Catra was always in control. When Shadow Weaver tried to manipulate her, she saw right through her. She fought her way into power, and when Hordak tried to take it from her she turned right back around, survived the second harshest environment on Etheria, and nearly destroyed the world. She became, essentially, the leader of the Horde. She controlled every aspect of her life, and she had immense control over others.

Horde Prime ripped all that away from her.

She could wander the ship, sure. She could go anywhere she wanted, but there was always one of those damned clones following her. Sometimes they would stay right beside her; other times they would lurk around a corner, just out of sight, where they thought she couldn't tell they were there. It was infuriating. She had nothing to do, no one to talk to, and she had no idea what would happen to her once Horde Prime got bored of keeping her around.

So she broke the rules. She talked to Glimmer, even though she was the last person she'd want to be stuck with. She snuck into every off-limits area on the ship, and learned as many of Prime's secrets as she could. It was all she could do to have some semblance of control over her life.

She had no power there. She knew that. She didn't even have Prime's trust; he was far too smart for that. So she took what she could get, and waited.

Adora was coming. God, she was such an idiot. Headed straight towards the most powerful person in the universe to rescue Glimmer. She obviously didn't have a plan, nor did she know what she was headed for.

Adora was her enemy. Catra should have been glad she'd be captured by Prime. She should be glad that Prime was going to win. She didn't even have to do anything; all she had to do was let it happen.

If there was one thing Catra knew for certain about herself, it was that she wasn't a bystander. She was always the one to take action, for better or for worse. Prime was going to kill her eventually, anyway. Maybe she could do one good thing in her life. Maybe she could save Adora.

She expected Prime to kill her, afterwards. She'd deserve it, after everything she did on Etheria. She fully expected that day to be her last.

What Prime did was so much worse.

The clones dragged her away, forcing her to walk. She didn't care anymore, didn't even look up to see where they were going.

They were in a plain, sterile bathroom, the same one she'd been using for the few weeks she'd been there. The clones made her undress and sit down in the bathtub, submerging her almost entirely. At this point she washed herself, because she was not about to let a bunch of clones do it for her. She came out cleaner than she'd been in a very long time, and wondering exactly what Prime was planning to do to her. Have her presentable for her execution, maybe.

The clones had her sit in a chair facing the mirror and draped a cloth over her. She didn't understand what they were doing until she saw one holding a pair of scissors. She shut her eyes as the clones began cutting her hair. They were maddeningly slow; when she cracked one eye open just barely, she could see uniform chunks of hair falling at a slow, steady rate. Her head slowly got lighter as more and more hair was removed, until finally the sound of snipping stopped. Just as she was about to open her eyes, something cold was placed on her head and worked into her hair. Hair gel, she realized after a moment. Her hair was slicked back, away from her face, making her feel exposed and vulnerable. But she refused to show it.

They took off the cloth and swept up the hair littering the ground. Catra stood there, looking at herself in the mirror and avoiding the clones' gaze, until one handed her a white uniform with the Horde symbol on it. She dropped it and stood with her arms folded stubbornly. She could take them cutting her hair, but she would not wear a Horde symbol. Not today.

They ended up wrestling her into it despite her protests, then dragged her along to a different room. Catra froze when she saw which room they were in. There was the pool of ominous green liquid, where she'd seen Hordak have his memory wiped far too recently. But there was something else there too, a table that hadn't been there before.

"Forgive the state of our setup," Prime said through a nearby clone, gesturing to the machinery haphazardly arranged around the table. "You are to be our first test subject. It's quite an honor, you know."

Catra said nothing. She struggled and fought, but she was outnumbered. They forced her down onto the table, lying on her stomach, and put restraints around any part of her that could possibly move. She was rendered immobile, helpless.

Catra bit back a scream as something cut into her neck. With mechanical precision, a knife cut away part of her skin, making room to attach something to her neck. Catra didn't dare move, for fear that it would only hurt worse.

After what felt like an eternity, they were done. The restraints snapped open. Catra didn't move for a moment, waiting for the throbbing pain in her neck to subside to a manageable level.

"Get up, little sister," Prime said. "Don't you want to be free of this pain?"

Catra was hauled to her feet by two clones and shoved towards the pool. She stood on the edge, unsteady, wishing she had the energy to fight. When she didn't move, the clones returned and carried her in.

For a moment, she was only wet and mildly annoyed. Then the pain started. It coursed through every one of her veins, filling her body with agony unlike anything she'd experienced. A dim, barely conscious part of herself recalled that this was just like how Shadow Weaver used to shock her, only a thousand times worse.

But just when she thought she could handle the physical pain, just when she thought she'd make it out, it was as if someone stabbed her with a red-hot poker in her mind. She gasped, desperately clawing at the chip on her neck, but it was no use. Her vision was blurry, the room replaced by a blank green haze. She felt herself detach from her body, her mind becoming ensnared in a web of green, forced to become a part of this mass, this hivemind. She screamed, and then there was silence.

Catra could only watch as her body was puppeted out of the pool. She dared not reach beyond the bounds of her mental cage; any time she so much as touched the green bars, a wave of pain rolled through her, forcing her to cower in the center and watch.

Prime took away her control. He stripped her of everything she had worked for, and then he took her body, too.

She could only find solace in the fact that at least Adora was safe.