May 30, 2020
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Skeletor and Hordak finally meet.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Skeletor and Hordak finally meet.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Entrapta in this chapter be like:
Hordak didn’t know where he was.
For half a moment, he wondered if another portal had opened up and inexplicably transported him to yet another alien planet. This did not look like any of the places on Etheria he’d ever seen.
He stepped through thick mists, swirling with color. Feeling lighter on his feet than he’d ever felt before in his life. Almost as if he were floating.
The pain in his face and in his neck was gone, not even the ghost of sensation there. As if he’d never been wounded by Catra in the first place. And when he reached a hand up to touch his face, he felt only healthy skin. Not dry and waxy as he had been for decades now, but soft and supple. Smooth. Without scars.
Music drifted to his ears from somewhere beyond the mists. A familiar haunting melody, though it took Hordak a moment to place where he’d heard it before. He listened to so little music in his lifetime. Mostly just what he overheard on alien worlds, what his own Etharian troops sang or played, and… and what Hode insisted his Force Captains should hear to understand an enemy.
That was where Hordak had heard this song before.
From Hode.
He followed the sound. As he drew closer, words became discernable from the melody.
“…And salvation, uncertain. “Redemption to find worth in. “Have all I’ve slain deserved it?”
Lyrics to a song Hordak was sure he’d only heard once. But it was during a significant meeting. And as he drew closer, he began to recognize the voice that sang it.
“From ashes, resurgence “To cleanse this ‘verse or burn it-“
It was his own voice, only slightly different. To the untrained ear, all Horde clones spoke with the same voice. But this one, to any other Horde clone, would sound different. This voice had trained itself for pitch and octave, to carry a tune and make… art. The kind of auditory art called music.
“My Lord.” Hordak blinked as the swirling colors of the mist that surrounded them parted to reveal his old mentor.
Lord Hode. Whom was very, very dead. Wearing the uniform Hordak always remembered him wearing, a tight combat suit with vintage overpants, simple boots, and arm bracers. But the emblem of the Horde was missing from the chest. He was wearing his long dark cape, but the hood was down. Hordak could see Hode’s face. He saw his Lord with the hood down so rarely.
The fact that Hordak was meeting Hode again could only mean one thing. “Catra killed me.”
Hode placed his hand flat over the strings of the instrument he played, to silence the sound. He laid the neck of the alien instrument across his lap and regarded the younger clone –although, ‘young’ was not quite so accurate anymore. The age gap between them had narrowed since Hode’s death, while Hordak remained alive and continued to age.
“By the Host, Zero-Zero-Three, you’re even thinner than the last time I saw you!” Hode observed.
Hordak flushed. Or, rather, he felt the sensation in his face that usually meant the color was rising in his cheeks. Being dead and all, he didn’t know if he actually could flush self-consciously anymore. His blood did not flow, why should the blood rise in his cheeks? Instead of offering excuses for his waif-like frame, he instead decided to correct his former Lord on his designation. He wasn’t a number anymore. He had a name.
“Hordak.”
“’Hordak’.” He echoed. “Terrible name. But if it’s yours it’s yours. Who am I to tell a brother what he should or shouldn’t name himself.”
Not knowing what to say to that, Hordak decided to ignore the comment. Instead he looked around them. Mist, and clouds, undulating with color. This certainly resembled a metaphysical realm. But it was not what Hordak was expecting from a world for the dead. It was not what he was expecting for the world of their dead.
“Where are all our brothers?” He asked. “Where are the legions of the All High Host?”
“Ah, that.” Hode leaned back. Although, what he was leaning on was a bit unclear. Unless the mist around him suddenly gained more solid substance to support his weight. Did they even weigh anything anymore? Being dead and all. “We did not go to join the All High Host.” He said as if this explained everything. “Instead we came here. This is the place for waiting.”
“Waiting?” Echoed Hordak. “Waiting for what?”
Hode looked at him a little confused. As if he didn’t understand why Hordak wouldn’t understand why he was here and not with the Host. “You’re the one who came here, Zero-Zero-Three. You tell me.”
…
At first, she thought Catra was right. That she was too late. That he had bled out. That Hordak was dead.
But just as she was about to pull her hand away, Entrapta felt the slightest of pulses. One small ‘ba…bump’. It was faint. Perhaps just the last impotent beat. It wasn’t like there was much left in him to pump. But it gave the Princess hope. If she could just get some fresh blood in him from a compatible donor…
“Mother…?”
Entrapta looked up.
Dak, the clone she made of Hordak, had followed her into the ship.
She looked around. This was a vessel meant for travel between worlds. It had to have some kind of medical room. A highly advanced medical room, where she could find the kind of tech she would need to do a transfusion.
“Pick him up and follow me!” She commanded.
“Him?” The hybrid blinked at her for a moment, not understanding. “The body? But, its dead.”
“He’s not dead!” Entrapta snapped. He couldn’t be dead. She felt a beat. A single beat of his heart. If his heart could still beat then he wasn’t dead. Besides, even if the heart had stopped beating by this point, he would’ve still been alive recently enough for her to save him and bring him back. “Carry him for me while I look for this place’s infirmary.”
Entrapta dashed out of the bridge without even looking to see if Dak was following her orders.
She found the writing on the walls. The geometric shapes of the First Ones sigils intersecting with others. Entrapta couldn’t read all of it, but she understood enough to know which lines to follow down the corridors to find the Infirmary. She almost missed the Infirmary door, however, passing right by the seem in the wall where the door fit in the frame. In fact, she would have missed it entirely if the LUVD crystal in her hand hadn’t glowed as she passed. Entrapta doubled back, holding the crystal up.
Apparently, this First Ones ship recognized the crystal as belonging to an Administrator of sorts. A fact she would have found fascinating and in need of further examination and study. However, at the moment, her priority was not new discovery and knowledge. At the moment her priority was saving the life of the best –and only- Lab Partner she’d ever had.
With the door open Entrapta disappeared into the Infirmary, only to stick her head back out again to see if her Intern had followed her directions and was bringing Hordak Sr. They were, Entrapta needn’t have worried. Dak was determined to please her –something she had been desperate to do for her own mother, something Hordak was desperate to do for his Big Brother, it seemed to be a unifying trait of the three of them. Dak supported the elder Hordak in their hair, the deceptively strong tendrils wrapping around the larger clone’s body, holding above Dak as they ran, trying to keep his back straight and head level. Entrapta noted that there was no blood dripping from Hordak’s body into Dak’s hair. His blood was not flowing anymore. His heart wasn’t beating.
At this exact moment, he was technically dead.
But that didn’t mean he was all the way dead. Just mostly dead!
If he was just ‘mostly’ dead, that meant he was still partly alive.
“Put him on the exam table!” Entrapta commanded. She swept her own hair over the table, knocking over packages of sterile wipes, and bottles of what smelled like antiseptic. “Wait a sec!” She held a hand up, a thought occurring to her. With her hair, she poured the antiseptic over the table and wiped the whole surface down with the sterile wipes. “Okay. Now, put him on the table.”
Dak complied. Laying the body down gentle. Lowing their hair, still trying to keep the body level so as not to strain the larger clone’s back, or wrench their neck. The spine was so delicate a part of the frame, yet so dramatically vital to constructing an erect robot. Dak imagined it could only be the same for an organic being like… this Hordak.
Entrapta looked around the Infirmary. There were machines all around them. Suspended from the ceiling above the exam table, standing independently and fitted on rollers to be moved around the room, fitted into the walls with display screens attached. But none of it was turned on, and Entrapta wasn’t sure how to activate them.
Every second was precious. The longer Hordak spent –dead- the less likely a chance for a meaningful recovery he had. The difference between ‘mostly dead’ and ‘all the way dead’ was only a few minutes.
“Entrapta, what are you-?” Adora had followed her as well.
The older woman all but pounced on her. “Adora! You can work First Ones tech faster than I can. Turn this stuff on! Help me save him!”
“Him?” Adora looked at the body on the exam table. “Hordak? But-“
She did not want to save Hordak. If he was dead, then all of Etheria’s problems were solved. Adora had nothing to lose from his death and everything to gain. Whatever feelings Entrapta had for him were not enough to earn him sympathy in her eyes. Not after what he did to her, both directly and indirectly simply by being on Etheria in the first place.
“I will not heal him with She-Ra’s sword.” She informed the older woman.
Entrapta blinked for a moment, her mind stumbling for a moment as it remembered that the Sword of Protection was ancient First Ones tech that the legends said possessed healing properties. She caught herself quickly, understanding the boundary the younger woman just set even if it just made her even hungrier to study She-Ra and the Sword of Protection. That was a matter for the future.
“Then don’t use the sword.” Entrpata tried to haggle. “Just turn on the equipment in this room. I’ll do everything else. Please.” She was begging now. “Help me save my- -my Lab Partner and I’ll…” she cast her brain around for something she could bargain with. What would Adora want from her? What did anyone ever want from her? The only thing anyone ever wanted from her. “Help me save Hordak and I’ll build weapons for you, and Brightmoon, and the Princess Alliance, for when Horde Prime comes. I imagine you’ll wanna fight him too.”
“W-what-?” Adora took a physical as well as metaphorical step back. “Horde Prime? The other Horde from outside Despondos?”
“What do you think Hordak was trying to do with his portal?” Entrapta raised herself up off the ground, the coils of her hair lifting her up higher than Adora, so that she was glaring down at the younger woman. “He couldn’t pass through, but he could get a message out to his Brother on the other side. Horde Prime will follow that message and open a portal from his side. Wouldn’t you rather be ready when he arrives?”
For half a second, the expression on Adora’s face was pure horror. Then she remembered. “You need a Sword to open a portal.”
In all honesty, Entrapta didn’t know if that was true or not. Certainly, you needed an Administrator Key –a Sword of Power- to open the portal from inside Despondos. But Hordak was also very certain that Horde Prime would be able to open a portal from his side. Entrapta mentally shrugged. She did not have enough data to offer a counter argument. Instead, she just held the younger woman’s gaze.
There must have been something in Entrapta’s face that convinced Adora that Horde Prime was a valid threat and her offer to help them prepare was a good bargain, because she relented. Ceding to the tech Princess. She uttered a command to the empty air and all the machinery in the Infirmary flared to life.
“Alien cadaver detected.” Announced a voice that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. “Would you like to perform an autopsy?”
“No!” Entrapta snapped at the Infirmary celling. “Fix him! Bring him back!”
“Scanning for lifeform match.” Announced the voice. A beam came down from the machinery in the celling, spreading into a line of several as they reached the table. A single horizontal line of light. It scanned down Hordak’s body, then back up it again. “Scanning… scanning… scanning… Match found. Ninety-seven percent accuracy, Revenanti, of planet Revena, beta, fully mature adult, deceased. Would you like to preform an autopsy?”
“No!” Entrapta snarled again, slamming her hair on the exam table. “He’s not dead! He can’t be! I won’t let him! We just need to jumpstart his heart!”
“Initiating defibrillation on Revenanti cadaver.” Announced the room. “Please clear all hands and limbs from the body and table.”
Two tentacle-like cables slithered down from the array in the ceiling above the table and shocked Hordak’s prone body. Shocked it hard enough to trigger involuntary muscle spasms that made it seem like the body were trying to get up.
…
“You know, this was never the initial plan.” Hode informed him.
Hordak blinked at him. “What plan?”
“My plan.” The other clone answered as if this explained everything. “Or, our plan, I should say. My partner’s and mine. This wasn’t even the first contingency.”
Taking a moment to –pointedly- glance around at where why were, some version of an afterlife, not the All High Host, but still a realm of the dead. Hordak paused just to make sure his old mentor understood when he stated dryly. “Dying generally is not part of one’s own plans.”
“No. It’s not.” Agreed Hode. “But one must also acknowledge the possibility of dying and make a plan for that as well. As I explained in the message I left for you in my deamon.”
Hordak frowned. “Imp has not played me any message from you.”
Hode looked confused. “I have been dead for many years. My deamon should have played it for you.”
“I only received Imp… recently.” ‘Recently’ being both a relative term, but also an inaccurate one. Hordak was only reunited with his late mentor’s deamon shortly before they were both pulled through a portal and propelled onto Etheria. But that event was thirty Etherian years ago. Approximately fifteen Standard Imperial Years –give or take. Not exactly ‘recently’ at all.
“He didn’t give you my deamon?” The other clone looked concerned. “My partner, I mean. He was supposed to make sure the deamon went to you upon the event of my death.”
“If you are referring to the blue alien in the hood, he started to give me Imp, but then quickly deemed me ‘not ready’.” Hordak said with a bit of a snit. “When I saw him again on Eternia, I’m fairly certain he still did not want to give me Imp. But then, Imp and I were pulled into a portal and he was not. So that ended any argument before it could start. But in all the time Imp and I have been on Etheria, he has not tried to play me any message.”
Whatever Hode was going to say died on his tongue. At the mention of the word ‘Etheria’ his mouth dropped open. Staring at the younger clone, disbelieving. “Etheria!? It’s real!? You’ve been to Etheria?”
“Yes.” Confirmed Hordak, confused by his mentor’s sudden fervor. He had certainly never even heard of any planet called ‘Etheria’ before being inexplicably transported to Despondos and crashing on it. “It’s where I died.”
Surprising them both, Hode surged forward, grabbing Hordak’s shoulders with both this hands. “And the other sword! Did you find the other sword!?”
It was all the younger clone could do to blink at his mentor.
“Other sword?” Hordak only knew about one sword. The Sword of Protection. The sword of She-Ra. The administrator key to the planet. It was actually a little terrifying to imagine there being another one. “There is more than one?”
Hode sighed, leaning back from the other clone. He placed the heel of his hand to his forehead and gave a self-deprecating laugh. “He was right. Of course, this does us no good now. Even if you were alive, you couldn’t wield the sword. Only a descendent of King Grayskull can wield a Sword.”
What could either of them do with this information now?
Nothing. That’s what. The dead could do nothing.
They lapsed into silence.
Hode picked his instrument back up and began plucking a tune.
The Horde had no instruments and sang no songs. But Hode did. He collected art from multiple races, played at least two instruments that Hordak knew of, and sang. Hode was different from an average Horde clone. Not different like Hordwing was different, or different like he himself was different. Hode was atypical.
“My Lord, may I ask a question?” He began.
Talons stilled over the strings, the last few notes fading into the mist around them. “What’s troubling you?”
Hordak actually had so many questions. He opened his mouth to ask one.
But was suddenly cut off when he felt something inexplicably jerk him. His whole body being pulled off his feet. Did he even still have a body? He was sort of floating in a world for the dead. The term ‘body’ was relative. It was like an electric shock, like being punched in the heart. Only instead of knocking him back, it was pulling him away.
…
“Initiating defibrillation on Revenanti cadaver.” Announced the room. “Please clear all hands and limbs from the body and table.”
Two tentacle-like cables slithered down from the array in the ceiling above the table and shocked Hordak’s prone body. Shocked it hard enough to trigger involuntary muscle spasms that made it seem like the body were trying to get up.
“Insufficient erythrocytes.” Declared the voice.
“He needs blood!” Entrapta snarled. Erythrocytes were the cells in blood that carried oxygen –or, in the case of Hordak’s species, nitrogen. Hordak didn’t just need blood, he need blood from a member of his own species. She turned towards Dak. “He needs you.”
“M-me?” Dak blinked glowing eyes. Apart from the color, they were identical to Hordak’s own. Although they couldn’t know that since Hordak’s eyes were currently half-lidded, the nictitating membrane of his second eyelid covering most of it, and the color was muted and dark without the bioluminescent glow behind it.
“Entrapta! No!” Adora was horrified.
“What’s going on?” Bow and Scorpia pushed their way into the room.
Scorpia carrying an unconscious but still very much alive Catra in her arms.
Bow being the unwilling perch for Imp as the little deamon surveyed the scene.
“Mother wants to give my blood to this Hordak.” Dak announced.
“Wait, what?” Scorpia was taken aback. She thought Entrapta and little Dak were making progress and bonding. At least, it seemed like they were bonding back on Beast Island in the First Ones command room. Then, on the ship with the songs… Was she wrong? Scorpia looked down at Catra in her arms. Reminding herself that her recent experiences with people she previously thought were close friends had taught her that she really did not read people as well as she thought she did.
Perched atop Bow’s head, Imp opened his mouth to remind everyone of what Dak was, and what their purpose for existing was. “Clone.”
“You can’t just take out all a person’s blood!” Adora announced. “People need their blood in their bodies!”
“Dak is just a child!” Scorpia reminded the tech Princess. “Dak still has things they can do. Hordak is old. He’s lived his life and made his choices. Just- -let him go.”
“I won’t!” Entrapta shouted at all of them. “You- out of all of you, Hordak was the only one who didn’t treat me differently. Hordak never said ‘Entrapta, no’, or ‘you can’t’. Hordak never tried to stifle my creativity or curiosity. He never talked down to me like each and every one of you has done. I’m twenty-seven years old, I’m almost thirty. I am the oldest person in this room –except for Hordak himself- and you all treat me like I’m some sort of child! But Hordak never did that! The only time he ever said ‘no, don’t’ was when he was pulling me out of the way of an explosion. I may not have knowing him for very long, but in the time that I did know him, he was a better friend to me than any of you! Scorpia might be my Best Friend, but Hordak is- Hordak is… my Special Friend!”
Everyone was struck silent by this announcement.
Adora knew Entrapta had feelings for the dark Lord of the Horde. She saw the word etched on his First Ones crystal the day the portal was opened. And she created a clone hybrid of the two of them. At the time, Adora had thought of Dak as more of a ‘child’ between them. To spite hearing the recordings in Entrapta’s own voice to the contrary. But now she was realizing that her own perceptions of Entrapta’s relationship with Hordak and the reality of Entrapta’s relationship with Hordak were on two very different levels of depth. Entrapta was willing to sacrifice a child if it meant bringing Hordak back.
“Now, we’re wasting precious time!” Entrapta snarled. “Dak, get on the table and give me your arm.”
Dak might be a child in all their eyes. But, to Entrapta, they were just another one of her experiments. Like a robot, but organic instead of mechanical.
“You can’t!” Still holding Catra, Scorpia tried to place her body between Entrapta and the hybrid.
“Move!” Entrapta snarled at her.
Imp screeched an agreement with the Princess. He wanted to see master saved as well.
For half a moment, Scorpia looked almost as betrayed by Entrapta as she did by Catra. She crossed an ocean for this woman. Broke into a Horde prison for this woman. Left the Horde for this woman. And she was trying to cut open and bleed out a child. Not just any child, but a child that Scorpia had pulled out of the abandoned cloning tank. A child that Scorpia breathed life into herself. A child she brought out of the Fright Zone. Dak wasn’t her child, not really. But she felt an affection for them that was most definitely familial, if not entirely maternal.
“Do we need all his blood?” Bow cut in suddenly.
Everyone turned to stare at him. Hordak was such a large person and Dak was so small in comparison. Not only would they need all of Dak’s blood, they might actually need more than Dak’s blood.
“I mean, we’re standing in a First Ones ship.” He reminded them all. “The First Ones have technologies so advanced, they honestly seem like another kind of magic. Why don’t we see if they can synthesize blood for Hordak? We’ll use Dak’s living blood as a sample, but a sample shouldn’t need very much. You can save Hordak without harming Dak.”
Adora nodded. Not fully understanding what Bow was trying to say, but understanding that it was a solution that would keep Entrpata from draining the child that helped them through their most recent adventures. “Ship, make more blood using a sample from Dak.”
“Command not recognized.” Announced the voice of the Infirmary.
“Try, ‘synthesize viable blood from adolescent sample’.” Entrapta suggested.
“O… kay…” Adora didn’t fully understand all the words in the strung together sentence, but when she repeated it, the ship’s computer seemed to understand.
A syringe lowered itself from the ceiling array on another cable-tentacle. Entrapta held Dak’s arm straight and helped the automated machine find a vein. It filled the syringe with thirty milliliters of blood. There was another pause as the machinery and computer analyzed the sample. Then another needle, this one on an intravenous tube, came down from the ceiling. This time aiming for Hordak’s immobile body. Entrapta guided this one into the vein as well. Blood started flowing into the body, but it did not circulate. His heart was still inactive. There was nothing to pump the synthetic blood for him.
“Shock him again!” Entrapta ordered.
“Do the shocking thing again.” Adora commanded the Infirmary.
“Command not recognized.” The computer voice informed them.
“Try defibrillate.” Bow suggested.
“Defibrillate.” Adora tried.
“Defibrillating Revenanti cadaver.” The computer complied. It was an AI, but the disembodied voice still had a tone as if it didn’t understand why the Administrator and these other organic beings were bothering trying to revive a corpse. “Please clear all hands and limbs from table.”
It shocked his heart again. Then again. And a third time. Each shock forcing his hear to beat at least once. Making it pump the synthetic blood through out his body. Carrying fresh nitrogen to his brain.
“Clear.”
…
Hode reached a hand out to the younger clone, not sure what he could do for his brother.
Hordak clawed at the older man’s outstretched hand, wrapping his long taloned fingers around his wrist, holding tight. The other hand clutched at his heart. “What is happening to me!?”
“I don’t- I don’t know!” Hode had to admit. Zero-Zero-Three might think that he had all the answers, but in fact, Lord Hode knew about as much or as little as any other soldier in the universe. “Maybe… maybe you’re not all the way dead? Maybe you’re just mostly dead.”
“What does that-?” He was cut off then another violent shock pulled him off his feet. He was being pulled away. Pulled back. But back where he didn’t know. “What does that mean!?”
Hode loosened his own hold of Hordak. Ready to let his brother go back if that was indeed what was happening. “Someone must be trying to save your life.”
“Impossible!” Hordak snarled back. No one living cared about him. Entrapta was on Beast Island and probably already dead. If not dead, then nowhere near his body, certainly not in a position to save his life. He didn’t know where Imp was, but what could that tiny deamon android do? Catra wouldn’t save him, she was the one who killed him. Lord Hode had to be wrong.
Another violent shock rocked his metaphysical ‘body’, pulling Hordak farther away from Hode.
The older clone let him go. If back to life was where Hordak needed to go, then that would be where he would let him go.
“Listen to me, Zero-Zero-Three!” He shouted. “When you go back, you need to reunite Etheria with Eternia! They’re the only thing that can-“ another shock drowned out what Hode said and Hordak missed it. What? What could the two planets do? “-to cleanse the universe or burn it!”
“What?” Hordak called, not understanding.
“And-“ here, Hode hesitated. “And if you see Keldor, tell him I didn’t join the Host. Tell him I’m waiting for him!”
If Hode wanted to say more, he didn’t get the chance to. With one more violent shock, Hordak was pulled out of the place for waiting and slammed back into his body and his blacked out. Unconscious.
…
Entrapta leaned back with a relived sigh, watching the monitor. A steady, even heart beat. Hordak was alive. Unconscious and still wounded. But alive.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
This chapter is short and a mess. It doesn’t flow right. I’m pretty sure there are like, million logical errors, and the transitions between the flashback and present don’t feel organic.
But I updated!
And that’s what’s really important, right?
...
A holo-screen, no larger than a standard issue datapad was projected from the armrest of Red Hord’s throne. It should have displayed readouts of the rift. Projecting energy readings from the special anomaly, radiation levels, temperatures, gravitational forces if it had any. Instead, the display was taken up entirely by the face of Hordwing.
“Maintain communications as you pass through.” He was saying.
Red Hord only rested his chin on his fist and allowed his fellow cabinet Lord to voice his concerns as if they were advice from a senior colleague. They couldn’t show it, not in front of brothers of lower rank, but Hordwing was worried about him. Hordwing didn’t want him to go to a shadow dimension they knew next to nothing about that had already trapped one of their brothers since his disappearance.
But, their Emperor, no, their Brother, had ordered Red Hord to go, so he must go.
That did not mean that Hordwing had to be happy about it.
“And be sure to send a signal through the rift every six hours so that the rest of the fleet can monitor your progress.”
“Out of curiosity, if the rift snapped shut behind me and I was trapped in there with Hordak, what could you do?” Red asked him. Equal parts annoyed by the other man’s hovering, and genuinely wanting to know what Wing thought he could do.
Hordwing only frowned at him.
Red Hord smirked back. He liked pointing out to the older man when he was being absurd. It made for a fun dynamic to their relationship.
“Just keep the com open for me.” He growled. Then, in a softer tone, so that only Red Hord could hear, he repeated. “For me, Red.”
With a sigh, Red Hord did leave the com channel open. He leaned back in his throne. “Helm, take us through the rift. We might all go to join the Host, let’s not arrive there an embarrassment.”
“When we go to the Host we’ll go together, Red.” Wing reminded him. “You’re not allowed to die without me.”
“You’re not allowed to choose when I die, Wing.” Red hissed back, keeping his voice down so that none of his own crew could hear him. “Only our Brother may choose when we die.”
Every single screen on the bridge –discounting the one Lord Hordwing was on- displayed the rift. From all different angles. Allowing for wide shots of its complete length and width, with measurements on its size, to close up images where one could see the small details of the fabric of space torn and tattered like actual fabric. Threads and strands of reality irradiated and glowing, drifting on the fluctuations of power that held the rift open.
As the Leather Vest drew closer, the readouts changed to data on their ship. Course heading, hull integrity, radiation shielding. Several alerts climbed into the yellow as they drew nearer. When the nose of the ship passed through, everything went to read. Temperature rising, hull plates heating, radiation shielding weakening. A few of Red’s bridge crew looked back at their Lord, silently asking for permission to turn back.
But, Prime ordered them into the breach. So, into the breach they would go. Come high water or the All High Host.
“Continue on heading.” He commanded.
“What is it?” Demanded Hordwing over the com. He could hear the alerts over the channel, but was not at an angle where he could see anything on the bridge. “What’s wrong.”
“Nothing I imagine isn’t perfectly normal for passing between dimensions.” Red Hord growled. It was kinda nice that Hordwing wanted to maintain radio contact and make sure Red was okay. But did he really have to be so annoying about it? Red Hord wasn’t a hatchling fresh out of the tank! He was a Lord, promoted by Horde Prime himself same as Hordwing. He didn’t need one of his older brothers looking out for him.
The ship gave a shudder as it passed all the way through the rift.
Hordwing’s image on the com screen went fuzzy for a moment. His voice breaking up. “You alri- -Red? –Respond- -what- -appened, Red Hor-?”
The bridge crew scrambled to assess any possible damages. Hull integrity, atmosphere leakage, nitrogen levels. Anything that could indicate fatal damage to the ship. Everything came back just within acceptable limits. A little high. Definitely undress stress and definitely close to the border between ‘Acceptable’ and ‘Danger’. But still just the right side of acceptable. Whatever Prime did with his magic sword to open the rift and ground it so that it stayed open, he also grounded it to make it safe for his forces to pass through.
Red tried adjusting the frequency of his com to try and get a clearer channel out to Hordwing. “All systems normal.” He informed the other man tersely. “I shall message the Emperor with an update within the next six hours.”
“And me, too, Red.” Wing added, voice a low whisper again. “You’ll message me too, right?”
“As the situation allows.” He nodded to the other Lord. Then switched off the com. Then to his helmsman, “We’re through. Put us in a stationary orbit over the planet, then do a scan for 66694-42-003’s signal.”
Damn Zero-Zero-Three. The idiot couldn’t just fuck-off happily to the middle of nowhere. No. He just had to rip open a pimple in time and space to wave at Horde Prime. ‘Hello, Brother! I live! Come find me!’ Damn idiot.
And Hordwing’s –for lack of a better descriptor- clingy behavior was due in part to Zero-Zero-Three.
Red Hord and Hordwing always had an interesting dynamic from the first moment Red was named and promoted to the cabinet. They were very close in age, only one batch apart, but from different crèches. Wing rose through the ranks of the First Division and Red through the Second, so they never actually met face to face until his promotion. They worked together well, easily. Red Hord did not have so easy a time whenever he had to work collaboratively with Hordren or even Hode –and Hode was, in part, the reason he was promoted in the first place!
Then Hode turned traitor.
Wing and Red were there aboard the Velvet Glove when Hode and his Gar partner tried to steal the Sword. Wing was one of the ones that held him down when Prime chopped off his head. Wing was one of the few that got to hear the last thing Hode said to Prime before he died. A statement that shook Wing to his core.
Wing didn’t get the opportunity to process, however, because almost immediately, Hode was replaced by Zero-Zero-Three, whom was named Hordak.
Hordak was also close in age to Red Hord –three batches apart- they did not develop the same kind of easy working relationship that Red enjoyed with Wing. But they did work well together. They might have worked better together if Hordak knew more about Hode. Red so desperately wanted to tell him more about Hode. To confide what he knew to another brother.
Red couldn’t talk to Hordwing, he used to be a wing pilot before he was promoted and pilots had no filter. They talked too much and didn’t know what not to say. Red Hord could not talk to Hordwing. Hordak had been Hode’s favorite. He would have liked to talk to Hordak, but Hode never clued the younger clone into what he was doing. Hode intentionally kept Hordak ignorant. In hindsight, that ignorance was probably what, not only saved Hordak from being executed along with the rest of Hode’s Force Captains, but also allowed him to be promoted to the cabinet.
But then Hordak fainted in a strategy meeting and was immediately stripped of his rank and banished to the front lines.
Red remembered Wing suddenly grabbing his hand and squeezing harder than was necessary when they watched Prime wrap his hand around Hordak’s neck and lift their little brother gasping and wheezing from the floor.
Wing held down one brother while Prime cut his head off, then watched a second brother be lifted in a choke-hold before being cast out. Maybe Wing was the brother he should really tell about Hode. But Wing was also an idiot. A different kind of idiot from Hordak, but still an idiot was an idiot.
After Hordak’s –Zero-Zero-Three’s- banishment, that was when Wing started with the whole, ‘when we go to join the All High Host, we go together’ bullshit. He watched Prime banish one cabinet Lord, a brother of equal rank to his own, for having issues that were the fault of the cloning facility and not the brother’s himself. And he watched Prime kill another brother, also a cabinet Lord, but one with seniority, who has served Prime for years!
Somehow, he got it into his head that either he or Red Hord were going to be next. That the first time either one of them failed, Prime was going to kill them on the spot. Wing did not want to be apart from Red, he had grown very attached to his brother. So, if they were to go to the Host, he wanted them to go together. At the same time.
Red almost rolled his eyes at the thought. Wing didn’t get it. If a brother was executed by Horde Prime, they did not go to join the Host. Traitors and weaklings were unfit to fill the ranks of the Host. Traitors and weaklings did not get an afterlife.
After Hode was unceremoniously executed, Red abandoned him. Abandoned his ideas and his Plan. Moved on. Took everything he knew –really knew- about the older brother and locked in a box. Away, deep in the back of his mind where he didn’t have to think about it. His loyalty returning to where it belonged, to where it always should have been. To Prime. His Brother. Brother to all.
It was stupid anyway. Hode turned out to be an idiot. Only an idiot could think to supplant the Emperor of the Known Universe. That was what happened when you let an alien fuck you in the cloaca. It fucked up your brain too. If Hode hadn’t crawled into bed with that Gar from Eternia none of this would have happened. Zero-Zero-Three never would have ascended to the cabinet, and by extension never been banished, and Red Hord wouldn’t be commanding his ship through a terrifying rift in the very fabric of space to a shadow dimension to collect the idiot for Prime.
Sometimes, Red did wonder how things would be different if Hode had succeeded. What kind of Horde Prime would Lord Hode have been?
…
Four-Zero-Eight looked at the droplets of dark purple blood. Hearing the drip louder than it actually was. Hearing a pounding in his ears. His arms shook with just the effort of holding himself up and his vision swam. For half a moment, his mind failed to register what his Lord was saying.
“You stupid, worthless, incompetent, failure!” Lord Horrin was snarling, saliva spraying from his mouth as he spoke. He was so angry.
He kicked Four-Zero-Eight in the side and the younger clone went tumbling across the hanger floor. What were they doing in the hangar again? Was this even the hangar of the Wool Cardigan? Oh. Right. They were abourd the Vinyl Hood. Lord Hode had to save Horrin’s strike force from a mission gone bad.
“The rebels took Nordor because of you!” Looking around the hanger, Lord Horrin lifted a crowbar that had been left out next to a batwing in mid-repair.
Vision swimming, Four-Zero-Eight barely register his Lord raising the crowbar over his head. He closed his eyes, preemptively wincing at the pain he knew was coming.
But the blow didn’t come.
“That’s enough!”
Four-Zero-Eight opened his eyes, vision still blurred. It took his brain longer than he felt it should have to understand what he was seeing. At first, he thought he must have been saved by a shadow. A figure of darkness grabbing Horrin’s wrist, holding back the blow. But that was insane. Shadows didn’t move like figures. Staring at them, breathing hard, Four-Zero-Eight blinked his nictitating eyelids until his vision cleared enough for the scene to make sense.
It wasn’t a shadow. It was a cape. Long, and black, and hooded. The hood drawn low over the head so that the face was all in shadow. The only thing visible, the crimson glow of his eyes. Lord Hode. Lord of the Third Division, and commander of the Vinyl Hood, the ship they were currently on. Lord Hode stayed Horrin’s hand.
“This is not how you educate a Force Captain that has failed you.” Hode said, voice issuing from the shadows of the hood, sounding as deep and dark as the shadows themselves. Hode had the same voice they all had, Horde Prime’s voice, but –somehow- Hode knew how to manipulate his tone and pitch so make himself sound so different when he wanted to. Hode looked down at Four-Zero-Eight, noting just how severe his injuries were. “This is not how you execute one for failure either.”
Horrin pulled his arm out of the other Lord’s hold. “You do not get to dictate to me how I deal with my own Force Captains, you Old Ghoul!”
“But I do get to dictate what goes on, on my own ship.” Hode replied calmly. “And I dictate that brothers are not to be bludgeoned with crude tools on my hangar floor.” It looked like Horrin was about to respond, but Hode cut him off before he could. “If your Force Captain failed to take the rebel stronghold of Nordor, perhaps it is because you –his superior- did not adequately prepare him for the mission.”
“How dare you-!” Horrin turned to fully face the other Lord.
“How dare you!” Hode snapped back, raising his voice only to match Horrin’s. “You fail in the mission our Brother chose to honor you with. You needed me to save you. Then you come into my ship and get blood all over my hangar blaming a subordinate for your own failure as a commander!” Hode snapped his fingers. “Lord Horrin is tired from his ordeal, Zero-Zero-Three, show him to an officer’s stateroom so he may rest.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Four-Zero-Eight blinked blurry eyes as a still pillar wearing a dress and a Force Captain’s badge stepped forward to politely escort Lord Horrin out of the hangar.
Hode bent down in front of him, the only thing in focus.
Taloned fingers gently brushed hair out of his face, examining his wounds. “He really did a number on you, little brother.”
Four-Zero-Eight had to spit blood out of his mouth before he could speak. “I am grateful to my Lord Horrin for taking the time to teach me this lesson.”
The words sounded robotic and insincere, even to his own ears. But working in the Second Division under Lord Horrin had thought him what to say and when to say it. Even when he was half delirious. He knew how to get by. He knew how to survive. It was how he was able to rise to become a Force Captain in the first place. Not because he was the best, most skilled, or most competent. It was because he knew how to play their game.
Those glowing red eyes blinked at him from under the darkness of the hood. His response impressing Lord Hode somehow. “My, my, Four-Zero-Eight, you just might be wasted under a Lord like him.”
…
“Lord Red Hord,” a bridge officer pulled him from his reminiscing, “orbit is stable and we have located a signal consistent with 66694-42-003’s. Your orders, sir?”
Red stood from his throne. “Our Emperor wasn’t his little brother returned to him. Let’s go pick him up.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Sequel to “Genetic Composite”.
Second installment in the fic series, “A Song of Steel and Light”.
...
Unlike almost every other cabin, and corridor, and chamber aboard the Vinyl Hood, Lord Hode’s Gallery Deck was extremely well lit. So well lit, in fact, that it was almost too bright. Zero-Zero-Three had to squint the nictitating membrane of his eyelids for several minutes while his eyes adjusted to the brightness. The vibrant ruby glow dimming to just a matte red.
Zero-Zero-Three had only been a sub-Commander working under Force Captain Six-Seven-Four for a little short of three weeks. Ever since his own sub-Commander was killed in action and he was the lucky brother out of his unit that was chosen to be promoted to the newly opened position. This would be the first command briefing he would attend that was given by Lord Hode himself.
He had never seen the cabinet Lord up close before. Lord Hode of the Third Division. They said he was eccentric and odd, but also a tactical genius.
Standing at a rest just a step behind his Force Captain, Zero-Zero-Three was seeing the ‘eccentric and odd’ part.
The Gallery Deck was exactly what the name would imply. A gallery of alien artifacts. Items taken from the planets Hode conquered for Horde Prime, or planets that were already conquered and part of the Empire, but Hode had to visit them for one reason or another. There was a mask carved out of a kerek fragment, with shells inlayed in designs that gave the illusion of depth and contours of a face. A blanket woven from reeds dyed bright colors, the patterns coming together to depict an alien scene. A primitive blade sharpened from an animal tusk with an anthropomorphic hilt. Jewelry, and pottery, and decorative boxes, primitive weapons, intricately woven or knitted textiles of diverse fibers, traditional clothing, ceremonial dresses, sculptures, and illustrations.
In all honesty, Zero-Zero-Three did not see the point of many of these things. Most of it didn’t even serve a function. The headdresses looked heavy and would be a liability in a battle. The clothing was cumbersome and impractical. The illustrations just hung on the walls and didn’t do anything. The sculptures took up space around the chamber and forced the officers to navigate around them. The pottery looked functional, but they were decorated so unnecessarily. Who even needed a solid gold, jewel encrusted goblet anyway? Why couldn’t they just drink out of a standard issue commissary tumbler like everyone else?
“This is the third time we have had to put down a rebellion on this world.” Hode announced, sounding annoyed. Possibly even frustrated.
Anyone who knew of Lord Hode’s rise to power knew that he was actually instrumental in putting down the first two rebellions. The first when he was still just a sub-Commander like Zero-Zero-Three. Young and inexperienced, he somehow managed to take down the slippery and illusive King Hiss, a victory that earned him a promotion to Territory Captain of the planet. Years later, after another rebellion had gained momentum, he managed to capture and execute the leader of that one as well. King Miro, the supposed ‘rightful ruler’ of the planet. Now Hode was a cabinet Lord, in charge of many star systems, a quarter of the Empire, and he was still having to come back here.
To Eternia.
To put down a new rebellion.
“This time they’re calling themselves the ‘Heroic Warriors’.” Hode pressed a button on his datapad and the bright lights of the Gallery Deck went dark, holograms of the leaders of the ‘Heroic Warrios’ being projected on the glass display cases of his art collection. Ram Man, Mekanneck, Stratos, Man-at-Arms, and King Randor –the son of the late King Miro whom Hode executed. The boy had grown up –as naturally born being tended to do- and had started a rebellion of his own –as the children of rebel leaders tended to do.
Zero-Zero-Three stood at rest as he listened to his Lord explain each ‘Heroic Warriors’ powers and abilities. For all coming from the same planet they were widely diverse. Such diversity did not usually exist naturally on one planet.
“This has to be the last one.” Hode really wanted to drive the point and make sure that each and every one of his officers understood that he was sick and tired of having to come back to the already conquered world to put down the same rebellion every few years. “Eternia needs to be stable.” There was a strange kind of emphasis on that statement, a tone that implied that Eternia’s ‘stability’ was more than just social and political. But Zero-Zero-Three did not know enough about the planet to hazard a guess. “Do you know why new rebellions keep cropping up on this world while other planets will submit quietly?”
No one answered that question. It was a general, unspoken, unwritten rule that when a cabinet Lord posited a question to a room instead of directing it at an individual, they did not want an answer. Besides, no one was gonna guess anyway, for fear of getting it wrong.
“It is because the Eternians think they have ‘destiny’ on their side.” Hode announced, giving his officers the answer they never would have guessed on their own. The Horde did not believe in ‘destiny’. “They have a prophesy that keeps cropping up every generation. A kind of poetry they have put to music to rouse and inspire their masses.”
Force Captain Six-Seven-Four scoffed loudly.
The lights still dark, Hode moved to one of his display cases, his cape whispering around him. A shadow moving among the shadows. He opened the glass and withdrew an alien instrument. Shaped from wood, with a long neck, and strings. Hode began plucking his talons along the strings. The notes forming a haunting melody.
“This is what keeps getting the Eternian’s blood up.” He announced.
Then Lord Hode began to do something odd with his voice. Something Zero-Zero-Three had never heard one of his brothers do before. It was like he was speaking, but the syllables were rising and falling, the words elongating at the end of every other line. His speech weaving in the with notes he was plucking on his alien instrument. Almost as if the two were one entity. The instrument’s sounds and Hode’s voice.
“If we should lose the fight, “Light’s Hope burns ever brighter. “One hundred days and nights, “Engines, pistons form a choir.
“If blood should stain the skies, “As waxing stars re-ignite. From Despondent dark they rise, And strike a chord of steel and light.”
In front of him, Zero-Zero-Three’s Force Captain fidgeted slightly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other impatiently. Nobody would have noticed except that Zero-Zero-Three was standing directly behind him. It was a little disrespectful to do in the presence of your Lord, even if you were impatient and didn’t see the relevance of this… music. Zero-Zero-Three certainly didn’t see any relevance to making all of the Force Captains and sub-Commanders listen to this alien… noise.
“Embrace the spark of Grayskull’s last. “Rekindle dying embers. “As her brother bares his blade, “By the Power, untampered.
“She brings light in darkest night, “The sword forged for Honor. “Of Protection breathes new life, “An heir for Mara’s redemption.”
Zero-Zero-Three found himself suppressing the urge to sigh. He had heard that Lord Hode was eccentric and odd. He hadn’t realized when he was promoted to sub-Commander just how much of his Lord’s eccentricities and oddness he would have to endure. Would all mission briefings be like this? He hoped not. The Horde had no need of music. The Horde had no music of their own. They did not need to borrow noise from other planets.
Then Hode launched into a repetition part of the song. Zero-Zero-Three didn’t know it at the time, but later he would learn this was the part of a song called the ‘chorus’.
“No sacrifices in vain. “Behold the bleeding stars. “Unholy night, the skies have been stained. “Return - not without scars.
“Their coming – prophesied, “Between blades of red-wings ride, “Wielding blades of steel and light, “The purest spirit, sealed inside.
“He'll break the night. “She'll break the night. “They'll break the night.”
After those last three lines, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, Zero-Zero-Three thought the song would be over. He shifted his rest into an attention, ready to take his assignment and deploy down to the planet.
But then Lord Hode kept singing.
“Of Runeswrod’s heavy hearts, “Like fabric, torn and tattered, “Two worlds ripped apart, “A true bond cannot be shattered.
“My prison, Despondence. “And salvation uncertain. “Redemption to find worth in. “Have-“
Did Hode’s voice skip for a moment? Was this a difficult song? The spoken language of Eternia was one of the languages all clones were programed with. Singing in Eternian should not be any more of less difficult than speaking in Eternian.
“Have all I slain deserved it?
“From ashes, resurgence, “To cleanse this ‘verse or burn it. “To fate they are but servants. “They’ll break these chains we’re cursed with.”
Hode seemed to recover and dove back into the melody. The lyrics flowing with the tones of the instrument seamlessly.
“Through windows to the past, “Cold touch of Revena’s Last. “Even the Batking’s hearts, “Forgotten, long departed.
“No sacrifices in vain. “Behold the bleeding stars. “Unholy night, the skies have been stained. “Return - not without scars.
“Their coming – prophesied, “Between blades of red-wings ride, “Wielding blades of steel and light. “The purest spirit, sealed inside.
“He'll break the night. “She'll break the night. “They'll break the night.”
Finally, as the last notes faded into the dark, Lord Hode relaxed the instrument in his hands and stopped singing.
“That is why Eternia has been so problematic for us.” Hode announced. “They have legends and prophesies. Shining heroes and magic swords. They are convinced that –this time- the prophesized heroes will appear. This time. They’ll cut through the red wings of our banners. This time. They’ll wield magical blades of steel and light. This time. They’ll break the metaphorical darkness of Imperial control. This time. This time. This time. That’s the problem with cultures with prophesies. They instill an irritating amount of false hope. Hope that motivates rebellion. To control Eternia, truly control it, we have to destroy their hope.”
“But was it nessisary for us to stand here and listen to that.” Zero-Zero-Three muttered. He didn’t even realize he was speaking out loud until Lord Hode reached for his datapad again and commanded the lights back up.
“Who said that?” He demanded.
Force Captain Six-Seven-Four looked back at him. Turning to glare at Zero-Zero-Three. Make sure the subordinate officer understood just how much trouble he was in.
There was nothing Zero-Zero-Three could do. His options were either have his commanding officer turn him over, or confess on his own. Both would yield the same results. But one of them would at least ensure that he did not lose respect from his brothers.
“I did.” Zero-Zero-Three announced, raising his hand so that Lord Hode could see him behind the other officers of higher rank. “I do not understand the relevance, my Lord.”
Captain Six-Seven-Four stepped to the side. All the higher ranked officers moves out of the way so that Lord Hode could get a clear and unobstructed view of the brother that had dared question their Lord in front of his subordinates.
Hode studied him. His eyes, glowing ruby red from under the darkness of his hood moving down from Zero-Zero-Three’s face, taking in his uniform, the sub-Commander badge on his chest, his exposed thighs, knee-high boots. Then back up again, finally meeting the younger clone’s eyes when he was done. “What is your designation, sub-Commander?”
Zero-Zero-Three swallowed. He was going to die. He knew it. Lord Hode was going to execute him for his insubordination. “I am 66694-42-003, my Lord.”
A clone from batch number sixty-six thousand six-hundred and ninety-four. From crèche number forty-two. Hatched out of tank number three. Individual designation simplified to just Zero-Zero-Three.
“The relevance is to help you –all of you- understand the enemy you are about to fight.” Hode announced. “A great deal can be understood about a species by studying their art. Music –that’s what this was- is a form of art. You should study art, Zero-Zero-Three. If you understand a species’ art, you will understand that species. And if you understand them, you can control them.”
I was not expecting so many people to like my background OC. But since he is so well liked, I was inspired to do this little sketch of him and [a canon character from the Master of the Universe lore]. I apologize for the poorly drawn art. I’m a writer, not an illustrator.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hordak used to be a Horde clone action hero.
Now he’s one step short of an invalid being bossed around by a catgirl half his height.
...
Dragging a felt-tipped medical marker over his skin, Hordak tracked the spread of his degradation. The discoloration on his forearm had extended thirty-five millimeters since the last time he marked it –in his Sanctum, shortly before Catra returned from the Wastes. That was the fasted it had spread since he first became aware of his condition so long ago. Usually, he was able to keep the spread down to a minimum by keeping up a healthy routine or maintain nutrition, hygiene, regular rest, and –of course- regular checkups and medical attention.
But the stress of his flight from the Fright Zone, the unclean conditions of the Wastes, the inconsistent nutrition, the decrease in opportunities to clean one’s self, and the lack of access to medical technologies, had allowed his condition to worsen and the spread to accelerate.
Entrapta had drawn the older mark for him.
She seemed fascinated by his degradation. But then, she was fascinated by almost everything that was new to her. But his degradation –and his failed cloning attempts- seemed of a particular import to her. Almost as important to her as the portal itself. At the time, Hordak thought the interest was born from a desire to know more about him and his people. It was an interest that endeared her to him even further. The idea that she… cared to know about his origins.
In hindsight, Hordak realized, her interest in his cloning and the defects that caused his degradation were more likely a spy scouting for exploitable weaknesses rather than a burgeoning desire to understand and connect.
Hordak scoffed out loud. Cursing his own naiveté, and his own… weakness.
Horde did not form connections.
Each and every cloned soldier was an island.
Hordak stowed the marker in a drawer and looked around the First Ones sickbay.
After discovering the galley, and finally figuring out that the First Ones crystal on his exo-suit could open doors for him, Hordak put more effort into exploring the ship than he did into the task Catra had assigned to him. On his explorations he found the mess attached to the galley, a handful of crew quarters, what might have been an observation deck (the view completely buried in sand), and this wonderful sickbay.
He was not as familiar with First Ones medical technology as he was Imperial Horde technology, and he couldn’t read any of the writing, so he couldn’t tell the difference between a blood thinner and a coagulant. He definitely wouldn’t be drinking or injecting anything found in the sickbay. But he knew a marker meant for tracking the spread of skin irritants when he saw one, and he knew the smell of antiseptics and antibacterial/antimicrobials.
Sickbay was where he came to take off the exo-suit and clean underneath it. Wiping his sensitive skin down with antibacterial wipes he found in the same drawer as the marker, tracking the progress of his condition, and cleaning the inside of his armor. Having an exo-suit that allowed him to function as if he were as strong and healthy as any Horde clone was pointless if he succumbed to an infection brought on by poor hygiene. Hordak always did have very strict hygiene. Ever since his condition became apparent to him. Nothing ingrained hygiene discipline like a chronic medical condition.
When he was satisfied that everything was clean and sterile once again, Hordak fitted his exo-suit back on. It was difficult without Entrapta’s help. But then, everything seemed difficult without Entrapta’s help now. Somehow, against his clone training and personal judgment, Hordak had allowed himself to become dependent on her. Now that she was gone he was… less self-reliant than he had been before.
‘You are not strong if you require my help to conceal your condition. You cannot rely on other people.’ Hode’s words rang through his head again.
Hordak spent years serving the old cabinet Lord before he succeeded the old man’s seat. Hode tried to teach Hordak everything he knew. Honestly, and truly teach him. Mentor him. Unlike some other cabinet Lords who played power games with their Force Captains –like he himself played power games with his own Force Captains. Hode was not trying to ‘Lord over’, but actually trying to teach.
‘It would be very inconvenient for me if you were to die, Zero-Zero-Three. See that you take better care of yourself.’
How had Hordak managed to fail each and every single lesson the older clone tried to impart to him?
…
“Are your teams ready?” Hode stood with his back to the younger clone. He was staring out the viewport at the planet below them.
A beautiful gem of swirling pearl and ivory shades, the view unobstructed by moons. This world had no natural satellites, and was right in the middle of an important shipping rout between Capital Core and the Old Revena system. In short, it was right in the middle of one of the Horde Empire’s most important supply routes, and –until just recently- had been under complete and total Horde control.
That was, until a handful of insurgent groups managed to get organized and turn themselves into something resembling a collaborative Rebellion. Not just resembling a Rebellion. It was a Rebellion. A Rebellion that turned into a revolution when they overthrew the occupying Horde forces and took the assigned Territory Captain prisoner.
That could not stand.
Lord Hode was tasked by Prime himself to rectify the situation. Take back the planet. Crush the Rebels into the dirt they crawled out of. Make an example of them so that insolence like this didn’t happen again.
“Yes, my Lord.” Zero-Zero-Three saluted, even though he knew Hode wouldn’t see the action.
With a bit of an unnecessary swish of his cape, the older clone turned around to face his subordinate. The red glow of his eyes the only part of his face Zero-Zero-Three could see from under his hood. Those crimson glowing eyes narrowed at the younger clone.
“You’re thinner than you were when we last spoke.” Hode observed. His deamon came to rest on his shoulder and the old clone reached a talon up to strong under the android’s chin affectionately. “Have you decreased your caloric intake for some reason?”
“No, my Lord.” Zero-Zero-Three assured him. He always felt uncomfortable discussing this with Hode. It wasn’t just a weakness, it was a shameful weakness. One that could not be fixed with training or conditioning, and had no place in the Horde. Hode was a cabinet Lord, the highest seat of power a clone could achieve, a position directly under Horde Prime himself. Hode should have killed Zero-Zero-Three outright the moment the older clone learned of the… issue. But he didn’t. And he never told Zero-Zero-Three why. “In fact, I’ve increased my intake by three percent. My body just- doesn’t seem to retain it…”
Hode gave a hmph of displeasure. “Change your ration intake again, higher proteins and fewer carbohydrates.” That was not a suggestion, it was a command. “And alter your uniform to conceal the loss of body mass.”
Zero-Zero-Three offered a respectful bow to his Lord. “Your advice-“ they were commands “-is invaluable, my Lord. I shall rely on your wisdom.”
This humility, however, did not have the desired effect of flattering his Lord’s vanity. “The Horde value strength above all else, Zero-Zero-Three.” He snapped in apparent irritation. “Don’t flatter me with pretty words while you waste away in front of me and handicap my own plans. You are not strong if you require my help to conceal your condition. You cannot rely on other people. You cannot rely on me.”
“My Lord, I meant no offence.” Zero-Zero-Three was quick to assure the older clone.
“Your meaning is not relevant.” Hode snapped. “Your attitude is what is unsatisfactory. If you do not die on this mission, I will try and educate you upon your return. If the Territory Captain is still alive, bring him back to me. I’ll try and educate him too. Take your away teams and go.”
Zero-Zero-Three offered a silent salute, and preformed an almost theater-level about face.
“And, Force Captain,” Hode called after him, “do try not to die. It would be very inconvenient for me if you were to die, Zero-Zero-Three. See that you take better care of yourself.”
…
The cabin of the drop-ship rocked as the craft was buffeted by the planet’s atmosphere.
The exosphere and thermosphere were nothing. Like passing through light mist. The drop-ship didn’t even feel it. Force Captain Zero-Zero-Three would not even have known, had the pilot not announced each time they passed through an atmospheric layer.
It was the mesosphere where they actually started to feel the movement of the craft. The first bit of turbulence, combined with the craft’s internal gravity competing with the planetary gravity outside.
Things calmed down again in the stratosphere after the pilot cut the ship’s internal gravity. It was like riding a wave. Not completely smooth, but certainly not shaky or bumpy.
Then they got down into the troposphere and Zero-Zero-Three’s whole squad was thrown against their crash restraints. The cabin giving a sharp jolt and shake. Zero-Zero-Three grit his teeth, baring the bright red fangs to the rest of his troopers. He hoped the crash harnesses didn’t leave bruises. One of the symptoms of his defect was an inability to heal. Bruises would just continue to worsen until he managed to get back to the Vinyl Hood and the regeneration technology in its sickbay.
The turbulence shifted from violent jolts and buffets, to just more general shuddering and shaking. They must be close to the planet’s surface now.
“Beginning final decent, Captain!” The pilot called.
Zero-Zero-Three only gave a curt nod as a reply.
He pulled out his weapon to give it one final check before they deployed. In its resting state, it looked like a harmless metal tube, no more than forty-two centimeters in length. But when Zero-Zero-Three twisted it just so, the metal tube extended, expanding out from both ends to become a long spear-like weapon just a little over two meters in length. His force-pike. Zero-Zero-Three flicked a thumb over the grip, and the blade at the end of it crackled with electricity, red and mean looking. He switched it off again and collapsed the weapon back into its resting state.
Unlocking his crash restraints, Zero-Zero-Three stood to address his troops.
“Any soldier who dies with a clean weapon can’t join the rest of us in the High Host!” He announced. An unnecessary reminder. All Horde clones knew their dogma.
The Horde did not have a religion per-say. They did not have gods or spirits, they did not place significance on ritual or ceremony, they certainly didn’t think much of the concept of ‘sin’ that other species seemed to be obsessed with. But they did have an afterlife.
A place where worthy soldiers, who served their Emperor well got to join after they fell in battle. The All High Host. The greatest army the Underworlds had ever known, comprised of only the worthy. A soldier who fell too in battle with his weapons unbloodied did not get to join the Host. A clone that expired in the tank, or shortly after hatching did not get to join the Host. Deserters, defectors, and traitors no matter their prowess in battle were equally unworthy to become part of the All High Host.
Only those who died serving the Emperor of the Known Universe, Horde Prime, were worthy.
The floor of the cabin opened up, the panels sliding under their seats on two tiers. The clone troopers held onto handles on the cabin walls to keep from jumping down prematurely.
Below them, they could see natives in poorly matched ‘uniforms’ running to intercept them.
“Those are brave natives down there.” Zero-Zero-Three reminded his troops. Those natives had managed to overthrow the occupying Horde forces that were placed on this rock to rule them. “Let’s go kill them!”
There was an answering chorus of “Hoo-rah!”
Zero-Zero-Three jumped down through the open floor, his force-pike in his hands. He extended the weapon in mid-fall. Sinking the blade and a third of the shaft into the native insurgent he landed on to break his fall.
All around him, other Horde clone troopers were making similar jumps and breaking their falls in similar fashion. Blood spattered into the air. Green and bright. The aliens’ blood shining emerald in the light of the planet’s twin suns. The scent of fear and feces filled the air.
When most beings think of ‘the scent of death’ they imagine decay. Rot. Pungent and sour. But that was not accurate. That was the scent of old death. New death, fresh death, was the stink of shit and fear. It wafted around Zero-Zero-Three. He breathed it in through his nasal cavity, the stench coaxing something primal and predatory in his brain. Some hold-out from when the Horde were a natural hatched species and not cloned military engine. It heightened his senses and tightened the snap of his reflexes. Made him more alert. Ready. Dangerous. Shit, and fear, and urine, and blood. The scent of prey.
Wrenching the blade out of the body he was on, Zero-Zero-Three was sprayed with thick green blood. It spattered across his face, staining his skin. But he didn’t pause, he didn’t even seem to notice as he twisted around to bring the shaft of his pike around into the glubog (equivalent of a kidney) of the next nearest native. The creature went down, clutching their side, and Zero-Zero-Three plunged the pike into their skull. It cracked like a faulty cloning tank, spilling green blood and pink brain matter over the polished roof.
His team made quick work of all the hostiles on the roof. Soon, only Horde clone troopers were still standing. Their boots making ripples in the pools of green blood that were spreading over the floor.
Zero-Zero-Three looked across the roof he was standing on to the building next door. The capital building. His real target.
Now, if the second team would get their thumbs out of their cloacas and deactivate the buildin’s shield, Zero-Zero-Three and his team could get inside.
He looked down into the street below.
There was the beta-team, held up by their own share of angry and hostile natives. Reaching into his battle belt, Zero-Zero-Three took out three of the same small throwing blades that Hode favored. About as long as his middle finger, sharp, but with multiple points like the wings of the Horde Imperial banner. Zero-Zero-Three threw them down into the disorderly ‘line’ of insurgents below. His aim was not as good as Hode’s would have been, but then, the throwing blades were the older clone’s favorite weapon. But his throw was strong and Zero-Zero-Three managed to –if not kill- then at least disable two of the hostiles.
One of his own clone troopers looked up to see where the projectiles had come from. Their glowing eyes met across the distance. Then the trooper below was run through the stomach by a native’s bayonet. Idiot. That was what he got for allowing himself to become distracted. The Empire had no use for just weakness of mind and character. Zero-Zero-Three hoped not to see him in the High Host when his number was called.
In spite of the casualty to their own side, the beta-team managed to get to the capitol building’s breakers and deactivate the building’s power –and by extension, its shield.
Getting a running start, Zero-Zero-Three used his force-pike to poll vault from his roof into the capitol building. Twisting his body mid-flight to get his legs in front of him so that he was feet first when he smashed through the window he was aiming at.
Colorful shards of stained glass that might have been depicting a scene from the aliens’ mythos erupted around him in a jagged halo of sharp, knife-like glass.
There was a pair of native guards in the corridor when he burst in. But the violence of his appearance startled them, and they hesitated. They had not been a warrior people prior to Horde occupation and they still were not much of a warrior people now. Collapsing his force-pike to be more efficient in the now close quarters of the building corridor, Zero-Zero-Three stabbed one alien at the base of their neck-column, and kicked the other. One died almost instantly, the other staggered back against the wall. Wrenching the blade out of the first body, Zero-Zero-Three slashed across the ocular organs of the second, causing the creature to blead out.
He glanced up and down the corridor, getting his bearings. Then dashed down the hall to where the schematics he studied during the mission briefing said the governor’s office should be.
Zero-Zero-Three found it on his first try.
Bursting through the office doors, re-extending his force-pike to full length in mid-action.
The central office for organization and control of the planet. From the console in the desk, Zero-Zero-Three could punch in a command to shut down all non-Horde weapons on the planet.
The self-appointed leader of the rebellion that fancied itself a revolution was standing behind the desk. Four rebel guards surrounded and protected them. Two of them carried laser-rifles. Zero-Zero-Three register the weapons just seconds before the two aliens lifted the barrels to face the door.
Not thinking, just acting, Zero-Zero-Three dropped to the floor, laying the shaft of his pike flat against his stomach as he curled into a summersault. Rolling forward to close the distance between himself and the rebel soldiers.
He ended the summersault in a crouch, right in the middle of the four of them. He swung his weapon in a wide crescent, twirling the shaft so the momentum could put more force into the blows. He knocked the aliens’ multiple legs out from under them, bringing all four to the ground at the same time that he bounced back to his feet. Looming above them, Zero-Zero-Three sunk his blade into the hearts of one, while shifting his footing to stomp on the esophagus of another. Killing two at once. A third, he slashed as the alien was trying to get back up, running it through with his pike. He had to kick the body hard putting most of his weight behind hid foot to get the creature off the shaft, and the body fell backwards onto the fourth. Pinned under its own fallen comrade, it was helpless when Zero-Zero-Three brought the blade of his pike down into the aliens ocular organs.
All four guards dead, the office carpet –previously a rich golden color- soaking up their viscous green blood, Zero-Zero-Three turned to face the rebel leader.
The native reached once of their tentacles into a drawer of the desk and pulled out a short-range burst pistol. The alien raised its tentacle, pointing the weapon at his Horde attacker. But Zero-Zero-Three moved faster, zigging to the side to avoid any lucky shot the creature might get off, and swinging his pike down so that the blade severed the limb holding the pistol.
Howling in pain, the rebel leader collapsed to the floor, holding the severed stump of their tentacle with two others.
“I surrender!” The alien sobbed, or rather, said with a wet throaty sound that was their species’ equivalent of a sob. “I surrender!”
They were the leader of their so-called ‘revolution’. They probably thought they had value as a political hostage.
They didn’t realize that Horde had no use for ‘political hostages’.
Zero-Zero-Three kicked the sobbing creature out of the way, the kick landing in the alien’s glubog. He booted up the governor’s terminal and punched in the code that shut down all non-Horde weapons on the planet. Within a matter of moments, every single native, rebel insurgent and uninvolved bystander alike became defenseless, exposed, and vulnerable to the Horde.
That done, Zero-Zero-Three picked up the still sobbing alien leader –former leader- and carried them to the central office’s observation balcony. Using the creature’s own tentacles –the unsevered ones- to tie them to the railing, Zero-Zero-Three hung the native out for all their followers to see.
Then he cut the creature across the ocular organs and let them bleed out. Bright green blood that sparkled emerald in the light of the suns dripping down into the street below. Nothing killed rebel moral like gruesome public displays.
His communicator beeped as he walked back into the office, eyes scanning the wall for more doors or exits that might be concealing more hostiles. He did not want to go to the Al High Host as the idiot who died after the mission was almost done. Never letting his guard down, keeping his pike raised, Zero-Zero-Three tapped his Force Captain badge, opening the two-way channel. “Report.”
“It’s over, Captain.” Said the voice on the other end. A voice identical to Zero-Zero-Three’s own. They were all clones made from the same being. They were all identical apart from environmental factors. “The rebels are routed and those still alive are in retreat.”
“Kill them, sub-Commander.” Zero-Zero-Three ordered. “We do not leave enemies at our back to rally and return.”
“Yes, sir!” The channel did not click off there. In the background, Zero-Zero-Three could hear the screams of non-Horde creatures dying, or begging for their lives. “There is one other item of note, Captain. The rebels never killed the Territory Captain, they kept his as a political hostage. He and his staff are still alive. We have them in custody if you’d like to debrief them, sir.”
Well, Lord Hode had ordered Zero-Zero-Three to bring him the Territory Captain if he were still alive.
“I would.” He shut off the comm channel.
Things were quiet by the time he reached the ground level of the capitol building. The only non-Horde beings were immobile bodies lying in pools of thick green blood. The Territory Captain and his staff were already in the lobby, massaging abrasions on their wrists from where they had been bound. Five Horde clones. None of them in standard issue uniforms.
Striding up to the group, Zero-Zero-Three looked them over. “Which of you was the Territory Captain in charge of this world?”
One of them stepped forward, raising his chin. “Captain Eight-Two-Seven.”
Zero-Zero-Three nodded. “You’re coming with me.” He grabbed the other clone by the arm and dragged him out of the building. “Kill his men.”
…
Back aboard the Vinyl Hood, Zero-Zero-Three stood at the Territory Captain’s back while Lord Hode paced in front of them.
“You were given this world to hold it, Captain.” Hode informed the Territory Captain.
His boots barely making a sound, the hem of his cape ghosting over the floor as he moved. With that cape surrounding him, and that hood up over his head, Hode looked like a part of the darkness itself. A living shadow. All that could be seen of him in the dim light was his glowing red eyes. Identical to the other two clones, but somehow more intimidating that the two younger clones could ever hope to be.
“I did hold the planet!” Argued the Captain.
Behind him, Zero-Zero-Three could not help but shake his head. The idiot actually thought he could talk back to a cabinet Lord and still walk away with his life? Moron.
“For five years, I held that backwater dump for the Empire!”
“And yet, I had to travel seven-hundred lightyears away from my quarter of the Empire to take it back for you.” Hode informed the Territory Captain. “If you need a Lord to fly out and rescue you every time the locals get a little restless, then you’re not holding it!”
“I did my job-“
“No. You didn’t.” Hode cut him off. “My Force Captain did your job.”
The Territory Captain turned around to glare at Zero-Zero-Three. A younger clone from a later batch, standing at parade rest, his expression neutral and staring ahead. An obedient military robot. “This mindless piece of luh’suh-“
“Zero-Zero-Three, you have my permission to silence him.” Hode announced.
Obediently, the younger clone stepped forward and delivered a hard punch to the Territory Captain’s middle mass. The other clone doubled over, sinking to his knees in front of Zero-Zero-Three, arms wrapped around his diaphragm.
“I had hoped to educate you, Captain.” Hode continued to speak even if the Territory Captain was no longer looking at him. “But if you’re just going to argue excuses for your incompetence, then no lessons can be learned here. As shame. I do so hate to waste resources. But then, an officer who cannot learn from his failings is not a resource, is he? An officer who cannot learn from his failings has no value. If you have no value, then you serve no purpose.” A pause to shift his glowing gaze to his own Force Captain. “Zero-Zero-Three, what do we do with things that serve no purpose?”
“Discard them, my Lord.” Nodded the younger clone.
The Lord nodded.
Reaching a hand into his belt, Zero-Zero-Three pulled out another of those throwing blades his Lord favored. Small, but sharp, and multi-pointed like the wings of their banners. He slashed the winged blade across the kneeling Captain’s throat in one quick motion.
Territory Captain Eight-Two-Seven fell to the floor. One hand clutching his open throat as he bled out. A pool of dark purple forming at Zero-Zero-Three’s feet.
He took one step to the side to avoid his boots getting stained. Reaching a hand to his chest, Zero-Zero-Three called for a clean-up crew to service his Lord’s sanctum.
“Do you know how to hold a planet, Zero-Zero-Three?” Hode asked.
…
Hordak locked the collar of his exo-suit into place.
He had been living –if you could call it ‘living’- on Etheria for almost thirty years by this point. Not only had Hordak failed to capture the whole of the planet, he failed to hold the parts that he had conquered.
“What are you still doing in here?”
Hordak turned at the voice to see Catra leaning against the sickbay doorframe. Thank the Host she didn’t appear until after his armor and exo-suit was back in place. Hordak did not trust the feline soldier not to kill him while his back was turned and he was vulnerable.
“I am no use to you if my…” he hated the word he was about to admit to her hearing “…infirmity prevents me from preforming the task you desire.”
“I didn’t ask what you were doing in here, I asked what you were still doing in here!” Catra snapped, impatient. “If you’re too pathetic to dress yourself, maybe I should get one of the guys to help you.”
“That will not be necessary.” Hordak assured her. “I am quite self-sufficient.”
He tried to brush past the small cat-woman.
Catra blocked his path, throwing one arm across the doorway and gripping the frame on the other side. “Just make sure you actually are preforming that task.” She told him. “If you’re not doing what I asked, then there’s no point to me keeping your gloomy tail around at all.”
“Your meaning is clear.” He nodded to her, refusing to appear intimidated by this uppity alien with an inflated sense of her own power, that was half his height.
‘If you have no value, then you serve no purpose. Zero-Zero-Three, what do we do with things that serve no purpose?’