Unbroken: Rise of the Horde

Chapter Fifteen

"Pull the switch! And let's end this!"

Hordak's eyes shot open to find himself standing in his sanctum. He lowered his hands from his face, almost like he had been trying to protect himself.

Protect me from what? He thought as he looked in the direction he was standing. He had been staring at something, but what could it have been? All he was seeing now was an empty corner of his sanctum.

It couldn't have been anything important. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he felt like something had gone wrong. There was something he needed to fix.

Hordak turned, his cape fluttered behind him. It was his old suit.

Old suit? He pondered. When did I get a new one? It's always been like this.

The room looked fine. Everything was in place. Nothing had been broken. And it was quiet. Silence, just the way he liked it. Everything was perfect.

The Horde was in a better position now more than ever. The invasion of Thaymore was a success, led by Force Captain Adora and her band of Cadets. The Rebellion was falling. Everything was perfect.

I'm well on my way to... to what? Hordak paused. Why did he want to conquer Etheria? Why did the Horde exist? Why did the air feel so dense? Almost like it was collapsing in on itself?

Everything's perfect.

Hordak lifted a hand to his head, feeling his temperature. He never got sick, so why was he checking? And why did he never get sick?

What am I? What do I need to fix?

Another part of his brain shushed him violently. There's nothing you need to fix, it cooed. Everything's perfect.

Imp vaulted down from the rafters and landed on Hordak's shoulder. The creature looked fine. Nothing was wrong. Everything was...

"No!" Hordak clutched his head. Imp screeched and bolted away. From where he hid behind his spire, he looked concerned.

The lord hissed, "Why is everything so perfect? This doesn't make any sense? What is happening?"

Everything was perfect.

He collapsed to the floor.

Perfect, perfect, perfect...

"Why can't something not be perfect for once?" he cried. Hordak gasped as a vision filled his gaze.

A purple haired girl smiling. Rainbow sparks flew behind her as she worked...

A crystal. A pink and blue crystal with the ability to fix Hordak...

Hordak. He was broken. That's why he needed the crystal. That's why he needed...

"Entrapta?" he whispered. Why yes. She had been his lab partner. When Hordak couldn't walk, she gave him the ability to.

But she betrayed me, Hordak remembered. He wilted, wishing he hadn't.

A vision blared behind his eyes. He didn't know if it was even real.

Entrapta stood above Hordak. All that was visible was her silhouette against the setting sun. The sun which illuminated a decimated Fright Zone.

"You never should have trusted a Princess," Entrapta hissed, but it wasn't her voice.

It was him: the rebel hero he sent to die fifteen years ago.

The walls of the sanctum disappeared. Hordak gasped and stumbled back as a blinding wall of purple light crept closer. It radiated unbearable heat as the floor cracked and disappeared. Tools and machines were sucked into its depths, never to be seen again. Hordak was on a lonely island in a sea of portal. He screamed as the blinding light swallowed him, too.

And erased him from existence.

. . .

Reality glitched and spiraled back into place.

Hordak lay gasping for breath. All around him, the other people from before were experiencing the same flashes of horror from their own versions of warped reality. Hordak could only guess what they'd experienced in their "perfect worlds." Not far off, Catra was patting several parts of her face.

The portal constricted and spun. It flashed blue and green as debri and dust were sucked into it. Electricity struck out, as if the change in time and space had upset it. Then all of a sudden, all of the tools and equipment were sent sprawling back into their original positions. The machine was swallowed by another blinding flash. Out of the light, a figure emerged.

She-Ra.

She was at least eight feet tall. Her skin and pure blond hair radiated the power that she carried within her. The Sword of Protection glittered in her hand, and her red cape billowed in an unreal wind. Her sky blue eyes glowed as she turned on the machine. With a battle roar, she brought the mighty weapon of myth down on the portal, and the machine shattered. 

The room began to collapse. Pipes and beams fell from the ceiling. The vitrines were shattered with the impact.

Catra raced over and grabbed Hordak's arm. "We have to go!" she hissed.

Hordak couldn't bring himself to move. His hand traced along the grooves in the crystal of his suit. The one Entrapta made.  He stared at the destruction of what he and Entrapta built. 

Together.

His ears drooped as his eyes turned sad. His hair fell in front of his face. Everything is gone, he thought. She is gone. And now our memory is, too.

The clone clenched his teeth and turned tail. He and Catra fled the sanctum, and he'd never look back. Never look back on the memory of Entrapta. The one time when he believed he could ever have a friend.

Somewhere in a universe far away, a message was just received.

"So that's where you've been," an icy voice mused, "little brother..."