Chapter Text
"Deep within the Whispering Woods, hidden from the eyes of the world, stood an ancient structure known as the Crystal Castle. Created over a thousand years ago by the First Ones as a sort of base of operations for a group of warriors know as Squadron Greyskull. They arrived on Etheria from another world in order to study the Natural Magic that flowed throughout the entire planet. They were led by a young warrior named Mara. She was the first person to weld the fabulous Sword of Protection, which allows her to transform herself into She-Ra, The most Powerful Woman in the Universe-"
*Beep boop bwoop*
"Yes, Emily, I know that you already know all of this. I'm setting the mood for my autobiography."
*Beerp bep beep?*
"Well, I suppose you have a point. Anyone who would read it should really should know the story by this point. But what if they've been living in a cave or something and haven't heard about how Adora, Catra and all of us Princesses managed to defeat The Horde, take out Horde Prime, and stop the Heart of Etheria?"
"Ber-k beep."
"OK, That's just rude."
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The young woman used her purple prehensile hair to turn off her recorder and stow it inside of her belt pouch. Princess Entrapta looked down at her Metal, three legged, spherical companion with intensity and excitement as they made their way through the Whispering Woods. Adora, also known as She-Ra, the Princess of Power, had finally given her permission to examine the Castle, now that the Heart of Etheria was destroyed and there wasn't any real danger posed by allowing the Tech obsessed young woman to study the remains of the high tech facility.
"it's not much farther now, Emily!" The young woman reassured her mechanical friend. Her hair lifting her up to a high tree branch with a clear view of the tree tops. She was close enough to see the Crystal spire sticking through the forest canopy, "I'd say we're less than a kilometer now!" she called down to Emily as she decended back to the forest floor.
"Boop beep beep Woop?"
Entrapta tilted her head, considering Emily's question briefly, "Yes, I suppose it would be faster if I rode on you. Why do you ask?"
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Entrapta gasped in awe as she laid eyed upon the second largest collection of First One's Tech she had ever seen. Beast Island may have been the more tech than she thought even existed on Etherija, but it felt random and chaotic. The Crystal Castle was more like art given life!
"This is amazing!" Her voice was filled with excitement as her hair reached back into her belt pouch, retrieving her recorder and flipped the record switch, "Arrived at the Crystal Castle at approximately 10:44 am. There are First One's markings covering the Crystal obelisks that radiate outward from the main structure, but nothing seems to have any type of energy source that I can identify."
She quickly moved from obelisk to obelisk, carefully examining the glyphs and taking notes. Emily stayed close to Entrapta scanning the markings into her memory for Entrapta to examined at her leisure once they returned to Dryl.
"I have completed my initial examination of the exterior of the Crystal Castle and the exterior pillars, and I am now proceding to the interior of the central spire. My pulse is quickening, my mouth seems to be drying and I seem to be perspiring more as I approach the entrance. Adora had said that she had destroyed all of the tech inside but I may be able to find something exciting inside that she missed."
Entrapta cautiously answered to crystalline structure followed cloak by a seemingly nervous Emily, "the internal lighting appears to be malfunctioning, but," and she accepted the scanner that he purple locks had removed from her heavy backpack, "according to these readings, there is still some energy actively flowing through the system. It's now just a matter of rerouting said energy through a non damaged circuit."
She returned her recording device to the belt pouch, "Emily, give me some light, please."
Her robotic assistant lifted herself onto her her four legs, and started using her optical sensors as makeshift floodlights. Entrapta whistled at the damage that Adora had caused: blown out wall panels, fallen ceiling tiles, and evidence of a massive fire, "I get that it was to save the universe, but Adora should have thought about preserving the place a little better... Oh well! Time to get to work!"
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"In the darkest corner of the deepest pit of Prison Mines of Eternia - He waits. Skeletor, now Skeletec, Once the servant of Hordak, The Master of Snake Mountain, Former King of Eternia itself! He was once known as Keldor - half brother of King Randor. He had been transformed into Skeletec by his new mistress, sent by Hordak after growing tired of his many failures to conquer Eternia in his name.
"After a lifetime of battling the Masters of the Universe with his Warriors of the Horde, his rise to power came through the manipulation of Prince Adam after The death of King Randor.
"Wearing the mask of his former identity, he fed into the young heir apparent's doubts about ending his time as Champion of Eternia to rule as it's King. He fought along side his nephew as Motherboard, disguised as Skeletec himself, pretending to be severally hurt in the battle, convincing Adam that Eternia needed him to remain it's Champion instead of it's King-"
"If you wish to continue breathing under your own power," A raspy, sinister voice echoed from the shadows,"you would be wise to Shut the Hell Up!!" The weary looking prisoner who had been telling the tale jumped and spun towards the shadows, "I have no need for a biographer. Especially not one who would have so little understanding of proper story structure!" A blue skinned man who's head lacked flesh of any kind stepped forward into the dim torch light snarling from his lipless maw, "You sound like you're recapping the tale of a poorly written melodrama."
The filthy man backed away as the man once known as Skeletor, now simply Skeletec, stepped closer and closer, "Forgive me, Lord Skeletor. I didn't know you were awake."
Skeletec glared flatly at his cellmate, "First of all, I do not sleep. And second-" with the speed of one who has once possessed the Power of Greyskull, Skeletor grabbed the man by his head and shoulder, twisting in different directions, killing the man with a sickening, wet *SNAP*, "... I told you not to call me that."
The alarms began to sound as nearly a dozen heavily armed and armored guards flooded into the cell block, "Keldor! Step back and get on your knees!"
The demon's tech enhancements had been dormant since the death of Hordak, and his magics had been blocked by the
Sorceress Teela, he was still a very dangerous man, "I told you that I didn't want a cellmate! That one's on your head, not mine!"
The guards made their peace with their gods, as every one of them understood that every time they had to restrain this prisoner, no matter how many guards they brought, there would be casualties.
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It took a while (she wasn't sure if it was only hours or days) but Entrapta finally rerouted the endless magical energy into the Castle's back up relays, bringing the kids lights back to life and at least some function back to the information retrieval systems. She hummed happily as she crawled out of the depths of the Crystal Castle's access tunnels, "How about that? Emily, I need you to come interface with the Operating System to translate the First One's glyphs for me."
"Beerp bee be Bwoop?" The spherical robot nervous inquired.
"Well, Adora said that the AI was completely destroyed when she destroyed the original Sword of Protection, so I highly doubt that it's very dangerous." The violet tinted princess said reassuringly to her mechanical friend.
"Boo-boop?"
"... Ehhh, maybe 55% sure? What are you scared of?! If something happens I can always just fix you later!"
Emily seems crestfallen, but she did what she was told and extended her interfacing cables to the Castle's communication outlets. Once she had her translation protocol activated, a panel with a large touchscreen opened on her side.
Entrapta's prehensile hair formed a work stool under her while she explored the Castle's functions in a sort of "Safe Mode". Entrapta turned her recorder on and set it on a flat spot on Emily, "it seems that the main functions of the Crystal Castle have been permanently locked due to damage, which is fine, because I have no intention of activating the Heart of Etheria. Now this is interesting-" she opened a file labeled 'Integrate', "it seems that the System is designed to be compatible with native Tech and anything remotely similar. That does explain how it can work with both Etherian magic and Horde tech."
Entrapa opened another file marked 'Comms' and explored the code, "and this one seems to control the damaged communication array... I wonder if I can rerout it through Emily's antenna." She tapped in a few lines of code which instructed all communication attempts to be directed into Emily's systems, "Alrighty, now I'm going to run a test and try to connect the Crystal Castle with mainframe back in my lab..." A new notification opened up,
[before an attempt to open communication, the system must be rebooted. Would you like to reboot?]
"Well, I can't very well continue testing my theories until I get this working, so..."
The lights flickered when she allowed the system to restart. Once they began to stabilize, Emily began to panic, "BWOOP! Eert doop deet rrrrr!-"
"Emily, relax! This is what it's supposed... t to..." Emily continued beeping as her antenna extended from the top of her dome head, "wait, slow down. What do you mean it's not trying to connect with the lab? What's it doing?... What contingency program?! Emily, lock down all of your interface sytems and disconnect!"
But there wasn't any time. A message appeared on the screen,
[Heart of Etheria project: failed.
-
Sending field report with newly uploaded audio file to:
Central Command
Castle Greyskull, Eternia.]
Entrapta grabbed Emily's cable, still able to feel the power surging through her insulated gloves, and tore metal friend free. Emily's legs collapsed underneath her onas her systems overloaded.
"Emily! Are you alright?!" She kneeled at the side of her round partner as as she beeped weekly, "it'll be ok Emily, we'll get you back to the lab and I'll fix you right up, I promise." Entrapta faught back tears as Emily powered down. Her prehensile hair reached into a different side pouch and activated her emergency communicator,
"Mayday! Emergency Evac! Bot down!"
As Entrapta hurriedly opened her friend's cover panel and start rewiring and rerouting Emily's command protocols away from her burned out circuits, her half open touchscreen flashed two words,
[Message Received].
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By the time the guards had secured Skeletec and removed the corpse of his former cellmate, three of the guards were dead and five others would be in the intensive care of the Healers for many months, and even then their survival was not guaranteed.
Skeletec laughed as he was thrown into the isolation cell by Andra, Eternia's recently promoted Man-at-arms. Fortunately the dark skinned young woman had been at the prison to inspect the compounds security upgrades when Skeletec had gone on a rampage. She didn't bother looking up from the report as she stood outside the cell, "You just can't fade away with any dignity, can you, Bonehead?"
"What would you know about 'dignity', Man-at-arms?" He spat at the mention of her title.
"About as much as you know about failure, 'Keldor'." She laughed, mocking the formerly dangerous man.
His burning green eyes smoldered with hate as he ground his teeth, "One day you'll regret that smart mouth of yours."
She shook her head and walked away from the defeated demon. She revived the incident report that the guard captain handed her. She made a mental note tp recommend ramping up the training on how to handle Skeletec and possibly posting one of the Masters at the prison at all times to the Eternian council.
Just as she was preparing to leave, the corridor was filled with a burst of blinding green light and the sound of screaming echoed from inside Skeletor's cell. Andra raised her armored hands over her eyes and ran back to the cell just as the light started to fade. When it was finally dim enough to look directly into the Cell, Skeletor was lying flat on the floor, with residual light coming from his eyes, and smoke flowing from his mouth and nose cavity, "Skeletor!" Wary of any kind of trick, she lifted her communicator to her mouth and called for backup, "... I repeat, Man-at-arms to Castle Greyskull! There is a situation at the Prison Mine, Requesting Backup."
As she called in the details to Duncan, the previous Man-at-arms, unseen and unheard, Skeletec mumbled, "nehee heheehahaha... Horde Prime.. is dead... Adora.. still lives...." Before the shadows swallowed him.
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