Chapter 9.2
Results
[X] Make someone else the Best Man or Maid of Honor
-[x] Scorpia
***
"HURK!" I tried to squirm my way free of the overwhelming force crushing the air out of my lungs. "Scorpia ... need to ... breathe!"
Scorpia evidently didn't hear me, considering her hug actually got tighter. "Yes! Of course I'll be your maid of honor! Thank you thank you thank you! Oh wow, I'm gonna do everything I can to be the best maid of honor ever! Like ... like..." She trailed off uncertainly, bringing a claw up to her chin. "Um ... what exactly am I supposed to do?"
"I don't ... know!" I wheezed. "Ask someone ... that actually ... knows. Like Glimmer!"
"Oh, that makes sense." Scorpia finally let me go from her death-hug and turned to Glimmer. Bright Moon's princess, as well as Adora and Bow, were giggling to one another as they watched Scorpia nearly commit accidental regicide. "So, um, what's the deal with being the maid of honor. It sure sounds important. It must be when it's for a wedding."
Glimmer cleared her throat as she struggled to control her giggling. "It's not that hard. You just need to attend the wedding and assist the bride with setting everything up. You can also help plan the bachelorette party, though I think that's optional."
"No, I want to help with that." Scorpio smiled from ear to ear as she took my hands in her claws. "I swear, you'll have the best bachelorette party ever. I'm not entirely sure what those are either yet. But I promise you, I'm going to find out and it's going to be the very best one ever."
Glimmer chuckled and patted Scorpia's shoulder. "Don't worry, I can help you out there. I mean, I've never really done any wedding preparations myself, but I learned some of the basics. And we can always ask Mom anything we're not sure about."
Scorpia smiled down at the princess. "Thanks Glimmer, you're a pal."
"I do want my best friend to have the best wedding she can." Glimmer smiled, though there was a hint of brittleness to it for some reason.
"Thanks Glimmer." Adora rubbed her chin. "Though now that I think about it, I'll need a maid of honor. Or a best man? Aren't you supposed to have one of each at the wedding? How's this supposed to work when it's two girls marrying?"
Bow shrugged. "I think you can do whatever you want. My dads just asked their best friends to help out."
Adora frowned as she looked between Glimmer and Bow. "So how am I supposed to pick between you two?" The doofus started pacing as she mumbled to herself. "You're both my friends. Glimmer's of higher station, but I don't want Bow to feel slighted. Then there's the public perception of the event. How would it look if..."
Bow leaned near me to whisper as Adora kept talking to herself. "Has she always been like this?"
"As long as I've known her." I sighed. "She is such a doofus when she overthinks these things."
And since I'd known Adora since we were little kids, I knew how to get her to stop when she got into one of her little obsessions. Usually by giving her something else to obsess about.
"Hey Adora, before we can worry about flowers or the color of the tables, we need to deal with something actually important."
Adora stopped her pacing. "What's on your mind?"
"Those fortress ruins that are full of robot scorpions." I crossed my arms over my chest. "I don't like how they running around and chomping down on our supply trucks. Maybe they're just acting on some broken First Ones orders from way back when, but I'd rather not take any chances they might cause us real trouble in the future."
"So you want us to go there and deal with the problem?" Bow asked. "Makes sense. I'd rather not have a swarm of those robots suddenly show up and wreck the wedding. Because you just
know they would show up at the most inconvenient time."
Glimmer groaned. "That would be our luck, wouldn't it? Yeah, best to head in there to take care of things."
Adora nodded. "Sounds like a good idea." Adora grinned and she pulled out her sword. "And now that I've got the Sword of Protection back I might be able to use She-Ra to shut the place down, or at least not bring down an army of robo-scorpions down on our heads again."
"I'd prefer not to do that." Bow rubbed his chin. "Of course, we're going to need to figure out how to get in there and do whatever it is we need to do."
"We have at least a couple of choices," Adora said. "We can try and airdrop into the fortress using Darla."
I frowned. "That could be risky. Those robots were doing something to the fortress. It might be they've repaired defenses that might be a threat to Darla. And I
do not want to lose the one and only spaceship we've got."
"The alternative is that we try and sneak in," Adora said. "Glimmer's teleporting would make that easier. Though we would have to worry about how many teleports we use."
"And I don't exactly like blind teleporting." Glimmer let out a huff. "About the last thing we want me to do is have me teleport us into the middle of a whole pit of those things, or worse. You two didn't get to explore all that much of the fortress, right?"
I shook my head. "No, we didn't. Things got pretty nuts when that stupid AI went crazy and tried to murder us."
Adora tapped her foot. "Maybe we should just try and walk up to the front door. I mean, once they see I'm She-Ra they'll probably do the usual 'Administrator Detected' thing and just let me do whatever I want."
A growl escaped my throat as bad memories surfaced. "Remember how the spider-bots still tried to kill both of us despite you being in She-Ra form back when we were checking out that tower with the freaky holograms? Just saying, that First Ones stuff isn't always safe."
"It can be really unpredictable," Bow agreed. "Most of it is pretty broken after a thousand years, and we don't entirely know how it works. We might just have to break something important in order to make sure the fortress won't be a threat."
"Entrapta won't like it if we break any of the technology inside the fortress," Glimmer countered. "She wants to take it all apart and study it."
"She can live with the disappointment if it means no one gets hurt." I was mostly worried about something bad happening to Adora, though I guess she would be upset if something happened to her friends. And ... it wasn't like I was friends with her friends. But they were kinda alright. For being Adora's dumb friends. I could make use of them if they were going to be hanging around anyways.
"Still, it's pretty great how the Best Friends Squad is getting back together." Bow wrapped his arms around his friends' shoulders. "Are you guys excited, because I'm pretty excited."
Glimmer grinned. "It's felt like forever since we went on a mission together. It'll be just like old times."
Adora smiled and nodded. "Sounds good to me. Now as for how we're going to approach the fortress..."
***
How shall the Best Friends Squad approach the First Ones fortress?
[ ] Attempt an air drop into the fortress using Darla.
[ ] Try and sneak in.
[ ] Use Adora's administrative access as She-Ra.
[ ] Fight their way in.
[ ] Write-in.
