Shadow Play

Shadow Play is a story serail, written by User:Abc8920, that shows Raanu's attempt to overthrow Makuta Rotam in an alternate universe first seen in Chapter 9 of Battle of Bara Magna.

Chapter 1
Raanu was silently working in a factory. His body was at the shadowy place, but his mind not. He was remembering his past times on Bara Magna. Truly, he currently was on Bara Magna, but it had changed so much that it almost seemed that he was in the middle of an insane nightmare. After the shattering, he took control of the fire tribe, and things were, compared to the current situation, good. But everything changed when a dark figure descended from the skies, the shadows arriving with him. The dark being took over the Rock Tribe, and started infecting the Bone Hunters and sand tribe members in order to form an army. The being claimed to be Makuta Rotam, and soon declared war on the other tribes living on Bara Magna. Many battles followed, all of which lead to one final, bloody struggle, the Battle of Atero. Most of the agori and glatorian were exterminated by the battle, and those who survived were put as slaves. Rotam’s power and empire began to grow, until the present. The technology of the planet had changed. Infamous metal cities had been constructed, powerful warships had been constructed, and much other technology had been introduced to Rotam’s empire. Raanu suddenly returned to the present, as a skrall struck him with a spiked whip.

“Work agori! One more distraction and you will take a kraata bath”

“Yes sir. I get back to work now”

Raanu got back to his work. He hated it. He had to recharge the fuel of the various machines of the Piraka Virus Factory. The factory was created with the sole purpose to create Piraka Virus. The virus had revived its name from a matoran word that meant “Thieve or murder”, as if injected in too large quantities it made the being infected go insane, murdering every living being in its path. The virus was also used on little quantities on agori workers, but he hadn’t been yet infected. He knew why. Rotam had personally known Raanu once, before the fall of Bara Magna, and knew that keeping him to work without being infected would be a painful torture.

He recharged the fuel of the last machine. He then went to the main corridor of the factory, and showed a tablet to a skrall. The skall nodded, and gave him a metal target. Raanu walked to the exit door, and put the metal target in a machine. It scanned the target, and the door opened. Outside, he saw the dirty streets, with hovering vehicles flying at high speeds. Though his class was shunned from society, rock agori and skrall had gained privileges after the war. Rock agori could have houses of their own, were free and worked in bureaucratic jobs. Soldier skrall were under Rotam’s army, but received a good payout of enlisting to it. Each time they conquered a new planet, each surviving Skrall in the conquest received a portion of the conquered territory.

Raanu decided to go to The Hammer, a slave tavern in the suburbs of the city. He began to walk through the darkened streets. The sun was falling, and the already shadowy streets were becoming darker. After half an hour of walking, Raanu arrived at The Hammer. The ambient was somewhat cheerful, after all. Some agori musicians were playing and the agori were enjoying their only rest hour. He went to the bar, and asked for some hot Thornax Stew. Sat next to him was Natrix.

“How are things, Natrix?”

“Bad, as always. Those Skrall have whipped me two times today because I was doing my job slowly.”

“Bad. They whipped me today too. I was remembering of the times in which our race was free.”

“Remembering things will not solve the future, Raanu. Kiina had the same hopes as you, the hopes of being free, the hope to free the agori, and she died two weeks after the end of the Battle of Atero, from her injuries.” “I still have hopes that someday, somehow, our race will be free again.”

“You dream too much, Raanu. And if you dream… the Skrall will not whip you. They will do you something worse. Now I have to go, my rest time has finished.”

“Bye.”

Raanu looked as she exited the tavern. He noticed that his glass of Thornax stew had become cold. Raanu cursed, and drank that horrible soup. He then heard the sound of heavy steps coming to the tavern. When he looked, there was a purple Rahkshi standing, and the musicians stopped playing and the agori were suddenly silent. Raanu remembered that some months after the destruction of Atero, Rotam had found a pool of a silver liquid, and he experimented with the Kraata that he had used before to enslave the Sand Tribe and created the Rahkshi, powerful beings that wielded many of Rotam’s powers. That one was purple, so it meant that it was a power scream Rahkshi. The purple Rahkshi advanced through the tavern, staring carefully at every agori. Raanu knew what the Rahkhsi was doing. Some agori was late, and being late to work was condemned to death in Rotam’s empire. The Rahkshi seemed to smell something, and sent an ear shattering blast at a part of the wooden bar, which subsequently shattered to pieces. A scared agori was behind it, and was to say something when the Rahkshi blasted the agori with his powers, killing him. The rahkshi then transformed into flight mode, and left the tavern.

The crowd of agori looked at the life-less remains of the agori. The remaining agori rushed to the crowd, possibly wanting to go to work for incase a Rahkshi came after them. Raanu walked out to the street too, wandering how many agori and glatorian would fall to Rotam’s empire. No, no more lives could be wasted serving Rotam, no more the Agori should live in fear. Raanu vowed that Rotam would pay, that he would make him feel what the agori had been living for thousands of years thanks to his shadow plays.

Chapter 2
Roxtus, the center of Rotam’s empire, was nearly impossible to attack. Soldier skrall who weren’t on war campaigns watched over slave work. Elite warriors were the owners of many of the factories of the city, though most of them spent their time conquering new lands in far away planets. The law, the very true law, was enforced by two lethal forces. One of these was the Rahkshi, powerful beings with dark powers. They were rumored to be born from Rotam’s essence, immersed in the silver substance that had caused the Shattering. The other force that enforced the law was even darker. Rotam had created a race of shadow warriors called “Shadow Toa”. They had powerful mental abilities, as well as strong shadow powers. The Glatorian survivors of the war with Rotam thousands of years ago, had been put to work in a lava river. Due to the chances of the Glatorian attempting to escape, each of them had two Shadow Toa assigned to watch over them. Scotar, former warrior of the Fire Tribe, had a squad of them watching over him. His job was simple, but it was rest-less. He had to fill two drums with lava and haul them to a far away factory in the outskirts of Roxtus before the lava cooled down. It was a hard work, and he had seen many of his companions killed by the Shadow Toa because they arrived late, their lava had cooled down, or killed by the lava they were hauling falling on them. Today he was doing his second turn of lava hauling, and he had Gelu and Malum as companions. The Shadow Toa were a few meters behind them, ready to kill them if needed. They were arriving to their destination. Scotar could see the dark sky, filled with smoke coming out from the factories. All the buildings were craved from a black and dark grey metal, so it gave the city a dark look. Soon, they arrived at the factory. The agori slaves there quickly carried the lava to prosteel conducts.

Their work done, the three Glatorian and their Shadow Toa guards boarded a small spaceship, which brought them to the slave camp in the lava mine. The glatorian had to bring the lava by foot because the cooling system of the spaceship would cause the lava to solidify.

The trip was short, but when Scotar, Malum and Gelu exited the spaceship the sun had already fallen. The slave camp was just a small group of huts surrounded by a short wall made of stone, with some Rahkshi and Shadow Toa watching over day and night. When Scotar entered at his dirty hut, he was surprised to see who was in.

“Raanu?!?! What are you doing here? If the Shadow Toa see you here they will kill you. Also, I bet that you are here on work time. Do you know what that means, Raanu? That means that when those Rahkshi find you they will make you something worse than death…”

“Oh, I know. But I’ve come here to talk about something that is worth my death. I’m here to talk about rebellion.”

“Are you crazy? Rahkshi, Shadow Toa, Skrall… this planet is full of people who are more than willing to have a motive to shred you to pieces.”

“Where are we, Scotar?”

“At the slave camp of the lava mine, you know that.”

“No, I’m referring to what it was.”

“This was the former placement of our village Vulcanus, which was destroyed by the Skrall after the Battle of Atero…”

Scotar now understood what Raanu meant. Scotar, having spent centuries in the slave camp, didn’t knew how slaves were treated in Roxtus, but if one looked carefully at Raanu’s armour, that could deduce that he, and the other slaves, were treated carelessly and violently. Raanu had many whip marks in his back, as well as many cuts in the arms and legs, and one or two bruises here and there. Raanu was right. The situation couldn’t be that any longer.

“I understand. But how do we do it? As much as I would like that, I don’t think that going around smashing Skrall would do any good, not as long as Shadow Toa and Rahkshi came moments later with staffs and swords ready to cut through your throat.”

“I have all planed. Just a bit of havoc here… some fight there…, and we will be able to take revenge on Rotam.”

“Ok. I will have to contact some other Glatorian, and you should have some agori with you. An agori and a Glatorian alone can take on a Makuta who has conquered every planet in the known space. Also, when do we start?”

“Now”

Upon saying those words, Raanu, Scotar, the Glatorian and the Rahkshi heard a big explosion hitting the camp.

Characters

 * Raanu
 * A Skrall
 * Natrix
 * Kiina - Mentioned (Deceased)
 * A Rahkshi of Power Scream
 * A agori who was killed for beign late to work
 * Some Shadow Toa
 * Scotar
 * Gelu - (Mentioned)
 * Malum - (Mentioned)