Unbroken: Rise of the Horde

Chapter Ten

Hordak demanded that the former Captain would be moved to Shadow Weaver's old cell. It'd be a nice reminder when she woke up: anyone was expendable. In a few days, he'd call an assembly to witness her punishments for her crimes. If there was something Hordak was most known for, it was that he was willing to do some pretty awful things to punish those who betrayed him.

Horde Prime always claimed that pain was the purest form of purification. Hordak took on a much much darker and crueler perspective. The defect himself was constantly be riddled with agony. Pain wasn't purification. It was a punishment. It was there to punish those who were failures, defects. It took him so long to figure out the truth, but there it was. That's what pain and agony was: a lesson. A lesson for the weak.

All the while, Hordak continued to work on his machine. Entrapta assisted him. Now, the clone barely came to view her as a Princess. She was a scientist and a lab partner.

Entrapta seemed completely unaware of Catra's arrest. Perhaps that was because Hordak refrained from telling her. If she was anyone else, Hordak would have warned her the same consequences for failure could be bestowed upon her one day. Almost anyone was irreplaceable, but she seemed different. Would he really be able to find another person like her? With such intelligence in math and science that truly did run deeper than his own?

After all, she'd changed his view on the difference between magic and tech.  She explained there was hardly a difference at all!  The concept had been impossible to Hordak before, but he began to reconsider. Entrapta had always been good at tracking ancient First Ones (a long lost crazy advanced civilization) signals and pinpointing where their hidden tech was. Her specialty had greatly sped up the process of portal building. Entrapta was wise, and the only one who'd ever even attempted to convince Hordak about anything.

. . .

The clone soldered some wires onto a part of the frame. He reached for another tool across the table, but an icy blast of burning cold said otherwise. He groaned and clutched his burning arm, waiting for the pain to retreat. 

Out of nowhere, Entrapta's head popped through one of the vents. The clone reeled back.

"Hordak!" she said, not even bothering to use his title. She turned to face him and lowered herself until she was right side up on the ground. She clutched a port screen in her hands. "Great! I have a lot to cover with you today."

Hordak drew his cape around his pulsing arm.

It turned out Entrapta had several port screens hidden in various locations. Her hands and hair carried four. "I integrated the First Ones tech from the Northern Reach with our portal machine," she explained, "but there's still a piece missing." She shoved the screens into Hordak's face. He glanced over them and turned away.

"Luckily, I picked up a signal." One of her screens changed to the image of some sort of receiving message. "It's some sort of First Ones message."

Hordak tried to read it, but in a flash of horror, realized he couldn't. All he could make out were lines and dashes. His brain simply could not compute. Could not translate the symbols into thoughts. The language was too old, and the message was too degraded. Is this what everyone else felt like when they saw a language outside of their native tongue? He hated it.

"I don't know what these other words are, but this one's easy." Entrapta pointed to one that looked like a constellation of some sort. "It means 'portal.' It could be the missing something we're looking for."

The Princess looked around the room. She turned back to Hordak and asked, "Where's Catra? We should send her out, ASAP!" She twirled away.

Hordak bared his teeth. "Catra is no longer of your concern. She's being sent to Beast Island."