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Chapter Text

Bright Moon Laboratories must have been really low on staff to contact Dr. Entrapta.

She was brilliant, there was no question about it. She knew she was an exceptionally talented scientist and engineer, and saying otherwise just for the sake of humility would have been a lie. She also knew that people found her methods to be questionable. Eccentric, they called her to her face. Uncooperative and difficult, behind her back.

Unethical.

Which was… Well. Entrapta supposed it was true, in a way. Depending on the way you looked at it. The scientists at Bright Moon Labs just restricted themselves with too many arbitrary limitations. It was no wonder the Horde had such a strangle hold on them.

And. Well. Sometimes they seemed to have some trouble understanding Entrapta’s field of study. In peacetime, her robots and weaponry wouldn’t have seen much interest, she was sure. But now that the war had raged on for over fifteen years already, they were growing warmer to the ideas she sent them.

The thing was, Entrapta was perfectly fine with the arrangements they’d made with the Royal Academics. Entrapta stayed far from the capital, on her family’s lands in Dryl, and worked on her contraptions out of sight, out of mind. She sent them her best works and they sent her funds.

She’d been perfectly fine with that.

The letter with Bright Moon’s official seal made it seem that the others wanted to change the deal.

Dr. Angella must have gotten desperate.

Well. Never mind that. Entrapta wasn’t planning on answering her invitation anyway. She’d skimmed the letter through. They’d found something, some kind of a techno-organic creature from the Horde’s facilities or something. Organic stuff wasn’t really Entrapta’s thing. She had the basics down, but it didn’t interest her enough to draw her out of her lab.

She was fully planning on just forgetting the letter under a pile of more interesting papers. Sooner or later they were going to forget about her too and things would go back to normal.

As it turned out, though, she had underestimated Dr. Angella’s desperation. It became clearer to her, when just three days after she’d received the letter, her robotic servants led two Alliance soldiers into her lab.

“Dr. Entrapta,” the woman said, kicking her feet together and saluting her. “I am Captain Adora and this is Private Bow. We’re here to escort you to Bright Moon Laboratories.”

They were quite adamant about her coming with them. And they had cornered her at her own home. They did not seem to be looking for a no for an answer.

“It would be better we leave within the hour,” the woman said. “We have it on good authority that Horde spies have been spotted in Dryl.”

“Well of course they have,” Entrapta said. “I’ve had Emily compile all their names and locations. It’s better to know where they are, right?” She looked from one confused face to the other. “Although,” she said a little slower, “it might have been good to let you know about it? If this was supposed to be a secret? Right?”

The two soldiers shared a look.

“I… Dr. Angella really needs your help,” Captain Adora said. “We can’t let you stay here. This is urgent.”

In the end, there wasn’t much Entrapta could do but follow them out, where they had a closed ground-skiff waiting. They were in such a hurry she didn’t even have time to get her stuff. The only things she managed to snatch before she was being pushed out the door were her trusty recorder and her utility belt.

Not even a change of clothes.

Well. She probably wouldn’t even be staying long. She’d just let Dr. Angella know that there must’ve been some sort of a mistake and she’d be continuing her work from her home like she’d done so far. It was a small mistake. Entrapta would have it corrected by the end of the day.

The skiff kicked off and soon Dryl was nothing but a speck in the horizon. Captain Adora was quick to tell her more about this creature they were so excited about. Apparently, it was something Dr. Angella was sure could change the tide of the war. That was, if they’d just be able to crack the mystery of it.

It wasn’t a piece of some ancient magitech, though, or even weaponry from the Horde, but something more of biological nature by the sounds of it. An aquatic creature they were keeping in a tank.

”What? Did you lose all of your biotechs?” Entrapta asked.

The look Captain Adora and Private Bow shared made her think maybe she should have kept her mouth shut.

Bright Moon Labs was a fancy place. Most of the students graduating from Mysticor dreamed of working there and with the war going, most got hired right after graduation, with no questions asked. Scientist didn’t have as big of a turnover rate as the soldiers, but it wasn’t like they were completely safe either.

Fifteen years into the invasion and they were still struggling with the changing times. Etheria took things slowly.

The Horde didn’t.

But the Labs themselves truly were fancy. Built like a castle, with all its colorful banners, mosaics on the walls and light crystals shaped like chandeliers. It was bright and clean. Too bright. Entrapta was squinting her eyes when the skiff door opened and it didn’t get better when they left the hangar. With her eyes watering, she pulled down her goggles to shield herself from the brightness.

The two soldiers led her out of the hangar and into the castle proper.

Everything here was shiny. The walls, the ceilings. Even the guards passing them by were wearing light pastels and glittery metals, like their armor and weaponry was just for show, not for use. But Entrapta knew those rifles. Shiny as they may have been, they could incapacitate any Horde soldier, if used correctly.

There was no clutter either. Entrapta could barely see any equipment. Everything was behind locked doors, in their own, separate compartments.

Her hands were getting sweaty in her gloves. To distract herself from it, she started tapping her fingers against her thighs. A fast rhythm to keep her mind busy.

How was anyone supposed to work in a space where they’d be too worried to make a mess?

“Dr. Entrapta!”

She lifted her eyes from Captain Adora’s reflection on the floor and looked for the source of the voice.

The fast clacking of heels against the floor preceded Dr. Angella’s approach. She was a tall and powerful woman, her white lab coat neat and clean, her hair billowing behind her as she marched. She greeted Entrapta with drawn brows and a frown on her mouth, marching at full speed until she was just a few steps away, then stopping and staring down at her.

The head scientist of Bright Moon still drew an intimidating figure. It didn’t help that she was at least two heads taller than Entrapta.

“Oh. Hey there,” she said. It’d been a while since they’d met and Entrapta could never remember what was the right way to address a person of her status. “Nice of you to invite mere here like this, I guess. Um. Doc.” She scratched her head and pulled the strap of her goggles higher. “I got to say, though. I wasn’t going to take your offer. Until you sent your friends to get me.”

“Nonsense,” Dr. Angella said, and Entrapta could kind of remember her voice being kinder before. “It’s for the war effort. It’s safer for you here and we need your input. Besides, would you not rather do your work here? With your peers?”

“Not really,” she said, looking around. “You guys have a specific way of doing things.” She wasn’t going to say it was the wrong one. That usually ended badly for her. “And I have mine. I liked how we dealt with it before. You run things too tightly here.”

Captain Adora snorted behind her.

“Bless you,” Entrapta said. “Anyway, if there was something you needed me for, I’d rather get it over with it. The sooner we get it done, the sooner I’ll be on my way back home. Your guys didn’t even give me enough time to pack my stuff! All I have is my recorder!” She pulled the thing out of her pocket for show.

Dr. Angella stared down at her without a word for a moment. A longer moment than Entrapta would have been comfortable with. Entrapta looked from Captain Adora to Private Bow, but neither of them was giving her anything to work with either. Private Bow looked like he’d swallowed something he wasn’t supposed to and he was sweating profusely. Captain Adora just looked amused.

Dr. Angella drew a long breath through her nose, then breathed out a sigh so long and suffering Entrapta started to wonder if the doctor perhaps thought Entrapta had done something wrong.

“I’m sure,” Dr. Angella started slowly, measuring her words with care, “that we can arrange to have your belongings brought here, if that will make your transition easier. However, I must insist that you stay with us. It would seem that the Horde has realized the importance of your work and you will be safer in here than in Dryl.”

“Well, at least someone has eye for talent!” she said and laughed.

The corridor was as silent as a grave. Entrapta swallowed her laughter and shifted.

“Which… is bad, apparently.” She sighed as well, putting just as much long-suffering annoyance into it, and then some. “Fine, fine. Let’s hear about this project of yours then, if it’s so important.”

The stiffness didn’t leave Dr. Angella’s face. She took half a step back and waved her hand.

“We will discuss the work-related matters first, then you may talk to Captain Adora about the equipment you need, since apparently my people failed to mention the permanence of this stay.” Her voice gained a sharper tone and Entrapta followed her glare to the soldiers behind them. Private Bow jumped to attention, while the Captain just gave a lopsided smile and a shrug.

Well. She supposed it wouldn’t be that bad if she’d be getting her stuff here. She worked better at home, but these people weren’t giving her much of a choice here, were they? It all depended on the lab they’d give her now.

Taking a look around, Entrapta doubted it’d be up to her standards.

”Please follow me,” Dr. Angella said. ”So we can discuss the matter further at my office. This way.”

There were a lot less people here than Entrapta remembered. She saw only a handful of guards, all in their formal Bright Moon gear. There were even less scientists. Dr. Angella was the only one she’d seen so far and the halls were supposed to be teeming with engineers, tech heads and doctors from different fields. That was the picture she’d gotten those few times she’d visited.

Dr. Angella moved with meaning. Her long legs took her towards her office with determination that had Entrapta jogging after her to keep up. She did make for an intimidating leader, Entrapta had to admit. She could remember her being stern before as well. But there had always been a softness to it.

Now Dr. Angella looked to be all sharp edges and frowns.

This place was a nightmare.

Compared to the bright halls of Bright Moon, Dr. Angella’s office was dimly lit. The only window out of the room was behind blinds. The light of the Moonstone outside was shining through, painting lines on the walls. It was the thing that powered the entire facility and it was quite a marvel. Dr. Angella spared it no glances when she sat down in front of its glow. She rested her elbows on her desk, dropped her head against her hands and for a moment she just sat there.

She was barely a silhouette against the window.

Entrapta was slow to lift her goggles. The world lost its purple tint, but didn’t gain much of its color. Instead of sitting in the only other chair of the office, Entrapta looked around. The office seemed pretty normal. There were shelves with books in them, old volumes on history and warfare, it seemed like. Decorative tomes, with beautifully carved covers. There was a First Ones’ data crystal in a glass stand, a beautiful piece of history right there. Shame that it was cracked in two, with tiny pieces missing.

Nearly useless.

A pity.

“Dr. Entrapta, please,” Dr. Angella said, tired. “Sit.”

Entrapta looked at her over her shoulder. She glanced at the crystal, then back at her and made her way to the desk, sitting down.

They sat there in silence for a moment. Entrapta kicked her feet and started to look around the office again. There was a lot of dust here, actually. Not a spec of it outside, but here it looked like nothing had touched the books for a while. There were nails jutting out of the walls, places to hang pictures from, but there were barely any frames. Entrapta could see two on Dr. Angella’s desk. One was skewed just enough that she could see a picture of Dr. Angella holding her hand on the shoulder of a young girl with a diploma of some sort. The other frame had been turned face down.

“I… apologize for the unexpected invite,” Dr. Angella said after a long pause. She lifted her head from her hands and fumbled around the desk until she found the switch for her lamp. A tiny, warm yellow crystal flickered to light and showed more of her face, while painting heavy shadows around them.

Her cheeks had hollowed out considerably compared to the picture Entrapta could see.

Or maybe it was just the shadows.

“I know we’ve… had our differences. And that there’s a reason you prefer solitude. And… and I know it would have been better to wait for your response, but I had a feeling we would have been waiting for a long time.”

“I mean, that’s fair,” Entrapta said. “Never is a really long time. Hah.”

The smile Dr. Angella offered her lacked any joy.

“The time is of the essence,” she said. “There was no point in delaying this. You… We need you here and it takes a lot to admit that. I’m sure you understand.”

She didn’t, really. The animosity between them had always been kind of one sided. It had taken a while for Entrapta to even understand Dr. Angella disapproved of her work methods.

Either way, it didn’t really change things.

“I’ve been working just fine on my own,” she said. She didn’t mean anything bad by it. It was just the truth. Entrapta produced her best works when she was by herself, when there was nothing bothering her. That’s how it had been so far.

Would she have said no to a lab partner? She supposed she wouldn’t have. But Entrapta had learned during her studies that precious few people could stand working with her for long and that robotic assistants worked just as fine and required none of the pretenses organic workmates did.

Was she lonely? Sometimes. But she did enjoy her own company just fine.

“I am aware,” Dr. Angella said, as if admitting a great defeat. “And trust me, you are not our first choice.”

The words were spoken in a way that implied this to be an insult. Entrapta kicked her feet back and forth.

”Well,” she said, just as truthfully. ”I would have rather not come either. I was in the middle of something.”

”You can finish that later!” Dr. Angella said, slamming her palm against the desk. The picture frames rattled.

Entrapta pulled back.

Dr. Angella drew a sharp breath, then looked down, brows knit together. She swallowed thickly, caught up in something.

Slowly she reached to right the frame next to her.

“I… I’m sorry, Dr. Entrapta. It has been a… long week. Month.” She was silent for a beat, then added under her breath: ”Decade. But we… I know, that you are a remarkable scientist and we wouldn’t have been able to survive this long against the Horde without your contribution. You have an unparalleled amount of knowledge and knowhow on technologies that are of… foreign origins. And we need your help.”

“I thought this wasn’t about First Ones’ tech,” Entrapta said. If it was, she might have been interested.

“It’s not,” Dr. Angella said. “Not exactly. I’m sure Captain Adora already briefed you on this, but our recon team managed to storm a Horde facility not too long ago and they were able to recover something that the scientists there had been working on. It is a creature of some sort. It’s… anomalous.”

She pulled open a drawer and searched around for a moment, before pulling out a file. She opened it and leafed through the papers. Finding what she was looking for, Dr. Angella handed a grainy picture to Entrapta.

It was of some sort of a scientific facility, filled with rows and rows of vats with green liquid in them. The quality of the picture wasn’t high, but Entrapta could just about see dark lumps floating in the liquid.

“We believe it might be some sort of a biological weapon,” she said. “Or perhaps they’re working on a way to produce more troops to take the place of the fallen. This creature was the only one we were able to recover, but it would seem that it was the only one left living as well.”

Entrapta offered the picture back.

“That’s cool and all,” she said. “Sounds neat. But how am I going to be able to help out? No offence, but this isn’t exactly my area of expertise.” Or interest.

Dr. Angella put the picture back between the folder and leafed through the papers some more. She pulled out a sheet and handed it over to her.

It had readings on it, taken from the creature, it seemed. Readings, that looked very familiar to her.

“But you said it wasn’t First Ones’ tech,” she said slowly.

“I said it’s not that exactly. It’s still Horde technology – “

“But mixed with First Ones’,” Entrapta finished. “Or they’ve borrowed parts of the code. Hmm.” She ran a gloved finger over the numbers. Blood and skin samples, bodily functions, they all had a certain aura of ancient magitech.

“Yes,” Dr. Angella said. “It is a techno-organic creature of some sort. We haven’t been able to study it properly. These are just the first tests we thought to make. Our historians, brilliant as they are, aren’t really on top of the modern applications of the technology. We’d like to see if you could make sense of this.”

Entrapta said nothing. She went through the numbers, running them over in her head. She had to admit, this was interesting. More interesting than she’d thought it was going to be. Something about these numbers didn’t quite add up and that, more than anything, got her gears turning.

There was something to this after all.

Perhaps she could take a look at this. Since she was here. No, the organic part of the whole techno-organic thing wasn’t really her field. Entrapta had dabbled. There had been a handful of projects. But a meld of a modern, living being, with the technology from the ancients? Now that was interesting.

Mixing Frist Ones’ magitech with Etherian stuff was always a risky business. Difficult, but highly rewarding. Add a living organism to the mix and you were spelling disaster. Failing to understand what you were doing was going to leave you with a dead test subject and barely any data.

But the Horde had always been better equipped to deal with this stuff.

“There is… something else too,” Dr. Angella said. “Something that makes this so important to us.”

”Mmmhm.” She ran her tongue over her lips. If these numbers were right, this creature was a near perfect meld. Well. As close to perfection as you could get. Mixing organic matter with magitech was always a losing game for the test subject. It could take years for the ill effects to show, but when they did, they were devastating. Rarely had she seen a test subject with First Ones’ tech permanently fused to it survive a decade. But this one was, according to what she was looking at now, a fully grown, living creature.

But then again, this tech wasn’t strictly First Ones’, was it? The readings were different. Either the Bright Moon staff had measured things wrong, which she wouldn’t put past them, or this was something different.

Could the Horde have cracked the code?

Before her?

“This creature, it strikes a frightening resemblance to Horde Prime. I think we would be out of our minds to not think that there is a connection of some sort. It seems to share his resilience as well. Most of our needles were unable to pierce its skin when we tried to take blood samples.”

“Uhhuh.” Well, even if it turned out the Horde had only managed to make a partial meld, Entrapta would be more than interested in cutting it open and see what had been done. This wasn’t her usual repertoire, but she had the basics down. If she could replicate their meld, she could dig up that old prosthetics project she’d started way back. That ought to warm even the most frigid Bright Moon scientists to her work. And if the tech ended up tearing the creature apart, she could at least gather the data of the failure.

All knowledge was good knowledge, after all.

Maybe this wasn’t going to be that bad after all. Depending on the circumstances, Entrapta might just be able to get enough material for the next decade at least! And if not, it’d at least be more interesting than looking at some weird animal Dr. Angella had captured or whatever.

“It would be very useful to find out, if there was some… some weapon that we could specifically use against Prime. Or… or if he’s found a way to reproduce more of his soldiers, then we should try to find a way to stop them before they overwhelm us. Perhaps a virus of some sort, that would only affect his people. That is, of course, not your expertise, but just finding a way to disrupt the mechanical parts would be good. Not even mentioning how our troops would benefit from whatever tech they’re using. I’ve actually called Dr. Spinner to accompany us with some extra research.”

Entrapta lifted her head from the numbers. She hadn’t realized Dr. Angella was still talking.

Shoot.

“I’ve – I’ll have to go through these numbers first,” she said, pointing at the paper. “I want to read everything you have on this thing and then take a look at it myself. I want to see how prominent the tech is. Because if it’s really showy, it’ll – “

Before she could finish her musings, the door to Dr. Angella’s office burst open and hit the wall. A girl in sparkling pink boots and a lab coat barged in.

“Mom! Dr. Spinner just – ” The girl from the picture swallowed her words and looked between Dr. Angella and Entrapta. She opened and closed her mouth a few times without a word coming through before she managed to stammer out: “Oh. Uh. Sorry. I didn’t – I didn’t realize you had company.”

Dr. Angella’s shoulders slumped. She crossed her hands on her desk and stared at them.

“Which is exactly why you should’ve knocked, Glimmer,” she said. “Especially, if you’re serious about this internship.”

The lab coat was a bit too big for the girl. She’d rolled the sleeves and the shoulders were drooping lower than they should’ve.

Entrapta liked the look. She offered the girl a wide smile that went mostly unnoticed.

“Yes, mom,” she said, staring at her feet.

That reminded her. There should have been someone here far better qualified for the job than her. It was kind of weird that Dr. Angella had come for Entrapta, when she had a castle full of people she got along better with. Entrapta turned back to Dr. Angella.

“Wouldn’t Dr. Micah be loads better at this whole thing?” she asked, waving her hand. “Organic science and all that creature stuff is more his thing, right? I’m sure he’d be so much better at this than me. Closer too, right?”

Neither of them answered her question. The room was silent. It was like a heavy blanket had been cast over them, a suffocating weight pushing down on Entrapta’s shoulders.

She looked from Dr. Angella’s downturned eyes to the daughter’s suddenly much paler complexion. The girl was holding onto the door handle with a grip that left her knuckles white.

“Unless…” she continued, her voice jumping a little, “I’m actually the perfect person for this. Which would be fine. Really fine, actually. No objections from me.”

Now that she was looking, Dr. Angella looked a lot more tired than she had during their last meeting a few years back. The hollows on her cheeks weren’t just the play of the shadows, the pastiness of her skin wasn’t just the lighting. She had bags under her eyes and her hair had started to get thinner. Less vibrant.

”I’m afraid Micah is…” she started before her voice broke. Dr. Angella cleared her throat, then placed her hands on her desk as if they were going to help give her stability. “Dr. Micah cannot help us anymore. With him, we lost a good chunk of our research staff. I meant it when I said you weren’t our first choice. Since you have been frank with me, Dr. Entrapta, I’m going to be frank with you.” She stared Entrapta right in the eye with intensity that made her uncomfortable. “We would not have called for you had we other choices,” she said, nothing but serious candor in her voice. “We need your help. We may not see eye to eye in everything, but we need you.”

And there it was.

Entrapta slumped down in her chair.

”Okay,” she said.

”Okay?”

”Okay. Fine. Looking at your data, it could be interesting. But. I’m going to need my stuff.” She pushed off the chair and started walking back and forth in front of it. “I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to help you with this, I’m going to be honest. But. I’ll see what I can do. Give it, uh…” She stopped and waved her hand in a so-and-so motion. ”Say a month. If I don’t find out anything good by then, I’m going back to Dryl.”

”That is… more than generous, coming from you,” Dr. Angella said. She sounded relieved. Her posture had slouched at least, and she kind of looked like a popped balloon now, leaning against her chair like her bones had turned to dust. With careful movements, she pushed against the chair and gathered herself up.

Dr. Angella offered her hand over the desk, held it there and looked at Entrapta.

It took her a moment to realize she was looking for a shake. She wiped her gloves against her thighs before reaching to meet her half the way.

Dr. Angella let go and fell back to her chair. She started massaging her temples.

Guess Entrapta was going to be staying, then. She really wished she’d at least packed a change of underwear. She wasn’t really going to be happy borrowing someone else’s. She supposed she was going to have to try to think of this as a prolonged sleepover or something.

Not that she’d ever been to a regular-sized sleepover either.

Well. It was in the name of scientific pursuit, so how bad could it be?

“Yes, Glimmer?” Dr. Angella said. “What was it you needed?”

Oh yeah! The girl with the glitter boots!

”Oh, uh,” she said, jumping a little. She started playing with the sleeves of her coat. ”Dr. Spinner just arrived and she wanted to have a word with you.”

”She did?” Dr. Angella said. She looked absolutely exhausted. “Already? But she was supposed to – No. No, that’s fine. It’s wonderful, actually. I’ll go see her right away.” She didn’t move from her chair. “Ah. Glimmer, dear, could you please take Dr. Entrapta to her new lab?”

“Sure, mom. I can do that.”

Entrapta moved to walk past her, but the girl still hesitated at the door.

“Would you like me to tell Dr. Spinner to wait until dinner?”

Dr. Angella drew a sharp breath through her teeth and clambered up from her chair.

“No, dear, that won’t be necessary. Thank you.”

She strode past them with the same weight in her step she’d carried on her way to the office as well. When she stepped out the door, her looks steeled over and most of the exhaustion disappeared under a mask of determination.

Well. That was good then. For a moment Entrapta had been worried, but it looked like everything was under control over here.

The girl, Glimmer, was staring at her feet with a frown.

“I like your lab coat!” Entrapta said, pointing at it.

In the lighting of the hallway, she could see the faded nametag embroidered to its front. Dr. Micah, it said.

The frown grew deeper and Glimmer said nothing.

Entrapta popped her goggles back down.

The lab she was given was pristine. It wasn’t big, but Entrapta didn’t mind that. She worked well in cramped spaces, as long as they were cramped with her stuff. Pristine was the thing she was having trouble with.

She was pretty sure she’d left oily footprints on the floor when she’d arrived.

The equipment was okay. The computers were top of the line, the data pads had all been cleared for her use and she’d been brought tools she could use for the tech stuff. There was one large desk right at the back, with a data feed screen on it, empty shelves for books and equipment for studying samples. Everything that she would need to do her work.

But the problem was that it wasn’t her stuff. This wasn’t her lab; this was some strangers’ room in a strange place. Someone else had worked here before her, then they’d left and now the room was supposed to be hers.

Even the smell was wrong. So, it was basically as good as nothing.

Entrapta had been working at her home lab for most of her life. The last time she’d been forced to use a stranger’s lab had been back at Mystacore when she’d still been a student there, and that had been ages ago.

Well. She supposed she was going to have to get used to it. A month wasn’t that long of a time. It would pass like nothing once she’d get to work.

Entrapta would start by making the room more like what she was used to.

Captain Adora found her half an hour later dragging the desk off the wall and into the middle of the room, where she could pile her papers on while she was working on the floor.

“You really don’t waste time getting things done, huh?” she asked, before moving to the side of the desk and helping her to move it.

Happy with the placement, Entrapta bounced back to where she’d propped the data feed screen and picked it up. She blew a few escaped strands of hair off her face and hauled the screen to the floor next to the desk. When the Captain reached to pick it up, she waved her hand dismissively.

“Preferably not,” Entrapta said and wiped her gloves against her thighs. “Time is limited and I have so much to do. If there was a way I could stop sleeping and use that time for working, I would have found it by now!” She tapped her chin, sure that she was forgetting something. Then it hit her. “Ooh! I’ve been making a list of the stuff I need brought here. Can I give it to you?”

“Uh, sure,” Captain Adora said, looking around the room. “Just, uh, send it to me and I’ll see what I can do.” She looked around. “Where’d Glimmer go? I thought she was going to be here?”

Entrapta shrugged and turned her attention back to the task at hand. She’d made a small spot for the microscopes, centrifuges, gene splicers and all that stuff in one of the corners. She’d have to get a quick reminder on how that stuff worked, but surely there was someone in this building who had used them more than her. For now, all she needed was a change of clothes and maybe a blanket and a pillow for the floor.

She’d make a lab out of this yet.

“Great! I’ll send the list to you as soon as I can!” Entrapta smiled wide.

Happy with her remodeling for the day, she turned to face the Captain fully.

“Are you going to take me to see the creature?” she asked, bouncing up and down on her feet. “Ooh! Can I see it now? I need to see it!”

She’d gone through the notes Dr. Angella had given her. There was discouragingly little there and she wanted to see the creature herself to draw a more solid picture of the situation.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Captain Adora said, turning her focus from the organized mess Entrapta was creating on the floor. She tapped her fingers against an ID card hanging from the corner of her jacket. “You’re going to be needing one of these. We’ve got all the paperwork done, but the guy making the cards also does security and janitorial work, since… we’re kind of short on staff right now.” She shifted weight from one foot to another. “You’ll be getting them in a few days. But before that, you’ll be needing me to let you in through the doors.

“Uuughhhh! ” Entrapta turned on her feet. “Fine. Fine!”

The vents did look big enough to crawl through, though. Such an oversight. Well. What Bright Moon didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them.

Captain Adora gave her a visitor’s badge that would get her through most of the doors. The cafeteria, lavatories and training grounds were open for everyone with the badge. The restricted areas, such as the labs themselves needed the real deal, though, making the visitor’s badge basically useless to Entrapta.

“It’s not so bad,” Captain Adora said when she saw Entrapta staring at the badge with a sullen expression. “I’m usually working around that part of the facility anyway. They have me helping with the Light Hope AI program.”

That caught her attention. “The – the Light hope program?” she asked. So they’d finally pulled that one out of ice? She bounced closer, excitement bleeding through. “I could – I can help with that one too!”

“Sorry!” Captain Adora said, lifting her hands up in surrender. Entrapta had accidentally gotten a bit too close and swayed back to give the Captain more room to breathe. “It’s only for people with the highest clearance. But I’m sure Dr. Angella would appreciate your help, if you asked her.”

Oh, if only. But Dr. Angella wanted her on this creature feature. Entrapta tapped her finger against her chin. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, though. She’d read everything she could get her hands on about the ancient AI when it’d been discovered. She’d love nothing more than the chance to sink her tools into its core to see what made it tick!

Dr. Angella wasn’t going to let her, though. She just knew it.

No. It was boring organic stuff for her.

Captain Adora led her through the corridors and thick security doors deeper into the facility. They descended further down underground. Nothing much changed in the décor. There were just less windows and more crystals. Entrapta watched it all through a purple tint.

“They have it in a water tank most of the time,” the Captain explained. “Unless it needs to be taken out for examination. We’re going to have to find a way to clean the tank at some point too, but that’s a problem for the future. Mostly we just keep it under lock and key. It can get… feisty.” She bared her teeth. “Looks… looks really similar to Prime, actually, so it’s kind of… creepy.”

Captain Adora’s words went in through one ear and out through the other. Entrapta wasn’t really interested in the animal anymore. Not after finding out about the AI just next door! Techno-organic chimeras were First Ones’ signature stuff. They could still be found guarding their temples and fallen ships thousands of years after their creators had disappeared. They were pretty common and pretty boring once you pulled them apart.

The First Ones’ AI work, though! Now that was something else.

Something that would have been right up Entrapta’s alley.

And they give her the wild animal with robotic parts attached to it.

She wondered if there was any way she could get Dr. Angella to transfer her to the Light Hope project. Why she hadn’t been put to that one in the first place was a mystery to her.

Captain Adora got ahead of her, hurrying her steps to make it to a thick blast door before Entrapta. It as a wide, tall thing, all metal by the looks of it and so heavy that it needed machinery to open it. Intricate runes had been carved to the surface of the metal. There was a control panel next to it and Captain Adora lifted her ID card to it.

The runes lit up, but Entrapta wasn’t looking at them. Her eyes were on the sword strapped to Captain Adora’s back.

Swords weren’t really in fashion with the Alliance. Not anymore, anyway. After all, you’d have to be really foolhardy to bring one to a gunfight. Horde soldiers rarely relied on melee.

This one clearly wasn’t just any regular old sword, though. It had the markings of the First Ones on it.

Fascinating.

”I like your sword,” she said.

”Huh? Oh, that old thing? Yes, it’s actually part of the AI program, and – ” Captain Adora fell silent. Her mouth clicked shut and she swirled around on her feet to face Entrapta, putting her body between her and the sword. ”You know, maybe I shouldn’t tell you that. It’s kind of classified, actually.”

”Ooh, classified? How classified? I’m working on classified stuff, aren’t I?”

”It’s more classified than that.”

”Oh, boo!”

And Dr. Angella wasn’t going to tell her either, she just knew it already. Hmm.

She’d have to look into it later. See how wide the vents were in that part of the facility.

But first she’d have to play around with this pet project of hers. She’d promised Dr. Angella a month and a month she was going to give. Entrapta would drag herself through it, then ask for a transfer. Easy-peasy.

The door started to open with struggle. It groaned and grumbled under its own weight, slowly revealing the room on the other side. It was taking its sweet time and Entrapta started to tap her foot against the ground.

She wanted to get her hands on that sword…

Ugh. She’d have to focus. One thing at a time.

Entrapta pursed her lips.

This was taking too long.

With the door opened wide enough to fit her, Entrapta squeezed right through.

“Hey!” Captain Adora called after her. But with those broad shoulders of hers, she wasn’t going to be getting through any time soon.

The room behind the door was wide and round. The floor was rough concrete, dense in comparison to the shiny marble outside. It looked like the decorative tiles had been stripped off to reveal the floor underneath. Maybe it had been done to dig the pool in the middle of the room. Maybe they were planning to put the tiles back later.

Entrapta hoped not.

She marched to the edge of the pool and peered in.

The water was dark and dirty. She couldn’t even see the bottom like this. Pieces of algae were floating on the surface, clumped into small clusters. Entrapta looked around until she spotted some sort of a stick with a leather loop on the other end of it resting against the wall not too far off. She nabbed the stick and knelt down on the ground to plunge it into the water.

It was about waist deep. Seemed to grow deeper near the center. The pool wasn’t that wide either. She couldn’t have swum laps around it even if she had wanted to.

Not that she had dreams of getting any of that nasty water on her skin.

Entrapta dropped the stick on the ground and it clattered away.

She couldn’t tell if the creature was in there or not.

Climbing to her feet, she found wet spots on her overalls and tiny little seaweeds sticking to her gloves.

“Eyuch,” she said, studying the little algae closer. Vibrant. Smelly. Slimy. She wiped the greenery on her thighs. “What’s this supposed to be?”

This was even worse than the lab she’d been given! Yes, this room had a little more edge to it. The ground beneath her feet was nice and rough. It made her feel like she wasn’t about to slip and crack her skull on the nearest desk. But the water was everywhere! There were puddles on the ground! The air was moist and stuck to her skin like a layer of film.

“I mean, it’s a bit of a work in progress still,” Captain Adora said, pushing past the door while it was still in the process of opening. “We’ve only had the creature here for about a week now and we’ve had to build everything –”

“But it’s wet!” Entrapta complained. “I can’t work in an environment like this! Everything’s going to get all rusty!” She gasped, slapping her hands on her utility belt. She was going to have to put another layer of protective oil on her tools the moment she was back in the lab.

If they even had the right mixture here.

“Didn’t the doc tell you?” Captain Adora asked. ”It’s an aquatic creature.”

Entrapta gave it a quick thought. If it had been mentioned, she’d quickly forgotten it. She blew a raspberry and waved her hand.

”Who cares! I don’t want to work in here! It’s moist! I don’t like moist!” It fogged up her goggles! She pushed them on her forehead. Everything felt stuffy in here. Too warm. She was going to start sweating more if she worked here and then she was going to have to wash up more often and that was just not the kind of a hassle she needed.

It was already hard enough to have to move into a new place for a month. Now this?

”You don’t have to work here,” the Captain reasoned. ”Just… get the samples you need, set up the recording stuff and then you can do all of your, uh, other stuff in the lab.”

Right. Right, of course. She was right. Entrapta crossed her arms and sighed. That was probably going to be the smartest thing to do in this situation.

She could do that.

She didn’t have to like it, though.

”Well, where is it, then?” Entrapta asked, putting her hands on her hips. She peered back down to the pool, eyes squinted. Should she get the stick again and poke around some more? ”Don’t tell me I have to get into a wetsuit and get down there.”

”No, no, it’s not in there right now. That pool is just there for when you need to take samples or get up close and personal,” the Captain said. She circled around the pool and waved her hand towards the back of the room, where Entrapta could see more equipment, and some sort of a large container. “No, it’s over here.”

She followed after Captain Adora. In her rush to study the pool, she’d failed to pay attention to the bigger tank built to lean against the back wall of the room. It was heavy, heavy enough to crack the floor it was standing on. The thick, welded metal was shaped like a large cube that had gotten a little softer around the edges during its older days.

Entrapta got closer and ran a hand over the surface. Rough. Done in a hurry, it looked like. It was a tall thing, wide too. She leaned back to look at it. It reached well over her head and when she spread her arms, she was still left with maybe half an arm’s length of width.

Not the best quality she could hope for, to be honest. The welding work was shoddy and uneven, the shape of the tank was a little lopsided. The metal used look like it’d come from old scrap that had been repurposed for this.

Well. As long as it held water. Entrapta moved to the side to see more.

There were a set of sturdy metallic stairs welded to the tank’s sides, and Entrapta could see that they were there to reach a lid on top of the tank. She turned to look at the Captain. She was standing back, arms crossed and perfectly content to let Entrapta take everything in. Good. Entrapta hurried to the front of the tank.

There was a single, solid glass panel there. A window into the tank about the width of her shoulders. The Captain moved closer and waved at her to get a better look.

It reached from about knee high to a little over the Captain’s head. Light from the observation room reflected from the glass panel and made it hard to see through to the murky depths on the other side.

Entrapta placed both of her hands on the glass and pressed her face against them. Even like that she could barely see anything there.

She blew a raspberry and pulled back. She knocked her knuckles against the glass, making the whole tank echo.

“This is bad design work,” she said. “The window it basically useless. The stairs look rickety and that’s a safety hazard. Also, did you put this thing together in a day or what? It’s really –”

Something moved in the tank. A dark shape, barely noticeable. Entrapta craned her head. She knocked on the window again.

A loud thump against the tank had her taking a step back.

“Yeah, please don’t knock on the glass,” Captain Adora said. “He gets cranky about it.”

Captain Adora was standing next to a small control panel on the side of the tank. Entrapta could see an assortment of buttons and switches. The Captain cranked a lever down, lowering the lights of the room, then clicked another switch, lighting an array of small crystals on the panel.

Another crystal lit up on the side of the tank, and a moment later rocks similar to it lit up inside as well. The light at the side of the tank was still shining into her eyes. Bad designs all around. But at least now she could actually see a little better what was on the inside.

What she saw left her unimpressed. Even with the lights on, there were still corners in the tank she couldn’t see through the window, blind spots left by the shoddy design. And clearly the creature had now been spooked by the lights and was hiding in one of them.

Useless. No wonder they’d needed her. Entrapta turned away from the tank.

“So, about the AI program,” she stared.

That was when she spotted movement in the corner of her eye. Something dark glided to the front of the tank. A solid, living creature swimming close to the panel. Words died in her mouth and she turned just in time to see it reach the glass.

She’d been expecting an animal. A big fish or something. But the creature sliding closer was a sight to behold. Tall and gangly, it was staring down at her with burning red eyes. It was like a shark wearing the skin of an Etherian, all sharp edges and killing intent. The gills at the side of its head were flared like a pair of ears and they quivered as the creature looked at her with an air of superiority a caged beast shouldn’t have worn when staring at its captor.

Their eyes met and for a moment it was like the world stopped spinning. There was intelligence in those eyes, more than Entrapta would have expected.

The creature was a marvel. There was no denying that.

“Look at that,” Entrapta said slowly, lifting her hand against the window.

The creature flinched, looked at the hand, then back at her eyes. The gills twitched and it narrowed its eyes. The lipless mouth curled enough to show some teeth.

Red! It had red teeth!

Entrapta was smiling from ear to ear.

Fascinating!

“Quite the beast, huh?” Captain Adora said.

Entrapta nearly jumped out of her skin. She’d completely forgotten the Captain was still there. She turned from the tank only for a second, but in the moment their eye contact was broken, the creature pushed off the window with a flip and dove deeper into the tank, disappearing into one of the blind spots. Entrapta pressed her face against the window for a chance to see beyond the corners, but all she managed to do was fog up the glass with her breathing.

”It’s magnificent!” she said. ”Nothing like I’ve ever seen before!”

And it was true. It didn’t look like any techno-organic beast she’d ever seen. Nothing about it screamed traditional First Ones’ tech. It didn’t share the insectoid appearance of the guardian creatures. She’d never seen a fully humanoid meld work as well as this one.

In one word it was fascinating. More than she would have guessed from the description.

Captain Adora pushed off the wall she’d been leaning against. ”I wouldn’t say magnificent exactly,” she said and laughed a little. She pulled at her sleeve, revealing bandages on her arm. ”But a fighter, sure. Claws like steel, that one.”

”Is that so?” Entrapta said and pulled a recorder out of her pocket. She clicked it on. ”Would you say that it possesses strength greater than an average Etherian? Would you say that it has been enhanced? Do you think there’s any way this could be some sort of First Ones’ tech? Ooh, I hope it’s First Ones’ tech!”

Captain Adora lifted her hands and backed away from the recorder.

”I don’t know, doc,” she said. ”My job is just to make sure that you don’t get killed while you examine it. It’s not up to me to know this stuff.”

Said a woman with a weapon made out of First One’s tech. Entrapta poked her tongue out and tapped a finger against the recorder.

The tank behind her bubbled. Entrapta could see the creature moving at the edge of the window, nearly completely out of sight.

She wondered how intelligent that thing was?

Could it hear them?

Would it understand even if it could?

”Look, doc,” Captain Adora said. ”Angella gave you all the info we had on this thing, right?”

“I suppose.” That file had been pretty thin, though. She clicked the recorder off, then right back on. “How long have you had it here? Does this setting work for containing it?”

“A week?” The Captain said it like it was a question. “Like I said, it’s not been that long. Not enough to really get anyone examining it properly. Dr. Spinner wanted to get a look, but she couldn’t get here fast enough.” She scratched the back of her head, looking away. “And doc Angella kind of insisted on getting someone experienced with alien tech to look at it first. Dr. Spinner… she doesn’t really leave much more than a wet splatter when she’s done, you know?”

“I understand.” Dr. Spinner’s work methods were ruthless, but efficient. Entrapta had always admired her, just… from a distance. For her own safety. She tapped the recorder against her chin. She pushed and pulled her lips in thought. “The data she showed me does say that the creature is definitely techno-organic.” She turned back to the tank. Still no sign of the inhabitant. “But to what extent remains to be seen. It’s kind of difficult to tell just by looking. Closer inspection is needed. Hmm.” She had a few ways she could do that, some more viable than others. “The surest answer will come after the autopsy, but that can wait for now.”

For some reason, this made Captain Adora look uncomfortable. She shifted and looked away, grimacing a little.

“I mean,” the Captain said. “Wouldn’t you want to, like, exhaust every other option first? Um. Before cutting him open.”

“Oh?” Entrapta clicked the recorder off and smiled brightly. “Of course! We have so many tests left to make! So many. I’m going to have to make a list. Read up on what we have on Horde technology. I’m not going to be sleeping for a while!” She laughed and the voice echoed from the empty walls of the room. “You don’t want to kill the goose that lays golden eggs!”

Captain Adora sighed and slouched down a little.

“But at some point, when every other question has been asked it’s time to get a scalpel and see if the goose is secreting some special enzymes that turn organic matter into gold. You know, for science!”

It was sometimes hard to tell what people were thinking when she was talking. Entrapta had learnt that most people in the scientific community often did their best to shield their true opinions of her ideas when they were in her presence.

Captain Adora didn’t look like she was trying to hide her horror very well.

Entrapta shifted weight from one foot to another.

“Wouldn’t you want to know?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it keep you up at night? How the goose metabolized grains into gold?”

“I… Well. That’s certainly. One way to look at it. Uh. Would you like for me to show you to your rooms? We have pretty nice housings here for the workers!”

“Oh. Okay.” At least she didn’t seem to hold onto the horror for long. That was better, she supposed, than holding onto it and keeping the words until there’d be someone else to whisper them to.

Captain Adora guided her to the door again, talking about how she could come back here tomorrow and look at the whole thing with fresh eyes or something. Entrapta wasn’t really listening. She was already piling a list of tests she was going to run in her head.

When she turned to give one last look at the room, she saw the creature had moved back to the window of the tank. She could barely make out the dark shape against the glass.

The red eyes shone bright. It was looking at her.

She looked right back until Captain Adora closed the door between them.

What a strange creature.

Chapter Text

It’d been a little over fifteen years since the Horde had appeared. Little less than that since they’d made their intentions clear. Horde Prime called himself “The Emperor of the Known Universe” and Entrapta supposed it made sense that someone with a title like that hadn’t gotten it with diplomacy. Not that those things really interested her. The Etherian leaders had dealt with it.

And now they were going towards the second decade of the war.

Horde Prime had prepared for an easy takedown but found himself trapped behind an ancient magitech wall that prevented him from teleporting out or getting more troops in. It didn’t help that the traditional magitech Etherian royalty used worked surprisingly well against his troops.

Seemed like they were pretty evenly matched so far. Entrapta had tried her best to tip the scales to Etheria’s favor, but so far it hadn’t yielded as great results as she’d hoped.

Entrapta had been around seventeen, when the war had started. Already a certified Mystacor graduate and a promising engineer with a house full of functional robots. The war had been the boost she’d needed to get a foothold in the Ehterian scientific community. Had someone asked her, she would have agreed, that the whole thing was terrible and the sooner they’d defeat Prime, the better. But she was also a realist. In peacetime, her inventions wouldn’t have interested Ehterian nobles nearly as much as they did now. She wouldn’t have gotten half the funds, she wouldn’t have published half of the research. Her self-regenerating battle bots would have remained a dream unformed.

It wasn’t like she wouldn’t have been interested in First Ones’ tech without the war. Even before Prime had appeared with his warships from the empty space, spouting about stars and systems out there somewhere, Entrapta had owned every publication by Lance and George Reccula. She’d read them religiously. She could still recite her favorite parts word for word. There was just something so interesting about an ancient civilization that had disappeared without a trace even though they’d been so technologically advanced.

But she couldn’t lie about the war giving her the push she’d needed to reach for the status she had today.

And it seemed to make others uncomfortable that she acknowledged this.

She knew she wasn’t exactly popular with the rest of the community. She might have trouble reading most other people, but she wasn’t stupid. People didn’t like her. And that was that.

Working by herself in her own solitude, with her own equipment and without the hazard of social interaction had been just fine with her.

Now she was here, though.

In Bright Moon Labs.

And the people were… difficult.

Talking was easy. Entrapta could’ve talked circles around people about her projects and the data she’d gathered all day, but rarely did that get the others to talk back. It was the conversations that were the problem.

So she did what she always did. Holed up in her lab, away from the public eye. Captain Adora had showed her the sleeping quarters and cafeteria and Entrapta had proceeded to dragging the bedding to the lab and stockpiling fizzy drinks around it. She found out that the air ventilation was indeed wide enough for her to crawl through, so most of the time she didn’t even need to get the Captain to let her in. All she needed to do was unscrew the vent grill from the public restroom next to her lab and she was in. The guard washing her hands had given her long looks about it, but hadn’t tried to stop her.

While she was waiting for her equipment to arrive, Entrapta went over everything she’d been given about the creature.

From what the Bright Moon Labs’ scientists had gathered, it was some sort of techno-organic chimera. But First Ones’ tech it was not. That much Entrapta could tell just by reading through the vitals they’d managed to get out of it. It was close. It would have been easy to make the mistake, but it was not the same. The people doing the measuring had done a shoddy job. Or maybe they hadn’t been looking for the right things when they’d done it, but even though there were similarities in the magitech signatures, ancient tech this was not.

Entrapta had pulled out some old Reccula books from the neighboring lab’s collection to pour through the numbers there and the difference was apparent. Small, but clear. The elementals were mostly tech, with only traces of organic matter left behind. Looking at the samples they’d managed to get out, this thing was clearly mostly living material.

That raised a lot of interesting questions. Were all techno-organic bugs like this in the beginning? Did they change over time, when their organic matter died and got replaced by more tech? Or had they always been like that?

Was this thing just a failed experiment?

Either way, the Horde had gotten leaps and bounds further in their research while Entrapta hadn’t been looking.

She would’ve loved to get a peek at Prime’s brain matter. Or data, if that wasn’t available.

For the next two days after setting up shop in her new lab, Entrapta had gotten tons done. She’d climbed up to the light crystals burning her retinas and built little dampeners around them, since apparently no one here knew how bad too bright lights could be for the eyes. She’d gathered stuff from the surrounding labs to fill for her missing equipment and found the start of a good working schedule around the times the kitchens were empty so she could hoard foodstuffs to her lab. She’d gone through everything they had on the creature and refreshed her memory on techno-organic creatures and Horde tech.

She’d also successfully avoided going to the tank room. Or leaving her room much for that matter. She had most of the stuff she needed in there with her anyway.

Apparently, her working methods weren’t to the liking of Dr. Angella.

Her daughter knocked on the door on the third day.

“Yeah?” Entrapta called, poking her head out. The girl, whose name escaped her for the moment, stumbled back to avoid getting hit on the forehead. “I’m really busy right now. Can I help you?”

“Oh, um. Hi,” she said. She played around with the sleeves of her lab coat. “Uh. Mom – I mean Dr. Angella told me to come here to ask you if you needed an assistant.”

“An assistant?” Entrapta repeated, then brightened. “As a matter of fact, I do! Did Captain Adora already get my stuff? I need to boot up Emily right away!”

“Oh, no,” the girl said, swaying back and forth on her feet. “No. I meant. Um. I’m still studying, actually, but I work part time as a junior assistant with many of the projects here. I had an apprenticeship with Auntie Casta. Dr. Spella. Um. So. I would love to work with you. Bow says that you’re one of the greatest inventors of our time.”

“Oh?” Entrapta said, and thought about it. She’d never had a human assistant before. She scratched the side of her head with a screwdriver.

Well. She was trying all sorts of new things here. Could be worth a shot.

“Why not!” she said. “Come on in! What was your name again?”

“Glimmer,” Glimmer said, following in after her. Her eyes grew larger at the sight of the lab. “Oh. Ah. You’ve been. Redecorating. Hey wait, is that the first edition Elementals and Temples of the First Ones?”

“Huh?” Entrapta looked around until she noticed Glimmer lifting up one of the books she’d borrowed. “Oh. Sure. I didn’t notice it was first edition.”

“Dr. Netossa has been looking all over for this!” She turned it around to show the first page, with an autograph from Lance Reccula and a message in a different handwriting underneath that read: To my sweet Vivian. Happy anniversary. Cynthia.

“Oh. Well, she should have looked for it in here, I guess.”

“These are all –! Dr. Entrapta, did you ask to borrow these?”

She sounded distressed. Entrapta wasn’t sure why.

“Well, not exactly,” she said. “I was going to, but they might have said no, so I didn’t. I was going to give them back.”

For some reason, that didn’t wipe away the crease between Glimmer’s brows. She put down the books, all except the Elementals and Temples one. Well. Entrapta had gotten what she needed out of that one anyway.

“Well, anyway,” she said, eager to move on to the more important matters. “I’m glad you’re here. I usually toss ideas at Emily, but she isn’t very good at tossing them back. So I’ve been thinking up how to approach this project for a few days now and since Captain Adora seemed to think that surgeries are out of question for now, I was thinking I’d have to get some samples. The ones that were taken weren’t very good. I need to see to this myself. We’ll take morning samples at six, then midday samples after it’s been fed. Ooh, that reminds me.” She clicked her recorder on. “Note to self, remember to find out what it eats. If it eats at all. Oh. Right. A good question. Elementals seem to get all the sustenance they need from magic, but they barely have any organic tissues that need renewing.”

While she spoke, Glimmer moved around her lab, looking it over with an increasingly disturbed look on her face. She found the data pads she’d disassembled next to the centrifuge, the empty bottles that had started gathering near her bed nest and the already filled trashcan. Entrapta was so used to her bots doing all of her cleaning that she’d kind of forgotten to take the trash out. Oh well, she’d do it later.

Although, now that she had an assistant, didn’t that job kind of fall to her?

She was pretty sure that was how it worked.

“After the samples, we should see about its mobility. Nothing here tells us about its intelligence or abilities, so we need to get on that as soon as possible. We need to find out if its degenerating and it would be good to have starting stats written somewhere. Hm. I wonder. Do you have any range that we could use to conduct physical tests?”

Glimmer lifted her eyes from the pile of foodstuffs Entrapta had dropped into what she’d found to be the coolest spot of the room, right under the vent. The grate was lying right next to them. Sometimes she could hear echoing conversations from the restroom close by through the vent.

“I – I’m sorry,” she said. “But… you’ve been here for three days and you’ve already made this big of a mess!”

“A mess?” Entrapta said. “No, no, no, it’s not a mess. It’s a creative process. I spout out the things I need to do, record them, then organize them in my head later. It’s very efficient.”

“I’m not talking about that!” Glimmer said and threw her hands down at the unmade bed with crumpled chips on it. “I’m talking about this!”

“Oh, my bed? I didn’t have time to make it today. Or, well, yesterday. I haven’t gone to bed yet!”

Glimmer stared at her with her eyes wide and mouth open.

Maybe this assistant thing wasn’t going to work out after all.

“Um,” Entrapta said.

Glimmer shook her head and pressed a hand against her forehead.

“This is,” she started, then fell quiet. “Okay. Fine. Mom did warn me. She. She asked me to ask you if everything was fine. Since, you know, no one’s seen you leave the room since you got here.”

“Oh, everything’s great, actually,” Entrapta said. “I was worried it was going to be worse, but I think I’ve integrated well enough. I would like to know the work hours of the kitchen staff, though, so that I can avoid them better. I think one of them saw me last night.”

Entrapta had just popped in to see if they’d stocked up on more of the tiny cupcakes. She’d been hunched over the crate in the cold room, welding mask on, when the kitchen worker had stepped in. She’d left before Entrapta had time to say much more than a word, screaming while she went.

“I… You should be working harder!” Glimmer said. “Dr. Angella said that you’d have a month to work on this. You shouldn’t be wasting so much time!”

“Actually, I was the one who set the time limit. And I am working!”

This was upsetting. This was why she worked with robots.

“It doesn’t look like it!”

“Well that’s not my fault.”

And now she’d made the girl mad. Glimmer glowered at her, holding the book tight against her chest.

“Okay, fine,” she said, squeezing the book hard against her chest. “Fine. I’m telling mom I won’t be working as your assistant, then.”

Entrapta exhaled. “Oh good. That’s great. I think that’s going to be better.”

Why did she look so hurt by it? She was the one who’d said she was going to do it! Glimmer’s lower lip wobbled a little, but she caught it and pulled her mouth into a thin line.

“Fine!” she said. “Dr. Spinner is going to get this project after you anyway. I’ll just work with her! She actually knows what she’s doing.”

Glimmer turned on her boots and marched out, slamming the door after her before Entrapta could yell: “I know what I’m doing!” after her.

People were so confusing. It was draining sometimes. It could be interesting, when dethatched from the social situation. People-watching was great fun. But being part of the arguments and social rituals was exhausting.

Entrapta stared at the door for a long moment. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger and just thought about it.

Maybe she’d been a bit crass.

She looked at the stuff she’d borrowed.

Maybe she could have left a note at least.

She wasn’t used to working around so many other people. The stuff she had at home was all hers. She didn’t need to ask for it.

She ran her tongue over her teeth.

Well. It wouldn’t help to think about it. What was done, was done.

Entrapta could try better next time.

She clicked on her recorder. She lifted it up to speak, but couldn’t find her voice. She put it right back and swallowed thickly.

It was fine.

Yes! She was fine. People were just funny. That was it. She’d goofed up, yes, but it was okay.

She rubbed the corners of her eyes to her sleeve and bounced back towards her pile of books. She’d been thinking about setting up a camera to record the creature in its tank while she was away. Yes. Video material of its usual movements while no one was around would make it easier to observe its mobility.

Right.

Everything was fine.

The creature was keeping out of sight when Entrapta set the camera in front of the glass panel. The camera was a bulky thing and Entrapta had tried wrapping protective sheets of plastic around it to keep the moisture from getting to it, but sooner or later the water was going to get to it and ruin it.

Bright Moon Labs could afford it, she’d decided.

A camera in the tank itself, inside and set up in one of the corners would have been the best option. She said so to the Captain herself.

”Oh, no, that won’t work,” Captain Adora said. ”We tried that. Many, many times. Every time we set any sort of a recording device there, it rips them apart. We even tried reinforcing one with steel. And like five minutes after we’d gotten it there, it was in pieces. The smug bastard just grinned at us. The doc was so mad.”

Grinning? So it made complicated facial expressions, then. Entrapta made a mental note of it.

“Interesting,” she said. “Do you think it recognized the recording device? Or was it more like an intrusion on its territory?”

Captain Adora grimaced and shrugged. “I don’t know, doc. I just think it’s looking for any way to mess with us.”

“Fascinating,” Entrapta said, rubbing her chin. “So how would we go about taking samples? Do you have like a long stick that I can use to get the syringe in there?” she asked, making hand gestures like she was plunging something into the water. “Do you lure it up with treats?”

The second grimace was deeper.

“Uh,” she said. “Do you want to do that now? ‘Cause that means I’m going to call Bow here. We’re going to have to get it out of the tank and that’s not easy.”

“It doesn’t like being handled?”

Captain Adora lifted her hands up. “No,” she said, pressing the word. “Not at all. So do you want to get the samples taken, or…?”

“Yes!”

She wanted to see this! There’d been no signs of the creature since they’d gotten here. It was keeping out of sight and it was doing it out of its own choice.

Meaning, that it was at least intelligent enough to know when the people on the outside could see it and when they couldn’t.

Or it had found a spot, where it couldn’t see the people on the outside and chose that rather than keeping in the open.

Captain Adora sighed and smiled a tight little smile.

“Okay, then. Let me call up Bow. We’ve done this before with him.”

While Captain Adora moved to the intercom system near the door, Entrapta walked to peer past the camera into the tank. She could see nothing. How disappointing!

Well. Soon enough she’d be getting a much better view without the glass between them. Captain Adora was preparing a capture rune near the pool.

Private Bow showed up a moment later, looking like he’d ran all the way from wherever he’d been working at.

“Sorry,” he huffed, leaning against his knees. “I got caught up in something.” He pulled his back up straight and offered Entrapta and the Captain a wide smile. “I got here as fast as I could.”

He seemed nice. Entrapta smiled back at him, excitement bleeding through.

“Private Bow!” she said. “Hi! Again! We’re going to be taking samples today!”

“Private?” he said and shook his head and hands. “Oh, no, no. You don’t have to call me that. No one does. Let’s wait with the titles until I’m a general or something!” He relaxed and the grin turned into a genuine smile. “But really, we aren’t all that stringent about the titles here. Some of the scientists will remind you of their doctorates, but not us soldiers.”

“Oh, yeah,” Captain Adora said, pulling on a pair of thick leather gloves. “And you don’t have to call me captain either. Makes me feel older. Like, really old.”

What a relief! Entrapta hadn’t wanted to ask.

“Let me get the pool ready for this,” Adora said. “Then we can start getting the beast out. Get your gloves, Bow. It’s go-time.”

Bow nabbed a pair off the wall for himself. They reached a little over his elbows and had to be fastened with belts to hold them in place. They looked sturdy enough to protect from a knife.

“Ooh, what are those for?” Entrapta asked, moving closer.

“What, these?” Bow asked and offered a hand for inspection. “That thing has claws like steel! They can rip you to shreds like it’s got five blades in a hand! We had a guard help us with it when it arrived and she nearly lost an arm!”

Amazing! Entrapta would have to get a closer look at its claws later! Keratin could be sharp, but the elementals often used reinforced materials.

“Um. I’m, uh, actually a really big fan of your work,” Bow said suddenly, drawing her attention away from the gloves. “I didn’t – heh, couldn’t come up with the right way to talk about it, but I’ve read about your work on regenerating robotics on Scientific Etherian and it’s really interesting. Do you really think it could be used in prosthetics as well?”

Entrapta’s whole being lit up. Finally! Someone was interested in her theories! She started waving her hands, the words already climbing up her throat.

“Yes! Well! I was – Actually, that’s a good question, because the differences between organic and technological beings are actually just in the materials being used, and – “

“That’s great and all,” Adora said, walking up to them and putting a hand on both their shoulders. “Good that Bow got his fanboy moment, but could we please continue it once we have shark boy here drugged and out of it? You can take your time while he’s waking up in the pool.”

Bow blew a raspberry, but relented and stepped back.

Entrapta deflated, then rose right back up.

“What?” she said. “You’re going to drug it?”

“Um. Yes?” Adora said, looking from Bow to Entrapta. “It’s kind of the only way we’re going to be able to get it out of there without the danger of losing limbs. It’s going to try to claw us and if that fails, bite us.” She shifted weight from one foot to another. “You know, it’s not really going to hurt it, it’s just – “

“But it’s going to affect the blood sample!” she whined. “Oh, now I don’t know if I can even trust the samples you’d taken before! It’s going to skew the results!”

“I’m… sorry,” Adora said. “It’s a fast-acting agent, if that’s okay. I think it’s going to flush out of his system in two hours or so.”

“Two hours?” She didn’t want to spend two hours in this horrible, wet room! She could already feel the moisture like a thin film on her skin.

“Sorry, doc,” Adora said. “It’s not coming out of the tank without a tranq.”

It was going to be all groggy too. This was going to put a serious dent in her plans. Entrapta crossed her arms.

Well. She’d have to come up with a better way to extract it from its tank later. Failures bred new ideas, after all. Yes. If she could install some sort of a pump mechanism to the side of the tank that would drop the creature into the pool… Yes, yes, there was an idea there.

While she thought about it, Adora nodded at Bow and they shared a serious look. Bow grabbed the long cane with the loop on the other end that Entrapta had used to poke around the pool with a couple of days earlier, while Adora was carrying another, similar one, with two metal shackles on it.

“You got the tranq?” Adora asked.

Bow patted his pocket. A blowpipe with a dart at its end was sticking out.

“Let’s get this over with. The doc needs her beast.”

The two of them climbed the steps to the hatch at the top of the tank. They took opposite sides of it and Adora placed her hands on the crank.

“Could you light up the tank for us, doc?”

Entrapta looked at them, drawn out of her thoughts. She looked at Adora, then at the panel she was nodding her head towards and gasped.

“Oh! Sure! How exciting!”

The crystals inside blinked to life, lighting the tank enough to show the back wall and floor, but not the creature. Entrapta hurried the stairs up two at a time to get a better look.

“Stay back, doc,” Adora said, turning the crank. The thing looked heavy, but she turned it like it was nothing. “If notices you there, it’s going to try to reach for you. It’s going to try to catch you and scratch you and you haven’t been trained for this.”

”Oh, and you have?” Entrapta asked.

”Well,” she said. ”Not this exactly. But. You know. Close enough. Watch the lid.”

She pulled the hatch open and let it rest on its hinges. The light shining from the tank was illuminating the two soldiers’ faces as they peered in.

Entrapta stood on her tiptoes, trying to get a better view inside. Her height was failing her at the moment and Adora’s shoulders were too broad to see past.

“Do you see it?” she asked. “Is it there? I want to see it!”

“It’s not coming up,” Bow said.

Adora grimaced.

“Learned your lesson, did you?” she muttered. She turned the cane around in her hands. “Let’s see if we can get it roused up.” She shoved the stick in, tapping it against the tank.

Entrapta wasn’t getting a good view from here. She jumped off the stairs with a hard thud that sent pangs of pain through her bones. No time for pain! She limped to the window to see what was happening.

The creature swam past the glass panel, easily avoiding the cane being poked blindly to its tank. Adora shoved the cane around, the metal shackles hitting the tank walls, but through just the tiny hatch, she wasn’t getting much of a view of what she was doing.

Design flaws, design flaws everywhere. Such was the curse of working with so little time. And, Entrapta had to admit, it was often difficult to see the flaws in your own design. You turned blind to them.

The creature stopped on the other side of the tank, well out of the way of the cane. Adora cursed loudly and pulled it right back up. A pair of red eyes moved from the hatch to the window and met with Entrapta’s.

She waved at it. A little test on how well it could read social cues. Not that it was a sign of lacking intelligence, as Entrapta could demonstrate herself. She was just curious to see what would happen.

It stared at her for a moment, then swam closer.

“Ooh!” Entrapta said, more to herself than anyone else.

It got closer. And closer.

And then it swam to the corner, where Entrapta couldn’t see it.

“Boo!” she said. “That wasn’t necessary!”

“It’s not coming up,” Bow said again, a little firmer this time.

Entrapta leaned back just in time to see Adora purse her lips in frustration above her.

“I’m not going in there,” Bow said.

“Yeah, no. That’s not a good idea.” Adora leaned back and thought about it for a moment. “I’m going in there.”

She was already getting ready to jump, when Bow grabbed her arm. “No, no, no. You’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“You are not.”

“Oh. Right.”

There was a silence for a moment, when they thought about it. Entrapta peered back into the tank, but with the creature hiding, there was nothing interesting going on there. She turned her attention to the control panel.

Hmm. She stepped closer, looking through the switches. There was nothing remarkable there. Just water flow dials, indicators for the quality of the water, temperature and those sorts of things.

“Does the creature prefer warm, or cold water?” she asked.

For a moment, there was no response. Entrapta leaned back to get a better view of them.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Hm? Huh? Oh, uh. I haven’t… notice a difference,” Adora said.

“Okay.” Entrapta looked back at the controls.

The lights inside worked on a small switch that had three settings: off, low and moderate. It didn’t really have anything to do with the powers of the crystals. The crystals could go from dim to blinding, depending on their condition. And Bright Moon could afford the good stuff. All the machine did was control the output. It was all in the setup. Entrapta grabbed a hexdriver from her utility belt and popped the front panel open.

It was an easy fix to crank up the output of the crystals. Just a little bit of loosening here, an extra mark to the rune there, and suddenly the insides of the tank were glowing so bright she had to squint her eyes behind her goggles.

“What the –?” she heard Adora say just before the enraged screeching of the beast drowned it out.

“Did that help?” Entrapta asked, but it looked like the soldiers were busy with the creature trying to claw Adora’s eyes out.

Entrapta shut the lights and hurried back to the stairs to get a better look. It was halfway up the tank, eyes squinted and teeth bared, trying to get a hold of Adora to pull her under. Adora had the poking stick between them like a spear, holding it back.

It hissed its disagreement. Bow moved lightning fast and the collar locked around its neck, tightening just enough to hold. The hisses turned into growls and the creature reached to claw at the collar, but before it could, Adora had gotten its hands held up in the shackles.

“Now, Bow!” she shouted.

The dart landed with accurate precision, sinking into the pale flesh of its shoulder.

It snarled in fury, trying to twist and turn. It pulled its arms back, nearly throwing Adora into the tank with it. On the last moment Adora planted her feet against the bump in the hatch and pulled back, forcing the creature to stay still.

It was a battle of power, and it was two on one.

The tranquilizer was starting to have its effects too. The creature was moving more sluggish now. The burn in its eyes was dimming down.

Entrapta climbed closer.

”Don’t fall for it,” Adora warned her. ”It can act a real show. It’s a fast drug, but not that fast. You’ve got to wait five to six minutes before it’s safe to get close at minimum. You go too close right now and it’ll try to claw your eye out.”

Entrapta peered into the water. It was staring back, looking at her with narrowed eyes. Out of the water, hanging from the shackles, it looked a lot less intimidating than it had before. And yet, noticing that it had an audience, it curled its mouth again to show teeth. Even in a situation like this, it was showing arrogance as if it was the one that was going to come out on top of this.

The question was, was it simply her mind reading too much into animal aggression, or was it a true show of misplaced superiority.

Entrapta pulled out her recorder.

“An interesting dilemma on the current project,” she said. “I still haven’t gotten a clear answer on the question of the creature’s intelligence. Tests are still to be conducted. What do you guys think?”

”Uuhhh,” Adora said, looking at Bow.

”Well, I mean, I don’t know much about this stuff. I mostly just do. Trick arrows. And tech stuff,” Bow said, letting one hand off the cane to rub his neck. ”But it’s smart enough to know how to pretend and when to wait out and… I’d say it’s scary intelligent.”

”That’s silly!” Entrapta said. “Intelligence isn’t scary!”

“I mean, sure, but it kind of is, when – “

The creature yanked against the collar around its neck with enough strength to snatch the cane out of Bow’s hold. With a shrill shriek and a quick grab, Bow had the cane back in his hands.

“It would appear that it is at the very least capable of using surprise as its weapon against others,” she monologued into the recorder. “Although, that doesn’t really mean anything, if taken as just that. Any animal can try to bolt, while the predator is looking away.”

The creature hissed, eyes narrowed at her, although the sound did come out more slurred than before.

“Give it a few more minutes, guys,” Adora said. “Doc, could you go get the shackles ready at the pool? We’re going to have to lock him up, so he doesn’t get out. And if you wanted to get a closer look, we might have to get him locked up by the arms too, so he doesn’t try anything.”

Entrapta turned to face Adora, recorder held between them. She ran her tongue over her teeth, looking at the Captain.

“You know,” she started, moving closer. “This isn’t the first time you’ve addressed the creature as a ‘he’ instead of an ‘it’, like everyone else. There is a difference, yet you’re the only person I’ve seen mixing the words up.” She moved the recorder closer to Adora’s face. “Why is that?”

Adora opened her, mouth, looked at Bow, looked at the creature now hanging limp from their hold and stammered out a few sounds that made no words.

“I – I- I- That’s silly. Did I? That’s weird. Huh. Yeah. Weird.”

Entrapta tilted her head. She hadn’t expected a reaction quite like this.

“It’s not that weird,” Entrapta said. “I read the information Dr. Angella gave me. Although the creature isn’t showing any traditional displays of its sex on the outside, it appears to have hidden primary and secondary sex organs of a biologically male organic creature on the inside of its – “

Adora lifted a hand off the cane, turning away. “Okay! Okay, don’t need to hear about that. No thank you.”

Oh. Right. Entrapta leaned back on her feet. “What I meant to say was that using either of the pronouns would work, I suppose. As long as we have no proof of intelligence or a preference stated by the creature, it doesn’t really matter. But mixing them up seems accidental.” She shoved the recorder back to her face. “So I was wondering why that was! It’s not a science question. I’m just interested!”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Adora shouted. “Looks like he – It! Fell asleep! Bow, let’s get it to the pool and give it time to wake up so that doc can get her work done! Okay? Okay!”

What had she said now? She knew she could be a little ill-informed about social things such as these, but this was not a reaction she’d been expecting. Entrapta looked at the recorder. Was that what kept making people uncomfortable around her?

Adora and Bow dragged the unconscious body of the creature out of the tank and Entrapta hurried to ready the shackles like Adora had asked. There was a tiny, fist sized rune stone with a sturdy collar hanging from chain connected to it on the ground. With a quick tap to the activation point, the stone started to glow and lifted to hang over the pool. There was just about enough chain there so that the creature could swim around, but not so much that it could fully climb out when the runestone was activated.

Not far from the pool, there was a small platform, with more traditional shackles bolted to the ground. It would probably work better for when they’d be taking samples. The chains on that were far shorter to keep the beast still.

But since the creature would apparently be napping for a while, there was no point in leaving it on dry land. Entrapta got the pool shackles ready.

The collar of the cane was switched to the collar by the pool. Adora locked it tight with a key that she placed on the desk near the tank. The cuffs around the creature’s arms remained, keeping them locked together.

And then they left the beast unconscious near the edge of the pool, halfway in the water.

Certainly not the most dignified way to be. Entrapta moved closer.

The coloration on its skin was intriguing. It looked like it was a mixture of white and greyish blue. She got even closer. The papers Dr. Angella had given her had said that the grey parts were reinforced. They were tougher and couldn’t be pierced with the usual scalpels and needles. The white parts weren’t all that soft either, she’d read, but couldn’t hold a candle to the steely grays of the Horde’s organic armor plating.

There were three ports on its back. Two more on the arms and Entrapta had gotten a glimpse of more on its chest. Connected to more tech inside. Fascinating. Entrapta was going to be needing an X-ray soon, if she wasn’t allowed to cut. She wanted to know what they’d put inside. What was making this creature tick?

Ah. But looking closer without the distortion of water, she could see the discoloration. Patches of darker growth just under the creature’s skin. A classic case of malignant magitech growth. It was slowly taking over the body, devouring it where it spread. Entrapta was ready to give the creature maybe five to seven years, if the spread was slow, two to three if it was fast.

It wasn’t a nice way to go. Someone should do something about it.

Kneeling down on the floor next to it, Entrapta reached to get a feel of the spreading tech-rot. Before she could, though, Adora cleared her throat and stepped closer.

“If you want to start taking samples, now would be the best time,” she said. “It’s going to take about half an hour for it to wake up, so it won’t try to take a bite. But if you want to get close when it’s up, we’d better lock it up on the ground.”

“It can get pretty… unpredictable,” Bow confirmed. “Better act while it sleeps.”

“And mess up the readings with the drugs?” Entrapta said. “No thank you, I’ll get my samples when they’ll be the cleanest.”

She was starting to feel a little peckish anyway. Bow and Adora were kind enough to ask her to join them at the cafeteria, but Entrapta declined. Nice as it was to be considered, the diner area would be filled with people around these hours. No thank you. Too much noise. Too much movement.

Besides, she had a perfectly good bag of chips and some leftover beef jerky from yesterday still in her room. She could manage.

Bow and Adora left for lunch while Entrapta made her way back to her lab. Adora promised to come and get her when they were done to let her back in, but Entrapta told them there was no need. She’d find her own way in. They chuckled about it like it was supposed to be a joke and said they’d be come get her in half an hour.

Okay. Humor was a weird thing. Sometimes Entrapta got it, sometimes she didn’t. She’d let them have their fun.

In her lab, Entrapta threw herself on her bed nest and pulled the closest data pad to her lap. She had to write down her ideas for the tank modifications before they’d be lost forever. Her thoughts betrayed her, though, when they started to wander.

Magitech was her bread and butter. It was interesting stuff with so many adaptations. The Etherian nobles had used ancient magics for as long as they’d been in rule. It ran in their blood, supposedly. With the common folk, pure magical abilities were quite rare. Not completely unheard of, but uncommon. It was all really impressive stuff, though, the pure, unfiltered magic. Very fancy for something that had been in use for centuries.

But it could’ve been so much better!

If only someone could crack the code on how to meld organic matter and magitech properly. The First Ones had clearly known how to do it, so it had to be possible. So many of their old pictures showed them using melded magics in everyday activities. It would change the whole structure of Etheria’s technological landscape!

There just wasn’t enough data to solve the mysteries they’d left behind.

It was like they were missing the one last piece that would make everything make sense! Something was making the tech react badly to the presence of organic matter close by. It should’ve just siphoned the natural magic of Etheria’s atmosphere. Instead it took control and spread.

It was a painful way to go and because of that, it was strictly forbidden to test it out on sentient beings on Etheria. Even animal testing was highly frowned upon. It was seen as pointless. They were doing just fine without the tech, they said. They didn’t need to cause suffering to search for something pointless.

Pointless! Hah! This was why they were unable to shake of Horde Prime’s attacks.

Etheria moved at its own pace.

Meanwhile the Horde cared little about pesky moral quandaries.

And that was why they were making leaps in their research and Entrapta was left gathering their scraps.

Entrapta twisted her mouth, then reached for an unopened package of beef jerky. Clearly she wasn’t going to be able to get anything done in the lab. She didn’t have enough data to work on and he head was filled with half-filled ideas. She was starting to get antsy. Her foot was tapping a nervous rhythm and it showed no signs of stopping. Entrapta needed to move. She stashed the jerky to her pocket and dropped the pad on the bed.

Might as well go back and get started.

There were no conveniently placed bathrooms next the tank room, but there was a decently sized air duct just above the door. Entrapta hadn’t been able to yet test her hypothesis, but she was pretty sure it was going to take her into the tank room.

The problem was that the door was wide and tall and Entrapta was but a small woman. The airduct was far above her head and without a ladder to help her, she wasn’t going to be reaching the vent.

If only she could use her hair to reach for it. She definitely had enough for that. Wouldn’t that be fun? Hmm. There was an idea there. Perhaps strands of malleable fiber woven between her hair that she could use to control strands like extra limbs.

Yes. Yes, that sounded like a great idea! She could already map out plans for the tech.

Too bad the only adaptation for that would’ve required magitech planted near her brain and that was just going to end in misery.

It just wasn’t worth the risk.

Not yet, anyway.

Entrapta stared at the vent just out her reach.

Well. There was nothing to it, then. She was going to have to find another way in.

She continued deeper in.

She had a few options. If she found one, she could borrow a ladder from somewhere. But what were the chances of running into those? And, much to her displeasure, all the doors this deep into Bright Moon were locked tight. The tank room wasn’t the only one with heavy blast doors protecting it. Entrapta gave experimental yanks to a few of them to see if someone had perhaps forgotten to lock up on their way out, but she had no such luck.

Typical.

Long way around it was, then.

She almost passed the door without another glance. But then her eyes wandered over the shape of a sword painted on it. Entrapta stopped on her tracks and turned to look at it.

Now there was an interesting coincidence. Captain Adora worked on the Light Hope AI project and carried a sword. And the symbol painted on the door looked just like the sword on her back.

Entrapta started shaking her hands. Oh. This was it. This was it.

She needed to get inside!

Just a little look. She could do with just a little glimpse inside! That’s all she needed! But there was not so much as a window on the door! Her visitor’s badge wasn’t going to get her anything other than an emergency shut down.

Entrapta jumped from one foot to another. She wanted to go to Dr. Angella’s office so bad! Beg her to let her switch teams!

Yes, this whole creature feature had turned out to be a lot more interesting than she’d predicted, but that didn’t change the fact that there was a highly advanced AI program just a few doors down! Her heart’s desire, just down the hall! Entrapta was a tech head, first and foremost and AI programs were her thing!

The Bright Moon people just didn’t understand! Oh, the advancements she could have made with even a sliver of data from the program!

But they weren’t letting her touch any of that.

Defeated, Entrapta sought out the closest bathrooms from the other end of the corridor.

She found that she wasn’t alone there, though.

Dr. Spinner was washing her hands. The water was so hot that it was steaming around the sink and the doctor was rubbing her skin raw.

She was an intimidating woman. Whereas Dr. Angella carried herself with grace that had Entrapta wilting a little every time she saw her, Dr. Spinner had a different kind of air around her. Her black hair was a long mess, and the breathing mask she wore hardly covered the scarring around her face. The look in her eyes was constantly wide. A little wild, even in the calmest of situations.

Her work surrounded the more magical sides of magitech. Well, maybe she wasn’t actually that much into the tech side at all. But ancient magics could be volatile. Dangerous, if you didn’t know what you were getting into.

Dr. Spinner had known. Entrapta was sure of it. She’d just considered the risks and decided that it was a necessary sacrifice.

And that was why Entrapta found her so admirable.

“Are you going to be staring much longer?” Dr. Spinner asked. Her voice was raspy and deep and as stable as the bedrock that the laboratories stood on. She didn’t look up from the sink, where she was still rinsing her hands. “That’s very rude, you know.”

Entrapta blinked, then looked around. There was a vent on the ceiling, just out of reach. But if she climbed on the sinks, she’d be able to get to it nice and easy. It’d be a long crawl from here to the tank room, but it’d be worth the trouble.

It had been easier, when she’d been younger and smaller, but it wasn’t going to stop her.

“I need to use the sink,” she said.

“There are plenty of those to go around.”

“No, but I need to use that sink,” Entrapta said, pointing at it.

Dr. Spinner tilted her head. Her bloodshot eyes narrowed.

“Dr. Entrapta,” she said slowly, as if only now recognizing her. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I hear that we’ll be getting to work on the same project.”

She still wasn’t moving away from the sink.

“Not really,” Entrapta said. “Well. I guess so. But not at the same time. Can I get to that sink?”

Finally, Dr. Spinner stepped back.

Entrapta wasted no time clambering on it. It held her weight just fine. With her feet steady on each side of the sink, she started unscrewing the grill off the vent. When she got it off and placed it on the counter, she became aware of Dr. Spinner’s stare. She looked down at her, then up at the vent, then down again.

For someone who’d just complained about Entrapta’s staring, she sure didn’t practice what she preached.

“Well,” she said, meeting the doctor’s incredulous look. “It was nice meeting you! Bye!” And then she pulled herself in.

Dr. Spinner seemed like an interesting scientist. Even though their fields were connected, they were so far on the other ends of their shared area of expertise, that they’d rarely interacted. Entrapta had read some of her publications and she had interesting ideas. With the start of the war, though, Dr. Spinner had kind of disappeared from the scientific circles.

It was good to have her back, she supposed.

Let’s see here. The vent system wasn’t exactly complicated here. Every room was connected. Entrapta pulled out a small data pad she’d disassembled and reassembled herself and waited for it to locate her on the digital map she’d downloaded. Let’s see here… Ah. Okay. So, she was going to have to zigzag a little, but she was sure she’d be able to find the room easily.

She stomped away. Quiet movement it was not. Her hands and knees thumped loudly against the metal floors, but after a bit of wandering, she found a vent right above the tank room.

No sign of vents over the Light Hope room. Typical.

Ugh. She was going to have to find ladders for later. It would be a lot easier than this crawling.

It wasn’t that long of a drop. Entrapta removed the grate and let it drop to the floor below with a loud clang. Pushing her legs through first, she dangled them.

It took her all of two seconds to reassess her previous statement about the vent not being that high. Now that she was hanging from it, she could say that it was, indeed, quite high. Indecision had the worst outcomes running through her head, ideas of her bones snapping upon contact with the ground.

Well. She couldn’t really pull herself back up anymore, she was mostly out anyway. The only way to find out if it really was too high was to conduct the experiment her herself.

Her gloves were slipping and she let go. Entrapta fell with a thump, landing on her feet, but feeling the ache in her bones.

Oh boy. She wasn’t as young as she’d used to be. She could remember sliding down rails at home in Dryl, flying high and landing on her feet without much as a jostle. Now her bones were slowly turning into sawdust.

The moment she fell, she could hear a loud splash from the pool. Entrapta righted herself and shook her legs before looking around. Water had spread around the pool. There were puddles that hadn’t been there before.

The chains rattled as the creature in the pool swam around.

The pain momentarily forgotten, Entrapta leapt closer. It had woken up while she was away! She’d kind of hoped to be there to see it happen. But the chance of getting to see it moving outside the tank wasn’t something she was going to miss!

Entrapta was about to hurry all the way to the edge of the pool, when she remembered what Adora had said.

The chain wasn’t that long. With the runestone levitating over the pool, the creature had enough space to move around the pool freely. It probably could only reach about an arm’s length out of it. There was no doubt that if Entrapta got too close, though, that it’d be able to, ah, “gouge her eyes out”, as the Captain had put it.

A shame. She wasn’t going to be able to get a good look at it like this.

Oh! But she could move the camera while Adora and Bow were away. Right! That was good!

She dragged the camera to the pool, set it up nicely, so that the whole pool was in view and dug out her recorder.

“This is the first day of the experimentation. Let’s say it’s… Horde Magitech Project Experimentation Log One. We’re going to be taking a look at the mobility of the creature. The skin showed signs of reinforcements near the chest and leg areas, as well as the hands. However, it would appear that the tech has already started to spread. This is probably going to affect the agility of the creature, although how much at this state of the spread is still unknown. I will observe.” She started walking around, one hand behind her back, the other holding the recorder up to her mouth. “Addendum One: I should try to see if I can get any data out of the tech planted into the creature. It would be useful for any future techno-organic tests. This isn’t pure First Ones’ tech, that much is clear, but it is the best meld of modified tech in an organic creature I’ve seen so far. It’s very promising. However – “

Another splash from behind her back had her turning around. Just in time to see the creature dive back under water. For a moment she was confused. What had it been doing? Watching her? But then she noticed what it had splashed.

The camera she’d set up was dripping wet.

“Oh no!” she whined. “Look at that!”

Entrapta hurried to the camera. It was bad. She hauled it off the stand and carried it over to the desk. The plastic sheets had covered most of it, but water had found its way past it. The whole thing was sopping when she lifted it from the covers. What a waste! Well. She pulled back and crossed her arms. Maybe it could still be salvaged.

Entrapta reached for her tools and started opening it up. Maybe if she got it to dry fast enough, it could still be used. But this was going to set back her plans on videoing the creature’s movements.

“That was completely unnecessary, you know!” she spoke to the direction of the pool.

The chains rattled against the runestone.

“Look at this! This won’t dry well in here! It’s too moist!”

She wondered if she could just leave it to dry on the other side of the door. Or maybe Adora could tell where they’d take it to get it fixed up once she got here.

With the camera busted and the creature in the water, it left Entrapta with nothing better to do than sitting here and having to watch the creature herself. But the water was dark and she couldn’t see through it. What a bore!

She fell back to sit by the desk with a huff. This whole project was starting to look like such a waste of time. Was it too early to tell Dr. Angella she was done?

No. She wasn’t giving up on this yet. Entrapta sat up and blew hair off her face. Accidents happened. Sometimes the science didn’t want to be found until it’d been dug out with bloody stumps for fingers! But in the end, it would be worth the work to have the data! If not for the reasons Dr. Angella wanted, then for the furthering of the techno-organic studies! With the data she’d get from here, she’d be helping the field take leaps in to the future! Prosthetics with technologies from ancient civilizations long dead, back in the use of the people! Magitech at the tips of their fingers!

Entrapta was going to finish the project, get all the data she could out of it and she was going to crack the code!

And she was going to start by observing the creature and how it dealt with the modifications. It was crucial to see how fast the deterioration spread to see how well the Horde had managed to modify the tech they’d gathered. Entrapta moved closer. Then stopped. Then moved closer still.

How close was too close? She wasn’t sure. Entrapta tapped her foot against the ground. There was still plenty of space between her and the pool and she couldn’t see a single thing!

The chain had stopped moving.

Entrapta took another step. Then one more.

It should be fine as long as she didn’t reach the edge, right?

This close, she could barely make out the shape of the creature in the water.

It was hard to tell, but she was pretty sure it was looking right back.

She dug out her recorder.

“It would seem that the creature has an irrational hate towards video recording devices, if Captain Adora’s word is to be believed. Although, maybe it’s not irrational. Hmm. I suppose if I was a Horde creature built for whatever tech they’re trying to test, I wouldn’t be too pleased to be under Alliance surveillance either. Anyway. Following the creature’s movements through the water is difficult, although considering the ease with which it was able to dispatch of the camera, I’d say it still has very good mobility.”

Entrapta wondered how well the creature would fare on land. Dr. Angella’s notes had said that it was semi-aquatic, implying that it would indeed survive out of water, at least for short periods of time. It did have sturdy looking legs.

What would the Horde even do with a creature that couldn’t walk on land?

That reminded her. She ought to test exactly how long it could remain on land without negative effects. She made a mental note to add it to her list of tests later.

How long had it been already, since they’d tranqed the creature? An hour at least. Still too early to take samples.

How was that going to work anyway? Bow and Adora would have to get it out of the water for long enough to get the samples taken. But being out of the water wouldn’t be enough. There was still the trouble of the reinforced skin. Somehow Entrapta doubted the creature itself wasn’t going to make it easy on them either.

Then there was the tech, of course. The ports around its body. She’d have to get a closer look at those to see where they led.

Entrapta tapped the corner of the recorder. She started to make rounds around the pool, gathering he thoughts.

She clicked on the recorder again.

“The smartest thing to do would be to get a good picture on the spread of the corruption, follow the spread over the month, so that I can make a better prediction on the severity of it. Maybe if I compare it to other attempted melds, I’ll be able to see if the Horde has really made some big breakthrough.”

But like this, there wasn’t much she could do.

Maybe she should have waited for Adora and Bow to come to her. Now she was just wasting time in this wet, moist, stuffy room.

With a sigh, Entrapta sat down cross-legged on the ground next to the pool, dug out her bag of jerky and started munching. They’d be here sooner or later. She’d just have to wait them out. She couldn’t exactly leave on her own now, with the vent so high above her head. She was basically trapped here.

The surface of the water was disturbed as the creature swam closer.

Entrapta supposed there was no hurry. She still had almost a month to get things done. She didn’t do well with nothing to do, though.

The chains stopped rattling and there was a dark spot near the water, just next to Entrapta.

Her mistake started dawning on her slowly. Her jaws stopped chewing on the dry, dry meat and her eyes grew larger.

She’d made an uncalculated move. She’d really messed up now.

The floor was wet and she’d sat right down.

The moisture was seeping into her pants.

“Fiddlesticks!” she said, moving to stand up.

Before she could, though, she saw movement in the water. She hadn’t realized how close the creature had gotten while she’d been thinking.

Dripping with water, it rose from the pool. Tall and imposing over her, much closer than just an arm’s reach. With Entrapta crouched on the floor, it towered over, mouth drawn, teeth showing and skin glistening wet.

Oh. She’d sat down too close. She’d sat down way too close. A low growl emanated from the creature’s throat and its gills flared.

What a magnificent creature it was!

Through the tank, it had already been easy to tell. While struggling against two trained Alliance soldiers, it’d almost been able to overpower them both.

This thing had been designed to be deadly.

Dr. Angella was right. The creature did share a resemblance with Horde Prime. Something about the shape of the face and all that. But at the same time, it would have been impossible to mix them up. Prime was a distant figure, a voice of propaganda and a ghost in tall tales as far as Entrapta was concerned.

This thing was right in front of her and could’ve easily pulled her under.

Ah, but how poor a job they’d done. Yes, the creature was tall, angular and looked ready to strike, but standing up like this, the deficiencies were far easier to see. It was skinny and not in the slim and sleek way, but in the bones-jutting-through-the-skin way. Its breathing was gravelly, like the lungs were battling to fill and empty. The spread of the tech was easy to see.

She wondered what they fed to it. Didn’t look like it’d gotten anything to eat in a long while.

“Oh!” Entrapta said and hit her fist against her palm. The creature flinched, then hissed. “Do you want jerky?”

She offered it the bag.

It stopped. Entrapta looked from its face to the claws held up mid strike. Even held together by the shackles, they’d probably still be enough to get some real damage done.

The danger of the situation was slowly starting to grow clearer.

Oh yea. Gouging out eyes and all that.

“Oops,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t be sitting here right now, huh.”

She stood up fast and the creature jumped back. Good thing that it did, too, since otherwise the top of Entrapta’s head would have hit it square in the jaw.

It hissed, visibly shaken, and dove right back into the pool with a splash that soaked Entrapta’s shoes through.

“Hey!” she complained.

The door behind her was rumbling. Entrapta turned on her feet to see it open just enough for Adora’s worried face to show through.

“Dr. Entrapta!” she yelled. “Where’d you –? How did you –? We’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Why?” she asked over the loud creaking of the door. She turned away from the pool. The dark figure in the water had retreated to the farthest corner of it and was keeping close to the bottom. “I was here the whole time!” She marched to the slowly opening door and shoved the bag to a baffled Adora. “Beef jerky?”

Chapter Text

There hadn’t been much the reconnaissance team had been able to gather of the creature when they’d picked it up. As far as Entrapta knew, they’d managed to sneak into a Horde facility and the creature itself was about all they’d brought back with them.

No name, no age, no additional information. Just a creature they’d freed from its vat and brought here.

So with little to no information, Entrapta set out to gathering as much data as she could.

“We need to get samples,” she told Bow, who’d been roped into helping her. “Anything we can get. I want blood, skin and spinal fluid samples. I want to get x-rays on the tech inside. I want everything! We have a lot to get done! Are you ready to do some science?”

Bow was nodding along. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. Then he faltered a little. “So… What do we start with?”

Entrapta turned to look at the pool. The creature was following their every move with narrowed eyes, head just enough over the water’s edge to glare at them. She grinned at it.

“Come on! We need to get you out of the pool and on the ground!

Its eyes grew a little larger, then narrowed into slits. It hissed and sunk out of sight.

“Oh, there’s no need for that!” Entrapta called after it. “It’s just a bit of blood! It’s going to be fun! For science!”

Bow chuckled. “You’re wasting your time, doc,” he said. “There’s no way it understands you. I mean, it would’ve tried to communicate with us already if it did, right?”

She supposed he was right. It made sense to her, at least. But it would be far from the first time she’d talked to things that couldn’t understand her. And she wasn’t about to stop now. Entrapta shrugged.

“Either way,” she said, “we need it out of the pool.”

It wasn’t easy. Bow didn’t even try to wrangle it out by himself. They called Adora in the help them with it and even then it was a struggle. With the creature fully awake and very much intent on tearing out some limbs, the two soldiers had their hands full.

Well. It was pretty easy for Entrapta. She was sitting back, observing the way the creature moved and taking notes.

“It would appear that the creature has enhanced strength and good mobility”, she spoke to her recorder while Adora was dangling over the pool, screaming at Bow to pull harder. “The creature seems to be fully capable of moving on land, although switching out of water has made it a little clumsier. We need to put up an obstacle course to see the full extent of the upgrades.”

The creature had clearly decided it would not stand for an indignity such as this. Chaining it down to the floor didn’t calm it down one bit. When Entrapta approached it with a syringe in hand to get a blood sample, it moved as if it was going to bite out a chunk of her. Bow had to keep the leather loop around its neck and Adora held onto its arm still while Entrapta cleaned the area of softer skin on the inside of its elbow. Adora’s arms were trembling with the strain it took to keep the creature from moving.

“Hold still now”, Entrapta said, lifting up the syringe. “This won’t hurt at all!”

It snapped its teeth at her.

“Oh, don’t be a big baby. It’s just an itty-bitty syringe. Here! Clean and small.”

It narrowed its eyes and the growling quieted down to a low hiss at the back of its throat. For a moment Entrapta was so sure it had understood her and was showing its dissatisfaction.

Which was silly, of course. She had no proof but a flimsy feeling. It wasn’t enough to go on from yet. She should test it, later, but for now she had more important things to worry about.

She took three vials of blood, humming a little tune while she drew it out. By the second vial, the creature had stopped struggling and was very clearly looking at a different direction, glaring daggers at a wall.

Entrapta shook the last vial and looked it closer. It looked like any blood you could pull out of an Etherian walking down the street. The real secrets would be revealed when she got it to her lab, though. She stored the vials into a cold case and continued to taking skin samples.

And then there were the x-rays.

Oh, the x-rays.

It was a simple deal, really. Bright Moon Labs had the best stuff on the market. Well, Entrapta had better tools at Dryl, but this stuff was top-shelf for unmodified tools. All it took to get a proper view into what was ticking inside was a set of ready-made runestones on the floor, four pylons around the creature and a simple siphon for the magic and there they had it! A perfect view into the inner workings of the creature.

The siphon spun into work and a purple mist covered the creature.

“Oh. Wow,” Entrapta said, sliding closer. “It’s gorgeous!”

The tech inside, it was a work of art. She’d known it was top of the line, but seeing it with her own two eyes just confirmed it. Everything inside the creature was designed to perfection!

It was just the first look in, not even a proper analysis yet, but even now it was clear. This was no First Ones’ tech. The Horde might have salvaged some of it, but they’d retrofitted it so much that there was no mistaking it. Whereas the old stuff was effective and powerful, it was also clunky and inelegant. But this? Entrapta moved closer. This stuff was sleek. It was sophisticated. It was almost perfectly melded into the organic parts of the body. So much so, that it was hard to tell where the organic body ended and the tech started.

Oh, to be the architect of this beauty. Entrapta was salivating at the sight. She wanted to get even closer, wanted to get her hands on the carefully designed shapes of the artificial lungs. Wanted to cradle in her hands the intricate weavings of the wires around the heart.

Which was… pumping pretty fast, actually. Now that she was paying attention.

Entrapta reached towards it. The lungs shuddered.

A hand on her shoulders stopped her.

“How about we… don’t get within grabbing distance of a Horde creature that wants us dead, okay?” Bow said.

Entrapta blinked. Like being pulled out of a trance, she breathed in the moist air of the tank room and looked around. Bow was looking at her, worried, while the Captain leaned her back against the wall near the door, brows furrowed.

Entrapta looked at the creature behind her. At the sharp, sharp claws.

“Oh. Right,” she said. She heaved a sigh and slumped down. “But it’s so beautiful, though!”

“We have really different views on what’s beautiful,” Adora said.

“And,” Bow stressed, shooting the Captain a look, “we can observe those things from a distance. Right?”

Entrapta slumped down even further. She supposed he had a point.

“Fine,” she said. “Fine. Save it for the autopsy, right?”

It was a shame, though. To lose something this beautiful for the eventual decay of the magitech. Such a waste.

She powered down the siphon and the mist dissipated.

The creature was very clearly not looking at her. Its shoulders were hunched, gills downturned and the expression on its face was very strange.

Entrapta titled her head.

It glanced at her, then looked quickly away.

If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve said it was embarrassed.

Which was impossible, of course.

When she connected her data pad to one of the ports on its arms, it barely even struggled, too busy not paying attention to her. It remained quiet while she oohed and aahed over the readings she was recording.

All in all, for the first day of tests, it wasn’t too bad. With the materials gathered, Entrapta would be keeping herself busy for a while. She was going to have to take blood samples every few days to observe for changes, but she could get started on what she had now.

“Nice work, team!” she declared proudly. Who knew working with other people could be this much of a breeze! Entrapta still would’ve preferred if Emily was here at least, but this was surprisingly manageable! “We’re going to crack this case yet!” She waved her pad around excitedly.

“Alright!” Adora pushed off the wall. “Angella’s going to be so happy to hear that.”

“Yeah, a real weight off her shoulders,” Bow agreed, smiling with relief.

“Now then!” Entrapta said, pointing up. “How about we reward our good test subject here with some food!”

”Eh,” Adora said.

”Mmmh…” Bow pressed his lips together and offered her a weird grimace.

Not as excited of a reaction as she’d expected. She hadn’t been there while the creature had been fed before, but she’d been assured that someone was making sure it got food. Entrapta looked from soldier to soldier with questions in her eyes, but neither of them was looking back.

“What?”

“The food isn’t really… a reward, per say,” Bow said, gesturing weakly. “As much as it’s just… food.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“I’ll just go grab a bucked,” Adora said lamely and pointed at the door.

Entrapta kind of assumed that it was meant to be a joke. A figure of speech. People seemed to like those. But when the Captain came back with an actual bucket filled with grey sludge, her jaw dropped.

“What is that?” she cried out, backing away from the vile bucket.

”It’s mostly proteins and carbohydrates,” Adora said, putting it down and shrugging. “Fats. Some vitamins. Mixed with water. Uh. The basic components of a Horde ration bar. In. In liquid form. Hm.”

“Oh, that stuff is repulsive!” Entrapta yelled, covering her nose. It didn’t actually smell like anything. But it had a look like it was supposed to smell and she could almost feel the goopy texture on her tongue. Disgusting. “It can’t be edible!”

“Trust me, it is,” Adora said. “It’s pretty much the only thing you get fed at Fright Zone. And you’d rather eat this than starve.”

That was debatable. Entrapta peered at the bucket again. ”And the taste?” she asked.

”It’s not that bad once you get used to it.”

Entrapta couldn’t believe it. How could anyone live on something like this? Food was supposed to be good! It was supposed to be fun to eat!

There was nothing fun about grey sludge.

A terrible sense of curiosity took her over. Entrapta slid closer, careful as if the goop was going to climb out of the bucket by itself and jump at her. The bucket looked clean enough. Washed. Not just some bucket from the janitor’s closet. The sludge was probably… fresh. As fresh as anything like that could be. With a grim look on her face, Entrapta reached for her utility belt and pulled out a spoon. She wiped it on her glove before dipping it into the bucket.

Before she could take a scoop, though, Bow stopped her.

”Uhm. Maybe you don’t. Want to do that,” he said, strained.

”It’s not like it’s poison,” Adora said defensively. ”Besides, it takes years for it to degrade. Trust me, if the creature can eat it, then so can she.”

”I mean, I’m not talking about whether or not she can, but if she should,” Bow said. The moment his attention was away, Entrapta stole a taste.

”Ugh. Uughh!” she cried out and waved the spoon, throwing drops of the stuff around. ”No, no, no, this won’t do at all. This is terrible!”

“I told you not to eat it!”

“But I had to! For science!”

”It’s not that bad,” Adora said, arms crossed. ”You get used to it.”

”You do?”

”I-I mean, you’d have to, right?” she backtracked quickly. ”Not that I would have personal experience. But - but it’s healthy, right? A lot healthier than your snacks, for sure.”

”What’s the point, if it tastes like mud?” The texture was terrible. It was lukewarm, grainy sludge with surprising little crunchy pieces hidden in it. No, it was not good at all and Entrapta wished she’d had a fizzy drink at hand to wash it down with. ”This is definitely not a reward, you’re right.”

”We didn’t know what to feed to it,” Bow said. He rubbed his neck and looked away. ”Who knows what kinds of stuff it can handle? What if we give it unprocessed meats and it just up and dies? This is the stuff they were feeding it, so we’re going to be feeding it with it too.”

It made sense, she had to admit. There was no point in putting the asset in danger now that they had it. Who even knew what kinds of foods creatures from Prime’s world could digest? And since the creature wasn’t talking, there was no asking it either.

Entrapta looked at the bucket.

This was just sad.

They loosened the shackles just enough so that the creature could’ve reached for the bucket if it wanted to, but it showed no interest towards it.

Was it no wonder that it was so skinny? With a diet like that. It gave a sideways glance at the bucket but held its head high. Gills flared, it looked far too haughty to ever touch the stuff.

Entrapta leaned back.

“Are you sure it eats the sludge?” she asked.

The creature huffed.

“Well, I’ve never seen it eat in person,” Bow said. “And the guard who’s been assigned to bring the food to it hasn’t either. But!” he hurried to say when Entrapta opened her mouth. “The bucket is always empty afterwards.”

Supposedly the machinery inside a techno-organic chimera could keep them running without fuel for a long time. But that was when talking about ancient magitech bugs that were mostly tech. For the creature to still live and breathe, it had to eat at some point.

It was holding its head high, like a dignified prisoner, too important to address its captors.

It wouldn’t survive long without proper food.

Well. Food was an important question as far as Entrapta was concerned. She put her hands on her hips and stood up tall. With a bright smile, she stomped up to it and pulled a bag of jerky from her pocket.

“This food thing is a travesty,” she said. “And I’ll work to sort it out. But in the meanwhile. Could I interest you in some genuine Etherian dried meats?”

Now she had its attention. The creature turned its head slowly, eyes narrowed, while Entrapta crinkled the bag. It looked at the bag, then at her.

It was hard to tell what might’ve been going on in its mind. There was a good chance it didn’t even understand what Entrapta was saying. But Entrapta grinned anyway.

“Would you rather have this?” she asked, lifting the bag. “Or this?” She nudged the bucket with the toe of her shoe.

There was no obvious response. It just stared at her, eyes barely anything more than a pair of red slits.

“I don’t know if beef jerky is an improvement,” Bow muttered.

“You’re wasting your time, doc,” Adora spoke up, nudging her friend. She waved at the door. “Look, if we’re done here for the day, I need to be heading back. Can we get him back in the water?”

“Suppose so,” Entrapta said. “Yes. I have all I need for the day.”

She was going to have to start running tests on the samples she’d gotten right away. There was so much to get done! So many numbers to crunch, so much data to shift through. It was going to be interesting to see what she would find.

Entrapta left Bow and Adora to deal with the creature and she could hear wet splashes and yelling from behind her, but it was hardly her problem anymore. With the samples in a cold carrier and the pictures and the data on her pad, she started making her way back to her lab.

She didn’t make it all the way before she ran into someone familiar.

Dr. Angella’s daughter was staring at the floor in front of Entrapta’s lab like she wanted to murder it when Entrapta rounded the corner. She had her arms crossed and a frown set deep.

Entrapta wasn’t going to let that deter her.

“Oh, hey there!” she said, waving her data pad at her. “Glitter, right?”

The way her face scrunched up, Entrapta was pretty sure it wasn’t Glitter.

“Glimmer, actually,” she said through her teeth. “Dr. Angella wanted to talk with you. She’s waiting at her office.”

“Oh,” Entrapta said. She swallowed and switched weight from one foot to another. “Uh. Sure. I guess this can wait. Let me just leave these…” She opened the lab door just enough to push the cold carrier in with her foot. “That should hold for… two and a half hours at least.”

“Good. Great. It isn’t like I don’t have much more important things to do,” Glimmer said. “Dr. Spinner needs me. Go talk to mom.”

“Sure thing,” Entrapta said, uncertain what she’d done this time to earn her ire. She supposed it could still be leftover resentment from before, but she didn’t know what to do with it.

Better to just ignore it, she supposed. Entrapta left the girl behind and headed for Dr. Angella’s office.

She hadn’t seen a glimpse of the woman since she’d arrived at Bright Moon. She hadn’t really given it any thought. Entrapta hadn’t been looking to strike up a conversation with the intimidating woman, after all.

Now that she was thinking about it, it was kind of strange how easily she’d been able to avoid her.

Entrapta knocked on the door and heard a muffled call from the inside.

It was hard not to notice how much worse the doctor had gotten while Entrapta had been working.

The poor woman looked like she hadn’t slept a wink since Entrapta had arrived. And no amount of low lighting in her office was going to hide that.

“Ah. Dr. Entrapta. Please, have a seat,” she said, waving at the chair in front of her. Entrapta was slow to carry the order out, eyeing Dr. Angella carefully. She looked pale. Not just that, she looked ghostly. Like she was made out of paper and straws and the only thing holding her together was her weakening willpower. In the dark of the office it should’ve been hard to tell, but Entrapta could see the deep shadows under her eyes.

“Here we are,” Dr. Angella said and crossed her arms on the desk while Entrapta made herself uncomfortable on the other side. Even her voice had grown fainter. “I hope the experiment is going well?”

“Um, yes,” Entrapta said. “Very well, actually. We took the first samples today. I was on my way to analyze them, when your daughter found me.”

“The… first samples?” Dr. Angella asked. Her tired eyes rolled shut. “You’ve only taken one set of samples yet?”

“Um.” Entrapta looked around the office. The blinds were completely shut now, no amount of light shining through. The only source of light was the small crystal in the lamp between them.

Dr. Angella sighed and pressed her face to her hands.

“Please forgive me,” she said. “I am… Some current goings on with the war have me feeling… restless. Please. Tell me about your progress.”

“Oh, well. Sure.” Entrapta pulled out her data pad and started going through the ideas she had for the experiment. Studying the code of the tech and trying to find what was causing such a violent reaction to the magic.

Dr. Angella leaned her head against her hands, fingers locked together tight. She let Entrapta do the talking and just listened to her. At least, Entrapta was pretty sure she was listening. But there was a sort of an emptiness behind her dry eyes that told her she might’ve as well been speaking to an empty room.

That was something she’d had a lot of practice doing. So it should’ve been easy.

But seeing Dr. Angella, the unflinching, unwavering pillar of the scientific community like this left Entrapta feeling displaced.

“So,” she said unsteadily. “That’s what… I’ve been doing. So far. Um. Are you… are you actually even listening to me?”

For a moment Dr. Angella only seemed to stare through her and Entrapta started to shift on her chair. As the words slowly connected, the look in Dr. Angella’s eyes grew sharper. She blinked a few times, then frowned.

“I see,” she said, completely disregarding the question. “That is interesting. However, that’s not what I called you here to do.”

“It’s not?” Entrapta started to sway back and forth on her chair.

“No, I – ” Dr. Angella fell quiet and pressed a hand against her forehead with a sigh. Her shoulders were drooping like a heavy weight had been placed on them. “I understand that you do things your own way. But please. We need something to use against Prime. Anything. You’ve worked with weapons before. Just. Figure something out. Please.”

Her swaying ceased. Entrapta placed both of her feet on the ground and hands on the chair. She mulled over it for a second.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll… I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Angella said, exhaustion bleeding through. “I know this is all very strange, but we need you.”

“Okay. Yes. I understand,” Entrapta said.

“Yes. Thank you. You’re excused.”

Feeling like she was back in Mystacore, Entrapta slunk out of Dr. Angella’s office. It was almost like being reprimanded by the headmaster after blowing up the classroom for the fourth time. But this time she wasn’t sure what exactly she was being reprimanded for. She was working. She was working really hard.

Entrapta dragged her feet and made her way back to her room.

Dr. Angella was worried. That was clear to see. About the war, no doubt. But that was what was so strange about this. It’d been fifteen years. The two sides had been trading victories back and forth for such a long time that the students now studying at Mystacore had no memories of the time when there hadn’t been fighting. For every mass of land the Horde managed to conquer, Ehterian troops rescued something else back. They’d been at a precarious stalemate for the longest time.

But then again, Dr. Micah had left a gaping hole behind. The attrition warfare was leaving Etheria and its people tired, while the Horde’s faceless, immaculate soldiers exuded nothing but tireless power.

Something was going to give.

But what could Entrapta do?

Nothing about the creature screamed weaponized inspiration.

What could she do?

Well. She needed to get a look at the samples, first things first. She needed to study them, see how the creature worked. Whether the beast was a failed project or a prototype for future advances, Entrapta needed to know everything. And once she had that down, she could start building up from the pieces.

Yes. That seemed like the best way to approach it.

With that, Entrapta walled herself into her lab and got to work.

Say what you did about the Horde, they had their technology down to an artform.

Terrible, deadly, dangerous artform. Entrapta would’ve loved to just… get one of their scientists and see what went on in their heads. Because the cruelty of the tech inside the creature was breathtaking.

From what she’d discovered, about half of the creature’s mass was organic. The rest was nothing but Horde tech. Gorgeous pieces of technology, shaped like organs, finetuned to run the beast like a well-oiled machine.

It would’ve been a masterpiece, had the magitech not started to spread.

It looked worse on the inside than it did on the out. It had spread bad and Entrapta had no doubt that it was painful. Sharp growths of tech digging into the flesh, squeezing arteries and restricting movement. The creature was still fully operational and would remain that way up until the tech on its skin would spread too far. But it was a painful way to go.

Entrapta divided her time between lab work and sample taking. Every other day she went back into the tank room, took some blood, took some skin and observed the spread of the tech inside. And the rest of the time she spent locked up in her lab, going through the samples, studying them every way around she could think of. Every time she visited the tank room, she left the creature with more junk food. It always disappeared while she was away, so either it was eating it or someone was cleaning up after her.

The numbers. Oh, the numbers. She was getting so much good stuff.

She didn’t yet know what to do with it, but it was good. This was without a doubt the best modern adaptation of magitech on a living being.

Weapons, when you got down to it, were pretty boring. Devices designed to hurt the ones that disagreed with you. The tech going into them could be interesting, sure, but in the end it was all pretty streamlined and simple.

Entrapta had done her deal of weaponry. She’d gotten what she wanted out of it and moved on.

But now Dr. Angella wanted her to build something.

None of this stuff was inspiring in that way.

So she studied the readings. Gathered all the data she could and ran test . She was sure the inspiration would strike later. She tested the creature, measured everything, studied ancient techno-organic mechs and worked tirelessly day and night. All in all, Entrapta was keeping herself busy.

It would’ve been easy to fall into routine. Out of sight, out of mind, she could do about anything she wanted to.

She hadn’t considered the fact that she wasn’t the only one interested in the project, though.

But when she entered the tank room only to find the creature already shackled and bleeding on the platform and Dr. Spinner leaning over it with a scalpel in hand, she was forced to face the reality.

“What’s going on in here?” Entrapta asked, more confused than anything.

Dr. Spinner lifted her head. She wasn’t supposed to be in here. This wasn’t her lab. This wasn’t her project. Yet here she was, looking like she’d been caught with her hand in a cookie jar. Her eyes narrowed and the scalpel disappeared into the sleeve of her lab coat.

“Entrapta!” Bow shouted, hurrying to her. “Am I glad to see you here! Tell her she can’t do this!”

Entrapta was slow to take in the situation. What was going on in here? The creature was sitting limply between its shackles, eyes downturned and gills drooping. There was a deep cut across its clavicle, cutting into the tougher part of its skin. There was a lot of blood.

Dr. Spinner straightened her back and tilted her head, a soft gesture, mockingly kind.

“Dr. Entrapta. There you are,” she said. “I was going to look for you, but I thought you’d be too busy with your own little projects to let me in. So I asked Captain Adora to allow me access.”

The Captain was standing stiffly to the side, hands curled into fists and face pale. Dr. Angella’s daughter was there too, arms crossed and looking away with a frown. Entrapta looked from her to Bow, to Dr. Spinner and then the creature sitting very still on the ground.

“This… isn’t your project,” she said slowly. “You can’t be here. You must be mistaken. Please leave the tank room.”

There was blood all over the floor. Around Dr. Spinner’s feet. On the sleeves of her lab coat.

The creature wasn’t struggling. It wasn’t hissing or growling. It just sat there, the look in its eyes dulled.

“I’m going to go get Dr. Angella,” Adora said, pushing off the wall and grabbing Glimmer by the arm. The two of them hurried out.

Entrapta walked closer to the creature. As bad as the damage looked, there wasn’t enough blood on the floor to drain the fight out of something as pissy as the creature. The cut was nasty but far from lethal.

Dr. Spinner hadn’t drugged it, had she?

Entrapta turned to look at her. She was holding a tray with several empty blood vials on it.

“My apologies,” Dr. Spinner said, sounding nothing but. “I have overstepped my boundaries. I just found the data Angella gave me to be severely lacking in information. I needed a sample of my own, but it would appear that the creature isn’t as stable as I’d hoped.”

The creature huffed and shook. It let out a low growl, more of a whine, and didn’t look up.

Although it was hard to tell, Entrapta was pretty sure Dr. Spinner was smiling under there somewhere. Her eyes were squinted and her voice pleasant.

Entrapta played with her hands, unsure what to do. This was a clear breach of conduct. Dr. Spinner wasn’t supposed to be here without the permission or the presence of the project leader. And that leader was Entrapta.

She looked at the creature. Then back at Dr. Spinner.

“Please leave the tank room,” she said as steady as she could. “This is my project. You… you shouldn’t have come here without my permission.”

Dr. Spinner was quiet for a moment, staring at her through narrowed eyes. Then she blinked and bowed her head.

“Of course,” she said. “My apologies. I will take my leave, then.”

“Good,” Entrapta said. “Good. If you wanted blood samples, you could’ve just asked me.”

“Of course,” she repeated, retreating towards the door. “I will have a word with Dr. Angella about this.”

Entrapta didn’t watch her leave. Her thoughts were clouding over, a strange buzz filling her head. She pursed her lips and twisted her fingers.

“Bow,” she said. “Do we have a first aid kit here somewhere?”

“Oh! Um. Yes. Hold on a moment.” He hurried to the desk at the back and the pulled out a green and white box.

Entrapta kneeled down next to the creature. It looked at her from the corner of its eye, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her presence. That was fine. As long as it knew she was there and wouldn’t try to bite at her. She studied the cut.

It was deep, deeper where it sunk into the pale flesh. But somehow Dr. Spinner had been able to cut into the grey parts of the skin as well. Not as deep, but deep enough to make it bleed.

Fascinating. How had she done that? Entrapta reached for the cut, then noticed how dirty her gloves were and pulled back.

Bow crouched down next to her and started digging around the box.

“You think any of this will be good for it?” he asked, lifting up a bottle of disinfectant.

“The creature is mostly made out of the same stuff as you and I,” Entrapta said absentmindedly. She was trying to get the creature to look up at her, to meet her eyes, but it was staring at the floor resolutely. She didn’t understand the reaction and it was making her feel weird. She wanted to reach out and make it look at her.

Which was silly, of course. It would probably take direct eye contact as a provocation. It wouldn’t understand. She didn’t understand.

Right.

“Help me hold it still, Bow,” she said. “The disinfectant is going to sting and I don’t want it straining the cut any further.”

It was pointless. The creature barely even struggled when Bow put the collar around its neck to hold it in place. It hissed a little when Entrapta sprayed the disinfectant into the cut, showed some teeth when she dabbed the area with healing cream. That was it. No claws, no growling, no snapping teeth.

Somewhere between the last time Entrapta had seen the creature and when Dr. Spinner had arrived with her scalpels, it had lost its fight.

Entrapta bit her teeth together. She wasn’t sure why it was making her feel so peeved. It would be easier to deal with the creature without its temper. It would make taking samples so much easier. Moving it around would be such a breeze without the constant struggling.

It should’ve been a good thing.

Despite the sound logic, Entrapta could feel anger coiling around her lungs and it was leaving her with a perplexing mixture of feelings.

“This is my project,” she said more to herself than anyone else. “She shouldn’t have… she shouldn’t…”

“I know,” Bow said. “And I should’ve come and get you the moment she started pulling out knives. But I was worried she was going to do something if I left.”

Entrapta gnawed at her lip.

She could understand Dr. Spinner’s intent. The creature was fascinating, there was no denying that. She knew she would’ve wanted to get her hands on some samples too, had their roles been reversed. But this was just sloppy. Even if she’d been trying to take a skin sample, this wasn’t how you did it.

“Are you okay?”

Bow looked at her, surprised. “What, me? Yeah, just a little shaken, that’s all. You?”

Entrapta wasn’t looking at her. The creature lifted its head a little, gave her a fleeting glance before looking back down.

Of course. It didn’t understand her.

She bit her teeth together harder and stood up.

Dr. Spinner was waiting for them outside, with Dr. Angella, Captain Adora and Glimmer in tow. Dr. Spinner was radiating smugness, her eyes narrowed with mirth.

“Dr. Entrapta,” Dr. Angella greeted. “I heard there was a commotion. Is everything alright?”

So Dr. Spinner thought she could go and get Dr. Angella to excuse her actions? Entratpa’s annoyance doubled. Of course Dr. Angella would take Dr. Spinner’s side. Of course she was going to side with anyone but Entrapta.

She curled her fingers into fists at her side.

“This is my project,” she said, pointing at her chest. “You gave it to me and my month isn’t up yet. And I don’t appreciate people butting into my business while I’m in the middle of something.”

“Dr. Entrapta,” Dr. Spinner said. “Let me just apologize again. It’s been a while since I’ve worked around other people. This is all a little embarrassing. I was simply interested in the creature’s magical aura. I overstepped my boundaries.”

She was willing to admit that, yet she’d thought it important enough to get Dr. Angella here as their audience. Entrapta pursed her lips. Everything about this felt wrong and she couldn’t figure out why that was.

“I would rather you don’t endanger the life of the creature while the experiments are still ongoing. If it had bled dry in your hands, there wouldn’t be anything left to study.”

“Oh, I believe there would be plenty to study,” Dr. Spinner said. “But I understand what you mean, dear doctor. I was in the wrong.”

Dr. Angella was watching them with tired vigilance. Her shoulders were held up high near her ears.

“Dr. Spinner has every right to be interested in the creature,” she said. “She is currently working on a side project upon my request. She has shown interesting results already and I would wish you two could collaborate on your ends.”

Collaborate? Any other time Entrapta would’ve been interested. Dr. Spinner was a brilliant scientist.

She still had blood on her lab coat, though.

“I would’ve gladly given her the readings of my samples,” she said stiffly. “Had she asked for them. But she was being rude.” She turned to look at Dr. Angella. “She seriously harmed the test subject. It’s acting strange now. It’s putting the whole project in jeopardy. Please tell her to stay out of my work spaces if I’m not there.”

Dr. Angella breathed out a long-suffering sigh.

“Dr. Spinner,” she said. “Dr. Entrapta is right. This is highly unorthodox. Do not approach the creature if you don’t have permission from the project leader.”

“Of course,” Dr. Spinner said, bowing her head.

Simple as that, was it? Entrapta crossed her arms and swayed back and forth on her feet, unable to make the uneasy feeling dissipate. Dr. Spinner turned to Dr. Angella, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Now, Angella,” she said, “I have some promising results about my current project. Would you care to discuss them with me?”

Dr. Angella sighed and waved her hand towards the direction of her office. “Of course,” she said. “Yes. Let’s go to my office. I feel like sitting down.”

And just like that, the matter was forgotten. Entrapta watched the two doctors retreating towards Dr. Angella’s office. Captain Adora and Glimmer followed after them while the older women talked.

It should’ve been cleared just like that. They’d talked it through, so that should’ve been it, right?

Entrapta took a look at Bow next to her. He was wearing a slight frown, lips pursed.

She turned back to Dr. Spinner.

Too bad she had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the end of it.

Chapter Text

Things didn’t go back to normal after that. Entrapta had hoped that since Dr. Spinner had been dealt with, the creature would go back to its old ways. She’d expected it to be grumpy and haughty the next time she saw it, angered that it had been caught in such a weak state.

She had no such luck.

The creature was an easy test subject now. Quiet and unresponsive. It barely even acknowledged them when Entrapta drew blood. It didn’t fight, it didn’t fuss. Adora and Bow still drugged it when moving it from the tank to the pool, but it probably wouldn’t have been necessary.

There was no fight left in the beast.

And it gave Entrapta anxiety.

So instead of going back to the tank room, she holed up in her lab. She taught Bow how to draw the blood samples, giving vague excuses about being busy with her work and staying in the lab, where it was comfortable and quiet.

It wasn’t like she’d stopped working. Entrapta was still going through the data and studying the creature. She was just doing it from her lab and away from everyone else. It was fine. It was better this way. She didn’t have to deal with the weird feelings of dread and anxiousness that coiled in her guts when she didn’t have to see the creature. Entrapta could just stuff her face with chips and stop paying attention to the world outside. It was the data that was interesting after all. She didn’t need to see the creature to do that.

What Entrapta had gathered had left her with a better understanding on the creature’s physique, inside and out. The prosthetics were highly advanced. It was such a shame too, since it looked like the Horde had gotten very far with their techno-organic research. The creature had heightened strength, durability and endurance. It was far greater in its strength than an average human.

It was easy to see, though, that the techno rot was slowly bridging that gap. Its agility was already down. The blood works showed nanoparticles spreading through and latching onto soft tissues. It was going to keep making the creature’s skin tougher, but also less malleable. In the end it wouldn’t be able to move much at all and then it would perish. The enhancements were only going to be that great for a short while.

Even so, it was still much better work than Entrapta had ever seen in modern settings.

Something that was really starting to bother her, thought, was the question of the creature’s intelligence.

Something had happened. Something Dr. Spinner had done had gotten to the creature and now it was different. How intelligent was it? Could it actually understand the situation it was in?

It hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to communicate with them. Before the whole Dr. Spinner thing, it had clearly wanted no part in their tests. But then again, that didn’t really mean anything. Any cornered animal could try to bite the hand that fed it, especially if the same hand had previously harmed it. Not wanting to be social with your captors wasn’t really an indication for or against any intelligence. It could have just been that the creature was a wild animal, ready to rip throats.

Not that the Horde would have treated it much better. It was a failed experiment. They would have probably flushed it sooner than later anyway.

Now, though.

Now it was quiet. Closed off in a way that felt too hurt to be simple.

No. Entrapta didn’t want to think about it. She was fine. It was closing the end of her second week at Bright Moon and she was fine. She was doing great, making strides. Entrapta was going to crack the code to the Horde’s success yet. There was no room for pesky feelings. She’d be better off closing all of that stuff off and working tirelessly.

It was easier. It was familiar. Entrapta started working and somehow got lost into the process. Time kind of lost its meaning and suddenly she’d gone three days without seeing anyone. She slept when she got too tired to keep her eyes open, ate while she worked and it was great.

She was fine.

Entrapta could’ve easily spent the remaining time of her month locked up behind the door, scavenging food from the kitchens and avoiding all human contact. And she would’ve, gladly, had Adora not come looking for her.

Hearing the knock on her door made her nearly jump out of her skin.

She blinked blearily, looking around.

She hadn’t just imagined that, had she?

The second knock had her clambering to her feet and stumbling to the door.

“Oh,” Entrapta said, looking up at the Captain. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Adora said. “Hey. Is… is everything okay with you? Here?” She grimaced a little and looked off to somewhere, before looking back at her.

“Yes?” Entrapta said.

Adora twisted her mouth and looked Entrapta over.

“Can I help you?” Entrapta asked when it took a while for the Captain to say anything more.

“Ah. No, I just… It’s been a while,” she said. “And Bow said you haven’t been in the tank room either.” Her eyes narrowed and she seemed really disturbed by something while she was looking at Entrapta. “Are you… are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, why?”

Oh. Must have been because she’d forgotten to shower for three days. She’d been busy and, in her defense, she hadn’t been expecting company. Entrapta scratched her head. She supposed she was starting to get a little greasy. And smelly. Everything was so clean in Bright Moon that she must’ve stood out. All the more reason to close the door and retreat back to her work. She kind of sometimes forgot to take care of her personal hygiene while working. That was what she had Emily for. Her robotic assistant remembered when she forgot.

“How about we get you to the washrooms and then you can tell us how you’re doing,” Adora said, her smile a little strained. “I’m sure Dr. Angella’s looking to hear your… uh, progress report soon too. Just. A quick shower, okay?”

“Fiiiine!” Entrapta grumbled. She supposed she could leave the project for a moment. She still had no idea how to make a weapon out of all of this, but she could think about that after food. “But we’ll have to make it quick. I still have a lot of work to get done.”

Washing up was never a quick process for her. Entrapta hated feeling wet and even though she really liked her hair, drying it out was always a pain. That was why it was just easier to not wash it in the first place. But Entrapta supposed being here, around other people, she’d have to play by their rules.

The public washrooms were no joy either.

She spent half an hour drying her hair. And even then it felt wrong. After that, Adora dragged her to the cafeteria to get some “real food” into Entrapta, her words, not Entrapta’s. Completely unnecessary. They got foods on trays, which admittedly was pretty fun. And the food was cooked too! Entrapta supposed this wasn’t so bad.

Bow found them at the cafeteria and he brought Dr. Angella’s daughter with him.

The girl didn’t look happy to be there either. She shot a look from under her brows at Entrapta. She wasn’t sure why, but she got the feeling that at some point the girl, whose name she couldn’t pinpoint at the moment, had started to not like her. Entrapta was still a bit fuzzy about what it was she’d done exactly, but she supposed there was no helping it.

“Oh, so the gremlin is out of her room?” the girl muttered. “Great.”

Entrapta looked around, trying to see who she was talking about.

Bow laughed nervously. “Come on,” he said. “I know you two started a bit on the wrong foot, but we can fix that, right? We’re all working on the same side.”

“We did?” Entrapta asked, looking from her food to the people around the table. She was sitting cross-legged on the chair.

The girl in the pink boots threw her hands in the air.

“We don’t have to get along!” she said. “I’m working with Dr. Spinner now. We’re going through magical theory and it’s actually really interesting.”

“The teleportation spells?” Bow asked.

“Yes! Dr. Spinner has some really interesting ideas.”

Entrapta poked the potato on her plate with the fork. Interesting. It had a rubbery feel to it. The only form of potatoes she liked to eat were chips. She cut it carefully in half and inspected it closer.

“So!” Adora said louder than would have been necessary and clapped her hands together. “You’ve been holed up in your lab for a while now, doc. What’ve you been up to? I’d almost say that the creature is missing you with the hissy fits he’s been having lately.”

“Yeah, no one there to feed junk food to it.” Bow chuckled.

Entrapta looked from Bow to the Captain, trying to see if they were joking or being serious. She put the fork with the potato down and sliced it again, into smaller bits. “Well, I’ve been going over the data,” she said. “It’s really interesting, actually. I’ve been comparing the numbers to the research done with animals. The Horde has made some real strides to understand magitech and it’s super impressive.”

“I wouldn’t say that it’s impressive that our enemies are working to get better at their science,” Glimmer said.

“Oh, well,” Entrapta said, shrugging. “I don’t know how that affects it. But we’re going to catch up eventually. Just like they manage to get our tech. Spies everywhere.”

Adora coughed and looked away. Glimmer frowned deep, lip curling. Next to her, Bow was looking between them, eyes large and worried.

“Oh!” Adorda shouted suddenly, slamming her palm against the table, making everyone flinch. “I have you badge! Finally, am I right?” She dug around her pockets, pulling out a laminated piece of cardboard with Entrapta’s picture on it and a rune for the doors.

Entrapta turned it around in her hands before stuffing it in her pocket. She supposed it was going to be useful. It was sometimes easier to use doors instead of climbing through vents.

“So, you’re wasting time, admiring enemy tech and going through the data you already gathered instead of moving on,” Glimmer said. “Great. Just wonderful.”

“I’m not wasting time!” Entrapta said, smiling in a way she hoped was encouraging. “I’ve got so much data! It’s not perfect, but it’s going to be good! The things we could do with magitech if we could fully meld it with people!” Entrapta squeezed her hands into fists, grinning wide. “The possibilities are endless!”

“Mom wants you to find a way to attack the Horde,” Glimmer said. “She wants a way to get rid of Horde Prime. You. Are. Wasting. Time.”

“Oh, but there’s so much we could do with the tech!” she said, trying think of some ideas that might interest them. “Like… like for example, I’ve been thinking about this aid that would allow me to twine these synthetic fibers to your hair, that would allow you to control your hair like extra limbs! Or… or Dr. Spinner’s work on short distance teleportation! If we could write the code into the genes themselves, we could turn it into an ability that can be transferred from parent to child! The possibilities are endless!”

“That sounds kind of impossible, though,” Adora said.

Glimmer scoffed, arms crossed. She looked away. Something in her eyes had softened. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean. The magic is there. Dad said… I mean, it’s just that we don’t know how to read it right.”

“Right!” Bow agreed. “I mean, I grew up on my dads telling me all sorts of stories about all the weird things First Ones’ could do. Like, controlling weather, transforming bodies, plant magic, all sorts of things!”

“Exactly!” Entrapta said. These kids were smart. “It’s all there, in the tech, if only I’d be able to translate it into the same genetic language we have in our bodies. The difference doesn’t seem to be that great, but it’s enough to have the tech running haywire!”

“Aren’t the prosthetics we have now enough, though?” Glimmer asked. At least her tone wasn’t as attacking as it had been before. Both Adora and Bow were relaxing as well and Entrapta took that as her cue to lean back and continue eating. “I mean, it’s not like we’re struggling.”

“Of course they’re fine,” Entrapta said, waving her knife dismissively. “But they could be better! Doesn’t it excite you that you could control your hair?”

“I mean, that does sound pretty cool,” Adora said, rubbing her chin. “That could be used as an offensive weapon. A few strands of hair by themselves aren’t going to hold much pressure, but a whole braid? Now that’s going to smack someone senseless.”

“Yeah, I think Dr. Entrapta’s hair would work just fine,” Glimmer said.

“Oh? It has gotten a bit long, hasn’t it?” It still felt too moist and too cool, but she was getting used to it. It was fine. It was a bit of a hazard to have such long hair near so much machinery, but she’d only gotten caught with it a few times so far, so she didn’t see any reason to cut it yet. She liked it the way it was. “But yeah. I could make something awesome out of the data I have now! But Dr. Angella wants me to waste my time on the stupid weapons project and it’s so boring.”

“Excuse me?” Glimmer said.

Oh. Whoops. She sounded mad again.

“It’s just that I think it’s a waste of time,” Entrapta explained. “Because weapon design is always kind of boring.”

“But, but, but didn’t you design weapons before,” Bow asked, lifting his hands up to Glimmer as if to hold her back.

“Yes, yes, been there, done that,” Entrapta said. “But what I’m saying is that I don’t want to do it anymore. I’ve got new ideas! Tons of them!”

“Glimmer – ” Bow started, but couldn’t finish before she’d stood up. Her chair fell back, clattering loudly against the floor and her eyes were wild.

“You are a sham of a scientist and no one wants you here!” Glimmer shouted. “No one wanted you here in the first place and you wouldn’t have been brought here, if dad hadn’t –”

Whatever she’d meant to say, it got choked out fast and her eyes grew large. She jumped back from the table and wiped her eyes furiously. Then she turned around and stormed off. Bow got up quick and hurried after her, leaving Entrapta alone with Adora and half the cafeteria staring at them.

Entrapta watched Glimmer’s retreating back. Bow caught up to her and put his hand on her shoulder, hurrying both of them out of sight. Entrapta wasn’t really seeing what she was looking at, but she couldn’t turn away either.

Oh. Her hands were shaking on the table. The fork was rattling against the tray. Oh. That was weird.

She swallowed with some trouble, sniffed and licked her lips. Then she forced the fork to lay still.

“Uh,” Adora said.

“I’m going to the tank room.”

Entrapta pushed the chair back and it creaked loudly against the floor. With the force she was putting on it, it nearly fell over as well. The noises felt painfully loud in her ears.

People were talking.

“Yeah,” Adora said. “Yeah, let me just… I’ll escort you back.”

She didn’t need to. Entrapta had the keycard now. And she’d gotten in without it as well. She knew the way to the tank room just fine. But Entrapta didn’t turn down the offer. She hardly even heard it through the cloudy space between her ears.

Glimmer’s words were playing on repeat. Nearly blind to her surroundings, Entrapta walked on autopilot. Adora followed close behind.

“You know,” Adora started. “I’m sure… Glimmer didn’t mean what she said.”

“Oh, I’m sure she did,” Entrapta said distantly, the words coming out like through a fog. She wasn’t really thinking about them, they just rolled out of her mouth. “I’ve heard worse.”

“Ah, but. Glimmer wouldn’t usually say things like that,” Adora hurried to say. “Maybe… maybe you two should stay away from each other for now. It’s not your fault. She’s going through some stuff right now and she’s usually not this easy to get riled up, but…”

“No, it’s,” Entrapta started, unsure what she was really feeling. “It’s fine,” she finished, the words hollow. She didn’t care for her reasons. She didn’t need to hear them.

It wasn’t like it was the first time someone had said things like that to her. Despite her best attempts, she just wasn’t favored by the scientific community of Etheria. There was no reason why Bright Moon Labs should have been different. It was fine. She could live with that. Not everyone had to be friends.

It always surprised her how much it could sting to hear the words directly from the mouth of the person, though.

Adora opened the tank room door for her. She didn’t have to but she did. And Entrapta stood there, waiting patiently for it to open fully.

Adora was fiddling with her fingers.

This was stupid.

Entrapta bit her teeth together.

Yes, she knew she wasn’t popular. She knew most of the scientific community didn’t like her. But eventually they would like her results.

She slapped her hands against her cheeks, not hard enough to sting, but enough to make a point.

Glimmer didn’t like her? Fine. Her mother found her to be a bother and only invited her because her husband had died? Fine.

Entrapta wasn’t going to care about that. She had a way of doing her things and it was a way that worked for her. She wasn’t the one, who’d forced her to come here. If she’d been asked about it properly, she wouldn’t even have wanted to come.

But she was here now and she was going to get results. If not for them, then for her own interests.

She gritted her teeth and forced the frown into a smile.

Everything was going to be okay. She was fine!

With her remaining good will she pulled herself back together. Just barely, but she did it. It was fine and she was fine and she shouldn’t waste brain energy on thinking about it! Otherwise she’d end up in a slump again and then she wouldn’t get anything done in weeks again and that wouldn’t be fun for anyone!

Adora was looking at her funny when she marched into the tank room. Entrapta shoved that down with all the other unpleasant thoughts. She didn’t have room for negativity right now! If she gave space for even a sliver of that, she’d break down and she wasn’t about to break down.

She made her way to the tank right away, taking a look in.

“Hi again!” she said, waving wildly through the window.

The creature sat slumped against the back wall of the tank. When it noticed Entrapta waving, it perked up a little. Slowly it pushed off the ground and swam closer. The look in its eyes was still duller than it had been before, but at least now it was squinting its eyes at her again.

Entrapta was going to choose to take that as improvement, logic be damned.

The cut had healed well. Even with the healing cream, the speed of recovery was phenomenal. Another thing to add to the list of improvements made into the creature’s body. The scaring had gone down. It was nearly undistinguishable from the rest of the pale skin. The tougher parts seemed to be a little slower to heal, though, a deep gash still in the grey.

It was kind of nice to see it again after a few days of solitary work. After she’d been… avoiding this whole thing. Some of the mania slipped off the smile and Entrapta relaxed a little.

Yes. That was right. She was here for a reason. She had work to do and people had always been secondary to her progress.

She might’ve just been imagining it, but she could’ve sworn the look on the creature’s face softened as well.

Entrapta dug out a bag of jerky from her pants pocket and waved it around in front of the window.

“I’ve got you beef jerky here!” she said. “And, uh… chips.” She patted her pockets, feeling something crunching. “Oh well, chips, chip dust. Same taste, different texture.” She grinned a little too wide when she looked at the creature again. “You can have some if you come out nice and easy.”

Adora sighed and when Entrapta turned to look at her, she was shaking her head. But she was smiling. Just a little. Entrapta relaxed some more.

At least the Captain wouldn’t abandon her.

The Captain pulled on a pair of gloves and placed the shackles near the control table. “Just stand back, doc, and wait until Bow gets here. We’ll get him out of there for you.”

Entrapta’s smile wavered. She had to focus hard on it to keep it from slipping. She laughed unsteadily.

“Okay. Yes. Right. Good. Do you know…? Will that take long?”

Adora opened her mouth then closed it. She grimaced a little.

“You know what? I’m going to go ahead and check up on them. Can you handle it here for a while?”

Entrapta deflated a little. She turned back to the tank, feeling anxiety roll in her guts. Oh. Right.

She swallowed. Squeezed her eyes shut tight and nodded.

“Okay, good. I’ll be right back, doc.”

Entrapta watched her leave over her shoulder. With the Captain gone, she felt like she was going to collapse.

She turned around and slumped against the tank. Entrapta slid down to the floor and put her face into her hands.

Never should’ve left the lab. Painful things happened out here. It wasn’t worth the trouble. This was why she worked alone. People were complicated. They didn’t work on any logic she could see. Science was different. Everything had rules and those rules were simple. You do this, and that causes this. But go and say something to a group of people and you’re going to get twice as many reactions as there were individuals.

Working with others always ended with her feelings hurt. Maybe she just wasn’t meant to work in groups.

Entrapta rubbed the side of her face, then slapped her hands on her cheeks again. Sharper this time.

It helped just as little as the slap before. She leaned her face into her gloves and breathed deep.

And then she got up. Slowly. Unsteadily. But she got up. She always did.

When Entrapta turned around, she came face to face with the creature.

Entrapta didn’t jump. She didn’t flinch. She hadn’t expected it to still be there, right at the window, but she didn’t jump. She stared at it and it looked right back.

Entrapta sniffed and rubbed her nose to the side of her gloves.

The creature titled its head, looking at her through narrowed eyes.

How well could it hear them from the other side of the tank? Entrapta doubted it could hear very much. The walls were thick. But sound did carry well in water.

She swayed on her feet a little. She was feeling so tired already. Entrapta would’ve loved nothing more than going back to her lab and tinkering away the night. But here she was. She’d been forced out and this was the outcome. Might as well get work done, right?

Right.

“I just want to go home…” she muttered.

The creature moved. Entrapta lifted her head and saw it place a hand on the window.

She stared at it for a moment, then stepped closer.

What was it doing?

It was looking at her, eyes still little more than slits of red against its pale face.

Entrapta got closer.

She got all the way to the window, eyes locked to the creature. It was hard to tell where it was looking at, exactly, with no visible pupils to speak of. But this close, she could tell when its attention shifted from her to something behind her. One moment it’d been looking right at her, like calling her to the window, the next it froze and glowered at something else.

It sneered.

And then it was gone.

Entrapta turned to the door to see Adora and Bow enter. They were talking quietly under their breaths. Adora was gesturing with her hands, a frown etched deep. Bow nodded along.

Both of them stopped talking when they realized Entrapta was looking.

She looked away. It wasn’t any of her business.

For the first time in a while, when Adora and Bow moved to get it out of the tank, the creature put up a fight. It wasn’t as vicious as it had been before, but it clearly took the two soldiers by surprise. It nearly managed to pull Bow into the tank with it.

Weird as it was to say, it kind of made Entrapta feel a little better.

After the creature had been tranqed and moved, Bow and Adora were panting.

“Geez,” Adora said, wiping her brow. The front of her jacket and thighs were soaked. “Is it just me or did this suddenly get a lot more difficult again?”

“I don’t know,” Bow said, leaning on his knees. “I’d say it’s just as awful as before, but hey. That’s just me.”

The creature was leaning against the edge of the pool, unconscious.

“Anyway, I need to get going. It’s back to the lab with me,” Adora said, waving at the sword on her back. “We’re working through the training program and –” She snapped her mouth shut and smiled. “And that’s classified!” She shot finger guns at them. “Have a scientific day!”

The Captain was trying. Her positivity was overwhelming and too much. Entrapta tried to give back as much as she received, but she felt like her smile came out as grimaces. Adora’s grin fell a little and she hurried out.

“Hey.”

Entrapta lifted her head. Bow was approaching her slowly, hands held in front of him.

“I just wanted to make sure… Are you okay?” he asked. “You know, after… lunch.”

Entrapta opened her mouth to say that of course she was, but the words didn’t come out as fast as she would’ve liked. She closed her mouth again and shrugged helplessly.

“I think,” she started slowly, thinking carefully before speaking, “that Adora’s right. I shouldn’t bother Dr. Angella’s daughter. I don’t think she likes me very much.” She twisted her hands together. She felt exposed saying things like this. “And… I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but it’s okay. We don’t have to… get along.”

Bow shook his head. “It’s not that she doesn’t like you as a person. It’s just… Well. She’s been going through some stuff lately and it’s been rough. And Dr. Angella, she hasn’t exactly been able to be there for her either, not as much as Glimmer would like her to be.” He fell silent for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. But I just want you to know, that it’s not your fault.”

Entrapta didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded. She really didn’t like this brain funk she’d gotten into.

She was going to get over it. Like, right now.

“Okay!” she said, louder than she’d meant to, making Bow jump a little. “Back to work it is, then! You will help me reinforce the cameras! Once the creature wakes, we will feed it and then we’ll get the day’s blood samples!”

It was better not to think about the complicated things. Sweep them all under the carpet, so to speak, where they wouldn’t bother her. Bow was nice. He was kind. He was helping her, because he was feeling bad for her, but it was okay. And the more she worked, the easier it would be to avoid thinking about the less nice things.

They set up the camera system so that it might survive another day. Plastic sheets, thicker this time. Entrapta had plans for better casing that might protect the equipment even if submerged under water, but since she was being forced to work on the weapons project, she’d have no time for it. After that, they went to get the bucket for the creature.

By the time they returned, the beast had disappeared from the side of the pool. The shackles were rattling while it swam around, but there was no sight of it to be seen.

She had some thoughts on tests she wanted to run. More physical things. Strength and endurance, those sorts of things.

But what really had her interest was the creature’s intelligence.

She looked at the water, then at Bow.

Sometimes it felt like the creature could understand every word they said. Other times Entrapta was sure she was fooling herself.

For the sake of scientific exploration, she was going to find out.

But first she was going to have to get rid of Bow.

Entrapta patted her pockets.

“Hey, Bow?” she started carefully. “I forgot my recorder at my lab. I really need it. Could you go and get it? I think it’s either somewhere around my bed area or the desk piles.”

“Okay?” Bow said. He looked around uncertainly, then back at her. “Sure. I can get it for you. Is there, like, anything else you need? You know, my dad used to make me tea if I’d had a rough day and then we’d sit down and talk about it and it would always feel a lot better afterwards. You know, if you wanted to, I could – “

“Oh, no, no,” Entrapta said, waving her hand around. She wanted to stop thinking about it. She wanted to focus on something else already. This wasn’t nice. It felt bad. “I just need my recorder so I can get back to work.”

She heard the water’s edge being disturbed and saw from the corner of her eye how the creature rose to peek at them.

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll get that for you. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay thanks!” Entrapta called after him and watched him go.

The moment he was gone, she pulled out the recorder from her pocket. She could see the creature lifting a brow at her. That had been pretty devious, she had to admit. She hadn’t thought she had it in her, yet here she was! A regular old secret agent.

She made her way to the sludge bucket. It was filled to the brim with the goop. There was no smell, nothing stronger than the moist stench of the pool water anyway. But the texture was disgusting and just looking at it brought the aftertaste back to her mouth. Entrapta kicked it with the side of her shoe. Some chunks rose to surface.

Vile, vile stuff.

She reached to grab the handle and brought it close to the pool’s edge.

The creature watched her with a careful eye. As she approached, it pulled back as if getting ready to dive back under. Entrapta slowed her approach and tilted her head. It stopped as well and gave her a distrusting look.

Entrapta put the bucket down and clicked the recorder on.

She wondered how long it would take for Bow to realize her deception.

”Ethical dilemma, number 574. Is it okay to feed a creature disgusting sludge, when we don’t know whether it has working taste buds or not?”

The creature clicked its tongue and tilted its head back as if to look down its nonexistent nose at her.

Entrapta kneeled next to the bucket. She didn’t take her eyes off the creature when she pushed it closer to the pool.

“The food is kind of a travesty, huh?” she said, nodding at the bucket. “Although Adora tells me the Horde feeds their troops this stuff all the time. Do you actually enjoy eating it or is it more or a means to an end?” She offered the recorder closer to the creature.

It looked downright offended by the question, revealing teeth and pulling back with a grimace.

Fine. It was time to take out the big guns. Entrapta shoved the recorder under her arm and pulled out a bag of jerky from her pocket. She nudged the bucket closer still, then lifted the bag for the creature to see.

“Now, I have here some decent quality jerky. Well, as good as it’s going to get in this part of Etheria. I have this cook at home that can really make the best jerky, but this is okay as well.” She struggled a little to keep the recorder in place while she opened the bag. It wasn’t all that bad, really. She grabbed a piece and chewed on it. Nice resistance. Good for the jaws.

The creature was still there. Still coiled and ready to jump, but listening to her carefully. Or, well. Paying attention to the bag of treats she was showing to it, at least.

Entrapta offered the bag closer, showing the insides.

“Now, I have the whole bag right here, but I think I’ve had my fill of the day. So how about we make a deal? You let me get a look at your arm and the enhancements you’ve got going on over there and you can have the whole bag. Does that sound like a fair trade?”

She got the distinct feeling that the look the creature was giving her was incredulous. She gave it a wide grin and waved the bag closer.

It showed some teeth, hissing out loud. But then it mellowed down a little. Either it was thinking her offer over carefully or Entrapta was reading way too much into the small expressions showing on its face.

It started pulling back deeper into the pool and Entrapta offered the bag even closer, dangling over the edge.

And that was when it bounced. It had lured her to lean closer and when she was too far, it struck.

Entrapta had barely enough time to let out a startled yelp when the bag had already been yanked out of her hold. The creature dove right back under water, with the bag and all, leaving a large splash behind and soaking Entrapta through.

She sat there, in her own little puddle, and let the realization sink in.

She hated getting wet. And now she’d had to go through it two times in the same day.

Water was dripping down her front. She looked down and saw her recorder.

“No,” she whispered, scrambling to her feet.

It had been right in the splash zone.

“No, no, no, no,” she muttered, hurrying to the desk at the back. Uninvited tears pricked her eyes. She clicked on a light crystal and pulled the lamp closer. She clicked on the buttons of the recorder, but all she heard were wet, scraping sounds of the data crystal inside. “Come on. Work. Work damn it!”

She pried the memory core off. That would be fine, water didn’t affect the crystals. But the machine itself… Some of the non-magical tech could be really sensitive.

Her hands were shaking too hard. She couldn’t work the insides like this. Entrapta pressed her palms against the desk and drew a shuddering breath. Her eyes stung and she couldn’t… she couldn’t get the feeling to go down.

Entrapta barely had anything of her own here. She worked at a strange lab, in a strange place. The clothes on her back were spares, the equipment she used was borrowed. She had so very little with her that was hers and hers alone.

And now, even that was being taken away from her.

She buried her face into her hands.

This was pointless. The data she was gathering was barely worth the hours she spent on it. She was no closer to cracking the code on techno-organic melds, she had no plans for any weapons that might satisfy Dr. Angella’s needs, she was getting frustrated and she just wanted to go back home.

She sniffed and rubbed her nose to the side of her glove.

This was stupid. This whole day had been stupid. Should have stayed in the lab with the data like she’d planned to. Shouldn’t have let Adora pull her out, she would have been just fine.

Stupid.

Entrapta focused on breathing. In and out. In and out. She rubbed her nose to the side of her glove and sat still until her hands stopped shaking. And then she pulled tools from her utility belt and started pulling the record to pieces.

It was her own build. Pieces from commercial recorders retrofitted into something of her own. She knew the thing inside and out and could’ve probably taken it apart and built it back up in a minute. But she took her time. She separated the pieces, dried them with a handkerchief and lined them up on the table. They weren’t going to dry properly in the tank room, but like this, she could at least get most of the moisture off of them so they wouldn’t start rusting.

The chains rattled behind her. The water was sloshing.

Entrapta tried to pay it no attention. And after a while it stopped.

When the door started to open, she heard a splash. Bow was back.

“I didn’t find your – Oh! I guess you got your recorder.”

Entrapta blinked once, twice. She turned back to the desk and pulled her goggles over her eyes.

“Yes,” she said.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I think I’d like to go back to my lab now,” she mumbled. “I need to… fix this up properly.”

“Okay. That sounds like a good idea, actually.” Bow gave a look towards the pool. “What do you want me to do with the creature? Should I call Adora?”

Entrapta gathered the separated parts of the recorder on the handkerchief and folded it carefully.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Do whatever you want.”

She didn’t go back the next day. She had good reasons. So much data to pour through, so little time. Entrapta built a protective box for the camera. That was useful. It was a bit of a shoddy job, but would keep the camera’s innards safe for a little longer. She fixed her recorder and it was fine. Nothing a drying hadn’t been able to fix.

She wasn’t avoiding everyone. She really wasn’t. That would’ve been very much pointless and counterproductive. She was just… working. Very hard. Behind locked doors.

Other people weren’t necessary for her research. She could make do without them. Entrapta had done well without them in the past, so this shouldn’t have been that different. Bow could take the blood samples and send them to her. It was fine.

She just…

Entrapta just didn’t want to think about it right now. She didn’t want to think about anything.

Which was stupid. She knew it was. She knew the problem was probably in her. It always was. And being mad at a creature that probably didn’t even understand what it had done would’ve been a waste of time.

And she wasn’t really mad at it. Not really. She wasn’t sure what she was. She was feeling strong emotions, that much was clear, but what those emotions were, she wasn’t sure. It was complicated.

She stayed in the day after that one as well. But by that time, she was starting to feel stir crazy. Like she was being forced to stay in her lab. Like she wasn’t just choosing to ignore human contact, but she’d been locked up.

Bow didn’t bring her the blood samples she needed. And she didn’t go looking for them either. She didn’t get any work done.

No one came to check up on her.

By the third day she’d had enough. Entrapta still needed to work. She had so much to do. She needed blood and she needed to measure the spread of the techno rot.

She was fine. It was fine. If she kept saying that often enough, it was bound to become reality. She needed to test the camera protection anyway.

So three days after almost getting her recorder decimated, Entrapta returned to the tank room.

The door shut behind her with a heavy thud and she stashed the keycard into her pocket. She had to admit, it was nice to be able to move more freely now. She’d still need Adora and Bow’s help moving the creature around from the tank to the pool, but at least she could make most of her own schedules now.

The water’s edge moved. Apparently no one had moved the creature back into its tank while she was away. Better for her, she supposed. When the creature popped its head above the surface, Entrapta turned her away.

She started setting the camera up. The box she’d built for it was sturdy and waterproof enough to survive being dunked into the toilets of the ladies’ room, so it might even survive for a few days now. Entrapta hoped it was going to be useful. Otherwise she’d just spent three days doing nothing.

She was still going to need to go get someone help her take the samples. Entrapta swayed back and forth on her feet.

She wasn’t particularly feeling like being around other people right now.

There was a commotion behind her. The water was being disturbed.

Entrapta tried to pay no attention to it.

It wasn’t like she was mad at the creature. Not really. Not anymore. Either it was a mindless beast that hadn’t known any better or it had done it on purpose, but couldn’t have known the reaction it was going to cause from getting the recorder wet. It was her fault and blaming a captive creature would have been silly.

She was still mad, though, it was just an aimless kind of anger, formless and complicated. She didn’t get it, but it was there.

Entrapta would just need time to get over it.

The chains rattled. For a moment they quieted. Then they rattled louder. Entrapta tilted her head and pursed her lips. She sighed and angled the legs of the camera better.

Then she heard a gruff voice.

Well. That was a new one. Not a hiss, not a growl. Not even a huff, not exactly. Just. A sharp noise.

She licked her lips, sighed again and pulled her goggles over her eyes before turning back.

It had climbed to sit on the edge of the pool closest to her. It was as far out of the pool as the shackles would allow, staring intently at her. When Entrapta looked at it, it was looking right back at her.

She turned back to the camera and fussed around it. She tightened some of the screws, angled it better and pointed it at the water.

The shackles rattled again.

Entrapta bit her teeth together.

She needed to go get either Bow or Adora. The faster she could find either of them, the faster she could be out of here and she could stop feeling this weird.

But the whole idea of going to them for help felt awkward now.

She squeezed her hands into fists.

It was stupid.

All of this was just so –

It let out another call, sharper this time.

And then something wet landed next to her feet. Entrapta nearly jumped out her skin when it smacked against the floor not far from her. It rolled a little, then stopped next to one of the camera legs, leaving a wet trail behind it.

She hesitated for maybe a second before kneeling down next to the lump. She picked a screwdriver and poked the thing with it.

It was a wet plastic bag. She lifted it carefully between her thumb and forefinger, inspecting it closer.

Beef jerky, it said.

Ah. The bag it had snatched from her. Empty now.

Entrapta turned to look at the pool.

The creature wasn’t looking at her anymore. It was very clearly and pointedly looking at the back wall, standing as close to the edge of the pool as it could, gills pressed tight against its head.

It was offering its arm

Entrapta stared at the arm. She stood up slowly and let the soggy bag fall back to the floor. The creature made no move to acknowledge her, just kept its arm up awkwardly, turned almost completely away from her.

What was it doing? Offering its arm to her.

Entrapta looked back down at the bag, then at the creature.

Oh. Because of the…

Oh.

She’d said… that it could get the jerky, if she’d get a look at the enhancements.

But that couldn’t be right. Because it wasn’t supposed to understand any of them. Because it was supposed to be a simple creature from the Horde.

The gills twitched and its lips curled a little to show teeth. The fingers curled, but it didn’t put its arm down.

And suddenly Entrapta wasn’t really thinking about anything at all. She pushed her goggles off her eyes and started to move slowly, cutting the distance between them. Still far enough to be out of reach.

“Will you let me have a look at your arm?” she asked.

There was no response that she could see. It didn’t make a sound and it didn’t move an inch. It had chosen a spot at the back wall and it was staring at it like it wanted to tear it down. It was vehemently avoiding eye contact.

Almost like it was on purpose.

Almost like it had understood what she’d said and was offering this as a trade for the jerky and feeling awkward about it.

Oh.

The creature. It wasn’t exactly an it, was it? It was… He was a he.

Entrapta reached her hand slowly and placed it under his wrist. No shackles there to keep it from attacking. Yet it didn’t make a move when she very carefully pulled the hand closer.

The tension was tight enough to catch her breath in her throat.

How easy it would’ve been for him to turn on her now. She was well within reach. The claws were sharp enough to cut flesh. Or it could’ve grabbed her and pulled her under without much trouble. Let nature take its course.

Instead, it was standing there, stiff, facing away while giving its arms.

“Fascinating,” Entrapta said, and for once she wasn’t talking about the tech.

Ah. But the tech was beautiful this close. The claws were carefully sculpted and inorganic. She wondered if they held any sensation to them. She pulled her gloved fingers over the hard planes of his palm and the fingers twitched.

Interesting.

She pulled the arm further and studied the port near the elbow. Simple strength enhancers. The fibers ran through the whole body and connected near the ports. Entrapta pushed her thumb against the metallic tint of it.

It was quite different to get a good look like this, without the creature trashing around all the time. Like this, she could actually see the thin veins of tech rot under the skin.

Entrapta lifted her eyes and met the red ones. The creature flinched and looked away. His gills fell flat against his head and his mouth shut tight.

“Thank you,” Entrapta said. “This was a really nice thing to do, you know.”

He shifted a little, still looking away. Then, very slowly he turned to look at her from the corner of his eye.

Entrapta smiled brightly.

“Did you like the jerky?”

He regarded her wordlessly, through narrowed eyes.

“Never heard anyone eating them soggy,” Entrapta said. “It’s an acquired taste, I’m sure.”

The huff was quiet, barely there, but she caught it anyway.

She beamed at him, smiling so wide it hurt a little. But she couldn’t help it! Energy was pumping through her veins, filling her with nervous excitement that had her hands swaying.

“I’m going to need to get my equipment!” Entrapta said. “Oh, I want to get readings out of this! I want to see if stress is a factor in the spread! Ooh! This is such an interesting turn! Think about it! You and I, we could be the ones who crack the code and create the first perfect meld Etheria has seen in millennia!”

It wasn’t going to help this one, though. Unless the tech inside him could be completely removed, Entrapta couldn’t see a way of reversing the damage that had already been done. But she could hear it right from the creature himself! She could get a reliable telling of the way the rot felt in flesh. This was such a good development!

Entrapta hopped back, hurrying to the desk. She didn’t have the right equipment here. She’d thought she was just going to be taking blood samples and that was it. But now the door had been opened for so much more!

She wondered if the creature would still allow her to study it closer tomorrow as well.

When Entrapta looked back at him, he was holding his arm up and running a finger over the port. It had a strange expression on, one that Entrapta didn’t really know how to read.

“Blood samples?” she said, holding the kit up.

The look soured quick and he let his arms fall.

It was kind of funny. Entrapta cackled.

“Not afraid of some needles, are you?”

He curled his lip and huffed.

So he didn’t speak then, was that it? He hadn’t spoken yet, even though he was being more amicable towards her right now.

But he did understand her. She was pretty sure of that. The transaction of exchanging jerky for experimentation privileges made it seem so.

Entrapta sat down at the edge of the pool and waved at him to do the same.

Then again, Entrapta thought as he sat down next to her and offered his arm again, he had always seemed like he understood a lot more than he was letting on. She maybe should’ve seen this coming.

She drew blood, took skin samples and then studied the arm some more. It was all so very interesting. Strange. But interesting. She could feel him looking at her while she studied him, but he made no move to attack. She probably should’ve been a little apprehensive about this. But she had no time for such nonsense.

Afterwards, when she was packing up her stuff, she caught the creature looking at the tank.

How long had they kept him in his pool now? Someone was feeding him, yes, but the water was starting to look dirty and Entrapta wasn’t sure if anyone was taking care of him when she wasn’t around.

Everyone was so busy around here.

“Oh, if you want to go back to your tank, it’s fine with me,” she said.

He turned to look at her, then looked back at the tank. She couldn’t understand the look he was giving. He was slouched. He was quiet. Something was wrong.

“I think Adora leaves the key around here somewhere,” she muttered, getting to her feet and studying the desk. There it was, hanging from a loop on the wall. The tranquilizer gun was right next to it. Entrapta’s hand hovered over it for a moment before she let it fall and turned back to the creature.

“Let’s see here,” she said. “Give me your neck, I’ll have that thing off right quick.”

He looked at her for a moment, eyes squinted with what she could only read as distrust. But with little other choice, he leaned closer and Entrapta opened the collar around his neck.

“Great!” she said, rolling the key around her finger. “Now let me just open the tank hatch for you and…”

The creature stepped fully out of the pool and oh yeah. He was tall. He towered over her, skinny and angular, but still more than capable of attacking. He was standing maybe a little too close to comfort, looking down at her from his heights.

Right. This was dangerous. The creature was dangerous.

Entrapta swallowed and took a step back. He followed with a step of his own. She kept backing up and he followed right after.

He wasn’t attacking, though. He looked aggressive, but when did he not?

Entrapta stopped.

So did he.

The tension was back, heavier than before. Entrapta felt the moist air on her skin like a film surrounding her and she was feeling sweaty.

“Well?” she said. “Do you want to get into the tank or not?”

He narrowed his eyes and titled his head. He seemed to be weighing his options. He looked at the tank, then at the door out.

And then suddenly all air just seemed to leave his lungs. He sagged down like a popped balloon, his long and scrawny arm hanging limply at his sides. The look in his eyes was dull.

Entrapta blinked a few times. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing or what she was supposed to feel about it, but something was there, she was sure of it.

She reached her hand out.

He flinched out of way and revealed his teeth with a hiss.

Entrapta pulled back.

“To the tank?” she asked.

He said nothing. He made no move to indicate that he understood a word coming out of her mouth. But Entrapta nodded her head. It looked like their social time had been used up and it was time to leave. The creature followed after her to the tank, listless and apathetic. When Entrapta pulled the latch open, he dove head first into the tank and disappeared out of sight. She closed the tank after him and climbed back down.

When Entrapta took a peek through the window, she could see no sign of the creature.

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel about this. But she was going to have to take some days to process this, for sure.

Chapter Text

When the bombs fell, they shook the entire Bright Moon.

Entrapta had been awake when it happened, still going through the data she’d gathered. The sirens came on around two and the trembles just a little after that.

Entrapta held onto her desk, teeth set tight and listened.

They weren’t far. But they were far enough. With the weaponry the Horde used, they wouldn’t be able to reach Bright Moon from where they were.

This was just a warning shot. The protective barriers around the city would keep the people inside safe. The same couldn’t be said about the folks still living outside the city walls. Most had been temporarily evacuated to stay inside, but some people were too stubborn to leave their homes.

Most likely the Horde had targeted the Whispering Woods outside. It was a large mass of land, soaked with magic that made it harder for the Horde to cross it. It was a message. They were still here. And if Horde Prime so wanted, he could’ve reach over any time and crushed them.

It would make the citizens sleep uneasy. It would make them restless and scared. Sloppy.

Well. Even though that was the message, the city still stood. Bright Moon Labs and the city around it was still here, unscathed by the fires.

Another rumble made the floors shake. Entrapta pulled earmuffs over her ears and kept working.

It didn’t help much. The wail of the sirens was loud enough to pierce through. There was yelling outside her lab, people were rushing into the bomb shelters.

Her focus was completely shot.

With every shake of a faraway explosion, her mind went blank.

She ground her teeth together and crawled under her desk.

It went on for fifteen minutes and then it was over.

It felt more like hours.

Entrapta didn’t get a lot of work done that night.

The next day, Bright Moon Labs was in chaos.

When Entrapta emerged from her lab around late at noon, there were guards everywhere. People were running around and the hallways were filled with stuff that hadn’t been there before. Crates were lining the walls, some high enough to reach over her head. When Entrapta pried one open, she found a bunch of weapons. Some of her old designs, some done by other technicians.

“Hey, don’t touch that!” one of the guards shouted and Entrapta scattered.

They were stocking up, it seemed. Getting ready for a takeover. Could it really be happening now? She gnawed at her lip.

She didn’t have time for warring. She had so much on her mind right now as it was! These people should just stop fighting already. Leave regular people at peace and let them work.

Entrapta didn’t make it to the tank room before she was accosted.

“Dr. Entrapta!” Dr. Angella yelled.

She looked…

She looked bad. Pale as a ghost, cheeks sunken and hair frazzled like she’d been pulling at it just recently.

And she looked mad. Dr. Angella looked like she was about rip out Entrapta’s hair as well, when she marched up to her.

“Uh… Hi?” Entrapta said, already shrinking back.

“I need to talk with you, right now,” she said.

“Right now?” Entrapta looked around the hallway. She recognized some of the folks dressed in guards’ armor as familiar scientists. Drs. Netossa and Spinnerella hurried past them, both carrying heavy looking bags with them, clinking like they were filled with glass.

Dr. Angella seemed to have no time for her nonsense today.

“Tell me you’ve found a solution to our problem,” she demanded and her voice came out shrill and sharp. “Tell me you have something good to share.”

“Uh, well. Define good.”

“What Angella is trying to say is that our situation is very dire right now. The Horde has made moves to cut a way through the Whispering Woods and we could use a hitting edge weapon right now,” Dr. Spinner said. Entrapta hadn’t even realized she was there, but out she slithered from Dr. Angella’s shadow. Her voice was full of mirth, like she was laughing at a little joke shared between friends behind her mask.

It made Entrapta’s skin crawl.

“I… get that,” she said slowly, lifting her hands up in defense. “But I don’t know what to tell you.”

”We need more results. We need something!” Dr. Angella said, striking her fist against her palm. Entrapta flinched back.

”Angella,” Dr. Spinner said, reaching up to place her hand on her shoulder. ”It’s alright. There’s no reason to feel so worried. I’m sure the young doctor is doing her best.”

”Yes, actually!” Entrapta cut in. ”The data I’ve collected is incredible! I believe we’ve been dismissing the intelligence of this creature and I think this might be the first time Ehterians have had the chance to study actual, living extraterrestrial beings up close. I don’t know yet if the aquatic form is how Prime’s species work in their adolescence or if this is perhaps some sort of a genetic morph of the species, since he seems to be a fully grown adult. I think we can discount – ”

”I don’t give a damn about that!” Dr. Angella barked and Entrapta stumbled back in surprise. ”I don’t – We need to find a way to destroy it. Kill it! Something that we’re going to be able to use on Prime!”

”Oh. Well, I suppose any old knife would do,” Entrapta said. ”But I don’t see how you’d need a scientist for that.”

”What Angella is trying to say,” Dr. Spinner said, with a sinister tone to her voice, ”is that we need something specific. Something fast, that’s going to allow us to wipe out Prime and his forces without hurting the… innocents, while we do it. And like I was trying to say before we ran into dear Dr. Entrapta here, I’ve been working on the samples she gave me, and I think there is a way to create a curse that would attack only the members of his species and his species alone. But I would need more than just simple skin samples, dear doctor.”

”I – ” Dr. Angella shook her head. ”I don’t – Entrapta. Please. Tell me, will you be able to get something useful out of the creature or not? I grow tired of having to ask this again, and again and again!”

”Of course I will!” she declared, then faltered. ”Although… define useful… in this context?”

”Dr. Entrapta,” Dr. Angella said, an uneasy edge to her voice.

Entrapta kicked her feet against the floor. It was awful to have this conversation here, in the middle of the hallway, where everyone could hear it. Guards kept rushing past and the noise was getting on her nerves.

”All data is useful data, as long as it’s true,” she said. ”But…”

”I wouldn’t need much,” Dr. Spinner said. ”Just some more flesh. A couple of vials of blood. Spinal fluid. His other eye, perhaps. With the proper tools, Glimmer and I could see if we could get a clone out of – ”

”We don’t have time for a clone,” Dr. Angella said. ”They’re approaching city borders. We need something now.”

”Well, if you’d consider handing the project to me, I’m sure I’d get you results within the week,” Dr. Spinner said, her voice like the sweetest honey. ”Unlike Entrapta here, I have proven to give results.”

”I have given plenty results!” Entrapta said. ”You just don’t like them. That’s not my fault.”

She’d expected Dr. Angella to tell Dr. Spinner to back off. But instead, she just looked so tired. And suddenly the idea of Dr. Spinner taking the project out of her hands had become a vivid reality in her mind. That was what Dr. Spinner was after. Entrapta wasn’t sure why, but the creature was clearly something she wanted to get her hands on.

And the last time hadn’t been pretty.

Cold shivers ran up Entrapta’s spine. Something about this wasn’t sitting right with her.

”I could transfer you to another project,” Dr. Angella tried to appease her. ”Adora told me that you showed interest in the Light Hope project. I’m sure it’d be more to your liking.”

”Nngh.” Entrapta stopped and pulled her lower lip between her teeth.

The AI project had been the one she’d been more interested in. She would’ve loved to sink her hands into its core and pull it apart piece by piece to see the brilliance of the First Ones’ tech at its most pristine.

Had Dr. Angella offered it to her before, Entrapta would’ve more than happily jumped ship and taken the project without a backwards glance.

Now, though…

”I want to see this through,” she said. ”I’ve gotten started already. It would be a waste of resources to switch creative heads now.”

”But Dr. Spinner has already shown promise with her study into the curses. We need this information, Entrapta. We need it. For my daughter. For us.”

Entrapta jumped from one foot to another.

She knew Dr. Spinner’s methods.

She understood, that she got results.

But… but the creature.

She had grown quite fond of it, she couldn’t lie. Maybe that was unethical of her. She was sure there was some sort of a guideline declaring it so. But she would rather not let Dr. Spinner get her hands on the creature.

It was her project.

“No,” she said. “No thanks. I’m not giving this up.”

Dr. Angella looked to be close to a breaking point. For one moment Entrapta was sure she was going to say no. For one terrifying moment Entrapta could see her mouth opening, ready to tell her she was just going to have to suck it up and hand it over to Dr. Spinner.

But then the doctor slumped down. She covered her eyes with her hand and drew a shuddering breath.

“Alright,” she said. “Fine. I will give you this last chance. Because you haven’t failed us before. But Dr. Entrapta, we need this. Please. Stop wasting your time with other things. The Horde is literally at our doorsteps.”

“Okay,” Entrapta said. “Okay. Yeah. I can do that.”

“I gave you a month,” she reminded her. “And you have little over a week left of that. You have a week. And then the project is Dr. Spinner’s.”

“Understood.” Entrapta nodded.

Like hell was she handing it over in a week.

She’d have something by that time.

She had no choice.

Entrapta started making her way to the tank room. Her mind was spinning. Weapons. Weapons, weapons, weapons. Boring. Point, click and your enemy falls. Something to target Prime, but none of the innocents.

She wondered what Dr. Angella wanted to do about the people following Prime. Horde Prime was a charismatic leader, or so she’d heard. Entrapta was having a hard time imagining that taking down the leader was going to topple the whole fledgling empire. Even more so, if there were more of his kind somewhere out there, in the space beyond.

Dr. Angella wanted to deal in absolutes. That wasn’t how she usually worked. But the stress was getting to everyone.

This was why Entrapta wasn’t into politics. It was complicated. And in the end, boring too. She gladly left it for others to struggle with.

“Oh! Hey! Dr. Entrapta! I was looking for you!”

A familiar voice. Entrapta turned to look at Adora, who was approaching her, a hand held in a wave. The look on her face didn’t promise anything good, a frown etched deep and mouth set tight.

Now what?

“There you are!” she said. “Hey. Glad I could catch you.” She was acting bright, but it couldn’t erase the sour look she was carrying. Her voice was tense as well.

Everyone was acting off today.

It was probably the bombs.

“I’ve got some bad news for you,” Adora said.

Oh no. Entrapta started tugging at her hair. She swayed back and forth on her feet, expecting the worst.

“You know how I said I was going to help you get your stuff brought here?” she asked. “You know, like, way back when?”

“Yes?”

“Well, with the recent troubles, the city has decided to tighten security and there’s just no way anyone has the time to go all the way to Dryl and back for a single errand run.”

“Oh.” Entrapta deflated a little. That wasn’t so bad. Well, it wasn’t goo either, but at this point she’d been expecting way worse.

It’d been a while since anyone had mentioned her equipment, but Entrapta had remained hopeful. She supposed sending troops out just to retrieve some tools they already had here would’ve been wasted resources right now. They had more important things to worry about right now.

Damn Horde. Ruining everything.

“I guess there’s nothing to it, then,” she said.

Things just weren’t going her way. Adora nodded her head, apologized curtly and hurried off to do something else. Entrapta dragged her hands over her eyes, groaning out a long sigh.

This just kept getting better, didn’t it?

Instead of making her way to the tank room through the hallway like she’d planned, Entrapta decided not to risk another run-in with someone else looking to share bad news with her and found the closest vent to climb in.

If they were tightening the perimeters around the city, that might mean they’d start rationing things soon. It’d be the smart thing to do, if the Horde was planning on surrounding them and closing the city in.

That meant that soon they were going to have less food, less water, less everything. And that might mean no more chips from the cafeteria. Considering Bright Moon’s preparations for the war, they probably wouldn’t be running out of food anytime soon. They’d have backups and reserves. Some of the folk around here probably had spells for these kinds of situations too. Growing new food wouldn’t be a problem for them.

It was still a pain.

She grimaced as she made her way through the vents.

Another complication she didn’t need in her life.

She dropped into the tank room.

The list just kept getting longer and longer.

This was why she didn’t like working at Bright Moon. Even when it wasn’t megalomaniacal warlords knocking on their door, or mad scientists looking to steal her work, it was always something.

The first thing she did was to drain the pool and clean the tiles. If they were going to have water shortages soon, she’d better prepare. She filled the pool with fresh water and then climbed up to the tank, cranked open the lid and said: “Rise and shine! Time for blood!”

The look he gave her was incredulous when he climbed out. Entrapta didn’t really stand around to worry about it. She had things to do.

A week. That wasn’t a lot of time. But she had a lot of data. Well, not a lot. Data from one source wasn’t all that much, but it had to count for something. There had to be something there.

Entrapta jumped down from the stairs and hurried to the control panel. She heard wet steps follow her. Studying the controls for a moment, she found the right buttons to press, then hurried to the side of the tank, where there was a heavy crank that was supposed to drain the water.

She pulled it back. Well. Tried to, at least.

It wasn’t budging.

“Gah!” Entrapta complained and kicked the side of the tank. “Amateurs!”

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized that the creature was still standing behind her, watching her work.

“No, no,” Entrapta said and waved her hand. “Get in the pool if you want to. I’ll get the blood samples later.” She turned back to the crank and stared at it. She was going to need a wrench. “We might not have a chance to do this in the future, so we need to switch the water now.”

She knew she had a wrench in here somewhere. She just needed to find it. She pushed past the creature on her way to the desk.

He pulled back and gave her a funny look. Then he leaned over her, teeth bared and growled.

“Not now, okay?” she said. “This thing is a travesty. I need to get the water flowing and monitor the pressure.” She stopped and looked up. The creature was still looking at her, looking all sorts of lost. “Actually,” she said. “You could help me! You’re strong, right? Crank that lever for me, why won’t you?”

The creature didn’t move. Entrapta turned to look at it, waiting for a response of some sort, but for a moment there was nothing.

Then he seemed to deflate a little. His shoulders dropped and he walked to the crank. With a simple push, he’d opened it and water was pouring into the sewer.

“Great!” Entrapta yelled, running to monitor the pressure.

The tank could’ve been made out of tissue paper, and it would’ve been an improvement. Too much pressure and it might just pop. She needed to be careful with it.

After a quick cleanup, she left it filling slowly. She walked to the side of the pool and sat down. The creature had dived under moments earlier and was now pushing to the surface again.

“Whew,” Entrapta said, stretching until she heard her back pop. She wiped some runaway hairs off her face and leaned back. “You wouldn’t believe that day I’ve had!”

The creature swam closer. Entrapta watched him push to the ledge and climb up, all gaunt muscles and poking ribs. Even with her diet of junk food, he didn’t seem to be gaining any weight. Either she was feeding him too little, or the tech was eating up more than she’d thought it was.

That would’ve called for further research.

Entrapta turned to look at the pool while the creature sat down next to her.

Not that she’d have any time to run those types of tests. Not with the whole weapons project thing.

She groaned and leaned her face against her knees.

“First, the bombs fell and my… my focus was completely shot! Then Dr. Spinner decides to get on my case and now Dr. Angella is actually offering me the Light Hope project.”

She bit her teeth together and shifted. She knew it was a bribe. She knew Dr. Angella was conflicted too, but damn did she want to take her up on the offer!

“Just think about it!” she said, waving her hands. “An ancient AI program! Just few doors down. I live for that stuff! It’s an actual dream come true!”

She blew all air out of her lungs and sunk down to a deeper slouch. She could feel the creature’s eyes on her.

Entrapta dropped her head to her hands.

“It’s not fair,” she complained.

He huffed again, then shook his head.

She turned to look at him from between her fingers. He clearly understood what she was saying, but something kept him from responding with words. Another interesting thing she would’ve loved to explore more.

Damn. She’d always kind of wanted to learn Etherian sign language. In that sort of way that you wanted to pick a new hobby, but never got to it.

This would’ve been the perfect excuse for it.

Had she the time.

A week and a handful of days.

She pulled her hands down her face, pulling at her cheeks.

Dr. Angella wanted results now. And Entrapta was going to have to start digging.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think she was going to be able to pull it off in that time. She’d done more in less before.

But she’d had inspiration back then. Ideas flowing out of her mind faster than she could speak them into her recorder.

Now she had nothing.

She couldn’t stop now, though.

“Welp!” she said, pushing against the floor and getting up. “Time to get those blood samples.” She dug around her pocket for a bag of snacks and waved it around in front of his face. “Now will you be good for me and get the snacks?”

The creature huffed, but snatched the bag and ripped it open easily. Holding it between his legs, he offered his arm and Entrapta took the samples.

She eyed the blood with a frown.

Maybe she could do something with the nanoparticles. Something to hasten the spread. But then again, if this was Prime’s test subject, it might be that he didn’t have any tech resembling what he’d built to his creature on him.

But if they could make it contagious…

Yes. A spreading tech rot.

Entrapta could see it now. A techno-organic plague. With the right modifications, she could set it to target only the soldiers in Prime’s ranks. They could activate it in Fright Zone and watch the people fall.

It should’ve been interesting to her. It had been before.

But now that she looked at the slowly dwindling form of the creature next to her, she didn’t know.

It was a bad way to go. Slow and painful.

As it turned out, it was kind of hard to build weapons of mass destruction, when you felt like you had made a connection with one of the people you were supposed to be destroying. They kind of… turned from numbers to people.

And that was just the thing, wasn’t it? There were good people on both sides.

Ugh. This was why she worked alone! Pesky ethics. Was this what these people had been yammering about all this time?

This was so difficult.

She supposed she could kind of see it now. The moral quandaries and whatnot. The thought of letting Dr. Spinner come in and take the project out of her hands filled her with anxiety.

Entrapta didn’t want to think about it.

She stored the blood away into a cooler. She probably should’ve left for her lab now and get working. Her time was limited, after all.

She just wasn’t feeling it. The creature crumpled the bag and tossed it aside before diving back under. Entrapta checked the tank and shut off the waterflow. The dials were all showing optimal pressure and temperature. That was good, she supposed. Nothing here to be done.

She could’ve just left. Probably should’ve.

Entrapta stood still for a moment, undecisive.

Then, breathing out a sigh, she made her way back to the pool and sat back down.

The creature’s head popped back up soon after. He gave her a wary look.

This wasn’t how they usually did things.

“Do you want to get back to the tank?” Entrapta asked, pointing a thumb at it.

He thought about it for a moment, then huffed and sunk back under.

She supposed that was his answer, then.

She really should’ve been going already.

What would happen if Entrapta didn’t give Dr. Angella a weapon? She’d probably send her back to Dryl, so there was no loss there. And even if Entrapta would’ve failed to give Bright Moon Labs what they’d wanted, she’d gathered enough interesting data to get her started on some new projects. She was definitely interested in testing out these techno-organic melds on her own now. She could start small. Get some lab rats, try some small enhancements, monitor the tech. Entrapta was going to be fine.

The dark shape moved around the pool, swimming in lazy circles.

What did he even do here all day? Did he have anything to do, but swim around?

No one else ever came around here, except to give him food. That was it.

What would happen to him, after Dr. Spinner took over?

Nothing good, Entrapta was sure. If the project switched hands, she was sure she’d never see the creature again. She could read of Dr. Spinner’s findings later, when she’d publish her paper about it. When her modified curses would find their way to the hands of the Etherian army.

Entrapta bit her teeth together and drew her legs closer to her chest.

She…

She couldn’t let that happen.

How strange.

The creature pushed back to the surface. He was looking unsure.

Entrapta supposed he deserved an explanation.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said quietly. “And I should be working. But the less time I have, the less I want to do it, because I know it just won’t… I won’t be able to get the results everyone wants. It’s not what I want.” She sighed and rubbed her face. “I don’t even know what I want. All I know is that I don’t want to leave you to Dr. Spinner’s hands.” She grimaced and pulled her goggles over her eyes. “She’s not going to get to lay another knife on you.”

The creature was staring at her. Entrapta wasn’t feeling like looking back.

What a mess she’d gotten herself into.

She supposed she couldn’t just leave?

No. Not, when that meant leaving him here.

He swam closer slowly. He hesitated a moment at the edge of the pool.

Entrapta didn’t know what he was looking for, but she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to help him with it, whatever it was.

She looked at him and he was looking back, even though more doggedly. His body was facing another way. Ready to dive under at a moment’s notice. Not that Entrapta would’ve been able to hurt him in any meaningful way anyway. He clicked his nails against the edge of pool, like making a difficult decision.

“Do you have a name?” Entrapta asked.

He twitched and turned to look at her fully. The expression would’ve been hard to read even if Entrapta had been good at it, his face downturned, but eyes studying her carefully.

“Did they give you one?” she continued.

He looked away and his fingers curled. Slowly he drew in a breath, then released it in a soft sigh before humming out something.

It was a short growl. Deliberate.

Entrapta uncoiled to lean closer. She reached for her recorder, freshly reinforced to be waterproof, and clicked it on.

“What was that?” she asked.

He gave the recorder a withering look. Entrapta could see him swallow with some struggle, before trying again.

The quiet hum almost sounded like a word.

It sounded like was saying: “Horde.”

“The Horde?” Entrapta said. She looked down. “Horde Prime?”

He grimaced and let out a sharp, dismissive noise. Then he repeated the hum.

“Horde,” he said. Then let out a short, sharp sound.

“Horde… ack?” Entrapta thought a moment, then hit her free palm against her thigh. “Hordak!”

His eyes narrowed and lip curled. He looked like he was about to spit out something more. But then the look smoothed over. His gills drooped a little and hands flattened against the floor.

“Hey, I don’t have to call you that, if you don’t want to,” Entrapta said and reached her hand, then hesitated.

For a moment neither of them moved. Entrapta wasn’t sure what she’d been doing with her hand, what she’d thought to touch. Maybe a friendly pat on the shoulder. She’d seen people do that. They were friendly enough for that, right?

But the creature… Hordak, was looking at the hand with an unreadable expression. His gills were flat against his head and for a moment he looked scared.

Entrapta was just about to pull her hand back and apologize – what for, she wasn’t sure, but she was going to do it. But then Hordak leaned his face closer and pressed his head against her hand.

Oh.

He closed his eyes and moved his face. Just a little. Rubbed it against her palm barely noticeably.

Oh. Okay. Um. Well.

Entrapta let go of the recorder slowly, like any sudden movement was going to send him diving back under. She was pretty sure that was the case. Very carefully she took the other hand and pressed it to the other side of his face.

He let out the smallest of sounds. A quiet hum, a deep purr at the back of his throat.

The moment was so fragile. Entrapta felt like she was cradling a very vulnerable little robot, a creation of glass and wires. Like the slightest of wrong moves was going to make it shatter. She knew that the moment she’d pull her hands free, the moment she’d make a movement too quick, it would be over. Hordak would be gone and whatever this… thing… they were doing was, it was going to be broken. She could see it from the tension of his shoulders, the angle of his spine and the wary look in his half-lidded eyes.

Even now he was getting ready to run.

Yet here he was. Pressing his head into her hands.

Entrapta swallowed thickly. Her hands felt so clumsy. Her gloves were too coarse. The moisture of the room was making it hard to breathe.

Very carefully, very slowly, she moved her right thumb. Just a little experiment. Very careful. She pressed it into the soft skin just beneath his gills.

His eyes flew open and he stopped moving. He was staring at her, frozen still.

She dragged the thumb down, then up again, with just enough pressure to be felt.

His eyes fluttered shut. A high-pitched whine escaped his throat and startled Entrapta to jump.

The moment she did, the whine turned into a short growl. He pulled back and dove under, disappearing out of sight.

Leaving Entrapta sitting alone.

She stared after him. The tank room was so quiet and the sound of her own beating heart felt thunderous in her ears.

Slowly Entrapta lifted her goggles off her face.

She wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

She did know that her chest had felt warm for a moment and that her heart was beating fast right now.

She swallowed with some struggle. Licked her lips.

This wasn’t the type of an experiment Entrapta was supposed to be running.

Chapter Text

With the last week of her time, Entrapta was in a hurry to find something she could give to Dr. Angella. Anything that would buy her more time.

With the last days of her time, Entrapta had no time for frivolous things, like sleep or food. She needed no distractions. When she was awake, she was either at the lab, cranking the numbers and putting together half thought-out prototypes, or in the tank room, taking more samples.

The creature… Hordak… He stayed mostly out of her way. When Entrapta was in the room, he was in the pool, out of sight. When she needed to get blood and skin samples, he came out without a fight, but was avoiding her eyes like they burned.

She didn’t know what to think about it. So she didn’t.

Too busy anyways.

There had to be something. Something Entrapta could gather from this.

The code. If only Entrapta could crack the code for melding magitech into organic beings without the ill effects. If she could figure it out and get the solution on paper, it would no doubt be the finding of the century. Something like that would without a doubt ensure Entrapta the control of the project for the foreseeable future, weapons or not.

She just needed more time. More caffeine.

More. Something.

Entrapta spent sleepless nights at her desk, pouring through the data, taking every piece she could find and driving it through every sort of simulation she could think of. Failures, after failures. Simulated little creatures, growing tech like tumors. Some took longer, some less time, but in the end every prediction ended with the test subject perishing.

Hordak wasn’t anywhere near death yet. With the spread of his tech rot, he’d still have from five to seven years of comfortable life left, then two to three little less comfortable ones. If it had been just about that, it’d be fine.

But she could practically feel Dr. Spinner breathing down her neck already.

Entrapta was pretty sure she’d made an enemy out of her.

“Dr. Entrapta,” she said, barging in to her lab after a long day… After a long night? After many, many hours spent scouring the data. “Sorry to disturb you in such a… hectic time. But if I could perhaps get the data you’ve gathered so far on the creature? Since I’ll be working on it soon, it would help to see what you’ve collected before me.”

“Ahhh, no,” Entrapta said without lifting her eyes from the data pad she was using. “No need. I’ll be… on the project after this. But thanks.”

She couldn’t remember when she’d last slept. She was pretty sure it’d been within the last 36 hours, but the exact time had kind of slipped from her mind. She’d just blinked into wakefulness at one point, her fizzy drink on the floor and her data pads scattered.

It took her a moment to realize that Dr. Spinner was still looking at her, eyes narrowed. Entrapta was staring at her with hazy eyes, not really seeing what was in front of her.

“Didja need somethn else?” she said, turning back to her work. She blinked a few times, text solidifying from floating color blotches into recognizable characters. “’M kinda in the middle of smn here.”

“I’ll just have a look through your files here,” Dr. Spinner said, voice soft and kind. “I won’t bother your work. Ah. This is interesting. Let me take a few copies.”

“Sure, sure!” Entrapta said over her shoulder and waved her hand.

It wasn’t enough. She was still missing something. The readings didn’t match. The numbers she had from centuries old, botched human experimentations, didn’t fit in with the readings she was getting from Hordak, and they didn’t match with the readings from the First Ones’ bugs.

It was more samples, more research, more sleepless nights.

Seven days was, in the end, a very short amount of time.

On the evening of the last day, Entrapta was marching back and forth in the tank room, filled with nervous energy.

She had so little time left.

“It’s not going to work,” she said, more to herself than Hordak. “It’s just not! No matter what I try, the tech just gets out of hand! It’s like there’s some sort of interference.”

Hordak had swam to the edge of the pool and he was sitting there, watching Entrapta pace around. Sometimes Entrapta would catch him looking at her from the corner of her eye, but whenever she’d turn to face him, he was always looking somewhere else.

She didn’t have time. She didn’t have time!

She kept walking back and forth, hands behind her back.

“It’s like… like the natural magic of Etheria is mixing up with the tech. I mean, it’s supposed to interact with it, that’s the point of magitech, but it’s doing it wrong. I don’t get it!”

She was so tired. It made it harder to think and Entrapta knew she should’ve rested more. But she was also very much aware that there was no time for that. She didn’t’ need much. Just enough to convince Dr. Angella she was onto something big. That was going to be enough. It had to be. They might not have been on friendly terms, but she was still a woman of reason! Of science!

Not that Entrapta’s reasons were all scientific. She stopped and looked at Hordak over her shoulder.

He turned away, gills twitching downwards.

Entrapta sighed, turned on her heels and marched right up to him. She plopped herself to sit down on the driest spot and leaned her head against her hand. For a moment it looked like Hordak was planning on diving under. He just stayed there, though, close by, watching her warily.

Her eyes felt so heavy and dry. Her head was aching like it always did after a few sleepless nights spent working.

“I don’t get it,” she muttered. She waved her hand sharply. “Give me your arm.”

He offered his hand without complaint. Entrapta grabbed it by the wrist and pulled it – and him – closer. She didn’t see how his gills twitched again, sharper this time. She didn’t see how a slightly darker tint rose to his cheeks.

She didn’t have time for any of that either.

Entrapta held the hand between hers. She studied it closely, then turned it palm up. She’d been monitoring the spread since she’d first gotten here. It wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t slow either. Steady is what she would’ve called it. Inevitable. The difference in the discoloration was already clear after just a month’s time.

She ran a finger over the line between the original color of the skin and the darker tendrils of tech.

Hordak shivered and hunched down a little.

“I don’t get it,” she muttered, repeating the same thought over and over again. She pushed and pulled at the fingers absentmindedly. “Why does it act like this? Why does it spread? It doesn’t make any sense! This should be very disadvantageous to even the First Ones’ tech.”

Hordak swallowed thickly and turned to look at her. Very slowly he started to turn his hand in hers.

“It’s not First Ones’ tech,” she continued, “but it’s very similar. Using the same blueprints, but different materials. But the method is the same. It’s almost like it’s…. trying to purge a rogue agent from the material.” She hummed in thought, wholly unaware of the fingers curling around hers, holding timidly. “Like it recognizes the organic material is alien and tries to adapt it, but it’s doing it all wrong.”

Their fingers were entwined now. Hordak was staring a hole into the ground. Entrapta tapped her foot against the concrete.

“It’s a fine theory,” she said. “And it could work. Prime’s species would be alien to the local magic, I guess. But that doesn’t make any sense, when you consider, that it does that exact same thing to Etherians. I mean, I guess it would make sense, if…”

Her words fell silent and suddenly a spike of energy shot through Entrapta.

“If Etherians are alien to it as well!” she yelled loud enough to make Hordak flinch. She yanked her hands free and jumped up, clapping them together. “This – I need to – I need to test this! Like, right now! If I could disrupt the signal the magic is receiving enough to make it falsely recognize the body as a – Oh! Ooooh! This could work! This is good! This is so good!”

She spun around and whooped, then stumbled a little, when she started to feel faint. Oh. Right. Sleep deprivation. Hah! Like that was going to stop her!

Entrapta turned to Hordak and put her hands on his shoulders, grinning so wide it hurt.

“I got this!” she said. “Don’t you worry about a thing! I’m going to test it out and then I’m going to send the results to Dr. Angella and she’s going to let me keep testing on you!”

Hordak stared at her for a moment and Entrapta was surprised to see that he was showing no signs of excitement. He just narrowed his eyes and looked away, reaching to swipe her hands off him. He rubbed his hands together awkwardly. He pushed off the side of the pool, getting back in, looking like he was about to dive under.

Entrapta swayed on her feet, uncertainty snaking its way through her muddled brain.

“I… I thought you were going to be happy about it,” she said.

The unease in his eyes softened a little when he turned back to Entrapta. He pushed up so his torso was above the surface and lifted his hands to his neck.

Entrapta wasn’t sure what he was on about.

He huffed, frustrated, then swung his hand at the shackles on the ground.

The shackles they hadn’t needed to use for a while now.

Not that it mattered. Shackles or not, he couldn’t leave this place. Even Entrapta could’ve just turned around and walked out. Left for Dryl, never to look back. It would’ve been bad for her future as a Bright Moon Labs scientist, but she could’ve done it.

She was pretty sure Hordak would be shot on sight outside the tank room.

Because he was a prisoner.

No, not even that.

He was a lab rat.

“Oh.”

Entrapta hadn’t… thought of that.

She hadn’t thought of much anything outside the whole project thing. But Hordak was a sentient being. He was fully aware of his situation and didn’t want to be in it.

Huh. She supposed this too would’ve been an ethical violation, then.

Entrapta couldn’t say that she’d cared much before.

The research would be for his own good, in the long run. If Entrapta found a way to stabilize the ill effects of his magitech, it would allow him to live a healthier, longer life.

But what kind of a life would that be? Trapped in this moist room, switching between two tiny pools of water, getting poked and prodded for the rest of his life?

And what would happen after? When the testing would be over? When the project was done?

Dr. Angella wanted Entrapta to find a way to kill him.

The gravity of the situation landed slowly on her shoulders.

“Gah!” Entrapta shouted, slapping her hands over her eyes.

Now she cursed the fact that she’d kind of skimmed through the mandatory ethical philosophy courses back at Mystacore. She’d studied just enough to pass the tests and then used the books as paperweights.

She could’ve really used some pointers right about now.

Okay. Okay, she was going to have to think about this. But later. She needed to compartmentalize here. Pick the most time sensitive subject, work through that and then focus on the other things. Once she would’ve tested out her theory about the magic and all that, she could talk ethics all she wanted to. But first she needed Dr. Angella’s blessing to continue. Entrapta would have time then. But right now, she needed to get working. There was no time to sit and wallow. The whole project was at stake!

Results first, thinking later.

“I’ll make it all better, I promise!” Entrapta said. “Just you wait. I can buy us some time and we can figure this out!”

She just needed her equipment. She was going to start with a small transmitter, try to mix the signals and see if that would change things. Entrapta dug out her recorder, clicking it on and ready to start spilling the ideas.

“This is amazing,” she babbled, getting the door open. “A breakthrough of the century, maybe. I’m not going to put my hopes up too much, but I think this might be it!”

There was no time to waste! Her hands were trembling with the ideas she wasn’t able to put into reality yet. Too excited to stay still while she tried to speak it out. Once Entrapta would have her equipment, she might be able to get the formless ideas from her head and shape them into tangible things.

Entrapta heard Hordak’s sharp yell the moment she stepped out through the door. She stopped and started to turn, when –

The recorder slipped through her fingers. She hadn’t realized her hold had slackened that much. Entrapta watched it fall without really registering it.

Woah. She was kind of…

It was like she’d just…

Lightheaded, Entrapta thought somewhere at the back of her mind. That was what she was feeling.

Her knees gave out under her and she was falling.

Entrapta had blacked out before she even hit the floor.

When she next opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at first.

Everything was kind of hazy.

She blinked a few times, squinted her eyes and watched everything grow sharper.

Okay. A ceiling. Not that overwhelming. It was just that it wasn’t a ceiling she recognized.

She clearly wasn’t home at Dryl. This place wasn’t from her Bright Moon lab either and the air was too dry to be from the tank room.

Entrapta didn’t think she’d ever been to this room before.

Her mouth tasted funny.

Slowly she pushed up. The bed was unfamiliar as well. Light-framed, with wheels under it.

She had an IV drip connected to her naked hand.

Ugly shivers ran up her spine.

Entrapta wanted her gloves back.

She had hazy memories from the time before falling asleep. She’d been working. Yes, that much she could remember. That made sense. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d pulled a couple of all-nighters back to back to get work done. And it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d crashed during one of those either.

She’d just been able to go much longer when she’d been younger.

Entrapta removed the drip, grimacing and rubbing her hands together to get rid of the ghost of the feeling.

It looked like she’d been brought to the infirmary. That was a first. What had she been doing before that?

Entrapta rubbed the side of her face and groaned. Everything still felt kind of hazy, like she hadn’t woken up properly. The weird taste persisted in her mouth and she could’ve really used a fizzy drink right about now.

She patted her pockets and found a pair of backup gloves, as well as a slightly damp, empty bag of chips and some lint.

No recorder.

Huh. She must’ve left it back at the lab, then.

Except, now that she was thinking about it, Entrapta was pretty sure she’d dropped it.

Yeah. She’d been at the tank room, when she’d had it last and she’d been on her way out, when –

Hordak.

Entrapta hurried out of the infirmary. There was no one there to stop her.

She needed to find Dr. Angella.

She had no idea how long she’d been out of it. Long enough for someone to find her, definitely, and bring her here. But she still had a titanium solid idea for the project and she needed to find Dr. Angella before she could do something bad. Tank room first, to get her recorder, Dr. Angella next.

Entrapta took to a light jog, looking around for the first vent opening low enough for her to reach.

She rounded a corner and nearly ran head first into Bow.

“Huh? Entrapta!” he yelped. “I was just going to see you, and – Hey! You shouldn’t be up yet!”

“Wh- Huh? What are you talking about?” Entrapta stepped back, swaying a little. She was having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Yes I should! I overslept!”

“You were found collapsed near the tank room!” Bow said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “You’d overworked yourself into exhaustion!”

“No I hadn’t! Well, not really.” She thought about it for a moment, scratching her chin. “You know what, maybe I did. But that doesn’t matter! I need to find Dr. Angella! I think I might’ve made a great discovery on the project!”

Bow’s eyes fell and he looked away. “Oh,” he said. “You know. It’s, uh, probably a bit late for that.”

“What are you talking about?” Entrapta said and waved her hands around. “This is the perfect time for that! I need to get testing right away! I think this is going to change the prosthetic game for the foreseeable future!”

“That’s great!” Bow said, even though he didn’t sound like it. He still wasn’t looking at her. “But you’re probably going to have to request for another test subject for that.”

“No, I won’t.”

Bow shifted, licked his lips and only then looked at her. “No, but… Dr. Angella handed the project over to Dr. Spinner yesterday.”

“Yesterday? ” Entrapta repeated. She turned around, looking at her hands. “How long was I out?” she asked. “Why didn’t anyone wake me up?”

“You were out cold!” Bow said, throwing his hands down. “The doc said you should be allowed to rest or you might risk damaging something permanently. You weren’t budging, so we thought we should let you rest as long as you liked!”

“I didn’t want to sleep at all!” she argued.

“Well, that’s the problem!”

How long had she been asleep for, then? A whole day? More than that?

It wouldn’t have been the first time, certainly.

Enough for the project to switch hands completely, without her knowing about it, that was for sure.

But now that she was feeling more awake, she could feel the weird aftertaste in her mouth. It wasn’t exactly normal. Entrapta knew her after-work crashes. She’d had a few and knew they were her body’s way of telling her she’d overdone it again and needed to take better care.

That was what she had Emily for.

But she knew how she got moments before crashes like that. Delirious and unproductive.

She knew what she felt like afterwards. Aching and anxious.

This wasn’t it.

This was something different.

When Entrapta had been younger, she’d often had trouble falling asleep. Her mind would go on overdrive and the sleep just wouldn’t come. When she’d been at Mystacore, she’d tried all sorts of aids for that. Not many of them worked. A classmate had suggested a sleep spell for the worst cases of insomnia. Sleeping spells weren’t a permanent solution and using them too often would just lead into worse insomnia, but Entrapta had given them a try. Runes to lure the sleep out, when her mind wouldn’t let her.

It’d been a while. These days she’d just kind of learned to live with the fact that sometimes she just wouldn’t sleep for a while and that was that.

This taste was familiar, though. She could still recognize it.

And she didn’t like the implication.

“I need to get to the tank room,” she said, pushing past Bow.

“Entrapta! Wait!”

She wasn’t sure what was going on. She didn’t have enough information to make an educated guess, but she had a few ideas.

“Entrapta!”

Bow was following her. And he was more athletic than her. He stopped her easily by sliding in front of her and holding his hands up.

“Out of my way, Bow!” Entrapta said. “I need to get to the tank room!”

“Then you’re going to the wrong direction!”

Entrapta stopped and sagged down a little.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Bow nodded his head behind her. “We need to take the stairs up.” He hesitated a moment. “But you probably won’t want to see what Dr. Spinner has been up to while you were gone.”

Entrapta could only imagine.

“That’s just one more reason to go and see her,” she said.

Bow took lead and Entrapta followed after him.

“She didn’t waste any time getting started,” he explained. “And it’s bad. Dr. Spinner, she, uh. She started with some kind of an endurance test. That’s what she called it anyway. It’s not pretty.”

Endurance test? That didn’t sound too bad. Entrapta had thought of trying a few of those herself, now that they’d opened a line of communication with Hordak.

But then again, this was Dr. Spinner they were talking about.

“Hurry up,” Entrapta said. “I need to get to him. I’m still in charge of the project.”

Bow didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, reluctantly he said: “She’s going to argue that.”

Well, she could. It wasn’t going to stop Entrapta. Not now.

Bow was fast, at least. He was kind. Maybe he didn’t understand why this was so important to her, exactly, but he was trying.

Worry gnawed at Entrapta’s insides, as they made their way towards the tank room. It twisted and turned in her guts and filled her head with thoughts she didn’t want to think.

She needed to get to Dr. Spinner. Just to check out what she was doing. Entrapta was sure it was fine. She was sure Bow was exaggerating things. Some things done in the name of science could look cruel but turn out to be necessary. It was fine. Probably. Entrapta just needed to see it. After that, she could have a good talk with Dr. Angella. She’d write a list for herself and convince her with her talking points.

It was going to be fine.

Maybe she should’ve gone to Dr. Angella first. But that thought didn’t register until Bow was already opening the tank room door.

The screaming hadn’t been loud enough to be heard through the heavy metal door separating the tank room from the hallway, but the moment the runes started to glow on the door and a sliver was revealed, they emerged from within. Harrowing, dry sounds of pain, croaked like the throat making them had been screaming for a while now.

Entrapta’s heart leapt to her throat. The moment there was enough room to be squeezed through, Entrapta was on the other side, despite Bow’s protests.

“Very interesting,” Dr. Spinner said. “It would appear that your endurance has gone up. That was not expected. But perhaps the spread has made you sturdier. Let us test the effects of electricity next. Glimmer, if you’d please.”

Hordak had been chained to the platform on the floor. He was being held in place by his arms and a collar around his neck, whose chain to the floor was uncomfortably short. Two, tall crystals had been propped at his sides and they’d been wired to give near their maximum output of light. Where before the air of the tank room had been uncomfortably moist, now it was as dry as if they’d suddenly been transported to Crimson Waste. Hordak’s skin was so dry it looked flaky. Like he’d been sitting here, drying for a while now and was starting to suffer the consequences.

“What is going on in here?” Entrapta demanded.

Hordak flinched. His gills twitched and he lifted his eyes from the ground. He looked exhausted, but for a moment, a look of relief visited his face. Then he slumped right back down.

“Dr. Entrapta,” Dr. Spinner said, all pleasant tones and sweet saccharine. “How nice to see that you’ve recovered. You had us worried about your sudden collapse. It was quite unfortunate. The stress of working in an unfamiliar environment can do that.”

“It had nothing to do with that!” she argued. “And what do you think you’re doing? What is this? You’re hurting him!”

“I am testing his endurance against the elements, dear doctor,” she said as if it was the most obvious thing. “And I’ve already gathered so much data about it. They’re quite resilient, Horde Prime’s little experiments. Sturdy and strong. But in the end, fragile with the enhancements they’ve made. Poor work on lacking materials. Nothing to be done about it, I suppose. Glimmer and I will have Angella’s curse finished in a fortnight.”

Entrapta was shaking from head to toe. Rarely if ever did she get angry. She would’ve said she had a mellow personality. Yes, her feelings could get hurt, but she didn’t get angry easily.

Now Entrapta felt like she could barely contain it.

“Let him go, right now!” she demanded.

“Oh, but I can’t!” Dr. Spinner said, placing a hand over her heart as if she was shocked by the mere idea. “We are in the middle of a test! Surely you understand, that cutting the experiment short right now would affect the results greatly!”

Running steps behind her revealed Adora’s approach. Bow must’ve gotten her while they’d been arguing and Entrapta was grateful for it.

That relief didn’t last long.

“Dr. Entrapta,” the Captain said, sounding winded while she leaned against her knees. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

What did she mean she wasn’t supposed to be here? She was exactly where she needed to be to fix this. But Adora turned to Dr. Spinner.

“Is she bothering you, doc?” she asked. “Do you need me to remove her?”

“Adora!” Bow admonished.

“Yes, actually – “ Entrapta started.

“Oh, no, no,” Dr. Spinner said. “Not at all. But thank you for offering, Adora.”

Oh. Oh no.

Adora had been talking to Dr. Spinner.

Entrapta was the one here, who was being threatened to be removed.

“Dr. Entrapta and I were simply having a discussion about the experiment I’m running right now,” Dr. Spinner said. “It would seem that the dear doctor and I are in disagreement with my methods.”

“This isn’t an experiment!” Entrapta yelled and hurried to Hordak’s side. “This is torture! What sort of readings are you getting out of this? What’s the purpose?”

His skin was hot to touch when Entrapta leaned her shoulder against him. He was breathing heavy, through an open mouth, teeth dry, the shine in his eyes dimmed. Entrapta closed his mouth carefully. No point in losing more moisture. But the burn of the crystals was hot and dry and she needed to cool him down soon.

”It’s a simple test,” Dr. Spinner said. ”You’d logged it in yourself. We need to find out the effects of a prolonged time out of water to see how it’s body will react.”

”This is an ethical violation!” Entrapta said. ”Surely. Right?” She looked to Adora.

”I mean,” she said, avoiding eye contact. Bow made pointed gestures at her to keep her going. ”I guess? But it’s… It’s wartime. So. What do we care?” She didn’t sound certain.

Entrapta looked around the room. Dr. Spinner didn’t look worried in the least. Her pose was relaxed and confident, back straight and head held high, like she was exactly where she wanted to be. Bow and Adora both looked to be on the edge, looking between Entrapta and Dr. Spinner, unsure which one they were supposed to be guarding and from what.

And there, at the very back of the room, with her back against the wall and face downturned, was Dr. Angella’s daughter.

Glimmer didn’t look like she’d slept in a while either. She had heavy shadows under her eyes and her skin had turned from its healthy glow to pallid and sweaty. Even though she was turned away, Glimmer was staring at them with large eyes, hands squeezed tight into fists at her sides.

She looked like she was going to be sick.

Entrapta bit her teeth together and turned back to Dr. Spinner. “I will not stand for this!” she shouted. “In my tank room! This is still my project and you will leave him alone!”

Hordak let out a dry huff, slumping down further. Entrapta propped her shoulder for him to lean against and pushed him back upright.

“My dear, you must be mistaken,” Dr. Spinner said, spreading her arms and looking around. “Angella switched the project to me yesterday. And it was for your own good, I might add. Everyone could see this wasn’t making you happy. Surely this is better for everyone involved. I will finish it for you.”

“No! I was not consulted about this!”

“I will naturally credit you in the paper to be published, Dr. – ”

“I don’t give a damn about your paper! You shouldn’t be allowed to do this!”

“It is up to Angella to decide,” Dr. Spinner said, her voice the sweetest honey. “And it is not in my nature to question authority. However, if you feel like there has been some sort of a mistake, I’d gladly discuss it with her.”

“You do that!” Entrapta said, pushing back to her feet. Hordak let out a weak rasp and slumped back down. Entrapta hurried to the desk, where the feeding bucket had been left haphazardly. She grabbed it and jogged to the pool to fill it.

As it turned out, the pool had been emptied.

As if they had no plans to put him back in.

The bucket fell from her hands.

“I can see this has left you distraught,” Dr. Spinner said. “Perhaps you still haven’t recovered fully. I will consult Angella about this. Come, Glimmer. We will leave the good doctor with her beast for now.” She paused for a moment, then added: “It won’t change anything.”

Entrapta didn’t watch them go. She didn’t listen to a word they said. She needed water.

“Hold on,” she told Hordak. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

The noise he let out was downright pitiful and it made Entrapta’s worry grow that much larger. No way would he have allowed himself to let out a sound like that, were he feeling better. Entrapta ran out of the tank room and to the closest bathroom. She filled the bucket with water and ran right back, spilling nearly half of it in her hurry.

Without a second thought she dumped the whole bucket on his head. He coughed and spluttered, but Entrapta wasn’t done. The damn crystals were still burning bright. She pulled out a screwdriver from her utility belt and jammed it to the root of one of them. There was a protective metal lid over the wires and runes and she pried it off with little care. Entrapta scraped the runes off, cutting the magic from the system.

One crystal blinked out and Entrapta moved to break the other only to find Bow already dismantling it.

Entrapta was breathing loudly. She hadn’t even realized how loud she’d gotten, whimpering while she tried to get this damn deathtrap of a test demolished. She gave the crystal a good kick. Damn it and damn Dr. Spinner.

She fell to sit down next to Hordak. He swayed on his knees before falling to rest against her shoulder.

“What did she do to you?” she asked. “Oh, Hordak, what happened?”

He didn’t make a noise, just leaned against the crook of her neck, held in place by the shackles. Entrapta lifted a hand to run it over his head and he rumbled weakly.

“Make room.”

Entrapta felt like she was in a daze when she pulled away to look at Bow. She wasn’t sure when exactly he’d had time to leave and come back, but he had the bucket in his hands.

Hordak growled. Or at least, he tried to, but the sound got warbled up and ended in a pitiful cough that rattled his entire body. He tried to push to lean back against Entrapta, but Entrapta got out of the way to make space for Bow. He poured the water down slower and with more care than Entrapta had done.

“How is this allowed?” Entrapta asked, wringing her hair between her hands as Bow emptied out the bucket. “I thought Bright Moon was so much stricter about these things? I thought you had an ethics committee for this.”

“We did,” Bow said, shaking off the last few drops before stepping aside. “But it’s rough times. Dr. Angella will deal with this. She won’t let this stand. I know she’s getting desperate, but this is something else completely.”

Hordak was swaying again and Entrapta knelt back down next to him. Right away he leaned back against her, breathing in deep. Entrapta ran a hand over his back in soothing circles.

Never ever had she thought she’d end up being the one defending Bright Moon’s strict codes of conduct. But she had no other choice.

This wasn’t right.

Hordak was hurting.

“I need to… I need to talk to Dr. Angella,” she said. “She’ll understand. She has to understand.”

“Of course,” Bow said. “She would’ve never let a project like this off the ground had she known what would happen.”

“You watch over him,” Entrapta said. She rubbed Hordak’s shoulder before getting back to her feet. She gave Bow a serious look. “Stay here, while I go talk to Dr. Angella.”

“Oh, uh.” Bow looked at Hordak with apprehension in his eyes. “Uhh… Sure. I’ll do that.”

Hordak revealed his teeth, exhausted but fully ready to bite down if Bow got any closer.

“Hey,” Entrapta said, running her hand over his back. “It’s okay. You can trust Bow. When has he ever hurt you?”

“Uh, I don’t think he likes me. On the account of, you know,” Bow cleared his throat. “Hm. Tranqing him. Many, many times.”

Hordak’s eyes narrowed and his gills pressed down against his head. He was showing teeth. For a moment he was stiff, unmoving in Entrapta’s arms, but then he relaxed and let out a long sigh.

“Please make sure that Dr. Spinner won’t come back until I’ve talked to Angella,” she said. “Please.”

“Yeah. I will,” Bow said. “I’m sure she’ll fix this right up. Go ahead. I’ll stay here.”

Entrapta was still a little unsteady on her feet, when she left the tank room. Anxious energy was making her shake from head to toe and the remnants of the sleep hadn’t yet left her. She gritted her teeth together and tried to pay it no mind. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides.

She had no time to feel woozy. She had to think about what she was going to say.

Something about this whole situation wasn’t sitting right with her. And it wasn’t just the heartless experiment she’d just walked into.

Entrapta knew her limits. She’d tested them out many times before. She hadn’t been tired enough to collapse. Entrapta knew she wasn’t as young as she’d used to be, but she damn well knew how herself enough to monitor her own working methods by now.

She didn’t want to jump to conclusions. She needed more proof. But.

Entrapta was pretty sure she’d been knocked out.

And she had a pretty good guess who might’ve been behind it.

She hadn’t known Dr. Spinner to have this big of a competitive streak, but Entrapta was going to put a stop to it. Like, right now.

When she reached Dr. Angella’s room, she didn’t bother knocking. She pushed the door open to find Dr. Angella slouching behind her desk, with Dr. Spinner taking the only other chair in the room.

Dr. Spinner was smiling. Entrapta could tell. The way she squinted her eyes and angled her head.

Entrapta bit her teeth together so hard her jaw was aching.

“Dear doctor,” Dr. Spinner said, smarmy. “We were expecting you.”

“Dr. Entrapta,” Dr. Angella said. Her tone told that she’d been done with this conversation even before it started.

“Are you aware of what Dr. Spinner was just doing?” Entrapta asked, waving her hand around wildly. “Do you know what I just saw her doing to Hordak? I think this is something Bright Moon Labs should be aware of and it’s not okay!”

Dr. Angella wasn’t amused.

“Dr. Entrapta,” she said, slow and quiet. “That’s quite enough of that.”

“No, it’s not!” Entrapta barked. “What are you talking about? You can’t possibly be okay with this!”

Dr. Angella breathed a sigh through her clenched teeth.

“I have given you multiple chances,” she said. “And it is clear to me now, that I was in the wrong in insisting on removing you from your comfort zone. And on that, I apologize. It is clear that you are unable to give us the results we want, when removed from your home lab, and – ”

“But I’ve made a discovery!” she shouted, throwing her hands down with force. “It’s going to change the landscape of Etherian magitech studies!”

Dr. Angella closed her eyes and pressed a hand to cover them.

“I understand and I’d be more than happy to lend you the grant to study it further at Dryl.”

“But I have a perfectly good test subject here! This was my project. I have everything set up for it!”

“I understand that. However – “

“But Angella!” Entrapta yelled.

“Doctor Entrapta!” She slammed her hands against her desk and stood up. When she yelled, her voice cracked and she looked close to collapsing. “I gave you a month, as you requested and your month is up! I have had enough of your behavior and your disruptions! It is clear that you do not work well in groups and should continue contributing to the war from your home!”

Entrapta’s mouth clicked shut.

Horror started to coil around her guts.

Dr. Angella wasn’t going to give the project back to her.

She turned to look at Dr. Spinner. Even through her mask she wafted nothing but smugness, like things had gone exactly as planned.

They probably had.

If she was going to be allowed to proceed, Entrapta could see Hordak’s life expectancy dropping significantly.

Her mouth was filled with the taste of acid.

“You can’t –” she started, weak.

“This conversation is over,” Dr. Angella said, finality in her voice. “I expect you to return to Dryl soon and I’d be glad to continue our relationship as arranged before. Clearly that has yielded the best results so far.”

There was nothing she could do. She was being pushed out.

Entrapta couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t…

Hadn’t it always been like this? They could never see things the way she did. And for once, when she’d tried to act as the voice of reason, going outside the logic and playing for the emotional side of things, the rug had been pulled from under her once more.

Entrapta felt hollow when she stepped out of the office. When she turned to look back, Dr. Spinner slid to the door and closed it behind her. She put one last barrier between them, leaving Dr. Angella alone with her in the office.

Shivers ran up Entrapta’s spine.

This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. Admittedly, she didn’t know much about these things, but still.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. Entrapta turned on her heels to face Glimmer.

Dr. Angella’s daughter was leaning against the hallway wall, arms crossed and brows knitted deep. Entrapta pushed her hands down and lifted her chin. But where she was expecting gloating words and smug smiles from the girl, all she got was a wary glare.

Glimmer looked exhausted as well. Her hair was unwashed, her eyes red and tired and her fingers were curling and uncurling against her arms.

“She’s not going to let you have the creature back, you know,” she said, and her voice was low and raw. “She’s not going to stop until she gets what she wants.”

The words sounded like they were supposed to be said in a gloating tone. But the right ring just wasn’t there. Entrapta wouldn’t have said that she was good at reading people, but there was no fight left in Glimmer. Just tired acceptance.

Entrapta swayed back and forth on her feet.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

Glimmer opened her mouth, then closed it.

“He was… screaming so loud. I couldn’t…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Slowly she ran her hands through her hair, pulling at it. “It isn’t worth it,” she muttered. “We’re supposed to be the good guys.”

“I find that things are rarely that simple,” Entrapta said.

“Here.”

Glimmer was offering her a recorder. And not just any recorder. It was Entrapta’s. Entrapta reached for it and studied it carefully.

It was hers, alright. Just as she’d left it.

“Where’d you find this?” she asked.

“You dropped it,” Glimmer said. She crossed her arms and looked away. “You should do as mom told you. Get out of here. While you still can.”

Entrapta held the recorder close to her chest. She hesitated a moment, thinking about it.

Yes, she really should, shouldn’t she?

Things had gotten weird here. Complicated. And Entrapta would’ve loved nothing more than going back home and continuing her observations from afar.

Things were always easier at Dryl.

Dryl was where she should’ve been at.

Entrapta bit her teeth together and nodded.

When she started making her way back to the tank room, Glimmer stayed behind, arms crossed and staring at the floor with a deep frown.

Entrapta turned the recorder around in her hands. She was surprised to find the tiny red crystal on the side still shining red. It was still recording. Had it been doing that since she dropped it? Well, if that were the case, the memory core would’ve probably been filled already. It had been over a day.

She clicked it off and started rewinding.

Certainly, there seemed to be a lot of material. It was winding back a long time.

Entrapta came to a sudden halt.

The recorder had been recording since she blacked out.

She stared ahead, thoughts slowly taking form.

Could it have…?

Maybe she should…

She rewound the recorder all the way back to the day she’d last been in the tank room. She clicked it on and listened to her own voice, while she spoke to Hordak.

“This is amazing,” she’d said, the recorder catching background noises while she’d swung it around. “A breakthrough of the century, maybe. I’m not going to put my hopes up too much, but I think this might be it! ”

And then there was a warning yell from Hordak. And a loud clatter, when she dropped the recorder.

Before it could go any further, though, Entrapta clicked the recorder off and looked around wildly. She was standing in the middle of a corridor. Empty corridor, but a corridor still.

She licked her lips, pressed the recorder to her chest and hurried to the tank room.

Bow was still there, waiting for her as he’d promised. He was sitting down near the door controls, while Hordak was dunking his head into a bucket of water.

When he noticed Entrapta approaching, Bow clambered to his feet and met her halfway.

“So, what happened?” he asked. “Any good news?”

Entrapta didn’t have time for that right now. She slid to a stop next to Hordak just as he pulled his head out of the bucket and sat down next to him.

“Entrapta?” Bow said. “What happened?”

“Dr. Angella won’t give the project to me,” she said.

“What? How! That can’t be right. That’s not Angella! Did you tell her, what Dr. Spinner was doing?”

Entrapta wasn’t listening. She clicked the play button.

They could hear Hordak’s distressed sounds from the feedback and next to her, he shifted with discomfort. He looked over at the recorder, then away, huffing to himself.

“What do you have there?” Bow asked.

Entrapta shook her head and waved at him to quiet down. She listened carefully to the muffled sounds of something moving. It was quiet. Too quiet to be heard properly. So she cranked up the volume.

Over the crackling of the white noise, Entrapta listened to Hordak roaring. There was splashing, there was thrashing. But it was cut short with a high-pitched yelp and suddenly there was nothing more.

Next to her, Hordak hissed and sunk down into a further slouch.

“Quiet down. You’re more trouble than you’re worth. ”

Dr. Spinner.

Of course it was.

Entrapta bit down on her tongue.

There was shuffling. Quiet steps that were nearly drowned out by the white noise. Then, suddenly, something hit the recorder and sent it skittering and after that, all the sounds came out more muffled.

“Stop standing around and bring Glimmer to me. ”

Entrapta held her breath.

“I swear, that girl isn’t worth the trouble either. ”

Steps approached the recorder, then moved past it.

A new voice spoke up and Entrapta’s heart dropped to the deepest pits of her stomach.

“What do you want me to do with her, doc? ”

It was Captain Adora.

Bow kneeled down next to her.

“No,” he muttered. “It can’t be.”

“Stop wasting my time, dear. Take her to the medic, I don’t care. She’s going to stay knocked out for hours, so just get her out of my way. ” There were more muffled sounds, something scraped against the floor. “And find Angella’s daughter. Tell her she can’t expect to learn anything, if she keeps avoiding work. ”

It couldn’t be. The Captain was so nice. She couldn’t be working with Dr. Spinner on this… whatever this was supposed to be.

There was a pause. When Dr. Spinner next spoke, she was much closer to the recorder.

“Adora, ” she said, softer than before. Softer, yes, but Entrapta could now recognize a blade from under it.

“Yes, Dr. Weaver. I’m sorry. Of course. I’ll. I’ll go take Dr. Entrapta to the infirmary. I’ll tell them I found her like this. ”

“That’s a good girl.” There was another pause. When she spoke up again, Dr. Spinner’s voice got lower, even softer. “You should take better care of your friends, Adora. We don’t want to repeat the last time, do we? ”

For one tense moment there was nothing. Then Captain Adora blew out a shaky breath the recorder barely caught.

“No, Dr. Weaver, ” she said, barely audible. “I’m sorry. ”

Dr. Spinner hummed. “Good,” she said. “And you know better than to use that name here. Angella may be an idiot, but still. Get going. ”

Entrapta bit her tongue. After that, she could hear nothing but muffled steps and shuffling and she cut off the playback.

She bit her teeth to her tongue and stared ahead, unsure how to even begin to process this.

Bow slumped down next to her and Hordak let out a warning warble. Entrapta hardly even registered what was going on around her.

So. Dr. Spinner or Weaver or whoever had knocked her out. That shouldn’t really have been that surprising, she’d had evidence hinting that. It was just a whole different thing thinking that and having concrete evidence.

And not only that.

Whatever was going on, Adora was in on it.

And that stung more than Entrapta would’ve liked to admit.

Because the Captain was nice. She was kind. And she’d been helping Entrapta with everything.

She lifted her head and looked at Bow.

So did that mean that he was in on it too?

Entrapta got to her feet and positioned her between Hordak and him. She pushed the recorder against her chest and pulled out a screwdriver.

“Hey, wait, what are you doing?” Bow asked, lifting his hands up and towards her.

“Stay back!” Entrapta barked, waving her screwdriver at him like it was a weapon. “You stay back! You and Adora, both of you! I – I trusted you!”

“What?” he said, his voice cracking. “No! No, no, no, I have no idea what’s going on, I swear! I had nothing to do with this! This is all Dr. Spinner.” He hesitated and put his hands down, stepping back. “And… and Adora. But she wouldn’t…” He bit his teeth together and shook his head before looking up at Entrapta. “I need to talk with Adora. And Glimmer. But. Please listen to me, I had no idea something like this was happening. I swear. This is something… this is something much bigger than you and me and I think someone should know about this.”

Entrapta’s screwdriver wavered in her hands. She hesitated a moment, then bared her teeth.

“Don’t try to fool me!” she said. “I won’t fall for it again!”

“No! Really!” Bow said. He started backing away slowly, with his hands held up in front of him.

“This project is over. You hear me? Over! ” Entrapta yelled.

Hordak grumbled and pulled against his shackles.

“No, yeah, I agree,” Bow said. “I have no idea how this could’ve happened in Bright Moon, but this is all kinds of shady.”

Entrapta grimaced.

“There’s got to be another explanation,” Bow said, more to himself than her. “I could believe it from Dr. Spinner, but Adora? She’s been working here for months! She’s too nice for this. She couldn’t…” He fell silent, then repeated, quieter: “She couldn’t be. Something’s not right here. There has to be something we’re not getting.”

“Oh, I’m getting this all really well!” Entrapta said. “And it’s always like this! Always! Everyone takes Dr. Spinner’s side, because that means they don’t have to side with me! Because I’m the weird one! I’m the unreliable one! No one ever takes my side!”

“I’m on your side!” Bow yelled.

Her hold on the screwdriver wavered and her eyes stung. She struggled to get her recorder into her pocket and pulled her goggles down.

“Look,” Bow said and drew a breath. “I’m pretty sure there’s something bigger going on here and it goes way beyond just you and me and… um. Him.” He waved at Hordak. “And we need to tell others about this. Please. I’m on your side, Entrapta. Trust me. You and I both know, that there’s something really fishy going on, and it isn’t just your, uh, friend here.”

He was right. Entrapta sagged down, her shoulder drooping. Yes, he was right. She dropped the screwdriver and buried her head into her hands.

“Why is this so complicated?” she whined. “I just wanted to stay at Dryl! I didn’t want any part of this!”

“I know,” Bow said. “But hey. Look on the bright side. You might be the only reason why anyone’s actually paying attention to this. Who knows what would’ve happened to…? Did you say Hordak? To Hordak, if you hadn’t been here.”

Again, he was right. Entrapta groaned.

“I need to get him out of here,” she said. “Out of this… stupid… place. Out of Bright Moon. Then we can think about what we’re going to do next. Then he can decide where he wants to go. But we just need to get out of here.”

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Bow said. “Everyone’s on guard right now because of the whole Horde thing.”

Entrapta walked to the desk, then to the tank.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said as she knelt to look down under the controls. “We’re not staying another day in here. We’re leaving today.”

Where had Dr. Spinner put the key to the shackles? It was always around the desk somewhere, but now there was no sign of it.

She hadn’t taken it with her, had she?

Entrapta grimaced.

Of course she would’ve. Anything to cause more trouble.

“I mean, I guess you two could take the skiff,” Bow mused, rubbing his chin in thought. “You could take one, speed through the city and try to get past the blockades. I mean, it’s possible, if you could make it to the hangar.”

She needed her tools to get Hordak out of these chains.

That wasn’t the only problem, though. Hordak wasn’t looking good. Whatever Dr. Spinner had put him through before all of this, it had left him bruised and weak.

If Entrapta remembered right, the hangar wasn’t far. A few flights of stairs down. It wasn’t that long of a walk, if you were feeling alright.

Entrapta wasn’t sure if Hordak was even going to be able to make it through the tank room door. Not with the way he was hanging from his chains. He didn’t even look like he was fully following the conversation happening around him.

She sat down next to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Hordak lifted his dull eyes from the floor and blinked slowly, the look sharpening. The dry heat of the lamp might’ve been turned off, but he was still too warm.

They needed to get out of here.

Bow started pacing back and forth in front of the door, a frown etched deep. With his hands behind his back, he marched around. Meanwhile, Entrapta was hatching a plan of her own.

Hordak was weak right now, but it was the organic part of him, that was failing him. The magitech would always have enough energy as long as there was magic in Etheria. And that wasn’t currently in short supply. If Entrapta could temporarily increase the amount of magic the tech was absorbing, they could boost his energy for a few minutes. Just long enough to get them to the hangar.

It didn’t come without its dangers, though.

Increasing the amount of magic absorbed would feed the tech. The spread would grow exponentially faster while it was in use.

It could kill him, if left on for too long.

Entrapta turned the screwdriver around in her hands. She set her shoulders and nodded to herself.

“I think,” Bow said, “I might have an idea. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“What a coincidence,” Entrapta said. “Me too.”

Chapter Text

So. The plan was as follows.

Bow was sure, that whatever Dr. Spinner was planning, couldn’t go too deep. So he was going to have a talk with the other scientists. Namely doctors Netossa, Spinnerella and maybe Dr. Spella, if he’d be able to reach her. They were going to put a stop to this, he was sure.

The problem was, that it was going to take time. Time, that they didn’t have. So Bow was going to first make sure that they’d have a ground-skiff waiting for them. After that, he was going to go to the others and present them with evidence.

Meanwhile, Entrapta was going to have to get building. With Hordak’s approval, they were going to power up his tech, give him a big, temporary boost and make a run for it before Dr. Spinner, Dr. Angella, Adora and whoever else might’ve been in cahoots with them would even notice.

It was a good plan, even if Entrapta said so herself.

But there were problems.

A lot of them.

Even though Hordak had agreed to enhancing his tech, it wasn’t as easy as that. Entrapta was going to need equipment and materials. She was also going to need time and that was not something they had in abundance right now.

Then there was, of course, the trouble of the tech rot. The longer they were going to be using the boost, the further the tech would spread and Entrapta had no idea how fast the spread would turn out to be. They were going to have to be fast and they’d have no time to sit around, when the time came.

Last, but not least, was the recorder.

Bow said he needed to bring proof of Dr. Spinner’s wrongdoing to the others. His word carried some weight, but he was just a private. A step above a regular guard. It wasn’t going to be enough.

Which meant he wanted the recorder.

“It’s pretty damning evidence,” he said. “With that, they can’t argue against you.”

But it was her recorder. Her one and only.

Bow must’ve seen the indecision on her face. He smiled softly and lifted his hands up.

“I’m going to give it back to you, after all of this is over,” he said. “I promise. Do you trust me?”

She wasn’t sure who she could trust. That was the problem. Bow was nice, but Adora had been nice as well, so there was really no way to tell.

But even if Bow was on Sr. Spinner’s, Entrapta needed time.

With no small amount of hesitation, she nodded, then handed over the recorder.

“Take good care of it for me,” she said.

“I promise.”

And with that, the plan was set in motion. They left the tank room in a hurry, Bow going for the hangar, Entrapta making her way to her lab.

She needed materials for the booster. In theory, it was going to be a simple fix. Most of the tech was there already, growing in Hordak’s skin. They just needed to add something to make the magical intake faster.

It was easier said than done.

Supposedly any old power crystal with a handful of well-chosen runes and wires was going to get the job done. But any messing around with the builds was going to be more trouble than it was worth in the end. They needed to be careful, but they had no time for it.

With better materials, it would’ve been far easier. Sure, Entrapta could’ve opened any of the gun crates around the corridors, pilfered some crystals and called it a day, but that would’ve ended with Hordak half-way to death by the time they’d reach the hangar.

Entrapta opened the door to her lab and started gathering her stuff in a hurry, throwing equipment to a pile on one of the desks. She dove under it to pick up a toolbox she’d borrowed and started to gather her things into it.

What they would’ve needed for a proper, safe and beautiful build, were uncracked power crystals from the First Ones.

It was such a shame that the only materials like that were behind locked doors.

Entrapta took the box with her and left the lab. She didn’t bother to close the door behind her. Whatever happened today, Entrapta knew she wasn’t coming back. The others could go and get the things she’d collected. They could clean up after her, she didn’t care. It was no longer her problem.

The tricky thing with the Light Hope project was, to her at least, that it was kept behind locked doors. Only the people working on the project could enter, and that list of people was limited. It was completely unfair, if you asked Entrapta. This was supposed to be the space for innovation! Of inventions! Locked doors rarely inspired those sorts of feelings with her. But she had respected Dr. Angella’s wishes to keep out of it, because Entrapta hadn’t wanted to cause incidents.

Yes, she could’ve entered the room any time she wanted. She had chosen not to.

Designing magitech door systems hadn’t been her thing. But the principals were easy. Entrapta dropped her toolbox in front of the door and knelt down next to the controls.

There was a system for everything. And where there was a system, there was a bypass. Either it was a carefully planned out set of runes and well-timed bursts of energy, or it was a sledgehammer to the core.

Entrapta was in a bit of a hurry right now, so it was going to have to be a bit of both.

The room was about the same size as the tank room a few doors down. This one was much more Bright Moon’s usual style, though. With its marble floors and fancy tapestries. Blue crystals shone soft and cool to light up the only piece of tech in the room.

Right in the middle of the room, stood about a waste high, solid crystal boulder. It was shaped like a control table, with beautifully intricate designs on top of it. First Ones’ writing, Entrapta recognized immediately.

She didn’t care so much about the table, as what was inside it.

The moment she stepped in, the neutral blue lights of the room switched to red.

“Unauthorized personnel detected,” a voice from the boulder said.

Entrapta pulled out a screwdriver and grinned.

By the time Entrapta returned to the tank room, Hordak was already starting to look a little better. The tech in him was remarkable, already fixing the deep damage Dr. Spinner had managed to inflict on him.

Such careless actions from the woman. If she wasn’t careful, she might end up killing Hordak before she could even test out her curses. And wouldn’t Dr. Angella going to be disappointed then?

Entrapta dropped a large chunk of First Ones’ tech in front of Hordak, smiling wide.

“They’re going to be so mad!” she said. “I can just tell.”

He huffed and adjusted his stance. He still looked ready to collapse, but at least now he was fully following what was happening around him, so Entrapta was going to take that as progress.

“Now, let’s get you out of those chains,” she said, throwing open the toolbox and digging out a sturdy pair of cutters.

With a few quick snips, Hordak was free from the shackles and rubbing his wrists. The metal of the cuffs had left deep, angry red welts on his skin and he studied them with an irritated look.

“Don’t worry about it,” Entrapta said, pulling the freshly removed crystal core closer. “We’re going to be out of here before you even know it. They won’t even realize we’re gone before it’s already too late!”

He let out a weird little sound. It took Entrapta a moment to realize that he’d just chuckled. The sound was tired, winded and weak, but it was without a doubt a small piece of laughter.

Good. At least he was starting to feel better.

She peeled the unnecessary tech off the energy core. Like this, it was way too big for their use. But with just a little bit of modification, they might be able to fix it right up.

Retrofitting pieces of an ancient AI program to escape? Now there was something that Dr. Angella and the scientific community wasn’t going to forgive. Entrapta kind of felt bad about that one herself. The Light Hope program was one of a kind.

But she could fix it. Later. Once all of this had blown over.

If they’d let her.

She shook her head sharply to remove the thought.

“It doesn’t matter,” Entrapta muttered to herself.

Hordak let out a questioning sound.

“Ugh,” Entrapta said. “It’s nothing.”

The building process itself wasn’t that difficult. With the tech from AI project and some “borrowed” weapons from the crates, Entrapta soon had a working little energy booster. Connecting it to the ports on Hordak’s back was easy as well. The ports on the back were connected to the spine and therefore the nerves there. With the energy they were going to feed into the tech, he was going to be able to make a run for it. Fifteen minutes, at tops, Entrapta thought. No longer than that, or the damage might spread too wide.

“This is good,” she said. “Looks a little home-made, in a bad way, but it’ll work in a fix.” She pulled back. “Now give it a try! Try to stand up!”

Hordak huffed and pushed against the floor to get to his feet.

His leg gave out under him and had Entrapta not been close enough to catch him, he would’ve crashed to the floor.

“No,” Entrapta said. “It… it should’ve worked! It was supposed to…”

Hordak groaned and rested his head against her neck.

“Can you stand at all?” Entrapta asked. “Do you feel any energy?”

He shook his head, his breathing heavy and labored.

But that wasn’t possible! The tech was supposed to heal him. To boost him!

Entrapta angled his body to get a better view at the apparatus on his back.

The crystalline core of the engine was glowing bright, as it should.

But it wasn’t feeding the energy in.

That couldn’t be…

Entrapta yanked a data pad from the toolbox and connected it to the closest port on Hordak’s shoulder.

The problem wasn’t that the booster wasn’t working properly. It was that it hadn’t acclimated to Hordak’s alien biology.

“No, no, that’s not how it’s supposed to work,” she muttered. “It should be able to adapt…”

And it was adapting, but slower than it should’ve.

It was going to take twenty minutes, maybe more to get the thing working full power. Twenty or more minutes they didn’t have. There was no telling when Dr. Spinner was coming back and the longer they waited around, the bigger risk they were putting themselves in.

Entrapta started pacing around.

Okay. Okay, they couldn’t get moving until they got the booster working. There was no rushing the delicate machinery, though. It was dangerous enough as it was, gorgeous piece of tech as it might’ve been. With Hordak in the condition he was in now, Entrapta wasn’t going to risk it.

They needed time.

Okay.

Yeah.

She could buy them time.

Hordak let out a low hum, shaped into a question.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Entrapta said. “I’ve got this. I can fix this.”

And she could. She could. She just needed to think.

The door. Yes, the door. It was slow to open and slow to close. She could mess around with the wires and runes to slow it down even further. Yes, that would get them a few minutes.

Good. Good. Entrapta looked around the room, trying to think of something else.

Her eyes landed on the tank.

Useless thing. A total hack job, built in an afternoon, no doubt.

A slow grin started to climb on her face.

A complete waste of talent, that one. The thing groaned and whined, when switching the water, and you needed to be really careful with the pressure when filling it, or else it might just blow up.

Now wasn’t that a novel idea?

Entrapta jogged to the tank, climbed the steps up two at a time. Dr. Spinner, in her infinite wisdom, had decided to empty out the tank same as the pool. No matter. Filling it up again wouldn’t take that long of a time.

The real test of technical talent came from keeping the pressure just high enough to be dangerous, but low enough that the tank wouldn’t blow up before it was time.

And if there was something Entrapta had, it was technical talent. She started filling the tank, waited until the waterline was right at the top before closing the lid. Then she opened the valve that let water out of it, while still keeping the one filling the tank in going. There was more water flowing in than flowing out, and slowly the pressure meters started to tick higher.

It was a precarious balance to find. Entrapta couldn’t let the pressure stay high enough for too long, or the tank might just give up too soon and break down before its time. But it needed to be high enough to be useful once they’d need it.

With the pressure set and water running, Entrapta returned to Hordak and sat down.

The tech was still loading. And it would for a while still.

Damn it.

Hordak bared his teeth and hissed. He reached for his thighs, digging his claws into them.

“Hey,” Entrapta said, putting a hand over his. “It’s going to be fine. After this is over, you can go wherever you want. The whole Etheria is yours to explore!” She turned to look away. “We just have to… get out of here first. Which we will. In five or so minutes.”

He huffed and looked down. He seemed a lot less enthusiastic about this than Entrapta would’ve thought.

“I mean,” she said, “not that I’m not disappointed that I won’t get to get a closer look at the tech inside you, but it’s probably for the best, right? I can get a lot done with the data I’ve gathered here. It’s going to be enough.”

He made no sound. When Entrapta turned to look at him, he was looking back, but there was no way Entrapta was going to be able to decode what he might’ve been thinking. His gills were downturned, his mouth in a light grimace.

“So,” she said, trying to think of something to say. Never had Entrapta been able to hold polite conversations with others. Chitchatting hadn’t been her thing. Now that she found herself being the one keeping the conversation going, she found it more difficult than she’d thought. “Where will you be going, then? After all this?”

Hordak was looking at her for a moment longer, before turning away. His eyes landed on Entratpa’s hand, still on his.

Entrapta squeezed his hand tighter, almost automatically.

“I mean, you could kind of go anywhere you wanted!” she said. “Even… back to the Horde. I guess.”

He said nothing to that.

Maybe he wouldn’t want to. Entrapta was pretty sure he was just a test subject there as well. Maybe it wouldn’t be so much escaping, but falling out of the frying pan and into the fire.

She licked her lips and pulled her feet closer to her chest.

“Well,” she said. “I mean, I’m not used to having other people around, but I have a pretty big house in Dryl. I don’t think I’d be that great of a roommate, but maybe that’s just lack of practice.”

From the corner of her eye, Entrapta could see Hordak’s head snapping up. She pushed and pulled her lips, before using her free hand to pull her goggles over her eyes.

“So. I mean, if you have no place to go, then… I’m just saying, that you could stay over, until you come up with something else. I don’t exactly have a pool at Dryl, but I bet I could build something much better than this,” Entrapta said and waved at the tank behind them. “Any day of the week.”

Hordak made no sound and for a moment Entrapta was worried to look at him. Worried what she’d see. Slowly she lifted her eyes.

She was surprised something softer there than she’d expected. A small smile and downturned eyes.

Entrapta supposed she was going to have to get used to the idea of a roommate, then.

Not that she’d say she minded much at all. She supposed Hordak was going to be alright. And her home was big enough for them both.

They’d just have to see how things went. Go one day at a time.

That didn’t sound too bad for her.

First they just had to make sure that they’d actually get out of here.

Entrapta took another reading of the tech. It was so close to being done. Energy was roiling in the core, ready to burst through.

Just a couple of more minutes.

That was when the tank room door let out a loud groan.

Entrapta jumped to her feet.

The door was moving. It was moving slowly, but moving all the same. It pushed open some, then stuttered to a stop with a whine.

Was it Bow?

Bow was about the only good option right now.

The door moved again, inching open some more, before grinding to a halt, like there was sand in the gears. Entrapta’s heart was stuck up in her throat.

Then, she heard a voice.

“What did she do now?” Dr. Spinner asked from the other side. “I cannot believe how troublesome one person can be.”

“Shoot,” Entrapta whispered, balling her fists against her cheeks. “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”

Hordak barked a short, commanding tone. He made a move to stand up, claws curling, but his legs still refused to carry his weight and he fell back to the ground.

They needed more time! Entrapta looked around, thoughts running a thousand miles a minute.

The door was going to hold them for a while, but not long enough. They also had the tank, but it was kind of a one-shot type of thing. Once they’d have used that trick, that was it.

The door opened some more before getting stuck again. It was wide enough that a person could get a look through.

For a second, Entrapta stood very still. She looked at Hordak, who was looking right back.

They weren’t ready yet.

She could… Entrapta could…

She knelt down to try to help Hordak to his feet, but he shoved her back and waved at her to back off.

“Now’s not the time to refuse help!” Entrapta spat. “Come on!” She tried to grab his arm, but he shrugged free.

The door moved again. Hordak let out a dry cough, sharp and commanding. He couldn’t move much, but enough to headbutt Entrapta away from him.

Entrapta hesitated a moment. The door moved again, grinding against its hinges, sending sparks flying. Something sparked in the controls and the door let out a long groan, before moving again, this time at normal speed.

Hordak looked her in the eye. He bared his teeth and hissed. He lifted his hand and pointed at the tank.

Right. He was right. They needed to use the tank. With one last look at the door, then at Hordak, and Entrapta was running.

There wasn’t much room there to hide. Behind the controls, Entrapta was barely out of sight.

Entrapta’s chest felt too small. Her beating heart was a sharp pain against her ribs and she hated this so much.

She just wanted to be back at home and build stuff.

She didn’t like this one bit.

The door opened and in slid Dr. Spinner. She looked around the room and Entrapta held her breath as her eyes glided over her.

Luckily for her, Dr. Spinner only had eyes for Hordak.

“Ah,” she said. “There you are. Just where we left you. Unfortunate, how we had to take a break from this. I get no pleasure out of this, I assure you.”

Hordak said nothing. He glowered at Dr. Spinner as she moved to the crystals. She hadn’t noticed the booster on his back yet and Entrapta could see him angling his body to hide it more.

“I would’ve rather not prolonged this. But that silly little girl had to get involved.”

“Doc.”

Entrapta shifted her attention from Dr. Spinner to Captain Adora, who was standing in the doorway. The Captain would’ve drawn an intimidating figure, was she not so hunched and downturned. She could barely even look at Dr. Spinner.

“Adora,” Dr. Spinner said. “Did you find the girl?”

“Glimmer? No, I…” She hesitated and looked away. “No, she was with Bow. I couldn’t figure out a way to get her without… Hm. You know.”

Entrapta’s fingers curled into fists against the tank.

Dr. Spinner hissed as she studied crystals.

“That stupid girl broke the crystal,” she said. “Such careless behavior.” The other crystal lit up. “Ah! But it would appear we are not completely out of sorts!”

Hordak hissed at the heat and tried to pull away from the source. He was unchained, but still too weak to move. Either Dr. Spinner hadn’t noticed the lack of shackles yet, or she didn’t care. She cooed in a mocking tone, leaning to run her hand over his head. He snapped, reaching to bite, but that only seemed to amuse the doctor more.

Entrapta bit her teeth together, reaching for the crank.

It was a one-time trick. She grimaced.

She had to give it time.

“Do we have to do it like this?” the Captain asked.

Dr. Spinner straightened her back and turned to her.

“It has to be done,” she said. “Retrieving him now has become too difficult. Prime wants us to tie up loose ends. And after that, we can go home.”

Prime.

As in, Horde Prime.

Entrapta pressed a hand against her face.

Oh no.

This was no longer just petty competitiveness about project. No, this went a lot deeper.

Entrapta might be a little bit in danger here.

“I know, but this is a little… this is…”

”Adora,” Dr. Spinner said, walking close. She lifted a hand and ran it down the side of the Captain’s face, an action that made the Captain tense up. ”What is this now? You are not getting second thoughts, are you?”

The Captain looked away, mouth twisting. ”I’m… I’m not. But I mean, even if this wasn’t his clone, this is a little…”

”Adora,” she said, soft, softer than she ever spoke to Dr. Angella. There was a downright oily quality to her voice. ”Do not falter now. Prime is going to reward you handsomely for this. Surely you want that?”

”I… Of course. Of course, Weaver. I’m sorry, it’s been a long day and – ”

”It’s alright, dear Adora. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

Entrapta wasn’t supposed to be here. This was bad. They needed to get out of here, right this second.

She bit her teeth together and reached for the crank. But when she did, her shoe squeaked against the floor, high-pitched and loud.

Both Dr. Spinner and Captain Adora stood up straight. The Captain’s eyes flew to her and spotted her immediately. Entrapta stood like a deer caught in headlights, one hand on the crank, the other holding the data pad against her chest. She stared with dawning horror as the Captain opened her mouth to say something.

Hordak let out a pitiful, dry cough, a high-pitched squeak like his lungs were turning into dust in his chest.

Dr. Spinner looked down at him and chuckled softly.

“What a pitiful creature,” she said. “Poor thing.” She leaned to place a hand on his cheek and Hordak growled.

Entrapta’s data pad beeped. Installation complete, it said.

”Oh, believe me,” Dr. Spinner said. “If there was a way to do this fast and without drawing attention, we’d do it. But dear Angella is too focused on this project right now for little accidents like that.”

Adora was still looking at Entrapta, and Entrapta couldn’t avert her eyes either. Behind her, Hordak was shifting and curling his claws, but Entrapta saw none of that. She swallowed with struggle, keeping a steady eye contact with the Captain through her goggles. She didn’t dare to avert her eyes for the fear of what the Captain would do.

Slowly the Captain angled her body to Dr. Spinner without breaking eye contact.

“You know,” she said, as if measuring each word with care before she spoke them. “This smell is starting to make me feel sick. Sooo… Join me at the cafeteria?”

Dr. Spinner lifted her hand from Hordak and turned to look at Adora.

”I am a little peckish,” she said. ”Yes. This is good. We will conveniently forget to release it and it will perish alone. That is good. That is very good. Nice thinking, Adora.”

Hordak was standing up behind them. The contraption on his back glowed red. Dr. Spinner was slow to turn around despite Adora’s wild hand movements to try to keep her attention.

“What is the meaning of this?” she asked. “Who – ?”

Entrapta threw her whole weight against the crank, shutting the waterflow. That got her attention.

“Dear doctor,” she said, turning around slowly to Entrapta. “Why do you insist on making things this difficult?”

The tank groaned behind her, but didn’t break. The metal shuddered under the weight of the pressure, but it wasn’t enough. Entrapta bit her teeth together and started a slow crawl past it. She withdrew her screwdriver and held it between them.

“I don’t think I’m the one doing that,” she said. “And I think you should leave, Dr. Spinner. So. Please. Out the door.”

The doctor tilted her head. The tank let out a loud groan and a bolt on the side flew off with a high-pitched whistle. Entrapta looked from the doctor to Hordak and Adora.

Hordak was swaying on his feet. This was taking too long. He curled his claws, looking between the people in the room.

“You are making a mistake, doctor,” Dr. Spinner said. “This really isn’t your place to interfere. You have no idea what you’re getting involved with.”

“Maybe not,” Entrapta said. “But respectfully, I don’t think I need to. Now step away from Hordak and let us out the door.”

Dr. Spinner clicked her tongue. “Dr. Entrapta,” she said, mockingly. “Naming the creature. You of all people should know better than to form an attachment to a test subject. I would have thought something like that was beneath you. It appears I have seriously misjudged your abilities as a scientist.”

Now that was just needlessly unkind. Another bolt flew past them.

“The fact is, that you won’t be taking that thing anywhere,” Dr. Spinner said. “You won’t make it out the door. Now step aside and we don’t have to make an incident out of this.”

Hordak hissed and poised to strike. Captain Adora drew out her sword, looking torn.

“You’re not getting anywhere near him, doctor. Not as long as I’m standing!” Entrapta said.

Dr. Spinner tilted her head and her eyes were nothing but a pair of slits above her mask.

“Such a poor choice of words, my dear,” she said and lifted her hands.

Magic was such a rare gift, these days. There was everyday magic in almost every aspect of Etherian culture, but the actual ability to control it and mold it with your bare hands was a rare sight.

The glow of runes lit up Dr. Spinner’s front, intricate designs appearing near her hands. Searing hot flames burst through them.

And just that moment, the tank behind Entrapta let out its final screech, before tearing open under the pressure. Entrapta jumped down just in time to avoid the blast of water that shot out. It hit Dr. Spinner square in the chest, drowning out the flames with a loud hiss and filling the room with steam.

Entrapta didn’t wait to see the aftermath. She clambered to her feet and made a run for it while Dr. Spinner was still swearing loudly somewhere in the mist. With her goggles on, Entrapta made a dash to Hordak, grabbed his hand and started dragging him to the door.

The explosion had been heard through the facility and Entrapta could hear guards approaching. The steam offered them some cover, but it wouldn’t last forever. She held Hordak’s hand, and the tech running under his skin felt burning hot.

That wasn’t going to last forever either.

Something sliced through the steam. A bright light shone through, brighter than anything in the tank room had any right to be. Entrapta slid to a stop and turned around, jaw growing slack as Captain Adora stepped through.

At least, it had to be Captain Adora, right? Since there’d been no one else there, besides Dr. Spinner and her. And it did kind of resemble her. Just. Taller. Beefier. Her hair was flowing wild around her head, like it had a mind of its own, and either the light was playing tricks with Entrapta’s eyes, or it had grown lighter.

Now that there was a perfect meld of First Ones’ magitech, if Entrapta had ever seen one. She’d read about hypothetical uses of the body modification at its greatest, but seeing it right there, before her eyes, was something else entirely.

It was powerful. It was energetic. It was Etherian magic in physical form.

And Entrapta could see no signs of ill effects.

Captain Adora swung her sword and the mist moved aside, clearing the hallway.

“Wow…” she said, stepping closer and reaching for the sword.

And that was about all she could do before she was scooped off her feet and Hordak was running off to a different direction.

“Stop right there!” Captain Adora yelled. “Not a step further!”

Either Hordak didn’t hear her or he didn’t want to. Entrapta hung limp over his shoulder, eyes on Adora. The magitech meld was gorgeous. The glow of the sword indicated a connection. But for the tech to work so well and show no side effects? That was something Entrapta would’ve gladly studied further.

Too bad it looked like Captain Adora was far more interested in slicing them to pieces than letting Entrapta do it to her to see how deep the tech went. So.

Hordak made a sharp turn and Adora was left out of sight.

Right. They had more important things to worry about.

Entrapta could theorize about this later.

“Okay, let’s see here,” she said, turning around in his arms. “Uhh… we need to find a stairway and get to the bottom floor. Take a left here!”

Reaching to peek over his shoulder, Entrapta studied the little booster on his back. It was still working as intended. Which, in this case, was quite unfortunate. Yes, they were making fast progress. But so was the spread of the tech rot. Already now Entrapta could see the darker patch of skin spreading from around the contraption, about her little finger’s length wider on each side than it had been before.

They needed to reach the hangar fast, or Hordak might not make it to the skiff.

They made it all the way down the stairs and most of the hallway to the hangar, when Captain Adora reached them. The hangar was already in sights when she landed in front of them. Hordak made a stop so quick he nearly dropped Entrapta in the process.

When the Captain spoke, she spoke to Entrapta

“Doctor,” she said. “Please. Think this over.”

“Um, I don’t think I want to,” Entrapta said, squirming to stay latched onto Hordak, despite his best efforts to put her down and fight. “We’re leaving this place and it’d be really good for us, if you stepped aside.”

Adora opened her mouth, then closed it and grit her teeth.

“You can’t do this,” she said. “You’ve got to know that.”

“Oh, but I can!” Entrapta said, giving up and dropping to her feet. She stood between Hordak and Adora, making sure neither of them would try anything. “I’m doing it right now. Hence why you should move.”

Hordak hissed and made to push past her. Entrapta remained where she stood and didn’t let him.

“Please, don’t try to stop us,” she said. “You probably could if you wanted to. But you can see this isn’t right.” Entrapta hesitated. “Right?”

Adora faltered. She looked away, then back again. She swayed a little and the glow around her dimmed some.

“I… It doesn’t matter, what I think,” she said. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Well, I don’t care what this is about,” Entrapta said firmly. “I’m taking Hordak out of here and that’s that. Whatever you have going on with… with Horde or Horde Prime, it doesn’t matter. I’m not letting you kill him.”

“Hordak,” Adora said slowly. “You know, that’s not actually his name, right?”

Hordak hissed loudly.

“If that’s what he wants to be called, then I’m going to call him that.”

“He’s just a failed clone.”

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

Adora swayed on her feet and the glow grew even fainter. Either it was on a time limit, or Entrapta was actually getting to her. Either way, this was taking too long.

“You don’t understand,” Adora said. “Dr. Weaver’s been told to put that thing down. It’s dangerous.”

“Dr. Who?”

Adora shook her head sharply.

“Spinner!” she said. “Dr. Spinner. Please, Entrapta. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

Entrapta could hear steps approaching. Someone was catching up to them. Whether it was Dr. Spinner or the guards, none of them would bring them good news. She gritted her teeth together. They’d be here soon and then the chase would be over.

They would’ve lost.

Hordak made a move to get past her again. But Entrapta remained steady between them.

She was sure. Even with all the enhancements and boosters she could think of on the spot, he’d be no match to the magitech in display before them.

“Look,” Entrapta said slowly, lifting her hands between them. “I don’t know what your deal is and… and I don’t actually even care. But you’ve got to let us go. Hordak is much more than a test subject. He’s a sentient being! It doesn’t matter if he’s a clone or hand-made, molecule by molecule. It doesn’t matter if he’s tech, or organic, or something else. He’s alive and you can’t just terminate him when we feel like he’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

Adora squeezed her eyes shut. The sword wavered, then lowered. Her hold on the handle was tight, white-knuckled like she was still planning on swinging it.

Entrapta took a step. With her hands held out, she started to edge past Adora, keeping Hordak behind her while she did it.

Adora grimaced and lifted the sword to halt their progress. The steps in the stairs were getting closer. They were almost here already.

“I can’t let you do that,” Adora said, unsteady. “I’m sorry. I really don’t want to do this. But Dr. Weaver will – “

“Adora!”

All three of them froze at the sound of Bow’s voice. He jumped down the last set of stairs and kept running until he reached them. He slid to stand between the sword and Entrapta. Glimmer was a little slower to follow, stumbling on the last set of stairs, but she joined Bow, wearing a fierce frown.

“You have to stop,” Bow said. “They’ve captured Dr. Spinner. It’s only going to be worse for you, if you don’t give yourself in.”

“They… What?” Adora said, her voice growing faint.

“They…” Glimmer said, leaning over her knees and breathing heavily. “They’re going to lock her up for the hearing. They have pretty good evidence against her.”

“No, but they… they can’t,” Adora said. Her stance faltered more.

Bow turned to look at Entrapta from the corner of his eye. He gave a pointed look towards the hangar door.

Entrapta didn’t need to have that message explained. She pushed Hordak to hurry.

He was clearly working on fumes. The glow of the contraption on his back was still strong, but the strain of the spreading tech was making his movements jagged. Entrapta had to drag him by the arm to keep him from stumbling. The tech rot that had before reached only midway to his elbow was now well past it. It was bad.

As promised, Bow had set up a ground-skiff for them. Entrapta helped Hordak in and took her seat by the controls.

Behind them, she could see a glow of something, and Adora was looking a whole lot like she had before. Bow and Glimmer were hugging her tight.

No one was following them. That was all Entrapta needed to know before kicking the skiff into gear. She guided them out the hangar and through the city. She sped off over the city walls and landed on the other side.

And they were out.

Bright Moon was growing smaller and smaller behind them. Entrapta grinned like a maniac. She looked down at Hordak, who hadn’t moved from the slouch he’d landed onto when Entrapta had helped him inside. He looked back. He looked completely spent, skeletal and tired, but when he looked at her, he offered a hesitant approximation of a smile back at her.

Entrapta felt like she couldn’t stop beaming.

The package arrived six months later. It had the official seal of Bright Moon on top of it and Entrapta would’ve been ready to just leave it on the desk, where she left all of her unopened mail. In a few months it would’ve been buried and forgotten like most of the letters she got from Bright Moon these days.

It was Emily bumping into the table and sending the package clattering that reminded Entrapta of its existence.

And packages were always more interesting than letters, right?

They’d sent Entrapta her recorder. Finally. There was a letter accompanying it, but the recorder was what really interested her. She opened it right away to find that the memory core was gone. That was kind of sad. All the notes she’d made in Bright Moon were gone. The data had been behind and all she had were her memories to go from. Even with the recorder back, the recordings were all gone.

Entrapta shook open the letter. There was something there about an ongoing trial. She was invited to answer some questions and testify. Something, something, crimes against Bright Moon Labs and her rules. Entrapta kind of skimmed through it and dropped it near the pile of others. She shoved the recorder into her pocket and made her way through the lobby. Emily followed after her, a tray of snacks balanced on her round little head.

Sure, she’d built a new recorder ages ago. It was still nice to have the old one back. It held mostly good memories. Figuratively speaking, of course.

The letter had said something about a summon to court to answer for her crimes. Stealing, espionage, breaking priceless First Ones’ tech, blah, blah, blah.

The moment she stepped out of the foyer, she’d forgotten all about it. Emily or one of the bots would incinerate the pile once it got too large again. So no worries there.

The Bright Moon people could come and get her themselves, if they were so inclined. They might be surprised to find, that her Dryl residence’s guards had gone up considerably since last time. The automated cannons on the roof could be seen all the way from the village. They could shoot Horde soldiers as well as any ill-intentioned Bright Moon folk.

On the plus side, it had apparently frightened the Horde spies from the village as well. There’d be no signs of them for months. Although, that might’ve had something to do with the fact that the Etherian troops now apparently had a new, sword-wielding hero, who was using ancient magitechs to drive the Horde troops back to Fright Zone.

Not that it was any of Entrapta’s business.

She made her way out of the lobby and into the lounge and lab area. An unfinished little bot was repeatedly walking against a wall there, unable to turn course. Entrapta would have to do something about that at some point. But right now she had other things in mind.

Inside her home, not a lot had changed since she’d returned. Yes, she’d installed some traps and built more battle bots, but that was mostly just for the fun of it.

The biggest addition – and the one that had taken most effort to build – was the sizable water tank right in the middle of the lounge.

It was an improvement to the tank at Bright Moon Labs in every way. Sturdier. Larger. More comfortable, with both areas to remain out of sight in and large windows to see through properly. The stairs were better, the lighting made more sense. And! Entrapta had ended up building tiny bots that kept the water clean, so she didn’t have to bother so often.

Yes, the moist air was still a problem, but that was what the unfinished air purifier in the corner of the room was going to be for.

Entrapta took the tray from Emily and climbed the stairs up to the top of the tank. She sat down near the edge. Tiny robots, about the size of her palm, were skittering around the tank, sweeping off puddles. They paid her no mind while Entrapta crossed her legs, popped a tiny cupcake into her mouth and dug out her recorder. She started to mess around with it.

Behind her, water sloshed against the sides as the surface was disturbed. Without looking, she lifted the recorder up.

“Look what they sent me!” she said, before turning back and popping open the lid at the back. “Hah! They put a little tracker in! Look!”

She picked up the tiny chip. A lot of good some tracker was going to do for them. It wasn’t like she was planning on leaving the house anytime soon.

Hordak pushed to the surface and swam closer. Entrapta flicked the tracker into the pool and he huffed in annoyance.

“Not necessary,” he signed. The words still came clumsy for him. His fingers were stiff and the language new to both of them. But they were making do.

“I’ll have one of the bots pick it up,” Entrapta said, waving her hand dismissively.

He shook his head, but Entrapta could see him trying to cover a smile. She offered him her arm and helped him out of the tank.

The new enhancements were working wonders. The spread had gotten bad there for a moment, but with the new prototype transmitter Entrapta was testing with him to see if they could stop the ill effects of the tech completely was working well so far. They’d have to keep a close eye on it for a while, do some tests on animals, but Entrapta was pretty sure they were on the way to stop the spread of malign tech completely.

It was a real wonder. With just a handful of tiny modules, Entrapta was translating the body’s biological signatures to resemble what the tech thought it was supposed to interact with.

She would’ve been able to get results sooner, had she gotten a sample of Captain Adora’s blood before leaving. There was something interesting there, for sure. Maybe next time they’d meet.

The tech was still clunky. It wasn’t the best it could be and it would have to go through countless reworks later. The trickiest part had been making it waterproof.

But they were getting there.

And it was such an exciting thing too! Because now that the danger of the magitech could be dealt with, it opened a plethora of thrilling, new opportunities.

Entrapta was already working on the controllable hair idea she’d been toying with before. It was on her to-do pile. The prototype was showing promise.

They hadn’t really solved anything. The Horde was still out there and Bright Moon clearly had a bone to pick with them still.

Well.

That was their problem. Entrapta would keep on doing her thing. She’d send her inventions to Bright Moon, whether they had a problem with her or not, and they’d send her money. That was how they worked. And as far as the war was still going, she’d be the least of their worries.

She would be here. This was her place.

Entrapta looked at Hordak, who was still holding onto her hand.

Scratch that.

This was their place.

And it was going to be enough.

For now.