An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
New chapter is up!
Entrapta and Micah, with the help of the Jungle Tribe attack the Horde prison and free the prisoners. Meanwhile, Entrapta makes an interesting discovery about the prison...
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“Obviously, I cannot be empirical without analyzing the data, but I’d say this is a better cell than the compound.” Entrapta admitted.
After hearing the story of how the Princess was in the Horde prison for less than two weeks before she managed to just let herself out of her cell, free Micah, and then together the two of them thwarted all the guards attempts to subdue them, and escaped into the jungle, J’Milla and his brother Korg decided the pair must be Horde spies. No one escaped the compound. Certainly, never as easily as they described Entrapta escaping. The only conclusion was that the Horde let them go. If not as knowing spies, then as a trap.
Both Entrapta and Micah were confined to a holding pen to wait for the village to put to a vote what to do with them. A wooden cage, setup outside, both vertical and horizontal bars, cross-hatched and held together with cords made from sinew. The door did not actually have a lock. It was just tied shut with rope. But there were two warriors posted by it to guard the prisoners and make sure they did not try to escape.
“At least in this prison there’s decent airflow and no bad smells.” Entrapta smiled. As far as she was concerned, their situation had improved.
“Until one of us has to go to the bathroom?” Micah pointed out, positive that the Princess had not thought that assessment through.
Entrapta’s face fell. “I’ll get back to you on that.” A pause. “Oh! Let’s just ask the guards! Excuse me! What happens when one of us has to empty our bowels or bladder?”
Micah’s face fell into the palm of his hand. That was not something one generally asked their captors about. That was generally something captors did not care about. Prisoner comfort was always a fairly low priority everywhere that Micah had ever been a prisoner.
“Quiet! Both of you!” Snapped one of their guards.
He was significantly younger than the rest of the warriors they’d seen. Entrapta was bad at guessing people’s ages, about as bad at guessing ages as she was at forming connections. She just didn’t ‘get’ people. But if she had to hazard a guess, based purely off physical development, the length of his femurs, the width of his shoulders, and relative roundness of his face, Entrapta would place the young-guard at around Frosta’s age. Maybe not exactly ‘eleven and three-quarters’ (essentially twelve), but somewhere around that age range. Between eleven and twelve. A bit young to be a warrior, but then, Frosta was the same age and she had been fighting the Horde for about a year now.
“Tondy! Do not talk to the prisoners.” The second guard reprimanded him.
“I was telling them to be quiet.” The boy argued indignantly.
“You should not speak to them at all.” The older man informed him. “They are Horde spies. Do not interact.”
With a bit of a ‘hmph’ Entrapta settled back down on the dirt floor.
Leaning against the cross-hatched bars of their wooden pin, both Entrapta and Micah sat back to watch the meeting. It was held outside so the whole village could attend and cast their vote on what to do with the ‘Horde spies’.
They watched J’Milla step into the center of the ring of people and lift a horn to his lips. Obviously some kind of ceremonial instrument to either call a feeling of weight and importance to the matters at hand, or else just mark the begging of the meeting. Without knowing more about their culture, either guess was as good as any other.
“My father gets to blow the Kodge Trumpet because he’s the best Beast Warrior in the village.” The child-guard, Tondy, explained without prompting.
“They do not need to know that!” Snapped the other guard.
J’Milla blew into the Kodge Trumpet and the sound that cut the air was not what either Entrapta nor Micah were expecting. It sounded very organic. Not like something produced by a woodwind, or hollowed out horn at all. More like something that might come from the throat of an animal. Deep in tumbler, but high in pitch. Almost like the kind of sound a very large creature with a wide windpipe might make if it were injured or afraid. J’Milla blew on the Kodge Trumpet three times, making their eardrums ring, before he lowered the instrument.
“We are called here today, to decide the fate of the Horde spies we found in the jungle.” He announced. “My brother, Korg, believes we should kill them. I thought returning them to the Horde compound would be more merciful. But the decision will affect the whole village. So, as is our way, we shall put the matter to a vote!”
“Why not just put them back in the jungle where you found them?” Called one person from the crowd.
“Feed them to the tyrosaurs!” Cried another.
Since they seemed to just be throwing out ideas before the vote, Micah stood back up to shout a suggestion of his own. “You could just put us in a boat and send us out to sea!”
Entrapta glanced at him.
“What?” He shrugged at her.
He still wanted to get home to his wife and daughter. In order for him to do that, he had to get off the island. Even just sticking them in a canoe with no ores was better than be sent back to prison, killed outright, or fed to any of the Beast Island beasts. At the very least, he could use his magic to propel the canoe across the Growling Sea to more traveled waters and be picked up by a larger ship –or even make it all the way to the mainland if he really didn’t care about his own personal safety or the structural integrity of the canoe.
Before anyone else could shout out another suggestion, or things could quiet down for a vote to take place, a roar was heard from the jungle.
All eyes turned to see a massive, dinosaur-like monster, taller than the trees. Red scales, yellow eyes, two black horns where ears on a mammal might be, and a third horn on the end of the snout right between the nostrils of its nose.
It came charging at the village, roaring with fury.
The villagers scattered, the square being emptied of all but Beast Warriors. Korg appeared out of nowhere by J’Milla’s side, passing a spear to his brother. Their second guard moved to join them.
“Stay and guard the prisoners.” He ordered Tondy.
Micah gripped the wooden bars of the pin nervously, he really did not want to be in a cage if that thing came charging at them. It seemed the natives had no intentions of joining the Princess Alliance, he didn’t have to be extra nice and cooperative in the hopes of making new allies. They never bothered to bind his hands, he could use his magic.
Drawing a sigil in the air, Micah blew the wooden pin gate open.
“Hey! You can’t just-!” Tondy, their child-guard protested, but Micah was thoroughly unimpressed. He dashed right by Tondy as if the younger man wasn’t trying to block his path with a sharpened spear.
“Oh, this is so exciting!” Entrapta bounced on her hair, tumbling out of the pin after her companion in less of a rush. “I’ve never seen the Beast Island Great Beast before! It really is something, isn’t it!”
Wrapping a thick lock of hair around Tondy, she pulled the boy closer to her and pointed along their eye-level at the Beast. “Note how there’s a mild glow when it opens its mouth to roar. Why is that, I wonder? Is it just some random bioluminescence? Is it something in its breath causing a chemical reaction with the air? Can the Great Beast breath fire? Or plasma? Or something else? This is fascinating!”
The way her hair was holding him, Tondy couldn’t turn his head, but his eyes shifted as far as they could go to get a better look at her. In all his eleven years, he had never seen anyone react to the Great Beast attacking with… glee. Horde spy or not, this woman was someone without fear and all the more dangerous for it. He tried to wriggle out of her hair.
“Let me go!”
“Oh. Sure, sure.” And she did let go. Immediately. “I forget sometimes, not everyone is as excited by new discoveries as I am.”
Her hair let go of him so suddenly that Tondy fell to the ground, off balanced. He sat on his backside and looked up at her, and the scene of his father fighting the Great Beast behind her and had no idea what to think. This was all so much. He was still just a Beast Warrior-in-training. This felt like something that required a bit more skill and experience to deal with. He clutched his spear closer to him, hugging the shaft as if it were a favored stuffed toy.
Micah would have been happy to take advantage of this opportunity and just escape. Entrapta clearly didn’t need his help, and he might not get another opportunity like this. His main goal was still to get back to Brightmoon, and back to Angella and baby-Glimmer –teenage-Glimmer, she wouldn’t be a baby anymore. But he also had a thing about kids looking scared. So, when he caught the image of Tondy out the corner of his eyes, sitting on the ground, hugging his weapon, and looking up at the Great Beast with a level of concern that could easily have been fear, the sorcerer doubled back.
Sprinting into the center of the square, falling in line between J’Milla and Korg, he drew a sigil in the air. A large, complicated one. Then sent the ring of magic careering up into the face of the Great Beast. It passed through the creature, right between the eyes.
The Great Beast paused in its attack. Blinked for a moment.
Then just turned around and left.
Then it was the Beast Warriors’ turn to blink. Both J’Milla and Korg staring at Micah as if they’d never seen anything like him before. “What did you do?”
The sorcerer only shrugged. As if it were no big deal. “I just cast a memory spell.” He explained. “I made the Beast forget why he was attacking the village in the first place.”
They just continued to stare.
“The Great Beast has no reason.” Korg informed him. “It attacks because it is an animal and does not know any different.”
“That can’t be right.” Entrapta joined the group in the middle of the village square, Tondy trailing behind her as if determined to maintain the pretense of still being her guard. “Animals don’t do things for no reason. No organism does a thing for no reason. Animals are motivated by basic needs. Food, clean water, mating cycles, territorial instincts, etcetera. If the Great Beast attacks your village often, there must be a reason. If you can figure out that reason, you can stop it from attacking you.” A pause, because she spent so much time in the Horde where they tried to weaponized everything. “Or, send the Great Beast to attack your enemies!”
J’Milla and his son Tondy continued to look skeptical. As if the Princess were just talking nonsense. But Korg looked interested. He stepped closer to her. “Go on…”
“Well, let’s start eliminating variables.” Entrapta began.
“Wait, we’re free again.” Micah reminded her. “Why don’t we just escape?”
“Oh. Right.” Entrapta was about to nod, yeah, escaping was important. It had been so long since she was in Dryl and his did miss her home. But then the image of Hordak flashed through her mind, although she had no idea why the thought of ‘home’ also called to mind thoughts of him. She remembered Micah’s hypothesis that her lab partner might be dead, and she realized that that was a hypothesis she was not ready to test yet. She was not optimistic about the results. Beast Island certainly was not home, and it wasn’t sterile like a lab, and it didn’t offer the exact type of experimentation she favored. But it was still very interesting and full of new things to test and discover. So long as she stayed on Beast Island she didn’t have to face the rest of the world beyond the island. “But there’s still things to do here.”
Micah was about to protest. He wanted to go home, darn it! He missed his wife! He hadn’t seen his daughter since she was still in diapers!
But then he looked at their child guard. Tondy. A boy not even in his teens yet Already warrior trained and holding a weapon. Was that just a normal thing in their culture, or was it because of the Horde occupation on the island? Was that just what happed to children under Horde occupied territories. Children didn’t get to be children. Children were forced to grow up too fast and become soldiers.
As a parent, Micah was against that.
He heaved a sigh, resigned to help these people in whatever way he could. “Alright. Let’s figure out why the Great Beast attacks, so that we can sic it on the Horde –I assume that’s what you’re all planning.”
“There’s not need to jump to conclusions.” Entrapta informed him.
While at the exact same time, Korg confirmed with a passionate, “Yes!”
“Oh.” Entrapta lowered her welding mask down over her face, feeling embarrassed. “Let’s start eliminating variables, then. When does the Great Beast usually attack?”
“Any time.” Said Korg.
“When most of the village is gathered together.” Said J’Milla.
“Usually during our big gathering and important ceremonies.” Said Tondy.
Micah crossed his arms over his chest in thought. “If the Great Beast attacks when you’re all gathered together, it could be like a predator going after a pack of prey.” He suggested. “The more of you there are in one place, the more likely it’ll be to get a couple of you.”
“How many people live in this village total?” Asked Entrapta.
Both J’Milla and Korg exchanged a look. It wasn’t like the Jungle Tribe ever took an official census. “Fifty, or so. Perhaps sixty.”
She looked back at Micah. “About how many guards do you think tried to stop us from escaping? Then add in people monitoring the security feeds, off duty personnel, non-combative staff, plus all the prisoners. How many people do you think are at the compound at any given time?”
“Probably over a hundred.” Micah had to admit. “The Great Beast can’t be attacking just because there’s a lot of you.”
Entrapta looked to Tondy. “You said important ceremonies.” She nodded to the boy. Sometimes, children saw things clearer than their adult counterparts. Sometimes Truth really did spring from the mouths of babes. “What do you do at these important ceremonies?”
Feeling put on the spot, the boy fidgeted under the attention. “Lots of things. Warrior ceremonies, and hand-fastings, and funerals, and the solstices, and to mark the end of years, and the turning of the moons.” He gave a shrug, hoping that that was enough.
“Okay, but what do you do?” The Princess continued to press. She lifted her welding mask back up to meet the boy’s eyes. “The word ‘ceremony’ implies some kind of ritual. What kinds of activities are part of the ceremony? Like do you always burn a specific thing? Something that might put a smell into the air to attract it? Do you light lights of different colors or that might show in different spectrums that could attract it? These are the things we need to determine.”
Tondy gave another shrug. “We blow the Kodge Trumpet.”
“Fascinating.” Entrapta did note earlier that the Kodge Trumpet sounded almost like an animal.
J’Milla went to retrieve the Kodge Trumpet from where it had fallen in all the confusion and clutched it to his chest protectively. “I am still unconvinced they are not Horde spies.” He informed his brother and his son. “I will not allow them to touch one of our most ancient and sacred instruments.”
“Okay. Then don’t.” Entrapta told him. “Just blow it again. There’s only the five of us here right now. That isolates one variable for the experiment. If you blow the trumpet and the Great Beast comes back, then it’s the trumpet. If it doesn’t come back, then maybe it is all the people gathered together in one place.”
Hesitantly, skepticism radiating from his every motion, J’Milla raised the Kodge Trumpet to his lips and blew into it once. That same organic sound cutting the air. A deep sound, like a large animal, but with a high pitch like something that was injured and afraid. Did they really not notice that their sacred trumpet sounded like a wounded animal?
J’Milla lowered the trumpet.
When nothing happened immediately, he looked at Entrapta. Almost smugly. As if to say, ‘I told you so’.
Then they heard an answering roar from the jungle and the same Great Beast came charging towards them.
All three Beast Warriors had their spears in their hands and looked ready to right within a second of the animal coming at them.
But Micah placed himself between the trio and the Great Beast, drawing the same sigil he did before. The sorcerer sent the same memory spell at the animal, and the Great Beast once again paused. Blinking. It turned around and stomped back into the jungle.
He waited until the Beast was almost lost behind the trees before turning to face the others. He smiled at them. “Is the plan gonna be as simple as blow the horn at the prison?”
…
The plan was literally as simple as just sneaking up to the Horde prison and blowing the Kodge Trumpet from there.
J’Milla and Korg lead them through the jungle, while Tondy kept an eye on Entrapta and Micah in case of a possible double cross. To spite the fact that they were now actively helping the Jungle Tribe fight the Evil Horde, they still did not trust the pair.
They came to the outer wall that bordered the jungle. Almost to the very same door Entrapta and Micah escaped through.
“Here?” J’Milla suggested, already raising the trumpet to his lips.
“No, it should be from inside.” Entrapta suggested. “The whole building is like an amplifier, remember. It’ll boost the sound.”
“This better not be a trick to get us captured.” Korg warned.
“We don’t wanna get capture either.” Micah promised him. “Entrapta, from here is fine. I’m sure we’re close enough to the building for it to work.”
With a shrug, she relented. Maybe he was right. They wouldn’t know until they tested his hypothesis after all.
Raising the Kodge Trumpet to his lips, J’Milla blew it once. The sound that cut the air was deep in tumbler, but high in pitch. Almost like the kind of sound a very large creature with a wide windpipe might make if it were injured or afraid.
They waited.
A spotlight on the roof of the compound licked on and all five of them froze. Flattening their bodies against the wall, hoping not to be seen. They needn’t have bothered. The guard post on the roof was shining he light on the jungle and the tree line, not the building perimeter wall.
“Well, someone heard it.” Korg commented dryly.
“But did the Great Beast hear it?” Asked J’Milla.
“Blow it again.” Micah suggested.
“I am still unconvinced this is not some elaborate plot to capture me and leave the village unprotected.” He informed the other man. But his suspicions did not stop him from rising the instrument to his lips again and cutting another loud blow from it.
This time, there was an answering call from the jungle. A loud and deep roar. The sound of an angry animal rushing to defend its territory.
The Great Beast came running out of the jungle, almost charging right for their party. They barely had time to get out of the way before the animal rammed right into the compound wall. Dipping its nose down to scrape its center nose horn against the stone wall, as if it were trying to gore an enemy.
They could hear guards shouting now. Calling profanities from the roof, while others came around the side of the building to attack the creature’s legs and try to chase it away from the building.
Entrapta flattened herself against the wall close to the door she and Micah originally escaped through, when it opened and more guards poured out, she slipped in. Using her hair to swing over their heads. They didn’t even notice, all their attention was focused on the Great Beast. In the fading light of the setting Glow Moon, and the darkness of the jungle, they didn’t even notice that Micah and the Beast Warriors weren’t even Horde. They were just extra bodies between the Great Beast and the compound.
Inside, Entrapta was finally able to explore the compound the way she wanted to during their escape but Micah wouldn’t let her.
This time, when she ran into guards, they ignored her. Everyone was focused on getting to the exterior wall to repel the Beast attack. Entrapta slipped around corners, and down hallways, through bends where the corridor curved for no perceivable reason, ran up where the path randomly arced into a ramp, or down when it inexplicably sloped. There was really no rhyme or reason to the construction of this place. It was fascinating!
On the second floor the walls dramatically changed. It was that same manufactured stone. Not metal paneling, or drywall. But up here there were markings on it. At first it started off as just radial lines. Long diagonal lines of low-slope angles. Then they intersected with other lines. Then more.
Then, right when Entrapta came to the lifts, the intersecting lines coalesced into a First Ones sigil. Writing. First Ones writing. Here. In the Beast Island compound. That was why the place did not feel like standard Horde construction. Because it wasn’t! This wasn’t a Horde building. It was something they just found. Took for themselves. Repurposed without knowing what the original purpose was.
Leaning close to the wall, Entrapta studied the First Ones sigil. She was by no means an expert in the language. She was mostly self-taught and made frequent mistakes, often misunderstood longer or more complicated words. But it looked like this sigil said ‘Main Lift’.
Inside the lift cabin, if there had been First Ones writing identifying the floors, it was covered over by the more conventional Etherian text. Written in a font common to the Fright Zone and posted in the Horde colors of black and red. They identified the lift buttons as B2, B1, G, 2, 3, and Command. Entrapta pushed Command.
The lift opened up onto a narrow corridor and she stepped out directly in front of a sliding door with even more First Ones writing around it. This one very intricate and complicated. A level of intricate and complicated that bordered on ‘artistic mural’. The interlocking sigils coming together to almost form an illustration.
A circle on either side of the door. One surrounded by multiple smaller circles, almost like moons orbiting a planet. In fact, it almost looked like Etheria. At least, it had as many circles surrounding it as Etheria had moos orbiting it. The circle –the planet?- on the opposite side had only two moons orbiting it. There was a familiar sigil next to it that Entrapta had seen multiple times across multiple and diverse First Ones artifacts. She never managed to decipher it herself, but according to Adora, the sigil was read as ‘Eternia’. Was Eternia a planet? All this time she just thought it was a password or a key phrase.
Wrapping around both planets, was a single, unbroken line. Twisting in on itself right over the door. Almost like an infinity. Eternia and Etheria, intertwined. Two parts of a single whole.
Except that Etheria was by itself here in Despondos. There was no other planet. There was no ‘Eternia’. They were alone in the void.
Pressing the door release button, Entrapta strolled into Command room.
One, lone, startled and concerned Horde soldier looked up from an array of security monitors.
“Hi.” Entrapta smiled at her. “This place is really fascinating. How long has the Horde been occupying this building? Have you studied the First Ones writing in the corridors? Is there tech? Did you find any First Ones tech when you refurbished this place as a prison? Maybe in one of the Basement levels the lift goes to?”
When the only response she got was a stare of incomprehension, Entrapta sighed. Communicating with other people had always been a challenge for her. “Never mind, I’ll figure it out myself.”
The room was filled with arrays of disused consoles. Three rows of them, all facing the same direction. One bare and blank wall that looked like it might have been a central display of some kind. But was inactive. Entrapta strode to the nearest console to her.
But before a single strand of hair could even brush the device, the single lone Horde soldier finally got her wits together. Entrapta froze the moment she felt the nose of a weapon press into her back. The image of Catra and the memory of pain flashing through her mind. Her hair stilled. She stood motionless. Raising her arms up. She did not want to get shocked in the back again.
“Hold it right there, rebel!” The soldier snapped.
There was a pounding sound in Entrapta’s ears and it took her a couple moments to realize it was her own pulse. Was she panicking? She couldn’t recall ever panicking once in her adult life. Not since her predecessor was subtracted as a variable in her life. Why was she panicking? The soldier pressed her weapon harder into Entrapta’s back and the image of Catra once again flashed through her mind and she started hyperventilating. Her breathing fast and shallow. Her head starting to feel light and woozy. She was having trouble thinking. Her brain just would not form thoughts.
Then the Command door opened again and J’Milla ran in with Tondy.
Smaller and quicker, Tondy jumped past his father and knocked the soldier’s knees out from under them with the shaft of his spear. They tumbled to the floor, the weapon leaving Entrapta’s back and she instantly felt better. Her panic left her almost immediately, leaving behind an off kind of shortness of breath to prove it was ever there in the first place.
“The Great Beast has taken care of the majority of the Horde.” J’Milla informed her. “Your companion, King Micah is right now freeing the other prisoners. My brother is with him. It appears we were wrong about you. You were not Horde spies. I owe you an apology.”
“Oh.” Entrapta blinked, not sure what she was supposed to do. She wasn’t actually used to being apologized to. The only apology she could recall was when Adora was tied up and trying to explain to her that she never meant to leave her behind. She thought Entrapta was dead. What was a person supposed to do after an apology? Did they shake hands? Hug? The Princes didn’t want to do either of those things. She was not fond of excessive physical contact. “Thank you.”
There was a beat of a pause while she just stood there, wondering if more was necessary. Interacting with people never did come easily to her.
When it didn’t look like J’Milla or Tondy were going to say more to her, she turned her attention back to what she actually wanted to know about. The disused and ignored First Ones consoles that filled almost the whole Command center. This was a First Ones structure. The whole building was First Ones tech. Out of everything that was unearthed in the mines of Dryl, she never found any First Ones artifacts this large or this well preserved. A whole building. Complete. Whole. Undamaged –apart from what they did just now with the Great Beast.
What did they build it for? What was its purpose? First Ones tech ran all through out the planet of Etheria. Down into its core. Connecting everything. The network of the Princess’ Runestones, the ecosystems, the climate… The whole planet was First Ones tech. How did this building figure into the machine? The whole place was like an amplifier. What did it amplify?