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This article was written by DeltaStriker. Please do not add to it without the writer's permission.
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This article is about the 2022 Remastered Edition. You may be looking for the original 2014 version.
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| Rock Bottom | |
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| Story | |
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August - September 2022
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To be announced
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Rock Bottom is a story serial written by DeltaStriker about the Matoran who live in Mahri Nui as they struggle to survive in a hostile and unfriendly environment.
Content Warning: This story contains elements of thalassophobia, violence, death, attempted suicide, and body horror. It is not intended for readers 13 and under.
Story[]
Chapter 1[]
The navy-blue waters swirled aimlessly around Kyrehx as her keen eyes scanned the field of waving stalks of bubble-studded flora that surrounded the sunken city of Mahri Nui. Even though she had been trapped down here for over ten years the lack of marine life in the Voya Nui Bay still unnerved the Ga-Matoran. It wasn’t right for water to be empty of life; even the liquid protodermis canals of Ga-Metru were home to a multitude of creatures. And yet here she was, standing at the bottom of a vast sea of water, real water - not the repulsive manufactured stuff that the Great Beings had had the nerve to call water - and there was not a marine Rahi in sight.
Kyrehx sighed before she could stop herself, using up a substantial amount of the dwindling supply of air remaining in the rapidly shrinking bubble that clung to her face. She silently cursed herself, irritated that she still forgot how precious the air bubbles were after all this time.
It had been sheer luck that Mahri Nui had landed beside the Fields of Air in the first place. Without the precious air bubbles that sustained them the Matoran that inhabited the sunken city would have drowned mere minutes after their abrupt descent, or worse, mutated into unspeakable water-breathing horrors by the mutagenic water that leaked up from the abyssal deep-sea trench that wrapped around their city. Fortunately, the impact had unleashed a massive burst of oxygen from the airweed, creating several massive domes of breathable air around Mahri Nui and saving the lives of the Matoran who had survived the initial plunge. It hadn’t been long after that that they had discovered another useful feature of the massive air bubbles that protected the city: whenever a Matoran left one of the Air Domes they took a small amount of air with them, conveniently located in a bubble that inexplicably remained attached to their face around their mouths.
The Ga-Matoran glanced over her shoulder for what felt like the millionth time, wondering when her replacement would arrive. Her shift had ended almost an ago, but Lemiddus made an obnoxious habit of sleeping in late. Whoever had decided to give the Fa-Matoran a morning shift had obviously never met him, which seem implausible given the fact that there were only just over a hundred Matoran left in Mahri Nui.
As Kyrehx turned her gaze back to the vast expanse of water that loomed outside the borders of the Fields of Air something flashed in her peripheral vision. It moved so fast that for a second, she thought she had imagined it. But the pain that followed was most certainly not a figment of her imagination.
The creature’s serrated teeth tore through Kyrehx’s metal armor like knives through butter. She screamed in agony, no longer caring about her dwindling air supply. The thing had latched onto her neck, its mouth squeezing tighter and tighter with every passing second. Kyrehx was overwhelmed by a tsunami of lethargy, as if her strength were being rapidly drained from her.
As if her strength were being drained from her…
Kyrehx’s eyes flashed open, her hands flying towards the thing on her neck. This was a Vampire Squid, the ones that lived in the Black Water and lived off the life force they sucked out of other creatures. They attacked any creature they wanted, predator and prey alike. Matoran scavengers and scouts sometimes came across the corpses of their victims floating up from the Black Water, gray and lifeless with ghastly black circles all over their body. It was a disturbing sight, and she usually went the other direction whenever someone brought back a corpse that had drifted up from below. As far as any of them could tell, nothing had ever survived a Vampire Squid attack.
Kyrehx grabbed frantically at the squid on her throat, trying to tear it off. Her vision began to cloud at the edges, and the blackness of unconsciousness began to creep past her eyelids. She didn’t have much time. Her flailing and futile attempts to remove the parasite from her neck grew weaker and more sluggish as the life continued to drain out of her. She could no longer see clearly; her air bubble was gone. She made one final tug at the squid and then collapsed onto the sea floor, eyes rolling back into her head as her world faded into darkness.
A hundred pairs of milky white eyes watched with anxious intensity as the lone squid brought down the Matoran sentry. A silent cry of triumph echoed through a hundred minds as she fell, one final scream exploding from her mouth before her air bubble vanished completely. This would be their first meal in weeks. They had barely eaten since they had been driven out of the dark abyss where they had lived before it came. The monster that used them for food.
A single piercing shriek of permission broke the silence, and the squid descended upon their prey.
The living mass of orange creatures converged on the Matoran, her light blue armor already losing its vibrancy in favor of a familiar dull drained gray. The single squid that had brought the sentry down detached itself from its prey as the rest began to feast, leaving an ugly black ring-shaped scar where its tiny needle like suckers had punctured her organic tissue. It would not take part in the next few hunts, having drained more life force from its prey than all of the rest of the squad would combined. That was the price for a filling meal in the Black Water.
Lemiddus had slept in. Again. And not just a few minutes. No, his chronometer told him he was almost an hour late. Kyrehx was going to be furious. If only he could find that blasted alarm feature that Feton had mentioned when he had traded the Fe-Matoran for it.
The Fa-Matoran ran about the corner, mentally composing his apology as he went. Hey Kyrehx, sorry I slept in late. I’d tell you it won’t happen again, but…
Lemiddus’ trail of thought ended abruptly as he rounded the bend just in time to see more squid than he had ever seen in his life envelop Kyrehx, her pale-blue-armored body disappearing beneath the cloud of sickly orange. For a moment he froze, stunned by what he had just witnessed. Then his Sentinel instincts kicked in, and he threw himself at the squad of squid.
His first strike was met with a satisfying squash and sizzle as his Electro-Blade bisected one of the small orange monsters and sending its sizzling corpse drifting down to the sea floor. Lemiddus bit back a triumphant shout as he watched the corpse sink.
Then he looked up.
A hundred pairs of beady white eyes were locked on him, focused on his glowing heartlight with ravenous appetite. The young Matoran was veritable feast of life energy, and he had just swum right into their midst—they didn’t need to wait for a lone squid to bring him down this time.
Lemiddus unleashed a colorful string of words more vulgar than he typically dared to use as he darted forward. He snatched Kyrehx’s rapidly discoloring body from the squad and launched himself back towards the safety of the closest Air Dome. He was kicking as fast as his legs would carry him, focusing only on the wall of air in front of him and trying not to look back at the nightmare literally biting at his heels. He couldn’t afford to slow down, not even for the half a second it would take to glance over his shoulder; dragging Kyrehx behind him slowed him down enough as it was.
He felt something small and sharp shred through the armor on his foot, sending a wave of pain up his body. He winced but kept going, hoping the squid would be shaken off by his frantic kicking. He had no such luck. The squid held on, latching onto his foot with more of its tiny teeth. The creature was soon joined by another, and then another. Lemiddus felt the life began to drain from him. His movement became more and more sluggish with every kick, and the Air Dome seemed to be growing farther and farther away. The edges of his vision began to darken…
Lemiddus was jolted back to consciousness by the impact as he suddenly crashed through the barrier that separated Mahri Nui from the watery world that surrounded it. He and Kyrehx collapsed forward onto the sandy ground, sending the black grains flying in every direction. Lemiddus pushed weakly against the ground with his armored hands, lifting his face out of the sand to vomit up a mouthful of water. He stared down at the unpleasant pool of breakfast, salt water, and sand for a moment before realizing that he could no longer feel the squids’ teeth in his foot.
Lemiddus quickly glanced over his shoulder. To his astonishment, the three squid that had bit him were writhing in pain in the sand, their orange flesh rapidly decaying before his eyes. In seconds they were gone, reduced to ashy flakes. Lemiddus stared stupidly at the spot for almost a minute before cautiously crawling forward to examine it.
There was a moan to his left. Kyrehx. Lemiddus wrenched his gaze away from where the squids had been just moments before and crawled over to her to assess her condition. One look was enough to tell him that Kyrehx was far beyond his ability to help. Her armor was pale, almost colorless, and her heartlight flickered threateningly. She breathed ragged, wheezing gasps that seemed to grow weaker with every breath. Her eyes stared blankly ahead of her even as he waved his hands over her face.
Lemiddus had to get her to the city’s healer, a cantankerous old Ce-Matoran named Kaira. That was Kyrehx’s only chance; she would die without treatment. Lemiddus was uncertain that he could even walk, much less carry an incapacitated Matoran across the city. But he had to try. If there was any chance of saving her life, he would do everything in his power to do so.
He wedged his hands beneath Kyrehx’s body, lifting her off the sandy ground and into his arms. His legs buckled under the weight, but miraculously did not collapse beneath him. He took a tentative step forward. Then another, and another.
Kyrehx would not die on his watch.
In all his many travels, Gar had never met a being so vain and so despicable as Kyros. The Ko-Matoran was, in Gar’s opinion, a prime example of a raging narcissist. Any Matoran unfortunate enough to meet him tended to wish they had not later. And yet there he was, standing behind the podium in the domed council chamber of Mahri Nui with executive control over all official decisions made within the sunken city, all thanks to the miracle of democracy.
The council chamber made up a large part of the Fortress that stood at the center of the city, one of the few structures to have survived sinking to the bottom of the Voya Nui Bay. The domed ceiling was made of thick, clear, crystalized protodermis and stood unnecessarily tall at fifteen feet. Gar had always thought having over ten feet of empty space between their heads and the ceiling was absurd, but everyone always said that space was needed for the six massive lightstones that illumined the space. The stones were hung in a circle from massive chains attached to the metal support beams that kept the dome in place. Bathed in the light from the stones was most of the population of the city of Mahri Nui, minus those whose duties kept them too busy to attend, seating on rough-hewn wooden benches arranged in rows in front of the Council Leader’s podium.
“Let this meeting of the Matoran populace of Mahri Nui commence.” Kyros was almost vibrating from excitement as he called the meeting to order.
Gar resisted the urge to groan out loud as Kyros spoke. This was why he had been against everyone cycling through the position of Council Leader from the beginning, to keep prideful Mahi such as this Ko-Matoran out of positions of power. The last thing he wanted was for the entire city to fall into ruin because some incompetent fool was misusing his power to further his own selfish desires. His last hope was that others would come to see things his way now that Kyros was in the position, seeing as nobody liked the obnoxious Ko-Matoran in the first place.
Kyros seemed to believe that he was Mata Nui’s gift to the world and that his past as a scholar in Metru Nui placed him at a higher status than the other Matoran. He spoke like a king and treated everyone else as if they were dirt. No, less that dirt. He didn’t have the spine to back it up, though. He was a coward, running into battle only when he was certain no harm would come to him. And he fought like a half-dead Burnak that was missing all its legs.
He never shut up, either.
Kyros had just begun to read off the agenda for the meeting when a figure in dark green armor burst in through the arched entryway of the council chamber. Everyone in the meeting stopped and stared at the Le-Matoran as he skidded to a stop inside the room, leaning his hands on his knees as he gasped for air.
“Ever-sorry for the interruption,” Defilak panted, waving wearily at the crowd.
His eyes quickly scanned the room and locked onto Gar. Defilak was visibly relieved when he saw his friend, the tension in his shoulders dissipating immediately. He began to pick his way through the mass of Matoran, earning a fair share of angry glares as he jostled his way over to his friend.
“I’m every-sorry, let me just—yeah, I’ll just quick-squeeze past you. Many thanks.”
“Are you quite done?” Kyros sneered from the front of the room.
“Ah,” Defilak called as he finally sat down. “Yes. Sorry. You may proceed!”
Kyros cleared his throat at the front of the room, shooting one last infuriated look at Defilak before resuming his review of the agenda.
“Thank Mata Nui you’re here,” Defilak whispered to Gar once the attention had shifted away from them.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Gar hissed back.
“Well, since you’ve been against the system from the beginning-start, and you despise Kyros with every fiber of your being…”
Gar’s only response was an agitated glare. Defilak quickly moved to revise his statement. “But of course, it was incredibly foolish-stupid of me to assume that you would let your personal bad-feelings get in the way of the greater good. After all, the system has more-or-less worked for the better part of the decade.”
The glare did not leave the Onu-Matoran’s Kanohi. Defilak might not have a way with words, but he was brilliant in his own way. Perhaps that was why Gar had been drawn to him in the first place. The Le-Matoran had to work to gain respect, he couldn’t simply talk his way there like so many other Matoran Gar had come to despise.
“Anyways,” Defilak continued in a hushed tone, “you’ll never believe what I spot-noticed while scavenging around the edge of the Black Water last Safe Hour.”
It took all of Gar’s willpower to keep from slapping his friend for his foolishness. The Le-Matoran was an amateur inventor and tended to spend his free time looking for scraps and spare parts wherever he could find them. It just so happened that the best place to find such items was near the gaping hole in the sea floor that was dark as night, which had caused the Matoran to name it the ‘Black Water’. No Matoran had ever returned from down there alive, and it was believed to be the home of unspeakable monsters would eat anything they came across. Most Matoran tended to stay away from the edge, but Defilak had long been known to lack common sense, and he spent as much time as he possibly could out there.
Technically, Defilak, like all Matoran of Mahri Nui, was allowed to be outside the safety of the city’s Air Domes for one hour every day—the Safe Hour. For whatever reason, there was roughly an hour early every afternoon when the predators of the Black Water seemed to be inactive. In the ten years they had been living down here on the Sea Floor, there had never been an attack during the Safe Hour. As long as they were back before that hour was up, any Matoran could venture out into the sea, whether to supervise the harvesting of the airweed that they used to maintain the Air Domes or to further their own personal endeavors.
Still, Defilak’s potentially fatal little hobby was more trouble than it was worth, in Gar’s opinion. There was always the risk he would lose track of time and something would drag him off and eat him for lunch. But still Defilak continued, despite his friend’s oft-repeated warnings.
“Was it a new thingamajig for that blasted submersible of yours?”
The Le-Matoran shot him a dirty look, but before he could say anything in response another figure burst through the arched entryway, breathing even heavier than Defilak had been just moments before. The Matoran was clad in orange and white armor and carried a spear that marked him as a member of the Mahri Nui Sentinels, a volunteer militia that mostly fought off predators that came too close to the Matoran’s territory. Gar recognized this specific Sentinel to be Gemini, a Su-Matoran and generally amicable individual, even if he did talk too much.
Kyros turned in frustration, clearly intending to reprimand the newcomer for interrupting him for a second time. Fortunately, Gemini was able to catch his breath before the Ko-Matoran could speak, sparing the crowd from his rant.
“Kyrehx was attacked on guard duty,” he gasped between breaths, “by Vampire Squid.”
The silence that fell over the council chamber was absolute. The Vampire Squid never left the Black Water; the Matoran only knew they existed from the corpses they left behind. There had never been a Vampire Squid attack so close to the city before, and no Matoran had ever survived one.
A yellow armored Po-Matoran jumped from his seat near the front and pushed his way through the mass of confused Matoran over to where Gemini stood by the door. Gar immediately recognized Dekar, the Captain of the Mahri Nui Sentinels.
“Is she alive?” Despite his obvious worry, Dekar’s voice was cool and collected.
Gar glanced over at Defilak. The Le-Matoran had gone deathly still and was clutching his pack close to his side.
“She’s in Kaira’s hut now,” Gemini answered, slower and steadier than before. “Lemiddus found her in the middle of the attack and dragged her across the city to get her to help.”
Dekar nodded curtly, then placed his hand on Gemini’s shoulder. “You stay here, make sure everyone stays inside until I say otherwise.” He turned back toward the rest of the Matoran in the council chamber. “Idris, take Sarda and Aescela and scout the perimeter of the city. Make sure no one leaves the Air Domes unless they have to, even during the Safe Hour. If they do need to go, don’t let them go alone.”
Idris was Dekar’s second-in-command, a capable and determined Ga-Matoran who Gar had learned not to mess with long ago. She led the other two Sentinels Dekar had named, a Ta-Matoran and Po-Matoran respectively, out through the archway with only a quick nod of acknowledgement in Dekar’s direction.
“Now, I think we need to put such a lockdown up to a vote,” Kyros began, raising his weaselly voice so that he could be heard over the murmuring that was spreading across the chamber. “I motion we address this issue immediately, does anyone second that motion?”
Dekar looked Kyros dead in the eyes. “This is a Sentinel matter; you have no authority over it.”
“I am the duly elected leader of this assembly, and I—”
“Will be kept in the loop as things develop,” Dekar finished for him. “I’m going to check on Kyrehx. You finish doing your damn job and let me do mine.”
With that Dekar turned and followed the others outside. As he exited, Gemini stepped into the center of the archway.
Defilak stared off into space for a moment, lost in thought, and then leapt from the bench he and Gar were sitting on and bolted for the door.
“What the hell?” Gar exclaimed as he hurried after his friend. “Defilak, where are you going?”
Defilak ignored him, charging up to stand uncomfortably close to Gemini, who gripped his spear a little tighter.
“Gemini, I know you are big on order-taking, but it is dark-serious that I quick-leave, right now.” When Defilak was stressed, his slight Chutespeak accent from his time as a trader around Matoran from Metru Nui grew stronger. Sometimes it made it rather difficult to understand him.
“Sorry, Defilak, I can’t let you go.” Gemini shrugged. “Captain’s orders.”
Defilak tapped his foot impatiently as Gar came up behind him. The Onu-Matoran could see the cogs whirling around so fast they were beginning to smoke within his friend’s head.
“If you let me quick-walk out of here, I’ll put that strange launcher you wanted me to quick-fix for you at the top of my to-do list.”
Gemini thought for a moment, then stepped to the side. “Ok, you can go. But I expect that launcher by the end of the week!”
Defilak nodded with far too much enthusiasm as he hurried out of the council chamber. “Many-thanks!”
“And stay away from the edge of the city!” Gemini called after him.
Gar stepped forward to follow Defilak, but Gemini caught him with the shaft of his spear, pushing him back into the room. “Unless you’ve got a secret stash of Spheres I can use with that launcher, you’re going to stay put.”
Gar sputtered but had nothing to say in response. He craned his neck to look over Gemini’s shoulder.
“Defilak!” he called after the quickly fleeing Le-Matoran. “Where are you going!”
The Le-Matoran turned around and called back to him without stopping. “Sorry, have to quick-run! I heart-swear I’ll explain later!”
Gar could only watch as Defilak disappeared around the corner of the dimly lit road outside the council chamber, charging off to who-knew-where. He should have been used to this by now—Defilak’s mind moved so quickly he often forgot to mention important details, or just didn’t bother. But it still stung ever time his friend left him without a clear explanation.
“Ah, well, now that that unpleasantness is over, I believe we were discussing the allocation of this month’s Gifts from Above? But considering that the Captain of our intrepid Sentinels has left us for the time being, I motion we table this discussion until next week’s assembly. Will anyone second that motion?”
The reality of what had just happened began to sink in as Gar wandered back to his seat. Kyros’ dry droll became background noise as he felt the fear and confusion beginning to sink in. Questions swam through his mind like a school of hungry Makuta fish, swirling around without a taking damn moment to stop and relax.
What could have caused the Vampire Squid to leave the Black Water? he worried silently as he slumped back down onto his spot on the bench. And what does it mean for Mahri Nui?
Chapter 2[]
Kaira lived in a small, odorous thatched hut on the outskirts of the city. It was generally avoided by the other Matoran unless absolutely necessary, which was perfectly fine with the hut’s sole inhabitant. Kaira was a grumpy old Ce-Matoran who had lived on Voya Nui longer than anyone could remember. Some would describe her as an anti-social recluse, while others claimed she was in some way socially impaired. Either way, she had the worst bedside manner in the entire universe and was about as friendly as a starved Rahkshi. Had she not been the only Matoran with advanced healing capabilities to survive city’s plunge she would have been left alone entirely, but circumstance had made the occasional visit to her hermitage unavoidable. The unspoken truth was that without Kaira, the city would be short a few more Matoran than it was now.
Defilak had never had the misfortune to have to come to Kaira’s hut before, or else he may have thought twice about following Dekar there of his own free will. As soon as he smelled overwhelmingly dense stench that wafted out the door, he regretted his choice, and half-hoped that Dekar would send him away. But the Po-Matoran only acknowledged his presence with a confused look before stepping inside.
The walls were lined with shelves covered in glass jars and dried herbs—the reason the place stank worse than a Lava Ape’s armpit. Next to a freestanding shelf that barely fit inside the hut was a low table and chair, currently covered in bandages, open jars or ointment, and a few rudimentary medical tools. Along the right wall, two cots had been laid haphazardly across most of the sandy floor of the hut. Two Matoran lay atop the makeshift beds: a Ga-Matoran, pale and unconscious and covered in sickly black circular wounds; and a Fa-Matoran, barely holding himself upright, who seemed to be failing to have an argument with a Ce-Matoran Defilak assumed to be Kaira.
“…telling you, this is important—Captain!” Lemiddus broke off the conversation when he saw his commander approach, instinctively jumping up to attention only to be pushed back down onto the cot by Kaira.
“I will tie you to that damn bed if you don’t lay down and rest,” Kaira growled. Defilak had no doubt she meant every word of the threat.
The Fa-Matoran scowled, but obediently lay back down as Kaira approached Dekar.
“At east, Lemiddus. Do as Kaira says.” Po-Matoran turned to address the healer directly. “How are they?”
“Lemiddus will be fine with a bit of rest,” Kaira grumbled. “As for Kyrehx, she’s in bad shape. We’ve never had a Vampire Squid survivor before. All I’ve ever been able to do is look over the dead bodies, and I’ve learned more from sticks than I have from those.”
“Can you save her?”
“Damned if I know. If I knew what I was doing she’d have a much better chance. For all I know, her damn heartlight could flicker out today, next week, maybe even next year, or she might make a miraculous recovery tomorrow morning. She might even remain in this vegetative state forever, I really don’t know.”
Dekar nodded grimly, and Defilak wondered if the Ce-Matoran’s diagnosis had shattered his hope of a recovery. It certainly had his, not that anyone else in the hut cared. Lemiddus just stared up at the ceiling despondently.
“We know they suck life energy from their prey, but there’s a damned lot of things that could mean,” Kaira continued. “I don’t have the damn equipment I’d need to measure her energy levels. Maybe, if I had a chance to study one of the damned squids, I could determine what it was that they suck out of their prey. Because without knowing what she’s missing, I can’t do a damned thing to give it back to her.”
Kaira slumped into chair behind the table, tossing a partly used roll of bandages into the mess and staring helplessly down at Kyrehx. For a Matoran who supposedly hated everyone else in the city, Defilak was surprised by how hard she seemed to be taking this.
“Actually, I might be able to assist-help with that,” Defilak said after a moment.
All three of the other conscious Matoran in the hut turned to face Defilak in confusion.
“Who the hell is this and why is he here?” Kaira asked.
“His name’s Defilak, a scavenger and inventor,” Dekar answered. He stared intently at Defilak with a scrutiny that made the Le-Matoran very nervous and out of his depth. “And I don’t know why he’s here, actually.”
“Ah, well, I may have bribed Gemini to let me out of the council chamber so I could fast-chase you here,” Defilak said, the words spilling out of his mouth. The others stared at him, expectantly, and Defilak realized he should keep going.
“I spot-noticed this out while scavenging,” he said as he fumbled with his pack and pulled out a jar full of murky, navy-blue water. Floating inside was the unmoving form of a dead Vampire Squid, frozen in rigor mortis. He held the jar out at arm’s length, a repulsed look on his Kanohi Kualsi.
Kaira leaned in close to the glass, staring with morbid fascination at the dead cephalopod.
“Where did you find this?” Dekar asked firmly.
Defilak shrugged as he handed the container over to Kaira, who eagerly began to turn it over in her hands to better examine it. “It floated up from the Black Water while I was hunt-scavenging,” he replied. “It’s in the jar because I didn’t want to touch-feel it.” He waved his hands in front of him for emphasis. “The Black Water?” the Po-Matoran exclaimed. “What in Mata Nui’s name were out doing that close to the edge?”
Defilak flinched, wondering if revealing where he found the squid was a bad idea. “As I said before, I was hunt-scavenging,” he replied, his tone snappier than he meant it to be. “It’s not my fault that the best spots to find scrap-junk is by the Black Water.”
Dekar shot a glance over at the almost colorless Kyrehx, then back at the Le-Matoran. “Stay away from their from now on, even during the Safe Hour,” he said formally. “Until we know what caused the squid to leave their home, we can’t afford to take the risk of more Matoran being attacked. At that distance we wouldn’t be able to save you if the squid made an unexpected appearance.”
Defilak nodded reluctantly. He understood, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. It could be years before they discovered the reason for the squid’s behavior, and there was no way he would be able to keep inventing that long with the measly supply of parts he had stashed away in his home. He needed a solution sooner than that.
“You know,” he began cautiously. “I may be able to assist-help with that…”
The two Matoran stood side by side in Defilak’s ‘hut,’ looking up at one of his most impressive inventions. A more accurate word for the massive structure would probably have been warehouse, which was what it had been before the eccentric Le-Matoran inventor had taken the place over has his home and workshop. The place was a pigsty, with parts, tools, and grease coating the floor several layers and several creations in various stages of completeness lying around in no apparent order. The structure was one of the few to have survived the city’s descent into the bay, but the damage had been severe, and the city had agreed it was structurally unsound and not safe for general use. Defilak had jumped at the opportunity and asked to have it for his own personal use during the first council meeting. Whether it was to offload the problem to someone else or hoping that the warehouse might collapse on top of Defilak, the city had agreed to let him have it.
The invention in question was a rather large metal submersible, resting on some scaofflding a few feet away from the edge of a small pool that led out into the open sea. The vehicle was shaped like Takea Shark, with three sleek fins welded to the sides and top of the smooth and agile sub’s body. A shark-like tail was attached to the back with a series of gears, cords, and joints, presumably to allow for steering.
“Care to look-see inside?”
Defilak’s call interrupted Dekar’s silent examination of the craft. Dekar glanced over to see the inventor standing next to a ladder that dangled down from the submersible’s underside, waving him over. Defilak scurried up the ladder with the dexterity of a Brakas Monkey, and Dekar slowly followed him up into the submersible.
Inside was a technological wonderland. Levers, lights, and buttons littered the front of the craft while canisters of air and a small box of tools dominated the back. Along the ceiling and walls, metal cords and gears forced a skeleton underneath the submersible’s metal skin, disappearing into sealed holes into the fins and tail. Four metal chairs were welded to the floor, the first two facing the front while the other two faced their respective sides. The entire inside appeared to be finished by Dekar’s unprofessional assessment, excepting the missing metal plate on the left side wall and the tangled mess of cords hanging from the roof.
“So, what do you think-find?” Defilak asked.
“Does it float?” Dekar replied, poking a finger at the cords that hung out of the hole in the ceiling.
“Well, um...I’ve never actually tried-tested it yet. I’ve been seek-looking for a rather rare part to finish off the steering mechanism for the last few months.”
“And you haven’t found it yet?”
Defilak gulped, clearly uneasy about his answer. "One was included in last month's pack of gift-supplies from the surface."
Defilak had long advocated that the Gifts from Above were not a blessing from Mata Nui, but instead dropped by the Matoran who remained on Voya Nui above. He hadn’t decided if they knew that Mahri Nui had survived, or if it was a gesture to memorialize them, but any time he tried to discuss it with the others he was rightfully shut down.
Dekar turned to face the Le-Matoran inventor, willing to ignore his blatant heresy for the sake of the mission. "And you're sure it'll work?"
“Eighty-five percent sure,” Defilak gulped.
“Not good enough.”
“It’s the best I can do.” The inventor straightened up in what was likely an effort to exude confidence. To his credit, it almost worked. “Take-accept it or leave it.”
Dekar sighed, then nodded grimly. “Fine. I’ll get you the part, then you get me into the Black Water.”
Defilak cocked his head in confusion as the Po-Matoran turned to leave. “Don’t you need the council’s permission to remove an item-object from the Holy Sanctuary?”
Dekar didn’t bother to stop walking toward the exit. “We don’t have time to run it past the bureaucracy. We’re going in, and we’re going in now.”
Sarda stared in disbelief, one red-armored hand on his hip while the other gestured wildly to the absurd contraption on the scaffolding. “You want us to travel down into the Black Water in that?” he asked incredulously.
“We’re running out of time and need answers.” Dekar shrugged the question off. “This is the best way I see to get them.”
This did little to assure the Ta-Matoran, even though he knew that Dekar was right. They may have survived sinking to the bottom of the bay, they may have been among the lucky ones who hadn’t been horribly changed by the horrible waters around them, and they may have survived for over a decade. But the attack on Kyrehx so close to the city had shown it was only a matter of time before the predators began to close in and eroded away what little safety and security they had left. They needed a way out, and maybe, just maybe there was a clue in the Black Water.
Sarda shot a wry look over at Idris, who was standing next to him. “You sure you don’t want to come along for the ride?”
“Someone has to stay behind and keep an eye on the city,” Idris replied.
The Ga-Matoran was going to great lengths to keep her worry in check, but Sarda had known her too long to not notice the telltale wobbling of her voice beneath the layer of bravado. She was staring up at the submersible, watching as Defilak and Feton, a Fe-Matoran inventor Dekar had insisted they bring along as a backup, shifted the thing around so he could easily tip it forward and into the water once they were all inside. She very pointedly not looking at him—she knew that he would see right through her.
“No!” Defilak’s voiced echoed from atop the scaffolding. “It needs to be pointed a little more to the left or the fin will break off when we quick-launch into the water!”
“And whose fault is that?” the orange and black armored Fe-Matoran snapped back. “If your welding wasn’t so abysmal, we wouldn’t have to worry about the fin coming off!”
The two inventors were bitter rivals, and neither had the social graces to try to cooperate despite that fact for the sake of the mission. Unfortunately, they were the only two inventors left in Mahri Nui, meaning that if Dekar wanted a backup they had no other options. Sarda though privately that there was an equal chance their bickering would get him killed as there was of him being eaten by a sea monster.
“Promise me you’ll come back,” Idris said at last.
Sarda grinned at her. “We’ve made it through Karzahni and survived an entire city sinking into the ocean together, I’m not gonna let Defilak’s glorified tin can ruin that streak.”
Idris looked over at him, and it was Sarda’s turn to feel completely transparent. She knew as well as he did that this mission was at least as dangerous as anything else they’d done, if not more.
“Just promise me you’ll come back,” she said again.
Sarda nodded, allowing himself to be serious for just a moment. “I promise you.”
Had others not been present, he would’ve wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, but since she was technically his superior officer, and the others were standing only a dozen feet away he refrained. Instead, he stared into her eyes as they wallowed in the futility of his promise.
“Alright, we’re ready for you Idris!” Defilak called from the scaffolding.
“I’m coming!” Idris answered.
As she was about to clamber up, Dekar caught her arm. “We shouldn’t be gone for more than a day. Hold down the fort until I get back. Oh, and Kyros was demanding an update on the situation sometime today, so you’ll need to stop by and talk to him at some point.”
“Dekar, did you arrange a dangerous trip into the Black Water just to avoid talking to Kyros?” Idris smirked down at him.
Dekar shrugged innocently. “Between the Vampire Squid and Kyros, I’d take the squid every day.”
Idris laughed, and Sarda saw a little bit of her tension release. She shot one last nervous smile down at Sarda, and then hurried up the scaffolding.
“You and me, it’s time to go,” Dekar said, and led the way up into the submersible.
Sarda took the seat closest to the hatch, his trust in the vehicle still lacking. If the trip took a turn for the worst, he wanted a quick way out. Granted, a turn for the worst down in the Black Water would probably be a death sentence, but it made him feel a little better about the whole situation. Dekar sat opposite of him, leaving the two seats in front of the controls and crystalized protodermis viewing window for the inventors.
Feton scrambled in first, slipping into the copilot’s seat. Defilak quickly followed, calling after Idris as he did so. “—give the signal, give us a good push!”
Idris shouted and affirmative from outside as Defilak pulled in the ladder and pulled the hatch shut. Now the only light inside the submersible came from the two old and yellowed lightstones on the ceiling cast an ominous yellow glow down onto the cabin’s inhabitants, something that only served to agitate Sarda’s nerves even more. It was bad enough that he was locked up in this tin can, why did the method of lighting have to be so ominously despondent?
“Diving in three… two… one…” Defilak’s voice trailed off as he pushed the stick in his right hand forward. The submersible lurched forward as the fins pressed against the scaffolding and Idris pushed from outside, sending the vehicle into a nosedive down into the pool. Sarda clutched the hilt of his Electro-Blade apprehensively, fully expecting the Le-Matoran to crash them into the rock floor of the tunnel.
His worries were ill founded. Defilak pulled the lever back to its upright position as he furiously cranked the handle at the center of the console, bringing the submersible level. The metal that covered the two lightstones fixed to the front to act as headlights irised open, and the Le-Matoran piloted them deeper into the tunnel with a shout of success.
“It worked!” Defilak was beaming with excitement. “It actually worked.”
“Wait, there was a chance it wouldn’t work?” Sarda blanched and would’ve said more if Dekar hadn’t cut him off.
“It’s working now, that’s what matters. Defilak, focus on not crashing us into the side of the tunnel so it keeps working.”
The naturally formed stone walls encompassed the vehicle as it sped away from the pool, heading for the open ocean. The dark waters streamed past them as the agile craft accelerated, putting more and more distance between them and the city.
Defilak suddenly cranked the handle and pulled back on the lever linked to the fins. The submersible shot upwards, practically flying up into the bay. Sarda peered through the viewport as Defilak temporarily switched off the lights.
Rays of sunlight filtered down through the seawater, illuminating the black seabed below them. The discolored seawater was empty, void of life in a way that could only be described as sickeningly wrong. It was not natural for such as place to be so empty, and it sent chills up the Ta-Matoran’s spine.
“We’re about a minute out from the edge-drop of the Black Water,” Defilak announced as they began to pick up speed again. “I’ve been out here a lot to scavenge for scrap-parts, so I’ll take any thought-questions you may have now.”
It was all Sarda could do to keep from snorting in amusement. If Defilak had survived making trips out here before, it was surely the result of dumb luck rather than any skill. Sarda would sooner take advice from one of the Hydruka beasts that harvested the airweed for the city than from the Le-Matoran.
“No?” Defilak asked after a few tense seconds of silence. “Fine. It’s your funeral.”
Dekar shot a hostile glance at the Matoran beside him. “You’re not here to offer advice,” he said firmly, ending the conversation.
Sarda was certain that the Le-Matoran rolled his eyes at that comment, but from his position behind the pilot he couldn’t be sure. The next minute or so passed in silence, which was fine by Sarda. He had always felt that if nothing needed to be said then nothing should be, and there was most certainly nothing to say here.
Then the Black Water appeared in front of them.
The flat seabed was suddenly broken by jagged scar of darkness, its jet-black waters swirling menacingly up into the lighter sea above it. To Sarda the strands of dark water looked almost like the long, wispy fingers of a ghost. A jolt ran up his spine as he realized that for all he knew they could be.
“We’re here,” Defilak said, the chipper confidence he’d displayed on the way over completely gone.
Sarda’s eyes were locked on the viewport as they approached the Black Water. He was not sure if he was awed or horrified by the size of it. Nothing he had ever seen could compare to what he was witnessing at that moment. Sarda heard Feton breath a quiet prayer under his breath as the darkness grew closer, like the maw of some gigantic beast.
Then the submersible vanished into the Black Water.
Kaira examined the dead squid with the eyes of a scientist, carefully taking in every detail she could before removing it from the container. This would likely be her only chance to study one of these dreadful creatures, so she figured she might as well take her time.
Lemiddus lay on the closest cot to her examination table, head propped up with one arm as he watched her progress with interest. He had insisted that she let him watch, insisting that he was feeling better and didn’t need to be confined to his cot anymore. After several heated minutes of discussion, she had partially relented and helped him to move his cot closer. Why he would want to stare at one of the creatures that nearly killed him was beyond her, but the minds of others were Kaira’s area of expertise. If he had a desire to watch her dissect the squid, then so be it.
Kaira chiseled a few final notes down into her tablet, then picked the glass container. Her fingers closed around the lid, and she quickly twisted it open and tossed the lid to the side. She set the container down and began dropping a few reactive chemicals into the water, making sure there was nothing abnormally toxic. Confident she wasn’t going to give herself a nasty bacterial infection, Kaira reached into the container to pull out the corpse.
“Woah, wait, what are you doing?” Lemiddus panicked, leaning forward from his cot as if he was trying to stop her.
“It’s dead,” she shot back as her fingers closed around it. “It’s not going to bite me.”
“But you’re going to take it out of the water!”
Kaira released the squid and spun to face her patient. “And why is that a problem?”
“The air, it’s toxic to them. The ones that attacked me crumbled into nothing as soon as they got pulled into the Air Dome.”
Kaira pondered this for a moment. Lemiddus could have been hallucinating due to acute and rapid energy draining. But on the other hand, could she afford to take the risk that he was right? Lemiddus had appeared to be clearheaded when he had arrived at her door with an unconscious Kyrehx in his arms. This would likely be the only specimen she ever got a chance to study. If it dissolved on her, any insight it could offer would be lost.
“So how do propose I dissect it then?” she asked irritably, frustrated by her newly discovered handicap.
Lemiddus shrugged. “I don’t know.”
With an exasperated sigh Kaira turned back to the jar on the table, staring longingly at the specimen inside. As she stared at the floating cephalopod, her eyes were drawn to its tail. Strange indentations covered it; marks she had originally written off as natural structures whose use she would determine during the dissection process. But when she looked more closely, she could see frayed flesh sticking out in jagged tufts, as if something sharp had torn into it.
Kaira snatched a small wooden bowl off her shelf and swiftly poured the jar’s contents into it. Without hesitation she thrust her hands into the dark and viscous water and leaned in close over the specimen. With a growing sense of unease, she realized that her theory was correct: the squid had been bitten, then likely escaped, and later died of its injuries.
Kaira cursed under her breath. They had suspected that something might have driven the Vampire Squid up and out of the Black Water, but this confirmed it. There was no chance of this being a weird fluke of nature, or the result of some regular migration that would be over in a few months. If there was something down in the Black Water that could make a Vampire Squid flee, then Dekar and his crew were headed right into its clutches.
She walked over to her closest window, gazing off into the darkness of the deep. Her voice was barely audible as she spoke a quiet prayer.
“Mata Nui protect them.”
Chapter 3[]
No one had spoken a word since they had entered the Black Water. Defilak piloted the craft with a grim focus, navigation being even more of a challenge as the darkness around them only let the light from the lightstones outside illuminate about five, maybe six feet ahead of them. Defilak had been forced to slow down to a crawl to make sure they didn’t crash into anything. The darkness of the place unnerved Dekar like nothing else he’d ever encountered, as he preferred to know what he was getting himself into. He glanced around at his companions, all of whom seemed equally ill at ease.
They had been in a constant descent for what had to be at least two hours but had found nothing but jagged walls and sickly black water. Defilak had insisted they cling as close to the edge of the crater as possible for the sake of navigation, so Dekar had had little to occupy himself but to stare out at the dark gray wall whenever the light fell on it. As a Po-Matoran, Dekar knew a bit about stone, and two things had caught his eye about the cliffs that lined the Black Water. The first thing was that this was not natural formation. The sides were rough and jagged, as if some great cataclysmic event had caused whatever had sat here to break free. He suspected this had some connection to the Great Cataclysm, the moment that Voya Nui had been dislodged from the Southern Continent and hurled out into the Endless Ocean, though the mechanics of how the events would have been connected deeply confused him. The second thing he noticed was that this deep into the Black Water, the walls were not made of stone. They instead appeared to be made of metal, a discovery that perplexed him to no end even as it had precisely zero effect on the mission at hand.
He was on the verge of calling off the mission. He felt closed in, claustrophobic in the cramped interior of the submersible. He’d seen nothing to indicate they’d find anything of use down here.
Sarda’s words cut him off before he could give the order. “What are we even looking for?”
Defilak did not bother to look back at him to answer. “How am I supposed to know?” he snapped back. “I’ve never been down here before.”
“I thought you were supposed to be our tour guide.”
“No. I’m here to pilot-drive my ship.”
Sarda’s mouth opened to fire back another retort, and Dekar knew he had to intervene. Being cooped up in this submersible for so long, with absolutely nothing to show for it had taken a toll on them all. He should’ve known Sarda would crack first; the Ta-Matoran had always been bad at handling stress.
“Shut it, both of you,” he ordered, wincing at his own tone. By snapping he was more likely to make the situation worse, but he had to try and put a stop to the bickering before Sarda murdered the only one who could reliably pilot them home. “There’s no call for this kind of petty arguing. I’m just as frustrated as you are but yelling at each other won’t do anything to help.”
He quickly shot a glance at Feton, looking for some form of support from the Fe-Matoran. But he remained silent, watching the scene with bemused indifference. “We need to stay focused on our objective,” he continued after a moment. “The fate of Mahri Nui could be at stake.”
He stared intensely at the pair of them, hoping they would get the message. They could not afford to be fighting amongst themselves down here.
Sarda scowled in response but sat back in his seat obediently. Defilak simply shut up, surprisingly wise enough to know when silence was necessary, a trait that Dekar had found most Le-Matoran lacked.
Dekar turned back to the viewport, staring out at the inky blackness, wishing for what had to be the umpteenth time that the water was clearer. If he was honest with himself, he was waiting for something to happen, waiting for a squid to dare and attack them so he could vent his frustrations on it.
“There’s something out there,” Feton spoke up at last.
Dekar felt a jolt of terror run through him as his hand instinctively went to the Electro-Blade on his belt. Perhaps his perverse wish had been fulfilled, and death had come for all of them. But there was no fear in Feton's voice as he pressed his Kanohi Rur was pressed against the crystalline viewport in fascination.
Dekar moved to stand next to the orange-clad inventor, who shifted in his chair to make room for him. The Po-Matoran squinted as he peered through the glass, looking for what Feton had seen. Then he blinked. Then he blinked again. It wasn’t possible. How could it be, this deep and far away from air? He swore under his breath as he realized it was indeed possible, and that it had made his mission had just become a hell of a lot more complicated.
There was a Toa floating out in the depths of the Black Water.
Lemiddus stared blankly through the thin membrane that separated Mahri Nui from the Voya Nui Bay. He had been released from Kaira’s hut an hour ago, after he woke the irritable Ce-Matoran from her slumber with his restless pacing. He was glad to be free of the dank and cramped structure, though it had required a lot of persuading to convince Idris that he was fit for duty. But with Dekar and Sarda gone, and the whole city on high alert, she’d eventually relented and added him back to the rotation. Her only condition was that he report to her immediately if his condition worsened. He had promised to do so and assured her he was feeling fine.
That had not really been the truth, which Lemiddus did feel a little guilty about. His limbs were weak, his balance was off-kilter and his vision fuzzy. He still barely had any feeling in his foot where the squid had bit him. But he was not in the mood to sit around and wait for himself to heal. He had spent a whole day blaming himself for what had happened to Kyrehx, and he had resolved that he would do everything in his power to keep it from happening to anyone else. And so here he was, just inside the Air Dome as he kept watch over Mahri Nui.
He wasn’t sure if Kyrehx would feel vindicated or betrayed that he was early for duty instead of late the morning after the attack. It had been his tardiness for duty that had caused her to be attacked. He knew he would never forgive himself if she never recovered, and he had no idea if she would forgive him for it if she woke up. He had to cling to the hope that if he worked hard enough to help the city, he would be able to redeem himself, if not to Kyrehx then at least to himself.
Out here on the farthest fringes of Mahri Nui he wasn’t doing much in that respect. He was supposed to be keeping watching over the waters around the Cord, the thick column of stone that stood behind the city to support and anchor the island up above. He never came back here, past the Fortress since there wasn’t much to see. Normally the Sentinels didn’t even post any guards back here since the Cord made it difficult for predators to approach. Lemiddus suspected that Idris’ comment about being on extra high alert was more a cover for the fact that she didn’t trust him to be watching over somewhere important in his condition. Even so, it still felt good to be up and doing something after spending all yesterday cooped up in Kaira’s hut. He had never felt more useless in his life then he had there.
He’d wandered over to one side of the Cord, so he could see something other than a massive wall of rock. The ocean to the side of the city was dead except for the subtle waving of the airweed in the current. Out of his peripheral vision he noticed an Onu-Matoran leading a handful Hydruka out to the fields to begin their daily harvest. Lemiddus waved to the Matoran, most likely the usual Keeper Reysa, the resident Rahi expert in Mahri Nui. He nodded back in Lemiddus’ direction, which the Fa-Matoran found unusual. Reysa had always been a lighthearted and friendly fellow, but the entire village had been in a rather gloomy state since Kyrehx had been attacked so Lemiddus paid the lack of enthusiasm no mind. He saw no sign of the second Keeper that was supposed to be accompanying Reysa out into the fields, but he assumed that they were most likely just out of view.
Lemiddus slowly strolled to the other side of the Cord to look out over the western fields. As he rounded the bend and looked out over the fields something else caught his eye, a yellow-gold colored object floating down from the surface. He cocked his head in confusion, staring at the rapidly sinking object as he tried to discern its shape. The Gifts from Above had already been received this month, the next ones weren’t due for several weeks. So why was there something floating down towards the Black Water? Furthermore, it was coming from the wrong direction, as the gifts almost always came down on the east side of the city.
Lemiddus puzzled over this for a minute as he watched the object sink deeper and deeper into the sea. Then the object passed through a sunbeam, and he realized what it was: a Kanohi mask.
All doubts Lemiddus had about retrieving the object vanished. Kanohi were more valuable than widgets in Mahri Nui. If a Matoran’s mask cracked, they had no easy way to construct a replacement in time. Raw materials were in short supply, and the few Kanoka disks they had had been used to arm the Sentinels. That wasn’t even mentioning the risk an open flame could pose to the integrity of the Air Domes. Any spare Kanohi could be a lifesaver for a Matoran, and Lemiddus intended to be sure that this one would be put to good use.
Despite Dekar’s standing order that only the Hydruka Keepers leave the safety of the Air Domes, Lemiddus threw himself out into the water for the second time in two days. The cold water closed around him and sent chills down his spine, but he forged ahead. Cutting through waters, he kept his eyes focused on the mask. During his deliberation it had drifted perilously close to the edge of the Black Water, which came particularly close to the city on either side. It had nearly reached the edge now, dangerously close to vanishing into the darkness forever. Lemiddus strained, kicking as fiercely as his weakened legs could carry him.
The mask disappeared into the darkness. A second later Lemiddus’ hand followed it in, grasping wildly. His fingers closed around something that felt strangely warm but firm as metal. He pulled, but it wouldn’t come free.
He planted his feet firmly on the sea floor at the edge of the Black Water and pulled as hard as he could. He felt his arms begin to tire, already weakened from his mad dash through the water. Then with a sudden jolt he felt himself flying backwards. The mask slipped out of his hands and flew back behind him, where it floated gently down onto the sea floor
He scrambled to his feet and over to the mask. One look was enough to tell him that this was no ordinary Kanohi. It was large, almost too large for a Matoran, and covered in intricate carvings in a language Lemiddus didn’t recognize. At the center of the carvings was what could almost be described as a humanoid figure, with its legs spread wide and arms outstretched. The material from which it was made let off a faint golden glow, and he could feel its power pulsing through the water around him.
It must be a Great Mask, like the ones the Toa of legend wear.
Tentatively, he reached down and touched it. He felt a warm feeling shoot up his arm and over his whole body as the mask’s power flowed through him. With a start, he realized he no longer felt fatigued, and sensation began to return to his injured foot. He let out a little gasp
He smiled and plucked the mask from the sand. He needed to take this Mask to Idris immediately. If it healed him, maybe it could fix Kyrehx! He turned swam quickly back towards the Air Dome, his thoughts considerably brighter. He’d had finally done something right.
So absorbed was he in his optimism that he didn’t notice the miniscule point of soft golden glow the Mask had left behind in the sand. As Lemiddus went, it slowly began to grow larger and larger, until the sea around it began to shake with a deep and rumbling roar.
“What the hell is he doing out there?” Sarda asked.
Defilak had been on the verge of asking the same question himself. What was this white-armored warrior doing down in the Black Water? Nothing was down there but monsters, nothing that would pose a threat to any village besides Mahri Nui, and everyone thought they were dead. There was no reason for a Toa to be here.
Right?
“Defilak,” Dekar asked, still leaning over the console between him and Feton. He never took his eyes off the Toa. “Is there any way we can get him in here?”
Defilak thought for a few seconds before answering. “The hatch-door in the floor should let us get in and out, if the ship-craft remains stable. Water won’t move up through it because the air has nowhere else to go. Like the pool in my workshop.”
Dekar nodded. “Good. Even if he’s dead, it would be disrespectful to leave his corpse floating out there. Let’s get him.”
They prepared quickly and in silence. Defilak leveled the submersible as evenly as he could, reading his instruments intently. Dekar and Sarda opened the hatch and were staring into the black water. It sloshed around, retaining its color even when it splashed onto the metal floor.
Sarda uttered a colorful oath under his breath. “That stuff is nasty.”
Dekar shrugged, then prepared to dive in.
“Wait!” Defilak interrupted, reaching out and stopping Dekar just before he dived. The Le-Matoran pointed to the pile of small air canisters in the back. “The pressure's probably too strong-heavy for our air bubbles. Use those.”
Dekar looked over the canisters, taking two that had a breathing mask that could be strapped around the head. He passed one to Sarda before realizing that Defilak has a third strapped to his back and was placing the breather over his mouth.
“No, you can’t come,” Dekar ordered. “You need to be in here to keep the ship steady.”
Defilak pulled the breather away from his face so his words could be understood. “No, I’m coming,” he insisted. “Feton can handle things if the craft-ship destabilizes. This is my mission-quest as much as yours, and it’ll take more than two to haul the Toa-Hero in.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, I’m so glad I can be helpful,” Feton called dryly from the front of the ship.
Dekar scowled but made no further protest; they didn’t have time to argue. “At the first sign of trouble I want you back inside the sub, understood?”
Defilak nodded. He knew better than to push his luck any farther. Dekar fixed the canister of air onto his back and dove into the murky blackness. Sarda followed, leaving the Le-Matoran staring at the water where the two Matoran had just vanished without a trace. It was as if the Black Water had just swallowed them whole.
“Having second thoughts?” Feton asked.
“No,” Defilak said, “I had those before we left.”
He replaced the breather over his mouth and dove in after the others.
It felt like he had shattered a wall of ice with his whole body and the frigid shards had stabbed into him. For a moment he couldn’t even process the sensation. Then his whole body was tingling, and the freezing cold seeped in from all sides. The water was just as dark out here as it was through the viewports, and the small lightstone he pulled out of a pouch on his toolbelt did little to illuminate his surroundings. He suddenly felt lonely, cut off from the world. Like he would never see another light again.
Then two tiny specks of light appeared in his peripheral vision. Sarda and Dekar, over to his right with lightstones of their own. He began to swim towards them, focusing on the two spots of light. For a few tense seconds it looked like he wasn’t making any progress. Then his two companions seemed to suddenly materialize beside him.
They were treading water on either side of the Toa, each holding an arm and trying to drag him back towards the submersible, which Feton had turned so that the lights were directed towards them. Dekar made a commanding but hurried gesture towards the Toa’s legs. Defilak grabbed the warrior’s legs and began to help drag him through the water.
The lights of the sub grew steadily closer and brighter as they pulled, enough so that Defilak could see the Toa more clearly. He gasped. The Toa was changing, mutating in their hands. His organic tissue fluctuated, growing, his mechanical components beginning to rust and fall away. He must have swallowed some of the mutagenic water, and now it was changing him into something new.
Defilak waved frantically at Dekar and Sarda, trying to catch their attention. He was met with confused expressions, and Dekar pointed at the submersible as if to tell him to hurry up. Defilak pointed down at the Toa’s slowly morphing form. Dekar’s eyes grew wide as he came to the same conclusion Defilak had – they weren’t going to get to the submersible in time.
Defilak Le-Matoran tapped his breather and pointed at the Toa’s half-open mouth. Dekar took a deep breath, then gingerly removed his own breather and slipped it onto the Toa’s face. The convulsing slowed but did not stop. There was still water in the Toa’s system.
A few second later they were underneath the submersible, the cockpit’s light shining down on them through the hatch. Dekar clambered into the submersible and began to pull the Toa inside, even as Defilak and Sarda moved to push up from below. With a great effort three Matoran got the Toa inside, and Defilak and Sarda followed him back inside. Defilak immediately moved back up to the console to check on the ship and make sure Feton hadn’t broken anything. Sarda just slumped against the wall next to the hatch.
Dekar took in a long breath and pulled the breather from the Toa’s mouth. The white-clad figure barely fit inside the craft, awkwardly wedged between the back seats and on top of the supplies into the back. The mutations had already warped his body in minor ways: larger feet more suited to propelling him through water, retractable webbing between his fingers, and the more subtle shifts in his musculature to prioritize swimming over walking. His body still convulsed slightly, even now that he was out of the water.
“Mata Nui, he’s still breathing,” Dekar muttered under his breath. “Or at least trying to.”
Dekar quickly placed his hands on the Toa’s stomach and began to pump the water out of his system. The Toa lay limp for a moment, and then began to cough and vomit up the black viscous substance of the Black Water. Dekar rolled him onto his side so the water could flow out of his mouth and onto the floor of the submersible. The convulsions stopped. The cabin went silent.
Feton was the first to speak. “What now?”
Defilak knew there was only one answer to that question. They had just saved the life of a being twice their size and brought onboard the submersible. Their oxygen would deplete itself considerably faster with him onboard, and he took up a large amount of the space in the cabin.
“We head back,” Defilak answered, his tone defeated. “We won’t be able to air-breathe for much longer with him onboard, and we can’t just leave him down here to whatever fate awaits him.”
“The inventor’s right.” Dekar nodded approvingly at Defilak with a look of newfound respect on his face. Sarda, close the-”
A scream of terror slammed into Defilak’s eardrums, interrupting him mid-sentence. He spun, just in time to see Sarda disappear into the water. As soon as his face submerged the scream cut off abruptly, leaving only a strong ringing in the other three’s ears and the lapping of the Black Water in the hatch.
“SARDA!” Defilak yelled, He vaulted over the Toa’s unconscious form and threw his arms into the murky water. He was about to dive in after the Ta-Matoran when he felt arms wrap around him and pull him back from the hatch. He strained against Dekar’s grip, still trying to through himself into the water after Sarda.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Defilak growled.
“I’m saving your life,” Dekar replied, the pain in his voice almost unbearable. “Something grabbed Sarda. If you go in after him, you’ll only get yourself killed, too.”
“But he could still be alive!”
“Or he could be halfway inside of a Takea Shark. Which do you think is more likely?”
The water in the hatched bubbled, and then broke. Sarda’s scarlet Kanohi Huna popped out of the inky blackness, eyeholes dark. There was no face beneath it.
Defilak slumped helplessly in Dekar’s arms. He felt the grip around him loosen, and he slumped back against the body of the Toa. Dekar fell to his knees beside the hatch, lifting the Huna from the water. He stared at it mournfully. Defilak stared at the Po-Matoran’s slumped shoulders, realizing how much it had pained him to keep Defilak from diving in after Sarda. He thought about Idris, and how Dekar was going to have to tell her that her best friend hadn’t made it back.
“We have to leave-go,” Defilak said at last, a strange and unfamiliar resolve forming inside of him.
Dekar nodded as he closed the hatch and held the Huna close to his chest. “Let’s get out of this damn place.”
As soon as the words left his mouth the entire submersible shook. Defilak was thrown to the floor as the submersible began to roll onto its side. “Feton!” he grunted. “What the hell was that?”
The Fe-Matoran had somehow managed to stay in his seat and was now struggling with the controls, trying to stabilize the ship. “My best guess would be that whatever got Sarda decided it liked the taste of Matoran,” he said bluntly.
Defilak grunted in response as he lifted himself to his feet. “Take the other chair-seat,” he said as he reached the front of the cabin. “I’ll pilot-drive us out.”
For once Feton did not reply with a snide remark or sarcastic insult and quickly shifted to the left chair. Defilak dropped onto the cold steel and found in was nice to be sitting normally again.
“Strap in,” he called as his hands flew over the controls. “This could be a rough ride.”
Chapter 4[]
Lemiddus found that he rather liked having the glowing Kanohi around. The power it emanated just by being in proximity to him made him feel better and stronger. He felt like was on top of the world and nothing could bring him down, not when he had the Mask by his side. If he had stopped to consider this sudden change in his attitude, he would have been deeply alarmed. Before he had snatched the Mask from a dark and dismal fate in the Black Water, he had been miserable. He’d been worrying about Kyrehx, the Vampire Squid, and the fate of the city—now he could care less if they were all wiped from existence. But while he still remembered these things and the worries they provoked; he simply couldn’t bring himself to care about them anymore.
Idris wasn’t at the Fortress, so Lemiddus pestered the off-duty Sentinels until they told him she’d been summoned to Kyros’ hut. When he arrived at the hut, he heard a raised voice coming from inside. Not wanting to interrupt, he stepped quietly into the doorframe and waited for the right moment to announce himself.
The left wall was dominated by a series of shelves stacked with stone tablets, several of which were stood up to be viewed without having to take them off the shelf. Next to them stood a telescope with a cracked shell and shattered lens, likely the last detritus of Kyros’ time in the Knowledge Towers of Metru Nui. On the far side there was a bundled bedroll tucked against the wall with half a dozen pillows stack on top of it, right next to a cabinet full of what had to be a sizeable percentage of the bottles of fine alcohol that had survived the city’s descent. The Matoran Lemiddus was after, however, was standing in the middle of the room.
“For the last time, Kyros, I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Idris’ fist was clenched around her thumb, squeezing it so tight Lemiddus imagined she had to be in a lot of pain. She was standing in front of a finely carved wooden desk that Kyros had managed to get imported decades ago, before the Great Cataclysm. It had gotten banged up when Mahri Nui had sunk into the bay, but Kyros had paid Paka, a Le-Matoran woodworker, to fix it up for him. The only reason Lemiddus knew this was because Paka was also a Sentinel and had spent many hours complaining to Lemiddus and the others about how Kyros was micromanaging the repair work. It had been a relief to everyone when Paka had finally finished it. Kyros now lounged in his roughly carved chair behind the desk looking up at Idris, steepling his fingers together as he rested his elbows on the desk with a practiced precision.
“He didn’t give you any sort of timetable, no estimated time of return?” Kyros’ reedy voice was slow and measured. “After all, you’re his second-in-command, I would think he would trust you with this sort of thing.”
Idris fumed. For a moment her mouth opened but no words came out. Kyros stared up at her, the faintest hint of a grin forming at the corner of his mouth.
“He wasn’t sure how long it would take,” she finally managed to get out. “He said he shouldn’t be gone more than a day.”
“And he said that yesterday? This morning…?”
“Mata Nui! Do you practice being this insufferable?” Idris finally snapped, her voice rising into a proper shout.
Kyros held up his hands in front of him. “Now, there’s no need to start yelling. I’m just trying to figure out when I should expect our intrepid Captain of the Sentinels to get back from his mission. Or, of course, when I should open this bottle of Xian Glasswine to celebrate your unexpected promotion.”
Lemiddus was certain Idris was about to run the Ko-Matoran through with her Electro-Blade and chose this moment to step in before he became a witness to a murder. “Idris, do you have a moment?”
Idris spun around, a look of surprise on her face. Kyros shifted in his chair to peer around her, brow raised in surprise. Lemiddus suspected that Kyros was wholly unaware that Lemiddus may have just saved him from being skewered.
“You’re supposed to be on watch by the Cord,” Idris snapped. She was still furious from talking to Kyros, so Lemiddus didn’t take her anger personally.
“Yes, I know,” Lemiddus began cheerfully as he stepped fully into the room to stand next to Idris in front of the desk. “But actually, I found something while I was on duty that I thought you might want to see.”
Idris exhaled slowly. “You…found something? Lemiddus, I don’t have time to look at cool rocks you found.”
“No! It’s not a rock!” He turned and fumbled with his pack, where he’d stashed the Mask to keep it safe. “Look!”
As soon as he held the Mask in his hand again, that warm feeling flooded through him again. Lemiddus inhaled sharply. Why had he brought it here again? To show it to Idris, so they could use it to help Kyrehx. That’s not right though. I found it; I should get to keep it.
Both Idris and Kyros’ eyes widened as the power of the Mask radiated throughout the small hut. Lemiddus could see its golden glow reflecting in their eyes as they stared at it greedily.
Idris began to slowly reach for the Mask. “Lemiddus, where did you find—"
“NO!” Lemiddus snarled, snatching the Mask back close to his chest with a viciousness that surprised him.
Idris stopped; her hand still outstretched. She blinked once, then shook her head and took a step back, her hands dropping to her sides.
“Lemiddus, are you alright?” she asked, her voice becoming softer as she looked him up and down.
With the Mask clutched against his chest, and Idris no longer moving to take it from him, Lemiddus felt the anger evaporate away. He beamed at Idris; his outburst completely forgotten.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”
Idris and Kyros exchanged a glance. Had Lemiddus been properly aware of his surroundings, he would’ve been deeply unsettled by the fact that they both seemed to be in agreement, something that had never occurred in the entire history of Mahri Nui.
“Lemiddus,” Idris said slowly, “can I see the Mask? Please?”
Lemiddus cocked his head to the side as he genuinely considered her proposal. He had meant to let her see the Mask, and maybe take it to Kyrehx. Then it would go in the Holy Sanctuary with the other gifts from above. But then he wouldn’t have it anymore.
Lemiddus shook his head. “No. It’s my Mask, I found it. Finders, keepers.”
Idris stepped forward, a look of desperation growing on her navy blue Kanohi Ruru. “Lemiddus, you don’t seem well right now,” she pleaded as she reached out for the Mask a second time. “Let me see the Mask, I promise I’ll keep it safe for you.”
“NO!” Lemiddus jerked the mask away and turned to face the door. Coming here was a mistake.
“Kyros,” Idris yelled, “stop him!”
The Ko-Matoran had gotten up from his desk while Idris was holding Lemiddus’ attention, coming around to stand behind the Fa-Matoran. As Lemiddus turned to run, Kyros hesitated for a second, even as Idris was shouting at him to move. Then, for the first time in his whole miserable existence, the Ko-Matoran did what he was told without hesitation. Kyros lunged at the fleeing sentry, throwing his arms around him, and grabbing for the glowing Mask.
Time seemed to slow around Lemiddus.
As soon as Kyros’s arms wrapped around Lemiddus a blast of crackling golden energy exploded from the point of contact. Arcs of golden lightning travelled up the Ko-Matoran’s arms and across the rest of his body. Kyros was hurled backwards across the hut, crashing through his prized desk and into the back wall, jagged splinters of wood wedging between his armor and into his body.
The golden light of the blast flashed throughout the room before Idris could react. She moved to cover her face, but she was too late and winced as the light seared her eyes. She shouted in pain and stumbled back. The glass bottles along the wall began to shatter and burst, spraying alcohol over the wall and floor. The golden lightning was hot, incredibly hot. A stray arc caught the spray, and the inside of the hut erupted into flames.
Time sped up to normal. Lemiddus ran out of the hut, trailing smoke and his armor still sizzled with golden energy. He didn’t look back at the burning hut, it would only have slowed him down. His highest priority was keeping the Mask safe, keeping it away from Idris and Kyros and everyone else. The image of Kyros’ charred and smoldering body slumped against the back wall lingered in his mind. Idris’ pained screams echoed in his audio receptors. He faltered in his step as waves of remorse and sadness washed over him. Why couldn’t he trust Idris to take care of the Mask for him? She had never done him wrong, never given him any reason not to trust her.
Because the Mask makes me feel good.
The thought appeared in his mind unbidden. His run slowed to a walk as his thoughts swirled tumultuously around in his head. That hadn’t been it. He’d had some other reason to take the Mask. What had it been?
It healed me. Kept me from feeling all those awful feelings I didn’t want to feel.
The walk from the Cord had been so nice. He’d been happy and relaxed for the first time in a decade. He hadn’t been worried about Dekar and Defilak’s mission, or the Vampire squid, or Kyrehx.
Kyrehx.
Lemiddus stopped walking entirely. Kyrehx. He had been going to use the Mask to help Kyrehx.
NO! Kyrehx will take the Mask, like Idris tried to. Neither of them cares about me, or how I feel. They just want to help themselves.
These were not his thoughts. Why were they in his head? He looked warily down at the Mask in his hands. Its glow seemed to cast the street around him in a more menacing light. He could almost imagine the empty eyeholes narrowing into a sneering expression as it stared up at him.
That’s ridiculous, it’s just a Mask. It can’t be putting thoughts in my head.
Lemiddus’ heartlight began to pulse faster. It had to be the Mask. It wasn’t a Great Mask like a Toa would wear. It was something more powerful. Something more dangerous. It was influencing his thoughts, making him paranoid. He trusted Idris; she was the second-in-command of the Sentinels! And Kryos. Why had he hurt Kyros? The Ko-Matoran had never been particularly likeable, but he didn’t deserve what Lemiddus had done to him.
The Mask was why. The Mask was evil. It needed to be destroyed before it made him do anything worse. But how? There was no forge in Mahri Nui, where could hey get something strong enough to break a Kanohi?
A thought occurred to him. He could take it to Defilak’s hut. The inventor had been collecting junk off the sea floor for years, making tools and strange inventions. Surely there was something in his workshop that could destroy the Mask. It was just an Kanohi Mask, right?
Lemiddus doubted there was anything ordinary about the Mask in his hands.
Somewhere behind him he heard Idris calling his name. For a moment, he debated going back and explaining everything, that the Mask was dangerous, that he hadn’t meant to kill Kyros. But he couldn’t. If what happened to Kyros happened to anyone who touched him, he couldn’t go near anyone. Not until the Mask was destroyed.
He took off running for the warehouse.
For a few moments all Idris could see was golden light. Then the golden light faded, and all she could see were abstract shapes in bright colors flashing over her vision. She could feel the heat creeping closer from the far side of the room. She smelled smoke. The hut was on fire.
“Lemiddus!” she called; her voice already hoarse from the smoke. “Kyros!”
The only response was the crackling of the fire on the far side of the room. Idris swore under her breath. The fire was a problem—their air was precious enough without fire burning through it at a rapid pace, and too much smoke would start to fill the whole Air Dome.
Idris stumbled forward, her hand finding half of Kyros’ bisected desk, still standing up enough to support her weight. She was pretty sure she knew where the door was, but if she was wrong, she could easily charge right into the fire. She took short breath, trying not to inhale too much smoke. Then she charged toward where she prayed the door was. Her shoulder clipped the side of the archway on her way out, and she heard wood splintering and shards tumbling into the sand next to her. She dropped onto her hands and knees and sucked in a huge gulp of clean air.
“Idris!”
Gemini’s voice called out to her from what she assumed was down the street. Seconds later she heard several sets of footsteps hurrying over the haphazard cobblestone paving, accompanied by the sound of water sloshing in buckets.
“Kyros…Lemiddus…inside,” she managed to croak out.
“We’ll get them,” Gemini confirmed. She felt his hands grasping her shoulders and lifting her to her feet as the other sets of footsteps started to move away from her and closer to the fire.
“Wait!” Idris attempted to follow them but stumbled. Gemini caught her just in time. “Don’t touch Lemiddus. There’s something wrong with him.”
Gemini guided Idris away from the fire, speaking a little too quickly to be as reassuring as he was trying to be. “Don’t worry, I brought Aescela and Mati, we’re gonna take care of it. You rest easy for now. Are you hurt?”
Idris resisted Gemini’s attempts to sit her down. “I can’t see. And I breathed in a good bit of smoke.”
There was a pause in which Idris assumed Gemini was probably nodding. “We’ll get you to Kaira, she’ll get you fixed up.”
“Idris!” Aescela’s voice called from further away that Idris expected her to be. “There’s no sign of Lemiddus in here, but Kyros…didn’t make it.”
Idris cursed under her breath again. Kyros may have been the worst Matoran in Mahri Nui, but every Matoran’s life mattered. Even the ones who were insufferable Mahis. And Lemiddus…he would be devastated when he came back to his senses and realized he’d killed someone.
“Put the fire out as fast as you can,” she called back. She paused to think for a second. Mati was a Ko-Matoran, he would hate dealing with the fire. “Mati, go tell every Matoran you can find to stay away from Lemiddus until I say otherwise. As soon as we know where he is, I need to know.”
Idris heard Mati’s footsteps as he hurried off to follow his orders. For a moment she though she saw a vague, silhouetted figure moving across her vision. She thanked the Great Spirit that her blindness seemed to be temporary.
“Gemini, go help Aescela with the fire.”
“But—”
“That’s an order, Gemini. And make sure you take Kyros’ body back to the Fortress.”
There was a moment of hesitation before he responded. “Okay. But you stay put, you’re still injured.”
Only once he was gone did she allow herself to lean back against the wall he had brought her to. She exhaled slowly, trying to regulate her breathing enough to get the last of the smoke out of her system. She blinked relentless, completely uncertain if it would help but hoping that it could cause the dark shapes she was starting to see through the colorful miasma to hurry up and become clearer.
Then the earth shook beneath her feet.
If Idris hadn’t been leaning against the wall, she very likely would’ve fallen over. The shaking was completely unexpected; they’d never had an earthquake down here before. Had Lemiddus done something to the tectonic plates? She doubted that was the case, it didn’t seem like something he would do even in his compromised state. That feeling was made even stronger when the ground shook again, mere seconds after the first.
Then another. And another. And another.
Now she could hear something, too. A sound like rolling, constant thunder that echoed through the water around the city. The earth continued to shake rhythmically, again and again.
Mata Nui. Footsteps.
Idris peeled herself off the wall, blinking even more furiously as she stumbled in the direction of the sounds. Anything that could make the earth shake just by walking could easily destroy the city if they didn’t stop it.
For a moment, she dared to let herself think the thoughts that were lurking in the back of her mind. What if this was the thing that had driven the Vampire Squid out of the Black Water? Had it devoured Sarda, Dekar, and the inventors in submersible and come up for more? Idris pushed the thoughts back down, doing her best to ignore their existence. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by her worries about her friends, not now. She had a job to do.
The Sentinels had never actually faced a threat beyond the occasional lone Takea Shark that got too close to the Fields of Air, trying to steal one of their Hydruka for dinner. Whatever was approaching sounded a lot bigger than a Takea Shark. She could only pray that the combined might of the Sentinels could stop it, or there would not be a Mahri Nui for Sarda and Dekar to return to.
Defilak had had better days.
The fact that he was currently piloting a previously untested submersible built out of various scraps from the bottom of the ocean through pitch black water while being chased by a Matoran-eating deep-sea monster was only half of it. He also had to worry about Dekar, who was still staring into the empty eyeholes of Sarda’s Kanohi Huna; and Feton, who seemed to think he knew how to handle the submersible better than the Matoran who built it. And to top it all off, the Toa they had just rescued wasn’t going to be much help. He was still unconscious, and the bit of drool that was trailing down the cheek of his battered white Kanohi Kaukau didn’t inspire much confidence that he was going to wake up soon enough to make himself useful. All in all, Defilak couldn’t think of a way things could get any worse, which in his experience meant that things were about to get a whole lot worse in ways he couldn’t begin to imagine.
“We’re losing structural integrity!” Feton shouted over the cacophony of creaking sounds that came from every inch of the ship. “The hull can’t take much more this!”
“Take more of what?” Defilak called back sarcastically. “The stress of going these speeds at this depth, or the pound-beating the monster-thing out there is giving us?”
Feton chose not to reply. They both knew that either was enough to damage them beyond on the spot repairs, and if the hull gave out there’d be no way they’d be able to escape.
The craft rocked violently again as the creature hit them again. A slimy orange tentacle slammed across the viewport, slathering globs of thick and viscous slime across the crystalized protodermis. Defilak jerked back on the control sticks, sending them spinning through the water. He heard armor hitting metal somewhere behind him.
“Sorry,” he muttered under his breath as he struggled to right the ship.
The tentacle snapped loose, unable to hold onto to spinning submersible. It slid down the front of the ship and smashed into the two lightstones fixed to the front of the craft. What little light they had had outside vanished as the stones sunk rapidly into the depths. Everyone inside the submersible froze in the stillness of the sudden darkness. For a moment Defilak dared to hope that their attacker wouldn’t be able to find them now.
Then the creature struck again, swinging its tentacles at the front of the craft with renewed vigor. Defilak wrestled with the controls, trying to back the ship up and away from the thing that was attacking it. Then he noticed sparks sputtering from the front of the craft out the viewport. The tentacled monster must have broken more than just the headlights. A crazy idea began to form inside the Le-Matoran’s head.
“Hold on!” he called back to whoever could hear him.
“Why do— what are—”
Feton didn’t get a chance to finish his protests as Defilak slammed the submersible directly into the monster, stabbing sharp bits of torn metal and electrified wire into its soft flesh. Outside the submersible, the dark sea was filled with flickering white light as the electricity coursed through their attacker’s body. For the first time, Defilak got a good look at the monster. He gasped.
The thing was humanoid, or something close to it. It had what appeared to be arms and legs, but orange tentacles sprouted from where the feet and hands should be. The tentacles were reaching out and grasping toward the submersible even as the creature’s body was sizzling from the electrical charge. Its entire crimson body was covered in gnarled scars; Defilak realized with a jolt that meant there were other monstrosities such as this one in the depths of the Black Water. He had little time to dwell on the implications of this, however, as his gaze was drawn to the monster’s horrific face.
Three empty blue eyes were arranged in a triangular fashion, one of which was marred by a wicked scar that ran the length of its face. Tentacles sprouted from the back of its head, groping the water around it. Its mouth was a hole filled with teeth that spiraled down to the back of its throat. Each was yellowed and decayed, and many were caked with a thick green substance Defilak suspected was the vital fluids of some previous prey. Tiny bits of flesh and red metal were littered between its teeth: Sarda, or what was left of him.
Defilak wretched, nearly losing control of the submersible as he did so. Next to him, Feton unleashed a torrent of expletives. They had come down here to find what had driven the Vampire Squid up out of the Black Water. He had no doubt that they had found it now.
He pulled them away from the stunned creature, plunging the sea back into darkness. Navigating with nothing more than gut instinct, he aimed the ship toward what he hoped was upwards and began to crank the handle. They shot through the water, the submersible creaking and clunking all the way.
“The gauges are all going crazy,” Feton announced, reaffirming what Defilak already knew. The submersible was breaking up. They’d be lucky if it got them up to the edge of the drop off, let alone back to the warehouse. He could only hope that the monster wouldn’t follow them out.
“Shut up and look-see what you can do.” He didn’t dare look away from the viewport in front of him.
Something slammed into their rear. Defilak heard a loud snap followed by a low hissing sound from the back of their submersible. The monster had caught back up to them. Fortunately, the force from the impact only added to their momentum. What it likely did to the hull was a less pleasant thought, but Defilak chose not to dwell on that.
Then light flooded in through the front viewport. Defilak fought every urge to take his hands off the controls to cover his eyes.
“Are we out?” Dekar said from the seat behind him.
Defilak’s eyes began to adjust to the light. He looked up and saw the familiar, hazy shape of the sun distorted by the waves far above them. In the distance, he could see the Cord rising toward the island above. At its base he could see the massive domes of air that surrounded the city glinting in the sunlight. They were out of the Black Water.
Defilak let out a triumphant whoop, throwing his fists in the air. Feton let out a breath and slowly loosened his grip on his seat.
“Is it still following us?” Dekar asked from behind them, his voice so quiet Defilak barely heard it over his celebration.
Defilak turned the submersible around to look at the Black Water behind them as quickly as he could, backing them away as he did so. Trails of the dark liquid they’d just emerged from followed in their wake, looking like tendrils of darkness reaching out to drag them back down into hell. Three eyes glinted the light from above, one dimmer than the others. The rest of the monster’s body remained shrouded in the darkness. Defilak’s grip tightened on the controls, his sense of accomplishment rapidly leaving him. The eyes blinked. Then they faded back into the Black Water.
Wordlessly, Defilak backed the submersible away from the Black Water and spun it back around to face Mahri Nui. Then he slammed the throttle as far forward as it would go.
Chapter 5[]
Kyros stared into space, lightning bolts arcing across his vision. He’d felt unbearably hot for a few moments, then all sensation stopped—the energy must have completely fried his nervous system. He felt stiff, as if two much movement would cause him to crack. Was this how it felt to be burned alive?
Through the veil of golden energy, he saw his heartlight flicker out. He saw fire burning up the wall of his hut, the room filling with smoke. He smelled hints of alcohol in the air—his personal collection, gone. What a waste. In the distance he could hear Idris calling for him and Lemiddus, but he couldn’t answer her. He watched as she stumbled out of the hut. The fire swallowed the broken remains of his precious desk, and the everything was burning.
For a moment of what he could only describe as hysterical calm, Kyros pondered the implications of his current predicament. His heartlight had ceased to pulse, he had no feeling across his entire body even as the flames were licking at his feet, and as far as he could tell he couldn’t move a single muscle. And yet here he was, staring out of his dead eyes, contemplating his own mortality. Did everyone who died remain bound to their body, forced to watch life continue around them even as they themselves were damned to eternal stagnation? Kyros thought about this. While he thought it would be immensely entertaining to watch the others sob and mourn their loss at his own funeral, ultimately it seemed a rather bleak fate.
The corners of his vision began to glow with a strange red light. Kyros scoffed, disappointed to learn that death was so base and cliché as to have a ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’ He was already composing his disappointment for whomever or whatever was on the other side when something wholly unexpected interrupted his train of thought.
Golden light flashed across his vision again, overwhelming red light that was calling to him. Then his entire body convulsed. His heartlight flashed once, then began to glow steadily—no longer the bright blue he was used to but instead a vivid golden glow. Then curtain of energy lifted from his vision, his mind refocused. He felt a warm sensation begin to radiate across his body from his heartlight. Kyros lifted his hand, the one he had grabbed Lemiddus with. Golden lightning arced between his fingers, flowing down his arm from his heartlight. From there more threads extended to every part of his body, leaving dark golden trails webbing across his armor.
He took stock of his surroundings. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed during his near-death-experience. The fire was gone, but his house was now dripping wet. His belongings were either charred by the flames or ruined by the water that had been used to put it out. The air inside smelled like ash and alcohol, mixing into a stomach-turning chemical stench.
He heard a voice from outside. “—find out what the hell that is, I’ll take Kyros to the fortress.”
Another voice spoke an affirmative as an orange armored Matoran entered the hut, holding his hand over his mouth and nose. Gemini, the Sentinel that had interrupted his first meeting as Council Leader, picked his way across the hut over to where Kyros was still sprawled out against the back wall. Kyros remained still for the time being, unsure of how Gemini might react if the Su-Matoran knew he was still alive.
Gemini looked down at Kyros with pity. “You know, I never did like you much,” he said, clearly unaware Kyros could hear him. “But this looks like a nasty way to go. I’m sorry.”
It took everything Kyros had in him not spit in Gemini’s Kanohi Mahiki. Kyros didn’t need his pity. He didn’t need anyone’s pity.
Gemini crouched down beside Kyros and reached out to scoop him up to carry his body to the Fortress. Kyros opened his mouth to protest the indignity of being carried across the city, but before he could say anything there was a loud crack. Golden lightning arced out of Kyros’ heartlight and down his body to where Gemini’s hands had just touched him. The lighting slammed into Gemini and hurled him to the side, his body already smoking.
Kyros sat stunned for a moment. Then he reached up to grab what remained of his desk, intending to use it to pull him to his feet. Instead, the entire half of the desk shattered into a thousand woodchips that flew in every direction. Once of pieces flew toward Kyros’ eye too quickly for him to react, but he didn’t need to. Golden lighting arced from his mask and vaporized the splinter before it could hit him.
Kyros stared at his hands in amazement. Had he really just done that?
Then he felt it. Power, unlike anything Kyros had ever experienced. It surged through him on the golden lightning. For the first time, Kyros realized what it truly meant to be superior. Everything before, all his silly grandstanding and arrogance amounted to nothing—this was real power.
The Ko-Matoran jumped to his feet with agility far beyond that of a normal Matoran as he felt the power flow through him. He pointed his finger at one of the stone tablets that hadn’t already been shattered, silently willing the energy to obey him. His heartlight flashed and a strange tingling crept up his arm. Then a bolt of golden lightning jumped from his fingertip to the tablet, causing the stone to explode into tiny chunks.
Kyros let out a maniacal laugh. He was invincible. Nothing could touch him, and he could destroy anything with a flick of his hand, with a mere thought! Now it was time to show the others who ruled Mahri Nui. They would have no choice but to obey him. He was more powerful than any of them, than even a Toa!
You know, I always wanted a skylight. He pointed his finger at the ceiling and unleashed another bolt, tearing a whole in the charred patchwork roof. It was intoxicating, all this power. How he had ever managed to survive without it was beyond him.
Even as he reveled in his newfound abilities, a new sensation was creeping over him. Kyros felt himself growing stiffer and slower. He could feel the heat of his lightning fading with every blast. A wave of lethargy overtook him, and when it passed his heartlight was noticeably dimmer than before.
No. It couldn’t be. Not even fate could be so cruel, not to him. He snarled with rage and hurled another bolt of lightning at the lightstone fixture that was still on the wall, blasting it into oblivion. There. He felt a little more of his power dissipate.
So, his well of power was finite. There had to be a way to get more.
The Mask. The Mask Lemiddus had brought to show Idris, that’s what had done this to him. It gave him this power, so it stood to reason that it could give him more—a lot more. The surge of power he’d felt when he’d grabbed Lemiddus was more than enough to get back what he’d already used up. If he had the Mask his power would be infinite. He would be unstoppable; his destiny would be his own to control. The whole universe would bow before him. He would become a god. But only if he had the Mask.
Kyros spun to face Gemini, who was slumped against the wall just as he had been moments before. The Su-Matoran’s heartlight flickered dangerously, and he was staring out into space. Kyros leaned down in front of him, reaching out with his hand to lift Gemini’s chin so they could look eye to eye.
“Where’s Lemiddus?” he demanded.
Gemini only mumbled incoherently in response. Kyros rolled his eyes and placed his other hand against Gemini’s chest, then pumped a short, weak burst of lightning into the Su-Matoran. Gemini gasped, his heartlight pulsing faster for a few moments.
“I don’t know!” he gasped; his voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable. “He was gone when we got here.”
Kyros sighed, then let go of Gemini’s head, letting it loll down against his chest once more. He’d hoped that Gemini might have known something, but he supposed he’d just have to find Lemiddus on his own. He stood up and wiped his hands on a rag that had mostly survived the fire.
As he turned to go, Gemini called out from behind him. “Please… don’t leave me here.”
Kyros couldn’t be bothered to respond to that, he had more important things to do. What were the pleas of a mortal to a god but the imperceptible cries of an insect that would soon be crunched underfoot? Gemini had done this to himself when he’d dared to touch Kyros, he could suffer the consequences.
Kyros left him there as he exited the hut to begin his search. Mahri Nui was not a big city, there were only so many places Lemiddus could hide from him. Kyros would find him, and the Mask and its power would be his.
And then everything he ever wanted would be his as well.
There were multiple reasons Gar was not supposed to be out in the Fields of Airweed. Chief among which, it wasn’t even his shift. Reysa, the head Hydruka Keeper, was supposed to be overseeing today’s harvest, but he’d come down with something yesterday evening and still hadn’t recovered yet. It was his own policy that kept him away: early on, Reysa had insisted that no Matoran get near the Hydruka if they were sick to prevent the Rahi from getting infected with anything. If the Hydruka died, there was no easy way to replace them, and the city relied on their ability to harvest the airweed to replenish the Air Domes.
The second reason Gar wasn’t supposed to be out here was that the Sentinel that was supposed to accompany him out here never showed. He’d waited for several minutes, in case they were running late, but after ten minutes he’d decided he’d wasted enough time and had started coaxing the Hydruka out into the fields. Yes, he was technically in violation of Dekar’s decree that no one leave the Air Domes without permission, but Gar had always figured it was better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. If he’d waited, the Safe Hour might’ve ended before he’d been able to harvest any air, and that would put them all one day closer to drowning at the bottom of the Bay. Gar trusted that the Sentinels would understand.
Gar didn’t mind being alone, it gave him time to mentally compose exactly what he was going to say to Defilak when he’d gotten back from his mission into the Black Water. The mission that he hadn’t bothered to tell Gar he was going on. Gar had had to find out second-hand, from his fellow Keeper Leeta when he’d arrived to fill in or Reysa. He knew that the Le-Matoran was absent-minded and often missed social cues, but this was beyond that. This was a big deal, a matter of life-and-death, and he hadn’t said anything to his best and only friend. Gar was self-aware enough to know his anger stemmed more from his worry that Defilak might not return rather than from his feelings of frustration with his friend, but it was easier to be mad than worried. If he was mad, he could do something about it, like figure out how best to explain to Defilak that he had been a complete and total mahi.
The airweed rustled in front of him as a slim black tail approached him with several bubbles clinging to the tip. The airweed parted to reveal a smooth red carapace head with a massive underbite. Big eyes stared up at him expectantly, as if waiting for a response.
“Thulox, you know where those go,” Gar grumbled to himself, knowing the Hydruka couldn’t hear him. He knelt and patted the Rahi on the head, causing Thulox to wiggle back and forth a little with excitement before disappearing back into the airweed, heading for the Air Domes. Most Hydruka were bad-tempered and best left alone to their work. Thulox was an oddity, who seemed to enjoy having praise heaped upon him for doing his job. Some of the other Keepers tried to discourage this behavior, but Gar didn’t see the harm in it. It was nice to have at least one creature appreciate him for doing the most important job in the city.
Something long and wet brushed against Gar's leg. He reached down casually, intending to brush away what was most likely a free-floating piece of airweed. But when his fingers touched the slimy tentacle it contracted, wrapping tightly around his ankle, and yanked him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, face-planting in the cold mud and sand that lined the sea floor even as the tentacle began to drag him rapidly through the fields, away from Mahri Nui and toward the mouth of the Black Water. Gar instinctively threw his hands out in front of him, clawing at the ground for something, anything to slow him down. But his desperate hands were met by nothing but mud and water.
In the face of death, most Matoran would have screamed for help. Not Gar. Nearly a decade of living at the bottom of the Voya Nui Bay had proven to him calling for help to be a futile waste of air; no one would hear him through the water, and even if they could, no one would leave the safety of the Air Domes outside of the Safe Hour. Gar realized with a start that he hadn’t been accounting for the lost time he’d spent waiting for the Sentinel who never showed.
The Safe Hour was over.
Bracing himself for what was surely the last sight he would ever see Gar glanced over his shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of his attacker. What he saw made his blood run cold. Rising out of the gloom of the Black Water was a monstrosity beyond words: a creature twice as tall as an average Matoran, covered in slime and muck, that looked like a cross between a Makuta and a giant squid. Its arms, legs and torso were humanoid, but his hands and head were covered with greasy, orange tentacles that reached towards Gar like eels wriggling out of their dens. It was one of these that had ensnared the Onu-Matoran, one of the longer ones that sprouted from the creature's arms.
But worst of all was its face. Three glowing blue eyes were embedded into its flesh, all locked on Gar as it dragged him closer and closer. Its mouth was open wide, revealing a mouthful of vicious yellow teeth that spiraled tightly down into the creature's throat. Bright green splotches surrounded its mouth and thickly coated most of its teeth, splotches that Gar instantly identified as the vital fluids of some other deep-sea beast. Bits of torn flesh and red metal clung between the teeth deep within its mouth—the last remnants of a recent meal.
Gar began to frantically kick and claw at the ground once again, desperate to pull himself away from the monster behind him. But the monster's grip was too strong, and Gar was pulled ever closer to its gaping maw. Then the Onu-Matoran felt something sharp stab his leg, tearing through his armor and into the vulnerable organic material beneath. Gar fought the urge to cry out in pain, still operating on instinct trying to save what little air he had left. Not that it mattered now.
The little taste of Gar seemed to set the monster off, and it suddenly released screech of triumph that was distorted into something otherworldly by the saltwater around them. Then Gar felt something break through the armor fastened to his waist, then his chest. He was moving again, being dragged downward and away from the fields entirely. The monster's teeth grew tighter around his torso, and he saw his own dark vital fluids spurting out into the water around him. He wasn’t sure how much of him was left, and how much had already been devoured. But his head remained free to watch his world disappear as he was dragged into the depths of the Black Water, even as orange tentacles wrapped around his face to push him down into the monster’s throat.
In sudden burst of will Gar forced his eyes shut, blocking the macabre sight from view. But the image was still there, carved into the backs of his eyelids like words carved into stone. And he knew there was no escaping his fate. His body sank deeper into the creature's throat with every passing second, the pain increasing as more and more of his body was consumed. Then the tiny yellow daggers reached his heartlight, and Gar’s body exploded with waves of pain. His eyes flashed open involuntarily as life began to leave him, but no light reached them. All he could see was the absolute darkness of the Black Water.
Gar’s last thoughts were of Defilak, as he pleaded to the Great Spirit that whatever this monster was had not already found his friend in the depths.
I’m being unreasonable. I don’t want to destroy the Mask!
“Shut up!” Lemiddus yelled, tossing what had to be the hundredth wrench over his shoulder. He wondered who could possibly need all these wrenches.
Defilak, apparently.
But despite the abundance of tools in the warehouse, he had yet to find anything that he could use to destroy the Mask he carried. He had lost his Electro-Blades somewhere in his mad dash out of Kyros’ hut, so that ruled them out. All Defilak’s tools were too small and delicate, useful for machinery but not smashing things. Lemiddus was on the verge of grabbing the largest piece of debris and trying to smash the mask to pieces, which in theory should do the trick. Then again, ‘in theory’ a mask shouldn’t be putting thought in his head.
Don’t be ridiculous, a mask can’t put ideas into my head!
But it was, there was no doubt in Lemiddus’ mind. If not the mask, then something the Mask carried with it. Some sort of toxin or chemical that caused delusions? He had no way to tell for sure. But the Mask was clearly too dangerous to risk someone else finding it. He needed to destroy it, now.
He cleared the table in front of him with one arm, sweeping a pile of spare parts and loose tools noisily onto the floor. He carefully reached into his pack and pulled out the Mask to put it on the table. But as he held it in front of him, he was overtaken by a strong urge to just take the Mask and leave, run far away from Mahri Nui and the Matoran that wanted to take it from him.
No, this needed to be done. Lemiddus tossed the Mask onto the table and plucked a jagged piece of scrap metal from the floor. He took a deep breath as he spread his feet to the side and lifted the piece of scrap above his head. With any luck, the force of the blow would shatter the Mask and end this madness for good.
“Put it down Lemiddus,” called a voice from behind him, “and step away from the mask.”
No. It couldn’t be. He was dead. Lemiddus had watched him die.
“I’m warning you, step away.”
Lemiddus lowered his arms but didn’t let the scrap metal drop. Slowly, he turned around to look at Kyros, but what he saw barely resembled the Ko-Matoran. Kyros’ body was webbed with dark golden burn marks that seemed to spread out from his heartlight up and down his torso, arms, and legs. Golden lighting travelled along the marks in fast, irregular bursts. Kyros’ eyes crackled with energy just like his heartlight.
“Kyros,” Lemiddus called across the warehouse, “I thought you were—.”
“Dead? I think I was, for a moment. But this power, it stayed with me. Rebooted me.” He gestured toward the Mask on the table beside the Fa-Matoran. “That is no ordinary Mask. It has power. Power that I need.” He stepped through the doorway, slowly making his way over towards Lemiddus, his hands outstretched expectantly. “Give it to me Lemiddus.”
“No.” Lemiddus stepped forward so that he was standing in between Kyros and the Mask. “I’m going to destroy it. It’s too dangerous.”
Kyros’ eyes widened in fear. “You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.”
Driven by a conviction unlike anything he had ever felt before, Lemiddus lifted the scrap metal over his head once again. His eyes lingered on the Mask, but this time he did not hesitate. He brought the piece of scrap down towards the table.
“NO!” Kyros’ hands suddenly crackled with energy, and a bolt of golden lightning arced toward the Fa-Matoran. Kyros’ aim was off, but the bolt slammed into the table, which exploded in a flurry off wood splinters and metal fragments. Lemiddus and the Mask were sent flying in opposite directions by the force of the blast.
Lemiddus crashed painfully into a pile of junk Defilak had gathered, knocking the wind out of him. Wincing, he climbed to his feet, then reached around to pull a small, sharp object from his back. The tip of a non-functional Electro-Blade. Of course, now he found one.
Kyros had already started after the Mask by the time Lemiddus saw where it had landed. It was sitting by the side of a pool near the back of the warehouse. Kyros was closer, he’d reach it first. He reached down and yanked the non-functional Electro-Blade out of the junk pile and hurled it through the air. The weapon crashed into Kyros’ back, knocking him flat on his face.
Thank Mata Nui, the Fa-Matoran thought as he charged across the room. He was relieved to know that it was his own thought and not the Mask’s.
Lemiddus reached the Mask just before Kyros did. He lashed out with a kick to the Ko-Matoran’s abdomen, stopping Kyros’ momentum and sending him reeling back. Lemiddus smiled victoriously as he reached for the Mask, just in time for Kyros’ energy-enhanced fist to slam into the side of his face. Lemiddus felt himself lift into the air from the force of the punch before hitting the ground face-first and rolling onto his back. Whatever had happened to Kyros, that golden energy made him fast and stronger than any Matoran.
Lemiddus looked up and saw Kyros plucking the Mask from the ground. As soon as he touched it, his heartlight and eyes began to glow so brightly Lemiddus had to look away. A faint humming filled the air, growing in volume every second Kyros held the Mask. He was siphoning its power, like the Vampire Squid sucked the life out of living things.
“The power,” Kyros breathed ecstatically, “it’s amazing. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Lemiddus frantically searched for something he could use to put a stop to this, something that might be able to give him the upper hand. Against the back wall he noticed a small workbench illuminated by a grow lamp. The table held two incredibly strange objects: a tall plant adored with brown spiked fruit, and a slim projectile launcher made of rusted metal. For some inexplicable reason, the launcher had one of the fruits loaded into it. It would have to do.
“Put the Mask down Kyros,” Lemiddus ordered, leveling the launcher at the Ko-Matoran. “It’s evil. I don’t know how, but it puts thoughts in your head. It needs to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Kyros laughed. His voice was distorted by the lightning that was covering his body like a lethal suit of armor. “You’ll have to go through me first. It’s mine now.”
“Zapping you was an accident. Don’t make me kill you on purpose.”
Kyros turned his gaze from the mask, his glowing eyes meeting Lemiddus’. For a second, time seemed to freeze as they regarded each other, looking past the masks that hid their faces and into something deeper. Something neither of them were certain they could describe. It was as if they were staring into each other's souls.
“Could you really kill another Matoran in cold blood?” Kyros asked.
Lemiddus didn’t know. Another moment passed. Neither of them moved.
“Didn’t think so.”
As Kyros returned his gaze to the Mask in his hand, the pool beside the pair began to bubble, and then exploded as a large metal object surfaced far too quickly and crashed into the makeshift scaffolding that stood next to the pool. The scaffolding collapsed down toward Lemiddus, who instinctively threw up his arms to protect himself. The launcher was knocked out of his hands and dropped to the ground beside him.
Kyros saw an opening. As the last of the water splashed down on the stone floor, he let energy surge down his arm and out his fingers, blasting a bright bolt of lightning at Lemiddus. It hit the Fa-Matoran in the chest, throwing him to the ground.
Lemiddus writhed in pain as residual energy arced across his body and into the air around him. His whole body felt roasted and burnt. He tried to stand, but every movement sent waves of pain up his body. For a moment he considered just lying there, ignoring everything, and drifting off into blissful sleep. But Kyros needed to be stopped. Grasping the edge of a nearby workbench, Lemiddus fought through the agony and hauled himself to his feet. He wasn’t confident his legs could hold his weight, but by using the table to support himself he managed to stay upright. He lifted his head to stare Kyros in the face.
“I may not be capable of taking another Matoran’s life,” he said. “But I don’t think you are either.”
For a second Kyros’ demented smile seemed to flicker with a millisecond of doubt. A flash of emotion appeared in his face; was it regret? Fear? Whatever it was, it didn’t stay long before it was replaced by a cold, unreadable stare. The face of a killer. Kyros jumped forward, blasting lightning at the ground beneath him for an extra boost. He landed right in front of Lemiddus, shoving his mask right up in front of the Fa-Matoran’s. He smelled charred, like an overcooked meal.
“I’m not the Matoran you think I am,” he snarled. “Not anymore.”
Kryos slammed his free hand into the table supporting Lemiddus. With a flash of golden light, it vaporized. The Fa-Matoran collapsed, sprawling back onto the floor in front of Kyros. The Ko-Matoran stared down at him in disgust.
“I’m different now,” he spoke with an almost religious zeal. “I’m no longer weak, like you. I’m not afraid to fight, to kill.”
Another bolt slammed into Lemiddus’ limp body, causing his to convulse uncontrollably. Kyros smiled wickedly, then began to spew lightning from his fingertips. Lemiddus shook violently as he curled into a fetal position and screaming in pain. Armor charred and tissue burnt, filling the warehouse with the smell of smoke and burnt organic material.
“Step away from him Kyros,” a voice called from somewhere behind the Ko-Matoran. A voice Lemiddus recognized immediately. The Captain of the Sentinels had returned.
The stream of lighting stopped, giving Lemiddus a momentary respite from the pain. He clawed weakly at the ground, trying to pull himself to his feet. Then he felt himself being yanked into the air, held up by his scruff by an unnaturally vibrating hand. He could hear the humming and crackling, feel the unnatural heat of Kyros’ hand against the back of his neck.
“One step out of that thing and he dies,” Kyros spat.
Lemiddus gathered just enough strength to lift his head and look in the direction Dekar was standing in the hatch of the odd-looking vehicle that had erupted out of the water and was now beached on its side on the floor of the warehouse. A dark green Kanohi Kualsi peered out from behind him, the expression on it unreadable. Defilak, the inventor, who had followed Dekar to Kaira’s hut the day before.
“Be reasonable, Kyros,” Dekar said. “You clearly need help.”
“Help?” Kyros responded. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help. Now get the hell back in that ship and let me leave in peace.”
“It didn’t look like you were going to leave in peace a moment ago.”
“Get back in the damn ship!”
“Kyros—”
With an animalistic snarl Kyros jabbed his index finger into Lemiddus’ heartlight. Dekar’s eyes went wide. Kyros unleashed a quick, powerful blast of golden lightning directly into the heartlight. Lemiddus felt every nerve in his body burst into agony simultaneously, then all sensation stopped at once as he felt himself go limp. Kyros released him, and he fell to the ground into a crumpled heap. His breathing came in ragged, rasping gasps. His armor was completely charred to an unrecognizable black, his heartlight flickered sporadically.
Through his weary haze he saw Dekar lunging toward him. He saw Defilak burst out from within the submersible and charge Kyros, spewing all manner of foul curses at the Ko-Matoran. Kyros walked away from Lemiddus, moving to meet the Le-Matoran.
Lemiddus reeled as another wave of pain swept over his body. He could see the darkness coming for him from the edges of his vision as he began to slip into unconsciousness. He had no idea if he would ever wake up once he was gone, but he had no strength left to fight, nothing to do but lie there as the cold embrace of death came to him.
Chapter 6[]
A small force of twenty Matoran had gathered at the edge of the city, staring out into the water outside the Air Dome. All were silent, clutching their weapons nervously as they waited. The mood was dismal and ominous. Idris doubted anything she did could improve morale at this point.
The primal screams of the monster outside certainly weren’t helping.
Idris stood at the front of the formation. Her gaze swept back and forth across the ocean floor, searching for any sign of the monster she could still hear raising hell out in the sea. There were only so many places it could be hiding out there, but she still hadn’t seen it, only heard its approach.
“These were not where they belonged.” Idris glanced back over her shoulder to see Kaira waddling over, dragging a sled full of strange-looking devices and transparent spheres behind her. “It seems our resident archivist is not as infallible as he would like us to believe.”
Idris had bumped into Kaira while checking the border for any signs of the creature she’d heard. Kaira had been on her way to the Holy Sanctuary, as she been under the impression there was something there that would be useful.
“We can pick on Navek’s organization abilities another time,” Idris said. “What’ve you got?”
Kaira reached back and plucked one of the dark metallic devices from the sled. Extracted from the tangle of mostly identical contraptions, it became clear that it was some manner of launcher. It had an elastic cord pulled taunt from a frame in the back, that when released would force a bolt at high velocity into a chamber at the front—a chamber just the right size for the spheres Kaira had brought with the launchers.
“A projectile weapon, used to launch spheres like those,” Kaira explained, gesturing to the pile of transparent spheres next to the launchers. “They’re able to phase through their target, allowing them to deposit whatever they’re carrying directly into it, like a needless injection.”
“What do they carry?”
“Without the benefit of a thorough examination—” Her voice was momentarily drowned ouy by the roars from outside. “Damn, that thing’s loud—I’d have to assume some sort of venom or something similarly toxic.” Kaira shook her head. “But for our purposes, once a sphere’s contents have been released into the target it creates a vacuum that will absorb the first substance it can. So, in most cases, unless it’s intentionally filled with another substance, a sphere is filled with air.”
“And this helps us how?”
“When Lemiddus saved Kyrehx, he pulled a few squid into the Air Dome with him. They dissolved in seconds. I tested this on bits of the specimen Defilak brought me and got similar results.”
Idris’ eyes widened as she realized what Kaira was implying. “The air is toxic to ocean-dwellers.”
“Fatally so.”
That must be why so few predators came near the city. They were at the center of the Fields of Airweed, and predator that came close ran the risk of bumping the wrong plant and injuring itself. Not to mention the Air Domes themselves. If this were true of all sea life, this knowledge would change life in Mahri Nui forever. But first they had to make sure they’d still have lives left to change.
“How many of these launchers do we have?”
“I left as soon as we loaded this sled up,” Kaira said, handing the launcher to Idris. “There’s five here, Navek said he had at least five more that he’ll be bringing over shortly.”
“He damn well better be. We’re going to need as much help as we can get."
Dekar watched in horror as Lemiddus went down. The Fa-Matoran’s body was charred and blackened, fried by the golden lightning Kyros had inexplicably blasted from his fingertips. Lemiddus’ heartlight flickered sporadically as he collapsed, his eyes staring blankly ahead of him.
The Po-Matoran was vaguely aware of Defilak rushing past him, shouting all manner of obscenities at Kyros. Behind him he could hear Feton shutting down the submersible’s surviving systems. But Dekar paid no attention to any of this. His eyes were locked on Lemiddus’ body. Sarda’s Kanohi Huna dropped to the floor as Dekar rushed forward, catching Lemiddus just before he hit the ground. To his surprise the Fa-Matoran’s body was warm. He was alive, for now.
“Lemiddus,” he asked softly as he could manage. “Lemiddus, can you hear me?”
For a second there was silence. “Y...ye...y...yes…” the half-dead Matoran rasped.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you help.”
“Geh...get the M...Mask. Destroy...it.”
“What mask?”
“Kyros h..has it. Can...can’t let him...keep it.””
“I understand,” Dekar replied. He’d seen Kyros carrying a glowing golden Kanohi that he didn’t recognize when he’d first stepped out of the submersible.
Lemiddus smiled weakly. “Tell…tell Kyrehx...what happened...to...to me. That I…I’m sorry.”
“I will.”
Lemiddus’ eyes rolled back into his head as his body went limp in Dekar’s arms. His heartlight flickered one last time, then blinked out forever. He was dead.
Dekar knelt beside the corpse, staring emptily at it. Another Sentinel fallen, another disaster he could not have predicted. Kyrehx attacked. Sarda devoured. And now Lemiddus, murdered in cold blood by the elected leader of Mahri Nui. Three good Matoran, who selflessly putting themselves in harm’s way for the good of the city. All fallen in the line of duty. The duty he had given them. He knew he shouldn't; no, that he couldn't blame himself for their deaths. But it would be so easy to say it was his fault.
But Lemiddus’ death wasn’t his fault. Kyros had killed him. It was his fault, not Dekar’s.
Kyros.
Dekar lay Lemiddus down gently on the ground, then rose to his feet, grabbing Lemiddus’ odd-looking projectile weapon as he did so. Defilak was holding his Electro-Blades out in front of him, catching bolts of lightning with the weapons even as Kyros was clearly backing him into a corner. The blades crackled with unstable energy—they could conduct electrical charges without injuring the wielder, but they weren’t designed to hold that much charge. Defilak didn’t have much longer before he’d have nowhere else to go. Dekar aimed the launcher at the back of Kyros’ head as he slowly approached the Ko-Matoran.
“Don’t move,” he growled, “or I’ll shoot your head off your shoulders.”
Kyros froze where he stood.
“Turn around and put your hands above your head.”
Slowly, the Kyros obeyed, affording Dekar his first clear view of Kyros’ condition. For a moment it was Dekar’s turn to freeze as he looked at the golden lighting arcing from Kyros’ glowing eyes and heartlight, burning along in intricate web of dark golden lines across his body. Kyros’ heartlight wasn’t pulsing anymore; instead, it was a constant golden glow too bright to look at directly.
“Now drop the Mask and step away.” Dekar nodded toward the ground, but kept his eyes locked on Kyros.
“Okay.” Kyros complied. The Kanohi fell to the floor with an ominous clattering. As soon as it hit the ground, energy blasted from Kyros’ fingertips, flying towards Dekar almost too quickly for the Po-Matoran to react. Almost. Centuries of life spent hunting and being hunted had sharpened his reflexes. He threw himself to the side, barely evading the blast. He used his momentum to roll into a crouch, bringing his weapon up to bear as he did so.
Kyros was already on the move. He’d scooped up the strange Mask and was making a dash toward the door. Dekar quickly readjusted his aim and squeezed off a shot. The strange, spiked sphere detached itself from the front of the launcher and flew after the Ko-Matoran. The projectile missed its mark by less than an inch, crashing instead into a pile of junk just ahead of Kyros.
It exploded on contact.
That was unexpected, Dekar thought just before the shockwave threw him off his feet. He heard the whistle of the shrapnel flying around him. He felt one piece dig into his thigh. Then he and everything else in the warehouse crashed into the ground with a cacophonous bang.
Silence fell.
Dekar rose to his feet, wincing in pain and clutching his injured leg. The smoke was already dissipating, allowing him to survey the scene. The warehouse was still intact, thank the Great Spirit, but the interior was a mess. Smoldering chunks of metal were scattered across toppled piles of scrap and tools. Several workbenches had toppled over, spilling their contents across the floor. At the center of the wreckage the wreckage stood Kyros, the air around him crackling with golden light. A shield of energy, vaporizing anything that touched it. As Dekar watched, Kyros let the barrier disperse. The two stared at each other across the room. For a moment neither moved. Then, wordlessly, Kyros turned to leave.
“You’re a murderer Kyros!” Defeilak called after him, his voice filled with spite. “A cold-blooded murderer!”
Kyros walked on.
“Kyros.” Dekar spoke with a cold confidence. “There’s nowhere in this ocean you can hide from me. I will hunt you down, like I have so many others. I will finish what Lemiddus started.”
Kyros walked out of the warehouse. Dekar watched him go, fully aware that there was nothing he could do right now to stop the Ko-Matoran. But he’d promised Lemiddus he’d destroy the strange golden Kanohi, and he would. He would hunt Kyros down and make sure that the Fa-Matoran’s final wish was carried out. He swore it.
“Are you alright?” Defilak asked as he hopped and skipped across the detritus that now completely covered the floor.
“I’ll be fine,” Dekar answered. “Sorry about the mess.” He glanced down at the launcher that was still in his hand. “What is this thing?”
Defilka shrugged. “A launcher of some kind, I’m not sure where it came from originally, but I’ve been fixing it up for Gemini. He spot-noticed it in a very old cache a while back, with some seeds that grew into the fruit you fired.”
“A fruit?”
“An explosive fruit, apparently.” Defilak paused and exhaled slowly. “Shouldn’t we be going after Kyros?”
Dekar shook his head. “He’s too powerful, and we’re exhausted and injured. He’s on the run now, so he shouldn’t be an immediate threat. There’re not many places he can hide down here. I will find him.”
Defilak glowered, clearly displeased at the thought of letting Kyros roam free for any amount of time. “When you do, I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.” Dekar held up his hand to stave off whatever protests Defilak was about to make. “And no, it has nothing to do with thinking you’re not capable. Mahri Nui needs a leader now that Kyros is gone. I’m using my authority as Captain of the Sentinels to appoint you the emergency leader of the city until he’s caught and that monster in the Black Water is dealt with.”
“Me?” Defilak gaped.
“You took initiative to bring that Vampire Squid to me yesterday. You piloted an untested ship into the Black Water. You didn’t hesitate to try and stop Kyros even after you saw what he did to Lemiddus. You’re brave and incredibly stubborn, which is exactly what Mahri Nui needs right now. This city needs someone bold enough to ram into a sea monster with a half-broken submersible.”
For the first time in at least a decade, Defilak was speechless. Before he could muster up a response, a rusty orange face poked out of the submersible.
“Is it safe to come out now?” Feton asked cautiously.
“It’s safe,” Dekar replied.
“Oh good. I also have some good news: our Toa is awake.”
Navek had only been able to find five more launchers, which brought them to a grand total of ten. Idris had expected there to be fewer: it was abnormal for the Gifts from Above to include so many of what was essentially the same item. She had already armed her best marksmen with them, complete with a set of five spheres apiece. They would have to make every shot count. The new weapons had done little for morale, however. Not with the monster still roaring out amongst the subaquatic dunes.
The outer limits of the city had already been evacuated, with the general populace currently taking refuge within the Fortress back by the Cord. This confrontation was bound to get messy, and Idris didn’t want anyone getting caught in the crossfire if things went completely wrong. There were barely a hundred Matoran left in Mahri Nui: lives were precious, and she didn’t want to lose any more today than she absolutely had to.
She turned to the assembled Sentinels, taking a moment to look them over. A mosaic of expressions met her gaze. Some were determined, ready to fight for their home. Others appeared grim and accepting whatever macabre fate they imagined was coming. A few were unreadable, their masks giving no hint as to what they were feeling. But there was one thing true for every Matoran present. None looked afraid. That wasn’t to say they weren’t; anyone who wasn’t afraid in such a situation was either a fool or a madman. But the Sentinels hid it well. They boldly went to face the dangers that awaited them. They would not cower in the face of death. Behind the formation, Kaira and Navek were standing by. Neither of them were fighters, but Idris fully expected there to be injuries, or worse. Kaira could do more to save lives here than in the Fortress, and Navek could help her if need be. Idris had made them both promise to stay within the Air Dome, whatever happened.
“Sentinels!” she called. “We will enter the ocean and surround the target, then open fire with our new weapons. Anyone not armed with a launcher will pair up with someone who is and keep the creature away from them at all costs. Once we have exhausted our ammunition, we will move in and finish it at close range. Understood?”
The answer came in the form of several Matoran grunting “yes” and a lot of nodding.
“Good,” Idris paused for a moment, uncertain of what to say next. “I… I would like to say it’s been an honor serving with every one of—”
“Idris!” a voice called from somewhere in the formation. “The roaring—it’s stopped.”
Idris froze. The ocean was indeed silent.
“Nobody moves! And not a sound out of any of you!”
Slowly, she turned to face the ocean. Peering through the bubble’s membrane, she scanned the sea floor for any sign of the creature. Not only was the bay silent, but it was also empty. Nothing moved.
Then the sand exploded in front of her.
A massive crustacean-like creature suddenly loomed in front of them, sand sliding off its incandescent blue carapace as it regarded the Matoran. It was easily as tall as three Matoran, and wide as at leave five. Its massive three-pronged pincers clacked together slowly as it flexed its armored arms. Idris could’ve sworn she saw a forked tongue dart out between its massive, needle-like teeth and slash across its upper jaw. Like it was licking its lips.
“Out of the Air Dome!” Idris ordered. “Lead it away from the city!”
Twenty-one Matoran dove into the water. Idris led the charge as she curved around the creature and reforming their formation behind it: four rows of five, those with Air Launchers in the back, the others in front with their spears and blades held out toward the creature. Just to the right of the phalanx Idris was treading water and holding her hand above her head. She waited as the creature lumbered around to face them again, then she swung her hand forward as fast as she could. Fire.
A volley of ten spheres converged on the creature. Two missed, passing through the gaps between its appendages and crashing harmlessly into the sand. The rest crashed into its broad and bulky torso, depositing their deadly load of oxygen inside its body. The creature froze as the spheres passed through it. For a fraction of a second nothing happened, and Idris. Then the points of impact began to darken to a crisp black and crumble into dust. The holes began to grow, rapidly devouring the creature’s body. Then the decay stopped. The edges of the holes sparked with blue and golden energy, then they started to shrink. New flesh began to grow where seconds before it had been disintegrated. The creature was being healed.
Idris has seen that energy before, back in Kyros’ hut. She had watched it dance across the Ko-Matoran’s body; it had come from the Mask Lemiddus found. The Mask that had killed Kyros had made this monster.
Before she could fully comprehend the implications of this train of thought, the creature charged again. It would be on top of their position in seconds. Idris frantically signaled for the Sentinels to scatter, her hands cutting through the water with swift precision. Every Matoran dove off to the sides, just barely getting out of the way before the creature crashed through the space they had just been, its pincers flailing wildly trying to grab after them. The marksmen rearranged themselves into a rough semicircle around the creature and opened fire. For the next minute spheres of air rained on the creature in four haphazard waves of nine, most making their mark and depositing their toxic payload into the creature. Idris prayed that all forty spheres would do too much damage to be repaired immediately, and they could finish the beast with their blades.
Wait.
Forty spheres should’ve been fired. She had counted four waves of nine. That made thirty-six. Four were missing. One of the Sentinels hadn’t fired.
Idris spun, looking for the missing Matoran. She found them to her left, the pair farthest from the city. Paka, the Le-Matoran marksman, struggling with his launcher as Aescela held her weapons in a ready position, ready to engage the creature if it got too close to Paka. They appeared to be fine, for the moment. Just a launcher malfunction.
The last of the spheres cut through the creature, leaving it looking like the holed cheeses of Stelt. For a moment all was silent, or at least as silent as it could be with the water around them so disturbed. Idris found herself daring to hope that they might have mortally wounded the creature, a hope swiftly dashed as golden sparks crackled along the edges of its wounds.
The creature let out a feral roar, a sound eerily distorted by the water. There was no time to signal a retreat; the creature was too close. She had no choice but to watch as the Sentinels tossed the launchers aside and readied their Electro-Blades for combat. Sparks flew as they swarmed the creature, cutting and slashing wherever they found an opening. But the wounds caused by the last volley of spheres were healing too quickly. There was no piercing its hard exoskeleton once the wounds had completely closed.
Idris swam in their direction, knowing that she would make no difference. They were all doomed. Already, she could see the limp forms of four Sentinels floating down to the sea floor. She couldn't tell if they were still alive.
Mata Nui have mercy on our souls, she thought grimly. Let us die quickly and honorably.
Just as she was about to join the fray a sphere shot through the water and carved a tunnel through the creature’s forehead. It screeched in pain and lashed out wildly, but the shot had come too close to its eyes and its blind strikes were nowhere close to any Matoran. For a moment it looked as if the wound would miraculously do what the others had failed to do, but in seconds the healing energies were crackling around the edges.
Still, they could take advantage of the creature’s momentary blindness. Idris signaled for the Sentinels to withdraw. Most it to the safety of the Air Dome unscathed, but one Bo-Matoran was smashed down to the ground by the creature’s flailing arm. He lay motionless in the sand.
Idris turned in the direction the sphere had come from just in time to see two Matoran swimming towards the creature. Paka and Aescela, the pair whose launcher had malfunctioned. They must’ve gotten it working, and just in the nick of time. But why were they swimming towards the creature? It was distracted, they needed to use this time to regroup. She waved in their direction, hoping they would see and course correct back to the Air Dome. Aescela turned to look at Idris, a determined look on her Kanohi Pakari. She shook her head and swam onwards.
Then Idris understood. They were going to keep the creature occupied for as long as they could, giving the rest of the Sentinels time to regroup and plan a second attack. A flurry of curses echoed through her mind, but she knew it was a good plan. Paka and Aescela had made their choice, it was up to her to make it count. She dove back into the Air Dome to look at the thirteen Sentinels who’d made it back safely. Several of them were holding broken weapons that weren’t going to be of much use. Four of them were already getting treated by Kaira and Navek. Mati had lost his left arm. There was barely anyone left to mount a second attack with.
She looked back over her shoulder at the two Sentinels still outside. Paka launched another sphere, this one through the creature’s leg. As the creature growled in pain Aescela darted in, jamming one of her Electro-Blades into the rapidly closing hole. The wound continued to heal around the weapon, leaving the blade embedded in the limb. Aescela flicked the weapon’s power setting up to maximum and propelled herself back towards Paka. But the creature was quicker than she anticipated. Its pincer slashed through the water and grabbed the Po-Matoran by the leg, and the snapped shut, severing it completely. Aescela’s mouth opened in a scream Idris couldn’t hear.
The creature shook its leg to jostle the Electro-Blade loose, but even as the golden energy sparked along the edges of the wound it wouldn’t come free. Aescela had lodged it in too well, though it was only a matter of minutes before it ran out of charge.
“You all stay here,” Idris ordered before she dove back into the ocean, taking a fresh air bubble with her. She didn’t have a plan; she just knew that she couldn’t stand by and watch Paka and Aescela be slaughtered. Her best bet was to get the creature’s attention and lead it away from the city. She would drown, or worse, but maybe she could get it far enough away that it wouldn’t come back.
The creature was moving towards Paka now, who had barely managed to load his fourth sphere into the launcher. Without Aescela to distract it he had no time to target anything specific, instead firing as close to the center of the creature’s chest as possible. But the creature intercepted it with its wrist, taking the toxic dose of air there and allowing the projectile to pass harmlessly through its torso. The severed pincer began to drift away, even as the creature slammed its healthy arm into the ground below it. Sand exploded upwards, creating a veil around the two combatants. Idris kicked harder, trying to reach the battle in time.
As the sand slowly began to settle back onto the ground, two silhouettes became visible through the veil. The massive shape of the creature loomed over Paka, who was backing away in a panic. But the Le-Matoran wasn’t fast enough, and the creature snatched him up in its good pincer. Paka appeared to stop struggling as the creature lifted him up to eye level. The two stared each other down, neither wavering. Paka did not cower under the enormity of the creature; he looked it in the face without fear.
Then it bit his head off.
Idris barely held back a scream. It had bitten his head off. As if he were prey, mere food to be consumed. All her thoughts of simply leading the creature away vanished from her mind. It had just eaten a Matoran alive while she watched. She felt a tidal wave of sadness, fear, and rage swell up inside of her. One irrational thought rose out of the emotional maelstrom to give the monster hell.
In that moment she had an epiphany. Here at the bottom of the sea, cut off from any other form of civilization, the Matoran had always believed they were at a disadvantage. The larger and more vicious sea creatures were at home in the ocean, they were better swimmers, with natural tools adapted for hunting underwater. What Matoran stood a chance against a Lias Fish or Giant Squid? But Idris was a Ga-Matoran, she had lived in and around water all her life. She knew how to swim better than she knew how to walk. They weren’t in the creature’s element—they were in hers.
Idris drew her weapons and charged the creature as it discarded Paka’s decapitated corpse to the side. Her first objective was still to draw the beast away from the city, get it somewhere where she could engage it without having to worry about endangering the city and anyone attempting to retrieve the fallen and any loose equipment. Quick as a Takea Shark, she darted past the creature and scooped up Paka’s launcher and last remaining sphere from the sand. She had one shot left—she’d have to make it count, though she had no idea how. She glanced over her shoulder to confirm the creature was chasing after her. Mission accomplished. Now it was just her and it, alone at the bottom of the sea.
Then she noticed the water begin to grow cold and thick, making her movements slow and sluggish. She looked around in confusion for an explanation for the sudden change of temperature. She found it in the form of a towering figure, clad in white, who was suddenly standing between her and the creature. The water around him shimmered with thousands of tiny shards of ice, sparkling in the few rays of sunlight that had managed to filter down to this depth. His Kanohi Kaukau glowed with soft light, allowing him to breath freely in the ocean. He was unarmed, yet power seemed to radiate from him.
He was a Toa. An honest-to-Mata Nui Toa was in Mahri Nui.
The creature skidded to a halt in front of the Toa, looking him up and down as if it was sizing him up. The Toa simply watched it, arms hanging loosely at his sides, waiting. The creature took a step forward. As it did the Toa lunged, a spike of ice forming around his forearm and fist as he threw a vicious uppercut at the creature’s chin. The spike slammed into the creature’s shell with enough force to drive it through the exoskeleton, impaling the creature’s head. The Toa snapped the spike at the base and jumped back, leaving it imbedded in the creature.
The creature thrashed wildly, clawing at its chin with its remaining pincer. It clasped the base of the spike and dragged it out of its head, then discarded it to the side and shook itself like a Hydruka would shake the water from its body after returning to an Air Dome. Energy crackled around the wound, closing it in seconds.
Scowling, the Toa created two short, sharp blades of ice in his hands and charged the creature. They clashed in a flurry of strikes too fast for Idris’ eyes to follow. Ice glinted and energy crackled as the two titans clashed beneath the waves. Idris stood rooted to the spot, her eyes seeing nothing but the fight. In comparison to the many other battles throughout history this one was nothing spectacular, but to a Matoran who has been cut off from the world for decades it was truly a sight to behold.
The Toa thrust his blade into the creature’s chest and slashed his arm down, cutting a gaping hole across its torso. For a second Idris caught a glimpse of a small, fist-sized organ pulsing repeatedly, every pulse sending tiny sparks of energy across the creature’s body. The organ had to be the source of its healing energy, and maybe more.
An idea popped into Idris’ head. It was crazy, but if her theory was correct it would work. Now all she had to do was attract the Toa’s attention. As if to grant Idris’ request, at that exact moment the creature’s fist slammed into the Toa’s abdomen, sending him spinning backwards through the water, sinking down to the sand just to Idris’ right. She quickly propelled herself in his direction, waving her arms frantically. He looked up at her in confusion. She began to tell him her plan using large, exaggerated gestures. Comprehension slowly dawned on the Toa’s glowing Kanohi. He nodded as he began to swim back toward the creature, this time a single razor-sharp ice dagger in his hand. He reached the creature in seconds, and the battle resumed.
Idris drifted as close as she dared to the fight, trying not to be noticed. She paused, taking a moment to double-check that the sphere was properly loaded. She would only get one chance at this, she had to make it count.
The Toa saw an opening. With a quick flick of his wrist, he jabbed his ice dagger at the creature’s chest, somehow slicing through the exoskeleton like it wasn’t there. As he jumped out of the way Idris brought her launcher up to eye level, locking the pulsing organ in her sights. Her finger rested on the trigger, ready to fire the sphere and end it once and for all. But in that moment, she found herself hesitating. If this creature had been created by the Mask Lemiddus had found, maybe it had been twisted by it like he had. Lemiddus hadn’t meant to kill Kyros—he had been confused. Maybe this creature didn’t want to kill them, and it was only doing what the damned Mask was making it do.
Before she could make up her mind she felt her finger contract, pulling back on the trigger. Time seemed to slow as the sphere cut through the seawater towards the creature. Idris watched as it passed through the exposed tissue and muscle, and the pulsing organ disintegrated into a puff of black dust.
The creature wobbled where it stood as its attacks against the Toa began sluggish. Energy crackled along the edges of the wound, but noticeably less than before. It grew dimmer and dimmer, the healing slowing as it did so. Then it stopped completely as the last of the golden sparks fizzled out with no new ones to replace it. The creature wavered in the current, then drifted face first down into the sand.
Idris glared at the Toa just in time to see his Mask of Water Breathing reappear on his face. She didn’t see what mask it replaced, but she knew that she had not made the decision to pull the trigger. She swam furiously in his direction, anger building inside her. She didn’t know what she would do when she reached him, or what she could possibly do to a Toa, but she was sure she could figure something out. But she never got a chance, as her next breath filled her mouth with seawater. Her air was gone.
She grasped at her neck reflexively as terror dawned deep within her. She was still too far away from the city, there was no way she could swim there in time. Black spots began to speckle her vision. Pain racked her entire body, as if every bit of her was dying at once. She had inhaled some of the seawater, and now it was mutating her, changing her into who knew what kind of monstrosity.
She collapsed and sunk down to the sea floor. It was a hopeless situation: she had seen what happened to Matoran that had been mutated by the water. They lost themselves, became monsters, cannibalistic animals, to the extent that Dekar had been forced to order that any Matoran who started to mutate without a solid chance of finding air needed to be put down on the spot.
Idris knew immediately what she needed to do. She refused to become a monster, to let the horrible water around them turn her into something else. Her hands grasped wildly around for her Electro-Blade, fumbling to pull it out of its sheath. She squeezed her eyes shut as she lifted the weapon to her chest, preparing to save herself from a fate worse than death.
Something knocked the blade from her hands and grabbed her up off the sea floor. Idris felt herself being carried by two large, cold hands. Through her clouded vision she saw the Toa’s face, staring ahead with a grim expression. She tried to scowl at him, but she was too weak.
Then she was inside an Air Dome. She felt herself being laid down on the ground, felt the water being forced from her lungs. She coughed once, then twice. Water trickled down her cheeks, and the pain began to recede, even as her body still twisted from the mutagen still in her system that had already irreparably warped her body into something new and different. The back spots had vanished from her eyes, clearing her vision. She looked up to see two faces looking down at her: the Toa and Kaira. Kaira was frantically moving over her, yelling commands at several other Matoran around them. The Toa was sitting beside her, and once he saw she was aware of her surroundings he began to speak softly to her.
“My name is Glace. I’m from Metru Nui. I’m here to help.”
He didn’t have the voice of a warrior; his pitch was a warm tenor and his words flowed too smoothly for him not to be an experienced orator. Even so, Idris recognized the weight of loss and regret in his voice—a weight Idris carried herself, every day.
Idris felt unconsciousness closing in. She didn’t fight it. But as she looked up at the Toa, her eyes met his. Her moment of recognition had changed nothing. With her last waking breath, she gave him the message she had wanted to back out in the ocean.
“Damn you.”
Sleep had never felt so good.
Epilogue[]
Kyros has always fancied himself a loner. After all, many of the great scholars of Ko-Metru were eccentrics who lived alone atop their knowledge towers, contemplating the nature of the universe. It was only natural that he would follow in their footsteps and live a life of noble isolation. He had never sought out the company of his inferiors, never desired friendship. But in the shadows of the cave he’d taken shelter in, he had discovered the true meaning of loneliness.
The Ko-Matoran stared emptily at the wall of the cave opposite him, trying to make sense of the day that had gone to hell so fast. Just that morning he had been the Council Leader, charged with the most important duty in all of Mahri Nui. And now he was hiding in an air pocket tucked away the darkest corners of Echo Canyon.
“You’re a murderer Kyros!” Defilak’s words echoed through his mind over and over. “A cold-blooded murderer!”
Kyros sneered at the memory. Defilak couldn’t possibly understand why he’d done what he’d done. His head was too full of hot air and his hands too covered in grease for him to appreciate enormity of the events that had just occurred in Mahri Nui. He reached into his pack and pulled out the Mask. Just by holding it he could feel its power, power enough to dwarf even that of a Makuta. This was no mere Kanohi, it was something much, much more. It called to him, inviting him to wield it. If he absorbed even a fraction of the Mask’s power, he would be unstoppable.
Unstoppable. Think of what I could do with that power!
But how would he ever use his newfound abilities? If he ever set foot in Mahri Nui again, the other Matoran would lock him up, or worse. They would never understand what he was trying to accomplish. They might even grow jealous of him and try to take the Mask away.
They couldn’t stop me if they tried.
Now there was an idea. Nobody could stop him while he had the mask. He could force them all into submission and take back his place as leader of Mahri Nui by force. Then he could move on to Voya Nui, control an entire island. Then, who knew? The world would be his. He saw himself standing in the box in the Coliseum of Metru Nui, the entire city cheering his name.
The Mask was the answer to everything. Its power was infinite. And it was his. He deserved it, after everything he had suffered to get here. All he needed to do was draw the power out.
I’ll be a god!
He focused on the Mask, drawing its power into him. The Mask flared with golden light, and the energy pulsed up his arms and into his heartlight. The Ko-Matoran sighed with ecstasy as the power filled him again, ten times as much as before. He could feel his atoms vibrating, feel his awareness stretching beyond his base senses into something more. He was tapping into a well of power vaster than anyone could ever imagine.
There was a problem, though. At the rate his powers depleted themselves, would he be able to engage in combat? A handful of Matoran with old and battered weapons was one thing, but if he were to run out in the middle of a fight with a Makuta he would be destroyed on the spot. Perhaps if he wore the Mask? Then he could draw on its power whenever he needed, and never risk running out.
He lifted the Mask to his face.
NO!
Kyros froze. Why had he just thought that? He wanted—no, he needed to wear the Mask. He lifted it to his face once more.
Not yet. I must be patient. the time is not right.
The Ko-Matoran frowned, concern beginning to creep in at the edges of his triumph. He had not thought that himself. Sure, it had been in his head, and had felt like every other thought he’d ever had, but it was certainly not his own thought. So how did it get in his head? Kyros stared down at the Mask, the pieces beginning to fall into place.
It’s always the clever ones. Is it too much to ask for someone more gullible to find me for once?
Kyros’ eyes narrowed. Whatever was in his head had dropped the façade. It no longer sounded like his own thoughts but someone else’s, though it still spoke within his mind as if he were the one thinking it.
That Toa of Sonics on the surface was clever, too. He figured me out, and then he threw me into the sea. But I digress. You don’t care about that, do you?
Kyros’ voice shook as he spoke. “Who are you? Why are you in my head?”
The voice laughed. It was an unnerving, coolly confident and omniscient sounding laugh. The kind of laugh that made you feel like you were back in school in Ga-Metru and had just answered a question wrong in front of the entire class. Like the one laughing knew everything and you knew nothing.
Kyros hated that kind of laugh.
I’m not in your head, fortunately. It would be so cramped and uncomfortable, even with all that empty space.
The Ko-Matoran scowled indignantly for a few seconds before realizing the voice probably couldn’t see his face. But if he wasn’t in his head, where was he? Outside, in the ocean? Was she communicating with him telepathically?
The last Matoran figured it out less than a minute after he realized I was manipulating his thoughts. You’ve had three. He was just a simple guard, you’re an educated scholar. Think, before I grow bored of you.
Lemiddus. What did she know about Lemiddus? The Mask. That had to be it. The Mask wasn’t just immensely powerful, it was alive.
I suppose that’s close enough.
Mata Nui. He was talking to a Kanohi. And inanimate object.
Perhaps you aren’t—
The voice cut off abruptly as Kyros hurled the mask across the cave. As soon as it left his hands, the voice disappeared. For a moment he sat there, basking in the silence. In the short time he had spent ‘talking’ to it he had forgotten what it was like to have his own thoughts. His own ideas. It was amazing how just a few minutes of having something inside your head made you value your privacy that much more.
He stared at the glowing mask warily, as if expecting it to grow arms and try to strangle him. When it did nothing he frowned, then slowly crawled over to the Kanohi. Tentatively, he touched it.
Are you done?
Kyros exhaled slowly so that he’d sound more confident when he was making his demand. “I’d like you to tell me who you are and why I can hear you in my head.”
The voice laughed again. Kyros flinched.
Perhaps you aren’t as much like that other Matoran as I thought. He wanted to destroy me. But you don’t want that, do you? You need the power I can give you.
“What if I don’t believe you? What if I decided Lemiddus was right and that you need to be destroyed?”
You won’t destroy the mask. Even if you knew how. You don’t just want it, you need it. Without its power you’re a dead Matoran.
“What do you mean?” he asked, something twisting ominously in his gut. A bad feeling that he wouldn’t like what he was about to hear.
When the Fa-Matoran touched the mask, it cursed him so anyone who touched him would be fried to a crisp. But I saved you. When you touched him, I sent along a little extra energy to reboot you, and keep you alive. But if you ever run out of energy all that will be left is a lifeless husk and nothing will be able to bring you back.
Kyros felt lightheaded, and his breathing began to quicken. He could feel the panic creeping in, like it had decades ago, during the accident that had caused him to be sent away from Metru Nui in the first place. He pressed his palms against the cold stone floor and listened to the slow drip of water from the stalactites to steady himself.
“Assuming I believe you,” he said at last, choosing his words slowly and carefully so it couldn’t tell how he was feeling, “I can get energy from other places. There are cities full of energy back home. I don’t need the Mask, or you. Sure, I won’t be as powerful, but then I don’t have worry about whether I can trust you.”
You know how much you used just to get the mask and get out of Mahri Nui. You’d have to drain an entire city to live a month. Face it Kyros, you’re living on borrowed time. Time you borrowed from me. It’s time to pay up.
Kyros felt the panic creeping back into him as he realized the voice was right.It was possible that if he didn’t use his powers, he might be able to live for a while. But if he wanted to take what he’d always deserved for himself, he would need to fight, and he would need more power than he could get from anywhere else. The voice and the Mask were a package deal. He could not have one without the other.
“What do you want?” he asked begrudgingly.
I’m stuck in this mask, and you need it to stay alive. Help me get a body, an appropriately powerful one, then we’ll part ways. You with the mask, and me with a body. A mutually beneficial relationship.
Kyros considered her offer. On one hand, he needed the Mask, that much was clear. On the other, he knew nothing about this voice, while it could peek into his mind whenever it pleased. That would make it hard to keep secrets, which he would undoubtedly need to do at some point. But he needed the mask more than secrets. Granted, he could keep keep the mask in his pack, not touching him so it couldn’t peer into his mind except when he wanted it to. But he’d had to speak to it every time he needed to recharge, and every time they needed to plan. He sighed. Logically, he had no choice. That didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Fine,” he said aloud. “We’ll stick together.”
Took you long enough.
Either it hadn’t been listening in on his thoughts, or it was pretending that it hadn’t. Kyros wasn’t so foolish as to assume the former was the case, so he decided to tread carefully.
“But,” he added firmly, “I don’t want you looking through my thoughts and memories without permission. If I get the slightest hint that you’ve been reading my mind without permission, and I’ll toss you off the first cliff I find. Do I make myself clear?”
Transparently.
The voice seemed amused more than anything else. Kyros chose to ignore that for the time being.
“Good,” he said. He paused for a moment, then remember something. “You never told me your name. If you even have one.”
You may call me Iiliara.
A chill ran up Kyros’ spine and lingered at the back of his mind. “Well then, Iiliara, since you seem to have this all figured out, what’s our first step?”
You were almost there. Connect to the mask again and reach out with its power.
Kyros wasn’t sure what more this would accomplish. He didn’t think he could hold much more energy than he already was. But he did as he was told, allowing the power of the Mask to flow over him. Once more he could feel his atoms vibrating, he could feel his senses expanding.
What do you feel?
Kyros closed his eyes and focused on what he felt around him. His mind began to stretch out to a new level of existence. He felt something on the edge of his new sensation. A strange feeling, like hot pinpricks clustered above him. Precisely ninety-seven of them, he realized.
It doesn’t feel like much of a city from here now, does it?
With a start Kyros realized he was feeling Mahri Nui. He could sense the life force of every Matoran in the city, from here. He let out a nervous but awed chuckle as his fingers grew tighter around the Mask in his lap.
“How is this possible?” he asked.
This is no ordinary mask, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. You hold in your hand the Kanohi Ignika, the Mask of Life.
Kyros had read about the Ignika in some of the most ancient texts held in the Knowledge Towers. He and most of the rest of the scholars had dismissed it as nothing more than a legend. But here it was, in his very hands: the most powerful Kanohi mask in existence.
The Ignika is linked to every living thing in your universe. Stretch out a little farther, if you can.
Emboldened by his previous success, Kyros reached out yet again, this time reaching even further beyond Mahri Nui. He began to feel a warm glow from far above Mahri Nui, the life forces of hundreds of Rahi and Matoran on Voya Nui. And then he felt it—a massive source of energy beyond anything he could’ve possibly imagined. If the Mask of Life’s power was a tidal wave, this was an entire ocean. Kyros gasped and instinctively pulled back, only to find that the sensation lingered. He was still connected to this gargantuan system.
“What in Mata Nui’s name is that?”
Someday you’ll appreciate the irony of that question.
Kyros didn’t know what Iiliara meant by that. “How can the whole world be sitting on top of something like that and not know? That’s insane!”
Iiliara laughed its same, condescending laugh.
Your world is nothing like you imagine it to be. I can explain it to you, but we should get moving first.
“Get moving?” Kyros asked. “Where are we going?”
Below.
Defilak knew something was wrong as soon as he saw the Hydruka still out in the Fields of Airweed. Gar should’ve brought them back inside the Air Dome when the Safe Hour ended. One of the other Keepers, the Bo-Matoran named Leeta, had told him that Gar had volunteered to fill in for Reysa for today’s harvest. Gar, the most punctual Matoran Defilak knew. Gar, who had once boasted that “only death could keep me from being on time.”
“Watch my back,” Defilak told Dekar, who stood beside him at the edge of the city. The Po-Matoran had insisted on coming along when Defilak had realized Gar wasn’t among the Matoran who had taken cover inside the Fortress when the creature attacked. Normally Defilak would’ve balked at the prospect of someone keeping an eye on him, but the last two days had shown him the value of having someone you trusted by your side.
He stepped out of the Air Dome and into the water. From his waterproof satchel he pulled the odd looking three-pronged metal fork Leeta had given him. He gingerly plucked each of its spindly metal prongs in the order he’d been told to. Each sent a specifically tuned vibration through the water, a message to the Hydruka that it was time to return to the city. Slowly, the colorful herd began to meander its way back to the safety of their pens. That matter settled, Defilak began his search. He swam quickly over the field towards the Keeper’s customary position on the opposite side of the fields, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of his friend. There was nothing.
Defilak descended to the sea floor, looking for a clue to Gar’s whereabouts. For a few moments, he worried that he wouldn’t find anything here either. Then he noticed tracks in the mud, and his worries grew far worse. There were gashes in the mud and sand beside the airweed, left behind by what looked to Defilak like grasping hand—like someone had been dragged away. The Le-Matoran followed the tracks away from the airweed and out into the vast emptiness of the sea, a feeling of despair growing in his gut. His worst fears were confirmed as he reached the end of the tracks and gazed down into the inky blackness that filled the massive u-shaped crafter that surrounded Mahri Nui.
Gar had been taken into the Black Water.
Defilak slumped forward, slowly sinking down onto his knees as he stared blankly into the depths. If Gar had been taken there, then there was no hope for him. Even if he managed to escape whatever had taken him, he would’ve drowned before he found his way back home. Gar was gone. Defilak wondered what had got him; he imagined his friend being drained by the Vampire Squid or mauled by the red monster that had killed Sarda, and a thousand other deaths at the hands of the unknown horrors of the depths.
Something flashed on a ledge just a few feet below him: A dull, muted metallic flash. His gut clenching into a knot, Defilak glanced over his shoulder to make sure Dekar was still watching him and then swam down along the edge of the crater. He felt a familiar unease as tendrils of murky darkness snaked around him, threatening to drag him down into the darkness again. He knew Dekar was probably furiously swimming after him, ready to drag him back to Mahri Nui and yell at him about how stupid what he was doing was, but he didn’t care. He had to know.
He reached the ledge, and his breath caught in his throat as he identified the object. It was a familiar black Kanohi Komau, battered nearly past the point of recognition and covered in tooth marks. The red monster had gotten him. Devoured him like it had Sarda.
Defilak picked the mask up and stared into its empty eyeholes. It felt wrong not to see his friend’s eyes through them, not to hear him making some obnoxiously sarcastic comment about whatever his current pet peeve was. It was disconcerting to see a mask once so full of life so silent and empty. His fist clenched involuntarily. Dozens of pent-up emotions threated to break free of mental blocks he’d put up to keep them back so he could focus on the tasks at hand. The anger, the frustration, the loss. Fate had already stolen one life away from him, could it truly be so cruel as to destroy another?
He slipped the Komau into his satchel and turned to swim back out of the crater. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something, a faint glint of the rapidly fading sunlight from above catching on something. He threw a glance over his shoulder to see three luminous blue orbs floated in the darkness behind him.
The red monster was watching him.
Defilak stared back at the monster, his mental barriers shattering, and the anger and hatred gushed out to fill every inch of his being. In that moment, Defilak made a decision: he would accept the position Dekar had offered him. He would lead Mahri Nui, and he would defend it from anyone and anything who dared to attack it
For Sarda.
For Lemiddus.
For Gar.
He knew the red monster wouldn't be able to hear him through the water, and that it wouldn’t even understand what he was saying if it could. He didn’t care. “You can ever-hide down there in your shadows. You can try and pick us off one by one. But you killed my best friend, and for that you’ll pay. Even if it takes me a lifetime, I heart-swear I’ll see you burn in whatever hell spawned you.”
The eyes blinked. The Le-Matoran turned and swam up and out of the Black Water.
But Defilak had been wrong. The red monster had adapted to live in the depths, and his ears were attuned to the vibrations speech made underwater. He had heard every word The Le-Matoran said, and they had deeply amused him. Defilak’s audio receptors were not so attuned, so he would not have understood the red monster’s reply, had he been able to hear it at all.
“I’d like to see you try, little meal.”
Characters[]
(In order of appearance)
Story Notes[]
- The original Rock Bottom was written and completed in 2014. It was received well, and was honored as both a Featured Story and the 2014 Best Page of the Year. In 2022, to celebrate his 10th Anniversary of joining the Wiki, DeltaStriker released a remastered version of the story, cleaning up the 8-year-old prose and adding in originally cut or previously separated content. The original version has been preserved here without any alterations to the pages' original appearance or content.
- One of the largest changes to the content of the story was correcting minor worldbuilding details to more closely adhere to the canon. For example:
- In the original version the Matoran kept the "Gifts from Above" in a "Hall of Gifts;" in the updated version, they are kept in the "Holy Sanctuary" as they were in the canon version of events.
- The Safe Hour, the period in which the Matoran can safely leave the Air Domes to farm the Airweed or do other tasks, was largely absent from the original text; in the updated version, multiple Matoran refer to the Safe Hour and how it affects their ability to leave the city under normal circumstances.
- The original version had a scene where Defilak piloted his submersible through a case system below Mahri Nui called Echo Canyon in an attempt to escape from Kalmah. During the editing process, this scene was cut due to contributing very little to the overall narrative, making room for more important additions to the serial.
- The launcher that Lemiddus and Dekar use against Kyros in Chapters 5 and 6 is a Thornax Launcher that was on Aqua Magna when the Shattering occurred. The launcher would have been one of many supplies kept by soldiers during the Core War to be abandoned during the Shattering, and the chest that contained it was likely dislodged from the sea floor during the Great Cataclysm for Gemini to find before the events of the serial.
- Another minor change was made in the Epilogue, when Kyros is speaking to Iiliara. In the original version, Kyros used she/her pronouns to refer to Iiliara, but in the new version he uses it/its to highlight his lack of empathy and respect for other beings.
Trivia[]
- A number of the characters contained within this story were created by other users, who generously offered to let DeltaStriker use them for the story. Delta would like to thank Zanywoop for Lemiddus; BobTheDoctor27 for Kyros; Zombiejiger for Gemini; Viro13 for Aescela; and Matoro58 for Feton. The story would not be the same without these users and their creations.
- The remastered story's official banner was kindly created by Invader39.
| The Story of the Afterverse (v|e) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Stories of Bara Magna | Honor Among Thieves | ||
| The Journey of the Ignika | 777 • Rock Bottom | ||
| Psuedocanon | Black Water • Rock Bottom (Original) • Hellbound | ||