Chapter Text
Get the data. Save the universe. That’s what Entrapta told herself as she jumped over a tree and landed in the outskirts of one of Horde Prime’s spires. She wiped everything else from her mind, every aspect of what she missed was ignored in an effort to succeed. She can’t fail the princesses. They need her. If she doesn’t get this data, she can’t create the virus, and without the virus her friends will still be chipped.
She can’t fail the world.
Her datapad beeps. “Yes! I got it!” Entrapta squealed as she cracked the code. Then all of a sudden a shadow loomed over her. She looked up from her tablet. “Uh oh…”
The clone grabbed her wrist, forcing her back against the rock behind her. She ignored the pain that shot up her back.
He growled. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Entrapta’s eyes widened. She knew this voice. The other clones she heard didn’t have this cadence, this smooth tone that she could listen to for hours, though he always said very little. She watched his eyes widen as well and confusion painted his face. “Why do I know your face?”
“Hordak?”
The clone pulled back, releasing her arm. He turned her back to her. “No, do not say that name to me. I have no name.” A part of Entrapta screamed to run, to get away from this statistically dangerous situation. He was still controlled by Horde Prime, at any instant he could overpower her and capture her. Then the princesses would be doomed. Yet her heart forced her feet to stay planted. The clone’s ears turned down again, she could tell he was grappling with something . Then he turned back around, holding something in his hand. “What have you done to me?” As he got closer to her, Entrapta noticed what he was holding. She had thought that it would be lost forever, after she realized it wasn’t in her pocket when they escaped Horde Prime’s ship. But there it was, in Hordak’s hand.
Her crystal.
He held his hand out, and she took it. “You do remember me. I knew you would.”
The pair looked at each other, she smiled at him softly. Hordak’s green sclera was off-putting to her, his bright outfit not helping either. He had changed so much since the last time she saw him. And it pained her to realize that maybe, had she gotten away from Catra fast enough, they would still be in the Fright Zone together. Happy. With Emily and Imp. Designing weapons one only did for the pursuit of science for a planet the other didn’t really wish to conquer anymore.
They heard a neigh causing them both to gasp and back away from each other. Entrapta noticed how tightly Hordak’s hand tightened around the crystal. “Get away from her!” Swift Wind got between him, his horn pointed at Hordak. Then, he bit down on Entrapta’s coverall straps. “Entrapta let’s go.” She looked at him, his ears turned down, eyes wide as he watched her get dragged away. She couldn’t read emotion well, but she knew Hordak’s. His mind seemed to be going a mile a minute, not quite sure how to feel.
Internally, he was fighting Prime, fighting the reconditioning he had gone through. But staring into her eyes, his memories flooded his senses. Entrapta saw that, she saw his hurt, even if he didn’t fully understand it just yet.
“Stop!” She screamed and pushed Swift Wind away from her with her hair, causing him to release her. She ran back to Hordak and stopped right in front of him. “Hordak, it’s me. Please.”
“En…trapta.”
“Yes. Yes, it’s me.”
Something in Hordak snapped. Not a chip, but rather a fuse. The fuse binding him to Horde Prime’s Hive Mind.
He looked at Entrapta again. Then, he enveloped her in a hug. “Entrapta.”
She stilled momentarily, the tinge of fear she had previously about being captured resurfaced as his strong arms wrapped around her. But then she softened, arms and hair reached to cover him, wrapping around every single appendage he had. He lifted her up, holding her close to his chest as she wrapped her legs around his torso. “I’m here. I’m here.” If there were tears coming from Entrapta’s eyes, she paid them no mind, merely hugging Hordak closer. The emotion was a lot, and would be draining, but for Hordak it was worth it.
Stars, she missed him.
Swift Wind watched, confused and conflicted. Entrapta didn’t seem to be in danger, but there were clones surrounding them, they could be discovered at any moment.
“Entrapta. We need to go.” Entrapta moved her head up to look at Hordak.
“Come with us.”
Swift Wind stammered. “Um, what? No. Entrapta this is a bad guy .”
“No, he’s not. It’s Hordak.”
“Hordak? As in, the Hordak?”
“Yes. And he’s coming with us.”
—
“And here we are!” Entrapta exclaimed at the entrance to The Rebellion hideout.
“This is where The Rebellion hid?”
“Yep! Shadow Weaver and Glimmer’s aunt, I don’t know her name, they’ve been using magic to keep it undetectable.”
Hordak was silent. His memories were still inconsistent and he didn’t entirely understand the words being spoken to him, but he held onto each one, praying the wasn’t some sick trick brought on by Him. he remembered Entrapta, her safety and security, and he leaned into that as the world remained confusing for the time being. Entrapta took the moment to wrap a tendril around his hand and urge him forward. As they approached, two guards at the door immediately put up their weapons,
“Stay back!”
“It’s alright. I know this one.”
“All clones are dangerous.”
“It’s okay, guys. He’s Hordak. He’s with us now.” Entrapta turned to look at Swift Wind. She made a mental note to thank the bird horse later for helping her out.
The guards lowered their weapons in confusion. “Hordak?”
“Yep! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get his tracking chip out of him so Prime doesn’t find us!” Entrapta dragged Hordak through the leafy curtains that served as the door for their woody hideout. Honestly, it was a surprise that they managed to make this operation work at all, and as Hordak looked around, he saw faces he remembered but could not quite place. Eventually, he found himself in a tent at the edge of the cave that was littered with tech and scraps.
“This is my temporary lab!” Entrapta happily bounded over to the table, using her hair to throw the scraps carelessly onto the floor. Then, she patted the surface. “Lay down please!”
“What are you going to do?”
“I need to get the tracking device you have out. Plus, I want to make sure there’s no way for Prime to manipulate you again.”
“Prime is the directive. I cannot disobey.” Hordak began backing towards the entrance of the tent. “This was a mistake. I need to return. I need to be punished for this…imperfection.”
Entrapta slowly approached Hordak, speaking softly. She used her observations of Perfuma with animals to attempt to calm him. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Your imperfections are beautiful.”
The clone froze. More memories came back to him. Imperfections are beautiful . All of those days…spent in his sanctum.
With her.
“You, you’re beautiful.”
Entrapta’s blush was not lost on Hordak. “Thank you. Now, lay down and tell me where your chip is!”
Just as Hordak was about to approach the desk and sit, he was hit with a glitter bomb. He roared in surprise and fell to the floor, giving Entrapta a clear view of Glimmer, Adora, Bow, and Shadow Weaver. “Entrapta! Are you alright?”
Instead of responding to Adora, Entrapta ran towards Hordak. “Hordak? Hordak can you hear me?”
“Hordak?” Glimmer exclaimed, her anger clear. “What is Hordak doing here?”
“I found him! I brought him here!”
“You brought a member of Horde Prime’s army here?”
“He’s not a threat! He remembers me! He’s starting to remember everything!”
“So he remembers ruining Etheria? He remembers destroying our kingdoms?”
Hordak let out a groan, causing Entrapta’s focus to shift back to him. She helped him sit up. “I–I cannot say I regret my actions. In fact, most of them are still hazy. Horde Prime was all I’d known, all I’d lived for. I didn’t care who I hurt, who I killed. All that mattered was proving myself worthy to Him. But I am not worthy of His light. I see that now. But I can help.”
“He can! He knows what Prime is planning and can help us stop him!”
“How do we know he won’t just call Prime?”
“We could put him under a truth spell.” Shadow Weaver walked closer to Hordak, looking down on him with an expression he could not discern. Memories of her came back to him, however, and he growled in annoyance.
“Do it.”
—
Hordak sat in an enclosed circle, enforced with magic so that he could not escape, not that he was planning to. Entrapta had insisted on remaining by his side, so she stood in the circle behind him, putting her hair on his shoulders. The weight was comforting, and it reminded Hordak that he would be okay.
The truth would set him free.
“Glimmer, would you like to do it?” Shadow Weaver hissed.
Hordak waited for pain as Shadow Weaver took a step back and the Queen of Bright Moon approached. Yet, pain did not come, not like it did when Prime peered into his memories. Instead, it felt like a knock at the door of his brain, which was opened before he could answer. He gasped as he felt himself become an open book.
“What is your name?” Shadow Weaver started.
“I do not have a real name, my designation is HG-0817, but I call myself Hordak.”
She nodded and looked to the princesses. “He’s ready.”
One by one, they took turns asking him questions, to which he could not lie in response.
“Are you loyal to Prime?”
This question gave him pause. “He is my creator. Yet he betrayed me, lied to me, cast me aside. I cannot say my loyalties willingly lie with him anymore.” Hordak looked at Entrapta, who smiled at him encouragingly. He turned back to the princesses. “I would say my loyalties lie elsewhere now.” He heard Bow’s ‘awww’ and Glimmer’s gag.
“Do you know how to stop Horde Prime?” Adora questioned.
“Not directly. I have some ideas, but we would need to move quickly.”
“Why?”
“Because Prime is preparing to wipe this planet. He has incinerators, destructors, drilling into the core. He will explode it from the inside out with Etherians and clones alike still on it once he obtains the power of the Heart of Etheria.”
“How do you know?”
“Before my exile, I was Horde Prime’s first general. I worked at His side, carried out His bidding. Destroying planets was one of my primary directives. He is following the standard protocol I helped design.”
Gasps were heard from all corners of the room, even from rebels who had no ranking to be listening to this interrogation.
“Can we stop them?”
“The chances are slim, but there is a way.”
“Tell us.”
“In every clone there exists a fuse. A neuron in which Horde Prime directly controls. Blow the fuse, the clones will be free. Free them from His grasp…”
“And Horde Prime won’t have an army!”
Hordak smiled at Entrapta’s brilliance. “Exactly.”
“And you know how?”
“I believe Entrapta and I can design a virus that will sever the neuron. Almost like taking a scalpel to the neuron itself, only it will affect every single clone at the exact same time.”
“Speaking of this neuron, how do we know you aren’t transmitting this whole thing to Prime right now?”
“My connection was severed a different way.” Hordak was getting uncomfortable with this line of questioning.
“How?”
“A virus, physical removal, and strong emotional connection are the three ways a clone’s neuron can be severed. Entrapta saved me.”
“Does Entrapta really mean that much to you?”
Damn it , Hordak hated this. He hated having to spill his guts out in front of the very people he had at one point attempted to destroy. But he didn’t have much of a choice, so, without thinking, he spilled. “Entrapta is the very air I breathe. Without her, and the memories I had of her, my mind was empty, bleak. She is the color my life needs, the reason for which my heart beats. I would go to the ends of the planet for her. One could say I…” don’t do it… “love her.” Entrapta’s hair retreated from his shoulders. He thought she left, and he wouldn’t be surprised. Why would she ever love him back? Just then, however, she collided with him in a hug that would rival the one they shared just a couple hours ago. Once again he heard ‘awww’s and gags alike, but this time he chose to ignore them and hugged her back.
Entrapta moved to whisper in his ear. “You really mean that?”
“They placed me under a truth spell, didn’t they? And even if they didn’t, I would never lie to you, Entrapta.”
“Oh, Hordak, I love you too.” They stayed in their hug until they heard someone clearing their throat. They looked up to find Glimmer right in front of them.
“Hordak, ex-leader of the Etherian Horde, we hereby find you safe, for now, and place you under the protection and care of Princess Entrapta. With the condition that you will aide us in destroying Horde Prime.”
“I accept these terms.” Hordak held Entrapta closer as the shield was removed. Then, he stood up and used one hand to shake the Queen’s.
“Welcome to The Rebellion.”