We who gather to Amaja remember
How in the Time Before Unity,
Gali of Mata contended with Makuta
Beneath the hollow red stars of hell
And purged that place
With blood and holy protodermis
* * * * * *
Credit to @demitsorou for the "Blood Gali" concept and aesthetic :)
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Soldiers of the Second and Fourth Kingdoms marched upon the Iron Mountain of Angon, thinking to retake the ancient site of Roxtus in the name of the nascent Quadrate.
But to their dismay, they found that the Mountain was not uninhabited.
He awakened in the dark of the hive, found that his mind was his own once more—what was left of it, at least. Dug his fingers beneath the brain-husk that covered his face, felt its sleeping mind try to resist him peeling it off. But the queen was dormant and distant, down below.
He was the first awake, the lightest of the sleepers.
Out into sunlight. Early morning. Horrible pangs of hunger and thirst. He tried to recall how long it had been, but memory was short amongst the swarm. All he had left was from...Before.
Escaping. Fleeing across a patchwork desert, a landscape that was both old and new. Escaping...but from what?
Drink from the fetid pool. Eat the creeping fungus. Hope it wouldn't kill him at least. He climbed the cliffside with newfound strength. A grassy plateau stretched before him, and the wind was cool and dry. The sky above him was...too big. Too open. Too long closed inside the mind of the swarm. Too long underground. Eyes down, he walked, and tried again to remember.
Escaping. He was escaping then, just as he was escaping now. Escaping across a patchwork desert....
Escaping from...Dreams.
Tracks in the soft earth. He recognized the shape, the claw-marks, saw the signs of grazing. A herd of them. Follow, as his shadow bent round beneath him. Follow and follow until he found what he sought.
It took a few hours, but at last he caught up to them. The herd was just beyond the ridge now. He peeked over the rise and counted... Twenty-two. Why did he count them? What did that matter? Some old habit, maybe...from before.
What do you seek? Your dream, it shall be granted.
No, too many. No more dreams. Please.
Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.
What do you seek?
Spikits they were called. Yes, he knew that. Spikits, the two-headed beasts. One head stayed up while the other grazed. Hard to sneak up on, but he knew better methods. They were looking thin. Must be the narrow season for them, up here on the plateau with only grass. They'd be hungry for other things.
Hungry. Hungry for...dreams.
No, he'd escaped that too. Somehow he'd escaped, and he'd made his wish.
Hungry...
Not my dreams!
He lay still where he'd crept, a little upwind of the herd. The grass rattled, and he wondered if he should make some noise. Thought better of it—don't want to spook them.
Finally, movement. Two heads went up into the air as a scrawny Spikit caught his scent. The heads turned to and fro, then red eyes settled on him. The left head—that must be the dominant one. The right head tilted to monitor the rest of the herd as the beast loped toward his prone body. Closer. Closer....
Head bent down. Nudged him. His fingers clenched in anticipation. Yes, this is fresh meat. You want meat. No more grass for you.
The jaw unhinged. He saw teeth, smelled breath. Opened wider, then the bite:
Teeth clamped down on the makeshift metal bit that he'd fashioned from the remains of his helmet-spur, and he was moving with all his strength and speed, wedging the bit down further between the two largest back teeth, wrapping the grass-woven bridle round the head-spikes. The right head whirled as the Spikit backpedaled, but he was already on his feet, running with it, between the two necks. He gave the right neck a hard blow in just the right spot, and the right head flinched downward. Enough for him to slide a leg over, heave himself up onto the back, and pull the reins tight on the dominant head.
The Spikit was clearly not at full strength. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to hold on as it tried to shake him. Its croaking and shrieking filled the air, but he kept his grip tight on the reins and his knees hard against the flanks, as he'd done many times before, it seemed. Leaning side to side, back and forth, repeating his strike on the right neck when that head got any ideas.
The beast flagged. The rest of the herd had fled. The sun was starting to go down. He spent some time teaching his new steed the ropes. The heel-jab meant go, a pull on the reins meant turn. Good Spikit, good beast. Pats to the neck, in just the right spot. You're a good learner. No, not that way. Yes, good Spikit. Have a seed-husk. I know you like those. Say, there's greener grass across that way, round this ravine, isn't there? I'll feed you better than you've had. Let's see.
After a while, he chose a direction, off toward the setting sun. It felt right, somehow, like the wind made a good noise that way. And he rode, straight on across the tablelands. Escaping now. Really escaping.
It had been a long time since he'd rode bareback. No wagon or chariot. He'd liked the chariot, but it was probably a wreck now and rusting, somewhere beyond the horizon, along with everything about his past life. It all seemed unreal now, and he had a moment of uncertainty as the Spikit loped beneath him. Maybe it had been unreal, just a dream he had conjured through the mind of the swarm. There were memories of that time too, mixed in. Memories of battle...war, maybe? He alongside the others, fighting for the queen, fighting for the task: to purge the world. To return everything to the Before Time.
He shook his head. No. He'd had a life before the swarm. He knew that, even if the memories were a bit frayed now. There were too many for it to all be false. He'd known people. He'd killed people. He'd loved. He'd hated. He'd captured Spikits and Rock Steeds and Sand Stalkers and made them serve him. He'd raided settlements in the wake of the apocalypse...and enslaved the inhabitants.
And now...Now he'd felt what that was like. Just a fraction, maybe.
Escaping across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.
He'd escaped the dream-eater somehow, the entity that had driven his people insane so long ago. And after that, he'd made peace with the cursed fate of his tribe. But then, when he returned, the dream-weaver had taken him. He'd thought that it was his ally, but instead it enthralled him, made him a part of its bizarre kingdom, for however long. He didn't know how, but that dream had ended too, and at last the veil lifted.
He'd fled then, into the waste, heedless of anything else but to get away. To get free. To escape....
Across a patchwork desert. Escaping from too many dreams.
His life was cursed, maybe because of his lineage. Maybe to pay for past misdeeds. But for that moment, he'd been free. No more illusions or false realities. He could breath. He could think. No more insanity.
A rumble in the distance, off where the mountains were strange. He hadn't seen those peaks before, and there were lights up and down the hills. The rumble growing closer.
And there was a mind. It touched his.
Her mind.
He'd dozed for a second, nearly slipped from his steed, but now he was awake. Lucky it hadn't tried to buck him at unawares. It was a good Spikit. Pats to the neck. Now, where were they?
The sun was very low. Almost gone. It lit the horizon into a jagged red line ahead. They'd come pretty far, but without a destination, it didn't matter much. Still, he felt somehow that they were going in the right direction. The wind still made that good noise, almost calling him, and—
And there was something on the horizon. He squinted through shading fingers. It was murky against the red, but as the sun faded, it became clear.
It was a tower of some kind. Ram-rod straight against the sunset. Unmistakable. He was aiming right for it. What luck! Elation rose in him. Good Spikit. We might make it there by nightfall, if we double-time. It's a good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. We're going to make it.
What luck...!
Her mind had touched his, and he knew that he stood no chance. Whatever She was, She was in terrible haste.
Flee the Great Wreck, She called, and all the units of the swarm answered back: Flee the Great Wreck and rebuild, till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed. Come all, come to the swarm!
Frozen to the spot. The rumbling noise came up over the edge of the patchwork desert in a great wave of round metal bodies, and they poured over him and around him in their haste. He never even saw the queen, but felt Her pass by. Felt Her awareness touch him briefly. The briefest of commands. He could not even resist as they fastened one of the brain-husks over his face, and the voice of the swarm filled his ears and mind.
And just before the fear left him and the despair evaporated, just before that, he had a brief final thought:
This must be what it was like, for those he'd captured and sold over the years, back in the raiding days. Helpless. Knowing they stood no chance. Must be how they felt. He'd never really thought about it before. Maybe he should have.
Then there was no feeling. Just the swarm, calling him. A good voice. It sounded right....
A good wind. It sounds right. It's calling me there. What luck....
There had been no luck. It was a signal. He could hear it plainly now: a high-pitched tone ringing across the distance. He'd thought that he'd gotten away. She was asleep, dormant and deep below. He'd simply slipped the swarm's awareness, just this once.
But the signal was clear in his ears and in his mind. A signal of awakening, and he was responding to it. Elation. Excitement.
Make haste. You are the first, sent forth to make contact, to bring news back. News of renewal.
His hands raised slowly to his face. He thought that he'd—
All your skills are in service to the swarm. In service to Her.
...thought that he'd peeled it off, thrown it away....
Make haste!
The brain-husk was still there, covering his true face. He felt it throb at his touch. How had he not realized?
All your skills are in service to the swarm. To Her.
Was he still a puppet, simply acting out Her desires? No, She was asleep. He knew that. He'd felt it. Dormant and deep below. Her will wasn't on him, not at this moment. But he was still under its influence. He could still hear the voice.
But maybe...maybe he could....
He gouged at the fringe of the brain-husk suddenly with one hand. Viciously, and it stirred. Pain needled into him as he tore at it, got the tips of his fingers under one edge.
Agony. He writhed in his seat, and the Spikit kicked warily beneath him. The strength in his arm failed as the husk's own will strove with his own, and he dropped the reins.
Quickly, before She awakens. Before She comes!
Small movement in his vision, blurring red with the red sunset. The Spikit's right head glanced at him sidelong.
He raised his other hand to his face now. The husk didn't expect that. Both sets of fingers tore at the fringe behind his temples and under his chin, and he screamed, twisting and arching his back.
You have to...before....
The Spikit croaked and shifted again. The reins were free. The right head squinted at him darkly.
Turning his body back and forth, he felt the husk give way a little. Fire along his skin. He pried his fingers further, but....
She will awaken. She will know....
His arms were numb. His fingers wouldn't work. Couldn't push back against the brain-husk's will. It was too late, and now She would have him again—
Teeth. Jaw open. Foul breath. The Spikit's right head had taken its chance, snapping right at him, at his face.
But that was not his face.
Incisors pierced through the brain-husk and grazed his skin, and he heard the husk's voice leap and then die away. With the last of his energy, he twisted, flinched back as the jaws closed and tore the thing off of him. It ripped away and left his face raw and stinging, and he watched as the Spikit's right head bolted the strange meat of it. Gone.
The reins were back in his hand before it finished, pulling hard to head off the beast's inevitable attempt to throw him. Knees went in tight at the flanks. The right head whipped round again.
Surprised I'm still alive?
There was a moment of stand-off. His hand was raised to deliver a blow to the neck. The mouth was open, dripping spittle. Red eyes. Both breathing hard.
He patted the neck instead. Gentle with it. Good Spikit. Good...good beast. You saved me. The meat's good, right? Told you I'd feed you better.
The right head tossed. A conflicted look. It licked its lips. Good meat. More.
Good Spikit.
The red light darkened, down into orange-blue. The tower was still there, standing straight, far away. For a moment, he imagined that he could still hear the voice, calling him to it.
...Till my sister can be repaired, and the swarm renewed...
Was that the source of the signal?
...Come all, come to the swarm...
No, just the wind.
He pulled lightly on the reins, and the Spikit agreed, turning to face the opposite direction.
Did you like the taste of that? I know where we can find a lot more, though we might have to dig a little. Might still be time....
A light prod, and they loped off together along the plateau, back the way they'd come, as night fell.
...And then we'd better find someone to warn about what might be waking up soon.
The helms and armor of the Glatori hosts were forged in the image of the mutant beasts that wandered Spherus Magna in the era when its silver oceans receded to the Core.
The armies of the Lord of Water forged their helms to evoke the deepwater Great Maw, and their tridents reflected the tools that the ancient sailors of Aqua Magna would use to skewer the Maw's offspring.
Though long extinct, the spirits of these beasts were said to endure in the fighting spirits of the Glatori soldiers...those who unwittingly fought to unleash the silver oceans once more.
Scrape-scratch-chip. Cio after cio, bio after bio. The corrosion was bad here. Lots of build-up. Hard to clean, even using the scouring tools with which his hands had long ago been replaced. Sometimes he missed them, his hands, but that was absurd. Scrape, scratch, chip. These were the tools that furthered his Matoran Duty. Why miss what was useless otherwise?
Still, it made it a bit harder to open and close the hatches....
He tilted his head for a moment, beamed his headbeam down the length of the pitch black pipe and blinked it with a flex of his undermask laterals. After a space, Shoyka's own headbeam shone out and blinked back. She was at least eight bio further down the slope. Faintly came the scraping of her own tools, the only other sound in the close, humid dark. That was good, making good time. Better than yesterday.
He turned back to the layers of proto-rust before him, cleared his vents with a breath.
Scrape-scratch-chip
Scrape-scratch-chip
Almost done, just a few more cio to clear.
Scrape-scratch...slither—
His head went up again. Headbeam shone. Two blinks, then one. You hear?
One blink. Affirmed.
Scrape-scratch-scrape-scratch came the rapid noise as Shoyka tried to finish up. Scrape-scratch slither slither....
He cleared vents again with a loud pop of his breath. That sometimes seemed to delay the thing. Delay, but not stop. No resources for that. The pipes were too small for a Toa, too vital to be fully shut down. The engines of Metru Vel above could not halt for a moment. So instead, this.
He shouldered his pack, raised himself to a crouch. Listened.
He shut off his headbeam, turned and braced awkwardly against the curved walls—another thing that was harder without hands. He began the ascent.
Slither slither scrape. There was a scuffling noise back down the pipe behind him. A sound of struggling.
He kept climbing, silently as he could.
Slither scrape slither, creeaaaak, POP.
Vents clearing, but not from a breath. The struggling stopped.
The top of his mask bumped against the handle of the hatchway, and he hooked into it, twisted.
Slither...slither...scrape...slither. Retreating now. A good day's work.
The hatch opened and out he went.
* * * * * *
Daystars were just shining when chimes came out of the Cinis Mai, declaring another start to Matoran Duties in the City of Secrets. He snapped awake and stepped outside his hexagonal Matoran cell. Cool air on his mask, and clear daylight. He missed these too, when he was below. Absurd...absurd. These had no part of his Duty. Why miss what was...useless...otherwise?
He made his way down, down into the crevices of the City, down to the staging area with all the others, where the labyrinth of pipes and drainage tubes and cooling vents began. He lined up to grab a headbeam and a pack, then went through the sanitation spray on the conveyer. The fluid stung his eyes and mouth. He blinked it away as he stepped up to the carving of Duty assignments: Corrosion Maintenance, same as yesterday. The old Turaga pointed him to his station beside the main hatchway, and he waited there for the next chime.
Soon afterward, Shoyka arrived. The Turaga gestured her over and she stood beside him. Her armor was glinting, smooth, mask polished clean. Like new, like a first day worker.... That's how it went. They didn't talk, but he smiled at her.
She nodded, but didn't smile back.
The chime came, and now they made their way down, back down into the pipes. Pipes that led who knows where and fed who knows what, just a tiny fragment of the machine that made up the City, the world.
Down into the systems that were too small for Toa, too vital to be shut down. His mask bumped against the hatch again as the two of them entered the tube, crouched together in the tiny space, tested the headbeams, and got to work. Shoyka took the higher end this time, closer to the hatch, while he took the lower. They switched back and forth like that, usually.
Scrape-scratch-chip. Cio after cio, bio after bio. The corrosion was even worse here. It took twice as long, and once he even chipped one of his scouring tools. It jarred into his nerves. Had to pull it off and replace it with an extra from the pack. More time lost.
Scrape-scratch-chip
Scrape-scratch-chip
Shoyka beamed down at him: Almost done. Will move to assist. He acknowledged.
Scrape-scratch-chip
Another few cio cleaned, move to the next section.
Scrape-scratch-chip
Scrape-scratch...slither—
His shoulders sagged, and he cleared vents in frustration. Time was up. Not a good day. Might be marked for inefficiency if this continued.
Two blinks from Shoyka, then one: You hear?
Affirmed.
Scrape-scratch-scrape-scratch. He attacked the rust, just a bit more, before....
Scrape-scratch slither slither
He stopped, looked up the pipe.
Slither scrape slither
The noise was coming from the higher end, past Shoyka—not from lower down like usual. The thing must've ranged further last night rather than returning to whatever deep hole it normally inhabited.
He sent a two-one: You hear?
Slither scrape slither
No response. Surely she heard.
Another two.
Slither slither slither
Affirmed, the reply came at last. A slow on, off. A slow blink of the headbeam....
Affirmed.
Slither scrape slither
He came upon her in the dark, scuttling himself back up the pipe double-time, and she startled for a moment. He handed her the pack, and his headbeam. No use wasting another. Her beam shone in his eyes as she took them slowly. Stood still for a moment. He squinted, couldn't make out her face.
Slither slither slither
The hatch sealed closed behind her. He stood alone in the pipe now, body and mask, joints and heartlight encrusted with Duty. The job would have to be finished later. After all, the engines of Metru Vel could not halt for a moment.
So instead, this.
Slither slither scrape
Scuffling.
Struggling.
Maybe he'd be back in time to catch the morning...feel the cool air....
And maybe, when he'd see her again...Ah, it was absurd, no part of his Duty...but he found that he had missed something else today.
When they'd met at the staging ground, waiting for the chime...he had smiled, but she hadn't.
The tone sounded from the Coliseum, signaling on-duty Matoran across the city to retire.
Tegte finished sweeping debris from her hextant of the cooling station floor and put up her Bolhii-stick, shook her feet dry and filed out with the others. Through the banks of steam they marched across the Ga-Ta border: Ga-Matoran north and Ta-Matoran south, step in lockstep as the suns went down.
Step in lockstep, except for Tegte. Every few beats, she'd add a step extra, just to let off the building electric feeling she felt. It buzzed in her brain and her limbs, and sometimes she just couldn't contain it. That extra step helped though. Hopefully no one noticed.
It was the end of the eighteenth cycle of an eighteenth Great Cycle, and at start of the previous shift, she'd received an additional tablet with her normal duties: a summons to be re-Named. The Naming Day was tomorrow. That was where the feeling came from...excitement.
One by one the workers filed into cool resting-cells. One by one their eyes darkened.
One by one, except for Tegte. Her eyes still shone, thinking.
She knew why she'd been summoned. She'd felt the shrinking feeling because of it: worry, about what she'd been doing. Out on the station floor, trying new things. The floor of the station flowed with a thin layer of water, sometimes south to quench the forges of Ta-Metru, sometimes southwest to fill the chuteways of Le-Metru, and always the constant filtration left its residue, to be swept away. There was a pattern to follow, and they all did, each in their own hextant.
Except for...she'd found better patterns: faster, more efficient. She'd even covered extra hextants when things went out of sync. A fellow worker slipped and lost time, an unexpected change in the flow-rate...Couldn't help it, and she knew it was noticed. The Elders had been there, to watch.
She'd been worried, but then the summons came, and it lessened, lessened.
Her eyes dimmed...ready to rest...and soon the Great Spirit would bring the gift of names....
Clunk, scrape. A muffled voice sounded outside the cell door. Her eyes went bright again, ears tuned to listen.
"...mind...step. It's dark here," she heard a fluid voice say.
"Last one?" another voice said, this one more gruff.
"Yes, it's a short list this cycle," replied the first.
"Mercifully. My least favorite duty."
"Better this way though, right? Keeps the experience in the city..."
"More filing work for us. Easier to just sent them south for deviations, like we used to...But I see the value. What's the name?"
"This is for...uh...Matoran Tegte."
Tegte sat up in the dark, then moved to the closed door, listening intently. Excitement and worry were taking turns occupying her core.
"Remind me of the readout," the gruff voice said.
"Let's see...the tablet lists 'extraneous activities on duty' and 'improvements to subroutines' as cause."
"Mhm. Recommendations?"
"Looks like two additions and a replacement, minimum."
"That much, eh? Must be quite an innovator."
"Seems so."
"Alright, make the erasure then."
There was a pause. Tegte pressed harder against the door, straining to hear what came next. There was a faint noise outside...a scratching.
The sound of a carving tool on stone.
"Done," came the fluid voice again. "Designation T-E-G-T-E is erased."
Something...happened.
It happened all over, all over the body of the Matoran that crouched against the door in the cell.
It went strange.
It went...empty.
The door slid open, and the Matoran looked at the two Turaga standing in the corridor outside. If the Matoran had known the words, it would have said the Turaga were surprised to see it.
"It's still active," the blue Turaga said.
The red Turaga moved forward and stopped the Matoran from wobbling.
"Careful now, Aitak" said the blue Turaga. "It's easier when they're prone on the slab."
"I know," Aitak replied. His Mask of Telekinesis flashed, and the Matoran moved rigidly backward into the cell, rotated in air and laid gently down.
"Was it...listening?" the blue Turaga asked.
"How should I know?"
"It's strange, is all."
"Well, Rezzah, this is one of the strange ones."
"True..."
"You gonna help?"
Both Turaga moved to stand on either side of the slab. The Matoran looked straight up. The emptiness was all inside. Information went in through the eyes and ears, but nothing happened to it. It just flowed straight through the place where something had once been.
Something about...extra steps...extra hextants. Something that couldn't be contained all the time. A residue of something...some debris...about feeling.
The eyes flicked left, then right. The red Turaga reached down to remove the Matoran's mask.
"I was...excited," the Matoran began to say—
"What?" said Rezzah.
But then the mask clicked free, and the eyes went empty.
And the body went all to pieces.
"Hmm..." Aitak said, rubbing the chin of his mask. Rezzah frowned.
"We'll make it 'Teegtah', I think," he continued after a few moments.
"T-E-...?"
"T-E-E-G-T-A-H. Got that? Two additions and one replacement."
Rezzah brought up the tablet again, began to carve. She kept her eyes down as her red companion started the reassembly process. Joints clicked back together.
Pieces of debris jostled on the narrow slab.
The carving tool scratched slowly.
"...All finished?" Aitak glanced upward at her.
"Done," she said, still not raising her eyes.
"Still think it's better this way?" Aitak smiled a little as he worked. "Adjusting the parameters of the duty, rather than total refurbishment?"
Another joint snapped in. The whir of a power-core revved up.
"I guess I can still see...the value."
The mask clicked into place. The Matoran sat up, eyes glowing bright.
"Matoran," Turaga Aitak said commandingly, "your designation is now TEEGTAH. Do you understand the duties and parameters which correspond to this Name?"
"Yes."
"At sunsrise, you will make your way to the Coliseum Amaja to be presented for the Naming Day ceremony. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good." Aitak turned, dusted his hands, stepped out the door.
Turaga Rezzah stayed a moment.
"Matoran...uh...Teegtah. Do you..." She stopped, tried again: "Are you...excited?"
The Matoran did not reply.
"Come, sister. Let the Matoran rest."
The two Turaga exited. The door slid shut. Teegtah lay back down on the slab and let her eyes dim, then darken, as the footsteps outside faded.
The emptiness was gone. Information went in, and now it was tangled up in the Name that occupied the space, seeking to sweep off whatever came before...the residue that had accumulated.
Some debris...about feeling.
Her heartlight slowed to a regular beat, same as the heartlights of all the Matoran in all the cells that stretched from there north to the Ga-Metru shore and west to the roots of the Coliseum, on the night when the Great Spirit brought the gift of names.
Tahu gasped in a final shock of pain as he pulled the last of Marendar's spines free of his torso, flung it away. Something was dripping on the dirt beneath him. He shuddered and readied himself, clasped a hand to his right side, cauterized it with a sickening flash of heat, then half-collapsed again, heartlight beating rapidly.
No more dripping. He raised himself at last, took a full breath for the first time in days. His mind was still hazy from long pain, but the removal of the suppressing rods made it easier, and he felt his elemental powers returning fully.
Ahead, the shattered husk of the Titan rose in sheer cliff upon sheer cliff, up into the sky. From this vantage, little could be seen of the dismantling efforts that had been started. Part of the head was in view, and one empty gulf of an eye stared straight out into the air. His teleportation had flung him many kio across the planet's surface, but finally he was almost there. And when he arrived....
It wouldn't matter. His powers were useless against the Hunter.
Everything had been.
He shifted gingerly into a sitting position, closed his weary eyes and focused on breathing, thinking. That was the way.
Maybe if he hadn't been alone...It had surprised them all....
He had to get back to New Atero, whatever remained of it at least. Had to find his allies once more. Maybe with the aid of the other Toa Nuva....
But he wasn't a Nuva anymore, was he? The Mask of Life had changed him, reverted him to his former self, in order to better fit him into that blasted Armor. And then the Armor had betrayed him. The memory had replayed a thousand times. He clenched his eyes tighter shut.
They would band together to defeat the threat, like always. Unity was strength. Of course he couldn't have done it on his own, because...because....
Because he was just himself...alone. And alone he was helpless.
Unless...
At his previous speed, it would probably have taken him another two days, maybe three, to round the edge of the mountains. Now he would make better time. He had only to rest here for a little while longer, then move on.
He'd seen no signs of activity, and that worried him. Was it all over, or did the Titan's body simply shield him from the chaos on the other side? Maybe he was too late...as if he could've done anything.
Unless...
No.
But—
No!
His eyes snapped open angrily. He rose to his feet, looked down into the shallow gorge that was sunk into the ground before him.
Down there, something glinted.
Something fizzed, hissed, bubbled down a tiny streambed eaten anew out of the earth. On either side of it, the ground was black, burned away, down to the strange, inert bedrock of the planet, or else the clods and stones that had blocked the way had been changed, grown limbs or wings, and crawled off....
It could do that; he knew from experience: One or the other, and never the same twice.
A rivulet of Silver, oozing from some crack in the Titan's shattered body. And there, further down the gorge, the rivulet twisted and pooled into a depression, before spilling further on. Light shimmered on its mercurial surface.
No Armor...no Nuva....
He glanced over at the broken-off spine of the Hunter, where he'd thrown it. It glinted blackly at him. He dared not even touch it again.
His side throbbed. Another "treatment" might be needed.
Back to the Silver below. A pool just large enough....
Staggered in under the black stone, sick from the teleport. He’d barely made it. Could feel how close it had been, as the power ebbed. He fell to his knees, succumbing to the shivering exhaustion that spread through his core and into his limbs.Â
Once, he had been strong. He remembered how the villagers of Ta-Koro had first looked at him from behind their thin spears: fear and hope mixed. They were frail, weakened by the darkness, but still they had raised open hands toward him.
“Mata Nui has answered,” they’d said in hushed tones. Then, beseeching: “O Spirit of Flame, hear us!”
The Armor had abandoned him. Angonce had warned...“Contingency against contingency” or something equally as cryptic. Not only that: The Armor had taken its power with it, emptied him of all the strange abilities it had granted. Teleportation was all he’d been able to manage. One last escape, and no more.
All that was left now was his own elemental power, but even that.... The Hunter’s black ceramic lances throbbed where they protruded from his back, draining his energies. Dark and smooth and alien. He couldn’t get them out. He’d have to try again....
Jaw clenched, he crawled forward a pace, felt cool air on his brow, and remembered that he was maskless. That’d have to be first. He reached out with his mind. It was hard, much too hard...but then he felt his old Hau respond. It came to him from however far away and covered his face with its familiar shape, filled him with its familiar energy.
Better. He breathed and pushed back against the pain in his body. Now he raised a hand in front of his face. Focused again. It was still hard, but not like before. Come on!
Radiance. A small tongue of fire sprang to life above his palm. It grew. Yes, it was alive. He was alive. For now.
“Listen to me!” he’d yelled, trying to make himself heard as the Hunter smashed blunt arms against his shield. He’d used the Armor to exert telekinetic control then, arresting his foe’s upper limbs. The great eye fixed on him with an expression of...Amusement? Insult?
“Your creators don’t want this!” he’d gasped, breathless from his wounds. “And neither do mine. We must stop. They don’t want this destruction.”
The Hunter had no real mouth, but words came from somewhere, a metallic clamor issuing from the gaps in its carapace.
“THEY DO.”
He’d felt it then. An unlatching, a withdrawal. The air shimmered as his telekinesis failed. The Armor twisted him, wrenched itself from his body and limbs and face, and flung him away. Teleportation saved him from the impact, but not much else, and then...
The tiny flame danced before his eyes. Alive.
They have answered you. They have shown you what they want.
Pain swelled in his body, and his hand began to shake. His arm sagged, and his breath came in gasps. He was weak, weakened by the darkness, and there was no one here to help.
He struggled to raise his hand a little higher, felt the warmth on his mask.
