Dark Origins

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 powerfu shot. The only problem was that he only forteen 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 neiboring 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 comeing 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 deggree circles after just about every step. However, the direction the did not look, and the only direction the 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 carfully 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 peculiar 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 comeing 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 dissapearance 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 emediately 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 behined 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 noticeing 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 them 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 strait in the eyes.

Suddenly, the shadow released him, and let him fall to the ground, and the tall shadow dissapeared back into the forest, Zorron fell almost unconscieouse, 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 unconscieousness, 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 wouldd never forget them, for the rest of his life he will know, that the myth of the Blood Summoner, was no mere myth.