had been hovering with a distinctively possessive air, immediately leaned in to start needling her girlfriend. I turned to face one of the dead Shadows -- to hide my huge huge smile -- and then paused. I cocked my head slightly. Without the crackling invisibility, and without them constantly moving and trying to stab the shit out of us, something was...subtly wrong about them.

I cocked my head.

Then it hit me.

"Bosh'tet!" Tali gasped. "The fake Malik -- he was in the engine systems!"

"These aren't Shadows," I said.

"What?" Festina said.

And that was when the Normandy exploded.

CHAPTER SIX: Strange Landing

When I came too, it was with a throbbing ache my face mashed up against Tali's butt. Which, on the whole, wasn't the worst way to come too. Alerts and wailing alarms filled my ears, and I felt like a few other bodies were mashed up against me -- craning my head around, I saw Catra and Adora smooshed in behind me, with Bow and Glimmer mashed against the ceiling of the small room we were in. Strapped into the front seat was Festina, her hands gripping a pair of controls with a determined, grim expression on her face.

"We're all going to die!" Bow said, his arms trembling -- keeping him in place while G-forces shoved and twisted at us. My guts tried to crawl up my throat.

"No, we're going to survive...for the next...two minutes," Festina said, her eyes focused on the readouts. "Then we're going to go oh shit at several KPS smashing into an unknown recursion."

I noticed that Glimmer looked as if she had been knocked out -- her face was sleet gray. Neurons fired in my brain and I realized what had to have happened. While the Normandy had exploded -- sending me slamming into a wall again -- Glimmer had to have used her powers to teleport as many people as she could...into the Mako! My eyes widened. "Festina!" I said, pointing. "The Mako has deceleration thrusters!"

Tali groaned, her head lolling from side to side. I didn't know if she was trying to debate me or if she had also been knocked silly by the destruction of our ship. My guts knotted -- worry flaring as I thought of the rest of the girls on the Normandy. Shit, EDI had been an AI on the ship! Was she okay!? But then my worry shifted to my current predicament.

Festina nodded, her voice tight. "Okay," she said. "Hold on tight everyone." Then, softer. "Why the fuck does a fucking Explorer keep getting given the fucking controls to fucking vehicles, I barely know how to fucking drive."

Wham.

The whole Mako surged upwards. Then it dropped again.

Wham.

Up.

Down.

Wham.

Uuup.

Pause.

Down.

Wham. Deet Deet Deet!

"Annnnd they burned out," Festina said.

"You burned them out!?" Bow sounded nearly hysterical. "Didn't you keep track of their heat alerts?" He pointed. "That one! There!"

"I'm a fucking Explorer! I don't fly fucking tanks!" Festina shouted back.

Catra took that moment to grab Adora and kiss her as hard as she could. Adora was literally the only person in the entire Mako who was shocked. Like, even Tali wasn't shocked, and she was knocked unconscious.

"Hold on!" Festina shouted. I wrapped my arms around Tali's belly, drawing her in close to me, while craning my head up to watch through the forward camera view that Festina had popped up on her interface: The Mako was shooting straight towards a tall, concrete building. Festina squeezed back on the trigger and the 155mm cannon spoke with a single booming voice. The concrete ahead of us exploded apart and, rather than smashing into the wall at a thousand miles per hour (citation needed), we instead landed, wheels first, on a large, red carpeted floor and zoomed past dozens of pillars. We clipped a desk, sending up a spray of splinters, and then we rolled. The internal ME field that made the Mako so maneuverable snapped on and tried to keep us comfortable. It failed.

But it did keep us alive.

The Mako finished its tumble by smashing, turret first, into a wall. The cameras filled with dust and smoke and debris. The sound of the debris clunking against the hull filled our ears. Bow sagged against the ceiling, which was now the floor, while Tali squished me into the ground. Princess Glimmer let out a confused, mumbling groan.

"I didn't kiss you, god," Catra mumbled.

Festina breathed out a slow, slow sigh of relief. "I am never giving riding down a Sperm tail shit anymore."

"Riding a what!?" Bow yelped.

Festina lifted her wrist, tapping up the omnitool. "Bobbie? Verse? Anyone?" She asked.

A moment later, a gasping, familiar voice filled the communicator. "Admiral!" Twilight Sparkle said. "These...people are very heavy! I'm fine! We're fine!" Gasping sounds. "We're all good! Well, Bobbie had to leave behind her suit and Verse broke an arm and Tracer has a big cut on her face, but...we're good!"

"Twi!" I said, scrambling slightly. "How did you do it!?"

"When we hit the recursion, I...uh...became an Alicorn!" Twi said around pants. "Wings are...useful sometimes!"

My traitor brain immediately pictured Twi, as a four legged alicorn, wagging her haunches at me with an anatomically detailed equine pussy. I made a face, while Festina tapped at the Mako's controls. "Okay, we're in some kind of...oh shit," she muttered. I saw what she saw too. The walls were just, fucking covered with swastika's and Nazi style eagles. And that was right about when the two, three dozen Nazi stormtroopers came charging into the room -- each dressed in heavy metal armor, with goggled, gas mask equipped faces, holding sleek rifles. They aimed their weapons at the Mako, while an SS officer stepped out from the midst of them.

A very familiar SS officer.

"Well, well, well!" Otto Skortzeny said. "I always said you could drop in at any time, Fraulein Sparkle, but I did not think you would take me so literally."

"What do we do?" Bow whispered.

"Who are these assholes?" Catra asked, squirming slightly to crane her head at the screen.

"Bad guys," Festina said, her voice grim as she pulled out a pistol from under the dash of the Mako. She checked it. "Certified non-sentient assholes of the highest order."

"So, basically, your friends," Bow said.

Catra hissed at him. Adora, coughing, said: "I don't think that these guys would get along with even the Horde."

"The Evil Horde," Bow whispered back.

"Holy shit, seriously?" Festina asked.

"Who called us that?" Catra growled.

"Everyone, apparently." Adora whispered back.

"Assholes," Catra muttered.

"Guys!" I said. "He thinks Twilight Sparkle is in here. But Twilight Sparkle is outside, with two of our heaviest hitters. All we need to do is distract him."

Otto Skorzeny, meanwhile, was turning his head and speaking to one of the Nazi stormtroopers outside. The whole mass of them fanned out and lifted their rifles -- and I saw that each of the rifles had a drum loaded underslung...well, I hoped they were grenades. One of the Nazis barked out an order that I was pretty sure meant open fire. Because each of the Nazis opened fire -- and a dozen rockets slammed into the Mako's shields with a rippling flare of smallish explosives. Alerts flared up on the consoles and Festina snarled. "Seventy percent shields," she said.