Dark Origins

Story
This story details my own mocs along with other mocs from other users. The title of the story is based off of Makuta Serrakaan who will be the main antagonist of the story. This story is also based off of canon events in the prime universe and details events from The rule of Makuta Miserix to the reformation of Spherus Magna. The story goes from the perspectice of one character to the next, so it won't be all about just one character. Enjoy the story and I hope you will be pleased.

Prologue
Stars, were spotted against the night sky, looking down at the peaceful coves and shorelines of the Northern Continent of the Prime Universe. The waves were reflecting the stars radiant brightness, makeing a glittering shine accross each wave as they beat against the rocky shores. Darkness was spread over the island, with only the light of the stars to shed light accross the tree tops, turning the landscape into a pleasant, warm, and relaxing haven. The moon was full this night, its features clearly shown as it floated above the dark clouds in the night sky. The soft noise of the waves running slowly upon the shoreline, and the cool breeze echoing the sound of the billowing trees.

Two Matoran walked down the beach, hand in hand, looking into each others eyes, with a hint of romance. They stopped and looked out at the waves, and for a momment only a slight breeze could be heard. They shared this momment with glee and silence, smileing the whole time. They closed their eyes to hear the sound of the waves, as if they were a theraputic lull to help pass the time.

This moment, was to be theirs, and theirs alone. They were in heaven, as very few beautiful nights of this sort came to that particular shore of the Continent. As they closed their eyes, the cool breeze blowing past their faces and through the trees, the water lapping against their feet. Suddenly, one sound changed the scenery from wonderful, to terrible. A blood curdling scream rang out from the forest.

The two matoran looked to the trees to see what emitted the terrible yell, and they soon saw a being, running, or rathing limping at a fast pace, toward them. His face was ridden with a great fear that strode his scream as it exited his open mouth. His whole body was dripping in a dark, thick liquid, that slowly ran down his chest and legs, leaveing a trail behind him. The Matoran yelled and ran away from the bloody mess that the poor being was. He screamed for them to stop and help him, but they continued to run, until they were out of sight among the rocks of the shore. A sense of hopelesness clouded his mind, he believed that nothing could save him now, and that he was dead, but just he hadn't let go of his earthly body yet.

He fell upon the beach, and lay there screaming and crying, his tears soon mixing with the blood of his face, causing his eyes to burn. Blood poured from his open mouth, drowning out the screams of terror, and then, utter silence, as his body lay upon the beach. A great shadow fell over the body, looking down to see if it had met true death. The sound of a blade being drawn melded with the sound of the waves, and then, the blade that was drawn was slowly thrust into the body, still breathing. A gurgleing noise could be heard as the blade passed through one of the beings lungs, and the release of the last puff of air spoutted out of his mouth as blood filled his lungs, and then, he closed his eyes, never to open them again.

The blade was slowly withdrawn out of the body, the blade being covered in blood, dripping onto the white sand. The great shadow looked down upon the corpse, and soon turned to the forest and vanished among the thick of the trees, with no more noises heard, just the waves, now red with blood, beating across the white beach.

About that same time of that night, two messengers were headed to a fortress they kept on the eastern coast of the island. They were a group of bandits that stole priceless artifacts for their own amusement and collection. They had grown into a sizeable organization from only a few dozen to a couple hundered.

They kept their base on the Northern Continent, which is where all of the artifacts were stored. They, on rare occasions sold their artifacts to those who would pay a correct price, mostly, to avoid conflict, they would sell to the Dark Hunters, and they made quite a fortune doing so. They had stolen so many things in the recent month, that they had bountys put on their heads, and many people competed to collect such a bounty. The Shadowed One even sent his Dark Hunters after them, just to collect more money, but the great battle that ensued between the two factions lead to the deaths of eighty seven matoran. Now they went from theives, to murderers.

Unfortunately, the murders were brought to the attention of another organization, one that was much more feared, and dangerous than both combined, and this organization had a reputation for dealing with such disturbances. The organization, was known only as The Brotherhood of Makuta. When the news of the murders spread to the ears of their leader, he was so enraged, that he sent out his deadliest servant, the one who all Makuta respect or even fear, the one, they say that no living being, can kill; The Blood Summoner.

The Blood Summoner was the deadliest assassin in the entire Brotherhood, and had been known for centuries only as a myth, but the group of bandits soon found out, that there were more powerful beings in the universe, than the Dark Hunters. They had believed that their fortress was impregnible, but they were horribley wrong.

The two messengers that were on their way to the fortress were about to see that the myth that was The Blood Summoner, was no mere myth. As they walked along the beach toward the fortress, they spoke to each other about previous conquests, most notibly, their fight with the Dark Hunters.

"Whooo, the Dark Hunters can certainly put up a good fight, but hey, at least we got away with the loot."

The other messenger responded, and said.

" Yeah, and it wasn't even valuable stuff, it was only a couple of Toa stones, a few old weapons, and some ancient tablets talking about some cave with a big green pool inside of it, I mean, who really cares about that kind of stuff?"

"Yeah, it was a complete wast of time, and lives, we lost thirteen guys during that fight, and they were some of the best. But I think we got like three of the Dark Hunters, so I guess it's an eye for an eye."

They kept bantering on about things of the same sort, until they got to the front gate of the fortress. The stoped for a few seconds, expecting to be let in by their comrades. However, they got caught up in conversation, and did not realize that a few seconds turned into a few minutes, and a few minutes turned into ten. Finally one of them realized that the doors had not opened for them, and that was unusual. So he yelled over the wall to his comrades.

"Hey!!!! Were back!!! Hello?!!! Hello!!!!!!!"

No one answered, which was even more unusual.

"That's not right, they should be there, but they may be busy so we'll just wait."

They waited for another five minutes, and nothing happened, and one of the messengers was getting a little worried.

"Hey maybe we should climb the wall, I mean, no one's coming, and I want to see what is going on."

"Come on, they are just out, look, see one of the ships are gone."

"Oh yeah, then why are there no people inside to defend the fortress? Zorron would never leave his fortress unguarded."

"Well you have a point there. Do you have rope and a hook?"

"Yeah, but the hook's kind of rusty."

"Who cares, we just need to get up this wall, now you have me curiouse."

They tied the rope to the end of the hook, and soon, after three tries, hooked it into the stone on the other side of the wall. The went up one at a time, the hook was a little bent after the first messenger was up the wall.

"Come on, it's your turn!"

"Do you see anyone up there?!" Yelled the other messenger in response.

"No not yet! Come on! Hurry up!!!"

The last messenger was half way up the wall, until the rope gave a little jurk and he stopped, his knuckles white from strain.

"Check the hook!! See if I can make it up the rest of the way!!"

"It's fine you woose!!!! Get up here!!"

He began to climb, still unsure of his grip, so he was a bit slow. Finally he was almost at the top when the hook gave way and the rope fell down. He screamed as he was about to fall thirty feet to the ground when the other messenger dove and caught him by the hand. And after a little struggle he pulled him up.

"See, no sweat."

"Shut up." Said the other messenger.

After this exchange, they both went down the stairs into a small courtyard, where there was nothing out of the ordinary, accept, no people. They looked arround and saw no sign of foul play, no sign of anything, it was as if they had just vanished. The met in the middle of the courtyard and both confirmed that nothing was out of the ordinary, until one of them said.

"Maybe they are inside."

They both went to the doors. The doors were very large and heavy, and were usually open, but in this case they were closed. The pushed as hard as they could and they did not open. Finally one of them pulled out a grenade and made a gesture to the other messenger to stand back. He threw the grenade and it blasted the door open. The flash of the explosion left them blinded for a few seconds, so they could not see into the fortress, also it was only one hour passed midnight so it was already dark enough. They walked in and one of the messengers stepped into something cold, thick, and wet. He did not know what it was so he just kept walking, but after only a few steps, they found out what it was.

They looked arround the main hall, the place was filled with gore, blood was all over the floors, walls, and even a little on the ceiling. Bodies were lying all over the place, and they were all covered with blood. Two bodies were pinned on the walls by a sword sticking through there chest, blood dripping off of them and onto the floor. One of the bodies were hanging from the ceiling by a chain that was wrapped arround it's mouth, but suddenly, the jaw of the body broke off from the head and the body and half of the head came plummeting down from the high ceiling. They splattered when they hit the floor, and splashed blood onto the two messengers. They were just in a shocked silence, but this made them scream. They screamed until their lungs felt like bursting, and one of them slipped and fell into a puddle of blood and body parts. They eventually regained their composure and stood silent for a little while. Finally one of them broke the silence and whispered.

"What the heck has happened."

There was another awkward silence, as they just looked at all the bodies, they recognized many of them, and this made the situation only worse. The walked to a stairway and tried not to slip in the blood that covered the stairs. They got to the top of the stairs, and it was just as unsettling as before. More bodies were on the floor, a couple were cut in half, and a headless corpse was stabbed into the wall with a longsword. They walked through the bloody mess into the main conference room. There were bodies impailed on one of the decorative spears that lined the wall. They soon went into their leaders quarters and saw that there were no bodies on the inside, so they rushed in and shut the door behind them. They walked over to a table with many documents spread over it. The fumbled through them and looked through most of them very quickly. Eventually they found the personal journal that belonged to their leader. They opened it to the last entry and read.

''"I have just received word that the raid of one of the toa fortresses were successful. A few artifacts were retrieved, some of which were very plain and nonexpensive, but a particular tablet intrigued me. However after receiving the artifacts I was informed that during the theft, six Dark Hunters attack my forces. I should have guessed that any dealings with the dark hunters would end savagely. Well at any rate, my men fought against the Dark Hunters and unwittingly caused an avalanche that destroyed a nearby Matoran village of eighty seven inhabitants. My forces thought nothing of it, so they foolishly just let it go and did nothing to aid the matoran. As thrilled as I was about the tablet I received, I was enraged at my strike team for causing such a disaster. They just do not see the big picture here; I only wished to be an organization that specialized in theft, but now, my forces are considered nothing less than murderers! The last organization to cause a mass murder was mysteriousely and gruesomely killed, none of them survived to tell the tale. I am moving most of the artifacts that are most valuable to a new fortress on one of the Southern Islands, as another mass murder is expected to occur. People say that no other organization can triumph over the Dark Hunters, but I know of one, and if they have received word of what happened to that Matoran village, than it may already be to late." ''

They looked at each other with extreme shock, as they remembered well the legend of the mass murder which he was referring to. The blame of the murder went to a mythical creature known as The Blood Summoner. As soon as the words, "The Blood Summoner" went through their minds, they realized that they were in a heck of alot of trouble. Every corpse they had seen that day was completely drowned in blood, which is practically a calling card for someone known as The Blood Summoner. They also remembered one more major detail of each of the Blood Sommoner legends, and that is that there were never any survivors.

No more words needed to be said, as they both came to the same conclusion at the same time. They both bolted for the door and ran as fast as they could, to get as far away from the fortress as possible. They ran down the stairs and slipped and fell the rest of the way down. They both got up, covered in blood from the puddle they had just fallen into. They ran at full speed for the door, and suddenly, they felt cold, as if the temperature had dropped instantly, their hearts started to beat so fast that they had to stop running for a second, even though their minds kept saying over and over again "HURRY! HURRY! GET OUT OF THERE!!!!"

This conflict only slowed them down, and they could hardly breath. Suddenly, they realized that it was alot darker in that room than when they had first entered. They heard something above them, and one of the messengers looked up at the ceiling very slowly, his heart beating out of his chest. He saw something black hanging upside down from the ceiling. It hissed and flew down and grabed him and flew into the shadows in an instant. The screams of the one messenger rang off of the stone walls. Suddenly there was a gurgleing sound, along with the sound of flesh ripping and tearing. The other messenger ran as fast as he could, but he felt as if he were in a dream, as if he was running in slow motion out towards the courtyard. However,as he was trapped in all of the horrible visions going through his brain, he forgot that the gate was closed, and that there was no way one person could open it. However, through the fear of it all, he hurled his body into the side of the door, in a vain hope that it would somehow miracurously open, but it did not.

He fell to the ground in front of the gate, and he put his back to the gate and sat down and screamed for someone to help him.

"Help!! Help!!! Help me!!!! Please someone!!!! Please Help!!!!!!! "

He screamed and cried in his hopelessness, and in a few seconds, he saw a tall hooded figure comeing out of the shadows in the fortress. He screamed as the figure slowly approached.

"OH MATA NUI HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The hooded being was now close enough to touch him.

"OH GOSH, SOMEONE PLEASE!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

He was going to keep screaming for someone to help him, someone to save him, but no one came, no one. He began to cough up blood, and he spewed it out as he tried to scream, but only a gurgleing sound came instead. The tall hooded being drew a long slender sword out of his cloak, and whipped it out in one very fast motion. Then all of the noise stopped, accept for the head of the messenger hitting the floor. The tall shadow then walked up the steps to the top of the wall to oversee the outer surroundings, and suddenly, the shadow dissapeared. There was a ship on the waters nearing the fortress. Zorron and his forces had come back

Meanwhile abored the ship.

Zorron was looking over the ledge of his ship, gazing toward the Northern Continent. The beach shone white against the night sky, and the stars were still shineing their radience upon the seemingly black ocean. The smell of the salty sea was calming and chilling at the same time, and the crew of the ship were either asleep or barely awake.

Zorron however, was wide awake. He was quite uneasy about what may have transpired at the fortress while he was gone, even though he was only gone for a day. There was a dark threat growing in the back of his mind as the ship neared the docs, it was quiet, to quiet. No lights shown from the fortress, and none of his guards were on patrol. They weren't even camping on the beach like they would after a difficult theft had been accomplished.

More than one thing was out of place, and Zorron did not like it. He looked down at his knuckles and noticed that they were white, he did not realize that he was holding on to the rail so tightly. He slowly opened his hands and his joints krackled from the strain, the stress of it all was wearing him down. But he knew he had to stay alert, he did not no exactly why, but it still was all he could think of.

Suddenly, as if he was launched from a dream, he shook as he heard his captain yell.

"Land Hoe!!!!!!!!!"

He straitened his back and slowly walked up the stairs and entered the bridge of the ship. The captain looked at Zorron and quickly stood at attention. Zorron looked unimpressed, but was pleased that he was shown his respect.

"Contact the fortress on the mainland, tell them to bring the last shipment of artifacts down to the docs for loading." Said Zorron sharply.

The captain looked at Zorron with a whinse in his expression and said.

"I have already attempted to contact them four times, and they have not responded sir."

Zorron looked frustrated and said in a rather annoyed tone.

"Well try again, and this time use the open channel."

The captain nodded, and did not wish to anger Zorron by telling him that he had already used the open channel, so he just tried it again.

"Mainland this is the Saluten one, over"....................................... "Mainland please respond"

There was no response for five minutes. The captain kept repeating himself, just to look formal for Zorron, when normally he would have given up by then. Eventually, after ten minutes of attempting to contact the mainland, something came over the comm. The voice, sounded gurgled, like he had something caught in his throat, his tone was unurgent, and hopeless, he spoke in a small whisper, and only got out two words.

"Help me...................................................................."

And then there was nothing but static. The captain looked shocked and frightened as he looked at Zorron. Zorron did not look suprised, but he showed a trace of sadness and frustration. He turned away and looked out at the fortress, it was completely dark, and rather dead looking, as if no one had visited it for a thousand years. The ship had already docked and the sound of the waves was all that could be heard. While still faceing away from the captain, Zorron mumbled a command to the captain in his anger.

"Send out the scouts. I want them armed and ready for a quick escape. Tell them to flee to the ship should anything go very wrong, and when I say that, I mean a perpetual life and death situation."

The captain nodded and went down the stairs and onto the deck, where he called the scouts. He had them armed with poison darts, flash grenades, and Dragon rifles, which could take down a Muaka in one hit. They walked onto the dock and quickly advanced into the forest, heading toward the fortress, and using the trees as cover. Zorron did not like them going into the darkened forest, as it was a clear disatvantage, seeing as it was already dark enough. Zorron looked out and squinted so that he might see just a little better, but as soon as the final scout dissapeared into the forest, it turned into a waiting game. He closed his eyes and listened, and waited. Nothing happened. There was nothing, absoluteley nothing. After a few minutes, he called on one of the comunicators and said.

"Strike team one, do you read me? Over."

There was a quick response from the leader of the strike team.

"I read you loud and clear sir."

"What's your status?" Replied Zorron.

"Well sir, it's alot darker than we thought it would be, but I had the others spread out so that we wouldn't bump into eachother, so we should be clear. Gosh, it's alot darker than I had thought when I entered the forest, I should have brought the night vision goggles to see. I think Unit Three has one in his pack. Unit three, I need to barrow one of your night vision..........................................

The lead scout looked behind him, where unit three was supposed to be, but he was nowhere in sight.

"Unit three? Come in. Come on man I can't see you in this dark....... Wait, what's that up there in the top of that tree? I saw something move. Unit three?! Where are you? Unit three, I need you to respond.............................

Suddenly, there was only static. Zorron looked out toward the black forest, and saw nothing. He waited for a little bit, and then he heard a loud BANG! from the forest. He then heard it again, BANG! BANG! and again BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! It was undoubtedly the soud of the Dragon rifle that he armed his troops with, and if one shot did not take down the intended target, they had a very large problem. Suddenly he actually saw something, it was a small flash inside the forest, which illuminated the darkness for about three seconds. It must have been one of the flash grenades. A few seconds later he heard more shots from the Dragon rifle, followed by a long chilling scream from one of the scouts. More shots were fired, and more screams were heard. Zorron was a little shaken by this, and so he looked at the captain and said.

"Send out the next strike team! NOW!!! I want them armed with cuncussive grenades and RPG's. NOW!!!!"

Befor the captain could summon a reply, a titanic wave came from the sea and slammed against the ship knocking it on it's side and crushing the dock. Zorron and a few of his soldiers were able to swim far enough away from the ship befor the under water drag of the sinking ship pulled them under. They went along the beach and knelt down, breathing hard. Thirteen soldiers survived the sinking of the ship, and thirty three went down with it. Zorron was very sure exactly what they were up against, as thing of the sort do not happen coincidentally like what had just happened.

He stood up and looked up at the night sky, and by the position of the moon, he determined that dawn was only about an hour away. He only hoped that he and his men would survive long enough. He pulled out his desert five, which has a very powerful shot. The only problem was that he had only fourteen shots with it. He kept it close by, just in case he should have to whip it out quickly. He then made the decision that they would make a final attempt to reach the fortress. Once there, he would activate the distress signal and use it to draw any neighboring ships to his aid. The main problem was reaching the fortress, as the scouts seemed to all have been killed, or so he thought, until he heard another scream coming from the forest. He jumped up and ran toward the forest makeing wild signals with his hands for his soldiers to follow.

They all ran into the forest and looked for the scout that was last heard, as the scream did not seem very far off. They walked arround and looked for the scout, sweat dripping from their bodies, just out of sheer nervouseness, as they turned in three hundered sixty degree circles after just about every step. However, the direction they did not look, and the only direction they should have been looking ,was up.

Zorron, decided to leave his men to find the scout, so that he could go to the fortress and find that Tablet. He had foolishly left it there and he knew that it was of some significance, and he also knew that many people would like to get their hands on it. So, as soon as he got his bearings, he ran out of the forest and ended up right near the front gate. Blood ran out from under the gate, and pooled right where he had just placed his foot. Zorron was not completely disturbed by this, but it did not make him comforted, as he knew that more things of the sort was bound to be inside the fortress. However, since the front gate was closed, he had to find another way in, and seeing as he had the fortress built, he knew exactly where to look.

He walked around the side of the outer wall from the gate, and made sure to carefully count the paces he took. After slowly running his hand down the wall, he stopped at fifty paces, and looked up and down the wall. Eventually after a little searching, he found a certain brick that had a perticular symbol on it. He pressed his hand onto the brick and pushed, and when he did, a gap opened in the brick just a few feet above his head. He reached up and was about to go into the passage, when he heard the sound of more dragon rifles going off, BANG, BANG BANG!!!!! Each time they got louder, meaning the shots were coming closer! He leapt into the passage and turned a knob in the side of the wall, and it closed the door behind him.

He began to climb up the stairs, until he finally reached another door. He pushed the door and it revolved to where as soon as he walked through, it shut behind him, the secret door was hidden behind a very tall statue, and it would be difficult to find it without knowlege of it's wearabouts. He soon went into his chamber and began to rummage through some tablets he had on his table, and it was gone! It had vanished! He cursed aloud at the disappearance of such an important documentary, and kept looking. He had practically ransacked his chamber looking for it, but it just wasn't there.

Suddenly he heard footsteps slowly advanceing on the stone floor. He whipped out his Desert five and aimed it at the door. He saw the knob the door turn, and the door opened slowly. Zorron immeadiately fired one shot from his Desert five, and then he heard a body hit the floor. He slowly went into the next room and saw the being he shot. It was one of his soldiers.He dropped to one knee to see if he could feel a pulsation in his wrist, and he felt a very small one, But then, the soldier coughed up alot of blood and spit it on the floor, and he was trying to say something to Zorron. Zorron listened and tried to make out what the soldier was telling him, and he only made out two wordsthat the soldier said, as the soldier was coughing up blood, he said to Zorron.

"Behind you."

Zorron looked behind him as he quickly stood up and saw a tall figure, far taller than his soldiers; It was cloaked in black robes, and a hood hid it's countenance from sight. He backed up against a table in the meeting room and noticed that there was a body impailed on one of the decorative spears. The Hooded figure slowly advanced, and Zorron whiped out his Desert five, and unloaded the rounds.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Click, Click ,Click.

He ran out of shots! Panic struck him, and he turned tail and ran as fast as he could down a near flight of stairs, trying not to slip in the puddles of blood. He got to the bottom of the staircase and kept running, only barely noticing the gore that was spread out all over the room. He ran through the front door and saw that the gate was now crashed to the ground, and so he sprinted over it and into the forest.

He did not stop once, even when he slammed through the sharp brush, it cut him all over his legs and uper body, but he ignored all of that pain and kept running. He looked at some of the trees and realized that blood was pooring slowly down the side of them, but he did not dare look up to see what the cause of it was. He eventually ran out to the beach and was running as fast as he could out to the ocean, and then he stopped, breathless, as he realized the situation.

There was no longer a boat, the dock was obliterated, and he had nowhere else to run. He then decided, that he would have to meet his fate, or share the gruesome fate of his comrades. He looked back toward the forest and saw a black shape inside, almost completely blending into the shadows. Suddenly in a blure, the shadow rushed toward him, he closed his eyes, not wishing to see what was going to happen to him. But then, nothing.

He opened his eyes to see the tall black shape standing in front of him, looking down at him, with cold red eyes. The black shape looked into his eyes, and did not move for a few seconds. Then the black shape grabed him and lifted him off the ground by his neck, and once again, stared him straight in the eyes.

Suddenly, the shadow released him, and let him fall to the ground, and the tall shadow disappeared back into the forest, Zorron fell almost unconscious, and then, the sun came out. Zorron felt relief from the sunlight, as if it protected him from the shadow. But he also had one other feeling, and that feeling was, that this was not the last time he would see the shadow face to face, and that feeling chilled him to his bones. With this he fell into unconsciousness, letting the water lap against his feet, and the sound of the waves consume the horrific screams he had heard earlier that night. And he would never forget them, for the rest of his life he will know, that the myth of the Blood Summoner, was no mere myth.

Chapter 1 ~ Dark Silence
Two days prior to the Prologue.

The sun was barely starting to set, it's shine turning the clouds into a pinkish and blueish tint, marking the end of yet another day. The beautiful colors were reflecting off of the waves as they crashed against the rocky shorline of an island called Destral. Destral was usually a quiet place, one that seemed to have absolutely no inhabitants, but the fact, was quite the contrary. In fact, one hundered inteligent beings lived there, these beings called eachother brothers, but they were more so brothers than Toa, they were only limited to one hundered not only on the island, but in the entire universe itself. They were close together, they all knew things about eachother, and everyone knew everybodies name. They however did not live spread thin across the island, but in a massive fortress that towered above the clouds. But, just by the idea that they were the same species does not mean that they had the same personalities, in fact, the truth was quite the oposite. Some Makuta were more outgoing and less hostile to their brothers, and others were rather closed to the others, not revealing much to the others about themselves, but still afiliated themselves with each other. However, there were very few, that did not even speak to others, and kept completely to themselves. One of these Makuta, was named Serrakaan.

Serrakaan was always cold, and distant, and never socialized with any accept the leader of the Brotherhood. He was a little more than mysterious, and other Makuta would talk about him as if he were a completely different species entirely. However, for one so outcast, he certainly made quite a name for himself among the Brotherhood as the chief assassin. Miserix, who lead the Brotherhood, always looked to Serrakaan to pass out justice to those who needed to be reminded of the order of things. And by justice, Miserix always meant the penalty of death. There were some cases in which death was not a required punishment, but when it was, Serrakaan usually carried out that sentence. This is the reason that Miserix summoned him tonight, for Serrakaan's job, was never ceasing.

As the sun went down, more noises could be heard arround the fortress. Gorast and Zygirld were training with one another in one of the combat training rooms. Mutran and Chirox were working on a new breed of rahi that would help as transports for the Matoran. Tridax was looking at various maps of other islands, while Antroz sat in his quarters sharpening one of his many blades. Vamprah walked around the fortress, makeing his silent rounds, as he to, was antisocial. Benjarmin was speaking with Gothmog about certain events that occured in Metru Nui. Teridax and Terradon were bideing their time in the library of forbidden knowlege. And Miserix was speaking with Icarax concerning a mission.

All of these Makuta had their own agendas. However, Serrakaan, never left his quarters, unless he was summoned by Miserix. Serrakaan's quarters were not even located where the others were, but his was located deep under the fortress of Destral in the catacombs, and there he stayed. He did not care for anything or anyone, only himself. He was usually selfish with his time, and never socialized with the other Makuta.

As Serrakaan sat in his quarters, looking at his numerous trophies he had hanging from the wall. He had received a mission from Miserix earlier that day. A tablet was sent down to his quarters with all of Miserix's instuctions on it. Serrakaan picked up the tablet and read it carefully, as he wanted no misunderstanding as to how the mission was to be carried out.

"''A group of bandits have been on the loose for quite some time. Normally I would ignore petty thefts like the ones they have been commiting, but three days ago, things turned rather violent between them and the Dark Hunters, and in the ensueing battle, the bandits set off a bomb in order to escape, and the explosion caused an avalaunche. It interrupted the battle and allowed them to escape, but it also tumbled the rest of the way down the mountain and utterly destroyed the Matoran village below. Many Matoran, died, in the disaster that followed. They have now crossed the line from thieves, to mass murderers, and I want them to pay penance. I decided that the world needed to be reminded that such things will not be tolerated, and so I decided not to leave this mission to the Dark Hunters, because I want guaranteed results. Do what you will to them, but I want all of them killed. Also, they have foolishly stolen an important tablet from one of our abandoned fortresses on Stelt, apparently it got left behind, and the tablet states the location of a very large pool of Energized Protodermis. I want it back. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, many dangerous consequences would occur. Your targets are both on the Eastern end of the Northern Continent. Return in no less than three days, I may have another mission for you."''

Serrakaan placed the tablet down onto a stone table and rose out of his chair. He left that room and walked down several stairways, until he got to a room with a large stone table in the center of it. On this table was laid out a huge map of the matoran universe. It showed the climate and placement of every island in all of it's detail. He looked at the Northern Continent on the Eastern side. It was perfectly secluded and not near to many Matoran villages. It was perfect for his mission. No one would interfere with the mission because it was supposed to be a secret fortress, so who would know to look for it. And also no one would go to help them, no matter how loud they screamed. This would bring him so much more pleasure. He could let them scream as loud as it suited them, and it would be completely useless.

Serrakaan took pleaure from hearing the screams of his victims, and the more there were, the more theroputic it would be to him. It gave him so much pleasure, that going on a mission would almost not even be worth it without the screams. He believed that a scream for life was the most intriguing thing there was. No matter how loud they screamed, life was still going to leave them. Their final screams were so full of dispair as they marked the end of their sinful lives. It gave him pleasure to end each and every one of them. Not only this, but he was given the authority to do so. It made the task his responsibility, a responsibility that also gave him pleasure. He strayed away from his thoughts and back to the task at hand.

He then went to a large statue of himself at the opposite end of the room. The statue, was holding a sword that was facing up. Serrakaan reached out his hand and turned the sword so it faced downward. Suddenly, the statue slid asside, and created another portal to walk through.

He stepped down through several stairways and into a final room where there was a large stone box in the center of it, and many blades were hanging on the wall. He looked at one of them, it was a longsword. Slender, light, and strong. He could wield it with unparaleled speed, and with it, he could slay any who tried to hinder him. There was script carved into the blade, and it was written in an unknown language. The blade sunk into the hilt and Serrakaan passed the hilt up his sleeve. He was now prepared for his mission.

He walked out, the statue slid back into it's former place in front of the door. He then walked through many different rooms and got to the front door of his quarters. He then walked out of his quarters and shut the door behind him. He traveled through many tunnels until he got to a rather large door. The door opened on his arrival and he walked past it, and it shut fast behind him. In front of him, was a large pool of energized protodermis, and above the pool, was a trap door that came from the throne room. He walked around the pool of Energized Protodermis and went up a secret passage that was hidden behind one of the Brotherhoods tapestries in the fortress. He walked down another hallway and passed the convication chamber. Eventually, he went into the throne room and went out of the main gate. The Visorak shivered at his presence, and so did the Rahkshi. He walked to the coast of the island until he finally got to the rocky beach. He stopped and looked out at the ocean. It was time to travel to the Northern Continent. Suddenly, Serrakaan dissapeared in the blink of an eye.

Soon, Serrakaan arrived on the Northern Continent, as the Sun had just gone down, and the moon arose into the sky. Dark clouds eclipsed some of it's radient light, barely casting a shodow of Serrakaans countenence on the beach. Serrakaan soon walked into the darkened forest and got a good look at the fortress. It was vast, but not near the size of the fortress on Destral, so navigation was not bound to be difficult. He noticed that there were several guards walking around the outside walls. He decided to take them out first, and to do so silently.

He swooped out of the forest and caught one by the throat and swooped right back into the darkened forest. His quick movements made him only a black blure, he caught the last one in the line of guards, so no one knew he was gone. When Serrakaan got back into the forest, he squeezed his claws into the guards neck, blood sprayed out of the opened wound, and the guard was only able to make a small squeek before he bled to death, and then he opened his hand and the guard fell dead. The other four guards would be a simple matter. Serrakaan hovered over them and picked them off one by one, only seconds apart, and by the time of three seconds later, there was only one guard left. The other guard turned around and did not see anyone behind him. He let out a shocked squeel and droped his gun. Serrakaan swooped down then and grabed the guard and flew into the forest. The other three guards were covered in blood, hanging from small branches high in the trees, as when Serrakaan grabbed each one, he imbeaded his claws all the way through their lungs and out the other side of their body. The reason being, if he perferated their lungs, they could not scream, thus not giving away his presence......Yet.

After desearting the bodies in the forest, he flew over the wall and into the courtyard. There were crates all over the place filled with different artifacts, but not the one he was looking for in particular. He assumed that it was under heavy guard somewhere in the fortress, so that was the next place he was headed. However, from the sound of it, the inside of the fortress was full of people, or, in Serrakaan's point of view, potential victems.

Suddenly, the door of the fortress opened and Serrakaan flew over the courtyard and pearched on one of the higher walls, looking down at the guards with anticipation, like a Cliff Screecher does when it is about to swoop down on it's prey. One of the guards walked out into the coutyard, alone. Serrakaan, like the Cliff Screecher, flew down and grabed his victm and sunk his claws into his body. The guard tried to scream, but Serrakaan had already stabbed his lungs with the first strike, so the only noise that came from him, was the gurgleing noise of him coughing up blood. Serrakaan landed on the wall and dropped the body over the side. He looked back toward the main door, and looked inside the fortress from there. He saw that there were about thirty guards in the main entry hall, and he decided, that it was time to make his presence known.

Serrakaan saw another bandit coming outside, and so, he decided that he would not make any effort to muffle his scream. Serrakaan leapt on top of the unsuspecting bandit and smashed his body to the ground. The sound of bones snapping from the impact echoed all over the stone walls of the main hall. Serrakaan stood tall in the doorway, looking at his targets. They all looked back at him, mouths open wide, not believing what they had just seen.

After about three seconds of staring, the bandits raised there weapons. Serrakaan then activated the power of his mask. He emediately saw a change in the expression of each one of the bandits. The look of fear paralized them for another few seconds, and Serrakaan took advantage of this, and sped into the crowd. He unsheathed his blade and struck down three guards in three seconds, one right after the other, cutting huge gouges in the chests of the first two, and decapitating the last one. Many of the guards were knelt down coughing up blood and spewing it out all over the floor.

Serrakaan was like a shadowy blur, as he was flying around the room killing people with mere slashes to the chest, that were mostly fatal, but if they were already bleeding, than his mask would take an extra effect upon them. Many bandits were already dead on the floor with gouges ripped out of their chests, and a few without their heads. Most of the guards were making for the doorway to escape, but Serrakaan got to them before they could even step foot out of the doorway. Most of the guards were now running frantically around the room, screaming and trying not to slip and fall in puddles of blood.

There were however, a few guards that summed up the courage to attack Serrakaan, two of which ran at the same time straight for him. Serrakaan dodged their attacks and grabbed both guards by the face and threw them in opposite directions. They let go of their blades in mid air as they slammed against the wall seconds later. Before their blades even hit the ground, Serrakaan caught them and threw them right into the chests of the guards he had just flung against the wall. The swords impailed them and imbeaded themselves into the wall. Now there were two guards hanging on the walls by swords sticking threw there chests, with blood running down their bodies from the fatal wounds.

Another guard ran towards Serrakaan swinging a chain at high speeds around his head, and tried to hit Serrakaan with it. Serrakaan neatly dodged out of the way and and used Magnetism to slightly alter the direction that the chain was spinning. The chain now wrapped itself around the guards mouth at full speed. Serrakaan then directed the other end of the chain up to the ceiling and a great speed, yanking the guard off of his feet and snapping his neck. His head would have come off if the chain and his body had not stopped when they struck the ceiling. But his body did not fall all the way back down, instead, the chain was imbeaded into the stone ceiling, with the guard, hanging by his mouth at the other end.

Many more guards came running down the stairs and surrounded Serrakaan. They were all shivering in their armor but they believed that the only way to kill him was together, but they were sadly mistaken. Serrakaan was slaying them faster than they could come. More bodies, arms, heads, weapons and internal organs could be heard hitting the floor. Serrakaan grew bored of all of them surrounding him, and so, instead of using his blade to defeat his new opponents, he used one of his most powerful assets, his scream. Serrakaan blasted a power scream that shook the room. The guards all around Serrakaan exploded in a bloody wave that splattered blood all over the room. For a momment there was silence, and then, Serrakaan heard some one get up and start running. One of the guards had apparently survived, and was makeing a run for it. The gate was already open, so the guard flew past it and into the forest. He kept running until he accidentally triped over one of the guards that Serrakaan had killed earlier. This made the guard scream even more, as he got up and kept running. He ran out of the forest and out onto the beach, and saw two matoran on there. He screamed for their help, but just his horrific look made them run away, as he was covered in blood.

Serrakaan watched as the fool fell on the beach, and the Matoran wisely ran away. He was still breathing, so his wounds were not fatal enough. Serrakaan slowly walked over to his position, his gaze never turning away from the soldier, just in case he tried to run again. Serrakaan slowly drew his blade and then pointed it down at the guards back. Serrakaan then slowly and painfully inserted his blade into the guards back, through his lungs, and out the other end of his body and into the sand. Serrakaan heard a little puff of air come from the guards mouth, as this was the last breath taken by the victim. Serrakaan slowly withdrew the blade, the blade being covered in blood, dripping onto the white sand. He then slid the blade into the folds of his cloak while he looked down upon the corpse, and then he decided to go back to the fortress to find the tablet.

During the Prologue. He teleported back into the courtyard of the fortress. He closed the outer gate, and the door to the main hall behind him so the the gristley scene could not be visible from the outside. He then walked through the main hall, his cloak running through the bloody puddles along the floor. He went up one of the few staircasses and into another room, this room appeared to be a conference room. He walked forward, noticing the decorative spears sticking outward from high up the wall. He suddenly saw the door at the oposite end of the room open, and out came a guard wielding two daggers. He spun them with impressive skill as he lept onto the table in the center of them room and charged at Serrakaan. Serrakaan was ammused by this, but he still had to slay the guardian. With a little portion of his power, he forced the guard to suddenly fly into the air and slam against the ceiling, and on the way back down, the guard was impailed by one of the spears.

Serrakaan continued forward into the next room, where there was a large table, with many artifacts on it, but Serrakaan was only interested in one, the Tablet. He picked it up and looked at it; it was indeed the one Miserix wanted. He placed it in the folds of his cloak and then teleported outside and on the beach, his task was over, or so he thought.

He looked and saw two guards, similar to the one he had killed earlier, climbing the outside wall. One of Serrakaan's poloceis about assassin missions is to never leave any witnesses, so his job was not yet done. He flew upward to one of the higher walls and looked down at them, they were trying to get inside of the fortress. They eventually blew open the door with a grenade and entered. Then as soon as they walked inside. There was a loud thud and a splashing noise, followed by long screams.

Serrakaan felt a hint of pleasure with this, until at last, the screams halted, and the two guards continued up the same staircase he travelled up earlier. He flew down into the main hall and saw what made them scream. The body that was chained to the ceiling fell and landed right in front of them. The splashing sound was needless to say the blood that it landed in. After a few minutes of this observation, Serrakaan heard a loud yell upstairs. He flew upwards and onto the ceiling, looking down. He saw the two soldiers fall down the stairs and into another bloody mess. Serrakaan then darkened the room, so they would have trouble seeing him. Then he slightly activated his mask, but only slightly. The guards both got up and walked slowly toward the door. One of them stoped right under Serrakaan and foolishly looked up.

Serrakaan felt that it was the time to strike, as he flew down and imbeaded his claws through the stomach of the guard right under him, and a second later flew into the shadows with the guard and clamped his fangs onto the guards neck and ingested his life force, energizing him. He also ingested blood, not that he needed it, but he just prefered it more than other liquids where consumption was concerned. After the guard was drained dry of both blood and life energy, Serrakaan turned to find the other guard.

The guard had run to the outer gate and was now banging on the door, screaming for help. Serrakaan tore his claws out of the other guards corpse and slowly walked toward the terrified guard at the gate. He was screaming for Serrakaan to stop, but Serrakaan just increased the power of his mask to silence the fool. The guard spewed up blood as he fell to the ground in front of Serrakaan. Serrakaan then unsheathed his blade and decapitated the guard. The corpse rested in a large pool of blood, and Serrakaan had once again killed the last guard in the area, or so he hoped, until he flew up to the wall and saw a ship headed that way. He Then flew into the forest and watched from the shadows, seeing if the boat was going to dock. He may have more victims just yet.

Sure enough the boat did dock, Serrakaan could see the people on the boat gathering on the deck, getting ready to go into the forest. Serrakaan flew up into one of the trees so he could have an advantage of surprise against his foes. Soon enough, they ran out on the dock and onto the beach. They formed a line of defense and slowly walked into the forest. Serrakaan looked down on his victims below, and was pleased to see that they were beginning to get seperated. This would make his job far easier in reguards to killing them.

As they walked, Serrakaan slowly flew to another tree, positioned right over one of the scouts. He flew down and dragged him back up into the tree, his claws once again pierceing their lungs so no screams could be heard. After he had finished off the scout, he impailed him on a branch sticking out of the tree, and moved on to his next victim.

He repeated the process several more times in succesion, however, the lead scout noticed one of his men were missing, an reported it back to the ship. The lead scout looked right up a the tree Serrakaan was positioned in, and squinted his eyes as he looked up at Serrakaan. Serrakaan knew that he had been spotted, so he flew down and caught the guard and flew up into the tree. The last thing the scout saw were several of his comrades impailed on the branches of nearby trees, and soon, he felt what it was like.

Serrakaan impailed the lead scout, and blood exploded from the wound, falling down below, and landing on one of the scouts. The scout looked puzzeled for a momment, and then he began to look up and around him wildly, and then he saw Serrakaan in the tree, and he lost it. He screamed out loud, but found that he could not say anything, and only air came from his mouth, with no noise to be heard. He raised his Dragon Rifle and unloaded with careless shots, which attracted the other scouts.

In a blur, Serrakaan leapt down and grabbed the scout, as his comrades were coming in that direction. They saw what the thought was just a black blur slam into there comrade, and they began to unload their rifles. Serrakaan felt a few of the bullets hit his armor, and bounce off. They were not much of a problem, accept for the fact that their constant fire was causeing to much attention.

The forest went from dark, to pitch black. The scouts could not even see where they were shooting, they couldn't even see their hands in front of their faces. One of the guards just kept shooting anyway and accidentally shot one of his comrades. Another guard threw a flash grenade to the ground in hopes to iluminate the forest for at least a few sconds. The few seconds lit up the forest, and the scout looked behind him and standing behind him was Serrakaan. Serrakaan sliced his head right off with one swipe of his blade and then stabbed one of the other scouts. They started once again to unload their Dragon rifles, but in a futile effort.

The scouts stopped shooting when they started to bleed from various places, but then they screamed in agony as their bodies tore themselves apart. A bloody explosion covered the trees with the dark liquid, and also spelled the end for three more scouts. Only one was left, and he was running wildly, not even looking where he was going.

Serrakaan did not see him yet, and instead looked out at the ship, and saw the captain running up to the bridge, trying to head out to sea. Serrakaan could not let that happen, as this would jepordize his mission. In response, Serrakaan called upon a massive wave from the ocean. This wave completely overturned the ship and destroyed the dock. However, this did not kill them all. There were still more scouts that survived, and swam ashore, including the leader of the bandits himself.

It was then when Serrakaan spotted the last scout that survived his ambush, and he was going to make sure he was dead this time. He leapt in front of him, and the scout froze, in a small second of staring, he suddenly screamed as loud as he could, and Serrakaan soon silenced the scream. Serrakaan grabed him by the throat and squeezed. His fingers slowly went past the flesh and around the top of his spine, blood seeping from the wound. Serrakaan then let him go, and blood spat out of the open wound as he fell to the ground.

The other bandits must have heard the scream, and started to run into the forest. Serrakaan ascended to the tree tops and looked down at the last victims of his mission. The leader of the scouts was not seen, but he was somewhere nearby. The scouts were lined in a circle, so they could see all around them, and no one could go off by themselves unless he was given permission by Zorron. However, there was not any permission given, so they were all just standing in a circle waiting for the worst, and the worst soon came.

Serrakaan leapt down in the middle of the circle and stabbed two of them with his blades, and then he whirled around and decapitated the two across from him. Dragon Rifles were going off speratically, and they were doing little to no good. All of them were screaming in a fearful agony that made them want to kill themselves. Blood was being spewed out from their mouths, and their screams were being muffled by the sound of a blade sliceing quickly through flesh. Soon the entire circle was reduced to a fallen gory mess. None survived, accept their leader, who was not anywhere to be seen, but Serrakaan knew a good place to look for him.

He teleported to the front of the fortress and sure enough two guards were waiting at the front gate. They raised their riffles, but suddenly, just looking at the tall, dark shadow froze them to the bone. The temperature seemed to drop very quickly, and they began to feel weak in the knees. They slowly exhaled, trying not to make any noise, but blood came from their nostrils, and they could not breath in again. The opened their mouths trying to gasp for air, but their lungs were already full of blood. The suddenly fell to their knees and were spewing up blood, hoping to get it all out of their lungs, but it did not help. Serrakaan grabbed one of them by the throat and threw him through the gate, knocking the large doors down off the hinges. He whipped his blade across and decapitated the guard that was kneeling in front of the gate.

He walked through the gate and walked into the courtyard. He then teleported into the fortress and walked up the stairs into the next room. He saw Zorron rumageing through alot of tablets and artifacts, looking for the particular tablet that he took earlier. He walked into the room and right behind Zorron. He flew to the ceiling as Zorron turned around and shot at the door, and killed one of his soldiers. He went to the fallen soldier and to see if he survived. And Serrakaan leapt down behind him. The foolish guard told Zorron to look behind him, an when Zorron did, he rose up and unloaded his Desert 5. The bullets barely effected Serrakaan at all, and he kept walking toward him. Zorron turned and fled as fast as he could, Serrakaan let him run, and teleported to the forest, waiting for him.

He saw Zorron run past the tree he was in, and he was about to leap down and kill him, but something, clicked, in the back of his mind, as if he were disenclined to actually kill him. He watched Zorron run out to the beach and stop, as he finally realized that there was no escape. This pleased Serrakaan, as he rushed out and stoped right in front of Zorron. He grabbed Zorron by the throat and lifted him up, looking straight into his eyes. He then saw visions, involving Zorrons future, a power Serrakaan can utilize by staring straight into one's eyes. He let Zorron go, apparently he saw something in his future that would benefit him if he let him live. Serrakaan dropped him and then turned and went into the forest, knowing that it would not be the last time he met Zorron. He then teleported off the island, as his mission was complete, and now he headed back to Destral, so that he could report his success to Miserix. Serrakaan only wondered if Miserix's next mission would be as pleasing as this one, in fact, he was hoping it would be.

Chapter 2 ~ Makuta Courtesance
Serrakaan's tall hooded shape cast a large shadow on one of the gates in the wall surrounding the Destral fortress. He had just gotten back from his mission, and he was quite successful. He knew well that Miserix would be pleased, as the fools were completely wiped out from the face of this earth. He had a feeling that Miserix would not like that he spared their leader, but perhaps that information, he would keep to himself.

The gate opened, as the sun was just going down, and Serrakaan walked past the gate and was greeted by Pridak, who had a very fearful look on his face. Serrakaan was not phased by this, as that was the look he normally got, however, he did not like how Pridak thought that just because he served Makuta Icarax, that meant he was untouchable. Pridak held onto the fact that Icarax did not want him dead, so who would stand against him, turns out, this theory was wrong, as Serrakaan looked him straight in the eye.

Pridak, swallowed down his fear, or at least some of it, and took a deep breath, and spoke to Serrakaan.

"Miserix would like to......um......... speak with you on...... um...... the success of your mission."

Pridak rolled his eyes, even he knew that he sounded like he was five feet away from a doom viper, however he could not control his stutters and pauses. However, he felt embarrased when Makuta Gorast walked by, looked at Serrakaan, and then looked at Pridak, and then walked away chuckleing. This was a low and subtle blow, and in front of Tridax no less. So when Serrakaan started to walk to the main gate of the fortress, he spat out these last words.

"Unless of course you did not complete your mission!"

Serrakaan stopped in his tracks, and at the same time Gorast and Tridax both looked at Pridak with a shocking, but excited look, as they were anxious to see what Serrakaan would do. Serrakaan suddenly whirled around and blasted a bolt of lightning at Pridak. It struk Pridak with cuncussive force and sent him flying backward. He slammed into the wall and fell to the ground, dead or unconciouse. Either way, Serrakaan continued forth to the main fortress, not careing of Pridak's fate.

Serrakaan walked to the front gate, and saw Icarax quickly walk to the gate where Serrakaan left Pridaks smokeing body. Icarax gave Serrakaan a angered glance as he walked past. Serrakaan did not care of this, he still was headed to the fortress.

Eventually he came to a very large gate where several visorak were sitting and waiting to drive off any not allowed in the fortress. However, as soon as they saw him, they scurreyed away and ran from the gate shivering. He walked into the archway and past the massive courtyard and in front of the gate that opened into the fortress. The gates opened and he walked inside, and they closed behind him.

Miserix was waiting on his throne, and he signaled to Serrakaan to come forth. Serrakaan stopped in front of him and payed his respects to him, and then he waited for Miserix to speak. Miserix held out his hand and said.

"Do you have it?"

Serrakaan took out a tablet from within his cloak, and gave it to Miserix. Miserix looked at it with great care, as if he were studying it. He then gave a nod of approveal, and looked at Serrakaan with acceptance.

"You have done well. I assume that you took care of the murderers that i assigned."

Serrakaan gave an accepted nod, and did not bother to mention the one he let live. Miserix smiled and then said.

''"Your work is good Serrakaan, these murderers, traitors, and theives need to be punished, and so far, you have succeeded in doing just this. I have another assignment for you, one that will require two people to complete, and you are one of them. I am aware you do not usually partner with others for your missions, however, this will be an acception. You and another operative will go and take down a certain clan of mysterious thieves',and traitors. They call themselves the Patrons of the Dark. They have a base on Stelt, and you are the only one I trust to complete this mission. You are to be the one to kill their agents, and stealth will not be required for this mission. There will be several captains, and they are going to be the targets of the other operative. She is your sister, Makuta Courtesance. But now to detail your mission. The fortress you are going to assault is rather large, so many soldiers may be spanned through its halls. I want you to find a way to get all of them to enter the courtyard in front of the fortress, and that is when you will strike. Use whatever means nessesary to kill them all. Courtesance will deal with the captains in her own manner, and then she will help you clear the rest of them away. After they are dead, return to Destral and report your success to me."''

Suddenly a voice reached out from the shadows in the fortress, and said.

"When do we leave?"

The voice was soft, and it almost had a seductive lul to it. It was soothing to hear, and did not inspire evil or anger, but rather peace. The one who spoke it soon stepped into the light and revealed herself to be Serrakaan's new ally, Makuta Courtesance. She was tall, almost as tall as Serrakaan, and she was slim, and not unpleasant to look at like Gorast or Zygirld. She bore white, and dark blue armor, and her mask was not terrible, or fearful, but rather, beautiful. She inspired comfort with her presence, to most people, but Serrakaan new why she was the one Miserix chose to partner him with, and he knew that her looks were quite deceptive when it came to her combat abilities, or more rather, her capabilities as an assassin.

She walked forward and looked at Miserix, and gave Serrakaan a respectful nod, and then turned back to Miserix. Her blue eyes staring at Miserix's. Miserix responded to her question with ease and said.

"Leave tonight at midnight. and return no later than two days from today."

Both Makuta nodded and bowed respectfully and turned away, Miserix however stopped Courtesance and said.

"Take this to the librairy, and archive it. It is an important artifact that I want reserved for indescent times."

With that said, he gave her the tablet, and she turned and headed to the librairy, and Serrakaan had already left for his quarters. She walked up many flights of stairs and into the library. She walked past many rows until she got to a specific room where the more important documentries were kept. She then walked over to a symbol in the wall and pushed it in. Then a door opened in the wall and she walked into a small room and put it onto a shelf, where only a few documents were kept, and even a few scrolls.

She was about to leave when she caught a glimpse of someone else in the room, and she quickly deduced who it was. It was Makuta Teridax, Miserix's second in command, and wise counselor on difficult decisions. Teridax, like herself, could usually be found in the library, as they both had a lust for knowlege, and no doubt he was here to inspect the new addition to the library. Teridax always seemed to have a dark side to him, and it made even Courtesance believe that he might be capable of treason, despite how much Miserix would argue otherwise.

Teridax leaned forward and spoke softly to Courtesance.

"Now what is this new addition to the library, and why is it so important as to be kept here?" He said this as if he were asking himself the question, but Courtesance answered him anyway.

"It is one of the few tablets stating the location of one of the largest pools of Energized Protodermis that is not located on Destral. It was found amongst a band of theives who would have no doubt put such knowlege to an evil purpose."

"Such knowlege." replied Teridax, as he stepped forward and picked up the tablet.

"Such knowlege is so undeserving of such weak minded beings of the sort. They say that power is gained by wealth or ability, or resources. However, in truth, knowlege is power, true power. It gives you strength beyond any physical characteristics, and can be used for far worse purposes."

Courtesance nodded in agreement, and spoke in response.

"Knowlege is key in any path to gain power, an advantage we as Makuta have over those inferior to us. An advantage, that it would be best for us to keep. Chirox has already been sent out to inspect this incredibly large pool of Energized Protodermis, hopefully the former owners of the tablet did not put it's knowlege to use."

Teridax noded in agreement, and placed the tablet back on the shelf. Teridax spoke, once again, as if to himself.

"Just imagine what things could be done with the correct amount of knowlege. I wonder what power the Great Spirit possesses just by his knowlege of the universe. It is a thing worth wondering, and something to envy."

Coutesance did not wish to speak with Tridax any longer, as she needed to prepare for her mission.

"Indeed it is." She said with a bit of weariness in her tone.

"I must go, until next we meet my brother."

Teridax responded with a nod, and nothing more.

She left the library, and headed for her quarters, they, unlike Serrakaans were located with all of the others. She entered her quarters and looked on the wall above a chair that was centered against the wall. She to had a few trophies, but only carvings or statues of her victims, and no others like weapons or heads or other body parts, as she was not as gruesome as Serrakaan. She took two daggers off the wall, they were her trademark weapons, however she knew how to handle others.

She then took her other weapons like throwing blades and at last, she put on her dark red and black hood and cloak, for her mission, and then left to meet Serrakaan in the throne room. Eventually, she saw Serrakaans tall hooded shadow cast against one of the pillars in the throne room. She walked toward him and noded at him, saying that it was time to depart.

Soon they both walked out of the fortress and onto the beach, many Makuta stared at them, almost not believeing that Serrakaan was being partnered with someone. They walked out onto one of the docks, and then vanished, as the began their travel to their target.

That night on the island of Stelt.

There was a massive fortress in the mountains on Stelt. It had a massive courtyard and a very lage wall surrounding it, and the fortress. The Patrons of the Dark were known for there prizes and artifacts. They were a smaller organization than the Dark Hunters, but their goals were similar. However, they did not know that they were the targets of The Brotherhood, and tonight, the Brotherhood would not be the only operatives to assault the fortress.

On one of the taller peaks, overlooking the fortress, sat perched a being of average stature, taller than a toa, but not as large as a Brotherhood operative. He had been hired by an unknown benefactor to steal a tablet that told of a Mask of light. His name, was Skorr.

He had been looking at the fortress, undermining the guards patrol patterns, and looking for escape routes and important entry points. He was almost through, and almost ready to strike.

"Ok, the guards are almost done circling the courtyard for the third time, and then they will head into the fortress, that's when I need to start the operation." thought Skorr, as he watched the guards as carefully as a cliff screecher watches its next prey. As soon as the guards entered the fortress he leapt down and let his wing blades glide him to a window right above the courtyard. He climbed in, and planted an explosive on the inside of the window, so that he would not be trapped inside should someone close it.

He walked down several corridors and could see that the guards were recently there. he kept running down the hallway, and reached a very large door, he guessed that the artifacts were behind the door, so he decided to get in the old fasioned way, by blowing his way in. He set a mine at the entrance and got as far down the hallway as he could.

He was about to detonate the mine when two guards came around the corner and ran at him. Skorr easily dispatched them with two single shots to the head. His aim was flawless and took them down with minimal effort. He then took cover and detonated the mine. It blew open the doors and killed the guards behind them. He quickly advanced through the doors and saw that there were at least fifty or more tablets, however, his employer told him that it would be seperated from the others, as it was of more importance than the others.

He was searching for several minutes when he looked up at the third story in the room, and saw a tablet hanging on the wall, and he was a little embarassed that he did not see it as soon as he came in. He was about to fly up to get it, but he realized that if he did, he may get spotted by the guards on the balconies, however, he needed to hide anyway, as the explosion rocketed the entire room.

He leapt up to a good hiding spot, and watched the guards as they ran in. They were questioning each other about what had happened and mentioned that something was already amis, as twelve guards had already gone missing. He was puzzeled by this because he only killed four of them, two with his blaster, and two with the mine.

The guards soon ran out of the room and gave Skorr the oportunity to climb to the second story without much effort. He saw another guard on a balconi overlooking the courtyard, and he snuck up behind him and snapped his neck. He looked out from the balconi and saw something moving on the outer wall. It was tall and black, and it seemed to almost blend completely into the night. He decided not to think of this at the moment, and focus on the task at hand.

He climbed to the final level, where three guards stood in their positions. It did not take them long before they spotted Skorr, and the opened fire with their blasters. Skorr threw a cuncussive grenade in the direction of two of them, and it blew them away, also knocking down a pillar that landed right on top of the other guard.

"And that is why they hired me." He thought.

At last there were no more guards, and he was free to extract the tablet. It was hanging in the center of the wall, like a decorative centerpiece. As he flew up to it, he carefully reached out to grab it, when suddenly a large explosion rocketed the fortress. It shook the walls so much, that the tablet fell off the wall and all the way to the first floor, and shattered on impact.

Skorr screamed many vile and vulgar words as he cursed his luck. However, without the tablet, his mission was over, and now he had to escape the fortress, which would be more difficult now that everyone was alerted to some degree by the explosion, which was another thing he did not understand, when did he plant an explosive that powerful? The fact is, he didn't, it was caused by something else.

Earlier that Night.

Two beings suddenly appeared on the beach of Stelt. Both, almost equally tall and both hooded and cloaked. They looked on at the mountains, where Miserix said the target was located, and sure enough, they saw a fortress, sitting against a cliff. It was quite large, and it looked well guarded, however, few things were impenetrable to a Makuta, MUCH less two of them.

Coutesance looked straight ahead, wondering just where the captains, which were her targets, were located. She telepathically swept through the fortress, looking for her intended targets, until after a few minutes of searching she found them. She opened her eyes and spoke to Serrakaan.

"The captains are inside the fortress, in the main hall. I will go and deal with them, you must deal with the rest of them. Try and make a legitement distraction so as to lure the captains deeper into the fortress, and the rest of the guards into the courtyard. After you have completed your part of the assignment, meet me back here. I trust you will not require aid from me."

Serrakaan nodded, and teleported away, and Courtesance did the same. She teleported right outside of the gates to the fortress. To be more discreet, she shortened her size to average so that she would be less noticeable be simply shapeshifting, into a smaller version of herself, respectively. She circled around the wall to find a more descreet entrance. She was walking around the wall when several guards saw her. They ran to her and brandished their spears and spoke harshley to her. Her response however, was more violent.

She threw one of her daggers into the forehead of one of the six guards. And leapt over one of their heads and simultaniousely scraped her blade across the neck of another. She threw two more daggers straight into the chest of two others, and they fell silently. One of the other guards jabbed his spear at her chest, however she grabbed the end of it, and shoved the other end straight into the guards chest. The final guard looked at her with a surprised look on his face, and then dropped his spear and started to run away, but with a flick of her wrist, his head spun off of his shoulders, and onto the ground.

She walked away, and lept up the side of a wall and teleported into the main hall. She was now standing on a parchement high above the captains. She looked down at her targets, waiting for Serrakaan to make his distraction. She waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened.

Serrakaan was however occupied by a few guards who all were surrounding him. He simpley raised his hand, and suddenly they all dropped to their knees, blood being spewed from their mouths. A silent, and yet gruesome death. After they were dealt with, Serrakaan went atop a nearby cliff, overlooking the fortress. He knew Courtesance needed a very large distraction, one that would draw the attention of every guard in the fortress. He went through several different approaches in his mind as to how he was to do this, and eventually came to a cunclusion.

Serrakaan drew in a deep breath, and waved his hands in the air, as if he were grasping at something. Suddenly, black lightning ran down his wrists and hands. He folded his hands to his side and with a large exhale, he shot one of his hands forward, his pointer and middle finger shot out from his hand and the lightning followed. It shot from his hand with a blinding flash, and in an instant, the black, forked, energy hit the front gates.

An explosion of energy shook the entire fortress. The front gates were obliterated, along with any guard in a certain proximity to it. Smoke rose from the wreck, blinding the guards who peered through the smoke.

Courtesance nearley fell from her position, if not for her grabbing the wall beside her. The captains fell to the floor when the fortress shook, and after a few seconds, they stood up. One of them began to speak, very loudly, most likely because of the deafening explosion.

"GUARDS!!!! Get out there and see what happened!!!"

He signaled to his comrades to come with him, and they quickly walked into the next room.

This is when Courtesance revealed herself. She walked behind one of the captains and stabbed him through the heart. He fell to the ground, and two of the other three captains whirled around and faced the Makuta. She was about to dispatch them when they showed marvelous feats of agility.

They dodged her strikes and counterattcked with well timed swipes to the head. She doged them and struck back and leapt over one of them and attempted to swipe her sword across the small of his back. He was just quick enough to avoid her strike and sent his armored heel flying right past her mask. She caught his foot and twisted it, the crackle of bone breaks could be heard echoing in the room. She then threw him, by his foot, into the far wall. He screamed in agony as his foot was twisted three hundered sixty degrees, effectively crippling him. His ally leapt at Courtesance, sword raised. He sent many strikes in her direction, but she parried them all, and with a quick thrust, knicked him in the waist with her blade. He let out a small grunt, and then countered. They continued to parry eachothers blows until finally she cut his sword in half, along with his head, all in the same swipe.

Blood spattered from the open wound, and poored out of his half severed head, along with his brains. The guard she had crippled was still sitting against the wall, gropeing at his foot. He, in a final desperate attempt, threw his blade at Courtesance. It flew by her head, and she caught it with the edge of her blade. His blade spun around hers, and she flicked her wrist, sending the still spinning blade back to it's master. It impailed him through the lower waist, the sound of the blade hitting the wall behind him was clearly heard.

Finally she could deal with the final captain. He looked at her, not hopeing to match her combat abilities. He ran as fast as he could, and she teleported in front of him. He stoped and fell backward. He screamed many vile things to her, cursing her to her face. In response, she grew angered by his audasity. Her eyes turned from blue to red, her white armor turned black, and her mask went from beautiful, to terrible. He screamed, as the transformation was so drastic. She reached down and quickly grabbed him by the chest and bit him on the throat, her teeth sunk into his flesh with a dreadful noise. She then ripped his body away, still holding onto a mouthful of his flesh. She spat it out, blood all around her malevolent jaws. He was on the ground, blood spraying out from the wound. He gaged on the very air he breathed, and his head fell to the floor, dead. She had completed her mission, and her visage changed back to a more pleasant form. She wiped the blood from her mouth, and teleported back to the beach where Serrakaan was going to meet her. But from what she heard, Serrakaan had just engaged the guards in battle. And she knew, that with Serrakaan, it would be over soon, for them.

Right after the explosion at the gates.

The guards ran out of the fortress from every room. The gates were completely obliterated, and smoke rose from the wreck that now stood. Dozens of guards gathered in the courtyard and peered into the smoke, and saw nothing. They however, could feel something. A cold feeling replaced the warm feeling caused by the rush of adreneline. It was as if the temperature had completely plummeted in the past few seconds.

The guards were going to inspect what had happened, however, for some reason, they did not wish to go near the smoke, as if there was something about it that made them afraid. One of the guards were finally able to approach the gates with a little bit of confidence, however, the closer he got to the smoke, the colder he got. His heart started racing as he walked into the smoke. He was stepping all over shattered rock. Whatever explosive hit the wall, was quite extreme, and one that the guard was not accustomed to.

The guard kept walking, slowly, but cautiously, until he steped in something. It was cold, thick, and dark red. He looked down and saw one of his comrades, or rather, what was left of him, lying in a puddle of cold blood. And the thing that puzzeled the guard, was that this guard seemed to have died after the explosion. What could have done this?

He suddenly heard something, and saw something in the corner of his eye. He quickly turned around to see what it was, but it was not there. He let out a sigh of relief, and then, with his exhale, came blood. He spat it all over his chest and hands, and screamed at the sight of it. The last thing he remembered, before his death, was a cold, sharp pain going in to the small of his back, and protruding through his chest.

The guards who were standing in the courtyard heard the scream, but did nothing, for their fear was to great. Several of them went to the gates of the fortress, but they suddenly closed fast shut. They tried to open them, but could not.

"Were trapped!!" One of them yelled.

They all looked into the smoke, and then vaguely saw two small red lights. They were peering through the smoke, they went out in a flash and then reapeared. They were eyes.

Suddenly a tall hooded and cloaked being emerged from the smoke, and drew two long swords as an obvious challenge. The soldiers stood quiet for a moment, and then they charged Serrakaan.

Serrakaan flew forward, swiping his blades across the stomachs of two of the guards. Their inards fell on the floor with a splash. Serrakaan then burst in a flurry of motion, his blades moving faster than sight. Heads were falling to the floor, as well as other body parts, and blood was constantly pouring, and bursting from any opened wound. Guards were dropping like acid flies, and blood was gushing from all of the bodies.

Serrakaan had just leapt to a new position in the middle of the courtyard, and three guards ran toward him. Serrakaan blasted them away with a bolt of lightning, sending their fried bodies slaming into other attackers. One of the members jumped at Serrakaan from behind, and Serrakaan delivered a spin kick to his head, breaking the guards neck. Two guards once again rushed at Serrakaan from behind, and one of them was met with the tip of Serrakaans blade. The blade went through his body with ease, blood seeping from the wound. The other was met with the edge of Serrakaans blade sliceing through his neck. They both fell to the floor, blood now openly flowing from each wound.

Serrakaan then pointed his hand to three guards and clenched his fist, they all three literally exploded inside out in a bloody fray. Serrakaan then connected his blades together to make a very long staff weapon. He grabed it on one end and swung it in a three hundered sixty degree circle, the longer end cutting into the guards who thought they were out of reach. The blade made deep cuts in their chests, and sliced off the heads of many. Serrakaan grabed the weapon with both hands, the staff was now even in each hand, so that it was now a double bladed weapon.

He spun the staff in a figurate so fast that it could be only seen as a silver blure. The sound of flesh being swiftly cut, along with the crunching sound of metal against metal, could frequently be heard, as Serrakaan's blade tore through armor, and flesh, as if they were equally as dense.

The screams fueled Serrakaan, with each strike of his blade, one or more lives were taken. Blood was everywhere, as each wound quickly exploded blood in his presence. The guards were now trying to climb the stone wall to escape, but there was no traction, the walls were covered in blood.

After a few minutes of screaming madness, one of the guards got out a cuncussive energy cannon. He blasted it at Serrakaan, barely missing, and blowing a large hole in the wall. Serrakaan looked at that particuar guard, and seperated his staff into two blades and threw them straight into his chest. The guard pulled the triger, and with an unaimed shot, hit Serrakaan square in the chest.

Serrakaan stumbeled backwards, and examined the wound. It did not even dent his armor.

Now that Serrakaan's blades were gone, he resorted to a new, and far more deadly weapon. Out of the folds of his cloak, he pulled out a spiked flail, that was so large, that it dwarfed any of his other weapons. It weighed ten tons, and was larger than a toa, and it was made of a bright silver metal.

All of the guards looked puzzled, as if they could not believe that anyone could even lift such a thing, but Serrakaan could.

Serrakaan flung it into the air and swung it in a circle around him. Blood expoded from the impact of all of the guards it hit with each swing. The guards were forced to keep a distance away from Serrakaan, and even the stone walls could not stop the flails velocity.

Serrakaan was now almost being overrun by guards, who were trying to attack him in between swings. So Serrakaan swung the flail around his head three times and then he leapt into the air, about fifty feet high, and launched the flail, letting go of the chain, into the middle of the courtyard. A huge explosion of stone and earth, along with blood, rocked the whole courtyard.

Serrakaan landed in the crator that his flail made in the ground, blood was slowly running in the crator. He grabbed the handle of his flail and looked around to see if there were more assailants, but there was not. He felt that his mission was finished and was about to leave when he sensed that another being was headed his way, and it was not a Patron of the Dark soldier, it was someone else.

Chapter 3 ~ Unintended Encounter
Skorr was standing over the crumbled ruins of the tablet he was supposed to retrieve. He could not believe that a mere earthquake was the cause of his disstress. However, he had not time to waste, as he could already hear the guards running to his location. He rushed behind one of the many shelves that were in the library, and waited for the guards to arrive. He held his weapon with a tight grip, partly in anger, and also in anticipation.

Six well armed guards, also well armoured, came into the room and up the flight of stairs to the third level, and examined the damage done to the tablet. They looked very displeased, and also a little bit fearful. One of the guards looked as if he were going to hypervenalate, as he seemed very fearful as to what the leader of the organization would do to them.

" Oh gosh, he is going to kill us. He told us that this tablet was of highest priority, and that in case of an attack, to spirit it off the island!!!!"

They knelt down and were trying to peice the tablet back together, but it was no use, it was practically desintigrated.

Skorr quickly snatched a grenade in his hand, as it would be the only thing that may help him in this case. He was just about to throw it into the midst of them, when he heard alot of footsteps coming that way. One of the guards bent over the rail and looked down to see what the comotion was, and he yelled.

"What's going on!!!!!"

The guard at the bottom of the stairs said in reply.

"There is a situation in the courtyard! We need backup!!!"

After this was said, all of the guards ran down the stairs to join the others. Skorr could hear the screams of a few guards in the courtyard, and then he hear alot of screams.

"What the heck could possibly be out there?"

said Skorr, as he walked from his hiding place to the stairway. He walked down the stairs slowly, as he anticipated more guards, but none came. He took comfort in this, so he walked a little faster, and right when he got to the bottom of the stairway, he heard a door open, and pair of footsteps, running to his location. He saw one of the guards running for the doorway, and he happened to catch a glimps of Skorr, and stopped for a second, and looked, as if in surprise. Skorr took advantage of the oportunity and shot the guard in the leg. The guard fell to the floor, yelling in pain. Skorr ran over to him and pointed his blaster at the guards head.

"What's going on?! What is out there, and why were you running?!

Yelled Skorr, as he gave the guard a very frightening look. The guard was grunting from the wound he received, and spoke to Skorr in a sense of urgency.

"I got a call from one of the......Uh... guards, telling me that I was needed in the .....Ah!....courtyard, and fast. He used code 14 j, which....mh..... is the highest coded alert in the system. It means ......ahh!!.... It means that there is a very large threat, and that all items of importance are to be secured and the fortress was to be put under lockdown. I was headed to the switch......Ahh!!... but then, you shot me."

Skorr looked at him, and said.

"I believe you, but it won't save you."

He then shot him in the forhead, and left the room. He ran down the hallway as fast as he could, if the fortress was on high alert, there were bound to be security patrols, or worse.

He was almost to the exit, when he saw three guards head his way, running straight for him. Skorr threw his sword and struck one in the chest, and he shot the other two. He was still running while he did this, and when he got to the guards, he fliped over them, and grabbed the sword out of the guard's chest, and landed, still running, as if they were a small obstacle.

He finally got to the place where he entered, and sure enough the window was sealed from the outside and inside. He backed away a few large steps, and pushed a button on a control panel on his wrist. The window panels blew up in a firey explosion, and so did the rest of the wall. He ran and jumped through the smoke and landed with a frontward roll in the courtyard.

He stood up, and he realized he was standing in a pool of blood. He looked around him. Bodies were everywhere he looked. He was wondering what the heck did this when he looked to the center of the courtyard and saw something that made a chill go down his spine.

He saw a tall, hooded and cloaked being, with and chained flail in one hand, and a double bladed staff in the other. The spiked flail was half the size of Skorr, and the staff was twice as tall. The being was also standing in puddles of blood. As imposing as all of it was, the thing that made Skorr wish he was not even there, were the red eyes looking back at his. As he stood there, with his sword and blaster in hand, the only words that he could summon to is lips were.

"Oh No."

Serrakaan looked at Skorr with a dark smile, and with a flick of his wrist, the chained mace flew toward Skorr. Skorr leapt into the air and began to blast Serrakaan with his blaster, each shot nudging Serrakaan a little, but none the less painful. Serrakaan swung his chain mace at maximum speed. Skorr was finding himself mostly trying to dodge Serrakaan's blows than give blows of his own. He could not get close enough to Serrakaan to deal a destructive blow, and it was making him lose.

Skorr realized, that in order to do maximum damage to the hooded monster, had had to take the chain mace out of the picture. He threw several smoke grenades at once at Serrakaan, each one landing at his feet and exploding. Smoke quickly rose around Serrakaan, forcing him to make blind swings with the mace.

Skorr was fairly confident that his plan to take the mace out of play would work, but he needed exact timing, and perfect reflexes. He was still however dodging Serrakaan's blows, despite the fact they were a little off target. Skorr got out his sword and was prepared for what he was going to do, but his luck drastically changed when one of the blind shots nearly hit him. The edge of the mace struck his sword and flung it from his hands.

The sword landed across the courtyard imbeaded in the ground, and Skorr had to get it. He jumped and ran on the wall, and then leapt off the wall, and flipped over Serrakaans mace and landed with a roll that set him right in front of the sword. He tugged it out of the ground right as one of Serrakaans blows was about to hit him. He leapt out of the way just in time to a point on the wall, where he waited for another hit.

Sure enough Serrakaan's mace flew right to his position, and was going to hit him. Skorr however, had a trick up his sleeve. He flipped over the mace and sliced the chain in half, cutting the mace off from the rest of it. The mace flew off into the distance and crashed into a nearby barracks, destroying it, and causing a dust cloud to rise from it's ruin.

Skorr looked to see if the smoke had cleared around Serrakaan, and sure enough it had. However, Serrakaan was nowhere in sight. Skorr listened for any sound. It was quiet, to quiet, like the calm before the storm. He slowly walked over to the small puddle of blood, trying to see if Serrakaan left a trail for him to follow, but there was none. The metallic smell of blood was in the air, and nothing else could be seen or heard. Skorr was in a state of high alert, not wishing to be surprised.

He looked into the pool of blood, it was dark red, almost black, and it was thick, and it stuck to his feet. Skorr suddenly saw a ripple in the puddle of blood, and then another, and another. He leaned over the puddle to see what was doing it.

As he looked into the reflection, he suddenly saw a huge black shape appear behind him. Before he could move, before he could react, a cold hand grabbed his neck and threw him head first onto the stone floor, his face splashed into the puddle of blood. He felt a large foot land on his back and begin to force his body into the ground, crushing him. In a desperate attempt, he got a grenade and threw it in the air behind him, hoping for it to distract Serrakaan. He heard a loud boom, and the large foot left his back. Skorr lurched forward and ran to the other side of the courtyard. He spat out all the blood that got in his mouth and up his nose. He gagged on all of it, but finally got it out of his system.

He slowly turned to face Serrakaan, who pulled out the remainder of the chain that held the mace. He electrified it and swung it at Skorr. Skorr leapt out of the way as the chain burned through the ground where he was standing. He leapt away, still trying to keep his distance, thus limiting the effect of the chain.

Serrakaan soon got annoyed with chasing him around the courtyard, and threw the chain in a spinning motion. It hit Skorr dead on and wrapped around him while Skorr was in mid jump. He was falling to the stone floor of the courtyard when he was hit with a plasma blast and launched through the wall of the stone fortress and into the main hall.

Skorr stood up and unwraped himself from the chains. He broke them in to peices and threw them on the ground. He suddenly saw Serrakaan apear in a black smoke. He slowly approached Skorr, who pointed his blade at Serrakaan and said.

"What can you do now without your chain mace! What's going to stop me now from ripping you to shreds?"

Serrakaan pulled out a longsword from the folds of his cloak. The sword itself was about as long as Skorrs, but the handle was longer, and had greater range. Serrakaan lowered the sword to an underhand grip, and waited for Skorr to strike, however Skorr new that being the first one to strike in a fight was always a disadvantage. So he waited for Serrakaan. There was a long pause, as both assailants looked in each others eyes. Skorr was a little nervous, but confident enough in his own abilities.

Suddenly Serrakaan leapt toward Skorr, his blade spinning almost to fast for the eye to see. Skorr began to parry, each strike surprising Skorr due to the strength, which buckled his elbow with each block. Serrakaan was driving him back, and Skorr could not throw anything back at him, for fear of being hit.

Skorr did a back flip and then lunged past Serrakaan, swiping his blade across Serrakaan's waist. Skorr heard a rip in Serrakaan's cloak, and then a clang, as his sword clashed on Serrakaan's armor. He was very surprised to see that the strike had little to no effect on Serrakaan, and this made him nervous.

Serrakaan whirled around and lunged at Skorr, still striking at a bluring speed. Skorr, however, finally got in a counterattack to Serrakaan's head, then he leapt into the air and kicked Serrakaan in the chest, and while Serrakaan was reeling backward, Skorr, still in the air, repeatedly blasted him with his plasma launcher.

Serrakaan turned back around and nailed Skorr with a closed fist to his chest, sending Skorr flying against the wall, with the breath knocked out of him. Skorr flung his sword at Serrakaan in a desperate attempt to keep Serrakaan away. The blade flew at Serrakaan, and Serrakaan slashed Skorr's blade away and still ran ran at him.

Skorr, now without a sword, flew into the air with his wing blades and blasted down a rain of plasma at Serrakaan. Serrakaan leapt into the air and tried to grab Skorr, but he barely missed. Skorr still hovered in the two hundred foot high main hall, and still shot at Serrakaan.

Serrakaan was flying, seemingly by his own power, for he had no wings. He flew back and forth trying to catch Skorr, but Skorr was to fast, and due to his smaller size, more nimble than Serrakaan.

Skorr was still shooting at Serrakaan, when suddenly Serrakaan vanished. Skorr could not find him, but he soon felt a cold, icy prescence in the room. He was still hovering in the room, when he suddenly felt icy fingers grab his shouder from behind.

Skorr looked around to see Serrakaan. Serrakaan threw him into a wall with crushing power, and then flew at lightning speed at Skorr. Skorr drop[ed and let gravity take it's course just in time, as Serrakaan's cold fist slammed into the stone wall, and cracked it.

Skorr was about to activate his wing blades to spare him a hard fall, when suddenly, they would not work, he was still falling. He fell, and fell, and fell, all the way to the floor with a loud crunch, which was the sound of his armor hitting the stone floor.

Serrakaan landed about twenty yards away from Skorr, on his feet. Skorr wrestled to his feet and pointed his plasma blaster at Serrakaan. Serrakaan lifted his hand and blasted Skorr with a shadow blast that sent him slamming to the floor.

Skorr hit the ground hard, once again, with his armor was beginning to crack from the constant hits. He grabbed his plasma launcher, still intact, and then he crawled to his sword and retrieved it.He then turned and threw smoke bombs at Serrakaan, and then activated his wing blades and zoomed up above the smoke.

Skorr looked down at the smoke and threw three cuncussive grenades down there. He heard the three explosions and saw a large burst of flame rise up. Skorr waited for three seconds, trying to judge weather or not the grenades worked.

All of the sudden a huge shadow blast came from the smoke and nearly hit Skorr. It flew past him and hit the ceiling, shattering it. Skorr imediately flew out of the gap and outside. He landed on the roof. Soon a large explosion of black smoke appeared about thirty feet from his position. Serrakaan emerged from the smoke and blasted another bolt of shadow at Skorr.

Skorr raised his personal shield, and it absorbed the blast as if it were a mere gesture. Skorr laughed and said, in his pride.

"Haha!!!! It would take alot more than you got to penetrate this!"

Skorr was still laughing when he saw Serrakaan wave his hands in the air. Black lightning sprouted from the tips of his fingers, and then, after a few seconds, he shot his hand forward and let the lightning leave his hand. It slammed against Skorr's shield and created a wild explosion.

When the smoke cleared, Skorr lay on the ground, motionless. He soon opened his eyes and sat up.

"DANGIT!!!!!!!!" He yelled, for he was sure the shield would protect him, but the blast overloaded the shields system, and it now needed a little time to recharge up. Skorr struggled to his feet and looked around for his plasma launcher, (Note, this particular plasma launcher is not the one he purchased from Xia.) and could not find it. He then looked at Serrakaan, and in his hand, was the plasma launcher. Serrakaan made a fist and crushed it, and then threw it off the roof.

Skorr ground his teeth in anger and brandished his sword in defiance. The dark Makuta in response took from the folds of his cloak two longswords, each the same length, and lowered them into a fighting stance.

Skorr charged forward, yelling in anger. He swiped his blade and hit Serrakaan's arm. Serrakaan spun his blades and began to savagely attack Skorr. Skorr was now reduced to blocking, and that is all he had time to do.

Skorr was doing pretty well, until Serrakaan reached thirty strikes per second. Soon Serrakaan overloaded Skorr's defense, and swiped Skorr's blade out of his hands. And without even a slight pause Serrakaan swiped his blade across his chest, tearing a deep gash.

Skorr screamed in pain, as Serrakaan kicked him in the same spot. Skorr flew in the oposite direction and off the roof, and as he was falling, he activated his wing blades and flew away.

Skorr was quite relieved that it was over, and had just flown out of range of the fortress. Serrakaan watched as Skorr was flying away, and decided that he could not let him leave alive. Serrakaan waved his hands in the air and lightning formed at his fingertips. He charged the lightning for a few seconds. He then shot his hand forward and let the lightning leave his hand.

Skorr felt a strong burn come over his body along with a deafening crack. He could feel the electric currents course through his body, and in his opened wound. After the lightning subsided, he fell three hundred feet to the forest floor.

Skorr barely got to his feet, and cursed in vain at the Makuta. The lightning bolt was so hot that it caterized his wound, and it was extremely painful. Skorr decided that instead of flying, he would walk through the forest to avoid detection. However he decided to head to his safehouse and report that his failure was not his fault, including the interference of the Makuta. However Skorr would not forget this encounter, and one day, he would come back better equipped, and finish what he started. But until then, he needed to report the events to his current employer. Skorr only hoped that this would not be bad for his reputation.

Meanwhile, Serrakaan was still standing on the top of the fortress. He was contemplating giving chase to Skorr, but he decided not to when Courtesance came up to him, she was in her less beautiful form, sporting her black and red cloak.

"Where were you? I waited for an hour."

Serrakaan communed with her telepathically.

"I was battleing an intruder. However he got away."

Courtesance rolled her red eyes and said.

"Miserix is expecting us, we need to return to base as soon as possible."

Serrakaan turned and walked away, and Courtesance followed. They both teleported, and eventually arrived at Destral. Both Makuta walked into the main fortress and into the throne room. Miserix smiled and imediately new of their success. He only asked one question.

"Were there any suvivors?"

Coutesance responded in Serrakaan's stead.

"There was an intruder, a bounty hunter who challenged Serrakaan after the mission was complete. He may have survived, but he was too wounded to follow us."

Miserix frowned and said.

"Very well, seeing as this bounty hunter was not a part of the mission, I will let this minor mistake go unnoticed. However, as for now, you are on leave."

After this both makuta went their seperate ways and dispersed into the fortress, biding their time with various activities that only Makuta enjoy. And they both new this would not be the last time they got paired together for a mission.

Meanwhile on Stelt, on the Western coast, Skorr was resting in his safehouse. He had addressed his wounds and repaired his weaponry, now all he needed to do was to somehow contact his employer. The employer never gave him a name, or a way to contact him, he only said, that he would know when the mission was over.

Skorr was getting impatient, it had been three days since he had tried to steal the tablet, and he had no contact. However, finally, his hologramatic comunticator in his safehouse beeped an incoming transmission. It was his employer.

Skorr pushed a blue button on the side of the device and waited. He saw a blue image of a being, who had managed to somehow scramble visual and vocal recognition, so any means to identify him were futile.

The being spoke to Skorr with a stern comanding voice, and said.

"Have you completed your mission?"

Skorr waited for a moment, trying to think of a suitable response. Finally he found it.

"There was a complication during the mission. An unforseen problem. The tablet you hired me to retrieve was destroyed in the process, and I was nearly killed."

The hologramatic being responded.

"I thought you said that a bunch of mindless thugs were no issue?"

Skorr quickly responded.

"No! They weren't the problem, the problem was that some massive coweled being came and messed up the entire mission. He caused an explosion that destroyed the tablet, and he tried to kill me. I don't think he wanted any witnesses. He was also very powerful and strong. He shot lightning at me for crying out loud! So in short, don't blame me for the tablet's destruction, as I made sure to take all the nescessary steps of caution and care in the moment. I nearly got the tablet, and I suppose I should have been more prepaired, but you have no idea what I have had to recover from the past few days, so don't mess with me on this one!"

The employer responded with flat, impenetrable calm.

"I understand."

Skorr looked at the image and said.

"What?"

The employer began once again saying.

"Despite your failure to retrieve the tablet, you will still be paid your currency for the mission. We only wanted the tablet so that no one else could get their claws on it, but now that it is gone, the mission is none the less complete. The one hundered thousand widgets are stored in a cave approximately ten miles from your location."

Skorr responded.

"So that's it then?"

The contractor replied.

"That's it."

Skorr was about to wrap up the conversation when he asked.

"What if I need to find you?"

The faded figure replied.

"You won't. Do not attempt to contact me, for I will have changed my comm code by then. Do not try to trace this message, for I have outfitted your safehouse with an explosive device that will clear everything in a mile radius, and I will use it if you try to find me. If I need you for another mission, I will contact you. Understood?"

Skorr was trying to summon a reply, but all he could get out was.

"It was a pleasure working for you."

The employer nodded and then his hologram vanished off the grid. Skorr later went in search for his payment, and found it exactly where it was supposed to be. Skorr only tried to imagine what person had so much money on his hands to spend. He also wandered what the employer meant when he said, "We only wanted the tablet." How many people were there involved? Why did they not wish to be found or recognized? And why the death threat? So many questions, and Skorr would more than likely never find the answers he was looking for. But he got one hundered thousand widgets for his troubles, so he accepted that as compensation enough.

On the other end of the comm, a tall being pushed a blue button on the console of the holographic projector and Skorr's image went away. The being was tall, and had silver and black armor. He was going to leave the room when someone, who was about as tall as he was, came into the room and addressed him.

"So, the tablet is not secured. I thought you said this bounty hunter was the best?"

The sliver and black being replied.

"He is one of the best, but he said that the mission was jepordized by a powerful, coweled being, who was able to generate lightning."

The other being nodded as he was thinking and he said.

"I think it smells like the brotherhood of Makuta, but why would they wish to interfere in our affairs?"

The silver and black armored being replied.

"I don't think it was an intended encounter, I think the Brotherhood, if it was them, had other intentions. They most likely stumbeled upon Skorr durring their mission, and believed him to be a threat, so they tried to take him out. It is well that they failed to do so."

The other being replied.

"You are most likely correct on that. Well I must go. Helryx has assigned me to train the Toa Mata for combat, so I must not keep them waiting. Do you have any ideas as to how they may be aggressively challenged?"

The silver and black being answered.

"You could face them yourself. Oh! You could send Spinax against them. That will put them in a rather, aggressive situation if you ask me."

The other being responded.

"It sounds like a good option. I will keep this in mind for later. Well now I must go. Make sure to report the success of the mission to Helryx, and remember to mention the Brotherhood's involvment.; That will interest her. Until we meet again, Mersery."

Mersery responded.

"The same with you, Hydraxon."

Both Order of Mata Nui Members departed, and went to do their tasks. Mersery went to the throne room, where Helryx was most likely to be located. When he got there, he nearly bumped into Botar, as he was leaving the throne room. Helryx saw Mersery and gestured to him to come forth. Mersery walked forward and spoke with her on the details Skorr gave him about the mission. She was pleased that the tablet was done away with, but she showed a hint of worry when he brought up the possible attack by the brotherhood of Makuta. She spoke to Mersery, and gave him a new mission.

"I want you to pursue this line of inquiry. I want to know who this hooded and cloaked being is, what his powers are, and why he attacked Stelt. I want to know where to find him, and what to expect of him in combat. I do not like the idea of a Makuta running loose killing dozens of beings, who could have easily just been imprisoned. So that is your mission, return to me with any of the information you aquire. I am going to trust you on this one Mersery, not many people have been to Destral uninvited and not suffered extreme consequences. Be prepared, and be ready for anything. May Mata Nui watch over you and your quest."

Mersery made a bow of respect and left the throne room. He would need a boat, infiltration supplies, and weapons. For he was heading to Destral. He knew that he was capable of this mission, but he did not know how hostile the Makuta would be, and this made him a little uncomfortable. He hoped he would succeed, for he remembered what happened the last time the Brotherhood found intruders and caught them, and the things they did to them chilled Mersery, to think about experienceing the horrors they did, because the intruders all died very painful deaths, and he was determined not to suffer the same consequences.

Chapter 4 ~ Mission (Near) Impossible.
Mersery walked through the halls of the fortress. The sun was beginning to set, and the clouds gave off a pinkish glare that reflected off the shoreline. Daxia had always had a calm scenery, if you looked beyond a few dangers, and inhospitible facts of the island, one could call it a true island paradise.

These things Mersery enjoyed when he was not on missions, but he was soon to go to a place that was reportedly quite the oposite. Destral was known for it's rocky climate and sharp mountains. There was no lush jungles, no greenery or any peacefull or beautiful climate of the sort.

Mersery had also heard just how impregnible the main fortress was. He heard it was as tall as the coliseum of Metru Nui. He heard that the shores of the island were ridden with traps and deadly devices. He heard that the walls were high, and near impossible to penetrate. Every door or window was sealed and impossible to access.

With all of this in mind, it would seem impossible to gain access to the main fortress, let alone inside of it.But lucky for Mersery, he knew a person who could infiltrate a place made entirely of metal, with no doors, windows, or openings, with hundereds of people watching it from every angle, without being caught, or seen.

He was a high ranking Hand of Artahka member. He was a master of infiltration, combat, and stealth. He is also one of the most highly respected members of the Order of Mata Nui. Even Helryx keeps him respectfully reserved from going on missions. He is one of the wisest and oldest beings in the world, and was usually sent on missions with Helryx when the were in the Hand. His name, is Irostenese.

Mersery would not even think about asking someone like him to acompany him on this mission, but rather to just give him some resonable advise of how to get inside and outside of the Destral fortress. He then started walking down to his quarters on the North end of the fortress.

After a few minutes, he got to the door of his quarters.He knock three times and waited for a response. He heard one only a second later, and he walked in. There Irostenese was, standing at the large window on the other side of his quarters. He walked to Irostenes's side, gazeing at the beautiful sunset. Soon the silence was broken, when Irostenese began to speak.

"It is beautiful is it not? I could just gaze at it all day. But, what would a day be without company? What is it you want to talk about Mersery? Is it something I can help you with?"

(Mersery) "Actually, it is. There was a disturbance yesterday when the Brotherhood of Makuta attacked a fortress on Stelt. Now, normally, we would not look into it, but the Brotherhood's interference cost us a valuable price, and now Helryx wants me to find the one who was responsible, and profile him. And to do this, I must go to Destral and study him from afar."

Irostenese got a quisical look on his face, and then he burst into laughter.

(Irostenese) "Study, a Makuta?! HAHAHA!!!!!!"

Mersery got a little embarrased, and Irostenese saw it, so he sustained his laughter and spoke to Mersery.

"I have no doubt in my mind that you are capable of the mission, but you may wish to change your strategy of profileing this makuta. You see, following a Makuta is relatively pointless. The have eyes in the back of there heads, so they would know if someone was following them right away."

(Mersery) "Than what should I do? I must gain a reasonable amount of information on him, and to do that, I must observe him. Is there any other way?"

(Irostenese) "As a matter of fact there is. Do you know the name of the Makuta?"

(Mersery) "No."

(Irostenese) "Tell me what you know of him already, other than his gender."

(Mersery) "Well, he is supposedly very tall, he is cloaked in black, maybe a hooded robe, and that was all the information provided."

(Irostenese) "Hmm. That description rings a bell. Hold on for a second."

Irostenese went into another room that had shelves on every wall. The shelves were packed tightly with tablets, all of different size. Irostenese climbed a ladder to a top shelf and he pulled down a long tablet, about three feet wide. He slowly backed down the ladder and joined Mersery on a bench faceing the window.

(Irostenese) "This should help us in our search."

Mersery looked up and down the tablet, the only thing written on them were names, and the carveings appeared to be so old, that some had faded. He looked at the top of the tablet in the center of it, and it read, "The Brotherhood of Makuta." Mersery then realized that each name belonged to one member.

(Mersery) How did you get this? There are no other documentations of every name belonging to a makuta. This is an extrordinary find!"

(Irostenese) "Find? It is no a find, I wrote it."

Mersery got a very surprised look on his face.

(Mersery) "How did you find all of their names?!"

(Irostenese) "Many years of observance, it was one of my assignments during the old days when I was in the Hand of Artahka. It took a couple of years to find all of them, but eventually I did. Never did I think this would ever come in handy."

Mersery nodded. It always fascinated him when the members of the Hand spoke of their past adventures.

(Irostenese) "Now let me see, Antroz? No. Chirox? No. Oh, maybe it's, wait he is a she. Gothmog? No. Maybe Dredzek, he was in black armor last I remember, are you sure he was a cloaked Makuta?"

Mersery nodded.

(Irostenese) "Well Dredzek never went anywhere with a cloak on his shoulders, so it's not him. Wait.......Ahh!! I have it!! Makuta Serrakaan! He is the one you are looking for!"

(Mersery) "How do you know?"

(Irostenese) "Because I remember observing him. I could tell you a little about him if you like, it's not much, but it may help you on the mission."

(Mersery) "Very good, tell me."

(Irostenese) "Well, he will be easy to tell apart from the other Makuta due to the fact he never removes his hooded cloak. I never saw him without it. Oo, He is quite large, in height that is. Very imposeing. He never speaks, and he is also mostly responsible for the library of forbidden knowlege, inside the fortress on Destral. I have also tied him as the long time mythical being, The Blood Summoner. "

(Mersery) "He is the Blood Summoner?! Wow. I remember my people would tell stories of how horrible he left his victims. They used his legend to scare each other. I never thought he was actually real."

(Irostenese) "There is another thing, He does not like sunlight. Wherever he went, it was always at night. And also, avoid a confrontation with him. He is an incredibley skilled fighter, and I do not think it wise for anyone to face him alone."

(Mersery) "Thank you Irostenese, I am in your debt."

(Irostenese) "It was my pleasure. Good luck on your mission. Oh, and since you will most likely not be able to locate the target, go to the library of forbidden knowlege in the main fortress. No doubt it will contain a biography of the Makuta."

(Mersery) "Thanks for the advice. Now I really must get going. Until next time my friend."

(Irostenese) "Indeed. Untill next time."

Mersery left his quarters and walked down a hall and down a few staircases. He then walked out the main gate of the fortress and headed for the docks. For he had a long journey ahead of him.

Meanwhile on Destral.

Courtesance walked from the training area to her quarters. She was in a state of mind that kept her distracted, and she wished she could think it over. She wandered why there was need for such violence, instead of forgivness. She wondered how many lives she and the other Brotherhood members would have to take, before they crossed a line, that could not be forgiven.

After killing the beings that were assigned for her mission, she would go back to Destral and merely wonder. Wonder weather or not she had killed someone who may have had some good left to give. What if by killing someone, she unintentionally ruined the life of another. She wondered if Serrakaan ever felt remorse, or guilt like her. Despite her admiration and respect for Serrakaan, she could only wonder what had happened to him to make him so merciless and cold. What could make such a monster? She then stopped in her line of thinking, and thought the word through. Monster?

Is that what others think of her, is that what her legacy will be? True, in her other form, she is quite monsterous. Her mask is called the Mask of Alternate Personalities. What happens, is she is beautiful, wise, and compassionate in a sense in her less grotesque form, but she can also be full of hatred, anger, and completely without mercy in her other form. She actually changes phisically, and mentally. In either form she is in, that mindset despises the other.

She thinks that just because she is not in her more violent form, that her reasoning is clouded by a hatred for her other self. And by the same token, if she were in her other form, she would despise the idea of forgivness and mercy. She wishes that her Mask did not force her to think of things in such a black and white manner. She wished she could have an idea of what her true personality would be, if the mask was not in use. However, no matter how much she wished it, there was no middle personality, there was only grace, and anger. Forgivness, and hate. Light, and Dark.

After thinking all of that through, she left her quarters, so she could go to the library. Perhapse a more destinct definition would be there, where she may find peace of mind. She hoped this, as she shut the door to her quarters behind her.

A mile off the shores of Destral.

Mersery stood on the deck of a small scouting boat that was leant to him by Helryx. He clearly saw the Destral fortress against the night sky. He chose to come at night because the guardians of the wall would not be able to see as well. Also, Irostenese told him that Makuta Serrakaan had no love for the sun, so he figured that it would be easier to locate him while he was out around the fortress.

Mersery guided his boat closer to the eastern shorline. There were several docks, but he knew it best to keep his boat out of sight. He anchored it behind one of the large rocks that were close to shore. He then leapt into the ice cold water and swam the rest of the way.

He soon got to shore. He could see his breath as he was shivering in the cold, bitter surroundings. He looked beyond and saw several paths, and he was about to follow one, but he realized it would be better to scale the rocks and completely avoid the paths, for there were most likely traps all over the passages.

He climbed the rocks and kept his body low, for he was now in visual range of the first wall surrounding the compound. He was closer to the walls of the compound when he heard something, or somethings running along the pathway below. He immediately stopped and flattened himself on the rock, so he wouldn't be seen.

Around the corner came running two very big canine like rahi with glowing red eyes. They kind of reminded Mersery of the energy hound back at Daxia, exept they were alot bigger, and had alot more teeth.

They raced around the corner and pounced on a corpse, most likely a victim of one of the many hidden traps. They were absolutely ripping the body to shreds, and blood was splattering everywhere. Mersery was about to move away when he heard more footsteps. Very large footsteps.

A very large and spiked being came around the corner, and when the beasts saw him, they scurried away from what was left of the body. The spiked being bent down and looked at it. The being got up a few seconds later and said.

"Another victim of the traps. What a shame, I was hoping for a good chase."

The tall being then froze, and looked around wildly.

"I sense something. It's alive."

He grabbed the beasts by chains around their necks and led them a few hundered feet away. Mersery could not see anything, but he heard the spiked be let his rahi loose, and then he heard screaming, and then the sound of ripping flesh.

Mersery moved as fast as he could in the opposite direction, hoping that those hounds would not smell, or see him. He then was only a few feet from the wall. He looked up and had no idea of how he was to climb it, until he looked a few hundered feet down the wall and saw a large rock, that was almost as tall as the wall itself. And Mersery believed that given enough strength, he could leap from the rock to the top of the wall.

Mersery leapt from stone to stone, and was getting very close to his target. He was so close when he heard the hounds, they were howling, and if he knew anything about rahi, he knew that when a canine rahi howeled, that meant it had caught a new scent.

Mersery got a sense of urgency when he heard one of the hounds climbing the rocks. He knew that it was coming for him, so he ran to the target as fast as his legs could carry him. He had knew he could take on a rahi, but he was not so sure about it's master.

He soon saw the rahi jumping from the rocks after him, and it had blood all over its face. Mersery was almost to the tall rock where he could get over the wall, when the rahi jumped on his back. It pinned him to the ground and was trying to engulf his face in it's jaws.

Mersery had both of his hands in the corners of its jaws, trying to get the beast off. He could feel its claws imbeading themselves into his armor. Mersery was useing all of his strength to keep it from biting his face. He could not wrench it off off of his body, until he thought of another way to get it off.

He used his power over the elements to crack the rock beneath him. He waited for gravity to do the rest. The cracked rock could not support the weight of both him and the beast, and so it shattered beneath them. He grabbed onto the side of the rock while the beast fell fifty feet to the ground. There was a loud crash and a yelp from the beast.

Mersery climbed back up to the edge of the cliff and climbed to the very top. He was now right across from the wall when he was getting ready to leap across the open gap. He was about to do it when he heard the hounds running and also he saw their master running with them. He knew if they saw him that the mission may as well be over, so he had to waste no time. He leapt the gap, and looked down at the seventy foot drop. In a split second, he grabbed the wall and quickly lifted himself up. He now looked down, and saw the hounds investigating their fallen comrade. but he had not time to waste, so he kept moving. He looked down the long walkway of the wall, and saw four Rakshi headed that way. It was time for him to use his mask to help things.

The Rahkshi were walking right toward him and did not see him, they only saw a Rakshi of chain lightning standing guard. Seeing as nothing was out of the ordinary, they simply passed by. Little did they know that that particular Rakshi was not as it seemed to be. As soon as the four Rakshi walked out of sight, the Rakshi of chain lightning jumped over the side of the wall, and was now inside the compound.

The Rakshi then shape shifted back to the form of Mersery, who had easily fooled the brainless Rakshi. Mersery looked toward the main fortress. It was incredibley massive, and what he needed was inside. Irostenese spoke of a library inside that was certain to contain valuable information on most, if not all Makuta. It was only a matter of getting inside to find it.

The main fortress had yet another wall surrounding it, and there was no way Mersery was going to go by the main gate, so he had something a little different in mind. There were four towers stationed equadistant in a circle around the fortress, each connected by the wall. He would simply access the Eastern tower through a smaller doorway and then gain access to the main fortress.

Now the Eastern tower was the closest, and with a good dash, he may make it there in two minutes. He knew however that an unknown personnel running to one of the main towers in the dead of night was suicide, and a Rakshi simply flying over the wall and waltsing into the fortress would be too inconspicuous.

Suddenly he saw two Exo Toa walking to the very tower he was headed for. He only thought of how easy this was going to be. He shapshifted into one of the Exo Toa and began to walk toward their position. He caught up with them, and they accessed the tower. They went down a long halway and turned left into an elevator. One of the Exo Toa activated it, and it was taking them to the top floor. On the inside, Mersery was trying not to laugh, as it was so easy to keep playing the robot until he found the library. Finally the elevator stopped, and the door opened, and when it did, Mersery was not laughing.

Standing in front of the door, was a Makuta!! Mersery knew not who it was, only that it was menacingly large. He was tall, black, green, and silver, and had a cape draped over his shoulders. The Exo Toa stopped in their tracks, and saluted, Mersery knew he had to not only keep his mouth shut, but he had to be just a mirror image of the other Exo Toa. If a Makuta tried to read his mind, and realized that they could not, his cover would be blown.

The Makuta soon addressed the robots with a command.

"Makuta Gothmog believes that he and his hounds have found an intruder. I want you to all go down and patrol the Eastern gate to the compound. No one must get inside the fortress. If you see anything suspiscious, shoot first, and inform me later. Now go."

The Exo Toa saluted, and pressed the button on the elevator for the bottom floor. Now Mersery had to go down right where he started! This was very frustrating, however he had a plan for getting out of the way. Once the elevator opened, they all walked out, exept for Mersery. The Exo Toa kept walking, and then they noticed that one of them was missing. The went back over to the elevator, and looked inside, and saw nothing.

They looked high and low, and could not find their missing comrade. They were about to raise an alarm, when the elevator door closed behind them, and sent them back to the top floor. A Rakshi walked away from the elevator controls and ran for the stairway. It soon turned back into Mersery, as he was racing up the stairs, he only hoped he did not run into anyone on the stairs as he did in the elevator.

It took about ten minutes for him to reach the top of the stairs, running at full speed even, and then he resorted to leaping higher from staircase to staircase, but he finally got to the top, and transformed back into an Exo Toa. He turned right, and walked down another long hallway. He finally got to the end of the hall and to the open door. It led outside and it was a long bridge to the main fortress. He was almost there. He looked over the side of the bridge and it looked to be about five hundered feet down, and that was not even half the height of the main fortress.

The bridge was also very long. He thought it would take about five minutes just to get to the other side running, let alone casually walking. He passed several beings who he would have classed as Makuta, he only hoped he would not be discovered.

After about twenty minutes, he finally got to the oposite side. He went right through the gate, and stopped. He looked down the main hallway, and it looked incredibley long, and it had many doorways, and any one of the doors could lead to the library.

He stoped at the side of the main doorway into the fortress in a position that made him look as if he were guarding it. He thought just how he would get to a library that could be anywhere in this gigantic fortress.

He then remembered, that Exo Toa are mechanical. And they also know how to get to anywhere in the entire fortress. If he could find one, and disable it without destroying the main memory core, he could find a possible map of the entire fortress and compound.

He began to put his plan into action, but how exactly was he to get one alone. He then found his answer when he saw one go through a door into another room. He followed it into that room, and stabbed it through a central processer, rendering it, useless. It fell to the ground and he began his work, after shape shifting back into his normal self.

It took him about thirty minutes, but he finally got what he wanted. He was able to display a map on his holographic projector of exactly where the library was. It was on the fifty-ninth floor. So he was relatively close to it.

He opened the door, and looked around the corner. The Exo Toa were occupied with what seemed to be a servant of the Makuta looking for a being called Icarax, most likely he was a Makuta. This was however a good enough distraction for him to slip across the hall and to the staircases, seeing as taking the elevator would be quite risky.

Mersery was already on the fifty-sixth floor, so he only needed to climb three floors, wich would not take nearly as long as his first climb up the stairs. He reached his destination in less than a minute. He peeked around the door into the hallway to make sure that the coast was clear. When it was he entered yet another long hallway.

According to the map, he needed to go into the middle of the hallway, and up a small flight of stairs to reach yet, another hallway, and the library entrance would be there. He quickly did this, and found himself in front of a circular room. He entered, and shut the door behind him.

He looked to the door right across from the one he just entered, and above it were written the words. "The Library of Forbidden Knowlege." Mersery grinned, as he reached for the door handle, so he could enter the sacred library.

Meanwhile on the edge of the Southern Continent.

Zorron was quite nervous about this present meeting. He had no desire to speak of his rather unfortunate run-in with the legendary Blood Summoner. He was called to a meeting place by his fellow captain, Katronstan, so they could speak with the leader of the Patrons of the Dark. Zorron's position in this organization was as a Captain/General of it's military forces. Katronstan had a similar position, but he was more in charge of the private dealings of the Organization, and handled the dealings with their spys, and their missions.

The name of the Grand Master of the organization, is Aluksonnion.

The organization is quite small, as it had a very large fall due to the efforts of the Hand of Artahka. The Hand of Artahka believed the organization to be extinct, but they failed to kill one of the smaller ranking members of the organization. He passed on the knowlege needed to revive the organization through other beings for one thousand years. None of the first ones to know the secrets of the order secceeded in bringing it back to life, until now. Aluksonnion, the new Grand Master, is still searching for the keys that will resurrect this long forgotten order, and he is quite close to finding one. These keys, are two artifacts, a staff, and a sword. They are incredibley powerful relics on there own, but when combined, the weilder is almost invincible. It took four high ranking Hand of Artahka members to destroy the former weilder. And now, Alluksonnion searches for them, so that he could stand up against any who would challenge him. Zorron always wanted to know what it would be like to weild such power, but he assumed he would never find out.

Zorron had to put these thoughts in the back of his mind for now. Now, he just needed to come up with some reasonable excuse as to why he lost two fortifications to a Mythical Monster?

Zorron soon saw Katronston walking his way with a few of his guards behind him. He soon saw Zorron and spoke to him in a kind, yet mocking tone.

"Ah, Zorron. I had hoped you would come. How long has it been since our paths last crossed?"

Zorron could only think to say, "Not long enough." But he did not wish to start this meeting out with hostility. He however harvested no caring feelings for Katronston, and it would suit Zorron better if he just fell over dead than to even have to be in the same room with him. But reguardless, they were the most high ranking individuals in the organization, so a few meetings with him were some-what mandatory. Zorron's hostiliy was placed on Katronston when he tried to take Zorron's rightful place as the next Grand Master of the Patrons of the Dark for himself. The grand Master of the organization placed Zorron as the next ruler, should fate befall him sooner than later. Katronston was not at all pleased with the decision, and tried to frame Zorron with a crime against the organization. The plan did not succeed, however, the grand master did not believe Katronston to be linked with the crime, and thus no charges were placed. Zorron however knew that he was behind it, but there was no way of proving it. And now, there was a meeting called by Katronston, to disscuss Zorron's failure to secure those two fortresses.

However, there are only a few fortresses, or meeting places left after the fall of the first two, and the majority of the soldiers went with them. This would be considered a major set-back, and one not easily forgiven. Zorron knew that Katronston was going to pin it all on him, and he had no way to back himself up. This was very stressful for him, and he could only muster up the words.

"Many moons have spanned the sky since our last meeting. If ony the circumstances of this meeting were fruitful and not of ill news."

Before Katronston could summon a reply, Zorron walked to the edge of the cliff to look for the ship that was to transport their leader. It had already been longer than Zorron could stand to be around Katronston, and he would rather jump off the cliff than listen to another word from him.

Katronston was going to bring up past events, if not for the sudden sight of the Grand Masters ship. It was fairly large, but not large enough to be completely noticable. It docked at the bottom of the cliff, and Zorron could see the golden armor of the Grand Master exit the quarters aboard the ship. Zorron and Katronston walked down to the ship, not saying a word to each other the whole way. They soon boarded the ship and met their Master on the deck.

They both made a respectful bow, and the Master signaled them to come below deck to discuss the matters of late. The walked down the steps and sat down at a long table, the Grand Master sitting at its head. The Grand Master took a look at both of them, and then began to speak.

"I wish that this meeting was unnessescary, but when my messenger told me of the news, I knew that a meeting was mandatory. I do not know what has prompted such an attack on two important locations, espescially at such an inconvenient time as this. Right when our numbers begin to grow, and a gleam of hope begins to shine, for this organizationto once again stake its claim among the lands, an ancient mythical creature comes and destroys the majority of my soldiers. So I ask both of you, WHY DID THIS OCCURR?!!!!!!! WHAT PROMPTED THIS!!!!!!!!!???"

Zorron and Katronston sat still, not willing to say anything. But soon, Katronston stood up and began speaking of past events.

"Both fortresses were equally well guarded. They had at least sixty soldiers each, but if this was a, legendary, monster, than what rules apply?"

He said this, with a laughing tone when he brought up the monster, as a clear blow to Zorrons story. Zorron saw the things that transpired, and could only concure that the blood summoner was real. But it was so far fetched, that this monster let him live, and killed everyone else, that the case did not hold any air. Why would the monster let him live, and kill everyone else? Katronston continued his speech with this.

"Zorron had left the first point of attack right before the assault. He then returned, and all of his men were slain accept him. He was then about to travel to the second fortress, but on his arrival, all of the men were found dead, includeing the captains. Both fortresses were under his protection, his men guarded them, and now your men are dead because of his failure to secure both fortresses."

The Grand Master took a long, unfriendly look at Zorron, who could hardly believe what he had just heard. First, Katronston tries to incriminate him, and then he places all of the blame on him for the loss of both fortresses.

The Grand Master began to speak, with a little anger in his voice.

"I asked, what prompted the attack, not who failed to stop it. And seeing as neither of you are willing to speak, maybe this will refresh you memory. I have recently heard, that a battallion of our men were sent out to complete a mission. Now the mission is not truely the point, it is what happened on the mission that concerns me. There was a conflict with the Dark Hunters that day. A very violent conflict. Dureing the conflict, a bomb was set off by our soldiers to aid in their escape, and in the explosion, an avalaunche arose, and wiped out the Matoran village below. This occured right before the first fortress was attacked, and now, another fortress has been felled. My spies also said that they followed one of the perpetrators to an island. The islands fortress had a bannor hanging from its towers, and so the spy drew a picture of it, and gave the drawing to me. The symbol, that was drawn, explained everything."

The Gand Master laid a tablet on the table. It had a peculiar symbol on it, but one that was very recognizable. It was the symbol of the Brotherhood of Makuta!!!

Zorron gasped, and Katronston frowned. They both looked surprised at this dicovery, however there was no surprised look on the Grand Masters face. Instead, was the look of agitation.

The Grand Master spoke in a quiet tone, but an angry one.

"What I want to know, is who sent the soldiers on that mission, where they assaulted the Dark Hunters. And do not lie to me, because I know it was one of you two!!!!!!"

Zorron smiled, as he knew that it was not him who sent the soldiers on that mission. It was Katronston. Katronston put his head down in shame, and in embarrassment. His plan was too put all the blame on Zorrons shoulders. But he did not count on Alluksonnion knowing so much details surrounding the situation.

Alluksonnion gave a stone cold look to Katronston.

"You knew this whole time what prompted this, and you persisted to lie to me!!!!!!"

Katronston stood up and was about to defend himself, but Alluksonnion sent him away with an angry yell.

"Get Out!!!!!! Get out of my sight if you know what is good for you!!!!!!"

Katronston stormed off of the boat, and met his guards outside. He then preceeded to enter a ship not to far from the one he just left, and sailed back to his headquarters on Stelt. Zorron was satisfied, but he wondered what the Grand Master had in store for him. He soon found out, as Alluksonnion turned to him and began to speak.

"It seems that we are at a stalemate with the most powerful known organization in the world. This is quite an ill omen. However, there is still time to create a suitible retreat, or more of a retirment, if you will. I want all of your men to go to the fortress in the southern isles. Stay there for at least a month. I do not wish for more lives to be lost. I have strived to recreate this organization, and I won't have the Makuta tear it down as the Hand had done over one thousand years ago. And as for you Zorron, you will come with me to the palace. There we can discuss things, of much greater importance. For one of the great artifacts have been discovered, and I am close to reaching it. And once I posses one, I shall find the other."

Zorron was completely stunned to hear that he would see one of the artifacts, perhapse even weild one! Zorron was over excited to think that maybe, he would be instumental in raising the Patrons of the Dark from its former ruin.

Chapter 5 ~ The Escape.
Mersery stood at the door to the library of forbidden knowlege. He was quite relieved that he had not been caught. However the mission was not yet over, and he was going into a potentially dangerouse environment. It would be far more likely to run into a Makuta here, than it would be almost anywhere else, but the good news is, that a Makuta tends to stick out like a sore thumb, so he should have no trouble avoiding them.

He finally reached for the door handle, turned it, and slowly opened the door. He made sure the coast was clear, and then he entered and shut the door behind him. Sure enough, there were no Exo Toa, no Rakshi, and surpriseingly, no Makuta. He was still relieved, yet he also felt something was off. There should have been more security around the area, and there was none whatsoever.

Despite these worries, he continued forward into the room. He walked toward a stone rail, and looked out into the library, and dropped his jaw in amazement. It was several floors high, and shelves covered in tablets were everywhere. Below him were even more shelves, with more tablets! He did not think that it was going to be so extremely packed full of tablets. Fear struck him. What if he could not find the right tablet? What if he could not find the exit again? What if he was discovered? The whole fortress would be in an uproar, with Rakshi and Exo Toa everywhere, and worst of all, the Makuta would be searching for him.

All these thought buzzed into his mind. He felt so unsure of himself. So confused as to where to go after finding the tablet. Getting into the fortress unnoticed was seemingly easy, but what if getting out was alot harder?

He realized something was wrong, very wrong. He was breathing hard, and he was afraid of failing and getting caught. He looked down at his Cronal Staff. What if he accidentally fired it, and caused a loud explosion that attracted the attention of the tower guard? What would he do????

He closed his eyes, and let his fears swarm him for only a few seconds, and then, he opened them, and with a firm step, he continued on with his mission. He leapt on top of one of the shelves and looked at the letters corresponding to the alphabet. It was on the letter Hm, and iff the Makutas name was Serrakaan, he needed to look a little further. He leapt from the topof the shelves, going shelf to shelf, and finally got to the S, section.

He dropped down to the floor and searched for the name. After about seven minutes of searching, he found what he was looking for. The title of the Tablet being SERRAKAAN, was proof enough that he had the correct tablet. However, it was in a different dialect than he was used too, so he would need a translator back on Daxia.

He put the tablet in a pack on his back, and stepped away casually, as the mission was almost complete. He started walking toward another exit in the library, one on the same floor. He was about to reach for the knob, when suddenly, the door itself vanished.

He emediately turned around to see a tall being, relatively his height, standing a few yards away from him. The being bore white and blue armor, and had a none the less beautiful complection. It was no doubt a Makuta!!!!! And her name was Courtesance.

He raised his staff in retaliation, and pointed it at the Makuta, who did not seem at all threatened. The Makuta began to speak, in a female voice, and she said.

"I had not expected the so called intruder to be a Mersion. Seeing as Versuva is quite far off, and seeing as we do not share friendly feelings with the Mersions, I would guess this is not a social visit."

Mersery did not speak back, he just stood his ground, unsure what to think.

"Not speaking I see, well that is too bad. I was hopeing you could tell me what you are doing here."

There was another long pause, as Mersery did not say a word.

"Perhapse you are silent due to your feeling of failure. I think it amuseng that you believed that you had gone unnoticed for the hour and a half that you have been here. Did you really think all of those Rakshi and Exo Toa, and let alone, my Brothers, fell for your little ruse? The only reason that they did not notice you, was simply because they were ordered not too. We Makuta are quite interested in your purpose here, espescially in the forbidden library."

Mersery was trying to absorb the shock that the Makuta knew he was there the whole time, however he was a little puzzeled, as he had been there for alot more than one and a half hours, and in his surprise, he still remained silent.

"Interesting, how one being would risk everything to steal one tablet. Perhapse you would like to enlighten me?"

Mersery still remained silent.

"Well, I suppose that it does not matter why you're here. Because now, it is over. You are discovered. Rakshi are at every checkpoint in the fortress, and you are trapped, with nowhere to go. You can run, but I will catch you. You may hide, but I will look for you. I hope you choose to surrender, it would be such a shame for you to expend all of yor energy fighting your way out, only to be killed. However, either way, you will die, it is only a matter of what events you choose to go with."

Mersery still stood, not moveing. He was quite sure if he was caught, he would be interrogated, tortured, and then killed. With this in mind, he made his choice, he would not surrender. But then, he realized that if he tried to escape now, he would not have a head start. All of the Rakshi were on alert, however, if he were captured, the Rakshi would then believe the threat to be suppressed, and thus not be on high alert. With this in mind, he put plan B in motion.

Mersery dropped his staff and raised his arms in submission. Three Exo Toa came in and subdued him, and one of them took the tablet out of his pack and gave it to Courtesance. She examined it, and then her eyes widened when she saw what it was. She emediately yelled at the Exo Toa.

"Take the Mersion to Dredzeks interrogation chamber!!!!!!"

The Exo Toa complied, and forced Mersery to come with them. Courtesance followed them, until they reached the chamber. They soon strapped Mersery to an upright metal table, and left the room. Courtesance signaled for all three Exo Toa to stay inside, while she went to fetch Dredzek.

Mersery looked at all the threatening tools sacattered about the room. There were saws, hammers, blades of all different kinds. Small blow torches, electrical chains hanging from the ceiling, and also a tank of acid in the corner. Mersery was however in full control of the situation, and now that the Exo Toa had turned their backs to him, it was time to escape.

A little ways down the hall from the interrogation chamber was Dredzeks laboratory. He was working on a new type of rahi that was cat-like in build, and nocturnal in nature. He was thinking of a good name for it when the door to his laboratory opened suddenly. In the doorway, stood Courtesance, with an angry look in her eye. Dredzek spoke in frustration to her intusion.

"What do you want Courtesance? I am quite busy."

"I do not need a lecture Dredzek. I know you value your privacy, but for now I may have to ignore it. I have found the intruder and have taken him to your interrogation chamber."

Dredzek was not at all pleased with this.

"Why take him to my interrogation cell?! I do not care to participate in interrogations right now!"

"Because this one is a Mersion, and he is very stubborn, and fearless. I want him to shiver in fear by the time the interrogation is over, and so that leaves me with two options, you and Serrakaan. And seeing as Serrakaan is more-so occupied, I come to you. So leave your little experiment and come with me right now!!!"

"Why not ask Benjarmin? Seeing as he revals in interrogation techniques."

"Because I do not want to scrape the Mersion off the wall after it is over."

Dredzek considered it for a momment, and decided that he would do it just so she would not bother him.

He got up and walked down the hall with her. They were about to reach the interrogation chamber when suddenly someone yelled at them from behind. It was Benjarmin. He yelled for them to stop. This frustrated Courtesance. Benjarmin would not stop pesterring them until he got to conduct the interrogation, and she new Dredzek would not back her up. They both turned around to see Benjarmin storming down the hall, he looked furious, and enraged.

"Did you find the little rat??!!!!!!! Where is he?!!!!!! I will tear him apart for stealing from me!!!!!!!"

Courtesance rolled her eyes, and answered.

What do you think he stole? Because when we found him, all he had was a tablet."

"Oh really Courtesance, than maybe you can explain why half of my armory has gone missing??!!!!!!!!!!!!

Courtesance was surprised when she heard this, as he only had one thing on him.

"What did he steal?" She asked.

Benjarmin answered, very loudly.

"He took my Flame-thrower, seven Automatic Turrets, seven Mines, thirty eight detpacks, and my speacialized Combat Lazer Turret!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Please Benjarmin, there is no way he could have taken all of that!!! He only had one thing."

"Well then where do you suppose they went!!!!!!!!!"

Suddenly the fortress started to shake a little bit. Then the door to Dredzks laboratory blew open in a wild explosion. Then the ceiling blew up above them, and it fell on Benjarmin. Several rakshi ran to see what happened, when they were suddenly being blasted repetitively with one of Benjarmins Automatic Turrets at the other end of the hallway. Courtesance heard many more noises of weapons going off, and then heard many more explosions, followed by bigger explosions. Apparently some of the detpacks were placed in laboratories with unstable experiments, and flamable chemicals. Several Exo Toa were running to the makuta, when Courtesance spotted a mine right in their path. She yelled for them to stop, but it was too late. The stepped on the mine, and suddenly a firey explosion knocked Dredzek and Courtesance on the floor, slightly scorching their armor, and completely destroying the Exo Toa. Krendarr ran around the corner and yelled.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!!!!!!!???? AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

Those were the only words he got out when the floor blew up underneath him, and he plummeted to the lower level. Benjarmin rose form the rubble, as did Courtesance and Dredzek. Courtesance smirked at Benjarmin and said.

"Does this answer your question!!!!!??????

More explosions were going off, and the floor colapsed again, accept this time under Berjarmin. When Benjarmin got up, he was shot with his own flame-thrower, and he was blown away to the other end of the hall. The flame thrower then automatically started to fire at the rakshi comeing down the hall.

Benjarmin got up again and stormed down the hallway and blasted his own flamethrower with a blast of shadow, knocking it over. When he got over to it though, it had a detpck strapped to it. It then blew up in Benjarmins face, and once again blew him down the hall. When Benjarmin got up, he looked down another hallway just parrallel to the one he was just blown through, and what he saw at the end made him a little worried. Positioned on a tripod, was his ion cannon, and it was pointing right at him. Suddenly he saw the cannon getting ready to fire, and he dropped his jaw and tried to get up, but he stopped himself when he almost stepped on a mine. But when he looked back to the ion cannon, he saw it release its blast.

Courtesance heard Benjarmin yell at the top of his lungs, and then she heard a huge explosion. She then stormed to the interrogation chamber only to find that the three Exo Toa guarding the Mersion, were strung up by their necks with the electric chains. And the Mersion, was nowhere to be seen.

Mersery was now running down a long hallway, trying not to be spotted. He had just heard a large series of explosions going off, and had absolutely no idea of what the heck was happening. All he knew was, that after he left the interrogation room, he was being chased by those crazy hounds again. He was looking for a good place to hide, and the hounds were right on his tail, along with Makuta Gothmog. They were just about to catch him when the ceiling exploded and fell down in the hounds path. Mersery was releaved that he had escaped the hounds, until he heard the Makuta pounding through the rubble. He looked frantically around for a good place to hide, and he saw an open door, that lead into a pitch black room. He ran up a few stairs, into the room, and closed the door behind him. Mersery was standing still, and he realized that is quite cold. He then felt his head pounding, and he shut his eyes and ground his teeth in utter pain. And then suddenly, the pain went away. He then opened his eyes, to find himself on a familiar cliff, back on Daxia. He looked and saw Irostenese on the edge, and so he went over to him.

"Irostenese. How did I get back here? What is going........."

Mersery looked over the cliff to gaze at the fortress on Daxia, and what he saw struck him like a ton of bricks. He saw the Daxia fortress in utter ruin, and it was being trampled on by Rakshi and Exo Toa. He then looked back at Irostenese to see a tear go down the edges of his mask.

"What happened while I was gone???!!!!!! what did they do?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He reached out to grab Irostenese, when suddenly in a flash, he was somewhere else. He was in a large cave, and standing next to him was Helryx, and a tall yellow creature, who he did not recognize. He then looked to the direction that they were, and he saw a massive silver wave headed strait toward them. Suddenly Helryx and the Creature were sucked into a black portal, and then it closed. Now he was the only one there, and the massive wave was about to crash into him.

He raised his arms over his face, and closed his eyes, expecting to get hit with the massive wave, but he felt nothing. He opened his eyes to find himself in a completely different place. He was in a large room, with strange machinery inside of it. And in the middle of the room was knelt on the floor, Toa Helryx. She was holding each side of her head, and tears were running down her mask, and her expression, was of hopelessness. She was yelling, "Get out of my head!!!!!!! Stop, please stop! STOP IT!!!!!!!!" Mersery ran over to help her, but in a flash, she was gone.

His surroundings were dramatically different, he was now near a volcano, and he saw two of his fellow members, Axon and Brutaka, fighting with all of their strength, against eachother!!

Another flash went by, and now he was in another dark room. He looked on the floor and saw a red Toa, most likely a Toa of fire, crawling very slowly. Suddenly, a very large, black shape, stepped on him, and thrust his blade ino the toas back. The Toa was screaming and crying, and yelling for someone named Pertara.

Suddenly, the tall, hooded shape, looked toward him, and pointed at him. Mersery looked down at his arms, and they suddenly began to bleed. He screamed when he saw this, and he tried to back away, but he fell in a pool of his own blood, and he shut his eyes.

When he opened them, he was back in that dark room on Destral. What were these visions for, he wondered. He started to get up, when suddenly he slipped in something. He felt weak, and he was very cold. He looked down to see what he slipped in, and he saw something that disturbed him. He was sitting in a puddle of his own blood, and he was covered in it.

He scrambled to his feet and realized that the room had gotten a little brighter. There was a large table, with many seats around it, and it took up the whole room. He assumed it must have been some kind of meeting chamber for the Makuta.

He however had little time to make few observations, because there was something at the oposite side of the room. It looked alot like the tall shadow from the last vision. In fact, Mersery quickly deduced, that it was in fact, the same being.

The tall, hooded being raised his hand toward Mersery and pointed at him. Mersery felt this horrible feeling come over him. He leaned over and vomited out his own blood. He quickly realized if he did not do something, he would end up like the Toa from his vision. He used all the strength he had left to raise his staff and fire a concentrated sonice blast at the tall hooded being.

It struck the being on the hand that it had pointed at Mersery, and the being realed back. It did a little damage to his hand, but not much. The hooded being looked back at Mersery, who had recovered much of his former strength, however he still had blood dripping off of his armor.

Serrakaan appeared surprised that Mersery was showing resistance, however he was still undeterred. Serrakaan once again raised his hand, and a blast of plasma errupted from his fingers. Mersery leapt away from his former position just in time. The plasma bolt exploded when it hit the wall and proppelled Mersery into the middle of large table. He landed with a roll and shot another concentrated sonic blast at Serrakaan.

Serrakaan lept to the wall, avoiding the blast, and jumped onto the table and with a flick of his wrist, a botton fell to his hand from his sleeve, and it extended into a long-sword. As soon as he landed on the table, he tried to strike Mersery over the head. Mersery blocked the assault, and the fight ensued. Mersery was haveing a difficult time blocking all of the strikes, as Serrakaans blade was almost to fast to see, especially in a dimmed room. He was slowly driveing Mersery back across the table. Mersery soon got to the end of the table and nearly fell off, but instead, he jumped forward and landed on Serrakaans chest and kicked off backwards, and did a backflip. He landed on the wall, and jumped off the wall and over Serrakaan and quickly turned to strike Serrakaan across the back with his spear.

But unfortunately, he judged Serrakaan to be a bit slower due to his size, but he was wrong. Serrakaan caught Mersery by the foot before he landed and threw him into the far wall. He threw him so hard that he cracked the stone wall. Mersery, slowley looked up and saw Serrakaan in the air, and headed right for him. Mersery leapt in the air, and barely avoided a stab from Serrakaans sword. He landed on Serrakaans back and jumped back on the table, and emediately fired a sonic blast from his staff. Serrakaan turned around, but it was a little to late to dage, and he was hit square in the chest by the blast. It knocked Serrakaan against the wall, smashing a hole in the stone. Serrakaan was none too pleased by this sudden move, and he plunged the whole room into darkness.

Mersery was now very disoriented, and he was about to run to the door, as he could not see the Makuta anywhere. However, before he could even make a move, he felt a cold, clawed, hand, clamp down on his neck. It was squeezing, tighter, and tighter. He could not breath, and he felt like his neck you break from the preasure. He could not see anything, but he had to do something. He was slowly being lifted from his footing by his neck, and he needed a distraction. He stabbed his spear into the table below him, and he realeashed a sonic explosion, in his desperation. This was rather unsafe for him to do, seeing as he was in the blast radius, but he was desperate.

He let the blast loose, and he felt the icey fingers snap open, and he fell on the floor. The room got brighter, most likely because Serrakaan lost his focus on his shadow powers. Mersery looked around, he had split the table in half, and his was now in between the two halves of the table. Chairs were all over the place, and Serrakaan was walking toward Mersery.

Mersery blasted the nearest door open and he ran out into the hallway. He could feel Serrakaan was chaseing him, and he was frantic to get away, he had lost a lot of blood being around Serrakaan, and he had to rest for a little while, and his body could literally not fight much longer at such an accelerated rate.

As he was running, he saw the door to the library, and he started running as fast as he could toward it. He saw the hall behind him getting darker, and he knew that Serrakaan was comeing. He ran into the library, and put up a stone wall in front of the door. Once he was in, he leapt over the rail, and accidentally dropped his staff during his landing on the lower level. He however did not have time to retrieve it, and instead he hid behind a bookcase, and waited.

The stone wall in front of the door exploded, and Serrakaan rushed in and looked over the rail. He stood there for a few minutes, as he was slowley turning his head, looking for Mersery. Mersery was quite worried when Serrakaan looked right at his staff. He just stared right at it, for about three seconds, and then, he turned around and left the library.

Mersery let out a large sigh of relief, and he shaut his eyes, and took a deep breath. Now all he had to do was get out of the fortress, and back to Daxia. Suddenly however, he remembered the tablet. In his fight with Serrakaan, he felt something crack when Serrakaan threw him into the wall. His eyes widened, as he realized what it was. He quickly took off the pack and looked inside. The tablet had been broken into about thirty peices. However he was not going to let this stop him. He would have to try to put the peices back together when he got back to Daxia.

All he had to do now, was get back to the boat. He felt his energy come back to him, and he needed to make a mad dash to get his staff, and get out of the fortress. The fastest way to get out would have to be jumping out of the window. There was a large window at the oposite end of the library. He was about to make a run for his staff, but when he looked to get it. It was gone.

He looked around in a startled manner, as it was there just a second ago. He did not wish to leave his hidden position however. He had sustained alot of damage in his fight with Serrakaan. It was not the weapons that made him feel weak however, it was the Makutas use of his mask that nearly drained him dry of blood. He was so weak a momment ago, he almost passed out.

He was almost at his normal strength by now, but he still sat down to take a deep breath. He may have to leave his staff behind if he could not find it. He could not take very long looking for it, as he was sure to get caught.

After a few more momments of evaluating his situation in his head, he decided to leave. He got up and walked around the corner, and emediately found his staff, but it was not exactly the place he had hoped to find it.

He looked directly across the pathway in front of him, and at the end of it, he saw Makuta Courtesance, and in her hands, was his staff. She spoke to him with confidence in her voice, as if she had won a fight that was not fought yet.

"It seems that you do well in combat with this staff, let us see how well you fair without it."

She threw it high to one of the uper levels, Mersery almost leapt up to catch it, but it would certainly leave him open to attack. He would just have to obtain it later.

Coutesance was stll just standing there with a little grinn on her face, and she still looked as if she had something completely dasterdly planned in her head.

"I have to admit. You did an excellent job getting away from your interrogation. I also see you even escaped the Blood Summoner alive. You even rigged the entire fortress with booby traps, and fatal ones at that, even almost for my brothers. You have continually impressed me tonight, whoever hired you must have paid you a fortune to come here and wreak such havoc. But it ends now. I will now not even bother to capture you. You have failed, to the point of death, and now you will pay the ultimate price."

Mersery was surprised at her words. It would be easy to tell that he had battled the Blood Summoner, as he has blood all over him. However, he was not the one to set all of those traps, and since it was not him, who was it? What possible reason would anyone on that island wish to help him? All of these questions were swarming his mind, however it was easy to tell he was in for a fight with this Makuta. So he had to be prepaired. The only element he could use was stone, as the fortress was almost all made of stone.

Courtesance raised her hands in a combat position, as did Mersery. They both looked at eachother for a few seconds, and then, the fight began.

Courtesance fired a monstrouse shadow blast at Mersery. In return, he raised a stone block in front of him to block it. The stone block shattered, and Mersery lept atop a bookcase to avoid getting crushed by rubble. Courtesance emediately started to fire smal blasts of shadow at Mersery, and he kept dodgeing them with ease. She however caught on to his game, and blasted the base of the shelf he was on. The shelf toppeled over and Mersery leapt to another. She soon followed up with a massive blast of air, that knocked over the one he had just leapt to. Unfortunately, when he leapt to the next one, he saw why Courtesance used such a large blast. It created a domino effect, so that each one Mersery leapt to, started to fall before he caught his bearings. He must have skipped across six shelves before he leapt to safe ground, or what he thought was safe. Courtesance met him there, and she blasted another shadow blast that could envelope a Tatorohk at Mersery. He Blasted a stone pillar up from underneath yhim, propelling him over the blast and right at Courtesance. He met her with a glanceing kick to her mask, and she stumbled backwards, trying to catch her footing. He then went on the offensive. He began to launch a dozen of stone peices in a quick row at her. She was somehow dodgeing every block, and this amazed Mersery. She was extreamely agile, and quick. He could not hit her with anything. He finally hit her, or barely anyway, when he sent a rockslide of stone headed right at her. She raised her foot and jumped off the moveing stones to proppel her far backwards. She executed a perfect backflip and landed neatly on her feet.

She flashed a quick grinn at Mersery, as an obviouse taunt. He sent a shockwave of air at her, and she dodged that too. It was such a strong bast that it would have done some seriouse damage if it hit her. As it completely obliterated the shelf behind her.

She blasted a strong blast of shadow at him when she landed. He raised a stone block in front of him, but it was not enough, it shattered the block and went slamming into Mersery. It knocked him across the room, and it nearly knocked him out. He barely got up. He new he was powerful, but he also knew that it would end badly engageing a Makuta in a duel of raw power. He needed his Chronal Staff ! He looked up and saw chain anchored in the floor, and it held a large chandelier in place above the center of the library. He blasted the chain with a blast of air. The weight of the chandelier yanked te chain upwards, which is where he needed to go. He grabbed the chain and it jerked him up very fast. He was now nearly at the ceiling when he spotted his staff. He let go and and landed on the same level as the staff. It was now in visual range. Courtesance saw what he was doing, and she did something about it. She took a deep breath, and blasted a very large bolt of lightning to the floor directly below Mersery. It exploded and the floor colapsed, almost takeing Mersery with it. A timely leap was the only thing that saved him. He was almost to his staff, then he could make his escape!

Courtesance charged another bolt of lightning, and this time, she aimed it toward the ceiling above Mersery. The explosion that followed was enough to knock Mersery off track, but the next result had him crushed beneath a tone of ruble from the floor above. He was so close, only to be crushed by this enormose weight. Perhapse, he would not escape, after all.

Courtesance teleportred up to the same level and looked at the large pile of ruble. The Mersion was no doubt dead, or at least knocked out. She was going to dig through the ruble to find him, but then she changed her mind. She was going to blow the ruble away, and hopefully what was left of the Mersion.

She blasted the ruble off that level and she looked for the Mersion's body, but it was not there. She began to get angry, as she was not sure where the Mersion could be. She began to look all over the library, when suddenly a large peice of stone errupted from the floor and slammed into her face. It knocked her back, and as she was trying to gain her balance, another stone pillar came from the floor, and hit her in the chest. She stumbled back and when she turned around, she caught a glimpse of the Mersion, and then, then end of his staff.

He slammed his staff right into her face. She stumbled back, and was up against the rail of the highest level in the librairy. Mersery charged a huge blast in his chronal staff, and let it go. It slammed into the Makuta, knocking her through the rail, and down about sixty feet to the floor. She slammed into a large pile of ruble, and was buried in it. Mersery nimbley leapt down to the first floor, and stared at the pile of ruble. He was tempted to blast it to tiny peices, but he knew that revenge was not the answer.

He turned and walked toward the window. He was about to blast it to shreads when he heard a loud crash. He spun around to see the Makuta explode from the ruble like a volcanic erruption. He could hardly recognize her, as she was now completely hidious, where before she was beautiful. She had a mouth full of sharp teeth, and her eyes turned red, and so did the blue of her armor. And what used to be white armor was now black. She was completely hideous.

She walked toward the Mersion, and drew two swords. There was a short pause, until her teeth curved into a gruesome smile. She leapt at Mersery and started to savagely attack. Mersery was doing his best to block all of her attacks, he also had to flip over her a few times to get a distance between them. She was not useing her powers at all, she only whirled her blades in a dizzying attack. She was incredibley fast, but not as overwhelming as the Blood Summoner.

Mersery kept up the defense, waiting for an opening. He finally found a good one, and jabbed his staff into her chest armor. It surpriseingly did not penetrate, but Mersery did not know that she had been useing a few Makuta powers to aid her, such as slow, (On Mersery) Quick Healing, Dodge, and Limited Invulnerability.

Despite this, Mersery followed this up with a swipe to her legs. She flipped backwards, and landed on her hands. She then did a hand spring into the air and blasted shadow from her feet at Mersery. He lept away, and decided that he had spent to long fighting this one Makuta. He needed to leave, before someone else joined the fight.

He ran to the oposite side of the room toward the window, and was about to jump through, when he saw the Makuta at the other end of the room chargeing a sonic blast. Mersery did not have much time to ready himself, for now the Makuta was about to let it go, and he was not even prepaired to dodge, and he had no cover.

She let the blast loose, and in a fraction of a second, it hit Mersery. Mersery was skidding along the stone floor, trying to gain footing, when he realized, that his chronal staff could absorb the energy, and blast it back. Which is exactly what he did. The staff nearly cracked because it was so full of sonic energy, but this was Merserys only option.

He shot forth his staff, and out of it came an extreamely large sonic blast. It was so large, and so loud, that it knock over every bookcase in its path before reaching Courtesance. When it did reach her, it errupted into a very large explosion. So large, that he could not even see the Makuta anymore from the smoke. He finally did see her slam into the far wall and hit the ground.

This was just the diversion he needed to get away. The sonic blast already shattered the windows in the library, so he only needed to jump. He leapt up to the window and looked down. It was so far down that he got a little weak in the knees, but he had no other choice. He closed his eyes, and then jumped.

A few seconds later, Courtesance got up and looked over the library, it was a wreck, and many of the tablets were destroyed. She looked to an uper balconi, and then realized that the Mersion was in alot more trouble than he bagined for. Standing on a balconi, surveying the damage, was Makuta Terradon. He was a very feared Makuta, almost as much as Serrakaan, in fact, he was pretty much a lighter version of Serrakaan by a small fraction. Unlike Serrakaan, he would occasionally remove his hood, his robes were a blackish red, and he would speak on occasion. He was not as gruesome as Serrakaan, and he did not have the same power over blood as Serrakaan had, but he did know how to make someone explode in a bloody mess, so he was like Serrakaan in many ways. He was considered to be the Makuta's librarian, of some sort. He knew every tablet in the library, word for word, and he practically never left the library. The reason Mersery was now in large trouble, was because he participated in the destruction of the only thing this Makuta deemed of value, and when you destroyed a Makutas prized possessions, you were as good as dead. And in Terradon's case, it was almost a guarantee.

Terradon left the library, and so did Courtesance. Courtesance knew where Terradon was going, but she wanted to survey the damage done to the fortress from the placed booby traps. She walked out of the library, and saw Rakshi parts all over the place, and an automatic turret, empty of shells. She then walked down then next hallway, and saw a trail of blood leading from the convication chamber, most likely the Mersion's. She then walked to the place she was standing when the booby traps went off, and she saw alot of ruble where the floor had fallen. She leapt down and saw Krendarr and Gorast speaking. Both Makuta had very brutal wounds, and they were talking about Benjarmin.

(Krendarr) "Benjarmin was emediately taken to the infirmery from the wounds he received. He looked like a victem of Gothmog's hounds. He was torn apart."

(Gorast) "Well, Mutran had a huge surprise when his whole laboratory blew up with him in it, and Dredzek seemed none too pleased when his laboratory went up in flames. Gothmog lost one of his hounds to a detpack, and Chirox lost his entire quarters. The throne room was completely unscathed however, which is a good thing."

Courtesance interjected.

"Also the Library is in tatters. The Mersion destroyed it. And worst of all, Terradon saw it."

(Gorast) "How did Terradon take it? Was he upset?"

(Courtesance) "No, he just left the room."

(Krendarr) "Ohoh. That Mersion is going to get it. I heard that he escaped Serrakaan, and that Serrakaan was looking for him. And now so is Terradon. There will be nothing left of the Mersion when they catch him."

(Courtesance) "To true, but it will be sunrize in about an hour, so Serrakaan will most likely not go outside to catch him."

(Krendarr) "I am still curious as to who set up those traps all over the fortress. Was it the Mersion?"

(Courtesance) "No, it was not him. I believe we have a second intruder. And I intend to find him."

(Krendarr) "I thought that Gothmog only detected one intruder. How has another one slipped in unnoticed?"

(Gorast) "Perhapse the Mersion revealed his presence as a distraction. So that his comrade would come in undetected."

(Courtesance) "It is possible. But the Mersion was attempting to steal something when I caught him. So why would he complete a mission when he was attempting to be a distraction? That is a horrible stradegy."

(Krendarr) "Perhapse these intruders have nothing to do with eachother. Perhapse they have no idea of eachothers presence on the island at all."

(Courtesance) "That would explain the confusion on the Mersion's face when I mentioned the traps. But the convenience of the traps going off right when the Mersion escaped, makes me think otherwise. I do not believe in coincidences."

Before Krendarr could summon a reply, Morklor walked down the halway, and said.

"I just heard that Dredzek has found the intruder, and it was not a Mersion as described."

(Courtesance) "Did he capture him?"

(Morklor) "Not yet. He said it got away before he could kill it. But he is still searching."

(Courtesance) "Very well. I am going to acompany Dredzek in searching for the second intruder. Come if you like, unless you prefer to be useless."

With that said, Courtesance ran off in another direction. Leaving the Makuta standing alone. She was not about to allow two intruders to escape unpunished.

About five minutes earlier.

Mersery leapt out of the library window, rather unsure of how, or where he would land. As soon as he felt the wind blast against his face. he opened his eyes to see that he had very far to fall. He was going to land on one of the large bridges that connected the main fortress to the outer towers surrounding it. This was not to much to worry about, until he saw about thirty Rahkshi gather below him.

They all raised their spears, waiting to impail the falling Mersion on them. Mersery was hopeing to find another landing point, but he had no time to switch his course to another position. Another question, how was he going to not land on the raised, and pointed spears held by the Rahkshi?

He had little time to think before he came up with a solution for his landing, and for getting rid of the Rakshi. He was about eighty feet abouve the Rakshi when he unleashed a massive blast of air. It slammed into the Rahkshi below and created a small updraft, so as to lighten his fall. Most of the Rakshi had fallen off the bridge, but some of them were still positioned there. Mersery quickly unleashed a large sonic blast from his chronal staff. Most of the Rakshi armor shattered, and the Kraata exploded; But some of them were still intact. Mersery guessed that they were Rakshi of sonics.

The blasted sonic energy at Mersery. Mersery leapt into the air and when he landed, he slammed his staff into the ground, causing the stone to errupt beneath the Rahkshi, launching them into the air. While they were in the air, Mersery summoned a strong wind to blow them clear of the walkway, and over the edge.

With the walkway cleared, he began to sprint full speed to the other side. He was about to reach the middle of the bridge when suddenly four Rakshi appeared out of nowhere, surrounding him.

He emediately stabbed one of them in the chest, and blasted it off of his spear with a blast of sonics. H swiped his staff under the Rakshi on his right, knocking its legs out from under it. He was about to follow up with a stabb to its chest, when it vanished and appeared behind him. It smacked him with its spear in the back of the head, knocking Mersery forward and against the edge of the bridge. The Rakshi tan at him, and tried to hit him, but Mersery stuck his staff into its chest, and lifted it over him and over the edge of the bridge.

The other two Rhkshi were a little more cautious, and approached carfully. But they had not seen Mersery's power over stone, thus they would soon be suprised. He errupted a stone pillar into the air and slamming into the Rakshi's head, knocking it off. The head went over the edge, but since the Kraata was not dead yet, the body was still intact. The headless Rakshi started to wildly wave its staff, trying to strike out at Mersery, and accidentally slamming its staff into the Rakshi across from it. This distraction gave Mersery enough time to send them both rocketing off the edge of the bridge, courtesy of a sonic blast.

Mersery continued his sprint down the path, and a couple of seconds later, about forty Rakshi came out of the gate behind him, and started flying towards him. He was almost to the other side, if he could just close the gate to the tower once inside, he should be safe, for like five seconds.

He was almost to the gate, but when he looked up above the gate, on the archway, he saw someone. He was tall, hooded and cloaked in a blackish red cloak. Red eyes gleamed from beneath the hood, and the looked as menaceing as the eyes of a doom viper. The being was holding a sphere of energy in his hand, and he launched it at Mersery!

The shere of energy slammed into the floor in front of Mersery, and exploded wildly. It sent Mersery flying into the side of the bridge, brakeing the stone rail with his head. Everything went black for what seemed to be a moment, but must have been five minutes.

He opened his eyes to find himself being dragged back to the main fortress, and he was now at the mercy of about forty Rakshi. The tall hooded being, slowly trailed behind them; Mersery quickly guessed he was a Makuta, and it was named Terradon.

The walked a little longer, and were almost to te gate, but suddenly, there was a low toned boom, inside the fortress. Then, the massive doors exploded in a rageing fire. Most of the Rakshe were incinerated to dust, includeing one of the ones that was drgging Mersery. The other one, Mersery ripped his arm away from, but when he tried to stand, he fell to the floor, as if he could not move. He saw the Makuta, with an outstreched hand, pointing strait at him. The Makuta's eyes were fixed on Mersery, but then they looked yonder to the now open doorway. Mersery followed his gaze, and saw someone standing in the broken path where the two massive doors had stood, and it was the last person in the world that Mersery expected. It was Irostenese!

Irostenes drew two swords and rushed forward. There were about ten Rakshi between him and Mersery, and they all prepared to stop the intuder. However, they were by no means a match for Irostenese.

He lept into the air and landed one foot on a Rakshi's head. The Rakshi's head flew of on impact with his foot, and then at the same time, Irostenese drove his sword through the head of another. He landed with a roll right in between two Rakshi, and simultaneousely sliced their legs in half.

He got up and leapt into the air, and drove his swords into two more Rakshi as he landed. Four Rakshi remained, and they all were running toward Irostenese. Irostenese yelled at Mersery to duck, and when Mersery did, Irostenese unleashed a fire blast that incinerated all four Rakshi, and was headed strait for the Makuta who was about twenty feet away from Mersery.

The Makuta raised his hand, and the flame dissipated before him. Terradon looked at Irostenese, with anger in his eyes. Irostenese returned his gaze, and for about ten seconds, they just stared into eachothers eyes.

Then, the silence was broken. The Makuta in his wrath, whirled his arms in a circular motion, and BLACK LIGHTNING came to his fingertips. Irostenese quickly stomped into a defensive position, and quickly dropped his swords.

Mersery dropped his jaw. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. He was out of range of the lightning, but Irostenese was not, and he was not makeing any effort to dodge. Did Irostenese not know what happened to beings who were hit with that kind of power? It would blow him apart!!!!!

Terradon launched the lightning from his pointer and middle fingers, and it slammed into Irostenese. Irostenese skidded backward, as the lightning drove him back, but there was no explosion. Terradon's eyes widened, and suddenly, Irostenese redirected the blast of black lightning!

It then was headed strait for the Makuta, but it was a little off course, and it struck the ground before the Makuta's feet. A HUGE, black and white explosion errupted and engulfed the Makuta. The Makuta was launched backward, and hit the doors about sixty feet behind him. The stone doors cracked, and the Makuta fell to ground, and landed on his hands and knees. He raised his head, and Irostenese saw rage in his eyes.

Mersery barely stood up before Irostenese grabbed him by the arm and yelled.

"COME ON!!!! LET'S GO!!!!"

He and Mersery leapt over the side of the bridge and began to fall many feet to the ground. Many Rakshi positioned themselves below them, and raised their pointed staffs toward them. Irostenese blasted the all with a huge engulfing fire blast. The both landed with a soft foot, thanks to Mersery, and they both ran though one of the main gates and for the outer wall. Irostenese stopped the wounded Mersery and said.

"Look Mersery, we are almost out, almost! I need you to keep going, I will hold off the Rakshi."

About seventy Rahkshi were chaseing them, and Mersery said.

"No. There are to many. You will be killed!"

"No Mersery, I need you to go as far as you can, and I will distract the Rakshi. NOW GO!!!!!"

Mersery knew there was no time to argue, so he ran as hard as he could to the outer wall. The Rakshi were almost upon Irostenese, and there were so many!

Irostenese took a deep breath, and then he leapt high into the air, and delivered a massive fire blast. He landed and continued his firey barrage. The Rakshi were not going to stand a chance, they were all being engulfed in white hot flames. You could hear the screams of countless Kraata, as they were being burnt alive.

At last, as a final crushing move. Irostenese raised a firewall, fifty feet high, and forced it upon the Rakshi. Irostenese knelt down, breathless. It had been a long time since he had used his powers, and he was alot older. He looked up and saw about twenty Rakshi chargeing another blast, and they were all aimed for him.

He was about to be hit with many shadow blasts, when Mersery leapt forward and unleashed a MASSIVE sonic blast from his chronal staff. The Kraata in the heads of the Rakshi exploded, and the Rakshi armors fell apart from the blast. Mersery helped Irostenese to his feet, and said.

"You did not actually think I would leave you alone to fight them all did you?"

Irostenese looked into the sky, it was still quite dark, and it was quiet, too quiet. Irostenese suddenly looked allarmed at something. He looked at Mersery, and said.

"We have to go! NOW!!!"

Mersery and Irostenese quickly turned around to make their escape, but behind them stood a familiar face, and an unwanted one. It was Makuta Terradon.

Mersery stood back to back with Irostenese and said.

"We can take him together. He can't beat both of us."

Irostenese replied after about three seconds, and said.

"May he can't take us both, but he can."

Mersery looked where Irostenese was pointing, and out of the darkness, came a tall, hooded figure. All cloaked in black. It was Makuta Serrakaan.

Irostenese and Mersery both got into defensive positions, and for the first time that night, Mersery was almost certain, that they would not make it out alive.

Chapter 6 ~ Fight or Flight?
Mersery and Irostenese were standing back to back, waiting for either, or both Makuta to strike. Mentally, they both unwittingly decided that Mersery was to fight Terradon, and Irostenese was to occupy Serrakaan. For what seemed like hours, the combatants stared into eachothers eyes, waiting, and watching, to see who would make the first move.

Irostenese, was the first to make a move, and he was the first to strike at Serrakaan. He blasted a small fire ball at Serrakaan's feet, and that small attack began the chain of events. Little did everyone know, just Irostenese, and possibly Serrakaan, that that small firball, was a perfect strategy to start a fight. During the time before a fight, or this one in particular, there is alot of tension as to who will strike first. Now most combatants will attempt to make a firce first strike, but the body is so quickly pumping adrenalene in preporation, that the slightest flinch will triger an attack. The fire ball that Irostenese shot was next to harmless, but it triggered the chain reaction in everyone elses mind, that an attack had been made, and that a follow-up attack was required. For all that time they were standing there, they were listing the possibilities of what first moves to make, and to who would make that first move. Their mind dwelled so much on that idea, that when Irostenese shot that fireball, the mind, almost by default, triggered a counter attack scenario. This would seem to indicate nothing, but there is a little more too it. Usually the first person to attack, has the disadvantage of the other beings counter attack, which is usually the most powerful counter attack of the fight. But by shooting that harmless fire-ball, Irostenese prompted the Makuta to respond to a harmless move, effectviely makeing there counter attacks, the actual first strike, giveing Mersery and Irostenese the opertunity to dodge, or counter attack, and thus, have the advantage from the very beggining.