Chapter Text
Catra’s consciousness came in flashes, disorienting in their irregularity. The sounds of battle, and a glimpse of burning wreckage… a Horde tank, maybe? A faint screaming in a voice that seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Darkness. Being scooped up by chitinous arms (Scorpia, her mind sluggishly reminded her). A crisp sky, next to a black cloud on her left that she couldn’t see through. Her arm felt like it was on fire, and her face… something was in her face. Darkness, again. She couldn’t see anything. Someone was pinning her down, while someone else did something to her arm. She screamed, a ragged, broken cry. There was a sharp pain in her neck, then blessed unconsciousness. A broken roof. Someone paced back and forth just out of sight, arguing with someone else, but her brain couldn’t seem to understand the words. Her vision seemed wrong, but she couldn’t figure out why. She tried to move, but her limbs wouldn’t respond. The arguing stopped, and a rapid set of steps approached her bed. A welding mask with red eyes peered down at her, looked to the side, and gave what she assumed was instructions. A rush of warmth flooded her system, and she fell into unconsciousness once more.
She woke up with a burning thirst and a fever that seemed to threaten to burn herself alive. There was the faint whirr of machinery nearby, and the sound of rain outside. Her voice was rough with disuse, but she managed to croak out a faint, “water.” Then, because nobody seemed to respond, she attempted to raise her voice a little and repeat herself.
“Subject appears to be awake,” came a familiar voice from somewhere out of sight, “and thirsty. Intravenous fluid supply is clearly not a substitute for drinking water. Possibly psychosomatic element to the act of drinking? Further investigation required.”
“Entrapta?”
“Subject recognizes me! Cognitive functions may have escaped major damage!”
There was the sound of a door slamming open, and the unmistakable voice of Scorpia. “Commander! You’re awake!”
“And thirsty!” Entrapta added.
“And thirsty!” Scorpia agreed, and then hastily added, “I’ll get you water right away, commander!”
A few minutes later and Scorpia loomed over her, with a water bottle held gently in her claw. Catra tried to sit up, but found that she couldn’t. Scorpia’s other claw gently helped Catra into a sitting position, and she drank greedily.
“Small sips, Commander. You’ve been out of it for a while now.”
“Four weeks!” Chirped Entrapta cheerily. “We were arguing about whether or not to move you before you regained consciousness a few days ago.”
Catra looked over to her left, but something was still blocking her vision. “What… happened?”
“Do you not remember?” Entrapta asked. When Catra shook her head, Entrapta spoke into her recorder again. “Update: subject may have suffered some loss of memory due to overwhelming trauma.”
Scorpia looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Er, well… there was an… accident.”
“Accident?” Catra echoed. Confused.
“Well,” Entrapta cut in, “Friendly fire scenarios are usually accidental, but my theory-”
“No need to go into that now,” Scorpia interrupted hastily, “A shot hit your tank and the whole thing went up. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Catra took a moment to process this. “How bad was it?”
Scorpia looked uncomfortable again, and looked over to, Catra assumed, Entrapta with a pleading look. Entrapta popped into view with her hands behind her back, looking, Catra thought, like she was making a special effort to appear clinical.
“The brunt of the blast hit your left side - that’s the direction the shot came from, I assume. I was able to dig most of the shrapnel out of you without much trouble, but there’s a few shards that were too close to vital organs to safely remove without better facilities which, for obvious reasons, we don’t have right now.” Here she gestured around the room, and Catra noticed the whirr of machinery she’d heard had been a few scavenged monitors which had wires leading to her chest and head - presumably tracking her vitals. Something else nagged at her, then, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“You also took some significant damage to your skull,” Entrapta continued, looking apologetic. “I tried to save the eye, but…”
Catra felt her stomach churn unpleasantly. “The eye?”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost it.” Entrapta said, and seemed unsure how to continue for a moment. “Apart from some additional trauma caused by the explosion - the short-term memory loss, some cuts, and so on - your head was well protected. That’s because you had the presence of mind to throw your hand up and shield yourself. But… you might want to look down, now.”
Catra looked down to where her right hand rested on the sheet. A needle stuck out of her hand, running to, she assumed, the aforementioned intravenous fluids. She looked left, where she could feel her left hand, but what she saw was her arm, terminating a few inches above the wrist.
Entrapta’s voice grew fainter. “Your arm and hand took the brunt of the explosion. I saved as much as I could, and I’ve been designing a replacement, but it’ll take some time.”
Catra, not for the last time, leaned over the side of her bed and vomited.
“Ohh, yeah,” Scorpia said to no-one in particular, “That’s all water.”
If Entrapta had a response, Catra didn’t hear it. Darkness swept over her again, and she fell back into unconsciousness. Her last thought, as her thoughts fled, was whether or not Adora knew what had happened.