"So why did you design you castle to be a maze?" Sora asked after who knows how many turns now.
Princess Glimmer scoffed, "Obviously to keep people like the Horde from finding their way through."
"I'm guessing they want one of those gadgets you've built or something?" She-Ra assumed.
"Nah, it's just to screw with people! I've got cameras all over my castle recording everything and anything moving." Princess Entrapta then boasted "I designed every aspect of this castle since I took over, so you can bet I'm the only one who can navigate it. Serious, the footage I have of idiots getting lost is hilarious." She paused to think about it, "It actually wasn't long before they started giving up and the servants started complaining too much. That's when I had to build all my robots."
Glimmer and She-Ra gave a gulp, "Wait, records everything?"
"As in everything everything?"
Something occurred to Sora, "Wait, if your servants kept getting lost, why didn't you just fix up your castle? Or maybe put up signs or a map for them? Then you wouldn't have needed to build all those robots."
The short Princess shrugged, "Well first of all, redesigning the castle would have been way too hard, so that's a no go. Then I suppose I could have made a map or signs or something, but robots are so much better than people!"
"Why's that?"
"Robots can't judge and call you weird behind your back" she answered with a straight face.
"Huh" Sora crossed his arms, "Well, I for one think I'm weird. I think being weird is fun, so who cares! Who's normal nowadays anyway? If you think about it mathematically, there are more people that are considered abnormal than normal, so would that mean it's abnormal to be normal?"
Entrapta snapped her head at before pausing, then like before, the tip of her long, prehensile hair reached in the thicker parts of her locks before pulling out her voice recorder. "Log 108, reminder to make a statistics chart to draw a rate of people that identify themselves as normal versus abnormal, then view answers from oldest to youngest to find a pattern in changes or consistencies. End log."
Sora watched her return her voice recorder, "So cool! The only thing my hair can do is natural stay spiky and good looking." That immediately prompted She-Ra to pull and try to flatten his hair, just to watch it fluff back up to it original position.
"O-kaaaay" Glimmer was starting to get impatient, "So we need to find our friend, he's all alone against, uh, how many robots did you say you had again?"
"First of all, I was never asked how many I had, but I have maybe 359...or 358 ½ since I watched you slice one in half earlier."
"How did you see that?" She-Ra asked.
"Nevermind that! Entrapta, can you help us find our friend Bow?"
She gave an enthusiastic nod, "Absolutely I can."
"Oh! Kitty cat!" Sora exclaimed, "Wait, didn't I say that earlier to the to the same painting?"
"I know, so cute!" Entrapta let out a nasally snort. She paused, "Wait, yes you did, 6 minutes slash 54 turns ago...we might be lost."
"Oh, gee, if only we had that map that was mentioned earlier" She-Ra muttered under her breathe.
"No wait, I do have an electronic map on me!" Entrapta pulled out and showed off.
"Why haven't we been using it then!" Glimmer complained.
"Well unfortunately, like the rest of the machines around here, it sort of turned evil." She turned it over to show the screen and pressed the volume button on the side.
"Turn left to fall over the edge of the cliff and die, then you will have reached your destination. Be sure to rate us from Hell. Good-bye and have a nice day!" said the sweet monotone voice of a woman.
"I think we should listen to the computer lady" Sora joked.
Entrapta raised an eyebrow at him, "Weren't you just listening? It was trying to kill us...oh wait, that was a joke. I get it!" She let out a nasally snort again.
"So yeah, can we take a quick step back and address the elephant in the room?" Glimmer started to asked.
To which She-Ra was more than happy to finish, "Why did you invent an army of killer robots?!"
Entrapta gave her an odd look and acted as though she just finally saw her for the first time, "Hello! You are abnormal tall." She pulled out a tape measure from her locks and measured her height before getting Sora then Glimmer's. She was quick to notice the sword on her back. "Ooooh, nice sword you got there. Looks like First Ones tech, can I poke it a whole bunch?"
She-Ra stepped away, "Uh, yes, I am tall. Thank you for now noticing, And no, no you can not poke my sword or touch it, or whatever you had in mind."
Glimmer gave her a deadpan look, "So wait, you're now just noticing us?"
She let out another snort, "Sorry! I was too preoccupied with trying to figure out how to graph and scale how dangerous my castle is and the consistency of it all. Then there was the oddity rates I was trying to figure out. Your friend with the spiky hair is really full of good ideas."
Sora looked a little more proud then he should be feeling after asking silly questions that only the Dryl Princess would take too seriously.
She-Ra pulled things back on track, "Killer robots! Please explain!"
Entrapta blinked twice, "Right! First of all, I'd like to state that they did not start out that way. They're usually super helpful since they do almost everything. Ah man, it's so cool you guys! Cleaning, organizing, personal hygiene, PERSONAL HYGIENE PEOPLE! I can't even remember the last time I had to brush my teeth, clip my nails, or get the gunk from between my toes and belly button!" The three gagged at that, "They're even sound activated so I don't even have to lift a finger, or hair in my case, here check it out!" She then started clapping loudly.
"NO!" the three yelled at her.
"What?! Why not-ohhhh the kill mode thing, right." From further down the hall, over a giant sweeper droid big enough to fill the hallway began to make its way to them with surely more behind it. "Okay, yeah, that's my fault. My bad."
"Okay, time to run!" Sora turned Glimmer and Entrapta and started pushing them towards the opposite direction with She-Ra at his side. They didn't need to turn around to know that the machine was plowing the hallway apart to get to them, then there was an odd crash. They turned around to see it got caught in some of the overhead railings that served as decoration more than anything. It's head then bent over, revealing a large glowing core, before letting out a terrible screech. While not overwhelmingly loud, it was enough to bring She-Ra to her knees and clutch her head.
"Adora?" Sora and Glimmer bent down while Entrapta studied her machine in fascination.
"I think it's trying to tell us something! Ah man, if only I spoke the obviously superior binary code, then it wouldn't be a problem!" Entrapta climbed on it to take a closer look.
She-Ra clutched her head harder before crying out, "No! Please, make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!"
"That's it! Time to find the off switch on this thing!" Sora turned around and hopped next the Princess. The moment his feet touched the ground, the sweeper bot jerked back before ramming through the ornament it was caught in, knocking Sora off balance.
To make things worse, the sweeper's brush managed to catch hold of Entrapta's long hair and started to pull her underneath. "Nope! Nope, this isn't good! Not like this, NOT LIKE THIS!"
"Hang on!" Sora recentered himself before turning around and jumping forward to catch the Princess and untangled her hair. The robot still plowed forward and threatened to run She-Ra and Glimmer down.
The tall blond forced herself back on to her feet and leapt on top of the machine with Glimmer teleporting next to her. Eying the glowing red core, She-Ra unsheathed her sword before sinking the blade into it. In an instant, the machine died down and She-Ra out a sigh of relief.
That's when a red crystal vine sprouted out the core's wound and wrapped itself around the Sword of Protection. She-Ra let out a shriek as the vines started to climb further up the blade. She pulled her sword loose and started trying to swing the vine off.
Glimmer watched in worry, but noticed that the mystical blue gem in the hilt of the blade started to glow a red color. The exact same red glow the corrupted robot's core had. "Wait, She-Ra stop! Drop the sword! Now!"
She stopped her struggling before she suddenly became as still as a statue. Then from the glowing gen, more red crystal vines started to sprout out before crawling up the entire length of her right arm and a part of the right side of her neck and face. She turned around to face Glimmer with red, glowing eyes.
"Adora!" She tried to smack the sword out of her hand, but She-Ra backhanded her across the face and knocked her down to the ground next to Sora and Entrapta.
"Glimmer?! Are you okay, what happened?" Sora check her face over in concern.
Glimmer's eyes were watering up, "It's Adora! She's-she's-she's-" She was cut off as a familiar battle-cry was shouted out. She-Ra jumped down and landed in front of them with an enraged look on her face, Sora and Entrapta did not miss the crystal vines or the glowing red eyes either.
"I've got a bad feeling about this" was all Sora could say before She-Ra let out another roar and charged at them with her sword ready to swing at them.
"Run!" Glimmer yelled out before grabbing Entrapta and ran as fast as they could. Sora held his ground and parried her blow. "Sora!"
"Go! I'll hold her off!" Glimmer knew not to argue. Even without She-Ra's powers, Adora would be able to catch up to them within moments. If Sora and Bow's stories were true, Sora would be the only one that can hold the possessed She-Ra off.
Once the two were out of sight, Sora tried to call out to his friend, "Adora! What's the matter with you?! It's me, Sora! Your friend, remember?!"
Her response was growling right in his face before headbutting him. Sora staggered back before diving into a dodge roll to evade a wide swing. He jumped back again to avoid another horizontal strike as well. "Oh boy, thank God I didn't get around to trying to teaching her better sword play" he commented as he blocked another swing, "Hey Adora, I know you're super strong and talented and all, but you swordsmanship sucks!"
He dove to avoid another swing that left a small crater on the floor, "Or is it swordswomanship?"
He dove again, but this time between her legs. As he passed through, he grabbed She-Ra by the left leg and flipped her on her stomach, "Don't know if that's a real word or not? I think it should be a real word. No wait, is that sexist?"
She scrambled back to her feet before charging again before they parried once more. As they pushed against each other, She-Ra attempted another headbutt, but Sora saw it coming this time and caught her head with his left hand. Her face became distorted as she snarled and tried to bite at him, "Aww, but you're so unpretty when you're angry like that. Maybe we should kiss and make up!" Sora yelled as he lowered his arm to catch her by the side and vaulted her over his head. "Any of this getting through to you Adora?! Snap out of it!"
When she landed on her back, Sora jumped and swung at her, but she held the hilt in one hand and the end of the blade with the other, blocking the powerful strike only inches away from her face. Using his lost momentum, She-Ra rolled backwards and wrapped her legs between his arm before dropping them both to the ground. She then twisted and made him release his grip on the Keyblade.
Sora cried out in pain as She-Ra let go and started grappling with him. Sora was able to recall his weapon in time as She-Ra attempted to sink in her blade in his chest, and divert it into stabbing the ground. Seeing his chance, Sora kicked her away as hard as he could. The tall girl skidded away weaponless. He was about to gloat before he saw he get into a stance before remembering, "Oh yeah, she's super proficient in hand to hand combat...ah poop."
She came in running at him in a full sprint before before fainting a punch and instead slid and knocked him off his feet similarly to what he did to her earlier. But instead of making a grabbing her sword when he was down, she continued going in with the swings and jabs, which were a lot quicker and less predictable to dodge than her untrained sword swinging. She got several hits in before Sora was able to strike back and push her away.
The two silently faced off against each other before the tall blond wordlessly turned around and grabbed her sword before disappearing down the hallway.
"...Wait what?! Adora, get back here!" Sora chased after her, but came to a halt as the hallway broke into three directions for him to choose from and his friend already out of sight. He sighed, "This isn't good."
After running as far and fast as their leg can take them, the two Princesses had to stop to rest in a corner area they found. "*Pant* *Pant* Adora *Pant* What happened to her?!" Glimmer wheezed, hot tears in her eyes, "She turned on us and attacked. She looked like she was ready to kill us and everything, but why? She's my friend."
Entrapta was far less winded, being able to use her powerful hair to travel some of the distance. "Umm, I'm not actually too sure. I don't deal with the obviously inferior and squishier mortal body much, but if I had to wager a guess, the tall one was infected by the same virus as the robots. It's actually real quite fascinating if you think about it, how can the organic body be inflicted with a disease that only infect technology? Boy howdy, what I'd do to cut her open and study her."
"The Hell you are!" Glimmer's eyes bulged in anger, snapping her emotions around.
"No, no! I was only saying that in the case of a worse case scenario where most of us are dead anyway and her body in most likely in broken shambles anyways!"
"WHAT?!"
Entrapta immediately shushed her, "Worst case, worst case, which hopefully won't happen. I mean statistically, there are like a bajillion more things that can go wrong before we can even get to that point. So let's try to focus on the positives and what we can do...and maybe collect some more data to study."
Glimmer sent her a glare before wiping her eyes, "Not Adora!" she said firmly. She took a deep breathe, "So what do we do now? You were saying she was infected, was that what those red crystals were? A virus?"
Entrapta tapped her chin with her hair as she thought how to explain, "Alright, let's see. So we found this ancient disc while mining, filled with all sorts of First Ones' codes and programming. I mean seriously, this was a game changer!" The pig-tailed Princess swooned, "Aw man, never has there been any sort of documentation that had so much completed codes and information as this. I mean, wow, before all the evil robot uprising, did you know I was able build a device that could plug in and interface with the UI and not set off every alarm? So cool! Then I was thinking I could-"
Glimmer cut her off, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think we're getting side tracked. Does this have anything to do with Adora?"
"Oh right, sorry. So as I was experimenting with the disc, it seems I might have finally set off a protocol or a countermeasure against cyber hackers, I.E. me, that triggered a chain reaction in all my bots. All my robots have at least some amount of First Ones' tech in them, be it a literal part or just at least program lines. That's why most of my droid were susceptible and not every last thing in the castle." She tapped her chin further as Glimmer waited for an explanation pertaining to her friend. "I surmise that your tall friend's connection with that sword, made entirely out of First Ones' tech, is the direct cause."
Glimmer snapped her fingers, "So there. We destroy the disc, it stops the bots and give us our friend back. That will work, right?"
Entrapta let out a gasp, "Destroy it?! The experiment is incomplete! We can't stop it now!"
"I'm fairly certain that the experiment is a complete and utter failure!"
Entrapta got on her knees and hugged Glimmer's legs as she pleaded, "But we can't! What if it isn't a failure yet, what if...no, you're right. It's a failure." She picked herself up before dusting herself off. "Man the floor is really dusty. Think if I fix the sweeper droid, it'd be grateful enough to clean this up and not kill us on the spot?" She thought about her question, "Probably not. Robots don't have emotions to feel grateful with. That's usually the great part about machines, never have to worry about hurting their feelings...oh well. Let's go stop the rise of the machines!"
Screeeeeeech! The two looked up to see a smaller monkey shaped robot hanging on a nearby door frame. It turned around and ran off.
"Uh-oh" Entrapta muttered.
Glimmer flinched, "Oh no, more robots?!"
"Well, yeah, there's that, but still worse than that. Pretty sure the little guy just sent a message to all the machines. They all probably know about our plan and are gonna do everything they can to both stop us and protect the lab."
"That's bad!"
"That's really bad. We should run." Screeeeeech. From the direction of where the robot monkey disappeared to, the two can hear a small army's worth of footsteps. "And definitely not in that direction!"
"Run!"
The two took off running again down the endless hallways with Entrapta in the lead. They turned left, right, left, left, right again before ending up next to a familiar family portrait that Glimmer knew that passed once before. "Entrapta! Where are we going?! We've passed by here already!"
"Uh-uh-uh, ummm." She pulled out her digital map from earlier before trying to study it. She tried pressing a few buttons before a nasty face appeared before it typed out some obscene words. "Well that's not very nice!" She promptly tossed the device away. "Alright, it's okay. I just need to bring my heart rate down and focus. I can figure this out."
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOOOOOOOM! Bursting and tearing through the wall was She-Ra, eyes still glowing red and crystal vines still covering her right side. She bore her teeth at them before letting out a battle cry as she charged in with her sword held high.
The two screamed as Glimmer grabbed hold of Entrapta and teleported through the hole her currently former friend made. "Adora, please, it's me, Glimmer! I'm your friend, please, you have to snap out of this!"
Her word fell on deaf ears as the tall woman turned around and charged with a roar.
Entrapta blinked, "Wait, I think I know where we are! This way!" She grabbed Glimmers hand and pulled her down the hall with She-Ra right behind them.
"We'll never out run her!"
She-Ra was closing in fast, her hand already outstretched to catch them and doubtlessly put an end to them.
"No you don't!" Out of a perpendicular hallway Sora appeared and tackled She-Ra to the ground where they both rolled and grappled with each other. "I don't know what you guys did, but suddenly Adora and every robot started running in your direction! You've got to get out of here!"
"Sora!" Glimmer called now, feeling so much better knowing that Sora was still okay. "We figured out how to stop all of this! We need to get to Entrapta's lab and break a disc!"
She-Ra kicked him off before trying to dive at the two Princesses, but Sora was quick to be back on top of her. "Great! So hurry up and run, or did you miss the part about more robots?!"
It was too late, down the hallway Sora appeared from and the hallway Glimmer and Entrapta came from, was a full army of robots.
"Too late, they're already here! Shoot, we were so close to my lab too!"
"Then just run for now!" Sora's struggle just became exponentially worse when the robot army joined the fray. A larger robot picked him and She-Ra up with its one massive arm and smashed them both into a wall, separating the two. She-Ra scrambled back to her feet as more robots began to dogpile Sora. "Hurry, GO!"
"We can't just leave you!" Glimmer cried out as She-Ra jumped in as well.
"Thunder!" he called out, but nothing happened. "Gah! I'll be fine! So. Just. GO!"
Glimmer looked like she was ready to cry, but she sucked it back up before grabbing hold of Entrapta and teleported back in the opposite direction of the lab. "We'll find a way to save you and Adora! I promise!" she called out one last time before they disappeared around the corner.
The two Princesses kept running, trying to put as much distance of the shermish from them. "Entrapta, we need a new plan now!" she exclaimed as they ran. "What do we do now?"
The pig-tailed Princess thought as hard as she could as they turned into another hallway. "I don't know! The only solution, it seems, is getting to the disc. And in the meantime, no new variables has been introduced to the equation of 'how to get into my lab!'"
Just up ahead of them was another group of bots moving towards them. They tried to jump into the next hallway, but there were more waiting for them there. "Back the way we came!" Glimmer shouted, and they doubled back. Turning the opposite corner from where they came, they kept on running. They were becoming exhausted, with no energy to spare if they couldn't stop to rest.
Their run came to a halt for an unfortunate reason, rows of droids stood ahead of them, waiting for their approach. They looked behind to see the rest were catching up from all sides. They were completely surrounded.
"Is this how we're gonna die?!" Glimmer wallowed.
Entrapta looked around desperately before spotting they only possible salvation. "Wait! The vents! But my hair can't reach, can you teleport us up there?!" she pointed to the narrow vents above.
Glimmer grabbed hold of the shorter girl and channeled her magic, but stopped. "No! I don't have enough energy. If I try, I'm probably gonna leave most of our limbs behind."
Entrapta sighed in resignation, "Yup, I guess this is how we go out. You've probably never imagined it, but I have. Very easily in fact. Was sure that this was one of the ways I'd go out." She wrapped her hair around herself and Glimmer and embraced her. "Still doesn't make it any better." Glimmer hugged her back, ready for the end.
Suddenly a smokescreen was dropped, filling the whole hallway with a thin, wispy smoke. That's when a bot's head got sliced off by what appeared to be a serving tray.
The two Princesses blinked, "Wait, what?"
"Kitchen Brigade, GO!" a familiar voice called out. "Teela, get to the Princesses!"
A large, burly woman in a pink apron with seafoam colored hair charged in with a serving tray held up like a shield and batted away several of the bot around them. She swiftly picked them up and pushed back through the line she made.
"Pascal, fizzy drinks!" A lavender haired butler shook a couple of glass bottles before popping the caps, somehow spraying high powered carbonated liquid, either knocking down or shorting out some of the robots near them.
"Cassy, more ammo!" A much shorter girl with a blue bun in chef clothes handed Bow a stack of serving trays, to which he grabbed and started tossing them with, impressively, enough strength to embed themselves in their chests.
A tall droid was about to ambush Bow from behind before the tiny Cassy jumped up with a hand towel and was somehow able to bring the machine down before using a serving tray of her own to bash its head in.
"Okay team, let's regroup!" Bow led everyone the way they came with the surviving bots slowed down from the slippery wet floor.
"Bow! You came for us!"
"Well duh! I'm not leaving my best friends to deal with an army of killer robots." They turned the corner and stopped when they knew they were in the clear. "Speaking of which, where's Sora and She-Ra?"
After sending the two Princesses away after his failed Thunder spell, Sora was forced to resume slashing and bashing the endless robots. His Fire spells helped a little for crowd control, but nothing too significant otherwise since more robots came to take their place. The real problem came around when he used his magic to cast Cure, not only did he heal himself with it, it also heal She-Ra, which only rekindled her feriousity. Ignoring the thought process of our his healing spell affected his frenemy, he craned his neck back to avoid a boot to the face from the tall woman.
Sora grabbed She-Ra's over extended leg and swung her in a circle before letting her go and crash into the wall. He jumped in the air and tried to bring down his blade on her, but she batted it away before using her free arm to gut punch him. Sora coughed out as he backed away, only to get kicked in the side, sending him skidding on the floor.
"Aw man...if that was just a foot lower, I would have totally throw the gloves off then completely burn them! *Cough* Assuming I'd be able to get up again" Sora wheezed as he messaged his stomach and side before turning himself over and picked himself back up. He looked up at the corrupted Princess, and he noticed that at some point he gave her a black eye. "Oh man, Adora is gonna be sooooo pissed when she sees that shiner."
With a deep growl, She-Ra pointed her sword at him before a magical blast shot out and knocked him flat on his back again. Sora moaned, "I'm thinking we both kind of forgot she was capable of that up until now." He scrambled back to his feet before pointing his weapon at her, "Yeah! Well, two can play that game!" A sudden thought and image came to mind, a useful technique that an old friend taught him that came in handy plenty of times during his adventures. "Duh! I can't believe I forgot some moves too! Sonic Blade!" Sora shot forward like a cannon with the business end up his Keyblade pointed forward, as he was propelled and struck at She-Ra multiple times and sending her back.
She-Ra stumbled and looked dazed, and she half blindingly tried to swing at him, but Sora hardly had to dodge. He grabbed her swordarm with his free hand before shoving her as hard as he could into the wall with his shoulder. "Let's try this! Stun Impact!" A bright red sphere of energy burst out around him that sent what felt like powerful electricity coursing through She-Ra's body. Her whole body seized up before slumping down the wall. She looked up at him with a blank expression with a sudden bad nose bleed.
Sora let out a heavy sigh, "*Phew* I guess we're done here? Not the way you imagined our first time going at it, eh Adora?!" he air elbowed her, wishing that she was capable of responding. "Wonder if she'll remember anything of this, cause I got a long list one liners I was hoping to try and need feedback on."
CRACK!
Sora looked around for the unsettling noise, it sounded it came from his left.
CRACK!
It came from the right this time, why did it sound like it was right next to him?
CRACK!
Sora felt the floor under his feet give way for a moment. He looked down, "Don't tell me-!" He couldn't finish his sentence as the ground beneath them collapsed and they fell to the next floor down. Obviously all the fighting caused too much damage for the castle to take, probably his last finisher was what sealed the deal.
Sora moaned as his back landed on a stone that jutted out, "Ow! Why is it always the back today?!" He turned himself over to look for the tall blond, she was laying on her side with the same blank expression, she almost looked like a broken doll. That caused a twinge inside is chest for some reason at the thought it. "Hey Adora, you still kickin and screaming?"
She laid there unmoving. He could see her chest moving, so that was a pretty good sign.
"Loser says what?" Still unresponsive. "Fine! Be like that!"
With a bit of a struggle, Sora pulls himself back to his feet. He serious considered casting Cure, but if he were to accidentally heal She-Ra, he'd just be putting himself back at square one. He walked up to her still form, "Lets see if getting that sword away will do anything?"
Sora knelt next to her and tried to pull the Sword of Protection out of her grip, but it was too solid of a grip with the red crystal vines holding it together. "Nope, not coming off!" He laid down next to her and thought as he tried to stretch out and fix his back. "What to do, what to do?" He looked at her before poking at her bloodied nose, "Boop. Okay, we're not making any progress sitting around like this." Sora stood back up, this time She-Ra on his back. "Since you're not going anywhere on your own it seems, take a load off as we try to find our friends." Sora proceeded through the hallways.
"Coast is clear, still no sign of the tall one or the spiky one" Entrapta whispered to the rest of the group as they made their way through the vent. After a good rest, the two Princesses and the newly formed Kitchen Brigade have now finally made it to the lab through the vents. The Dyrl Princess pointed with one of her pigtails, showing them to the line of robots protecting a large machine with massive red crystal vines sprouting all over. In the center of the mass was a glowing, three pointed star. "The disc is there, in the center of all that."
Bow took a peek, "There? Where all those robots are surrounding?" he lamented. "All those crystal vines are covering it. How are we supposed to break through all that, not to mention all the robots?" Had the situation been different, or more specifically, had he any more arrows, this would be incredibly easy to finish up. All he had was his experimental Sonic Arrow that he wanted to show off, but all it could do is emmitt sonic waves. He can't imagine it being any useful in this fight with its soft-tip head.
"Ohhh! How fascinating!" Entrapta whispered loudly, "Look at my little babies, learning to adapt and protect itself! How cute, it's these kinds of memories that we need to hold on to and cherish."
Glimmer snapped at her, "Stop being impressed that they're learning how to kill us better! We need to find a way to get pass the bots so we can turn it off."
They all huddled together to brainstorm, Bow took the lead. "Okay, so I think the best course of action to take, for starters, is to create a diversion. Now I doubt they'll all take the bait, but if we can at least draw half of them away, one of use could get in close from behind and try to put a stop to this."
"Hmm, no, it won't be that simple" Entrapta gave her input, "Before anything else, we need a way to bypass that crystal. Our sheer, squishy strength won't be enough to crack through the crystal."
"If we can't get through it, what can?" Glimmer asked.
"Probably your two missing friends can, or the awesome strength of machines. But we still have no idea where your friends are, and as if we can convince the robots into turning on their overlord motherbrain. No, what we'll need is-"
It was a little before now that the rest of the Kitchen Brigade tuned out of their Princess running numbers and calculations as they watched the security monitors behind the robot line. They saw on one of the screens a struggling Sora moving through the hallway with She-Ra on his back. He rounded the corner before the screen switched its feed to watch them move further along. That was then on another screen changed and watched Sora and She-Ra from a different angle approach the lab door. Then all screens showed him as he summoned his Keyblade and started banging on the door with it.
"Hello?! Is this the lab we're supposed to assault?! Where is everybody?! Show yourselves evil robots!" was broadcasted throughout the entire lab, getting everybody's attention. Half of the line of robots broke away and started approaching the door while the screen depicted another army moving up to Sora and She-Ra from a different hallway. "Oh yeah?! Bring it on! I'll send you all to the junkyard!"
"Oh boy! That moved our timetable a hell of a lot more than I'm ready for!" Entrapta complained as she dove right back into her intense line of thinking.
"And we still don't have a way to break through that tough crystal" Glimmer struggled to think. "Bow, do you think that your arrow is strong enough to crack through it?"
"No, my Sonic Arrow is too soft tipped to do any real damage."
"Sonic Arrow?"
Bow sighed, "Yeah, it was supposed to be used to create a distraction by make sonic noises that can draw enemies away."
Glimmer blinked twice, "Wait, the same kind of noise that attracts the robots?!"
Bow paused as he gaped at her. "Glimmer, you're a genius!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. He quickly got the other Princesses' attention.
"What?! Huh?!" she was snapped out of her thoughts.
Bow pulled out and her showed her his trick arrow, "I got your robot strength right here...Sonic Arrow" he said simply.
She took a moment to inspect it before understanding what the archer said. She blinked, "Oh my gosh! Yes!"
"Can you pull me up closer to the ceiling? I'll need an angle."
"You got it!" She wrapped one of her pigtails around him while the other reached for a sturdy pipe and pulled them up. Bow took aim and shot his arrow, landing perfectly over the star shaped disc.
One second after the arrow landed, it started blasting a high pitch noise that the surrounding robots couldn't resist. Trying to make it stop, the droids started wailing and bashing against it, soon unintentionally smashing the disc into bits. All of the bots halted for a moment before the red crystal vines broke off and they started to act docile once more.
"That's right! You all better just fall over and do nothing! Sora 18, technology 117, working my way up!" Sora's voice came over the speakers, the security cameras were still aimed at Sora and She-Ra.
"She-Ra! Sora!" Glimmer led everyone out through the lab door to check in on them. Sora had laid She-Ra down as her glowing eyes started flashing and her blank face started to twitch. The gem on the hilt of her magical sword, where the crystals grew out of, turned back to its original blue color. Once it did, the base of the crystal's growth snapped off, and Sora was able to start brushing if off her arm, neck, and face. Once it was all off, her entire body glowed before She-Ra was replaced once more with Adora. Sora let himself fall back down and desperately tried to rest his back.
"Adora! Please tell me you're back to normal?!" Glimmer hugged her close as the blond started to come to.
Her eyes began to open, but looked extremely unfocused and crossed eyed. "Wow, hey Glimmer! What are you doing up there? Hanging around?" Her voice was silly as she started laughing at her poor, nonsensical pun.
"Adora?" Glimmer looked extremely worried.
"Why is Adora acting so...loopy?"
"BOW! Bow, did-did you know-" Adora scrambled to her feet but fell forward as she approached Bow, "Owie, that hurts. Ohhhh, Bow! You've got them on your feet too! Did you knoooooow that you had a heart on your shirt and your shoes. That is sooooooooo weird. I mean, who does that?"
Entrapta bent forward and tried to examine her. She had to bat Adora's wandering hands way from her hair multiple times in doing so. "It would appear to be a side effect from the virus. Again, I'm not that kind of doctor, or any doctor for that matter, but I would guess the effects would weaken as more time will pass. If it doesn't, I ain't got any clues then."
"Oh my gosh, I love your hair! I love the color, I love the shape. It's just soooooo cool!" Adora tried to reach for her hair, but Entrapta slapped her away with it again.
"Yes, but does she have to be hurtful with her words?" Bow complained as he looked a little self conscious of his wear.
"It's okay Bow, I think your shoes look way awesome" Sora complimented, still on the ground. "Hey Adora, what do you think of Glimmers hair?"
She blinked with the one good eye before laughing uncontrollably, "Oh. My. Gosh. I just love looking at her hair. It so, so short, but it's like I get lost in them. It goes on forever because it's like, ALWAYS sparkling!" She then whispered really loudly, "Does it feel sparkling when you wash it?!"
"See, she isn't always going to be mean. That's two compliment against one insult. Two and a half if you want to count what I said."
"So what are we supposed to do now?" Glimmer asked. It doesn't look like they can start traveling again any time soon.
"I guess you guys can stay here the night" Princess Entrapta suggested. "I mean, you did save my entire castle-" A part of a hallway collapsed behind her, she didn't even turn around to acknowledge it, "most of my castle and saved my very limited staff." She gestured to the nearby Kitchen Brigade. "Yup, letting you guys stay for as long as you need won't even begin to cover what you've done for me today!"
"So cool!" Bow gushed, "I have so many questions I want to ask you, and I would love a tour around your castle since it's not trying to kill us anymore!"
"Speaking of questions, I have one" Sora reminded everyone he was still here and laying uselessly on the ground. "So last time I used my healing magic, I ended up healing Adora or She-Ra or whatever. Made things way worse for me! Think it's safe for me to try again? Cause the floor is really cold and really hard, and I am serious hurting over here."
The two Princesses and the archer looked down at the giggling Adora, whom was poking at her swollen black eye repeatedly despite her small 'ows' after each time.
"Maybe I should keep this away, just in case." Glimmer picked up the Sword of Protection and took a few steps back. "Okay, go for it."
"Finally, Cure." Above everyone, a bell shaped flower bloomed and showered them all with green energy. Suddenly, everyone's injuries, big and small, was quickly healed, including Adora's black eye and Sora's back. "Finally, my poor aching back. Seriously, what did I do to deserve all this backache?!" He got up and stretched his back.
Princess Entrapta once more pulled out her voice recorder, "Fascinating! New log, Note: without the First Ones' tech sword's influence, the tall one designated as She-Ra/Adora, has grown drastically shorter, less muscular, and less skimpily dressed. The spiky hair one designated as Sora, is also able to produce a spell that is able to restore and heal wounds by showering subjects in need with a misty green glow. Will attempt to get a sample to attempt replicating. Potentially opens a whole new world for medical technology! End log."
The Princess then swapped out the voice recorder for a couple of tubes and beakers, "Sample! Sample, sample, sample, sample!" She held them up to Sora while bouncing on her heels.
He looked taken back, "Um, takes a little while before I recover enough magic to cast that again."
She gave him a toothy smile before invading his personal space and leaned against him, "How much longer?" She let out a nasal giggle, struggling to wait.
Sora took a nervous step back, "Not too sure, it varies often. I'll let you know when."
"Please do!" She moved to and elbowed Bow and Glimmer, "Don't you just love this guy? He just keeps feeding me more and more research ideas. God I love him!" She pulled out her voice recorder again, "Add to log: Take up biology as a side project. Also add syringe to extract DNA to study Sora's unique physiology."
"What?!" Sora started shaking his hands, "What, no. You should stick only to engineering, wouldn't want to distract yourself, would you?"
Entrapta put a thoughtful hair tip to her chin, "No, I suppose that's a good point, but what else is there left for me? I've been rather uninspired as of late."
Sora faked looking at her as though she was crazy, "Whaaaa? No way, there is always so much to do. If you think you're running out of ideas, just ask one of your programs what they think you could try next."
The Princess let out a nasally snort, "Ha! Good one. Please, the best part about robots is that they don't think or feel."
Sora was genuinely offended by that, and his face showed it. "Who told you that? A very dear friend of mine named Tron is a computer program, and he thinks and feels just like you and me."
Glimmer and Bow, who were tending to the out-of-sorts Adora, looked at him with raised eyebrows like Entrapta. "Huh, how in the world did you become friends with a program?! That doesn't make sense."
"After my friends and I set off a security measure, a supercomputer shot at us and converted us to data before pulling us into the virtual system. That's how we met Tron."
Entrapta looked at him skeptically, "...Are you being sarcastic?" she asked him coyly.
"No, I'm being for real! We met Tron and we taught him the true meaning of friendship, and he's been doing everything he can to help my friends since."
Entrapta's eyes began to go wide as she started to believe him. Her mouth began to gape like a fish, she tried covering it while pointing to him multiple times as her excitement went through the roof.
Sora was beginning to see the ramification of his words. "I believe I have errored." He turned around and tried to run for it, but the Princess's hair already ensnared him and she wrapped herself on his back. "TAKE ME! TAKE ME TO THIS SUPERCOMPUTER THIS INSTANT! YOU'VE PERFECTLY ENCAPSULATED MY DEEPEST WISH AND DESIRE! YOU CAN'T NOT TAKE ME WITH YOU AFTER TELLING ME THIS!"
"GET HER OFF! GET HER OFF!" Sora struggled and flailed as her vice grip began to tighten and slowly started choking him.
"NEVER! Only until I'm introduced to the supercomputer with a material to data convertor will I ever be sated and fulfilled!" Entrapta managed to tangle her hair around Sora's legs, dropping him to the ground.
"SOMEONE SAVE ME! ADORA! GLIMMER! BOW!"
Sora's pleas fell on deaf ears as he was able to roll himself into seeing the trio. The three we on the ground, laughing and openly pointing at him. Though oddly enough, Adora's attention was captured by a dismembered robotic arm she was playing with.
The shorter Princess wrapped her arms around his head before locking him up. "Are you gonna take me greatest machine in all the land or not?!"
"Where was all this strength back when we were fighting against the evil robots?!" Sora wheezed out, but she still didn't let up. "Not here! Not here!" he gurgled, "Fix ship! Need to fix ship!"
"SHIP?! WHAT SHIP?!"
It was then that Glimmer and Bow stepped in to help. Doing her best to calm herself down, Glimmer began to explain, "That's *Pant* the whole reason we tried to come see you in the first place."
"Yeah. Now this is gonna sound crazy-" Bow started.
"Soooooo crazy!" Adora stumbled by, swinging the robotic limb before tripping. She was ignored.
"But Sora and his missing friends came from another world on their spaceship! A real, actual spaceship!"
"WHAT?!" A little bit of foam frothed at the Princess's mouth.
"Yeah! I know! We have a good chunk of it back at Bright Moon Castle!" Bow exclaimed.
"But we're still missing a good amount of it, and Sora doesn't know the first thing about fixing it or putting it back together" Glimmer continued, "And that's where you come in..." Glimmer nervously tapped her fingers, "And maybe we hoped that you could join my Princess Alliance?"
"...Will I get to come back with you guys and see the ship?"
"Yeah you do!"
"YES!"
Glimmer excitedly pumped her fist, "Yeah! Wait, yes for the spaceship or the Princess Alliance?"
"Yes to both!" Entrapta finally let go of the blue faced Sora as she jumped up and down excitedly on the poor boy's back. "This is gonna be so amazing! I'm now a Rebel, I get to work with a real spaceship, and I get to spend more time with my greatest research subject ever! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!"
"Even though your robots turned evil and destroyed maybe a quarter of your castle?" Glimmer asked with a raised eyebrow.
Entrapta shrugged her shoulders, "You know what they saw, 'failure begets success.' And boy did I fail hard today, but it was so worth it for this!" She then nudged the prone Sora with her leg, "Isn't that right Sora? Huh, huh?...Sora?" She stared at him for a moment before screaming "OH GOD, HE'S NOT BREATHING!"
"WHAT?!" Glimmer and Bow shouted.
Entrapta turned him over and slapped him three times across the face to revive him. Nothing. His face was blue and his appendages twitched. "Oh no, somebody do something!"
Teela and the Kitchen Brigade, who stood away from the conversation between royalty, ran forward. The Burly woman picked up her Princess and placed her aside. "Don't worry Princess, I've got this!" She stood besides him for a moment before propping her elbow, she then jumped and dropped it down on his diaphragm. Sora immediately lurched forward and started coughing and wheezing, but he was at least breathing again. "There we go, Honey, you're gonna be alright."
Everyone let out a breath of relief, Bow and Glimmer were about to go comfort him, but Entrapta was already back at it with the hugging. "Oh thank God you're still alive! I thought I'd lost my greatest research subject, and it would have been all my fault! I was so close to losing so much opportunity to help move science forward!"
Adora choose that moment to roll herself up to them. She looked at them with a goofy look before giggling to herself, "Ha ha, you were totally like 'Guuuuh' but then that person was like 'Wa-kuuuh,' then you were like 'Bwaaahhh.' Ha ha, soooo silly..." She stared blankly before falling over and passing out.
Glimmer and Bow came up, "Well, at least we don't have to deal with weird, loopy Adora for a little bit."
"Hey man, how are you feeling after all that?" Bow asked.
Sora looked up at him with uneven eyes before he fell back unconscious, pulling the Princess down with him.
"OW!" Entrapta let go and rubbed her forehead, she pulled a couple of metal shards out from her skin. "I probably deserved that." She looked at the two unconscious powerhouses. "So who's up for that sleepover?!"
A/N: Hey guys, bought a Bluetooth keyboard for my phone! It was so much easier to write this chapter up. This is a chapter that I've envisioned very early on when I first thought of this Crossover, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I think you all will, too. Leave a review to let me know what you all thought of it!