Fwoosh Flash Fiction Feature – Masters of the Universe Classics Bow and Adora

What was supposed to be a simple trip to Etheria’s Tempara mining colony had turned into tragedy, which was more often than not the case these days. Instead of the thriving community that should have been just outside the notice of the Horde, Bow and Adora found desolation.

The cracked steel gate was the first indication that something was wrong; it hung half off the hinges, the moorings shattered where something of immense power had forced its way through. The gate had been left to rust in misery. “How long has it been since last contact?” Adora asked. Spirit was hesitant beneath her.

“Too long. Years.” Bow dismounted and pulled the gate open. It creaked wearily and then clanged to the ground with barely a tug.

“We shouldn’t have left them out here alone that long.” Adora said as she moved closer to the gate. Where there should have been the sounds of machinery, there was now only silence.

“We’ve been stretched too thin as it is,“ Bow said, remounting Arrow and joining Adora side by side as they entered through the gates into the abandoned colony. “Besides, they never had anything that could have been of value to the Horde, tempara would be worthless to them.”

“Horde doesn’t care about value,” Adora said. Once inside, they got a better view of what the mining colony had become. The shattered buildings and fire-pitted holes that had long ago burned themselves out was all that had remained of the small mining colony. To her right a building appeared to be kneeling, it’s roof having collapsed over the entrance.

The path was littered with broken axes and picks that were covered by dust and dirt. The colonists had put up a fight against whatever had come for them, but it had clearly done no good. There were no bodies, but that was not unusual. The Horde didn’t leave bodies behind; they had use for bodies both alive and dead.

“Bow,” Adora said, and pointed to the side of the largest building. The door had been shattered. But that wasn’t what Adora was pointing to.

There was a word burned into wood facade of the building: DESTRUCTON

“Someone in the Horde is a lousy speller,” Bow said, his jittery voice betraying the humor he was attempting.

Adora shook her head. “No, not destruction. Destructon. It’s a name.”

Bow‘s hand reflexively moved towards the bow which was his namesake strapped across his back. “Destructon… I’ve heard that before. It’s been a while.”

Adora and Bow both dismounted again and walked to the word. It was black and jagged, hastily etched into the wood as a warning, or as a proud signature. “I heard stories back when… when the Horde had me.” She was quiet for a second. That was one aspect of her past life she didn’t like reliving. “When Hordak heard about a town that wouldn’t cooperate, his first order was to ‘Send Destructon.’”

“Sounds ominous. Why have we never run across him?”

They entered the building. Dust exploded to life as they pushed the shattered door off its hinges. The clatter of the door hitting the floor was loud in the stark quiet. “He disappeared after a mission once. Hordak was furious. Furious. None of us dared go near him. Even Shadow Weaver was frightened. I was only a girl then, and stayed well out of Hordak’s way when he was like that. I wasn’t beyond his wrath. He ordered squadrons out to search for him, but Destructon was never found.”

She shook her head as she relived the festering memories. “I’d hear stories of how towns would be emptied of its citizenry almost overnight, and weary travelers would return to find nothing but wreckage: families gone, friends disappeared. He became known for signing his work, burning his name into the wreckage for all to see and to know, marking the dead towns and village he left behind. Destructon became this unknowable boogieman that Hordak terrorized communities into sumbmission with.”

“All of Hordak’s inner circle have their specialties,” she continued. “Grizzlor is his living nightmare, Mantenna his twisted experimenter, Leech is… obvious. Destructon was Hordak’s fist… his threat to any other town that wouldn’t cooperate. The words ‘Destructon is coming,’ was Hordak’s only warning. Sometimes that as all that needed to be said to whip the leaders of a town into compliance.”

Bow grunted. “Now I’m glad we’ve never run across him. If we do, I hope She-Ra is there.”

Adora smiled to herself and turned back towards the door, where dim sunlight struggled to illuminate their passage. “Tempara must have been one of the places Hordak sent him.”

“Hordak never sent me here,” a voice from the darkness said.

Adora didn’t see Bow pull his weapon from his back. She blinked and Bow had an arrow aimed at the darkness in the building.

“Tempara was long abandoned when I arrived,” a deep voice said from thick blackness. The light from the door died before reaching him. “Whatever its inhabitants faced, it was not me. I only left my name as a warning. You ignored my warning, Force Captain. That was unwise.You know what I can do,” the voice said.

Adora aimed her pistol into the darkness. “You know who I am?” she asked. Bow was rigid, fingers tight on his string.

“I know you are the stolen child grown into Hordak’s second.”

“I’m not the Horde’s Force captain anymore. Come out where we can see you.”

“No lies. Leave. I’m done with the Horde. I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of violence, but that won‘t stop me from unleashing more if pressed.”

“We’re not with the Horde,” Bow said, keeping his weapon trained on the darkness. His eyesight was amazing, but Adora doubted even he could see into the murk. “We’re part of the Great Rebellion.”

The voice was quiet. Adora’s eyes had adjusted slightly to the darkness and she thought she could see a strange shape moving in the murk. Her sword was at her back. If only Bow wasn’t here, she could get away, change. She was not accustomed to fear, but her pistol quivered in her hand, feeling inadequate. The stories she had heard of Destructon…

“The Great Rebellion. Not so great, is it? Etheria is still a Horde world. What a useless concept. A crusade of fools. Rebellion against the Horde is meaningless. Best to accept your fate or run and hide, as I did.”

Adora and Bow shared a glance. She took a breath and holstered her pistol. Bow looked at her as if she had lost her mind, but she raised her hands and took a step forward. Bow said her name but she shook her head. “You know that’s not true. Hordak’s not omnipotent. I got away from him. I help people, I save people now. I fight the Horde every step of the way, and will keep fighting until Etheria is free again. I try to atone for… what I did under Hordak. You could too.”

“I don’t want to help or hurt. I only want to be left alone. You don’t know what I did in places just like these. I can still remember the looks on faces. All those towns.”

“And that will stay with you. Forever. I won’t lie to you about that. But you can make sure nobody else suffers. There’s a place for you in the rebellion. You must have had a reason for leaving the Horde.”

The shape in the darkness was quiet. “I did what Hordak wished without question, without pity. He sent me to a town and I destroyed it in his name. The townspeople tried to fight back, but… they were only human, and I was Horde. I was Horde. What could they do?”

Adora motioned for Bow to lower his weapon. His brow tightened, but she insisted, and he grudgingly did so.

“I enjoyed it. I was powerful, unstoppable. Before Hordak, I was weak, powerless. But he made me into something greater. I lost myself in that power. Do you know what its like to have more power than you thought possible?”

Adora hesitated. “I know how seductive power can be,” she said vaguely.

“I grew cocky. I believed I was the strongest thing on Etheria. Strong enough, I believed, to challenge Hordak himself. I was tired to being just a weapon. When nothing stands against you, then you believe nothing ever will. But that was a mistake.”

“You attacked Hordak?”

“I never got that far. Hordak had built in… fail-safes. I tried to attack, but then the pain began. Excruciating. Agonizing. Hordak and the rest of them… they laughed and laughed, and, as angry as I got, as much as I wanted to destroy them and everything around me, the pain grew more and more intense until I went to my knees. Have you ever heard Hordak laugh, truly laugh from the bottom of his black soul? It’s a horrible, mocking sound. And then he called me that name; not Destructon, the name I earned in blood and fire, but that other name, ridiculing me, belittling me. And I knew what I was to them. A joke. A laughable weapon. I wasn’t powerful, or strong, or anything. I was a pawn.”

“All I could do was run. I could hear them, taunting me, calling me that name, that damnable name, over and over, voices like steel in my ears. I ran and never returned. I realized that I was no longer Destructon. I was neither what they named me nor who I was before. I was that taunting, scornful name. Better to hide myself away from the world. ”

“What did they call you? Bow asked.

The shape moved forward into the light, revealing his form and shape. “They called me Snout Spout.”