Chapter Text
Pain.
That’s all that there was to know.
Intense pain in his ports, and in his head, and in his lungs.
Horde Prime.
The Empire.
Fighting techniques
Battle strategies.
All these things were forced into his head.
There was an immense pressure pushing on his skull, causing pain behind his eyes.
His eyes were forced open.
He was surrounded by a green light, and he was floating?
He heard a rushing sound, and he was pulled out onto a cold floor. His lungs contracted painfully, forcing the liquid up and onto the floor. It caused a stinging pain in his chest and his throat. He could taste something new. Salt?
“Cadet.” A voice spoke from above him, he turned his head, his cheek still pressed against the cold, gridded floor. His vision was blurred and he tried to blink away any excess saline. “Stand up Cadet.”
He forced his limbs into action. His arms pushed off against the cold, wet floor, his legs stiffened under him, straightening and holding up his weight. He felt cold.
“Acceptable. You are Cadet Epsilon 497, shortened to E497 for efficiency. You are a part of the 4th Battalion, in the 4th squadron. You are one of 500 new clones of Horde Prime within this squadron. You will meet them in gym Delta 5 for a briefing and simple training in 3 clicks, I strongly suggest you start moving, as tardiness is unacceptable and will be punished as such.”
The clone he had been talking to pressed some buttons on his data pad before moving to the next vitrine and pressing a large purple button that caused it to open and spill out onto the floor.
He knew the distance and directions to gym Delta 5, it was 2 lengths away from Lab 6 and required two left turns followed by a right. It would take just under 3 clicks to get there. He started moving.
As he made the right turn, two other clones caught up with, and walked beside him. None of them said anything.
Princess Entrapta had been given three rooms of her own in Brightmoon. The first two were connected; a lavishly furnished, purple themed bedroom and bathroom. The third was a lab, a sleek brightly lit lab filled with shiny scrap and a few first ones crystals. The only similarity it had with their-- with Hordak’s, sanctum was that it could be defined as a lab. The bright lights had already begun to give her a headache.
She finished working on the circuits of a broken ship and lifted the heavy cover panel back into place. Well, she tried to lift the panel back into place. She was not weak, by any stretch of the word, but metal could be heavy, especially such a large and awkwardly sized panel. If she was back in the Sanctum this wouldn’t be a problem, Hordak would simply lift the panel, with his larger wingspan and technologically enhanced strength he was very helpful with larger projects.
But he was gone now…
At least Scorpia had brought Emily to Bright Moon. While Emily screwed the plate back in, Entrapta emerged from under the ship and sent Bow an alert to let him know the ship was ready.
“Oh Emily, at least I’ve got you.” Entrapta listened to Emily’s responsive whirring and made a mental note to give her an oil change at the end of the week.
“Hey Entrapta! I got your message about the ship.” Bow wandered into her work space and the sheer amount of positive energy that he carried with him managed to lift her spirits just a little.
“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad, mostly just aesthetic damage, a few scorch marks, and a couple of blown circuits.” Entrapta wiped her greasy hands on a Turps soaked rag before using her hair to swing through the crowded area and over to the other side of the ship where Bow was standing.
“Okay, an easy fix then! Sea Hawk will be glad to have his ‘baby’ back.” Bow moved to leave but then turned back around again. “The rest of the Princess Alliance is having dinner together in the main dining room in about 15 minutes, we’d love it if you could make it. What’dya say?”
Entrapta didn’t like dinner parties. She hardly ever got to eat tiny food and most people didn't want to talk to her anyway. But she figured that if this was going to be her new life, she might as well try and learn the best way to respond to such a situation. “Yes, I will be there, I’m uh, looking forward to it?”
“Don’t worry, it’s also a strategy meeting and we could really use your help.”
“Listen up Cadets, because I’m only going to say this once.” Epsilon 497 stood surrounded by 499 other clones in gym Delta 5, while a 500th clone stood on a platform and yelled down at the squadron. “You’ve all been generated for the imperative purpose of defending and expanding the Empire of Horde Prime. You have the most important job of leading a 2 squadron battle in the 36th sector of the planet Etheria in a strategic move to disperse their rebellious force. You will have a 75 click training session in order to learn to work as a squadron and you will board a transport to be deployed at precisely 7600 clicks. Is this understood?”
“Yes Commander.” The clones chorused.
“For the Glory of Horde Prime!”
“For the Glory of Horde Prime!” The clones responded.
The clones moved to disperse into 5 groups where they began some simple drills in battle techniques that they had all been taught in the vitrine. E497 learned quickly. E495 was slow to strike by approximately 5 milliclicks. E483 often lost track of his greater surrounding by focusing too heavily on the subject in front of them.
E497 also learned about himself, he had realised earlier that parts of his body were a different colour, and that his arms were significantly thinner and weaker. In a population built of clones, being different was the biggest weakness of all. The other clones mostly ignored him, choosing to form ranks with each other rather than with him. Why join a weaker clone when it could lead to death? To accomodate for his weakness he would fight more with his legs, and his sword.
In what felt like no time at all the cadets were called to order and loaded into a transport. E497 sat by himself, and prepared himself for his first, and likely last battle for the Glory of Horde Prime.
Entrapta would really be more comfortable in her coveralls, but she also didn’t want to offend the other princesses by showing up to a dinner meeting in “oil covered rags,” as Perfuma had once put it. Luckily, it was late and after dinner she intended to go straight to bed rather than go back into the workshop, this meant she wouldn't need to change back into her coveralls.
The Princesses had brought her old clothes over from Dryl, or rather what they thought were her old clothes. It turned out they had brought over her Mother’s clothes from when she used to attend Court and Strategy meetings in Bright Moon. Mostly they were A Line dresses, sewn to show off the figure that both Entrapta and her Mother had been ‘blessed’ with. All of them had pockets for practicality, and most had frills or sequins.
She decided on the plainest dress she could find. It was still a shimmery pale purple to represent the queendom of Dryl, but at least it was absent of anything that could catch on a corner or rough edge, or draw too much attention to her.
She washed her face of any last grease and left her hair in it’s signature pigtails before heading off to what was somehow the scariest thing she’d faced since Princess Prom and being trapped in an incinerator.
“Entrapta!” Adora waved her over to a seat in between her and Bow. “We’re so glad you could make it. We’ve missed you.”
“Also we could really use your knowledge of the Horde to get Glimmer back.” Swiftwind was at the table and had, for some reason, been given a chair.
“Swiftwind!” Bow chastised. “We’re just glad you’re back. Now, let’s eat!”
As if suddenly realising this wasn’t just a strategy meeting everyone at the table began heaping food onto their plates. Entrapta looked at the table in front of her and was shocked to find two platters of tiny versions of chicken, ham, broccolini and any other food that was present on the table. She smiled gleefully and began to load up her plate.
“We remembered you prefer little foods.” Adora said while reaching for the potatoes. “I like your new dress, but you should also know that you don’t have to pretend with us. I mean, swiftwind is eating oats and hay off a crystal platter, no one would think twice of you wore your coveralls.”
“Also,” this time it was Bow, “ we know what you went through was difficult, we understand if you need time to adjust and we’re all here if you want to talk. We’ll understand.”
“Thank you.” Entrapta said softly before taking a bite of a tiny ham sandwich.
“Okay,” Mermista spoke up, “let’s talk strategy. How do we plan to get Glimmer off a spaceship that’s orbiting Etheria?”
“Oh, it’s not actually in orbit.” Entrapta supplied, but looked away immediately.
“Entrapta’s right.” Bow added, “and she’s had the most experience with this kind of tech, I’m sure she’s got some ideas.” Bow smiled at her encouragingly.
“Well, uh,” Entrapta stammered but took a deep breath, science and tactics she could handle. “We have Mara’s ship but it’s likely Horde Prime would shoot that down on sight, so the best plan would be to capture and hack one of Prime’s larger drones and use that to board the ship.”
“Oh!” Frosta put her hand in the air to call for attention. “Those are the shiny dark green ships he uses in the skirmishes at the Whispering Woods, right?”
“Yeah, I’m sure we’d be able to capture one, we just need a battle.” Bow seemed pretty confident in the rebellion’s abilities.
“There should be one later tomorrow if they’re following the same pattern as the past week.” Adora’s calm and commanding voice reminded Entrapta that not only had she grown up in the Horde, but she’d been a Force Captain. “ say we use that as our opportunity.”
Entrapta stayed quiet for the rest of the dinner, simply observing the other princesses in conversation with each other.
Mermista and Perfuma seemed pretty close with each other, chatting happily about Sea Hawk’s latest ‘adventure’ and how he was still in the infirmary.
Frosta was telling Scorpia about one of their early battles with the Horde and how she intended to implement Ice Pincers into her battle tactics.
Bow and Adora mostly talked about the finer details of tomorrow's battle, turning to Entrapta for her opinion every now and then, while simultaneously trying to humour Swiftwind’s ridiculous suggestions.
The dinner meeting wasn’t anywhere near as bad as she had thought.