Turning Our Darkest Hour to Light (She-Ra: Princesses of Power, Multicross)

[Geckonator]

Prologue: Separation

Steel sang and warriors screamed at the edge of two worlds, while above the sky was a tapestry of a billion stars... and a hundred starships raining death below.

Miro strode swiftly through the battlefield, his eyes set on its centerpiece: Castle Grayskull, his castle, and its imposing visage staring out over the struggle below.

He flicked his sword across the space in front of him, and sent a half dozen of the enemy soldiers flying away from him. Miro noted with dismay they soon got up and joined the battle nearest to them seconds later. The Horde had been upgrading their cybernetics since the last battle.

But as he neared the castle, Miro was also proud to note his soldiers holding the line with everything they had, everything he had trained them in since the start of this war. Men at arms in their magically powered armor, bearing the red cross of Grayskull, stood in flexible formations, blocking any approach by the Horde's hooded, cybernetic soldiers while the lighter equipped stood in carefully prepared positions up and down the cliffs that formed Castle Grayskull's walls, using magic and lasers alike to cover the battlefield and exchange fire with the Horde's cruisers above.

"H-He-Man! King Grayskull!" One of the officers, marked out by an appropriately more elaborate helmet saluted Miro as he approached. "Is it true that the Horde's breaking through with this one?"

"Yes." Miro sighed as he wiped sweat and his own golden hair out of his face. He would never lie to a friend, even when the truth was dark. "I just got back from Eternos and coordinating the battles elsewhere. The Horde bombed Stilios to ashes from orbit, and Hiss seems to have decided that with the truce over he's throwing his lot in with the Horde; the Snake Men tore down the last portal in the Dark Hemisphere."

"Then that means..."

"Yes, Grayskull itself is all that's left."

The soldier gave a worried glance upward, first at the ships staring down on them and then beyond, into the field of stars that lit the battlefield. "If they bombed Stilios, then why are they bothering to take Grayskull intact?"

"Horde Prime definitely still wants some of our magical sites intact, and Grayskull is the big one. They're going to throw everything at these gates until they can finally walk inside."

"Uh, one last question my lord... is She-Ra coming? Is it as bad on Etheria?"

Miro felt his harness become a little bit heavier at that thought. "I don't know, I haven't been able to contact her through the swords or otherwise. I'm going to go through the portal to her signal, but we have to assume..."

"That we're all all we've got." The soldier's eyes lowered and then raised again with a determined smile. "We'll beat them back no matter what they try, my lord! By the power of Grayskull!"

"By the power of Grayskull!" Miro raised his sword overhead. It was more than a salute, with the Sword of Power, and above them the gates of the castle rumbled. With one last glance, Miro began climbing the last steps and arches into the mouth of the skull which formed the castle. As he approached it, the gates opened, and then closed just as suddenly with a reverberating crash.

***

Miro felt the portal's energies flow around him like a river of light. One could not see as they traveled between worlds, but there was a distinct flow to the light, if one knew it, and one could also steer with the right tool. Miro used the Sword of Power as that tool, channeling the position it felt from its sister the Sword of Protection. And soon he could feel the light rushing to a point, coalescing and sharpening as...

He stepped out onto the cliff's edge in a single step. Where it had been night on the rocky fields of Eternia, he was now in Etheria, a far more lush and verdant world as the forest stretching below attested, and it was daytime. The sun--the same sun as Eternia for they were locked in exact opposite orbits of each other--was heavy in the sky, casting an ominous twilight glow on everything. At the edge of the cliff was Mara, She-Ra, Defender of Etheria... and his sister.

As Miro approached behind her, Mara did not even turn to look at him.

"They're coming," she whispered.

"Who? The Horde's already launched an assault all over Eternia, if they haven't hit Etheria yet we can--"

"No," Mara, usually so considerate to listen, hissed the interruption without any hint of emotion. "The Horde already launched their attack here. They spread a virus through corrupted crystals, something from that Cybertronian scientist they've been working with. I already took care of it and the colonies are working on getting things back online."

"That's amazing news Mara! Then we can--"

"No, Miro, you don't... I'm not talking about the Horde when I say they're coming. I mean something worse. The thing from my dreams... the nightmares..."

Miro took a step further, his concern for his sister raising every second. "Have you been having them again? I told you you can always--"

"They've been getting worse." Again, no intense emotion, just a statement of fact spat out like she was tired and any other talk was draining her. "You know I've been watching the stars, how I got so scared when one disappeared last year, and then another, and another... I started thinking about it, reaching out with the sword and magic."

"Mara, you know you can't really sense anything that far away."

"But I did. And it wasn't just an object it was... alive, and I could tell whenever I reached out to it it reached back."

Miro stopped taking small steps and closed the distance between him and Mara instantly, taking her into an embrace of comfort they had shared so many times since their war had begun.

"Mara, please, we've both been struggling, we've shared all these troubles, that's why we were picked by the swords in the first place. If you need to rest or talk we can--"

"This isn't like any of the... episodes either of us has had. This is reaching into my mind. I can't fall asleep without feeling it again, seeing those... claws reaching down around me, see that impossibly huge maw gaping open wide enough to swallow everything... the red light, that scream."

"Mara, whatever it is, please let us help you! Like you helped me last when we lost--"

"No!" the first genuine shout from Mara shocked Miro to the bone, almost to the point where he didn't notice her physically pushing him away at the same time.

"I have to protect Etheria from this thing... no matter what it costs. I can feel it moving, not just between stars but between dimensions, countless new layers of stars and planets... ravaged behind that thing, and I don't even know whether it's coming towards us or not."

"Mara, I... I don't understand."

"I'm going to protect Etheria not just from the Horde and invasions, but from everything. I have to get away, get us all away. I have to stop the screaming in my head, and the best way to do it... is to hide somewhere where we can't be found."

Realization crept across Miro's face as he put what she was saying together, and suddenly realized that his arrival through the Crystal Castle's gate had been greeted by nobody, not even the slightest acknowledgement from Light Hope who would be well within projection rnage.

"Mara, what's going on inside the castle, where's Light Hope?"

"I ripped out parts of her program, rerouted more of the planet's magical systems to the Sword. I have direct control over it all."

"Mara that's insane, using that kind of power personally would--"

"Yes, and that's my sacrifice to protect Etheria."

"You're going to destroy Etheria, and Eternia too with the backlash through the connections!"

"And that same backlash will wipe out the Horde from orbit and most of the land. Most people will survive, they'll be able to adapt. This is necessary, Miro, I have to do it to protect everyone, to truly be the She-Ra we need."

"I'm not leaving you here to do this, and I'm not leaving you alone to suffer this. We'll figure this out together and protect both worlds, without having to sacrifice anyone." Miro tried to pull close to her again, trying to give her another hug, to reassure her that they were still siblings and that every bond of blood they had would protect them.

Mara pushed back with the hilt of her sword instead, channeling magic to shock Miro's body and blast him away and into the gate of the Crystal Castle.

"I'm sorry, Miro, you're not leaving me, but I have to leave you."

With another wave of her sword Mara knocked him back again with magic, and with an unearthly whine the gate of the Castle he was barely touching melted into a new branch of the Last Portal. Miro reacted quickly, stumbling forward to escape touching the portal and then plunging his sword into the ground as he fell slightly. However, with a sudden explosion of agony through his lower half, Miro turned and saw that just the ends of his legs had touched the portal, and that was enough to take them into the stream and begin pulling inexorably at the rest of him.

Miro looked up at Mara at the edge of the cliff, and saw a flicker of regret across her face. He thought to say something, but the pain silenced him as more of his body was dragged into the portal, dragging the sword back in a jagged gash across the ground. And when he looked back, Mara's face had hardened, with the sharp eyes he recognized as her expression in battle. She turned away from him, returned to the edge of the cliff, and knelt down with her own sword plunging into the stone they stood on.

The last sight Miro saw as his fingers slipped and twitched just enough to lose the sword and send him streaking through the portal was a glow forming around Mara, and the ground beginning to tremble.