Ballad to All That is Summer

Ballad to All That is Summer is ToaGonel's standalone entry into the 2019 Summer Writing Contest. It takes place within the Broken Order Universe.

Story
All in all, life on Uniran was as it should be.

''The Stick of Truth. The Stick of Victory. The Zamor Launcher of Death.''

''“I love springs,” Arrin declared. “Without springs, nothing would work properly.”''

“I can only imagine the horror of a world without springs.”

''“Or broken springs,” Arrin shuttered. “Springs are like order. But if they’re broken…”''

“Broken Order Universe,” Kelrik breathed.

''“Indeed. Thank Mata Nui we don’t live in that universe.”''

''As the Matoran continued their trek down to the beach, the trees rustled with the wind of an incoming warm front. Arrin would repair his toy and promptly chase Kelrik all around the island and into the Cave of Wonders. All in all, life on Uniran was as it should be.''

Bythrain, The Broken Order Universe.

One month after the reformation of the Kritor Empire and the coronation of Emperor Krevator.

That was a spring long ago. Now it was summer.

Toa Arrin watched as a lone Hoto Bug scurried across his cell floor, probably looking for another meal.

He was the only one left. The last survivor of Uniran.

Not counting Ervik. But did he count anymore?

His body and voice were physically changed. His mind was unrecognizable. And is an umbrella with every part switched out the same umbrella?

Oh, there was Ervik, too. Assuming he was still alive, he was being flooded with propaganda, and if he hadn't been rewritten, he soon would be. He had consigned himself to serve the Kritors with the hopes of reworking it from the inside. Finding some shred of Ervik and pulling it back to the surface. But Arrin knew there was no hope of that. The Kritor Empire was a machine, now, and Kelrik had unwittingly enslaved himself to it.

Callah had had the foresight to flee. To escape the universe with the only other Olmak before all multiversal travel was shut down. Everyone was now trapped inside, not only those within the giant robot that Krevator had spoken of, but also those within the larger universe. No escape.

In a blur of movement, Arrin snapped forward and caught the Hoto Bug in his hands. Pinning it between his fingers, he sat back to his original position, releasing it in his hands. The Hoto Bug scurried up his arm, along his torso, and onto the back wall. The Toa of Iron sighed; he'd hoped the Hoto Bug would stay in his palm.

A slight movement along the wall caught his eye, and Arrin's eyes were drawn to a crack in the wall that the Kritors had failed to repair. The Toa leaped to his feet and moved to it, putting his eye to the hole. For a moment, he saw nothing, but then he saw what had caught his attention in the first place: the light of someone's eye.

"Who are you?" Arrin asked into the hole.

The eye looked away, then back at the Toa.

"Cootol."

A memory stirred. A name he had heard.

"Cootol...? You... were you..."

Arrin paused, half-expecting the other to fill in the blank, but he did not. Searching his memories a moment longer, Arrin resurfaced with the piece of information he'd been looking for.

"Cootol!" the Toa gasped. "The Kritor/Makuta War started over you."

"The Kritor/Makuta War," the other said softly.

"Yes!" Arrin exclaimed. "You were the multiversal traveler, weren't you? You fell onto Bythrain's shores, but when Kragator failed to keep his word and hand you over to international waters, the Brotherhood of Makuta declared war on the Kritor Alliance. Was this not you?"

"I... I think so."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Cootol responded, "I have been in this dungeon for so long... I have had no visitors since the one who called himself Kragator was down here."

That confirmed it. An entire war, the reformation of the Kritor Alliance into the Kritor Empire, the victory and death of Kragator. The rise and splintering of the Secret Empire, the rise and fall of the Alignment, the rise of the faux-Barraki. Ervik's unificaiton of the faux-Barraki into the Heads of Species and Heads of State... and the formation of the new Kritor Empire.

All started because of this individual.

"Cootol," Arrin whispered. "You broke our order. You broke our universe."

The eye disappeared from the hole, and there was no response. Arrin felt a pang of sorrow; Cootol could hardly be blamed for what had happened. If anything, it was just the moment Kragator had been awaiting. The right opportunity to crush the Makuta, the only major rivals to his rule, and secure total victory over the universe.

"Cootol," Arrin hissed through the hole. "Cootol, do you know what happened because of you?"

"I don't want to know."

"Do you want to know about Kragator? The one who visited you?"

"No."

Arrin pulled away slightly from the hole.

"I don't want to know anything," Cootol's voice returned.

The Toa of Iron stepped back, and he moved back from the wall to his prior position. Slumping to the ground, his eyes swept the floor for the Hoto Bug.

There was silence.

"Do you want to know something?" the other's voice came again. "Do you want to know why I came here?"

A chilling laugh erupted from Arrin's throat. "What."

"Mata Nui turned evil, working to conquer the universe around him. The Order of Mata Nui and the Brotherhood of Makuta was trying to stop him, but even they could not. I fled to find help, to see if anyone would be able to come and stop him."

Another pang in Arrin's chest. Callah had left to do the exact same thing. Was that where she was now? Getting caught up in some warlord's schemes? Getting herself imprisoned and sparking another Kritor/Makuta War?

Arrin sighed. He was on death's row. Was there any point to worrying about it now?

"The multiverse is a terrifying place," Cootol responded. "You don't know where you're going to fall."

Arrin nodded. He remembered when he had first learned of the existence of the multiverse and how it worked. The Kritor/Makuta War had just broken out, and his newfound friends from the Alignment were explaining why it had started. A multiversal visitor had fallen into their world. Cootol.

"I have a friend out there," Arrin said. "She's fled this universe. Trying to warn others of the Kritor Empire before it breaks free of this universe and attempts to conquer others." An empire that Cootol had sparked into existence, Arrin thought vengefully.

"You should have never let her leave," Cootol replied from his cell. "Better to rot in a cell than to tumble between the unknown worlds. Better to be on death's row."

So that was to be Callah's fate, Arrin thought.

He had failed them. He had failed all of them. Ervik was dead. Kelrik was dying. Callah was almost certain to die.

And here he was, the last of them.

He had hoped that he could shout something, some last words that would be some rallying cry to spark a resistance. Or some last shout of freedom before the world swallows

Arrin stepped over to the window of his cell. A small corner of one of Bythrain's golden fields could be seen, and beyond that, the Bythrain's silver sea.

Summer ends, Arrin thought. Another spring shall never come.

Characters

 * Arrin
 * Cootol
 * Kelrik - mentioned,
 * Callah - mentioned,
 * Ervik - mentioned,
 * Kragator - mentioned,

Trivia

 * Gonel was toying with the idea of submitting something else to the Summer Writing Contest, but as he realized it was a few days before the deadline, he was struck by an impulse to do this. This story is a bookend to Arrin's story, the earliest chronological point of which is Ode to All That is Spring and shows just how drastically everything has changed for him. He laments how unrecognizable Ervik has become, but he has undergone a metamorphasis himself.
 * The story is also a bookend for Cycle One of the Broken Order Saga, and the last time a story takes place solely within the universe itself. In that regard, it is the end of that story.
 * Cootol was not originally going to be included in this story, as it was just going to be a really brief glimpse of Arrin looking from his cell onto a golden field on Bythrain, but not only did that feel rather snobbish, but also fairly stagnant. Instead, Gonel was struck with a memory of Cootol who had not been seen since Destiny's Way and who Gonel himself had all but forgotten, despite the fundamental role that he had played. In the end, even Gonel only now fully recognizes in hindsight that he was just an excuse for Kragator to spark his engine of war.