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Cederak

Outstanding BZPower Citizens
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Everything posted by Cederak

  1. I wonder what's next.

  2. I don't have the case, but the only mask left is the silver Miru. -Ced EDIT: Gold Vahi is available again!
  3. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Guess I'll always have to be, living in a fantasy. –Supertramp Episode 22: Affirmation (Epilogue) <<<Drelinok/Teridax: Onward>>> Approximately 16,800 years ago, on Meldio/One Year after Drelinok's Defeat, on Destral Drelinok looked out from the balcony of the Directorate capitol building, smiling as the crowds cheered for him to speak. He had fought a long and grueling campaign to reach this moment, and he paused before beginning. "The night has engulfed us for centuries and dawn greets us at last. Our war with the Collective is finally won, but we are not victorious, only shortsighted." Teridax stood before his brethren in the Convocation Chamber, a malicious smile plastered across his face. Like the rest of the Brotherhood, the shutting out of his inner light caused him to develop a more sinister appearance in the process. The bright red eyes beneath his Mask of Shadows surveyed the audience of Makuta before him and Teridax began to speak. "Welcome, brothers and sisters. I am pleased to announce that Gorast and Icarax have concluded their hunting trip. As you can see, the masks of Miserix's devotees now hang on these walls as a reminder to where supporting the condemned will get you." "As Meldin, we have a responsibility to uphold the values of the universe, to stand unwavering before those that have lost their way. While we slayed our brothers and sisters over a battle of ideas, Pridak, Kalmah, Ehlek, Carapar, Mantax, and Takadox betrayed the universe, to take up the mantle of Barraki. Such terrible sins cannot be disregarded." "With our knowledge and position of power in the universe, I take comfort in the information Mutran encountered. When Pridak attempted to exploit that same knowledge, I thought him insane. I see now I was correct. Mata Nui had set Pridak aside for the destiny of a pawn, and it was not a destiny he could escape by being chosen to preside over so much for the Great Spirit." "Now the universe of the Great Spirit is in jeopardy and if these traitors are not put down, I see only a future of darkness ahead. Indeed, the time has come where Meldin can no longer turn their weapons on one another. Biomechs need our strength now more than ever, to look outside of ourselves and determine a brighter tomorrow for all, as the Creed dictates." "We were chosen for no such task. Our first request in this universe was to create Rahi, and we obeyed. Our second request was to protect the Matoran, and we obeyed. It cannot be denied that we have a third task before us now, to lead the universe as Pridak could have never imagined and Mata Nui refuses to do." "Mata Nui would stand idly by and watch as his realms are conquered, pillaged, and razed. He seeks a champion of the light, a symbol of hope, and a guardian of all that exists. We will be that guardian. I promise you that we can lead the universe out of the shadows made by these deceptive murderers. If we do not stand against them, they will bring about the doom of this world." "Our reign will be one of activity, where guidelines are not in ambiguous virtues, but are given weight by our actions. Mata Nui has provided an age of information filled with meaningless thoughts, words, opinions, and theories about what the Great Spirit feels is best. The Plan will provide context to declare Mata Nui is disconnected from this world and that it must be run by those in the position to see precisely what its inhabitants need most." "The hour has arrived where Meldin must unite the universe in a concerted effort to save our beloved home and the homes of so many we have never known. I will not allow our kind to be extinguished like a dying flame in the icy wind." "Drelinok nearly took this universe for himself and while I do not know what became of him after his defeat in Metru Nui, the termination of his energy signature would suggest his death. Our greatest threat is now a mere memory." "Monsters and liars have put Mata Nui's universe at risk and they are truly the most dangerous entities we could ever know. To allow them to share and bask in the light of the Great Spirit desecrates the life and freedom he has granted us to defend ourselves." "Drelinok has destroyed his legacy on Meldio, his brethren viewing him as little more than a dark stain on their history after his sudden reappearance. I made a personal visit to the island to ensure we would never encounter another Meldin like him and it was clear they have no interest in such experimentation. Still, having a Makuta stationed there puts me at greater ease." "The Meldin Directorate endures because it is required. We exist to oversee a universe in peril from itself." "Now, let us take to the world and create our façade, to express what noble and proud servants of Mata Nui we are. When The Plan moves into its final phase, accepting the truth will be simple. In fact, they may even thank us for our service. Ironically, the last thing we want on our hands is a rebellion." "And so I have begun construction on what will become the most significant technological advancement in our history – the Amplifier. Through it, every Meldin will acquire the power to enforce the will of Mata Nui." "We were destined for this my brothers and sisters, to claim the throne of an unfit ruler. And destiny is not a force to be ignored." "No matter the cost, whatever the effort; these are the words I swore to uphold when I became your Director. We shall take back the universe together, my brethren, and the Creed will guide our swords and our rifles to triumph." Teridax released a faint laugh, satisfied with his words. "The universe waits for us now; the era of the Makuta has begun." "There can be no room for fear or doubt in confronting the darkness. Truly, our failure would mean the end of everything." <<<Trylac: Mission Complete>>> "After 19,000 years, our indicators show that Project Amplifier has been a success. The outputs are unbelievable if Adrinor can access them at will, and he will make an excellent weapon of light against the Brotherhood. It took nearly twice as long as the process Drelinok experienced, but all of our telepaths have agreed that Adrinor's mental readings are now in good standings. I know how important keeping Adrinor from developing a god-complex was to you." Toa Helryx reflected on Trylac's report, setting aside the official tablet on the matter. She would have it catalogued away with the stored collection of information on Daxia, in the event her team should ever require the data again. "Having consulted with other agents, it has been determined your report is nothing short of stellar. I find no legitimate reason for your continued pursuit of his surviving allies and declare your mission complete. I've signed off to have you moved to a new assignment that has been in the preparation phase for quite some time. The matter is highly sensitive and a single misstep could prove fatal to all of our futures. That being said, your record with the Order is without reproach, especially given your handling of critical operations in the past." "Thank you, ma'am." Trylac narrowed his eyes. "So…Adrinor's friends are being let go?" Helryx sighed heavily and glanced back down at the tablets. "Our surveillance has determined they are not a threat to the agency and have not spoken a word of Adrinor's existence in this facility. They have continued living as outlaws, but with the Makuta ruling under martial law, it's only a matter of time until they come a little too close to a piece of Brotherhood property and have a bounty on their heads. It's a shame, Trylac. With the proper training, they could have been wonderful field operatives." Trylac frowned, nodding. "Yes…a shame, indeed. Have we adopted a codename for the task I am being assigned to?" Helryx smiled facetiously. "Operation Time Slip. I will say no more until you're officially briefed, but I think you'll like this one. Your attention to detail will serve you greatly." "It always has before," Trylac replied. "I only wish I had been assigned to prevent the experimentation on Zakaz before things took a nasty turn." "To be honest, the Zakaz incident was not a worst-case scenario. I admit our management of the Panacea's leftover viruses could have been more…particular, but the blame publicly rests on the shoulders of Makuta Spiriah. We provided the tools for him to conduct his research, and it was Spiriah who gave the Skakdi the power to burn buildings with their eyes and join hands to summon the elements. My curiosity with Magistrate Zanteox's work was outweighed by my apprehension to use it on the public, but Spiriah was not bound by the ethics of being born a Toa. As far as I am concerned, he got what he deserved." "Understood. I'll head out for my operational briefing if that's all right." "Yes, of course," Helryx said flatly. "You're dismissed." <<<Adrinor: Fair Enough>>> There is no description of what it feels like to have your mind running in dreams for so long that would paint an adequate picture. It cannot be appreciated unless it is felt, and I experienced it in full. When I was released from stasis, my initial thought is that I was dying. My eyes jumped open and my body fell forward, scooped up by Trylac. The alarm on the pod was still ringing out when I heard him speak. It was strange to hear words in real life again. I did not listen to what those words meant, but we were quickly teleported out of the room by an unseen force. My breathing was quick and heavy, and I glanced up at the nearest object. It was a colossal statue of a Meldin, sparkling in the sun. I had been returned to my first home. "What's going on here? Has it…has it been 11,000 years?" I breathed out. Trylac slowly forced me to stand up straight before turning my head in the direction of a placard at the statue's feet. "It has been 19,000 years. Read it." I took a step forward and nearly collapsed under my own weight. It was nothing like the walking I had done in my mind. My body was ready to take the step, but my mind had expected something else. I carefully approached the statue and read the placard aloud to myself. "Remember eternal, this statue was erected for the Meldin named Adrinor in the year 20,900 of our society. His bravery allowed him to destroy the evil light of Drelinok and shall remain an honorary Director of this island until the end of time. He upheld the words of our Meldin Creed and an unwavering responsibility to the universe. For this, every part of the world will forever be in his debt. Good night, hero of the dawn." I looked closer at the sculpture and realized that, yes, Meldio had constructed a statue in my image. I whirled back to Trylac. "How did they…?" "I told them after you were locked into stasis," Trylac explained, grinning. "We took the subject to the Makuta of Meldio and requested this statue be made in your honor. He agreed with the decision, seeing as you confronted Drelinok while fighting for the Brotherhood. The whole universe may never know your name, but your brothers and sisters will never forget it. This is your cenotaph, a monument to the greatest victory you ever achieved, built by a world that believes you have passed on." "Thank you, Trylac," I said, still in shock. "19,000 years, huh?" Trylac exhaled heavily and narrowed his eyes on me. "We wanted to ensure you would not be a threat to others or yourself, but it's done now. The intended effects of Drelinok's Amplifier now live within you – perfecting his evolutionary track for your species. Consider it a gift for taking so many years from you. In truth, the real gift here is that I am disobeying my own agency to set you free. Helryx and the others wanted to experiment further when you were released, but you were kept from your life long enough. I understood after a time that someone else was kept from your life as well. You are not mine to keep as an asset, Adrinor, but we will be in touch if anything disturbing should arise." Trylac was teleported away and I had no indication of where the ability was coming from. I did not linger on it long, because a memorable voice caught my attention. "You're looking well." Celvey dropped from the statue's shoulder and landed gracefully next to me. She smiled, still wearing my gunblade after all those years. I laughed for a second and hugged her tight, feeling the first real, warm embrace I had known in a long time. There was nothing to say, because in my mind, I had said it all thousands of times before. Celvey did not know this, but the only thing I was able to do was hold her and smile. "You'll have to let go eventually, Adrinor. I have a gunblade to return to you." I released her and felt overcome with elation. "I've dreamed of this moment countless times. There were days when I thought it would never be real, but I really, truly made it. There was so much on my mind and so many minds that I could hear. Everything Drelinok said about the Amplifier's power was correct. I always hoped there would be a day when I could share all the things I conjured up in there, and, well…here we are." "Here we are," Celvey repeated, smiling wistfully. "Everything is different, but you are so comfortably familiar." I hesitated to ask a question, afraid of the answer I might receive. "Where are the others?" Celvey seemed to look right through me when she replied, "They're gone." It hurt to hear her say that. I wished I could have been there, to save them in their darkest hours. As much as I wanted to blame Trylac and Toa Helryx, they had granted me untold power and I was released into the world with it. They took great care to keep me safe and now I had become something more. At the price of being unable to prevent the deaths of my friends, I had been transformed into a higher lifeform. There were so many others I could protect with that kind of power, listening to billions of their thoughts while I dreamed. "How did they…y'know…? I mean…what killed them?" Celvey almost smiled. "Would you believe that Zanteox survived the fall into the harbor outside Zakaz when you crashed his ship? I don't know what happened in your encounter with him, but he was a mess when we returned to Trevahka to ensure his operations were finished. One of his arms and an eye were mechanical replacements, using his viruses to transform himself for combat. I watched Elendra put a bullet in his head a couple minutes after he impaled Hadliek on a mutated stinger tail. There was no one who could heal Hadliek's injuries, and he died staying behind to detonate the last Panacea base in the universe." "Elendra finished the job for me," I said to myself. "I should have been more thorough. What happened to Elendra, exactly? Who had the firepower to end her life?" "She became a vigilante operating out of Stelt called the Night Angel. She told me that it was a fun habit to target Sidorak's clan most often, but her bold nature got the best of her. I don't know how much truth there is to it, but the rumor is that the Makuta of Stelt utilized Voporak in taking her down. The Brotherhood did something to him…something abnormal. His will is no longer his own and he works for the Dark Hunters. Same as Kyrhus." "You said everyone died." "As we knew him, yes, Kyrhus is dead. He works for the Shadowed One now as an agent named Blitz. We've met a couple times and he's still working out a method to overpower telekinetic abilities." I cursed and growled. "Blitz is a decent codename. I'll have to pay him a visit. What about you, Celvey? I take it you've been busy using my gunblade?" Celvey presented me with my weapon and I studied its surface, admiring the polished and shimmering protosteel blade. "It's been useful, but I keep it in pristine condition. For 19,000 years, it was my only memory of you. Besides the scars and stories of our time together, that weapon is the one reminder that everything we had was real. We all gave up trying to locate the facility where you were being held a few years after you were placed in stasis. To be honest, losing Hadliek caused us to go our separate ways. I went home and stood by Auredel when he passed. His council said the stress of the war years had been too much and prematurely aged his tired form. A similar thing happened to Meruvia too, but she outlived Auredel a while. Eventually, I watched her die as well, and decided to take up the position they had always wanted for me." I smiled at her. "You became the Queen of the House of Crystal." She nodded. "I served by myself for 1,000 years. After that, I extended an offer of peace to the neighboring provinces with a secret plan to overthrow our Makuta. The Brotherhood began to destroy their inner light before you fought Drelinok, and I think the Makuta of Ilisi despised our natural element because of that, happy to watch the Houses distrust one another. United, we managed to kill him. It was a short-lived victory when the rest of the Brotherhood invaded with their armies and wiped out most of the island. I used to be a rarity for my special powers, and now I am a member of an endangered species." I sadly lowered my head. "I'll make this right somehow. The Amplifier gave me the power to correct the faults of this universe." "If you start floating, you'll almost be Drelinok talking like that." I held Celvey by her shoulders and quietly replied, "I promise you, that will never happen." I felt ready for anything the future might have in store, and for the first time in a long time, I was hopeful. I almost didn't want to believe what happened next, because I thought the worst was over. I had confronted my past and survived my demons, but within minutes of being awake again, life was already finding ways to surprise me. I fell to my knees as my vision blurred and my body grew faint. I gasped for air and dropped the gunblade into the grass, feeling Celvey attempt to hold me up by my arm. "What's wrong?" she asked in a tone laced with fear. The sensation lasted no more than a few seconds, and I instantly regained control of my body. I looked up at Celvey and sighed. "I think I'll be okay." Celvey responded with a sigh of relief, unexpectedly followed by her eyes growing wide. She released my arm and took a few uneasy steps backward, as though I had transformed into a monster. I looked over my parts and rose to my feet, gunblade in hand. "Celvey?" I said, walking toward her. She recoiled, giving me a terrified expression. "Your eyes…they flickered bright yellow." Her words froze me in place, and I was reminded of my lengthy discussion on Nohtal with Drelinok. It had been so long, though the exchange seemed etched into my memory. I stared up at the statue before us, almost able to hear the carved Adrinor repeat my ancient words back to me. "I will not be your vessel into the future. Nothing will save you from destruction." As clear as day, my mind evoked the memory of Drelinok's eyes when he replied, and the amplified intensity that lived within them. "That remains to be seen." "I'm not sure what that means…and I won't have to face it alone. The mysteries of the unknown never stopped us before, after all." "That was another time," Celvey replied in an empty tone. "Practically another world. It's refreshing to see you like this, so undeterred and unchanged, but our universe has moved on without you." "Then there's something new waiting for us out there." Celvey gave me a smile, and I could see the years had worn the slightest touch of age into her face. I never did find her while inside the stasis pod, unable to grant her a static avatar like all the other minds that populated my mental world. She had been awake for everything I missed, probably fighting her way through anything and anyone that thought to contain or limit her horizons. Whatever it was, those experiences had exhausted the youthful, energetic Celvey I met. Her eyes were more confident, misted by the burden of gray-tinged wisdom, but no less beautiful and blue to me. "I can take you to it," she replied in a whisper, offering her hand. "If you'll have me." And with that, she led Adrinor and I to the sea. Review
  4. And now, Episode 22, the epilogue, is posted. The top post in this review topic will also be updated with a spoiler-filled sort of "director's commentary" on Cynosure. I would strongly recommend finishing the epic before opening it. So where do we go from here? That's a fair question. I said it a few times before, but including the long-deleted archives, I have completed 12 epics and about 20-some short stories. That's it for me. I'm finished. It has a been a long road to the end here, and Cynosure alone took 3 years. I wish everyone who walked this path at different segments with me were here to see this post. I cannot thank you all enough for the sense of community I have found in this library and I have learned a lot during my time here. It doesn't mean I'm leaving BZPower forever, but this was the one major thing keeping me with any activity outside of the occasional log-in for old time's sake. Perhaps I'll take up reading the stories of others again, albeit less critic club style and more casual interest. To my readers, you have been amazing. I think some of my works have been more self-indulgent than others, but at the end of the day, my focus has always been to give my readers something worth their while. I'm glad you enjoyed this last journey into the Matoran Universe with me. Thank you so much. -Ced
  5. Well, that plus shipping might be a bit steep for one mask, even is it is the vahi Good luck with the selling, anyhow! If you're stateside, I can cover shipping. Also, looking for $5 for the Miru, and $35 for the Trans Hau. -Ced Does Canada count as stateside? If so, I'd like to buy the Vahi. Close enough. Yeah, send me a PM and we'll talk payment. -Ced
  6. Well, that plus shipping might be a bit steep for one mask, even is it is the vahi Good luck with the selling, anyhow! If you're stateside, I can cover shipping. Also, looking for $5 for the Miru, and $35 for the Trans Hau. -Ced
  7. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone. -Elton John Episode 21: Halcyon There are nights when I cannot sleep that I think about possibilities. I imagine other dimensions where alternate versions of myself have lived out the decisions I did not. I have envisioned an Adrinor who led the Collective to victory, imprisoned Drelinok, and overthrew the Directorate. I dreamed of an Adrinor who shot and killed Rovaius the day we met, and spent many more centuries working a quiet, peaceful life on a Mahi ranch. As of late, I have conjured up an Adrinor who built his own Amplifier and is staring down at Drelinok. This incarnation of myself believes he will become the next Great Spirit, while Drelinok and his outlaw friends can do nothing to stop me. I wonder if I could ever grow to embrace such egotistic thoughts, but there is surely an Adrinor who has. All of life is decisions, from the easy ones like deciding to polish your weapon today or tomorrow, to the hard ones like choosing to forcefully impale your first friend in the Metru Nui Coliseum. The most critical point that can be made is how we have to own our decisions. I can never take back and retry the important moments in my life and live as the alternate Adrinor entities have lived. Their histories are as locked away to me as my life is to them. So there is no blaming anyone else for where I end up. It is all on my shoulders, and that reality can be hard to face in the instances when I feel let down or betrayed. After Trylac shot me with a blast of energies that imprisoned me on the spot, I was dealing with a mixture of both emotions. I blacked out shortly after he assaulted me, waking up an indeterminate time later in a room I had never seen. Unknown figures were poking and prodding me, moving my parts around. I felt sedated, cognizant enough to know what was happening, but unable to interact. Trylac was among them, pointing to me while staring at a tablet in his hands. "Why are the vital sign indicators shooting up?" Trylac asked. "He's awake!" someone replied. "The sedation injections appear to be keeping him down, but we need to get the lifeform into stasis soon. If his motor functions are restored, the task of sealing him into the tube will be much more difficult." "Is it too early to inject another round of sedatives?" "We could wait a little while longer, but we've had him under for nearly a month now. I have triple checked his nervous system scans every day and nothing has come up out of the ordinary. Everything is functioning as it should, but there's no telling how much more of this his body can take." "What about his energy levels and signatures? Was Jerbraz able to get a determinate figure on that yet?" Trylac wondered. "No, nothing yet. Jerbraz has been discussing the issue with his science team and they've surmised that something about radiation from the prototype suit or the battle with Drelinok is still lingering in the lifeform's system." "There's still so much left misunderstood in that department," Trylac said, setting the tablet down and walking toward me. "Botar confirmed the prototype was destroyed beyond repair by a…stomp into the ground. Much as I wish Adrinor had not done so, I can understand where he got his logic from. As for Drelinok, we found him after Makuta Krika temporarily destroyed his physical form on Suizek by sweeping the universe for absurdly high light energies. We have been performing constant scans since his attack on Metru Nui and nothing has come up. If Adrinor's energy is truly shielded by something that happened that day, then we may be searching for answers for quite some time." "I would trust Jerbraz to find an explanation. Helryx was right to assign him to this." Trylac stifled a laugh before tugging at a tube connecting into my forearm muscle tissue. "Jerbraz personally requested leading the science division on this one. After his own…incident…with our power experiments, I think he wanted to be sure all the proper precautions were being taken on our Meldin friend here." "You may not want to say that like you're talking behind his back," another voice said to Trylac. "He could be here." "The accident rendered Jerbraz invisible," Trylac countered, "he still has a scent. Even the faint ones rarely get by my radar." While Trylac and the scientists chatted, I was caught up in the fact that they mentioned I had been with them for a month. I wanted to know what happened to Metru Nui, and most importantly, what had become of my friends. I felt responsible for their safety because I had adopted the role of a leader, concerned where they might go after seeing their bedrooms burned to the ground. We had nothing left but one another, no longer able to even rely on Voporak and his connections. Sidorak had taken that from us in betraying his clan leader to the newly appointed Makuta of Stelt. If I had the ability to shudder as I pondered, I very well might have as the thoughts of Voporak being subjected to Brotherhood-grade torture filled my mind. They would break him eventually for his knowledge about Barraki Mantax and the ancient arrangements they once made, but there was no telling what future awaited Voporak beyond that. Trylac and a couple of his fellow agents removed all of the devices I was hooked up to and slowly tilted me backwards. I was resting in an open stasis pod and I could see the tube door directly above me. It was transparent clear, reminding me of when I wiped off the dust that caked Drelinok's Amplifier when I woke him. Upon realizing the similarity, I felt cold and scared. Trylac and his agency had not abducted me for testing to ensure I was healthy and safe, they had other plans. "The Iridiex core is stabilized, Trylac," one of the scientists declared. As much as I wanted to delude myself into thinking otherwise, there was no longer a way for me to deny what was going on. They had successfully rebuilt the Amplifier, just for me. "How long are we going to keep the lifeform in this containment pod?" "The lifeform has a name," Trylac snapped. "We had someone check the records on Meldio to determine when Drelinok's experiment failed. It took approximately 11,000 years to supercharge him the way it did. Adrinor will be kept asleep for just as long. When the time comes to release him, we can only hope his energies will rival Drelinok and that he will be willing to fight for us." "We're taking 11,000 years of his life away from him," another scientist argued. "I can't imagine he'll be too fond of us when he learns that. The liquid chemical we're going to keep him in will prevent his body from aging a day, but his friends are going to assume him dead." Someone marched into the room and strode right up to the Amplifier tube. She was a Toa of water. "Which is why," she started, "I have agreed to let his friends say their goodbyes." The room was silent except for the low hum of the Amplifier's mechanics running in what I gathered was a standby state. Trylac finally addressed the newcomer with a warm greeting. "It's good to see you, ma'am," he said. "We are ready for Adrinor to enter the Amplifier as planned." "Excellent," she replied shortly. "We have located his team and they should be getting teleported in shortly." "Are we suppressing the Ilisian with the psionic powers?" Trylac questioned. "Absolutely," she told him. "While it is my opinion that any outbursts could be contained, I would prefer not to have my agents cleaning up a mess today. Similarly, the Trelbin will be monitored carefully after your psychological analysis of her. The Gekalan and the Todrano should not pose any issues for us." As soon as she finished speaking, the sound of multiple bursts of explosive power detonated around the room. I was still tilted back and unable to see what was going on, but I could hear everything. My friends had arrived. "Who is in charge of this?" Elendra demanded. "That's none of your concern," the unknown female replied. "My name is Toa Helryx and I invited you here to say any personal words you wanted to share with Adrinor. We are placing him into stasis for an extended period and, while it is unusual to invite outsiders to this location, I am making an exception in light of Adrinor's recent actions. His defeat over Drelinok has saved our universe and you should all be proud to have served by his side." "I can't believe you, Trylac," Elendra rebuked. "You lied to us about your true allegiance for centuries and now you're going to keep Adrinor here as an unconscious prisoner?" "We need him," Trylac tried to explain. Kyrhus slowly walked toward the Amplifier before staring down at me. My eyes were open, but his face was merely in my peripheral sight. The Gekalan was awestruck when he said, "You rebuilt the Amplifier. Mata Nui! You're going to turn him into a living weapon like Drelinok, aren't you?" "The individuals in this room know better than most that there are difficult times ahead of us," Helryx said. "Drelinok is destroyed, yes, but Makuta Teridax and his new age of the dark Brotherhood leave me uneasy. They have dispersed their kind across the universe and we need to be prepared for the possibility of a concerted attack one day. With Adrinor and this Amplifier, I am fortifying our defenses." "And what are we supposed to do without him?" Celvey asked, walking up and standing across from Kyrhus. I could faintly see a silver and violet device resting over her heartlight. This must have been the suppression method that Helryx had alluded to. "I would recommend you live your lives," Helryx stated firmly. "I am fully aware of the unscrupulous occupations you held before Drelinok's defeat, and I would advise seeking other methods of filling your time. As the Brotherhood of Makuta tighten their grip on our world, we are witnessing a moment of crisis. Nothing will be the same." "Sounds utterly depressing," Hadliek spoke up. I could not imagine how many events Trylac's agency had been orchestrating behind the scenes over the years. This Toa Helryx seemed so familiar with following procedures, that forcing my own friends to say goodbye was treated as commonplace as ever. "I'll give you all a moment," Helryx said. "There will not be a second invitation in the future, so please, say anything to Adrinor that you need to. His hearing is functional. When you have gone, this Meldin will be treated as an asset of my agency." "An asset?" Celvey exclaimed in outrage. "He's a biomech like all of us! You can't just treat him like a lifeless object for your own purposes!" "And what would you do, Ilisian?" Helryx fired back. "Like it or not, Adrinor's body is loaded with an unknown form of radiation after his encounter with Drelinok during the Battle of Metru Nui. I tend to eliminate variables when I can, and Adrinor is, without a doubt, in an undetermined status. There are things inside of him that he may not be in control of, and he will be safer here than unleashed on the universe in his current condition. I put aside the recommendations of my agency and adopted a bit of empathy for you to see Adrinor before I have him sealed. In return, I only ask that his survival remains confidential." "Who would believe me?" Elendra asked, giving Helryx a defeated chuckle. "Take me out of this place…you've basically killed Adrinor already. And as for you, Trylac, I will destroy you myself if you ever come looking." "I'm sorry that's how you feel," Trylac replied bitterly. A couple blurry figures headed for the door and I could hear Elendra being escorted away. "This is wrong," Kyrhus added. "Adrinor, whatever's left of you in there, I'll miss you." "C'mon, Kyrhus," Hadliek called. "We don't need their sympathy." They exited the room and only Celvey remained. She was silently staring at me, probably unable to find the words she wanted. From where I was sitting, I had so much to say. If Toa Helryx ever let me go, it would be at least 11,000 years before that option would be on the table. Celvey had no idea. She touched a hand to my heartlight and whispered, "I'll come back for you." I screamed inside my head, trying desperately to make anything move. I had to tell her. I had to let her know what I wanted to say, but it was pointless. There was no overcoming the chemicals in my system and I could only watch as Celvey walked away from me. Trylac picked something up from a nearby desk and approached her before she left. "I know it isn't much, but you're welcome to take this," he said quietly. "There's no use in letting it waste away in this chamber for millennia." "You're right, it isn't much," Celvey spat. "I'll take care of it for him though. I know what this weapon meant to Adrinor." A low alarm sounded off and I felt myself tilting forward. The scientists returned to my sides and I watched them insert a series of tubes along my body. A pair attached behind my neck, behind each of my arms, into my sides, and behind my legs. When they were finished, the tube door started to close, and I watched Trylac and Celvey stare back at me. As terrified as I was of the Amplifier, I wanted to smile at Celvey and tell her that everything would be okay. She wore my gunblade well, like the warrior I knew her to be. Teridax's universe would not consume her in my absence. The tube sealed tight and the alarm sound became muffled. "Activate the Iridiex core," Trylac commanded. "Flood the stasis pod." The room started to shake, and whatever structural precautions Drelinok had overlooked, Toa Helryx had thought to utilize. I felt cold, and I knew the tubes connecting to my body were active. The semi-transparent liquid that Drelinok had been floating in was filling up the tube, while the chemicals being rapidly introduced to my body were slowly causing my consciousness to fade away. The liquid was above my eyes when Celvey attempted to rush at the stasis pod, throwing her hand against it. She reached for the gunblade, my weapon, on her back, but Trylac stopped her. "Let me go!" she cried. "You can't do this to him!" "You don't understand!" Trylac shouted, pulling her away. He threw her to the floor and shot her with the same silver device he hit me with on Meldio. "Send her to Ilisi," Trylac told one of the scientists. "We have an experiment to monitor here and I don't need her interrupting anything." Those were the last words I would hear for a very long time. The chemicals overwhelmed me and I blacked out. I was alone with my thoughts, listening to nothing. It was hard to say how long I rested in the stasis pod like that, bouncing my own ideas around and thinking about things I had no one else to talk to about. The first few decades were the worst, because my mind had no experience with living inside itself for prolonged periods. It gave me a lot of time to think about everything I ever did, or said, or thought. After that, I started working on turning my thoughts off. It took a few years of practice, but it was much easier than I expected. After the first half-century, I managed to shut down for a couple hundred years. From time to time, an intrusive thought would crawl forward and pester me, although I was quick to withdraw and return to my silent meditation. My mind was clear. I had heard others say that before, when training for combat or with certain weapons. Clear your mind. This was more than that. This was total detachment into a place where nothing was said and nothing would happen. It is very possible that I spent many more years in phases of silence, ignoring any impulse to think. The stasis pod was keeping me alive, that much was certain, and there was no reason to do much else. I waited for my release, patiently and calmly. This could have gone on harmoniously until my 11,000 years were up, but in letting my thoughts slip away, I had forgotten something important. There were words spoken to me on Nohtal by Drelinok, describing his experience in the Amplifier. I had neglected the horror of what it must have felt like for Drelinok on the day of the accident. He entered the Amplifier with the expectation of receiving untold power and was promptly buried in a pile of rubble, commemorated and forgotten by his own kind. It made me curious how long it took him to shut off his thoughts, if he ever managed to at all. The reason this finally felt important after what I thought may have been millennia, is that a curious thing happened one day. I could hear other thoughts. There was so much silence and then an abrupt explosion of sound. At first, I thought I was finally going insane. When I focused, however, I began to listen carefully. I could envision a map of sorts that connected many different mental voices, and all the ones in my immediate surroundings were shielded by some unknown force. Outside of those, I searched further and tried to pinpoint words I could understand. Even Rahi had thoughts, little instincts that caused them to attack, or defend, or become curious. They were not sentences the way I knew them, rather, these thoughts tangled around one another like bright colors. I was having trouble keeping all these minds from whispering things to me, requiring more time to focus through the noise. Eventually, I could scan the universe like a path. There were clusters of voices in some areas, definitely populated islands, and I knew it would take a lot of concentration to reach that far. In the same way that Drelinok searched for me, I started to return to my meditation. I wanted to find my friends out there. There were times when I would exhaust myself and I would "return" to my own mind, having to start my search over from my strange origin point. My 11,000 years did come to an end one day, as Trylac said they would. Before that came to pass, I became the master of my own universe, painting out a vast landscape of peacefulness where I could sort out the thoughts I was listening to. I conjured them up physical forms and I made myself a house. I lived in a cozy little place much like my dwelling on the Southern Continent – in the years I spent following my departure from Meldio and before I took up the gunblade as an outlaw. It was a ranch of endless rolling green hills, where all the spirits smiled at me and welcomed me as I went along. I would "awaken" and listen to them, and "sleep" when I had enough. In my own crazy way, I was home. I had everything I needed and there was nothing that could hurt me. Above the thoughts around me, I was an all-powerful entity connected to them all. I knew why Drelinok compared himself to the Great Spirit, at last. Through their good days and bad, my existence was far beyond anything they could understand. When I slept, there were dreams again. I was their golden savior, silently watching over them and hearing their every wonder. With careful precision, I could add my own thoughts to theirs at times. I could guide them, carving a world made as I wanted it, beloved by those I served and assisted. And together, we would see the light of a hopeful future. It all made sense; I was their cynosure. Review
  8. Shipping from the US, and keeping in line with the current market, I'd be willing to sell it for $10. -Ced
  9. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Lights turned up, it's hard to hide. Sometimes I want to disappear. –Foster the People Episode 20: My Shadow Confident that we had acquired the Brotherhood's aid, we decided to return to Stelt to recuperate before flying further north to Metru Nui. Destral had been warped east of the Southern Continent when Brutaka sent us to it, so the trip back was nearly finished as the night came to an end. It was a brisk, hazy morning when we returned to Stelt. We could hardly see anything more detailed than the island's outline, but as the ship soared closer, I suddenly realized there was more than haze in the air. "There's smoke rising in the distance." "Another skirmish between the clans, most likely," Hadliek replied. "We're sailing up from the south," Kyrhus reminded us. "The largest structure in the area is the coliseum." It was a fact that had not registered with me until Kyrhus voiced it. I made a point to avoid attachment with most things, but losing the place I relied on to set down my weapon and get a good night of rest, I could feel my chest tightening at the possibility. We silently waited and watched, drawing nearer to the port. When we arrived at our destination, I leapt from the cabin door and sprinted across the beach. I could hear the rest of my team was close behind and our fears were confirmed. Voporak's coliseum—the closest thing I had to a home—was in smoldering ruins. Drelinok had been awake for nearly a month and after everything I had experienced in that timeframe, seeing my home destroyed was enough to spark my fury. It did not help that Sidorak was standing there proudly, hands on his hips, surveying his work. Flanked by a group of Steltians and a handful of Ohnbiek, I still had the good sense to know putting a bullet in him would be a bad idea. "Sidorak!" I called to him. "That was my home." His brothers and servants turned at the sound of my voice, and Sidorak joined them in curiosity, drawing out his herding blade in the process. "Ah, Adrinor," Sidorak replied, more condescending than I had ever heard him. "Your home was a casualty in erasing the legacy of a criminal in our midst." "Voporak was a fair clan leader, and he sought the best interest of everyone who served him. Even when they might not have deserved it. And let me tell you, Sidorak, I saw multiple occasions where you were less than deserving. There's only one reason that someone like you would betray him, so why don't you tell me who offered you a greater seat of power." "The Makuta of Stelt," he said, flashing me a grin. "Voporak has been found guilty and arrested for having former ties to the League of Six Kingdoms. I always knew his suspicious, private chats with Mantax would catch up with him, but I never imagined it would be so beneficial for me." "Mata Nui perfected opportunism when he created you," I replied, shaking my head. "We live in an unruly land where the cunning shall be victorious. It will always be an alien world to an outsider like you," Sidorak explained. He pointed his herding blade at me and shouted, "Take these outlaws into custody!" I reached for my gunblade when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and it was Trylac, staring hard into my eyes. "I've got this one." I smiled. "The last time you said something like that, I watched you get shot out of the sky." Trylac glanced at Sidorak's company and looked back at me. "They don't have a Makuta in their ranks, so I should be all right. I need you to head back to the ship and make your way to Metru Nui. You have to finish something that I can't resolve." "Yeah…I will," I replied. "Are you sure about this though?" "Absolutely," Trylac reassured me. "Now get going." "You heard him," I said to the crew, following with a sigh. "Next stop is Metru Nui." "Be careful," Elendra told Trylac, taking the lead back to the ship. I was the last to go, taking one more moment to see a friend I had long thought was dead. Sidorak and his Steltians were getting ready to assault him, wary that a single biomech would stay behind to challenge all of them. Also, Trylac's insectoid features could be unsettling enough on their own. "I'd like to see you again before another 900 years pass," I said, finally turning and hurrying away. "I'll see what I can do." <<<>>> Our passage through the Sea Gate to Metru Nui was eerily silent. I sat next to Elendra and smiled at the renewed glow of the twin suns and a Silver Sea no longer occupied by Ga-Metru's naval forces. She drove our aircraft up along the east coast of Le-Metru, turning in towards the city just before the Ta-Metru border. I was nervous, scared really. I pulled the prototype device from my back and held it in my hands, staring down at the object. "That's an amazing little device that Drelinok created," Elendra commented, studying the prototype. "I never thought something so small would have the power to harm him in his current state. You can almost detect his energy signature from here, can't you?" I nodded, turning the prototype over in my hands. "It feels good, actually. It's pure light, comforting and inviting. It's odd to think that I'm going to destroy something like that." "You wouldn't stop if you didn't. You're like Rovaius in that respect. Nothing short of death stood in his way, and he accepted it to save you and I. I don't care much about rescuing the universe nor am I concerned about what malice Drelinok or Teridax will visit upon the future. The only fear I have left is burying you." I slowly left my seat and wrapped my arms around her, embracing Elendra in a hug. I had never held her before and she tried to recoil at first. She did not hug me back, but she did not brush me away either. I smiled and closed my eyes, just listening to her breathe. It was the closest moment we had ever shared, and I believe Elendra chose to allow it because she knew there was a strong possibility that it would be one of our last. I carefully returned to the co-pilot's chair and continued to examine the prototype device. Elendra cleared her throat and a brief chuckle escaped her mouth. I was hardly surprised when her next words were, "So…do you think the prototype will work?" I smirked before replying, foolish to think Elendra would address my actions. "Drelinok invented it, so yes, I do. His Amplifier had been a success in every way short of causing his laboratory to suffer a cave-in. At some point, he must have abandoned the idea to outfit his army with armor and opted for a permanent chemical solution." "I'm sure you had enough experience with chemical solutions after your run-in with the Panacea." Elendra pushed a couple buttons on the control panel and flipped a switch back and forth a few times, trying to hold some of her focus on steering. "There's an audio transmission being sent out on multiple frequencies and I've almost managed to catch it." I peered out the window at a nearby Telescreen and immediately stashed the prototype into the compartment on my back. Drelinok was smiling back at me and Turaga Zilnyx was strung up in a web of golden lights on the Coliseum's announcement box. "And…I've got it!" Elendra said. The transmission crackled into the airship speaker and I watched Drelinok begin his broadcast. I only looked back over my seat for a second, but I could see the rest of my crew was staring at the Telescreen as well. "Good afternoon, citizens of Metru Nui. My name is Drelinok. I walked the great journey of my life to be here in this moment, and I have something to share with you." "This is it," Elendra said quietly. "I'll take the ship down to the Coliseum's entrance." "You disappoint me," Drelinok continued. "As a Meldin, the years passed and the legends that Matoran were Mata Nui's favorite creations made me take pause. I thought you beyond flaw or fault, capable of making your own fate and bettering your world. But if we have learned nothing else these past 400 years, it is clear that if left to your own devices, you will destroy yourselves." Drelinok turned away from the Telescreen and summoned a blade of light in his hand, identical to the one he used to murder Triphaz. "Turaga Zilnyx, I stand before you, granted the power of a Great Spirit. I come to you in a physical form, to exact justice as Mata Nui refuses or is incapable of doing. Your citizens praise the all-seeing Mata Nui for their precious virtues and the hope of tomorrow, but these are ideas we must preserve by ourselves. I cannot pass judgment on Mata Nui in the physical realm, but you are not so fortunate." "What will you do?" Zilnyx questioned, notably panicked. Drelinok faced the Telescreen again. "For the crime of inactivity against a front of war that nearly tore Metru Nui apart and condemned the universe to annihilation, you are guilty for putting thousands of lives in jeopardy." I froze. It was like listening to Makuta Teridax sentence the Matoran in the Archives all over again. There was no touch of emotion, just cold words leading up to a violent display of force. "Each Matoran will be held accountable for their role in the Great Disruption, but as Turaga, you were trusted with leading this city." Drelinok whirled back to Zilnyx and pointed the blade at the feeble Turaga's neck. "The mark of a leader is the ability to command those beneath him and obtain positive results. So which is it? Were you unable to quell the fighting, or was the conflict of too little importance?" "I am sorry for the Great Disruption!" Zilnyx shouted hopelessly. "Not to you, but to the Great Spirit! I let the situation escalate too far and I allowed a civil war to overtake this city. I served as its Turaga for thousands of years and I never imagined such a crisis would befall the metropolis I have come to cherish so very much." Drelinok nodded. "Very touching. You have some remorse for the turn of events here. I respect that. In any event, your ineffectiveness put countless lives at risk. There are names you will never hear, faces you will never see, that were in danger because of you. Bearing in mind the aforementioned crimes, permitting you anything lighter than the maximum punishment would invite the possibility of a future civil war to overwhelm Metru Nui. Having apologized for the Great Disruption, I consider that to be an adequate confession of liability. Turaga Zilnyx, I find you guilty and sentence you to death. If you have any last words, please speak them now." "A public execution," Elendra muttered. "Pridak was quite a fan of them, too. You have to really love the sound of your own voice to do something like that. There's no call of exacting justice or even a wanton urge to take a life. Using the Telescreen system to kill Turaga Zilnyx is just Drelinok feeding his own ego." "It's more than that," I replied softly. "It's a statement. He wants them to see that he's in control now." The blade pierced Zilnyx's heartlight and ran up toward his neck. The Turaga felt all the pain Drelinok wanted him to, and then he exploded into a burst of golden particles. Drelinok let the sword vanish, and not even a Kanohi was left to mark Zilnyx's passing. "And as for this city," Drelinok started, "I will condemn you to the nightmare you made for yourselves. If you are so eager to go to war, then allow me to fulfill your wish." Elendra landed the aircraft at the Coliseum's entrance when an array of bright lights materialized over the city. We stepped outside, weapons ready, and watched as Drelinok's Light Warriors descended and began their offensive on Metru Nui. "Let's get inside!" I shouted, running for the gateway. I rushed through the Coliseum, hastily accessing the arena. I could see Drelinok on the other side of the stadium, up above in the announcement box. As I ran, my focus was mostly on him, trying to ignore the hordes of Light Warriors in the stands that filled my peripheral vision. The Coliseum announcement box descended slowly onto the arena level and Drelinok kept his gaze fixed on me the entire time. "Our armistice has come to an end, Adrinor," he said, his voice booming through the arena speakers. "I have afforded you enough of my patience and time, and will suffer you no longer. Light Warriors, at my command!" The soldiers of light drew their brilliant weapons and took aim at my crew, ready to destroy us on Drelinok's order. We drew our weapons in retaliation, but I knew we were outmatched in every way. Before that order could be relayed, however, a massive explosion rocked the building from the outskirts of the district. Drelinok paused, presumably trying to sense the cause of the event. "Makuta Teridax," Drelinok snarled. He reactivated the Telescreen function and began to laugh mockingly. "Hello, Makuta…and his little friends. Your victory over the Barraki may have required nothing but scores of Toa, Exo-Toa, and Rahkshi, but I am not so easily put down. As I speak, thousands of my Light Warriors are materializing across this city and should open your eyes to the doom you have walked into." "Elendra, I want you to take point and get out of the Coliseum," I started. "After Teridax's stunt in the Archives, I doubt he'll concern himself with bystanders the way the rest of his army should. Try to protect the city and the Matoran as best you can." "Good luck, Adrinor," Celvey whispered, her eyes unable to veil her concern. "I'll see you again," I replied, giving her a nod. "Come on, Celvey," Hadliek told her. "This is his fight…always has been." Elendra led my crew out of the arena as Drelinok floated down to the battlefield. He smirked. "And who will be your savior, Adrinor? Have you come this far just to die alone?" I reached for my gunblade as he approached, clutching the grip behind my back. "I thought I'd die alone a long time ago. See, Drelinok, you were right to have called me a coward, because the fear of you drove me away from our home land. I was afraid to battle you all those years ago and could only flee when you declared war on the Collective." "If you do not fear me now, then you are a fool. Teridax won't be coming to save you as long as my Light Warriors stand between him and this building. You chose to interfere with my plans for long enough and soon I will watch as fear grips you one last time." "That's going to be a problem," I replied, slipping my hand off the gunblade hilt and into the compartment on my back. I grabbed the device and held it tight when I added, "I'm not afraid of you anymore." As quickly as I could, I pulled the device out and shoved it onto my heartlight. I pressed down on the central piece and it locked into place immediately – an exoskeleton of armor exploding out before encasing me inside it. It was pitch black as the armor conformed to the shape of my body, like a bulky extension of myself. At once, a visual display came to life before my eyes, allowing me the range of sight I would have possessed without the armor. In the same instant it flickered on, though, I watched Drelinok rush at me. Time seemed to slow down when he tackled into me. I felt the sensation of being thrown back, watching my weapon rapidly spin along with me, but my newfound reaction time allowed me to grab the gunblade and swing it at Drelinok. He released me and materialized a pure energy duplicate of the sword, our blades sizzling as they grazed one another. I used my momentum to backflip and landed on my feet, grinding the armor's boots along the hallway floor until my back slammed into a wall. I was immensely powerful, like Drelinok, and I could tell engaging him would be a messy conflict. "I see you've discovered the fruits of my labor!" Drelinok called from the edge of the arena. "You are wearing the prototype of what was to become Directorate soldier armor." "I suppose it's ironic that a Collective sympathizer is going to use it to stop you!" I replied, hearing my voice echo from the armor's vocal modulator. "Let's take it for a test drive then, shall we?" Drelinok's weapon morphed into a sniper rifle when I tried to remove myself from the battered wall. The visual display was able to keep up with the heightened reaction time, and I watched it pinpoint five shots headed at me. I engaged the thrusters in my boots and rocketed forward, making every attempt to evade the energy bursts. I tilted left. One down. I swept downward. Two that time. Another on its way would whiz over me, but I had not left myself enough time to maneuver around the last shot. It shredded through the armor's left shoulder and nearly severed my arm. I did not understand how the suit fully worked, and when time abruptly returned to a normal pace for me, Drelinok sidestepped the projectile I had become and watched me violently tumble across the arena. I smashed against the far wall, screaming in agony. Another shot was fired and I felt it tear through my lower torso. Instinctively, I tensed up and choked, falling onto my face. The visual display was rapidly blinking multiple warnings about damage sustained to the pilot, but all I could do was stare at them. My body refused to respond. "I have detected that the pilot has sustained a critical spinal injury," the onboard computer stated through the helmet. "Repairs are underway, switching to neural interface." "Stay down, Adrinor." I could hear Drelinok slowly approaching and I wanted more than anything to get up and face him. At the same time, I could feel the suit reaching out to my thoughts, like a power that rushed up through my heartlight and into my mind. Without warning, I rolled onto my back and began to hover over the arena. Drelinok smirked, an expression I presumed to stem from being impressed with his own technical achievement. "No thrusters," he said, "yet you fly. The telepathy link must be online. Can you do little more than keep yourself aloft, or is the pain of losing a couple parts keeping you from your full potential?" "What does it matter to you?" I angrily asked through shallow breaths. "The Directorate military will wear the perfected version of that armor one day and, while I may harbor some qualms about sacrificing Meldin who believe in my cause, I am more than willing to allow you to perish in the name of science. Go ahead, Adrinor, try to move me." I could feel the armor building itself back together, clutching in on my damaged pieces and beginning to recreate metal and tissue. My wounds were healing, and I used my opportunity to reach out, not for Drelinok, but for my weapon. I had never felt anything like picking up the gunblade with my thoughts, and I was not entirely sure what to expect. It felt heavy and light at the same time, like a sturdy, solid thing, but capable of being shifted in any direction I wanted. I pulled it toward me, aiming for the back of Drelinok's head. The gunblade picked up an unprecedented amount of speed, but Drelinok effortlessly caught it with his own thoughts before mentally flinging it aside. The use of my limbs had been restored and I reactivated the thrusters, willing the gunblade to come to my hand. I took it in my grip and launched myself at Drelinok. As advanced as the prototype armor was, there was no outmatching the former Director. Our blades clanged and he hurled me up. The recovery time was instantaneous and he lunged out to strike me. Our sword crackled white hot, clashing over and over. Centuries of combat training with the gunblade were meaningless in my fight with Drelinok. His power made him unbelievably fast, and while I could see swordsmanship was a new concept for a battle commander who often relied on rifles, the amplification process allowed him to keep up with me. "I can see now, how you have survived these many long years as an outlaw," Drelinok said, surprised that I parried his attack. "C'mon, I'd have to pick up a few tricks if I wanted to stay alive." Drelinok moved to slash and I retreated, dropping the thrusters for my counterstrike in the form of a super charged shot. I expected an ordinary shell, but the prototype armor directed power down through the protosteel in my blade and rocketed the projectile like a bolt of lightning. The round popped a gleaming hole in Drelinok that quickly regenerated itself. He glared in return. "Impressive." Drelinok advanced, closing the gap for another swing. I landed a kick beneath our swords and took off while Drelinok regained his bearing, flying up in a spiral around the stadium seats. As I ascended, the onboard computer told me, "Pilot repairs complete. Neural bridge will remain active until a direct command for shutdown is initiated." Dozens of Light Warriors converged on me, but the gunblade was rippling with power, shredding them into sparkling nothing with the slightest effort on my part. I swung through them like a machete through plant growth, nothing surviving. All the while, Drelinok hurried after me, consuming his own soldiers and hurling them in my direction. Each time he threw a mass of their light, I bounced the shot away, forcing him to drain the stands of his army entirely. I flew into the center of the arena and loaded Kyrhus' last shadow bullet into my weapon. Drelinok was just about to grab me when I spun back and shot him through the left bicep, severing and destroying the rest of his arm in a nasty thicket of darkness. The shadows burned his arm away and Drelinok screamed like I had never heard before. Imbued with so much light, the power of dark wounded him terribly. I tried to land several more attacks, but he could keep my blade at bay with his right arm, watching as his hand was shattered and restored instantly each time. "Not so fun when it's your body being torn apart, is it?" I taunted. "Drink it in and remember what it feels like. This is what the Light Warriors you've set loose will do to the Matoran here. You deserve to know what you're sentencing them to." Drelinok fell to one knee and continued to hold me back. "This isn't over." He unleashed a mental blast that launched the gunblade from my hand and pushed the suit away by about ten bio. I could tell Drelinok intended to send me further, which meant the suit had a built-in endurance against his telekinetic powers. I summoned the gunblade back to my hand and Drelinok put his hand to his ruined shoulder, regenerating the arm that had been devoured by my shadow bullet. "Nothing will stop me, Adrinor," Drelinok said, standing up straight. "You could rally an army to your side and they will never overwhelm me. There is no end to this battle. You know that, don't you?" "There may not be an end for me, but there's no reason the rest of the world should suffer your tyranny. Catch me if you can." I engaged the thrusters and flew straight up with one last idea left to try. I looked out at the city and stared in awe at the sight before me. Thousands of bright lights flickered through the streets beneath the midday suns, battling the armies of Makuta Teridax. If I failed, Drelinok would come for the Brotherhood next, and the world would be his forever. "Take a good look," Drelinok said from the announcement box, amplified through the speakers and every Telescreen on the island. "This is the second war I have fought in the name of preserving the light of justice for the benefit of others. Meldio flourished in your absence, under the guidance of the Directorate, because I chose to act. That was the critical difference between us. The world is only truly lost when the best of us do nothing, and while you have been content to gallivant across the universe so selfishly, you have unearthed the very truth of our greatest threat: a lack of conviction!" I gave the thrusters everything they had, accelerating my journey into the sky. As much as I wanted to ignore Drelinok, he knew how to make a fine point. The ability to act was beyond me in my youth, but Drelinok only saw parts of my life while he slumbered. He could not feel my emotions for me, or experience my pains and pleasures. They were mine alone, side effects of a life that was lived, not spent peering out from behind mental glass in a stasis tube. Because of this, Drelinok was wrong. There was no doubt, no uncertainty. I had to end him in Metru Nui. I had to kill him, and I had to believe I was capable both physically and mentally of doing such a thing. When the intensity of the suns finally became overwhelming, I fell forward and prepared for my return trip to the city. With the thrusters and my mind focused on picking up as much speed as possible, I could hardly concentrate on Drelinok. I watched him draw near, weapon in hand and reshaped into the gunblade, but my objective was to shatter him. Within my final few dozen bio of impacting Drelinok, time began to slow down once more. I pulled back my gunblade and rerouted all available power into my right arm. The surge exploded through the protosteel in the blade and I had reached terminal velocity. Drelinok moved to counter the attack, but he was helpless against me. The sheer force with which I struck him was enough that I passed through Drelinok somehow, extinguishing nearly all of my power in the process. I was not sure where the prototype drew its energy from, but I assumed it would take centuries to build up what I had released in a fraction of a second. I landed on one knee and caught myself with my free hand. I turned my head up just as Drelinok began to plummet. He fell helplessly and managed to repeat what I had done, only without any noticeable effect on me. Drelinok passed through my body like a wraith and he came to rest several bio away, his form solidifying. He looked up at me, his eyes reverting to the dull blue I once knew, while the Light Warriors above the stadium faded into the energy Drelinok derived them from. "What did you do to me?" Drelinok questioned, visibly shaken. He struggled to his feet and pointed his gunblade at me – the final, enduring piece of his power and the instrument he somehow willed to remain intact. It must have taken an intense focus, a desire to fight me that was so extreme, Drelinok fought the forces of the universe to hold on to it. Tiny, golden particles began to float away from his body and I could tell something was wrong. When I passed through Drelinok, it had been a fatal blow, and he would not survive much longer. "There are two courses for the future," Drelinok said, holding his weapon steady. "In one, I leave this arena with the prototype suit and build a better tomorrow for all. The Makuta have imposed martial law on the world, Adrinor, and you will not stand against them. Give me the prototype and I will grant Meldio the power to fight." I disconnected the prototype core from my chest and the armor vanished. "Biomechs will survive the Brotherhood, Drelinok, regardless of their plans. The Makuta, like yourself, chose a fate at odds with the Great Spirit. Even if they are victorious, they too shall die one day." I dropped the prototype core onto the ground, crushing its components beneath my heel. I took notice of Drelinok's expression (as though I had just done something insane) before turning to leave. In the top of the arena stands, I caught sight of a tall, monstrous figure – the very same entity I saw on the night the Barraki were defeated. He was unchanged in his armor of cobalt, crimson, and gold, baring sharp teeth and piercing orange eyes. He was looking directly at me when he simply nodded, folding his arms. Drelinok was powerless again and there was a chance this figure had arrived to save him from the wrath of Makuta Teridax, but I could not be sure. It hardly mattered, either way. "No matter the cost," Drelinok said, his voice echoing through the arena, "whatever the effort; I will lead us to a brighter future." I continued to depart when I replied, "Goodbye, Drelinok." I could practically feel Drelinok's fury when he said, "Face your Director when addressing him…you cowardly outlaw!" The sound of a charging gunblade rose in an instant and I swung back around, only just deflecting the shot with the broad side of my weapon. I rushed headlong at Drelinok, glaring as he braced himself for a sword duel. I swung once and he parried it, but Drelinok lacked the experience of a practiced swordsman, leaving himself open for my next attack after his exaggerated swing. I had no more than a second of opportunity and, in that instant, I felt pain for what I was about to do. Drelinok was prepared to let Mata Nui die and end so many lives in the name of peace. At one time, he terrified me to the point that I could no longer stay on Meldio – I was frightened by his power and influence. But we stood on an empty field of battle, two Meldin armed with the same weapon. I remembered my first day of life, squinting my eyes against the sun and crawling in search of aid, in search of someone to help me find my way. A hand reached down and took me by the arm, eclipsing the sun with a body of biomechanical parts, studying me with dull blue eyes. His own life had only begun minutes before, but without that knowledge, I trusted him to rescue me from the blinding light above. "My name is Drelinok," he said calmly. "Hello, Drelinok," I replied. Somehow, I spoke his language perfectly. "My name is…Adrinor." "Adrinor," he repeated, smiling. "Are you okay?" "I think so. Where am I?" Drelinok helped me to my feet and put a hand to my shoulder. "This is the universe of the Great Spirit, Mata Nui. I think we're going to like it here." In a single thrust, my gunblade pierced Drelinok's armor and I ran him through with it. Drelinok's eyes grew wide as he entered a state of shock and instinctively pulled away from my weapon, taking a few clunky steps backward. "You have relieved me," Drelinok said evenly, "of my burden." He slowly, forcibly pulled the weapon from his chest and presented the grip-end to me. Bewildered by how he remained standing, I reluctantly accepted the gunblade and stared at him with utter disconcertion. "We just saved the universe," I said miserably. "For your sake, Adrinor," Drelinok breathed, "I hope…you're right." Drelinok suddenly collapsed, causing him and his gunblade to shatter on impact into brilliant, golden particles with the floor. I looked over my shoulder where the entity had been watching in the stands, but he had disappeared. I was alone in the Coliseum, having destroyed my first friend. "Despite the circumstances, it was almost nice to see you again," I muttered, staring at the particles. "You were my hero once, and it was your rare ambition that inspired me to stop you." I glanced up at the twin suns before taking another depressed look at Drelinok's glimmering, mysterious remains. "Good night, old friend." At once, the golden particles fused together and converged on me, creating an explosion of light. I had no opportunity to defend myself, and when my sight was no longer overwhelmed by an infinite white, I was on Meldio. That was strange enough alone, but not as peculiar as my company. It was Trylac, and we were standing in the chamber where Drelinok's Amplifier was built. The room was silent and no longer had a gaping hole in the top, with a series of dim lightstones placed into the ceiling. "Hello, Adrinor," he said, perched on a rather large shelf on the other side of the room. I could see something silver and shiny in his hand, but could not identify what it was. I took a long exhale and dropped my gunblade to the floor, the tragic weight of my actions settling in. Turaga Jovan's hope had come to pass – there was a heavy sadness in Drelinok's death that lowered my head in bitter frustration. "I did it, Trylac. I got him." "Nicely done," Trylac replied calmly. "We would not send you up against such a powerful enemy without a contingency plan. If you're here, one of my fellow agents on Metru Nui sensed you were in danger. With that in mind, I'm surprised to learn Drelinok is destroyed." "The remainder of his essence tried to consume me, and…" I paused. "Trylac, why did you bring me here?" The Dectraz smiled at me. "Our plan was riding on a lot of factors working out perfectly. I had not anticipated having to fight my way out of Sidorak's rebellion, but as you can see, my superiors have few difficulties in the ways of teleportation if we absolutely require it. I had to be here before you." "Okay, great, but why?" "For this." I registered too late that the object in Trylac's hand was a weapon, and it really worked in his favor that my gunblade was already on the floor. A beam of emerald light whizzed across the room and landed center mass. The shot struck me like a solid punch and knocked the wind out of me. I collapsed as an entanglement of bright green energies caged me to the ground. Trylac took flight and came to rest at my side, staring hard into my eyes. "Thank you for your service to our universe, Adrinor. It's nothing personal." Review
  10. I sold off the bulk of my Bionicle collection a few years back, but I guess I missed a few items. Literally, a few items. I want to sell these three masks off, separately or altogether, it doesn't matter. I glanced at some high-traffic buy/sell sites to get an idea of what the competitive market is pricing these items at, but I wanted to come to BZPower first, since I've been here so long. Either by PM or in this thread, make me an offer and I'll see what we can arrange. Image linked HERE to the items. Left to right: Silver Miru, 2014 Transparent Hau, Gold Vahi. -Ced EDIT: Gold Vahi is available again!
  11. So, it has been roughly a year since this epic has seen any reviews, and Episode 19 was the last to be written. Given that much inactivity, I have no idea if anyone is even reading Cynosure at this point, I just feel very compelled to finish it after all this time. 20, 21, and 22 were all finished last year, and will be posted throughout the coming week. I think I have apologized a few times now for how long this has taken, but there will be at least one last post after the epilogue is up to wrap up my thoughts on this story and everything. Anyway, I can get into the details about that next week. Thanks again for reading! -Ced
  12. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last. –Green Day Episode 19: Destral after Dark Our aircraft was hovering just off the ground when Brutaka used his mask power to tear open a portal in dimensional space. The swirling darkness within was a maelstrom of deep blues and rippling white, bleeding into blackness. I was in the copilot seat when Axonn gave us the signal to launch from outside. Elendra pulled back on the accelerator and we shot forward, hitting the portal like a wave crashing against the beach. The impact shook us a bit, but the airship was stable. I expected we would travel through a long tube between dimensions, but the trip was instantaneous. As soon as we crossed through, Mt. Valmai was far behind us, and Destral waited below. The windshield was quickly drenched in rain and we could hear thunder in the distance. Night had fallen on the Brotherhood's base, although the fortress was equipped with enough external lighting that Elendra had no problem steering us down toward Destral. "Where do you think we are?" I wondered. "No idea," Elendra replied, dropping the acceleration. "I'm not even sure how Brutaka located this place. If the Makuta do not reveal the location to us, it may be a while before I can get us back to familiar territory. As far as I can tell through this storm, Destral is the only landmass in sight." Elendra hit the communications panel and opened a channel. "To all Brotherhood of Makuta agents. This is the pilot of the airship above your island. My name is Elendra. We wish to land on Destral and speak with you. My ship is not outfitted with weaponry and we have a desperate message to relay to your leader. Please allow us to land." She tilted the airship and began to circle the perimeter of the fortress, keeping our altitude steady. Without any warning, a Makuta teleported onto our ship and landed in the cabin. I glanced back at him, immediately noting he was shorter than most Makuta. I knew they could shapeshift, but this one was apparently more comfortable in a smaller body. He was roughly my own height, armored in violet and silver. I had never seen his mask before. Purely out of surprise, I nearly drew my gunblade before he put a hand out to me. "I'll incinerate you before you pull that weapon on me, Meldin," he growled, marching toward the cockpit. I slowly lowered my hands and showed them to the Makuta. He glared at me, looking over at Elendra and pointing a finger out the window. "Take your ship down in that direction. You will land the aircraft there." "All right," she replied flatly, taking us down and bringing the airship to a slow halt on the landing pad. The Makuta hurried back to the main door in the cabin and we followed him. He folded his arms together and studied us carefully. "Welcome to the island of Destral. My name is Makuta Ihdal. You will leave your weapons aboard this ship if you wish to disembark. I understand you have reason to speak with our leader?" "Yes," I said. "He has met us before, and we need his help, now more than ever. My life, and the lives of my crew, may be in great danger soon." "I see," Ihdal replied. "And why should a Makuta come to your aid?" "Because allies are no good to you dead," I said, revealing the Tablet of Transit. Ihdal snatched the item from me and eyed it closely. "You should have told me about this at once. Leave your weapons, or keep them. Destral appreciates those who serve our interests." The Makuta engaged the door and we all walked outside into the rainstorm, following Ihdal across the landing platform. Having been given an option, we decided to bring our weapons along. The wind howled over the rain and lightning flashed above, the towers and fortified defenses of the island standing undeterred in the night. From there, he led us inside, to a long hallway. Pointed sconces dotted the walls, containing roaring flames within. We were all admiring the architecture as we went along, but Trylac regarded the rooms differently. He did not seem so interested in how things looked, so much as how the fortress was laid out. He kept looking back and scanning different halls we had missed, like he was building a mental map of the place. I began to wonder if his agency had sent him along for that very reason, entirely untrusting of the Brotherhood after Teridax came into power. They had every right to be. There was little to see on the ground floor chambers, but I could hear a lot of noise coming from the rooms below us. The creation of Rahi and any other experiments the Makuta were working on must have been done on the sublevels. It was hard to say how deep the island was, and by the time I began to think about it, we were standing in front of the doors that led to the master chamber of the island. The throne previously occupied by Miserix, now a spoil in Teridax's victory, waited for us on the other side. Ihdal cracked the doors open and turned back to us for a second. "I'll notify him of your arrival. Do not enter until permitted." A pair of silver Rahkshi opened the doors the rest of the way and Ihdal approached the throne, whispering to Teridax. The Makuta could see us from his lofty chair, well-aware of who his guests were. "Come in, all of you," Teridax breathed. We entered the chamber, lined with translucent green pillars on the sides. Rahkshi armor sat inside each one, curled inward and inactive. I could see Teridax was even taller than I remembered, eyes of sinister red staring at me behind the Mask of Shadows. It felt like he was gazing into my very spirit, listening to every dark thought I ever had. His thick armor, nothing but light-consuming black and gunmetal gray, meshed well with his garnet cape. This was a conqueror, a warlord, and a murderer. And most terrifying of all, I needed his help. "Well now, if it isn't the disrespectful band of gunfighters." Teridax sounded even more callous and cold than I remembered. "Have you come back to taunt us with further lies that a single Meldin could overwhelm my brothers?" "I have come back in fear for my life from him," I replied. "By the end of our conversation, I hope I can persuade you to understand why." "You seem to make the rounds quite frequently, don't you?" Teridax mused. "Was it Drelinok who smashed a massive airship into the port in southern Zakaz? We are still investigating the details of the incident, actively searching the wreckage for anything worth salvaging, and I have this odd feeling in the back of my mind that you know what happened." "Your instincts are as sharp as ever, Makuta. The airship belonged to an organization from Trevahka called the Panacea. They had been working publicly as the island's law enforcement agency, the Magistrates, and working on a plan to incite monstrous wars across the universe in secret. Their research was working toward granting untold powers to any exposed to the substances they had concocted. I have no idea how far they had gotten, but we were onboard the airship when this plan was revealed. I tried to steer the ship into the sea, but it overshot its course." "The Panacea…interesting. Several Trevahkans were taken into custody on Zakaz following the crash, and it should not surprise you that we are trying to gain a better understanding of the experiments they were performing. Makuta Spiriah has been assigned to take charge of the island, certain that he will put this Panacea information to good use. While the threat against the life of a Brotherhood member is far too risky, I understand that Spiriah will be starting preliminary trials on a volunteer basis soon. Perhaps the Skakdi will be served well by the augmentation process – or serve Spiriah well, at the very least." My eyes widened in horror at the prospect. Zanteox said he wanted to give the Matoran the power to end their war, and even with the Skakdi at peace, I could not begin to imagine what would happen if their kind were exposed to the virus. Spiriah was playing with fire just to try and make something burst into flames. It would not end well for any involved. "They told me their lives are in danger," Ihdal told Teridax. "The Meldin said he needs your help." "Is that right?" Teridax asked me. "We traveled a long way to find you, Makuta. I would not have spent the time if I did not think this was of the utmost importance. I…we, need your help." "What desperation has brought you back to my stronghold? As a noble steward of our universe, I have dispatched my brothers across the world to protect islands from ever harming themselves as Metru Nui did. And yet you demand more of me." If Krika had not already told me the truth, Teridax would have been incredibly convincing in his act. I knew I had to play along and feed into his illusion if we were to gain his assistance. "I'm not here to make demands," I corrected the Makuta. "I came here to remind you that I remain allegiant to your cause." I glanced at Makuta Ihdal and he presented the Tablet of Transit to Teridax. The Makuta accepted it, smirking. "This trinket was given to you by, Miserix, was it not?" "It was. We encountered another Makuta in our travels who explained the treason that prompted this exchange in leadership. Even now, however, in Miserix's absence, I wish only victory for your kind. I have come here to request your aid in destroying Drelinok. He is going to Metru Nui soon and intends to murder Turaga Zilnyx before declaring the island as his own." "It is not Zilnyx's island to give, even in death," Teridax replied. "Metru Nui was awarded to me for my efforts in returning the Matoran to peace." "And if he's left unchecked, it won't be the only place Drelinok conquers," I said, trying to sound as scared as I could. "If nothing is done in Metru Nui, he will come for all of us soon. If we stand idly by, he will breach this fortress and bring you down, just as you did to the Barraki so very long ago." Teridax rose to his feet at once. "You dare to compare me"- Everyone drew their weapons, except for Trylac who stood in our way, kneeling before Teridax. "He misspoke, great Makuta," Trylac said. "Do not punish this foolishness." "Weapons down, now!" Ihdal ordered. We lowered them and stared up at Teridax, waiting for him to react. He hurled the Tablet of Transit back at me and I caught it with my free hand. "You have incited my fury with your talk," Teridax said. "Not only are you all disrespectful little ingrates, but the thought of Drelinok openly taking what is rightfully mine, that is unacceptable. Still, I could allow Drelinok to carve a path of war through the universe until he reached my front door, and in that moment, I could destroy him. I could make this one Meldin regret his existence on my time, and my terms, with such ease. Tell me, Adrinor, why you deserve my Rahkshi, my Exo-Toa, my Toa, and my own hands to cut Drelinok down in Metru Nui." "Because a lot of innocent biomechs will die if we don't. There may not be a Metru Nui left when he's done, and the Great Spirit nearly lost his life the last time there were no Matoran to labor and prosper in that city. The Tablet of Transit proves our loyalty to you, but destroying Drelinok proves your loyalty to Mata Nui, the greatest principle your organization was founded on." A cloaked figure exploded into the center of the chamber, instantly flanked by several Light Warriors. His head was down when he hissed, "There is no place for Mata Nui in the future." Teridax moved to strike, but the cloaked entity bent his arm backward and reached his hand out to the Makuta. Across the empty expanse between them, an invisible power rushed to hold Teridax still, taking form beneath his enemy's armor. Teridax seized up, his limbs contorted outward as a golden glow began to emit from his muscle tissues. Ihdal stood in horror as he watched his leader fall prey to this mysterious force, cautiously approaching Teridax. The figure put his arm down and glanced at Ihdal, wagging a finger at him. "I would stay still if I were you," he advised. "I know Teridax has dispatched your brothers across the universe by now, and even with your factory beneath us, you will meet your match in battle. I just want to talk with your guests." "The Brotherhood will not stand for this!" Ihdal shouted. "Oh, I know," he chuckled. "I know exactly what you'll stand for, and I would prefer that you not stand at all." A dozen Light Warriors materialized around Ihdal and immediately shed their bipedal forms, transforming into shapeless luminance that began to consume the Makuta. Ihdal struggled against them, unleashing an array of powers within a few seconds. Laser vision, chain lightning, fragmentation, plasma, anything that could destroy before the Light Warriors did the same to him. The last visible ability I watched him unleash was a contained cyclone, instantly cut short as the lights imploded and claimed his life. Nothing remained after that. "I thought you were going to be busy in Metru Nui, Drelinok," I said. "I will be, but a few other things needed tending to first. We're talking about bringing an end to the universe, after all. Our brethren, the Meldin, will take priority in the new world after the Great Spirit has gone. I'd like to tell them that in person. The Matoran had their chance and squandered it by nearly killing us all with their war. When I have selected the Meldin worthy of command in the future Directorate, the other species who concede to my authority will be welcome to join us." "But there's no place in it for Mata Nui or myself, huh?" "Why should there be?" he asked in shock. "Look behind me, at the Makuta ensnared by my power. He was born to serve Mata Nui, and I could crush him in an instant if I wanted. The Matoran think their Great Spirit to harbor such benevolence, but he regards his servants the same as his disparagers. We are met with silence. And you would come to this Makuta with the intention of destroying me?" "Drelinok, listen to yourself!" I shouted. "I'm here because you want to destroy the world!" "I did this for you," he continued, his voice pained and shaky. "I did this for every Meldin who ever lived. I am the closest thing to salvation you have ever known, and you would put your fate in the hands of this monster?" He pointed at Teridax and sighed. "The kingdom of paradise will be beautiful beyond anything on Meldio, but as you correctly asserted, many biomechs will be barred at the gates." He removed the hood of his cloak, but it was not Drelinok underneath. That is not to say the face staring back at me was entirely unfamiliar either. It was the Dark Hunter who was dispatched to kill me a few weeks earlier. A Jaecolt, codenamed Reaper. "Vylaos should have killed you," Celvey spoke up, aiming her weapon at Reaper's head. "Him, me, there's not much difference at this point," Drelinok replied, laughing through his puppet at Celvey. "When I found this creature, he had been blinded. And now look at him, brimming with my power. There's little of the Jaecolt left within, but he pledged himself to me in exchange for the restoration of his sight. I gave Adrinor the same offer aboard the Panacea flagship. He became part of my power for a few brief minutes, presenting enough of himself to me that I could shape and amplify what he is. True, I hadn't expected him to nearly take his own life afterwards, but by my grace, he lives today." "So you came all this way just to brag?" Hadliek asked him. "I teleported into the room. You make it sound like I swam here," Drelinok replied. "No, I came here to pay you for your services." Drelinok removed the cloak from Reaper, revealing the emaciated form beneath. The Jaecolt was nothing but scorched metal, sickly colored muscle tissue, and jagged edges. The lengthy claws on each hand were pretty concerning too. His eyes began to glow less, but the weird light from within his unmoving mouth remained steady. Reaper got down on his knees, tossing me a tiny bag from his clawed hand. He had not thrown far enough and the bag spilled its contents out onto the floor. Multiple shiny, golden coins emptied themselves from the bag and slid to my feet. "You know what I do for a living," I said. "Why pay me for something you're capable of?" "Because I want to prove a very important point to you," Drelinok growled. "I wish to pay you for the execution of this Jaecolt." "What?" "You heard me," he chuckled. "He would have taken your life from you, and he is a simple pawn for the Dark Hunters. I want to pay you to kill him." "What point will that prove?" Reaper reached a clawed finger out and pointed it at me. "I want to remind you what you've become. I fought the Collective to establish a proper, lasting government for Meldio. You fight because there's a paycheck attached to it. No matter what you believe or how you justify it, this is always the end result. Death. You're just like this Jaecolt, Adrinor. You're a killer, motivated by profit. Now, may I hire you, or are you about to turn down some easy money?" "Reaper trusted in you and you're prepared to sacrifice his life for this?" I questioned. "I thought you held your followers in a higher regard." "Only my loyal Meldin," he replied. "The rest are expendable. Besides, do you think Reaper is the only creature who willingly surrendered himself to my control? The chance to attain true power is a gift sought by many, and such an attractive offer seldom appears to anyone. Once I take command, they realize too late that they have literally given their souls for this. So easily enticed, and so easily shattered. I would advise that you refrain from pitying the tragedy of these selfish entities, but what empathy exists for one so cavalier as yourself?" I glared into Reaper's eyes, hoping Drelinok was looking right through them at me. "I've heard enough," I said, pulling my gunblade from my back. I looked at Kyrhus and reached a hand out to him. "You have any dark energy shells on you?" "Yeah, a couple," Kyrhus replied, handing them over. "Be careful with those." I gave him one back and started walking toward Reaper. "If you plan to release this Jaecolt from my sway by overloading him with shadow, you'd better make that one shot count. I'm paying you for an execution, after all." "It'll count," I said, giving him a smirk. "Let's get on with it." I kicked Reaper in the chest and dropped him onto all fours, pressing my foot into his back. I loaded the dark energy shell into my gunblade and let it charge for a second. Then I pointed the barrel at the back of Reaper's head and took a long breath. "Now we'll always know," Drelinok whispered. "I am better than you." "If you say so." I flipped the gunblade around and fired the dark energy shell behind me, blasting Teridax to shatter the light barrier that held his form. The kick from the shot swung the weapon back down in an instant, and I fired a standard round through Reaper's arm. He buckled and rolled onto his back, lifting his head just as Teridax's laser vision activated and vaporized the Jaecolt above the neck. Teridax fired a second time and eradicated the remains, releasing a furious roar. "You will be nothing when I am finished!" Teridax screamed into the empty air. "Your life will expire! And all traces of your legacy will be stricken from history! You have made your last enemy, Drelinok!" I stared at my crew, my back to the Makuta. He could not see I was giving them a wide-eyed stare that was questioning our potential ally's sanity at the moment. I had never seen him lose control before, but I had also never seen him imprisoned either. "That was a pretty neat trick, Adrinor," Kyrhus said. "He never could handle the kick from firing a specialty shell at an angle," Elendra told him. "He made his weakness a strength." Hadliek put an arm around Celvey and added, "And we would have been glad to intervene, but…after he disintegrated a Makuta, I was comfortable just letting him get his way for a moment." Celvey gently lifted Hadliek's arm up and smiled. "For once, I have to agree with him. Nicely done, Adrinor." I smiled, looking up at the Makuta. "So you're actually going to call back the Makuta and lead an assault to Metru Nui?" Teridax was still incredibly agitated when he replied, "My war fleet is outfitted with enough troops and firepower to remove this annoyance without the presence of my brothers. I'll do it myself." Review
  13. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? –Pink Floyd Episode 18: Forerunner Elendra brought us down just north of Mt. Valmai, on the fringe of a forest and a Matoran village. Drelinok opted not to tail us and the Brotherhood was far away from the inconspicuous mountain. With no sign of civilization outside of a small cluster of Matoran, I felt safe dashing off the ship and taking in the scenery. There was nothing to harm us in this desolation. The edge of the forest gave way to a Matoran village, little workers of many colors walking about on their daily tasks. I could hear a voice coming from the center of the village, like an aged tone speaking to an audience. It had to be a Turaga. I motioned everyone to follow me. "I think we're safe here, so we can keep our weapons down for now. Let's see what's going on in the village square." The village was entirely huts, domed with brush and leaves. They would protect the Matoran from the elements, while remaining light enough that they would not become stuffy in the warm climate. We snuck between a couple built closely together—dwellings, based on a brief glance in the open windows—stumbling upon a clearing where most of the village was sitting in a circle. Atop a flat, elevated stone, was a Turaga with his back turned to us. "The serpent was as long as a dozen Toa, coiled and furious," the Turaga told the Matoran. "It reared its head back and hissed at my team, spraying us in bits of harmless slime. Our guide took several crossbow shots at the monster, but they all bounced off its powerful hide. Its scales were dark as the night, slinking and rushing across the floor as the serpent snapped its jaws shut around our guide in an instant." "But you had to save the town from it!" a Matoran of stone spoke up. "What did you do, Turaga?" "We were scared of the creature's power, but my team believed in one another. Most importantly, we believed in ourselves. A Toa of earth in my team reminded us about what happened the day before, when we attempted to merge our elements in a massive blast. They became something else entirely and we shut them down in fear of what we had made. He recommended we try it again and hold the beam steady this time. So we came together, focused our powers, and fired on the serpent." "You killed it?" a Matoran of water asked?" The Turaga pointed his staff at her. "A Toa cannot kill, Anzliat. We locked it in time, is what we did. Our powers combined into a glossy, shimmering case of impenetrable material. We could see the serpent within, unmoving, and harmless. My team returned to the town with it in tow and promised the Matoran their safety before we hauled the serpent onto our watercraft. From there, we sailed north to Metru Nui and turned it over to the Archivists for their own study. We had to be careful about releasing it from our elemental prison, but the Onu-Matoran sedated it at once. To my knowledge, the serpent is still in there, locked behind the security of the Archives." Hadliek nudged my shoulder and muttered, "Think we should tell him it's not locked behind any security anymore?" I said nothing, waiting for the Turaga to finish his story. "In the end, we learned something very important. Pay attention to the steps you take, because you may need the answers they possess on the road you have not yet walked. Of course, defeating the serpent was an exercise in trusting our potential, and the abilities of those we traveled with. Remember the journey, my friends, but also who is taking the journey." "That was deep," Celvey whispered. "Good lesson." "I'm fairly convinced all the strength Toa lose as Turaga is instantly transformed into world-weary knowledge," Kyrhus replied. "I haven't come up with an explanation that doesn't rely on magic yet." The Matoran stood up and began to disperse, and the Turaga slowly turned around to face us. He recognized me immediately. "Hello, Adrinor," the Turaga welcomed me warmly. "You're looking well." There was silence for a moment. I could tell my mouth was hanging slightly open, but I was beyond words. The village's Turaga was Jovan, appearing much shorter and older than when we met a few weeks prior. He gave us a tired smile from behind his Noble Kadin and clutched tight to his magnetic staff, finally chuckling. "What's on your mind? I am sure you did not come all this way just to stand and stare at an old spirit." "We didn't really expect to know this old spirit either," Hadliek said. "Wait!" Celvey spoke up, exuberantly. "If you're a Turaga, then…you found your destiny, didn't you?" Jovan nodded to her. "Far below this place, yes. After our return, we wished the best to one another and went our separate ways. Axonn tells me that they are Turaga now as well, save for Argeph. Nevertheless, it's done now. I have served proudly." "You saved the world," I breathed. "We felt your rescue of the Great Spirit, and the Brotherhood put an end to the war in Metru Nui. I fail to understand how a team of Toa that almost died in a Matoran warzone were able to retrieve a legendary Kanohi. I must know how you completed your mission." Jovan slowly winced. "The trials of the Ignika were treacherous, demanding that we exert every part of ourselves to prove our worth. Even now, I cannot be certain what horrors we faced were real or intricate illusions. Whatever stories you hear, no matter the bounty offered, I have something to tell you for your own safety. Do not go after that mask." Hadliek raised a finger. "I don't want this to come off like I'm one-upping you, but we've seen some crazy things in the past few weeks." I gave him a swift elbow to the side. "I was just saying!" Hadliek exclaimed. "He sure knows how to paint an ominous picture." Jovan rolled his eyes at Hadliek before glancing at me. "So the crisis has ended?" "Yeah, the situation was dealt with," I said. The memories of battling our way out of the Archives were still pretty fresh, but I felt that Jovan did not need to know how many Matoran had to die to return peace to Metru Nui. "When the dust cleared, Makuta Teridax returned home to Destral as a war hero." "I'm not sure if I believe there can be any heroes in war," Jovan replied quietly, shifting his staff to his other hand. "Haltryox was a hero…and he gave his life to achieve that much." I studied Jovan's face and wondered if I looked the same way when Rovaius died. I knew his pain, and I inhaled sharply to keep from breaking down. I slowly knelt down on one knee, eye to eye with the Turaga of magnetism. "I'm sorry, Jovan. If there's anything we can do, anyone we can hunt down for you, we'll do it." "You don't understand," Jovan replied, shaking his head and staring straight at me. "In order for the Ignika to revitalize the Great Spirit, it required a battery. Haltryox volunteered to act as the bearer and the Ignika spent every atom of his being in the process. I could tell he was afraid – frightened of the mask's power, but also of a future without Mata Nui. When he stepped forward and sacrificed himself for everyone and everything, he glowed. His intensity was such that we could not look directly at him, only listening to the weird hum of the Ignika as it restored balance to the universe. My last sight of Haltryox was a gleaming statue of bravery. When the light finally faded, the mask hovered alone. And that was it. Depressed and done, we traced our route back through the world that feeds the world and escorted the Ignika back to its pedestal. The power of life and death is a strange and mysterious thing that I never wish to tamper with again." "And you'll never have to," I replied, offering a handshake. "It seems unfair that you should do such a great thing and so few know your name. Islands will continue on without the knowledge of their saviors, and they owe you their lives. As do we." Jovan accepted my handshake and smiled. "I was not chosen for this life to chase recognition and fame. It was my duty all along, plain and simple. I have not heard about Drelinok in a while. Does he live?" "He does. I know how you feel about death, but I have to terminate Drelinok, Jovan. This has to end once and for all." "Agreed," Jovan said, sighing. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and let him continue. "I wish you the best of luck, Adrinor. With the Great Spirit safe and the war in Metru Nui concluded, I would say that Drelinok is now the greatest threat to us all. Much like my journey for the Mask of Life, the universe hangs in the balance of your success. Here at the end, I can see why it is sometimes necessary to take a life. I hope that you have enough empathy to feel some sense of pain when you do it. It's not a bad thing to feel, Adrinor. Remember that. Only monsters are devoid of emotion when they destroy." I had not felt emotion in a kill for centuries, and Jovan's words struck a sour chord in my chest. Krika defined the dark creatures his kind had become as monsters – embracing the shadows to pursue a grave agenda. Their martial law had rewritten the world, as had Miserix's death. With Teridax assuming direct control of the Brotherhood and winning Metru Nui for himself by killing so many, Drelinok's supposed heroism came back into question. He challenged me with an army just so he could murder Triphaz on Suizek, but there was one last desperate play to be made. If Drelinok saw himself as the cynosure of the universe, the unstoppable guiding light, I would need a horde of darkness to fight his legions. I dismissed the Brotherhood as an ally in fighting Drelinok when the Makuta fell to shadow, but in adopting that element, the light became their enemy. In our few meetings, Makuta Teridax had shown himself capable of great egotism and superiority. If I proposed that we could form a temporary alliance to confront the one entity who threatened his power, then I had a chance. Letting the Brotherhood roam unchecked would be the price to pay, but Drelinok was the higher priority. "I will do what I must," I said to the Turaga. "I know," Jovan told me, patting my shoulder. "Near the foot of Mt. Valmai, Axonn and Trylac wish to speak with you." I stood up and smiled at the Turaga. "I suppose I'm off to face my destiny, then. You had a great team, Jovan, and you were an excellent leader. If the odds run against me when I finally reach Drelinok, well…this may be farewell." Jovan chuckled and tapped my heartlight a couple times with his staff. "Farewell is for dying, my friend. I will see you around." We departed the village and started on the path to the volcano, trekking across the warm, rocky terrain. Near the base of the landmass, Trylac was sitting on a high tree branch, aiming randomly with his compound bow. He spotted us from a distance and fluttered down on his insectoid wings, giving me a smile. "Why do the Matoran call this place Valmai?" I asked him. "What do they have to fear from the mask that saved them?" "A standard greeting is something to the effect of 'hello,' Adrinor," Trylac replied, snickering at me. I held my curious stare and Trylac finally gave in. "My agency told them about this place and we said it was a scary volcano full of monsters beneath the surface and things that would devour them if they ever tried to step inside. But the creatures cannot survive long without intense heat, so they will never leave the volcano. Convinced, the Matoran settled here and called it Mt. Valmai. Now we've got most civilized islands calling it that. A little hearsay can go quite the distance sometimes." "There's nothing in there, is there?" I questioned, confident of the answer. "Of course not," Trylac said, laughing. "But there is a labyrinth to the Mask of Life beneath us, and my agency would rather not have random Matoran stumbling into it." "I think your agency has bigger problems right now," I said, turning the conversation serious. "Miserix is dead." Trylac sighed in frustration. "I'm aware. There's been a convocation among the Brotherhood and Teridax has overthrown their leader. We also have intel about how many lives he took to put an end to the Metru Nui fiasco. Meanwhile, Drelinok is still running around and preaching himself to be this conquering hero who will save us all. Yes, Adrinor, we have much bigger problems right now." "It's scary how well-informed you are," Hadliek said. "Now maybe you can tell us something we don't know." Trylac grinned, extending a hand toward me. "Do you still have that circular device?" I handed it over and Trylac accepted it, delicately with both hands, breathing out relief. "Thank the Great Spirit, it's still intact." "Trylac?" I wondered cautiously. "What have I been carrying around this whole time?" "All of the Amplifier blueprints in Metru Nui were retrieved by an agent and delivered to our top scientists and engineers for study. They concluded that there was enough data to rebuild the Amplifier, but not enough to recreate this circular device. Did you happen to notice that one of the blueprints connected it to the rest of a biomech body?" "Yeah, it's magnetic and snaps on to my heartlight." "And only your heartlight. Well, the heartlights of Meldin to be precise. This thing is a prototype design for an exoskeletal armor suit. Very advanced, very powerful, and very dangerous. We suspect Drelinok had plans to outfit his army with them after he used the Amplifier on himself. There was too much damage to the prototype blueprint to decipher its full design and craft a new one, but that device collects energy and stores it up over its lifetime, presumably to an endless degree. It's probably been active since the day Drelinok finished it, drawing in ambient energy for thousands of years now." I glanced around at my crew and everyone looked stunned. "So if I activate that thing, could I use it to take on Drelinok in fair combat?" "It's the best chance you have," Trylac replied. He spun the outer circle and it clicked four times before locking back into place. "If this thing is attached to a Meldin heartlight, and you spin the dial all the way around like that, the suit should materialize at once." "Out of thin air?" Elendra asked. "How do you even make something like that?" Trylac shrugged. "Part of the blueprints were damaged beyond examination. We don't know what Drelinok and Triphaz were tinkering with to even make this possible. It's as mysterious as a Toa conjuring their element from nothing. We know it can be done, we've seen it, but no one is sure how they do it. Even Toa say it's just a connection they feel." I took the prototype from Trylac and studied it in my own hands. It looked so fragile, so unassuming to be brimming with such power. "Drelinok doesn't know that I have it." "And until you're within striking range of him, you should keep it that way," Trylac warned me. "If Drelinok realized this thing was in your possession, he would annihilate the continent you stood on to prevent its activation. That being said, we cannot risk you testing the prototype or becoming familiar with its use. The agency director believes that if the prototype is storing the power we think it is, Drelinok would detect that energy signature exploding to life and investigate immediately. When you see Drelinok again, you'll need to trigger it and start putting up a fight at once." "He said I'd come to him," I recalled. "Drelinok is going to Metru Nui soon to depose Turaga Zilnyx at the Coliseum and declare himself the ruler of the universe. I know exactly where to find him." "If we'd only known," Celvey muttered. "Adrinor could have destroyed Drelinok as soon as he was released from stasis." "You're assuming the prototype will give me the upper hand," I reminded her. "It will," Trylac cut in. "Drelinok was a field commander who specialized as a quick and sharp shot with a rifle. If you're fast enough and close the distance between the two of you, you can overpower him with the gunblade." "You're betting everything on me then." "And we're hardly enthusiastic about it." We all looked up from the prototype and could see Axonn and Brutaka were approaching. I looked to Brutaka before putting the device into my back compartment. "Not much faith in me, huh?" "The agency is concerned, Adrinor," Axonn clarified. "Drelinok is a deadly opponent. We recognize your history with him, and you'll need to put that aside. Whoever Drelinok was as your friend, that's not what came out of stasis. He needs to be eliminated." "What about the Brotherhood?" Kyrhus asked. "Is there any chance of stopping Teridax without Drelinok's light? Someone needs to put down Miserix's murderer!" "We're looking in to it," Trylac tried to reassure him. "I think we should ask Teridax for his help then," I suggested. "If we aren't going to kill him, he could be a strong temporary ally in the battle with Drelinok. His entire organization could, for that matter. And I still have a token of their appreciation." I revealed the triangular Tablet of Transit given to me by Miserix. "Any Makuta must respect that device as a symbol of trust," Axonn said. "If you walked into Destral with that, you could be granted an audience with their new leader." "What would you tell him?" Brutaka questioned. "A Meldin is not fit to make demands from the Brotherhood of Makuta. They can move mountains if they desire, but will not do so on the whim of such lowly gunfighters." "Hey!" Hadliek shouted, clearly offended. "Take no offense, I'm only speaking to how a Makuta would look down at you," Brutaka replied. Hadliek grumbled to himself when I snapped my fingers with a brilliant idea. "It's clear that appealing to Teridax's sense of compassion is like seeking air at the bottom of the sea. But if I proposed that his brothers, their Rahkshi, Exo-Toa, and loyal Toa should unite to preserve his authority over the universe by destroying Drelinok, that could work. We could play into his ego and tell him that we support the Brotherhood with blind allegiance and wish to see Drelinok dead. Teridax may not care about others much, but if he sees Drelinok as a threat to his own supremacy, that could be our opening." "Why employ the Brotherhood at all, though?" Elendra asked. "Can't Adrinor take on Drelinok alone?" "I don't think it's going to be that simple," Celvey replied. "Drelinok summoned an army above Suizek before he killed Triphaz. If he takes Metru Nui, his Light Warriors could be used to occupy the city for him while he reigns from the Coliseum. If the city is currently demilitarizing now that the war has ended, they'll be too easily slain by Drelinok's soldiers. He'll have an army and if we want to minimize civilian casualties, we'll need one too." "Just one problem," Hadliek said. "How do we even know where to find Destral right now? The whole island fortress teleports as the Brotherhood requires." Brutaka smirked. "My Kanohi Olmak can open a gateway to Destral for you. It may take me a moment to locate it within our dimension, but creating a portal won't be difficult." "Our dimension?" I asked, somewhat confused. "Are you saying that mask can open portals to other realities?" "Keep your mind concerned with this reality," Brutaka replied, not entirely answering my question. "Once I send you through, you'll need to rely on your power of persuasion. Given the importance of the mission, one of us should travel with you." "I can go," Trylac volunteered. Elendra chuckled, looking up at Brutaka. "Any chance you can send a whole airship through one of those mask power portals?" Brutaka narrowed his eyes on her, smiling. "I've sent a small island through before, I can send one ship." "Well, this should be fun," Hadliek said, slapping Kyrhus on the shoulder. "If we live, we can say that we've traveled across dimensional fabric." "And if we don't?" Kyrhus inquired. "Then the prototype is lost between dimensions forever and Drelinok wins." I smiled at Trylac. "I think I'm getting too accustomed to high-stakes gambling with my life these days." Review
  14. Cederak

    Cynosure

    All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry? It's been cold for years, won't you let it lie? –Bastille Episode 17: Past Transgressions On my first visit to Nohtal, I was quickly greeted by one of the island's many generous, and compassionate individuals. The landscape was rolling hills of emerald dotted by towns and the occasional grove or wooded area. Nohtalians—infused with shadow at birth—lived happily beneath a shimmering sun back in those days. Despite the efforts of Toa Jovan's team, however, that star in the sky remained dim. Nohtal remained in a perpetual state of dusk and cloaked in a veil of fog. Why Ilisi was bathed in sun with such immediacy when the Toa used the Mask of Life, well, I chalked it up to the presence of so many imbued with light on that island just north of Nohtal. I sought a moment alone with my thoughts, and that is what brought me into the misty night, to the place where I first took up the gunblade as my own. I journeyed across Nohtal's eerily still coast, over the verdant knolls that appeared more gray than green without the warmth of the sky. From there, it was a short walk through the woods until I stopped in a clearing where five graves had been marked with stones. In the long-unearthed dirt below, five killers had been laid to rest at different points in time. They once called themselves the Rovaius-Trivolox Gang, named after their leader and deputy leader respectively. After years of terrorizing the island as a successful band of thieves, Trivolox was burdened by a guilty conscience and intended to turn his life around. In an effort to tie up loose ends, Trivolox murdered two of his fellow criminals on the night of his planned departure, discovered and pursued by Rovaius and the other survivor, Stalgrax. It was Rovaius that introduced me to the life of an outlaw, with Stalgrax still at his side when we met. The day after the League of Six Kingdoms fell, all three perished in battle, and I felt it was my responsibility to take up Rovaius' gunblade and carry on in his stead. I took the weapon from my back and hurled it at his tombstone, dropping to my hands and knees in a mixture of guilt and anger. Elendra and I had placed the five rocks into the ground there, and all I had accomplished was shattering a chunk of the work I had done 900 years prior. "Leave me alone!" I shouted at the piece of rock. "If there's anything left of you in there, any piece of your spirit, please, listen to me!" There was no response—as one might expect when talking to inanimate objects—but I was hardly in the mood for being sensible. "You didn't warn me! You never told me it was going to be this hard! You lied to me and now the universe is going to die! It's going to die, because you went and made me join up with you. I could be living a simple life on the Southern Continent right now." I thought for a moment about how different things would be if I had opted out of becoming an outlaw. It certainly would have been easier, but not necessarily better. There was even the possibility that Jovan would have failed to retrieve the Mask of Life if I had not assisted him. "I guess they were my choices, in the end. I can't blame you for that," I said, following with a sigh. "I just want to be free of the burden of feeling like you died for me…like you died for nothing. I'm sorry, Rovaius, but I don't know what to do now. It feels as though the world is closing in around me, and there's no hope for any of us." "There's hope for at least one of us," a voice replied from behind me. I picked myself up off the ground and turned to face my guest. It was Drelinok, hovering silently nearby. "What brings you to Nohtal, Drelinok?" I asked, trying to conceal the misery that was wracking my spirit. "You," he replied matter-of-factly. "There's nothing else worthwhile in this land of midnight, once so beautiful and now reduced to another clot of dark in the world. I can see you have something of value there in the dirt, yes?" I whirled back and marched up to the gunblade, bending down and taking it in my hand. I looked back at Drelinok and told him, "You'd be surprised how important this weapon is to me." "I'm sure," he said, unimpressed, "but I was referring to the scrap metal you were trying to make amends with." "For being a thief and a killer, he was twice the biomech you'll ever be," I replied, starting to walk away. Drelinok mentally took control of my body and held me in place as he drew near. "Now, Adrinor," he chuckled, "I wouldn't come all this way and not get what I want. We're going to have a chat." "I don't have anything to say to you." Drelinok released me and landed on the ground, extending a hand toward the tombstones. "Alternatively, I could reanimate your friend with some much-needed life and have his corpse hunt you to the edge of the world." I stayed put and my voice pleaded with Drelinok more than I had intended when I whispered, "Don't." He smiled at me, satisfied with the power of his words. I still remembered what happened to the yellow-eyed Frostelus at the Tren Krom river, and I was not about to tempt Drelinok into proving he was capable of such a nightmarish act. "Okay then, let's talk." Drelinok began to pace the length of the tombstones when he asked me, "Why did you leave Meldio? And don't recite your politically-charged anger with what I did, I want a real answer. Even the Collectivists, the true Collectivists, stood and fought. You were a traitor and a deserter, and I'd like you to explain yourself." "Explain myself?" I said in disgust. "I didn't join up with the Collective army, I merely agreed with what they were fighting for. I never picked up a rifle to assist their campaign in driving back the tide of your brainwashed hordes. But I saw what you were doing, and I could tell how unstoppable you were. So one day, I just sailed off and left. No betrayal, no desertion, I simply walked away." "And that's it?" he questioned. His fiery eyes glowed like a pair of embers in the artificial night. I shook my head in frustration. "The only crime I ever committed is that I disagreed with you. In most parts of the world, that's acceptable, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if you tried to make it illegal once you became Director." "Well…I didn't," Drelinok replied awkwardly. "I just wanted an answer." "How dare you," I growled. "You drove me out of my homeland and you demand answers from me? When I left, I lived in fear that you would purge every seed of dissent from the universe. I went to sleep for years just waiting for your soldiers to break in and arrest me, or put me to death on the spot. Eventually, I knew the influence of the League of Six Kingdoms would restrict your dreams of conquest to the shore of Meldio, and you never came." "That's not to say I never wondered what happened to you," Drelinok admitted. "All things considered, I'm doing okay. I stopped thinking about you after a while. I stopped thinking about the war, about my home, and I even stopped entertaining the idea of returning. Whatever had become of Meldio under your direction was not the place I grew up in, and I knew there was nothing left for me there." "I searched for you, for a very long time," Drelinok replied. "Meldio is such a wonderful and majestic place, and it was your first home. Those few Meldin with a strong sense of wanderlust were regarded as very strange for leaving behind such a glorious land, and I had to believe you stayed. From my inauguration as Director until the day of the accident, I decreed that it was the responsibility of every Meldin to identify those that had gone missing during the war. The names were brought to my desk and, after a few decades, we located the bodies, living or deceased, of every Meldin on the list." "Except me," I muttered. Drelinok nodded. "Except you. And then, after a very long time in the stasis chamber, a day came when I felt my mind was able to drift beyond my own body. I could, see things, like I had never seen before. I could feel other minds, other thoughts in distant places. From time to time, I would search for you, but it was centuries before my search concluded. And by then, you were already running around as a criminal." "A criminal," I repeated. "Bold accusation for someone like you. I'm sure you used the Directorate to deflect any wrongdoing on your behalf. I'm sure there was no trial, and that you were not charged with a single war crime. And then I come home to find that your guilt was buried beneath a colossal statue. Maybe you did lead Meldio into a golden age of prosperity, but we both know there's a foundation of corpses beneath your administration." "Adrinor, listen, I"- "No, you listen!" I snapped. "You're not better than me, just more determined. I left home because I didn't want to kill you, okay? I didn't want to kill my first friend! And as I stand here looking at him, I wonder if that was a mistake. You owe Meldio a lot, Drelinok, and it'll take more than a machine full of superpowers to repay that debt." "I'm sorry," Drelinok replied shortly. I looked right into his bright lemon eyes, somewhat surprised. "You…you are?" "We can't change what we've done, nor can we bring back the lives we've taken. I can sense the sincerity of your words, and that you think I am some kind of monster. I had to live with my decisions in the war…every day, justifying to myself that somehow, it was worth it. It was terrible, yes, but my actions saved Meldio and made it a better place. Don't you believe me?" I gave a soft laugh in response. "I'll take that as a 'no.'" "Just between us," I said, "I believe that you, believe you. It's been enough to sustain you this long, and I'm sure you can get by on it for a few more centuries." "It's funny, actually," Drelinok replied. "I came here to make a mockery of you, and your life, and all that you have done, and you managed to turn the tables on me completely." "We all have our demons to face. That's why I came here. I lack the conviction in my actions that you have always possessed. I have my doubts and I have to cope with them." "If I had never been in the accident and were still Director today, and if you had to come home to Meldio as the individual you are now, would you run again?" "Nope," I said shortly. "I would probably kill you. And no matter how beloved a Director you would have been, only the soldiers would pursue me. Your army would follow my tracks because that is what they are charged to do. But I can say this next part without a shred of doubt or disbelief. Not a single friend would look for me, to serve justice upon me for what I did." Drelinok frowned in disappointment, but I continued. "You say you made Meldio a better place, and of our kindred I have met in my travels, they have said the same. I believe them. However, now that our home is so vastly improved, there is no place in it for you and I. There's no place for exalted killers in utopia. The Nohtalians buried here learned that the hard way." I walked up to Rovaius' tombstone and tapped it a couple times with the edge of the gunblade. "This biomech died saving my life and the life of a Trelban. He gave the ultimate sacrifice because he cared about someone other than himself enough to do it. It wasn't his job or his duty or anything like that. He could see the odds were impossibly high and if any of us were to survive, we would have to delay our enemies somehow. This Nohtalian, named Rovaius, died so that I could flee to safety and fight another day. And no matter what I do, I can't repay that sacrifice. So I do the best I can, I live on in his name, and I hold tight to the gunblade." "He is lost to this world, yet keeps a living legacy among us," Drelinok mused aloud. "I have often hoped for such a thing, but it was not a hope that came to fruition. I once thought that you could be that biomech for me, and preserve my ideals if you were to survive me. I put the notion aside when you voiced your differences in how Meldio should be run." I put the gunblade on my back. "If you should perish against the Brotherhood in their new effort to conquer the universe, I will not be your vessel into the future. Nothing will save you from destruction." Drelinok eyed me curiously. "That remains to be seen. I have learned things about our world that are far beyond my research for the Amplifier. There is esoteric knowledge out there, hidden away in black, mysterious minds. The Great Beings were geniuses unlike any biomech I have ever known, myself included. Their secrets are buried everywhere, you need only to know where to search for them. If utilized properly, even death can become nothing more than an inconvenience." "I suppose it's too much to ask what you have in store for the universe. With knowledge like that at your fingertips, your horizon seems limitless." Drelinok walked up to me and gently took my wrist in his hand. I eyed him suspiciously, uncertain of what he was after. He turned my palm over and brushed his fingers over the rough scrapes and marks dented into the metal around the muscle tissue. "The Meldio War…my war, was necessary to inspire a change for our species. Part of my earlier apology stems from the fact that I pity you, especially for never living up to what you could have been. For that, I blame myself. I deprived you of achieving your very best when I drove you away and, while I do not hold myself responsible for anyone you have cut down in your new life, I am guilty for creating the biomech you are today." "I'm stronger, if it counts for anything," I said. "I know who I am and where I stand. I'm no hero or anything romantic like that. I am an outlaw at my core now." Drelinok carefully let my hand go and approached Rovaius' tombstone, placing his hands behind his back. "Twice the biomech I'll ever be, yeah?" I nodded. "Yeah." "Hmm," Drelinok replied flatly. "If you must know, I intend to besiege Metru Nui with my Light Warriors and kill Turaga Zilnyx before installing myself as the Director of the universe. If the Brotherhood should contest me for power of the city, they are welcome to try. Now that Mata Nui has allowed the world to fall into warfare and despair, we are in dire need of a better Great Spirit." "I think you always fancied yourself as the king of the world," I told him. "No, not a king," Drelinok corrected me. "The reign of a king is a castle in the sand. I must ascend to godhood. I held many positions in my former life. I was a student, a teacher, a soldier, a commander, a Directorate Lead, and finally a Director. And yet, through all of this, I was a servant, noble and proud. I see now that it was a misplaced pride…a false nobility. If one is tasked with leadership and chooses not to embrace their duty, it stands to reason that a successor be named. My experience and ideals make me a prime candidate to preside over the universe." "Still as inspirational as ever," I muttered. Drelinok raised an eyebrow. "Have you seen reason, Adrinor? Have I turned you, at last?" "Not exactly. Although, you have convinced me to remember why I became an outlaw in the first place. I wish to live on my own terms a while longer, and I can only do that by preventing this universe from hurtling back to the darkness that Jovan's team saved it from. It is a darkness that you are so eager to plunge us into. And so, I'll have to destroy you." "I think we both know that's an empty threat," Drelinok said confidently. "You have turned your back on so much, and now you wander aimlessly in search of adventure and payment. I wonder if you have outlived any useful purpose in this world." "He's still quite a leader." Drelinok looked over his shoulder, watching as my crew stepped into the clearing. Their weapons were drawn and ready to strike, waiting for the Meldin to react. He returned his attention to me and smiled. "I could obliterate them if I wanted, but…I think I've overstayed my welcome." "I'm sure preparing to conquer a universe is hectic enough," I replied. "We are approaching the endgame, my friend," Drelinok said. "By the time everything is said and done, we will all have played a role in the end of the world. I cannot say if you will survive the event, but I will be there. Like a thousand suns bursting forth through the sea gates, I will embody the cynosure that shall lead the scared, the tired, and the victimized out of the universe of shadow that you silently permitted. "I'll see you at the end of the world, then," I said, marching away to reunite with my crew. "Ready to go?" Hadliek asked. I smiled. He was straight to business and our expressions seemed to assure one another that we were all okay. "Where to?" "Mt. Valmai. We encountered Trylac in Valantru and he sent us to retrieve you. He wants to meet with all of us just north of the volcano." I turned back to Drelinok and asked, "Will you pursue us?" Drelinok began to hover and tilted his head. "Like you said, preparations for conquering a universe can be hectic. I have more important matters to attend to, but I thank you all the same for a lovely conversation. I have a feeling that you'll come to me soon enough." We watched him peacefully fly away into the dark atmosphere and I wondered how lonely it was to seek the world without anyone at his side. "What did he say to you?" Celvey wondered. "The entire story, I mean." "Back to the ship," I said, taking the lead. "I'll tell you on the way." Review
  15. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Only set apart from the world I live in now. Ghost of a renegade. –The Paper Kites Episode 16: Lawless (Hadliek's Perspective) We expended the last of the airship's fuel somewhere in the middle of the Northern Continent. After several minutes of "I told you so" being thrown at me for refusing to believe that there were no refueling stations anywhere outside Valantru, we exited the craft and started to walk. Behind us, I could see Valantru's highest skyscrapers poking up over the desert plateaus, blurred by a heat shimmer. I glanced up into the sky and squinted, starting to feel uncomfortably warm in the heat. "You really screwed up this time," Kyrhus complained. "Be part of the solution, not part of the problem," I snapped, starting in the direction of a large canyon. "We were part of the solution!" Elendra yelled. "I told you several times that there was nothing out here and now we're going to bake in the desert heat because you refused to listen!" I chuckled. "Take it easy with the blame there, you're talking to a trained killer." "And you're messing with one in no mood for your sarcasm!" she screamed. "Well I know it usually takes you a while to work your way out of a bad mood, so I'll get back to you in about five hundred years on that." "Do you ever learn?" Celvey asked with frustrated sigh. "I have my own way to things, Celvey. Sarcasm is part of the package. Maybe if I were polite and proper about life the way you are, someone might've asked me to marry them." Elendra coughed up a laugh. "If you think sarcasm is the only thing standing between you and the prospect of your marriage, you should be a little more introspective." "Elendra, why don't you…"- I withheld my insult when the sight of several objects stormed out of the canyon and scattered. "Steltians," Kyrhus said, utilizing his impressive binocular sight. "They're riding Dikapi." "What are Steltians doing out this way?" Celvey asked. "Illicit activities, if I had to guess," I replied. "They seldom do much more in their own homeland, so why show model behavior on vacation?" "There's something on the other side of that canyon, then," Elendra said. "Maybe even a source of fuel to get us back in the sky." I reached for my weapon and gave her a nod. "We're not doing ourselves any favors to sit around out here. Let's investigate." The Steltians had doubled back when we reached the canyon's opening and we had our weapons ready for a fight if they wanted to give us one. I did everything in my power to suppress the signs of my exhaustion after walking in the blazing heat all afternoon. Living among thieves and killers, Steltians were keen to spot an enemy's weakness. Also, there were seven of them against the four of us. The lead rider leapt from his Dikapi while it was in mid-run, his rifle drawn. A pair of blades extended out from behind his elbows, running just beyond his hands. "You're a long way from home," he growled in confidence. "I could say the same to you. My companions and I mean to travel through this canyon, and we're associates of a clan leader. Are you familiar with Voporak?" The Steltian retracted his arm blades. "Yes. And yet, he is terribly far from this place. If my gang were to kill yours right now, what evidence would Voporak possess in linking me to the crime?" "Because there are more of us out here, and at the wave of my hand, I can order them to bring your mount to its knees." "You expect me to believe random travelers in the wasteland are capable of such strange abilities? Prove it." I was fuming when I told him, "Gladly." I shot my arm up and, right on cue, Celvey stealthily engaged her telekinesis to make the Steltian's Dikapi buckle and fall over, squawking unhappily as it struggled against an unseen force. The rider took a nervous step backward. "Release it from their control." I lowered my arm and Celvey withdrew her power at once. "Let us pass." The Steltian angrily turned to his gang, all of whom were scouting the distance for my additional, imaginary allies. He then returned his attention to me. "There is a village on the other side of the canyon. My gang took great pains to demand they submit to our rule. I will permit you to stay the night there, but if we see you after sunrise tomorrow, I will shoot you down in the road." "Your generosity rivals the craftsmanship of Artakha." He glared. "And it runs thin, now move along." I motioned to the group with a brief swing of my head. "You heard him. Time to go." <<<>>> We passed through the canyon trail without any further trouble, and when the towering stones finally gave way to the broad and dusty plain beyond, it was clear just how far from the city we had come. I could see the sun setting in the distance, across a long expanse of rock and sand, littered with desert shrubs. Directly in front of us, however, was a tiny settlement greeting visitors with a wooden sign. I read it aloud with an apathetic, "Welcome to Kivacc: A Piece of Peace in the Sand." "That's an odd attitude to carry for coming from such a folksy background yourself," Kyrhus told me. "It'd only be odd if I never left." I scanned the main street and stopped when I noticed a sign for an inn. "Now let's see what I have to do to get a drink around these parts." Elendra and Kyrhus opted to wait outside on the porch while Celvey followed me inside the inn. I stepped inside and headed straight ahead, ignoring the chatty patrons in my peripheral vision. A few of the barstools were empty and I took a seat next to a Toa of air, glancing down the counter at the Ta-Matoran innkeeper. "What can I get for you?" he asked. "A Fiery Hikaki, if you would be so kind," I replied with a smile. Celvey sat down to my left, folding her arms onto the counter and resting her head on them. She stared at me, angrily, like she was waiting for an apology. I knew I would have to address her concerns eventually. "Adrinor needed some time alone," I said. "I've known him a little longer than you, and I could tell something was wrong. He'll work it out, but you may want to pretend to enjoy yourself for a while until we pick him up." "And that's your strategy, right? Just lying to yourself and smiling when life is hard?" The innkeeper slid my drink down the counter to me and I caught it, giving him a short wave. I took a sip, savoring the chilled sweetness before I swallowed. A Fiery Hikaki got its name from the sudden heat the drinker felt as it traveled down your throat. It was icy cold when swished around your mouth, and the warmth only made it sweeter. I pushed the glass close to Celvey and smirked at her. "My strategy is an improvement to feeling sorry for myself. It's a bad habit to get into, and it doesn't look very nice on you, princess." Celvey sat up and glared at me. "Don't call me that…and don't tell me what looks nice on me. I'm in no mood." She quickly took a drink of the Fiery Hikaki and practically slammed the glass back down. She winced and shuddered for a second, giving me a sour expression before pushing the drink back to me. "You'll be all right," I assured her, taking another sip. "I think our first priority of business should be to confront those bandits who gave us such a hard time on the way into town. I can handle myself without a problem, but their occupation of this peaceful village is rather cruel, even by our standards. They need someone to take a stand." I looked at the entity on my right, watching him swirl a bright orange drink around his glass. "How about you? What's kept you from exacting some justice on these criminals the way that Toa seem to be drawn to?" The room went silent and I instinctively looked over my shoulder. The inn patrons were all staring at me, visibly concerned. The Toa of air tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to face him. "What did you just call me, punk?" I narrowed my eyes at his insult and growled, "A Toa. What're you going to do about it, hero?" A smile formed on his Kanohi Faxon and he shook his head, getting up from his barstool. The Toa unlimbered the air sword on his back and turned to address the room. "Does anyone see a Toa anywhere in the room? I certainly don't, and I am seldom mistaken, so perhaps someone could set the record straight." "There's no Toa here, sir," a scared Po-Matoran uttered. I scoffed and reached for my heavy pistol. "I don't care what you call yourself, I don't appreciate someone calling me out and"- I did not get to finish that sentence. The Toa aimed his sword at me and summoned a concentrated air burst that shot me outside into the dirt road. Elendra casually leaned over the deck railing and smiled down at me. "How was your drink, Hadliek?" "Fantastic," I replied sarcastically. Kyrhus pulled me up by my forearm and watched me dust myself off. "You're always so quick to make friends, aren't you?" I activated the incendiary feature on my heavy pistol and stormed back inside the inn, pointing the humming weapon at the Toa of air's head. "Give me a reason not to put a hole in your mask." "Because I can tell you would rather not kill me if I don't force you to. You were talking about doing something to those Steltian bandits who have made themselves the law around these parts. Picking a fight with me won't get you any closer to accomplishing that, but as your ally, you would be surprised what I could offer your cause." I deactivated the incendiary feature and lowered my weapon, taking a glance around the room at the Matoran sitting nearby. They were waiting for one of us to make a move. "These Matoran are playing along with your game," I started. "Even if you would not call yourself a hero, a Toa, you know what's going on in this town. You know the Steltian occupation of this place isn't right. Why not do something about it? You've held your temper in the face of their oppression but loosed it on my words?" "The bandits know to stay out of my way, but I don't have any stake in their actions. Much as it may surprise you to see someone clad in the armor of what you call a hero and act beneath the title, I have abandoned my creed. The word Toa means nothing to me, and seeing as how the Steltians have not threatened my life or livelihood, we live and let live. You're welcome to the same if you keep that weapon down, although, point it my way again and I'll kill you where you stand." I slowly holstered my heavy pistol, not terribly interested to see if he would make good on his threat. He chose to let the Steltians run wild in Kivacc and was prepared to take my life. Whatever he saw himself as, there was no deception in his words. The green-masked figure staring me down was no longer a Toa. "All right then." I cleared my throat and stepped forward, offering a handshake. "I'm sorry about that introduction. My name's Hadliek." "I won't hold it against you," he replied, shaking. "Name's Lesovikk." "You're really willing to help us out then?" Celvey asked him. "I believe I could try," Lesovikk said. "The bandits usually ride back into town early in the morning. If you intend to kill them, you'll want to be waiting in the street for their return a little after dawn. The Matoran may find it a tad uncivilized, but you don't seem the type to shy away from a gunfight." "I wouldn't shy away from ambushing them in their sleep either," I admitted. Lesovikk shook his head. "They hail from Stelt. Their lives among thieves have made them smart enough to keep a couple of their number on watch in shifts through the night. Some of the Matoran have scouted after them and told me as much. It would be easier to shoot them from their mounts and take them down in the street." "And you'll help us with that, right?" I questioned. "If it looks like the tide of battle is leaning against you, I'll throw my sword into the action. But you caught me right as I was on my way out for the night, so I guess I'll see you in the morning." Celvey frowned. "You don't stay here at the inn?" "I'm too much of a drifter for anything that comfortable. Plus, I like to wake up in the night and take in the night skies above me. I wouldn't think any less of you for choosing the cozy option here though." "No, of course not," I replied facetiously. "I mean, most folks wouldn't bring it up if they didn't feel that way, but you did bring it up and I get the feeling that you do feel that way." "Is that so?" Lesovikk said, grinning. "Seems like you're feeling insecure if nothing else. At any rate, have a good night." He surveyed the room and gave them a nod before heading out. Elendra and Kyrhus passed by him on their way up to me, both staring back with confused expressions. "It's a long story, but that Toa of air is going to help us kill the Steltians tomorrow morning." "This is one of the rare occasions I think I'd actually like to hear the long story," Elendra commented. "Agreed," Kyrhus added, no less perplexed. "I'm going to book us for a night here at the inn," I replied. "I'll tell you the details in a minute." <<<>>> Celvey had been sensible enough to ask the innkeeper about taking some fuel back to our ship in exchange for driving out the bandits. The Matoran agreed and promised we would receive a few containers once we made good on our offer. Elendra was convinced the fuel grade used in Kivacc would burn through her ship's engines pretty quick, but would last long enough to fly us back into Valantru's outskirts for something better. Kivacc was a dark, silent town at night. My bed was nearest to the window and I kept waking up, intermittently scanning the shadowy street for any sign of the bandits' early return. There was nothing. Although, unlike my previous stirring, something caught my attention. It was terribly faint and off in the distance, but there was a light source coming from the canyon. I had no chance at getting back to sleep, and if it was the bandits, lookouts or not, I wanted to pursue the mystery. They may have been Steltians, but I saw myself as the superior gunfighter. I inched a hand beneath the bed for my heavy pistol and crept toward the stairs, hearing the sound of a lone revolver's hammer being cocked. "I'm going out for some air," I said, sighing. "Calm down." I listened as the revolver was gently set on Elendra's nightstand and I made my way down to the main floor. From there, it was an uneventful walk to the front door, out into the street, and on my way back to the canyon. I held my weapon close, and with limited sight in the dark, it felt like my audio receptors could hear the slightest wind knock a grain of sand into its neighbor. As I walked further from town and the light became brighter, I could tell I would have to carefully traverse the cliff to make my way up. There was no sign of the Steltians, but I tried to keep my noise to a minimum. Halfway up the rocks, I could hear kindling. The light was a campfire and someone was very, very close. I sprung up the final chunk of the cliffs, pointing my weapon at the biomech on the other side of the fire. It was only Lesovikk. He casually looked up from the stone he was using as a chair and smiled. "You were expecting someone else, yeah?" "…Yeah." I lowered my weapon and he gestured toward another stone. "Sit down, Hadliek." It was not an order, so much as an invitation. I obliged. "If I had been the bandits, you would be dead by now. What has drawn you from your bed on this lonely mission? What is on your mind?" "It's complicated," I said. "Did you know Mata Nui was nearly dead a couple weeks ago?" "Dead? I knew something didn't feel right, there was a presence calling out to me. It was a voice, reaching out to all who were chosen to be protectors. I may not call myself such things any longer, but the universe has no patience or concern with my private decision. When you are called to serve by the master of all, there are some things you can never be rid of," Lesovikk replied. "Are you going to surprise me and say that you saved his life?" "No, I wasn't chosen for the task. There was a group of Toa led by Jovan"- "Who?" Lesovikk questioned in disbelief. "Toa Jovan, he was this Toa of magnetism. Anyway, he and his team"- "He has a team?" "Stop interrupting!" I growled. "Forgive me," Lesovikk said in earnest. "Toa Jovan was a mentor of mine. When I was far more lost than I am now, I met Jovan and he offered me more than I could have asked for. He made me stronger in many ways." "He also journeyed with his team to save the life of the Great Spirit. They were successful." "Fascinating," the Toa mused. "If anyone were fit to handle such a demand, it's Jovan. If you see him again, tell him about me. Tell him…that I'm doing well. He'd be happy to know that." "You said you were lost?" "I had recently murdered someone. You could call it a metaphorical sense of being lost." "I've been trying not to ask for a while, but I have to know something," I said, tossing a stick into the fire. "When did you start killing?" "It's been 20,900 years now. I was on a mission with my team and we were attacked." "You killed the attackers?" I presumed. "I recognize Toa have their code of honor to follow, but I've put down my share of attackers without a second thought." "Well I had a second thought and it cost me everything," Lesovikk replied bitterly. "They were Zyglak…and they murdered my team. They murdered her." "Does 'her' have a name?" "She did." I stared hard into Lesovikk's bright orange eyes. "I'm sorry." He sighed. "Not as sorry as I am. I had known biomechs to perish before my team, but this was different. It was so sudden…no one should have to die the way they did. My life was…is, empty without them. If I had known they would be lost so quickly, without another word, I feel like I would've done things differently. If I had any indication how terrible their death would be, I feel like I could've saved them and destroyed the Zyglak." I lowered my gaze and reflected on his words, thinking about how it would feel to lose Adrinor, Elendra, Kyrhus, and Celvey. I tried to push it out of my mind, but Lesovikk's tale persisted and gave me reason to appreciate my friends while they were still around. "To answer your question," Lesovikk continued, "I returned home, defeated and alone. I longed to see old friends, still Matoran, that I once enjoyed the company of. When I arrived, I discovered the Turaga had lost his mind and sent the Matoran away to the realm of Karzahni. I remember screaming, begging Mata Nui to return my friends and my teammates and release me from my torment. A moment passed and the Turaga turned away, chuckling. Wracked with so much hate and misery, I pulled the air from the Turaga's lungs and ran him through with my sword, killing him. I ran away and encountered Jovan a few weeks later. He saved me from myself the day we met." "Given what you experienced before all that, your reaction isn't terribly surprising." "That's not the point," Lesovikk replied. "Toa do not kill…ever. When they do, things have to be reevaluated. We don't live the same lives and we no longer acknowledge the title of Toa. I doubt the same stigma existed in your land." "It doesn't," I assured him. "A Todrano is permitted to kill if the circumstances arise." "It must be so simple for you," Lesovikk said sharply. "If practiced enough, anything is simple," I countered. "I can only say I'm fortunate enough to have placed my friends in danger and watched them survive." "What did you do?" "I nearly betrayed them for wealth and power," I said. "Our crew is led by a Meldin who was targeted by the Dark Hunters for recruitment into their organization. They gave up attempting to convert him and went after me instead, hoping to play upon some trace of disloyalty. We were on an assignment and I knew that if my friends were taken into custody by the local authorities, they would be executed. Once that was done, all I had to do was murder our leader to secure a position among the Dark Hunters." "They must have been terribly persuasive," Lesovikk commented. I nodded. "I set up the Trelban and the Gekalan to be apprehended, but the Meldin discovered what I was up to…I've never asked how and I'd rather not know. My Ilisian ally and the Meldin managed to rescue the Trelban and Gekalan, ruining my opportunity completely." Lesovikk raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised at this Meldin's tolerance for your actions. How are you not dead?" I thought about the question, reflecting on the return trip to Stelt after the mission concluded. I had retreated to the balcony outside Voporak's coliseum, unable to sleep, unable to let myself live with what I had tried to do. That's when Adrinor arrived with my salvation, the sound of his gunblade loading behind me. "I know what you did," Adrinor said calmly. It was late, and only the Ohnbiek guards were around, a couple fending off sleep down near the coliseum entrance. They wouldn't have said a word if Adrinor chose to shoot and throw me from the balcony. "Yeah," I replied, unwilling to face Adrinor. "It really sank in on the way back. I'm sorry, Adrinor. Just let me tell them I regret what I did first…I want them to hear it from me before…before you get this over with." "They don't know." Adrinor swept my legs out from beneath me and held the edge of his gunblade against the back of my neck. He kicked me onto my back and the barrel of his weapon was on target with my throat. He stood there for a moment, his finger twitching over the trigger and I could hardly stand it. "If you're going to do this, just do it," I pleaded. "Fine," Adrinor replied, pulling the trigger. I shut my eyes tight and waited for some intense pain to shoot through me before living out the final moments of my life. Instead, I felt nothing. I hesitantly reopened my eyes and found Adrinor kneeling at my side, the blade pressed against my neck. "It was empty?" I whispered in shock. "You saved my life, long ago," Adrinor told me. "You dragged me through the mud and the rain to safety, and I thank you for that. Now I'm going to save your life from the sharp edge of this sword and we can call it even." I couldn't breathe. "Thank…thank you." Adrinor put the weapon away and offered me a hand up. As I reached to accept, he recoiled for a moment and said, "If you ever put yourself before the safety of this crew again, don't think I wouldn't scour the universe for a tribe of Zyglak to leave you in the company of - unarmed." I nodded and he pulled me up by the arm, putting an end to the matter right there. "I saved his life, Lesovikk," I explained, "and he repaid that by sparing mine." "This Meldin made an honorable decision then," Lesovikk replied. "Foolish perhaps, but honorable nonetheless." "My loyalty to him has been unwavering since that day," I said. "Then continue to pay loyalty to him. Return to the inn and rest, so that you will be prepared tomorrow morning. Remember that you're not just fighting for yourself, you're fighting for your friends." "I'm going to keep that in mind," I replied, standing up. "You'll be all right out here?" "Don't worry about me," Lesovikk said. "Get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning." "If you say so." With that, I started back for Kivacc. <<<>>> "Wake up," Celvey whispered, shaking my arm. "The sun is on its way." I sat up in bed, stretching out my arms and releasing a satisfying yawn. I picked up my weapon and smiled at Celvey. "Then let's give it something awesome to shine on." The four of us walked downstairs together, silently passing the innkeeper. There were a few more Matoran in the room, waiting near the windows. They all wanted to see if we were the gunfighters we made ourselves out to be. I marched out into the dirt road and faced the canyon, both hands gripped around my heavy pistol. Elendra had a revolver in each hand, Kyrhus was staring down the barrel of his sniper rifle, and Celvey had her sonic assault rifle humming and ready. I scanned the buildings and the outskirts of the canyon, but there was no sign of Lesovikk. "Looks like that Toa of air got cold feet on us," I said, frustrated. "Any sign of him, Kyrhus?" "Nothing at all," he replied. "Didn't he say he would only assist if the odds were against us?" "We're outnumbered to start with, I feel like that's reason enough to say the odds are against us," Celvey argued. "It might be easy to drop them from their mounts out here in the road, but we're easy targets if they really know how to shoot." "So we make it an assault," Elendra said. "As soon as we pick them off the Dikapi, everyone unloads everything they've got." "Here they come," Kyrhus told us, tightening up his grip on the rifle. "Get ready and I'll give the order." We could hear the Dikapi rushing through the canyon, heading for Kivacc. And then they burst out from around the bend, charging straight down the road we were standing on. We still had the element of surprise, but Kyrhus held back his orders longer than I expected. "Can we shoot?" I asked, trying not to panic. "Not…yet," Kyrhus replied, holding steady. "Just a few…seconds…longer." As soon as those seconds were gone, Kyrhus shouted, "Now!" He was the first to fire, and one of the Dikapi fell immediately. The rest of us picked our shots and watched the rest of the Rahi drop to the ground, dead or too injured to carry on. The Steltians all jumped from the Dikapi, rushing forward and grabbing for their laser bolt rifles. "Give them everything you've got!" Elendra ordered. I hit the incendiary activator and fired the rest of my clip, emptying it and shoving in another, keeping up the attack. Celvey was launching a constant stream of sonic burst energy from her weapon, charging her bullets with enough force to shred through most any armor. Elendra fired all of her bullets and reloaded with amazing speed, firing her last round just as Kyrhus shot his last sniper bullet. I had spent everything trying to bring the Steltians down, but our assault had caused the dirt to erupt in a cloud around the bandits. When the dust settled, I was sure my team was feeling the same sense of alarm running through my own mind. The Steltians were all surrounded by personal energy shields, glowing brilliant silver in a dome casing around each of them. The shields held strong against everything we had, and the Steltians inside were untouched. The visibility of the barriers faded away and they started walking toward us, pointing their rifles at our heads. "So a full-on assault was a bad move," I muttered. "Can we evade to cover?" "They'd pick one of us off before we had the chance," Elendra replied quietly. Kyrhus was searching himself for any additional rounds to no avail when Elendra furiously shoved her revolvers back into their holsters. Celvey's sonic rifle was drained, but she made an attempt to break the shields with her telekinesis. The Steltians glowed inside their barriers, laughing at our failed attempt to blow them away. "What are you trying to do there, Ilisian?" one of them mocked. "Think you can reach out and hurt me like a Toa of Psionics?" Celvey hunched forward with a heavy breath and I could tell she had put a lot of energy into trying to deactivate their barriers. "Enough talk," the leader said firmly, slowly pointing his rifle at me. "Their luck has finally run out." He took the shot and I thought I had time to see the bullet coming for me. And then it never did. The bullet was spiraling in place, slowly losing speed before it fell harmlessly to the ground. I glanced at Celvey, but she shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry I'm late." Everyone turned and looked to the rooftop of the inn where the voice had come from. Lesovikk was standing there, arms folded, a smile plastered across his face. "Mind your own business, Toa!" the Steltian leader warned. "I'll put you down just as quick if you get in my way. There's no law in these parts to keep you safe!" "And none to save you either," Lesovikk reminded him. "Appearances can be deceiving, Steltian, and I'll only tell you one time, I no longer have reason to follow the code. You can leave now and head home, and I promise you that none of us will trail you and put a well-deserved bullet in your back. But if you pull that trigger, if you open fire with a single round, I will come down there and make you regret it." "Even if I thought you might get through my energy shields, what makes you think I couldn't handle a Toa trying to give me a beating?" "Like I said, I no longer follow the code. If you intend to bring me down off this roof, then you're already standing on your grave." I returned my heavy pistol to my hip and watched the Steltians chuckle with one another for a moment before their leader pointed his rifle at Lesovikk. "I'm calling your bluff, Toa!" The Steltians turned their weapons on Lesovikk and unloaded a barrage of energy bullets on him. Without moving an inch, the Toa of air summoned a cyclone around himself that caught the entire assault before launching it back against the Steltians. Their shields withstood the attack, but the cyclone quickly followed and sent the gang high into the air. Lesovikk leapt from the rooftop and brought himself down gently, a notable contrast to the hard landing each of the Steltians had. Each of their energy shields malfunctioned with a loud crackle upon smacking into the ground and Lesovikk drew his air sword to finish up the battle. Lesovikk looked over his shoulder at us with a grin. "You need a particular touch to take down an energy barrier." "Sure we didn't just wear it down for you first?" I asked. "Pretty sure!" he laughed. Dazed and in pain, the Steltians awkwardly scooped up their weapons and got to their feet, all focused on the Toa of air standing directly in front of them. He took a few steps away and pulled his sword back, aiming his free hand at his opponents. "It's your move," he told them. The Steltian leader had Lesovikk at such close range that missing would be an impossibility. That is to say, had he been shooting at a target like myself. I am not sure if he realized just how powerful this particular Toa was. He hollered as his energy rifle fired a fully automatic stream of rounds that Lesovikk quickly redirected to shoot up the Steltian's gang. Every bullet came within inches of tearing through Lesovikk, and each one found itself in a Steltian instead. Finally, out of bullets, the leader cast his weapon aside and summoned his arm blades, angrily surveying the bodies of his fallen comrades. They were all dead, blasted full of holes by Lesovikk's maneuver. The Toa of air shook his head. "Bad move." Lesovikk rushed forward with a slash and the Steltian leader crossed his arm blades to defend. I could hear the sound of an intense wind fly through Lesovikk's sword just before I watched the blade slice through the Steltian's poorly-made metal and his arms as well. Lesovikk spun all the way around in his attack, crouching once he finished. He gave me a smirk, but I hardly looked. I was more awestruck to see the Steltian's forearms had been severed and a fatal gash had been struck through his chestplate and into his heartlight. The leader fell backwards and Lesovikk stood up straight, walking toward me. "You…you got him." Lesovikk stifled a laugh. "Yeah, I know." I gave him a smile and offered a handshake. "I could have used some of that on my side a tad sooner." He took my hand and balled it into a fist, bumping his own against it. "It was my own hesitation that nearly put you in harm's way like that. I thought about leaving you to handle the situation by yourself, but it was that nagging sense of hesitation to act. It made me think about my old team and the reluctance I once gave them. They deserved better of me…as did you. There's nothing I can do for them, so I came back to rescue a few biomechs with lives left to save." "Well thanks for not ditching out on the party," I said, giving his shoulder a nudge. "One last thing though, Lesovikk. That Toa friend of yours…'her'…are you going to give me a name this time? You thought enough of me to save my life, it'd really just put a small mystery to rest for me." Lesovikk's eyes stared away from me, and his tone was flat when he said, "Nikila. Toa of Electricity, the spark that lit my world." "Sometimes we make our own sparks fly," I replied. "And sometimes our arguments are a little less banal," Lesovikk said, grinning in a self-satisfied way that reminded me why I hated Toa just a little bit. "Farwell, strange, gun-toting travelers. May you never find yourselves on the business end of anything more lethal than your own weapon. Oh, and the innkeeper is waiting with your liquid reward." "Not a moment too soon," Elendra said, glancing at me. "This is the last time I'll be taking orders from you for quite some time on how far an airship can go on so little fuel." I glared, knowing full well that she was right. "Then let's get going back to Valantru and fill the tank. It's going to be a long journey after that." "You think Adrinor is ready to see us?" Celvey asked. "I don't really care if he is," I replied. "We need him, and I won't let our friend sit around feeling bad for himself any longer." "What's got you so sentimental, Hadliek?" Kyrhus wondered, chuckling to himself. "As if I'd tell you when you're laughing at me?" I shot back. "Bring the fuel barrels outside and we'll see if the inn can spare us an extra cart to carry them on. It may be early in the morning now, but before the night is over, this team will have to remind a Meldin about his place among us. He won't find it wandering alone on Nohtal." Review
  16. Cederak

    Cynosure

    And I sat in regret, of all the things I've done; for all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. –Audioslave Episode 15: Irrevocable Overture Everything felt wrong. After Jovan's team rescued the Great Spirit, there was an indescribable warmth in the air that seemed to reach out and promise that things would turn out alright. When Makuta Teridax ended the war in Metru Nui though, the thought of his victory was an empty one. There was no light, or hope, because he had used the Archives exhibits against the Matoran, and the Rahi mauled them to death. If it was any indication of the brutality Teridax utilized in a military strategy, it finally made sense how his armies overran the Barraki in a single day many years before. Following our escape from Onu-Metru, we all agreed to take a day to recuperate in Stelt. We needed a brief opportunity to restock our ammunition, Elendra could make repairs after her airship clipped a tower, and resting was not out of the question. Even with the blueprint in hand, gathering the materials for another Amplifier could be a time-consuming task. We were no closer to our goal at the moment, Drelinok had kept his distance since controlling my mind in the battle with Zanteox, and I really just wanted a break. I had not taken a moment to relax since we left for Todrano, which had been four days earlier. So when I made it back to my room above Voporak's coliseum, I set my gunblade in the corner of the room and promptly fell asleep on my bed. As much as I wanted to rest, I found myself continually jarred awake by the vivid memories of my final days on Meldio. An hour or so would pass and they would come again, sounding the bombs and blaster fire of Drelinok's war with the Collective. His command of battle was masterful, overwhelming and outthinking his opponents at every turn. Troops were mere pawns, used and expended as he saw necessary. Orchards burned, statues crumbled, and many began to believe that we were only wasting Drelinok's time. One way or another, he would destroy the Collective and bring his definition of order to the island. He thought so highly of the Directorate that nothing could possibly hold a candle to it. In my foolish youth, I sought an audience with him in his office. "You openly declared that you would kill the Collectivists." "They are traitors to the Directorate, Adrinor." "That makes them worthy of death? You dreamed of becoming this island's Director for years because you said you loved Meldio, and this is how you choose to implement that idea?" "I do love Meldio and I will not see it's governing body overrun by the views of a hive mind. The Directorate places importance in the individual, with a presiding board to oversee those decisions. You want me to open the floor to restructuring the island into a commune where a Meldin who has worked hard for his standing is expected to pick up the failures among us? If they win, I will cease to be Drelinok, and you will be Adrinor no longer. We will be numbers, drones, like the insectoid creatures born in Destral by the hands of Makuta. We're better than that. We were made to be better." "Says who?" "The Great Beings! The mark of free will and sentience on all Meldin is evidence that we have the right to determine our own lives. If you do not believe that, if you will not take up arms as my soldier, then you are an enemy of the state. You are a traitor to Meldio." "If you say so. I will choose to determine my own life and walk out of this building without picking up a weapon for the Directorate. Whether they are right or wrong, never forget that you crossed the line first. You forced their hand, to have their voices heard at the very least." "Why did you come here today?" "I know that you're planning to conquer Zephaon from the Collective. The rumors have spread and your enemy is aware that you intend to capture the capital. This is your last chance, Drelinok." "Are you threatening me?" "I haven't the army to do so, no. I am promising you, there is no redemption after this. If you march your soldiers into the town you and I grew up in, if you rend through it as you have done thus far, you will always be something terrible. No matter where you go or what you do after that, the spirits of the dead in Zephaon will haunt you all the rest of your days." "They'll thank me someday. I would have ejected most from my office by now, but our long-standing friendship has restrained me. You are free to walk out of here, but the war will continue. Even if I have to extinguish every life in Zephaon, as long as this island is Meldio, I will haunt you all the rest of your days." "Do you expect us to meet again?" "I should hope that we meet again when the frailty of age has wracked our bodies, because if we carry even a fraction of the vitality we have now, our reunion will tear a hole in the world." <<<>>> I wanted him to see reason so badly, but Drelinok had made up his mind about the Collective from the start. My mind stirred me with that reminiscence throughout the day on Stelt, and we left for Valantru before sunrise the next morning. I could not reason with who Drelinok was, or what he was for that matter. On the day I set sail from Meldio, I could see the central hub of Zephaon. Atop the skyscraper was a golden statue of Zephaon, a Meldin who was praised for his research in electromagnetism, which led to the invention of many devices that made day-to-day life on Meldio simpler. His statue was reaching an empty hand toward the sky, standing as a symbolic belief that Meldin ingenuity dreamed to touch the stars and manipulate the universe. An ion beam cannon shattered the top of the hub and the statue collapsed, putting an end to the age of discovery. The result of the battle was unimportant, because as I rowed further on, I knew that all who called themselves Meldin had lost that day. In stark contrast to that, Valantru was looking sunny and productive on approach. The city was home to a number of different species, which was not uncommon in any metropolis on the Northern Continent. Valantru had been given a fine opportunity to update its infrastructure after the Barraki made a daring stand against the Brotherhood of Makuta in the city. After a long day of war had practically razed the city, Makuta Miserix commissioned dozens of task forces to repairing what had been done. Most creatively, Valantru had the Grid – a citywide system of hard light ribbons that directed all flight traffic above the streets. The Grid was supported by a number of hubs with controllers at each station to ensure traffic was moving smoothly. And if you were traveling by air, the Grid was mandatory in Valantru. A light started blinking at the controls of Elendra's ship and a small chime followed. We had just received a request to open a communication link. Elendra opened the link and slowed down a bit. "Link is active," she said. "Am I speaking with the pilot?" "You are. My name is Elendra." "Good afternoon. I am an air traffic controller hailing you from Grid Station 01-4. Please accelerate onto the nearest Grid line and I will place your vessel into the network. What is your final destination today?" "I am traveling to the Valantru Spire." "Understood. Your ship has been added to the local traffic cluster under your name and a final destination has been designated for the Valantru Spire. Traffic is getting a tad heavy in the heart of the city this morning, but your travel time should be under an hour. Please come forward and I'll handle the rest." "Sounds good." Elendra terminated the link and accelerated onto the ribbon of light, switching the system into an idle state. We were still online, but the magnetic system within the Grid would push us forward in a sort of auto-pilot function. "Too bad it can't always be this easy, right?" Elendra raised an eyebrow. "I prefer doing my own driving to sitting around like this. You're just lazy." I sat up and got to my feet. "Lazy has nothing to do with it, I just don't trust myself to drive. My last opportunity was earlier this week and I brought Zanteox's flagship down by punching it through a port on Zakaz." "To be fair, you could have put it down before it would have hit land." Elendra replied, laughing. We headed back into the main cabin and took a seat with the rest of the crew, planning to relax until our arrival at the Valantru Spire. Even if Elendra did not like it much, the city controllers were very practiced in guiding ships through Valantru. Our confidence in them made it all the stranger that we suddenly came to a halt after a few minutes. "What's going on?" Kyrhus asked. Elendra peered out the window. "All of the traffic is stopping. Not all at once, but it looks like separate lines of hard light are being given the command to halt their ships." "Nothing seems to be happening," Hadliek added. "You're right," Celvey replied. "It's a nice, sunny day out." The chime request for a link sounded again and Elendra hurried back to the controls. This time, however, she routed the sound through the speaker system. "This one's not a link," she stated on the way back to us. "It's a broadcast." "And they've got the telescreens coming up for it too," Hadliek told her, pointing out the window. I could see the telescreens blacking out from the advertisements and city notifications they had been displaying. They were not as large as the ones in Metru Nui, but effective all the same. When there were none left with light, they came back on together. And for reasons I would soon understand, the entire city was looking at Makuta Krika's face. "Good afternoon, citizens of Valantru. My name is Makuta Krika and I have been appointed to serve as your protector for an indeterminate amount of time." "What's a Makuta doing here on the Northern Continent?" Celvey wondered aloud. "I am pleased to announced that the Metru Nui Civil War has come to an end by the hand of the Brotherhood. This savior is named Teridax, and his revelation of this truth to the Matoran in the north was met with fury, following the execution of approximately 100 Matoran who were determined to be guilty of an egregious crime." "I'm sure there were a dozen ways he could have taken a more humane approach to their punishment," Kyrhus argued. "A sudden death is an execution. Releasing the Rahi exhibits was a massacre." "Hey, we're on your side," Hadliek replied. "It's not like Krika can hear you." "As I speak, my brothers are addressing other lands with this information, and it is the opinion of Metru Nui's citizens that my organization has committed an atrocity. Let me be clear that any attack that would bring harm to the Great Spirit is a crime above all others. The Matoran were guilty of said crime. Metru Nui's leader, Turaga Zilnyx, has supported the Brotherhood throughout our intervention though we understand that our relations with the city may be strained for some time." "That's an optimistic analysis," I said. "I should hope that my time in Valantru will be an amicable period for us, but I must deliver a warning that will come with a great deal of severity. It is unlawful for any citizen or citizens to incite a civil war, and any declaration found to violate this order will be met with a swift and terrible vengeance. If you should seek my counsel to discuss this subject or any other matters, I will be available by appointment in Valantru Spire. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your day." The telescreens faded out and returned to their rotation of advertisements and announcements. "Well…that was somber," Hadliek said, taking a seat. "All the more reason to visit the Spire, right?" "And to do it carefully," I replied. "If the Makuta have started an occupation of the entire universe, then we need to tread with caution. Before we seek out the directory, I want to speak with him. I want to know exactly what's going on." "Think anyone will care that we don't have an appointment?" Kyrhus asked. "We'll need to be very convincing of the contrary if they do," Celvey suggested to him. "This is too important for anything less. It's too weird. Don't you agree? Something about this feels very amiss, and after nearly getting torn to pieces by the Teridax's war-ending tactic, I'd say Adrinor is right. We need some answers." I flashed everyone the Tablet of Transit that Makuta Miserix gave me. "If Krika tries to give us a hard time, we have this to remind him that we come in peace. After he vaporized Drelinok's body, even knowing Drelinok survived the event, I could do without upsetting a Makuta." Elendra pulled one of her revolvers and tapped it against the tablet a couple times. "It's not enough that they could conquer the world, the really disturbing part is that they know how easy it would be." <<<>>> The Grid controllers directed us safely through downtown Valantru and Elendra stopped the ship in the Spire's outer parking lot. I stepped outside and suddenly felt overwhelmed by the world around me. Valantru Spire had open-air parking for Grid transit, but I could see beyond the parking lot railing and how much further the city descended. The street was another 75 bio below, with many more ribbons of the grid twisting through it. Downtown Valantru was a conglomerate of skyscrapers, the point where the highest density of traffic flowed through every day. But none stood so tall and stunning as the building before me. I craned my neck up at the Valantru Spire, an astonishing 600 bio above my head. Its design was that of an icicle structure tipped upside down, towering needle points of metal jutting high in support of the central construct. "Krika is probably all the way at the top," Hadliek said, breaking my concentration. "That's where I'd be if I were suddenly in charge of the city." Kyrhus snickered. "But of course. We'd better find the lobby and"- "Hold on a sec," I interrupted. "Have we never visited this place before?" "Not that I can remember," Elendra replied. "I've steered aircraft onto the Grid before, but our missions have only taken us into the streets or to other sectors of the city." "Valantru Spire has stood for roughly a millennium and we've never walked through the front door," I said in confusion, shaking my head. "Let's correct that." I took the lead, finding myself curious enough to stare up at the Grid traffic as it darted through the central hub of Valantru. My gaze fell when the parking lot turned to a footpath and the walkways became lined in lush greenery, growing trees and flowers that were not native to the Northern Continent. Amid the sounds of vehicles in transit and the wind blowing between the skyscrapers, I felt no reason to have my weapon drawn. It was busy, yet peaceful, and when we were finally standing beneath the overhang to the entrance, I did not want to go any farther. "Adrinor," Celvey said. "What's wrong?" I stood frozen as I watched the automatic doors slide open, pause for a moment, attempt to close, register my presence, and slide back again. This happened three times before I responded. "I wish we didn't have to do this. I suddenly have an odd feeling, like I know we're walking in to something terrible. I want to stay here, but it's drawing me in. We have to go." "We have to go?" "No, Celvey. We have to go." I looked over my shoulder and the four of them stared back, as if they were afraid of me. I faced forward and marched in to the lobby. A Ko-Matoran was stationed at the desk, smiling at us. "Good morning, travelers. Welcome to Valantru Spire. How may I be of assistance to you?" "You can opt out of sounding any alarms," I replied, pulling my gunblade and pointing it at him. The rest of the crew drew their weapons and loaded them, prompting the Ko-Matoran to cower in toward the desk a bit. "What are you here for?" he asked nervously. "Makuta Krika," I said. "We haven't scheduled an appointment and I don't have time to make one. We're going to see him now." "He's in charge of the city! If I let you harm him"- "He's a Makuta!" I argued. The Ko-Matoran was silent, letting my words sink in. "If I even thought of hurting him, don't you think he'd anticipate it? Don't you think a Makuta would respond in turn by unleashing so much power, that none but his own kind could withstand the force? Krika is a member of a mighty and dangerous species, and he was not sent here so that Matoran could serve as his protectors. He is sworn to protect you." "Even so, everything in this building is conducted by scheduling. Would it be right of me to let someone demand to speak with Makuta Krika every time a blaster is pointed in my face?" I laughed, putting my gunblade away. "The way you trembled before me, I could tell that no one had ever pointed a blaster at your face before. As long as you work at this desk, I don't suspect it will happen again." We took one of the elevators up from the lobby, required to walk down the hallway on Floor 131 to reach a cluster of elevators that granted access to the highest floors. Just as the doors were about to close on our way up to the top, Floor 250, a crimson hand stopped the doors. It was a Toa of fire, riding up alongside a Toa of stone who keyed in their desired floor. I gave them a polite nod of acknowledgement. They both regarded my crew with suspicious looks and I pretended not to notice. Hadliek entered our destination floor number into a screen on the wall and the doors slowly sealed together. The Spire's top elevators had a glass plate for the wall parallel to the doorway and, while I often preferred to stare out at cities as I ascended above them, the pair of Toa behind me managed to keep my eyes fixed above the doors on a holographic display of our current floor. Try to understand that this was not out of fear, but rather to avoid a confrontation. There is an old saying in Meldio, "It is not wise to go looking for trouble where none yet exists." I could appreciate this statement, especially when a couple "heroes" were mumbling to each other behind my back. "Is there something we can help you with?" Hadliek questioned the Toa. "Our business is simply that," the Toa of stone replied bitterly. "I do not need mercenaries listening in on private affairs." "Mercenaries?" Hadliek asked, feigning shock. "What makes you say that?" "You're well-equipped enough to survive a shootout with a small army. Never mind that each of you is a different species, most likely a band of thieves from Stelt or Dark Hunters on assignment. Do you know the great danger you place yourselves in by operating outside the law?" "You'll have to enlighten me," Hadliek said through a fake grin. "That the law will not come to your aid when your luck runs out. Your species is renowned for their work in medical advancement and the protection of life, and this is what you choose instead? You dishonor your kind, Todrano." I glanced back at Hadliek for a second and watched him casually turn his head toward the ceiling. "Well, thanks for the opinion, buddy," Hadliek said petulantly. I could tell his patience was running thin. "Hadliek, it's not worth the trouble," Kyrhus tried to reason with him. "These two?" Elendra piped up. "I'd have to disagree with you on that one." "And I'm backing Kyrhus on this one," Celvey told her. "This isn't the ideal place for mouthing off, firepower advantage or not." I was still staring at the numbers, hoping we could reach our destination soon. We were 50 floors from the top when the Toa of fire finally spoke. "I don't think you want to encourage a fight with us, Trelban," he told her in a voice that was painfully haughty, even for a Toa. "We don't have time for this," I growled impatiently to no one in particular. The elevator immediately became silent and I resumed watching the numbers above the door. At last, we arrived at the floor the Toa wished to reach and the doors opened up. The Toa of fire walked out first and as the Toa of stone stepped by me, he had one more comment for the group. "Better listen to your Ilisian friend. Your tempers are going to get you in trouble." "It wouldn't be the first time," I said politely. "Getting in fights on elevators, well…things are bound to escalate quickly." The Toa caught my pun and glared at me. "You're not funny." He followed his companion into the hallway, and that's when I heard two shots go off. One was an incendiary round from Hadliek's weapon that tore a molten hole in the Toa of stone's left leg. The second was an energy bullet from one of Elendra's revolvers that shredded through the muscle tissue in the Toa of fire's right leg. By the time they realized what happened, we were already on our way up to the top of the spire. "In his defense, it was a bad joke," I told them. "I wasn't standing up for your terrible sense of humor," Hadliek assured me, "I just needed a little non-lethal payback." "Non-lethal?" I repeated, somewhat impressed. "That's a new term for you." "It's grown on me lately," he replied. "Killing puts an abrupt end to something, and the target's suffering is over in an instant. But a painful injury like what Elendra and I just did? That's going to ruin someone's whole day." "And you, Elendra?" I wondered. "I just wanted to see if I could mirror Hadliek's shot," she said before giving me a smile. "Looks like I've still got it." "You two are impossible," Celvey spoke up, sighing in frustration. The elevator came to a halt at the spire's top floor. Number 250. It chimed as the doors opened, revealing a well-decorated hall. We stepped out, squinting as the sunlight poured through the windows, painting the luxurious bronze tile in brightness and reflecting brilliantly off the golden honeycomb design on the grand hall's pillars. Several Valantru soldiers (mostly Fe-Matoran) were huddled around the tables, discussing what I overheard to be a security policy proposal for Makuta Krika now that he was the city's sworn protector. "Eyes up, soldiers!" one of them shouted. Everyone snapped upright and drew their energy rifles, pointing them in our direction. We drew our own weapons in response, uncertain of what might happen next. "Stand down," he ordered us. "I am Edimus, Squadron Commander of the troops assigned to the Valantru Spire. My soldiers are tasked with the protection of this building and its occupants. You will not have an audience with Makuta Krika while carrying so much firepower." "You heard him," I told my crew. "Throw the safety on and keep your hands up." We slowly approached the soldiers, watching them lower their arms. Edimus turned me around and detached my gunblade from its magnetic holder, setting it on the table. "That's beautiful," he remarked, brushing a hand over the blade. "Thank you, Commander. Are we permitted to speak with Makuta Krika now?" Edimus scanned the rest of us for any blasters that he or his soldiers might have missed. He looked back to me with a nod. "Go on ahead. And remember, be respectful. You will be in the presence of a Makuta." "We understand." We continued past the soldiers and I pushed open the door to Krika's chambers, staring into a shadowy room. The window shades were drawn and an eerie beam of emerald light shone down on the center of the floor. I could see an object laying there, but I could not be sure what I was looking at. "Makuta Krika?" I called out, stepping inside. A powerful gust hurled my crew into the chamber and the doors immediately slammed shut. Without hallway light to brighten the entrance, Krika's chamber was much darker than I had expected. "I always thought the Brotherhood operated out of Destral," I stated. Hearing the sound of my voice managed to calm my nerves, but I still could not see the Makuta. "When did you decide to open shop here in Valantru?" "The Makuta have been tasked with scattering across the universe, to prevent any further civil wars," Krika whispered in a voice that echoed through the shadows. "Teridax managed to end the conflict in Metru Nui, and per our new assignments, Valantru is under my jurisdiction. The Matoran in the north were understandably upset with how we chose to proceed, but we could not risk the Great Spirit's life any longer." "A wise decision," I replied, trying to ignore the reality of how dreadful Teridax's methods had been. "Listen, my name is Adrinor…my crew helped fend off the Light Warriors on Destral and I wanted to discuss locating a tablet held in the directory here." "With new leadership often comes new instructions," Krika whispered. "I had the virtual directory deactivated and its contents destroyed." I suddenly felt faint. "That directory may have held the one key to stopping Drelinok and you just wiped it out?" "After the week I've had, it was one of my simpler tasks." I studied the object in the emerald light and felt a cold chill envelop me when I realized it was the dead body of Makuta Cevezia. Krika's deep red eyes met my own when he spoke again. "She's not a permanent part of the décor, but I've not thought how to dispose of her yet." "Why?" I muttered. "Why do this to one of your own?" "I have chosen my fate," Krika replied hopelessly. I glimpsed his form glide through the darkness and arrive at the emerald light, just near enough to illuminate his facial features. "What has been done cannot be undone," Krika continued. "My brothers and I have turned away from the purpose we were given – a grave betrayal to Mata Nui. Teridax has assumed control of the Brotherhood now, leaving me to wonder if Drelinok may actually be the hero he claims to be. The Meldin soldier of light, enemy of our newfound existence. Drelinok will destroy us all, perhaps, and the universe shall follow." "It doesn't have to be that way," I argued. "What gave Teridax the authority to take command in the first place?" "It was Miserix that ordered us to scatter across the universe to impose our laws, and when Mutran returned from a distant…place, Teridax was so certain. He already won Metru Nui for his actions, and now he has lost and gained everything at once. I can tell you this depressing tale, Adrinor, because there is nothing you can do to stop us. Much as I wish it were different, my kind have nothing to fear from you." "Miserix won't stand for this," Celvey said. "Miserix is dead, Ilisian," Krika told her with a sigh. "His few supporters that did not side with Teridax in our change of command, well, they have sealed their doom for being the most rational Makuta to have existed." "And what does that make the rest of you?" I growled. Krika laughed in a hollow, defeated tone. I heard the sound of him soaring through the darkness before he was mere inches from my face, his crimson eyes like flames. "We are monsters," he breathed. I glared into his eyes and replied, "Turning on your own kind like this is beyond anything I thought the Brotherhood capable of. I only wish I had the power to kill you myself." I half expected Krika to strike, but it did not come. Instead, he hovered back into the emerald light and said, "I have opted for a slow suicide, Meldin. The best parts of my nature will eventually all fade away, and I will be a shell of the biomech I came into this world as. Destruction at your hand now would be a mercy, for a part of me dies a little each day." The doors flung open and Krika vanished into the shadows. "Take your leave from my tower. There is nothing but the agony of loss in my company." "It would appear so," I conceded. "No, there's something else too," Celvey interrupted. We turned to her for an explanation and she quickly continued. "Makuta Krika is meditating in this darkness, touching the source of a power that invites death and devastation be wrought by its hand. You can't sense it, but it's all around us." "The Ilisian speaks the truth. In light of our actions, shadows are all we have left," Krika spat. Celvey stepped forward. "Then allow me to remind you what you're missing." Celvey summoned a ball of light in her hand and threw her arm out in a sweeping motion, blasting the curtained windows to pieces in a telekinetic assault before a ring of light blasted its way across Krika's body. The chamber was illuminated and we could see Krika had transformed into something out of a nightmare since we had last seen him. His Kanohi Crast had been modified with a pair of fangs, his eyes slanted upward like an alien insect, and deep red spines jutted out along the lines of his armor. "It's already over!" he screamed, hunching over and shielding his eyes. A pair of dreadful wings sprouted from his back and he walked backward toward the shattered windows. "We have already won." The Makuta fell backward and we watched him glide away over Valantru, opting to flee rather than face another blast from Celvey. "Nice one," Hadliek complimented her in an empty voice. We were all quite stunned. I examined the broken chamber, eyeing the shards of glass and Makuta Cevezia's corpse on the floor. Even if we had avoided engaging a Makuta in combat, Krika had managed to infect me with his forlorn attitude, and I let his words replay in my mind. Drelinok may actually be the hero he claims to be. It hardly mattered, because without someone powerful enough to rival his abilities, Drelinok was unstoppable. Even if Drelinok was as mortal as the voice over Zakaz told me, I would need an army to battle him. The Brotherhood had been my last strategy, the one organization with the strength to tackle what Drelinok had become. The rest of my crew followed me back into the hallway and I turned to Hadliek. "I'm placing you in charge," I said. "I…can't do this right now. The Brotherhood has fallen to darkness and even with Mata Nui's life saved, Drelinok is poised to conquer the universe. I have a lot of regret over what I wish I'd done, and not done, and I'm in no condition to lead you anywhere." "What are you saying?" Celvey asked. "I'm leaving." "Adrinor." She said my name with the pain and hurt of someone just shot. "You said it yourself – things are falling apart! Isn't now the time when we need each other the most?" "I can't save you from him, Celvey. Just let me go." Hadliek and Elendra were comfortable letting me make my own decisions on the matter, but they gave me a look that blended judgment and concern. Kyrhus looked almost as sad as Celvey, but he stayed quiet. I started walking away, very unsure if I was doing the right thing. Some part of me wanted—needed—my crew to be there for me, but too much of me pushed the notion away. There was only one place in the universe I wanted to be, and having company was not the ideal arrangement. "Adrinor!" Celvey shouted, running after me. I could hear the sound of Hadliek coming to hold her back, trying to stop Celvey. After a moment, Kyrhus and Elendra reluctantly assisted him. "It's okay!" he said, trying to calm her down as he wrestled against her. "Just take a deep breath, Celvey, he knows what he's doing!" "What kind of friends are you?" Celvey asked in shock, struggling with everyone. "How could you let someone you care about just run away like this? Do you even know where he's going?" Before I returned to the elevator, I heard one last thing from Elendra. "Yeah," she said bitterly. "And it's a place where he'd like to be alone." Review
  17. Episode 13 never got a post of its own, but Episode 14 is now up as well! The latest episodes really speak for themselves, but this is the end of the second act. I have not gotten a review here in a while, but on the off-chance I still have readers who have nothing to add to the comments here, I can provide a snapshot of what is left for me. Episode 15: Half written Episode 16: Half written Episode 17: Finished Episode 18: Barely written Episode 19: Not started Episode 20: Finished Episode 21: Finished Episode 22: Finished I will not make any promises to what schedule I can finish writing those unfinished four episodes in, and I feel I owe an apology to my readers who were probably expecting this story to be finished some time ago. If you are still reading along, I really appreciate you for sticking around. We are almost done here, and I am trying to put a dent in Episode 15 today. Stay tuned. And as always, thanks for reading! -Ced EDIT: Episode 15 is now live! Working my way through the last 3 to be written!
  18. Cederak

    Cynosure

    If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break. –Led Zeppelin Episode 14: Catharsis (Elendra's Perspective) It was a nice feeling to be at the controls of my ship again. After departing Zakaz and putting the Panacea behind us, we briefly returned to Stelt before making our way to Metru Nui. I had a better idea of how the aircraft would handle evasive maneuvers, and the twin suns were no longer flooding the city with perpetual twilight. Toa Jovan and his team had ended the Great Disruption, but the armed forces surrounding Metru Nui were another story. Le-Metru had a massive flagship outfitted with ice beam cannons that were assaulting downtown Ta-Metru. On the coast, the Ga-Metru naval fleet had fused most of the battleships into a bipedal colossus that appeared to be submerging much of Po-Metru with water from the Silver Sea. Meanwhile, Onu-Metru had infested a large portion of Ko-Metru with quake vines – black, twisted metal that caused anything it touched to become unstable and shatter to pieces. Several of the ancient Knowledge Towers had been reduced to chunks of glossy white crystal because of this. I smiled, well aware of my desensitization. The Matoran had wrought so much wanton death and destruction in the pursuit of what they saw to be correct. The enemy stood between them and having their way, and for this, they were fools. My enemies stood between me and survival. It had always been so, whether my companions saw it the same way or not. And for the Matoran to ruin their homes for anything less, it was ridiculous. Their war machines had torn Metru Nui asunder, and though I chose to keep it from Adrinor, I agreed with Drelinok. Great Disruption or not. We would fight, and fight, and fight, forever. The universe was doomed one way or another, and the Metru Nui Civil War was just another stepping stone along that path. I dropped the airship a bit, tilting the nose down as we skimmed the waves. We had no idea that, in a matter of hours, the war would be over. My finger fell on the switch for an intercom system I had recently installed. "I'm about to activate the ultra-thrusters. Strap in and get ready." As much as I would have liked to test the ultra-thrusters out, Adrinor signaled me with his distress beacon from the Panacea flagship when my final repairs were under way. After leaving Zakaz and coming back to Voporak's coliseum, we were riding our enthusiasm and wanted to get going. In theory, I knew the ultra-thrusters should be fine, that I would lose some of my steering controls in exchange for an insane amount of speed. Our destination was in northern Onu-Metru, a considerable distance from the Ko-Matoran ice cannons that stopped me previously. We would make it. "Here we go." The fuel cell was pushed into the ultra-thruster system and I heard a rising hum coming from the back of the ship. I felt relieved. I had opted for a slower fuel injection, letting the ultra-thrusters kick on when enough of the cell had been emptied into the thruster tank. The activation would still be immediate, but the ship's computer was being given time to analyze what was happening. The onboard display did not flicker and nothing was shaking. Then the ultra-thrusters came online, surprisingly exceeding my performance expectations. We launched like a bullet. I tensed up a bit and tried to gently move the controls. They refused to budge. Not far ahead, there was an opening blasted into the Archives that was large enough to take us through. The problem was that if we held our exact course, I would have to make the ship momentarily intangible to get through a small tower. I knew that if I threw everything into an exaggerated turn, we would turn, but there was no way I could use that to get us where we wanted. The ship would be darting wildly above Onu-Metru, catching too much attention before I could safely shut down the ultra-thrusters. I had a matter of seconds to decide what I wanted to do, and I silently hoped that no one would unfasten themselves without my approval. In treating our last trip to Metru Nui as a learning experience, I rerouted the ultra-thruster controls so that I could adjust how much power to give either side. If I turned off the left thruster and pulled a hard right, we would start spinning while maintaining our altitude. From there, I would just have to time the exact second to turn the left thruster back on. "I mean, if it doesn't work, we're dead and no one can complain to me," I told myself. The ship was jetting across the Silver Sea and straight into Onu-Metru when I set my hands in position. My left was ready to drop the power to the left thruster down to nothing and my right was ready to flip the steering as far right as we could go. We were maybe half a kio from the tower when I put that plan in motion, which worked out perfectly. There is definitely a better word than perfectly, but from a conceptual perspective, everything turned out great. The ship performed precisely as expected. The only problem was that we were caught in an altitude locked spin that was sending us toward Ko-Metru. Also, having an ultra-thruster still turned on, the speed of our rotations was making me more than a little dizzy. Before I could get a visual lock on the Archives opening I was aiming for, we clipped another tower from behind and our trajectory shifted substantially. "Hang on!" I yelled into the cabin. There was no way I could hit the intercom button and keep an eye on our target. Focusing harder than I had needed to in a very long time, I let out a deep exhale and executed the proper timing between bringing the steering back to normal, turning the left thruster back on, and aiming us right at the Archives opening. It would have been nice to get a co-pilot for the show, but there was no audience to marvel at what I had achieved in the skies that day. I deactivated the thrusters entirely when we were in a safe range to land above the opening, carefully taking us down and hovering toward the dark to keep our aircraft out of sight. I lazily flung my arm out into the cabin's view and gave a thumbs up before I shut the ship down. I unfastened my safety belt then, collapsing sideways onto my armrest and pinching my eyebrows together. Adrinor was the first to come up and I was hardly surprised. "We were a little shaken up back there, but you did a fine job." "Yeah, yeah, it was an award-winning finish," I replied, brushing off Adrinor's praise. "Let's find the blueprint and get out of this city." Everyone exited the ship and we started studying the room for anything that could point us in the right direction. I stopped doing so when I noticed Kyrhus was sniffing the floor. "Did you pick up a scent?" He shook his head and bent down. "Quite the contrary. The air is empty and sterile down here. The Archivists kept their facility so clean and without any visitors in so long, the dust and air coming through the ceiling opening is all I can detect." "That could work to our benefit," Adrinor proposed. "If we head down the right path, would you be able to detect our old scents from a couple weeks back?" "It might be faint, but Toa Jovan's team would have left scents as well. It would be more challenging for me to smell a trace of ourselves when we are all present, but Toa have a particular scent. You can be certain that I'll pick up the trail." We spent the next few hours letting Kyrhus navigate the low lit halls of the Archives for us, silently following him. No one wanted to break his concentration and idle conversation would only echo through the halls. We were superior gunfighters to Matoran, but adding an unnecessary risk was too great a gamble. The centuries together had given us plenty of time to chat anyway. "Right this way," Kyrhus said, pointing into the room where we found the tablet baring Drelinok's name. "All your favorite trinkets, toys, and plans for granting yourself untold power." I walked inside and sat on a crate in the corner, pulling out my right revolver. I dropped the bullets into my left hand and started loading them back in as fast as possible. Celvey and Kyrhus started helping Adrinor search for the blueprint and Hadliek was standing watch in the doorway. Rather than get too many hands in the way, I opted to practice my reloading prowess. "This is the tablet I found a few weeks ago," Adrinor muttered, pushing aside a few pieces of equipment. "None of these parts seem to be related to the Amplifier, but I need a full version of the blueprint." Kyrhus began separating the stacks of tablets and scanning them over. "Most of the information in this room is related to the Mask of Life that Toa Jovan's team sought. It's possible that this chamber was in the process of being organized when the war began. The Onu-Matoran would not have accidentally set Drelinok's items in here for any other reason." Adrinor marched over and began to examine the tablets for himself. "There has to be something in here. Triphaz said everything on the Amplifier would be in the Archives." "And we have no way of knowing how much of it is in this room," I reminded him. "As expansive as they are, your blueprint could be anywhere beneath Metru Nui. The same goes for the prototype that Triphaz told us about." "She could be right," Kyrhus agreed. "That magnetic piece you have could be one small part of the prototype that was disassembled." "Right or wrong, we don't have the luxury of time," Celvey replied. "And besides, I believe we have a suitable answer." Celvey scooped up one of the tablets and handed it to Adrinor. He started reading it and laughed. "This is fantastic," he said. "A copy of the blueprint we need is being stored in the Valantru directory." "Valantru," I repeated, thinking back. The city of Valantru was on the northwestern coast of the Northern Continent and had been the location where the Barraki were taken into custody for attempting to overthrow the Great Spirit. It had been years, but we confirmed on Destral that Teridax remembered his victory that evening. Neither of us knew Botar or who he was acting on behalf of, but he vanished with the warlords before the Makuta could execute his definition of justice upon them. In the end, it brought about a similar result. The era of the League of Six Kingdoms was over. "It's been a long time since we've visited," Adrinor told me. I nodded. "Well it's not as though-" A low, distant rumble shook the chamber, causing me to stop short. Everyone suddenly became very alert and Adrinor silently motioned us back into the hall. We crept through the dim light, weapons ready, when a thundering sound echoed through the Archives. Adrinor was leading us back toward the nearest atrium when I noticed Matoran troops curiously patrolling the area. They had not spotted us in the shadowy hallway, but I began to wonder. How had Matoran ended up so close to our position and neither our team nor theirs took notice of one another? My answer came in the form of a Ta-Matoran appearing out of thin air and dropping to the floor, an energy rifle at his side. The Matoran picked himself up and angrily pointed his rifle at a nearby Po-Matoran. "My curiosity outweighs my temper right now," he spat, "so maybe you can explain what kind of trick you just pulled before my trigger gets pulled!" The Po-Matoran was visibly concerned. "It wasn't us. I was leading my troops one moment, and the next, I found myself here." "Strange, I was way-finding with my own soldiers not long ago," A Le-Matoran spoke up. "Something reached out and…touched me, then I took a hard-fall into this chamber." I could hear a sinister laugh and watched the Matoran begin to search for its origin. My own teammates did the same, but I felt something else in the sound. When I realized it, Kyrhus managed to vocalize the truth before I had a chance. "The laughter is coming from inside our minds," he whispered. "Something is reaching out and broadcasting to all of us mentally." "Welcome to the Onu-Metru Archives," the mental voice said, coughing up malice into every word. "I have invited you here, little warlords, so that we may put an end to the conflict in this city." "I know that voice," Adrinor muttered. "But from where?" "Metru Nui has been plagued for too long by your war of ideas on how trade routes ought to be managed throughout the city. Turaga Zilnyx thought he could battle your ideas, but I know otherwise. I know that an idea is not so easily destroyed. However, I can destroy the next best thing." "Show yourself!" the Ta-Matoran hollered, randomly firing a few shots at the atrium ceiling. "The exits to the Archives have been sealed until the problem can be resolved," the voice continued. "This city has watched you rise to power and become Barraki, but I tell you now, entities like Pridak and Kalmah achieved supremacy far beyond the little sectors of your separate districts. They held true power, and even they were ultimately parted from it. They were removed from power because they had become a problem and as I see it, you pose a similar problem on a far different scale." "It's Teridax," Adrinor breathed. "By order of the Brotherhood of Makuta, I am charging you with crimes against the city of Metru Nui and, by proxy, facilitating an involuntary attempted murder on the Great Spirit. You are hereby relieved of duty, and sentenced to death." "Come on then!" an Onu-Matoran shouted from the atrium. "Let's see a mighty Makuta stand against dozens of Matoran!" "We need to go," I urged Adrinor. "Not yet," he said. "I want to see what he'll do." "Attention," a computerized voice called out through the Archives intercom. "A manual override of all internal facility security has been initiated. Archivists and visitors are required to evacuate under these conditions. We appreciate your compliance and thank you for visiting the Onu-Metru Archives. Have a nice day." Hadliek quietly chuckled. "If the Makuta just opened all the doors, I guess we'll only have to shoot our way through one of the exterior exits he said was sealed." "We'll never make it," Celvey said, fear dripping from her voice. "The computer said all internal facility security." "Yeah, why does that matter?" Hadliek asked. I could tell he was seconds from a sarcastic comment when he suddenly paused, finally as aware of the situation as I was. "Oh, this is going to be bad." I heard the sound of countless locks and latches clicking open, and the creaking sound of so many links, bolts, and bars sliding back from the chambers they held shut. Teridax had a creative side that was more disturbing than I had anticipated, and I keenly watched the atrium with Adrinor for what I knew was coming next. Before I could witness that, the sound of something with several legs could be heard scuttling along the wall from behind my teammates. "Mata Nui," I said in revulsion, hesitating for a second. The creature released a stream of bright green acid from its maw, hissing at us. I narrowly avoided the corrosive material and put a few rounds in its head, causing the insectoid creature to fall dead to the floor. "Move," Adrinor commanded. "Get to the atrium, now." I could hear screaming in the far room and I sprinted ahead. By the time I had bridged the gap between the atrium and myself, the room had fallen into chaos. The Matoran had opened fire on the released Rahi exhibits and were ill-equipped for the task. A massive Nui-Jaga had a Ko-Matoran skewered on its tail, pitilessly flinging the little biomech against the wall and smashing his armor to pieces in the process. A couple Kavinika attempted to charge toward me, but a well-placed shot to their heads left the ravenous wolves skidding dead across the floor before coming to a halt at my feet. I leapt over the pair of Rahi and strode through the atrium, watching a Spiny Stone Ape drop down before my exit. I kept running toward the beast, unfazed as it tried to intimidate me with a show of its massive, sweeping claws. I emptied the clip on my right revolver and dropped down, sliding directly beneath the Rahi. All of my shots impacted the creature's face, but a Spiny Stone Ape has a thick hide. Still gliding along the floor, I emptied the left revolver into the Rahi's exposed underbelly, causing it to drop in agony once I was clear through the doorway. I turned back just in time to watch Adrinor decapitate a Crystal Climber with a mighty swing of his gunblade, following up with a two-handed slash that severed a Tarakava just above its mobility track. There were no surviving Matoran in the atrium, but trained killers were not so easily destroyed. Ahead of me, several more Matoran had been lit ablaze by the fiery breath of a Protocairn, trying in vain to put themselves out as they fled. One of them, a Le-Matoran, caught the attention of a Frost Beetle and was promptly smashed in the beast's claw. The Protocairn turned its attention to the beetle and charged, taking the creature in its jaws before consuming it in flames. Celvey grabbed me by the arm and ran forward, using her telekinesis to push the towering Protocairn aside. We kept moving, only to find more death in the next room. A Longfang was chewing its way through the end of a Ga-Matoran snack, while a Swamp Stalker began to creep into a neighboring chamber, clearly responsible for tearing a number of Matoran soldiers to pieces. Celvey mentally blasted the Longfang and we continued running until we reached a ledge that turned into a long incline. If she had chosen not to drag me along, Celvey could have saved herself from falling forward. She tried anyway, but since I did not expect a drop was coming, I ran into her and we toppled forward. Too startled to think of anything, Celvey and I could only watch as a hazy claw reached out and grabbed us. We both landed hard on the ground, smacking against a wall of fog. The veil felt as solid as a brick when I collided with it, but I made an attempt to push my hand through to the other side anyway. Nothing happened. We were trapped. "Nice going, Celvey," I growled. I could faintly hear Matoran screaming for their lives high above us, the sound of countless Rahi in pursuit. "You got us stuck in this…thing." Celvey used her powers to twist my neck and smack my face against the cold veil. It was also incredibly solid, but I refused to let her know how much it hurt. "I'm not in the mood for you, Elendra." I leapt to my feet and immediately threw a single round into my right revolver, pointing the weapon at Celvey's head. The veil was only five bio wide, and it would have been an easy shot to make. Easy, of course, until Celvey started to telekinetically turn my hand to point my own weapon at me. I struggled against her the whole way, but she was surprisingly strong. "I could do it," she said. "If I ever escape, I could tell them anything I wanted. Do you think they would believe I killed you because I wanted to?" My breathing was becoming angry as I fought her powers. "Do you want me to die?" "I want you to go away. Often. I can't take how cruel and bitter and rude and hateful you are. What did we do to you, Elendra? Why do you look at me the way you do? Your eyes wish me harm, and if you cannot see it, your spirit surely does." I braced my free hand against my wrist, trying to aim my weapon away from my face. Celvey would not let up without an answer. "Your optimism feels unstoppable, and I have none." She released my hand from her control and I shot Celvey without hesitation. She arced the bullet and it passed her cheek, close enough that she surely felt the wind brush her face. It passed through the mist and the gaseous substance quickly repaired itself. Celvey was frozen in anger and shock, staring silently across our prison. "But even so, don't turn my weapon on me." "If I released a mental blast that flooded from me in all directions, I could disrupt the molecular bonds of this veil and shatter it. The event would shatter you as well, and you would be no more. I know what you must think of me. I'm a vision of light, an Ilisian, born of the Great Beings to be majestic and beautiful. And I am." It hurt to hear her admit that. She was right about herself, and I could handle that truth, but I did not enjoy knowing that she knew. "Hadliek can heal with his touch, Kyrhus holds life to be precious, and Adrinor still believes that we can be something more. You come from a species of builders, tinkering with technology. Your mind is wrapped in logic and quick decisions, but there is no empathy required to construct a machine. Well aware of this, the Great Beings gave Trelbans compassion, to respect one another and live in accord." "What's your point?" "My point is that it isn't fair to blame us because they skipped you." I gasped, furious. Her words stung like bullets could not. "Don't think you're better than me because you care more for others. Remember that I was arrested for trying to protect Trelban from occupation by the League of Six Kingdoms. Even with all your power, you ran from Ilisi." "Well I'm ready to stand and fight now," Celvey said. "Reload your weapons and I'll prove it to you. Or you can put them down and surrender for once. I know, it's not in your nature, but I won't punish you for backing down. We've been together for centuries now, Elendra. I tried to be your friend and you didn't want me. That's okay. I can rely on you in combat, but this has to stop. I'm not your enemy." "Then you should start acting like it." "Are you serious?" Celvey exclaimed. "I do everything I can for all of you! Even that Skakdi we barely knew on Zakaz! I led him to the docks and smuggled him aboard an airship! Would you have done the same if we had left him in your care, or would you have just left him on the street?" "That's not what I meant. It's just…a lot of what we encounter tends to try and kill us. You're not putting down as many of them as you could." "The objective isn't to kill anything that tries to kill you. We're not as senseless and destructive as the Dark Hunters, but it seems as though you're only fit to behave like one. So what's it going to be? Are you willing to accept your teammates as we are, or would we be better off leaving you in a random sector of Stelt to be recruited by the Dark Hunters?" I finished loading my first revolver and sighed. "If I stay, I can't just change for you. I recognize that I can be stubborn and difficult to deal with at times, but I have no intention of becoming a Dark Hunter. After what we just experienced up there, we're going to need each other a lot very soon. Makuta Teridax just murdered an unknown number of Matoran and it's quite possible that he is comfortable with letting that become public knowledge. Someone is going to notice that a bunch of Matoran all vanished simultaneously." Celvey gave me a worried stare. "I think that's exactly what he wants." The air was quiet. "Why do you say that?" "The Makuta just used the exhibits down here to kill off dozens of soldiers. He wanted to make an example of them, because even if the rest of the city comes to despise the Brotherhood for it, the war is effectively over. He'll make his actions public knowledge because his wrath will keep the Matoran from ever starting another Great Disruption." "Because Teridax made the decision I would have?" "No, I wasn't going to say that. It's what Drelinok would have done. He already told us that he wants to purge the world of anything he considers unfit to live in it. If Drelinok overthrows the Brotherhood, he will do the same to every inhabited land in the universe." "Then we need to reach Valantru and find that blueprint copy." "First we'll need to escape." Celvey frowned. "And Elendra, I know you would have been more thoughtful before ending so many lives at once. You don't have to assume I think the absolute worst of you. I'm actually relieved that you're willing to be reasonable about this." "I just had a couple more things to say," I started, extremely reluctant to discuss my feelings. "It took a lot for you to confront me like that. I appreciate it, and I respect you. I'm sorry that I can be hard to live with." "It's okay," Celvey said, walking up to me. She holstered my revolver and embraced me tight, holding me in the noiseless veil. "It's okay, Elendra." "I know," I replied awkwardly, not quite hugging her back, and feeling too uncomfortable not to try and reciprocate her gesture. "The second thing is…if something happens,"- "Don't talk like that," she whispered. "If something happens, you'll need to protect them," I said, ignoring her protest. "They're everything to me, so please, protect them. Most importantly, protect him." "You know I will," Celvey replied, her words smiling at me. "Well then. Now that we have that conversation behind us and you've got me so close, would you mind trying to release that telekinetic burst to get us out of here?" She chuckled. "Sure." Celvey took a deep breath and I suddenly became cold. The veil started to warp and shake around itself for a moment until it collapsed inward on us, smashing into a small cloud of gas. Celvey released me and we watched a very tiny, rodent-like creature made of mist, scurry off into the dark. At some point in our talking, the Archives had returned to their hushed state. The noises of Rahi lurking far in the dark could be faintly heard, but the worst had passed. Whoever Teridax had subjected to death was already gone and the beasts made by his brothers were on the move. "They keep some weird stuff in here," I muttered. "No weirder than you." Celvey grinned. "Come on, let's get back upstairs and find the others. Even him." I shot her a serious look. "I should let you know that I'm using all the affection I have to say that I'll kill you if you ever mention that again." Celvey smiled. "I expected too much to think a single dialogue would bring about a life-changing attitude adjustment for you. In any event, we should be going." "Stay on guard returning to the ship. We narrowly escaped Teridax's massacre with our lives, and being so deep in these ancient passages, anything could be waiting around an unsuspecting corner." "You've come to terms with yourself down here, I think that's enough of an achievement to think we can survive anything on our return." "That's a tad myopic, Celvey," I remarked. "Miserix just dispatched his lieutenant to end a war and we have reason to believe Teridax won't mind telling everyone he did it. With regard to their sense of rationality, I can think like a Makuta to some extent. And if I just put a halt to the one conflict that brought the Great Spirit to the gates of death, I would be asking myself how to prevent it from ever happening again." Celvey looked like she was holding back a laugh. "It was only sarcasm. I'll stay ready." "That's good, because we may be relying on sarcasm for some light-hearted relief in the next few days. The war may be over, but Drelinok is still out there and we need to assess where the Brotherhood intends to go from here. I hate to be the voice of pessimism, but trust me when I say that, before it gets better, this whole thing is going to get a lot worse." Review
  19. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Maybe we'll get to spread our wings tomorrow, if luck will let us. –Keane Episode 13: Resonance I motioned to Celvey and Kyrhus to circle around and cut off our target, leading Hadliek and Elendra straight toward him. I rounded the corner just as he slipped out of view again, darting down an alley. I drew my gunblade and could feel my trigger finger shaking. The gravity of my duel with Zanteox was settling in and Drelinok's influence was long gone. I knew who saved me, but I had no interest in believing it. To draw his attention, to be spared the clutches of death, you knew you had a purpose. A destiny in his design. What really left me anxious was that I knew what he wanted me to do, with seemingly no methods of doing so. To confront Drelinok would be as if a common frog challenged me: no more difficult than asking myself what method of execution I might choose. I entered the alley and could see Kyrhus and Celvey on the other side. They were panting for breath, but they made it. Hadliek and Elendra drew their weapons to mirror me and I started marching up to the target. He was no Magistrate, just a Skakdi. Unarmed and out of options, he took a fighter's stance as I approached. "If you're planning to engage me in combat, you should know that I'm not feeling the whole 'honorable opponent' thing at the moment," I warned him. "I will shoot you dead before your fist is in range of touching me." The Skakdi slowly lowered his hands and growled, "You're making a mistake here." "Stay where you are!" another Skakdi commanded. I looked back to see law enforcement officials had arrived. They hurried past me and took the target into custody, tackling him to the ground. One of the officials placed the target's hands behind his back and bound them in a pair of energy shackles. His partner turned to me and sighed angrily. "This is the third time we've had this lawbreaker escape. I can't thank you enough for helping us detain him." "You've lost him three times now?" Elendra asked in surprise, everyone closing in on the scene. "Do you enjoy a good chase or are you just really bad at doing your jobs?" "We were unprepared to respond to someone with such stealth proficiency. Ordinary lawbreakers are much more…sloppy, and our training rarely encompasses anything more demanding than that. Zakaz is, more or less, a fairly peaceful place." The irony of his comment faded on the sound of emergency sirens, still blaring all along the beach ripped to shreds by the Panacea's ship. "Good luck getting yourselves back to that peaceful place," I said, beginning to walk away. "Let's move, team. We're done here." "Don't be so sure." Both of the officers drew their side arms on my crew, leaving the captive bound at their feet. We immediately drew our own weapons and took aim at the officers. "Just as I suspected," one of the officers declared. "Well-armed foreigners heading away from a major catastrophe on our island. I don't know what you did or how you're involved, but I know you had something to do with that ship crashing here. Now, lower your weapons." "I already tried to explain to one of your co-workers on the beach that you have the wrong idea. We were taken prisoner by a rogue faction posing as law enforcers in their own land. They meant to do a lot more damage than this, but we took the ship down and those responsible are probably dead in the wreckage." "That doesn't explain why you're carrying around enough firepower to bring a Tahtorak to its knees." "You're in law enforcement, I'm sure you've heard of the Dark Hunters. There are teams like mine that operate independently throughout the universe performing similar tasks." "Mercenaries, eh?" The officer's partner holstered his side arm. "Perhaps an arrangement can be made between us then. You seem to think we're doing poorly at our jobs and you appear to be guns for hire. While we cannot afford to pay you in the traditional sense, what would access to law enforcement-grade ammunition do to enlist your services?" "Weapons down," I ordered everyone, clicking the gunblade onto my back. "Are you asking me to quietly execute your Skakdi prisoner in exchange for ammo?" The other officer put his weapon away as well. "He is set to stand trial for his crimes across the island at sunset today. If you agree to escort him for us, we will let you walk out of our station with whatever ammunition you can carry." "No catch?" The Skakdi cringed. "Technically." "Because nothing's really free these days, is it?" Hadliek asked sarcastically. "No, I'm afraid not," he replied. "After he was caught smuggling refugees onto the island, this prisoner murdered a Dark Hunter and they have issued a reward for his body, dead or alive. There are a number of Skakdi looking to make some money by obstructing the Zakaz justice system from performing its job. I would be foolish to think there are not Hunters out there waiting to assassinate him as well." "So we take our ammo, hop on the Zakaz train line, escort your prisoner for his trial, and we're off the hook?" "That's the deal." I glanced around at the crew, receiving nods and smiles of silent agreement. "Let's head back to the station; you've got yourself a deal." The officers scooped up their prisoner, we followed after them, and Celvey snuck the gentlest nudge at my shoulder. I slowly looked at her and she retrieved something from the compartment on her back. She handed it to me and we all marveled at it for a moment, knowing the officers had gone ahead without us. "So that's it, huh?" Elendra muttered. "That's Iridiex? I'd never seen such a large sample up close before. It's…mesmerizing." "The Panacea was using it to fuel the reactor core to their flagship," Celvey replied. "I stole it back before we took off in the escape pods." I carefully accepted it from her and placed it in my own back compartment. "It's best if no one knows we're carrying this around. After what we experienced on Trevahka, I'm not even interested in using it as a bargaining chip right now." <<<>>> After exhausting most of our ammunition trying to fight our way out of the Panacea's ship, we were relieved to stock up basically free of charge. Even our train tickets came without a price tag, simply given a slip from Oandek law enforcement to present at the train counter. Kyrhus kept a claw on our prisoner's shoulder, the Skakdi who refused to speak to us the entire way to the train station. Zakaz had possessed airships for years, although they were most commonly kept at the ports for time-sensitive freight destined for distant islands. Skakdi preferred the magnet rails when it came to domestic travel. We passed through the double doors to Oandek Station and I admired their taste in décor as I walked toward the ticket counter. The columns of the grand chamber were white marble, matching the walls, and the benches littered with travelers. Gold ribbons spiraled up the great pillars, with sleek metallic gold frames that lined the elevator entryways, the service desks, as well as the arrival and departure screens. "Quite a day we're having, huh?" I said, greeting the counter attendant with an awkward expression. I wanted him to think I felt just as uncomfortable with the Panacea wreckage as his fellow civilians did. "Indeed," the Skakdi replied solemnly. "New reports are being released across the island's digital network, and the death toll is climbing. Law enforcement is calling it an act of terrorism, alongside rumors that the Brotherhood of Makuta will dispatch an agent to investigate. We haven't seen such a tragedy in a very long time." "Since the magnet rail incident," I replied. "That's…that's right. How did word of that spread to your homeland? You're a Meldin, aren't you?" "I travel a lot in my line of work. You'd be surprised what stories I've heard." "How are you employed?" "By local law enforcement, at the moment," I said, trying to skirt around the answer. I slid the train slip across the desk to him and explained, "They told me to give you that." He gave it a cursory glance before setting it behind the counter. "Not a problem, I'll have you on your way at once. Six tickets then?" "You've got it." He input a couple commands to his terminal and six tickets exited a small device on the counter. The Skakdi handed them to me, these thin, transparent squares, and I passed them out. Zakaz magnet trains entered service during the reign of the League of Six Kingdoms and the island fell under the jurisdiction of Barraki Ehlek. He named each one personally, bestowing such regal titles upon them so as to intentionally incur a sense of envy among his fellow warlords. This proved successful, as it was well-known that the Barraki loathed Ehlek's viewpoint that "his" trains should be so luxurious and beyond compare. I held the last ticket for myself and smiled derisively at the name written in brilliant opal upon the ticket. "Have a safe and pleasant trip aboard the Arcadian Moonglade!" the attendant told us. I led us to the elevators, transparent cylindrical tubes of glass with a thick onyx floor. We split into two groups, and I stared out at Oandek with Elendra and Hadliek. "They'll be cleaning up the Panacea wreckage for a while." "Of course they will, the flagship was colossal," Elendra replied, running a finger along the glass that mirrored the debris field path. I admired the skyscrapers in the downtown district, studying the magnet rail tracks that connected to the towers high above the ground level. The train platform at the top allowed passengers a full view of the island, as far as their eyes could see. I could gaze at the tiny Skakdi in the streets, the neighboring city of Tyderian, and even the gargantuan Lake Keliwa in the center of the island. The elevator reached the top and the doors unsealed, allowing us to walk out onto the platform. There were more white benches, a number of lamps for night travel, and several posters on the station wall about mandatory safety protocol on the trains. The loudspeakers produced a brief tune before announcing, "The magnet train will be arriving shortly. Please stay behind the white line while the train is in motion." The white line was drawn at the platform's edge, meeting an array of tubes that connected to the main rail line. The magnetic rail was engulfed in a bright, blue flame of energy – a visible force that kept the trains from crashing to their doom far below. Several silver tubes were soaring for the station, all connected and held together as they hovered on the magnet rail. The loudspeakers chimed again before relaying a new message. "Warning! The Arcadian Moonglade is about to reach Oandek Station. Please allow passengers to disembark and wait for further instruction from the conductor before boarding." The train arrived and the Skakdi passengers disembarked like clockwork, moving swiftly and uniformly toward the elevators. The last Skakdi off the train was wearing a badge – clearly the conductor. He cleared his throat and put a small device near his mouth. "Good afternoon! We will now begin boarding the Arcadian Moonglade. Please have your tickets ready when you board and a staff member will have it punched. Thank you." We walked up to the nearest train car and a Skakdi was waiting inside, clicking a star-shaped hole into my ticket when I displayed it. I took a seat at a long booth that wrapped around a table, with enough room for the six of us. I set my gunblade against the window behind me and took up a spot in the middle of the booth, seated next to Elendra and our prisoner. "What do you think, Adrinor?" she asked me. "Is working for the law better than paying for some ammo?" "Considering the sort of ammunition we had access to today, definitely worth it. We'd have to go all the way to Xia for anything like this, and I'm sure that's where Zakaz imported it from." I turned to my left and stared at the Skakdi prisoner. Still cuffed by the energy shackles, he had his head tilted up, aimlessly studying the ceiling. "You ready to talk yet?" "You don't have to do this, Meldin," he said. "You could let me go right now." "I could," I admitted, leveling with him. "I have the ammunition I was promised, and as long as I don't show my face in Oandek for a while, I could probably get away with dropping you off. But I'd like to hear what it is that you're trying to flee from. What ended you up in so much trouble with the law and, more importantly, what made you think it would be a good idea to kill a Dark Hunter?" "Take off the energy shackles and I'll tell you. Not like you have anything to worry about, right? Five of you against one of me, and I heard what you told the Oandek officers about being privatized Dark Hunters. I know I'd be dead already if you wanted it that way." I glanced at Celvey and gave her a nod. "Let him go." She put her hand behind the Skakdi's back and telekinetically shattered the shackle bonds before tossing them on the table. "How'd you do that?" he whispered in disbelief. "It's not your turn to ask questions," I reminded him. "Let's start with a name and we'll go from there." "The name's Braudec." "Good day and welcome aboard the Arcadian Moonglade." It was the conductor speaking on the intercom. "We'll be traveling across Zakaz today with a final destination in the city of Kivacc. Should be clear weather all day and we're actually running just ahead of schedule, so sit back and enjoy the ride. We'd like to thank you for choosing Zakaz Magnet Rails for your transportation services today. Once again, welcome aboard." The magnetic system below the railcars emitted a low hum and we started to move. It was only seconds before the magnet train was accelerating to its top speed and we were bound for Kivacc. "My name's Adrinor," I replied, breaking the silence and offering the Skakdi a handshake. Braudec accepted and folded his arms on the table, leaning his head into them. "What did you want me to tell you anyway?" "Tell me your story. I want to know why I'm taking you to be sentenced for your crimes today." Braudec blew out a rush of frustrated air. "I worked here in Zakaz. Shipping was the life I knew from the earliest days of my existence and it paid handsomely in exchange for the long, tiresome hours." "Did you get caught stealing?" "No, nothing like that. I took great pride as a laborer on the docks, with no interest in snatching up someone's cargo to try and pawn it off in town. I did so well that I was eventually hired as a crewmember aboard freight ships. In time, one of the ship captains resigned and I held his position for centuries, steering cargo vessels for the League of Six Kingdoms. As a show of good faith to his best captains, Barraki Ehlek commissioned several brand new ships for us, and one was given to me." "I think if any Barraki appreciated the importance of sea routes controlling so much in the universe, it was surely Ehlek." "He said something similar when the ships were being built here on Zakaz. I met him briefly once, trying my best to understand him through this machine he wore over his mouth that allowed him to breathe the air," Braudec chuckled. "When I was permitted to take personal time, I made a lot of journeys out on the waves. Every few years or so, I would sail out to Metru Nui and visit the city. It was the Great Barrier that I really appreciated. It was a quiet place to gather my thoughts and stare out at everything. So when I heard that Metru Nui was engulfed in civil war, when I pictured the Matoran cowering in fear against the war machines their brothers and sisters had built, I felt compelled to do something." "So you started a covert refugee operation," I said. Braudec nodded slowly. "In an effort to ensure that no warmongering Matoran would make their way to our shores until the conflict ended, travel to Zakaz was deemed illegal for all Matoran. The law further mandated that Matoran living here were required to relocate within one year. Zakaz, being a port island, was an ideal location to drop off Matoran and allow them to board ships headed for distant realms of their choosing. I know the geography well enough from a lifetime spent here, and the operation was successful for quite a while." "It sounds like you had enough time to establish a routine," Elendra told him. "I'm going to guess that your repetition on the matter made you sloppy." Braudec smiled at her. "Have you ever heard the saying that if something isn't broken, you shouldn't fix it? Well, things worked out so well for so long, I didn't realize that anything was broken to begin with." "What happened?" Celvey wondered. "I was sailing back one night with a single passenger to transport. I had taken nearly a dozen at a time before, so this seemed like an easy task. Well, I was spotted and the authorities were notified, because Oandek law enforcement was waiting for me when I reached the dock. They informed me that I was suspected of smuggling Metru Nui refugees into Zakaz and ordered me to remain silent while they conducted a search. The enforcers spread out and scoured the ship, and it wasn't long before they brought the struggling Matoran to me." "And they arrested you two?" Braudec's head dropped and he stared at the floor. "I was arrested on the spot. It was a bitter feeling, really, getting caught with a single Matoran after all the successful runs that came before. Given my day job at the time, I knew that many large ports in the universe kept regularly posted schedules of upcoming arrivals and departures at the processing station. My passenger was a Ga-Matoran who wanted to live on the Southern Continent, and I knew a cargo carrier was departing from Oandek for Beryl Harbor the next night." I rested a hand on his shoulder and asked, "What did they do with her?" The Skakdi reluctantly turned his head toward me, his bright orange eyes just barely making contact with mine. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?" "They killed her," Elendra blurted out. Braudec's head shot up and we all turned and stared at the Trelban in our company. "Oh, come on!" Elendra yelled at us in irritation. "I'm the only one here who figured it out?" Hadliek burst out laughing. "Hardly! We're just not insensitive enough to throw that kind of reality around the way you do. Did nothing about that story give you the idea that he takes responsibility for what happened to that Ga-Matoran?" "Well it was his choice to harbor refugees," Elendra replied. "Elendra!" Celvey shouted, angrily widening her eyes as a social cue. Braudec lowered his head again and I sighed before patting his shoulder a few times. "I love this moment so much right now," Hadliek said to Kyrhus, holding back laughter. "Okay, Hadliek, shut up," Elendra growled. "And…Skakdi…whose name escapes me…I apologize. I have a very direct nature." "Braudec," the Skakdi muttered. "My name is Braudec." "Right," Elendra said. "It's not as though"- "They shot her right in front of me," Braudec interrupted, staring straight at Elendra. "She was a teacher, kind and understanding. I got her mixed up in something she didn't ask for and it ended with a bullet through her mask. It wasn't the Skakdi that did it though, you see, they hired a Dark Hunter to investigate the situation. The refugee transport law only applied to Skakdi at the time, and the Dark Hunter took liberties with that knowledge. He knew I was to be formally sentenced, but the Ga-Matoran was a loose end." "They aren't a group that is terribly keen about unsettled details," Elendra stated. "They're ruthless," Braudec said. "When that Matoran of water fell dead on the deck, something clicked in my head. I knew I broke the law, but I also knew that we had just witnessed a murder, and no one was going to lift a finger about it. I was a cooperative offender that night and the enforcers hadn't bothered to search me. If they had, they might have found the compact laser bolt weapon I kept beneath my ankle armor." "Oh wow, I did not expect the story to take this sort of turn," Hadliek spoke up. "I didn't either," Braudec replied. "I lost control and killed four Skakdi and a Dark Hunter right there. It was the beginning of my campaign against the law to ensure Matoran could live happy, safe lives somewhere far from Metru Nui. The objective was no longer skirting under the radar – I was actively engaging it. I fought my own kind to preserve a better future for others." I studied his misery for a moment, finding a strange reflection of my own problem. Whatever had spoken above Zakaz, it shouldered the burden of dealing with Drelinok onto me. The odds were still hopeless and I still had no idea how to confront him. There was little I could think to do that would change my fate and I think Braudec felt the same way. "The island of Zakaz wishes to see you tried and likely imprisoned for your actions," I said. "The Dark Hunters don't care if you're still breathing when they take you to their Shadowed One. Both of these parties are irrelevant, because I have you, and I will decide what will become of you. Dark Hunters don't scare me and I am prone to overlook the law when it does not suit my interests." "Then you have an opportunity in front of you, Meldin," Braudec replied. "Don't take me back to them; don't resign me to this fate where I have to slowly die for doing the right thing." "Is that your entire argument?" "It is," he nodded. "I have told you my story and explained my intentions. It's all I can ask, really, to be heard. I think having someone listen to what you say is important. It means you didn't waste your time. Would you agree with that?" I paused, letting a smile slip by my stern façade. "Someone important to me once echoed that sentiment, Skakdi. You would have treasured his company today." "A fellow Meldin?" I shook my head. "A Nohtalian. He made the weapon I wear and it was once his own." I took the gunblade down from the window and set it on the table. Braudec looked it over, carefully running a finger down the blade. "Excellent craftsmanship," he noted. "The smiths of Xia would be in awe of this. Protosteel integrated with element bonding technology. This truly was a Nohtalian's sword. I can see the sensor points where the user can trigger the circuitry built into this weapon. And, of course, the circuits will never fail because protosteel keeps a permanent electromagnetic charge. Is a Meldin even capable of activating the technology in this weapon?" "It's nothing like what the previous user could do, but I've noticed that spending a bit of my power can launch energy through the blade. I'd be overwhelmed if a sword fight was coming my way shortly thereafter, so I usually save charged bolts for killing blows. If you don't mind me asking, how did you become so familiar with protosteel?" Braudec gave me a soft chuckle. "A good smuggler knows a good weapon when he sees one. Wits and tactics may capture the battle, but technology wins the war." "I think your war days are long behind you." Everyone immediately looked to the right, watching a number of Skakdi enter the railcar. "Don't do anything you might regret." We looked left and at least a dozen more Skakdi were waiting to pile in from the left car. Celvey stared right at me and mouthed the word "Iridiex" to me. I slowly reached for the precious metal in my back compartment, taking it in my hand and holding it in my lap. "Don't try anything, Meldin," one of the Skakdi warned me, training his energy rifle on my head. "What did you just reach for?" I left the Iridiex in my lap and showed him my hands. "It was a reflex. I was reaching for my weapon, but as you can see, it's sitting on the table. I get a little absentminded when weapons start getting pointed in my face." "What is that?" another Skakdi asked, striding up to the table. He grabbed the gunblade and gave it a couple careless swings. "It's so light." "It's called a gunblade," I replied, dropping my hands below the table and setting the Iridiex in Braudec's hand. I pushed it toward Celvey, hoping he would catch the hint. "It was made a long time ago in Xia and the blade itself was carved from protosteel." "Looks expensive," he remarked, holding it out toward the other Skakdi in the room. "Hey, check this out! I have a gunblade now!" "Good for you," one of the others hissed. "Now let's finish what we came here for and get our reward." "You're working for the Dark Hunters?" Celvey questioned, shrinking into her seat. "Oh no." "Oh yes," the Skakdi laughed. "They've agreed to pay us for eliminating your friend. Now, if you choose to impede that effort, we can make this very messy for everyone. If you want to get off this train with your lives, leave the Skakdi in his seat and walk away. Right now." "There isn't any way I could persuade you with something else?" Celvey asked. I could tell she was playing up how afraid she was. "I don't want to die!" "Then you'd better walk away. Or, you could match the offer the Dark Hunters have on the table. If you're willing to part with a hefty sum, I could see my way to telling my friends to step back from the situation." "What about this?" Celvey wondered, holding out the Iridiex. She looked at me and I had an idea of what she was going to do. "No! We can't give them the Iridiex! It's too valuable and it needs to be returned to its rightful owner!" The Skakdi dropped my gunblade before he stammered out, "Where did you get that?" He reached out to touch the shimmering metal, but Celvey recoiled before he could. "Can you promise me that you'll leave us alone if I give this to you?" Celvey asked, basically trying to plead with them. "Well, nothing's set in stone yet. Except that gem you have there. Let me have it." "And you'll let us live? Are you sure?" The Skakdi was out of patience. "Yes, just give it to me!" "Fine." Celvey clutched the Iridiex tight and multiple white hot beams of light shot out of her open hand in an instant. Before anyone knew what was going on, the entire death squad was terminated. She released a long exhale and fell forward onto the table, dropping the Iridiex. I hesitated as I picked it up and placed it back in my compartment, still unsure of what Celvey had done. "Did they know you could do that?" Braudec asked her. "We didn't know she could do that," Kyrhus said. "That was…pretty weird. You all right, Celvey?" The Ilisian sat back, regaining her composure. "I tried something similar aboard the Panacea flagship when I took the Iridiex from their reactor core. It responds to elements by amplifying them, allowing itself to become a conduit for the user's power. It was like I gave it a command, and it drew from me to make it happen." "Not impossible," Braudec explained. "Toa of lightning have been recorded experiencing a similar feeling when coming in contact with protosteel. It looks like large amounts of Iridiex are capable of the same effect across different elements." Kyrhus grabbed my gunblade off the floor and set it back on the table, leaving me to place it back against the window. I leaned over the table instead, peering out into the open entryways between the railcars. The Skakdi all had black scorch marks around their heartlights and I could see Celvey had burnt a hole all the way through each of them. It happened so fast, I wondered if they even realized they were dead when it happened. "If there's anyone else on this train out for your head, we just sent them a message," Celvey told the Skakdi. "You're going to be okay, understand?" Braudec nodded apprehensively. "As long as you don't do anything like that again." "She's going to have to pull one more trick, I'd imagine," Elendra spoke up. "At the end of the line, what do you want to bet that Kivacc law enforcement will be waiting on the train platform for us?" I stared out the window for a few moments. Sunset was coming. "We've got a few stops before Kivacc, so I think we should start building a contingency plan for those potential law enforcers. Everyone should start pitching some ideas around at the table while I go explain to the conductor what happened down here. Celvey, you're with me." "Why do I have to go? Elendra doesn't have to explain when she kills anyone." "I'm not taking you to explain why you killed them; I'm taking you to explain why we're so sorry and just wanted to be left alone. There's no one who plays the innocent act better than you do, and I'm hoping they'll respond understandingly and agree not to kick us off the train." <<<>>> "We are approaching our final destination, the city of Kivacc," the conductor broadcasted. "All passengers must disembark or purchase a new ticket to continue riding. We do apologize for the inconvenient engagement in 'Railcar Seven' earlier today, and want to assure our patrons that such mishaps are a rarity. Once again, thank you for riding the Arcadian Moonglade and for choosing Zakaz Magnet Rails for your transportation services today. We wish you a fantastic evening." Braudec looked out the window when I turned around to grab my gunblade. The final wisps of daylight were shining out on Zakaz, painting Lake Keliwa in a breathtaking shade of citrine. And just as Elendra had predicted, I could see the officers standing between us and the elevators. "Kivacc law enforcement is waiting for us right outside that door. Celvey will take you to the end of the platform like we discussed, but if this works…if we get you to the port…you can't come back. You know that, right?" "I know that," Braudec accepted in a sad voice. "Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I owe you my life." "It's the right thing to do," Celvey told him, patting his shoulder. "Come on now. Time to go." I stepped off the train and started walking toward the Kivacc officers. Kyrhus had Braudec, while Elendra, Celvey, and Hadliek followed me. Everything was quiet and smooth until Celvey gave Kyrhus a good push and grabbed Braudec by the forearm, leaping from the platform with him. The officers rushed to the edge, trying to get a glimpse of their fall, to watch the end of what they assumed was a very pointless escape attempt. The rest of us followed slowly, impressed how organic Celvey made their deaths appear. They were sprawled on the ground and her telekinetic power had crushed a small crater into the street. I knew she had slowed their fall, but the ruined street gave an impression that Celvey and Braudec had to have died on impact. The officers looked at me in shock and I gave them an unassuming shrug. Then Hadliek sealed the act when he loaded up his heavy pistol. "The Dark Hunters ordered him captured dead or alive. I'm going with dead." Hadliek took one shot at Celvey and Braudec, utilizing a blank bomb. Unlike blank bullets, this was an unusual projectile that, upon touching a solid target, would explode in a holographic veil of all-consuming flames. Celvey managed to act quickly, apparently fleeing as soon as the round touched the pavement. When the fake explosion cleared, the officers were left to assume the pair had been vaporized. The lead officer stomped his foot and cursed. "You lumbering killer, we needed him alive! Unbelievable! The Oandek crew should have never trusted you!" "It's no trial, but justice was served today," Hadliek replied. "That was one of our own down there that I just took out. I put an end to all your running around about this lone Skakdi. Now if you'll excuse me, we're going." "Just like that?" the officer shouted. "Have you no emotion for your own fallen comrade?" "We're mercenaries! We don't do emotion!" The four of us packed into a single elevator tube and held in our laughter until we began to descend. We had not taken the chance to pull such an elaborate feat in quite some time, and watching Hadliek act his way through the 'tough mercenary' role had been hilarious for all of us. We knew Celvey would get Braudec to the port and onboard an airship, but as our laughter died down, Kyrhus still had one more very relevant question to air. "Hey…how are we going to get back to Stelt?" "I'm glad you brought that up," Elendra replied. "On my way to Zakaz, I was thinking about when Trylac said he was going to dispatch an agent. After we left Mt. Valmai, he sent someone to investigate the blueprints and any additional prototype pieces for the Amplifier in Onu-Metru. Since you already decided not to give him the Iridiex, I think we should do some of that investigating for ourselves." I remembered the task I was given as I fell through the sky over Zakaz and wondered if this was my destiny leading up to something. Maybe a return to Metru Nui would uncover the final piece in the puzzle to defeating Drelinok. "We'll need to get back to Stelt first. Is your ship ready to enter the warzone?" "I don't make the same mistake twice, Adrinor," Elendra said, self-satisfied. "You're all going to be impressed when you see what I've done." Review
  20. Episode 11 and Episode 12 are both live! After taking most of the summer off from posting, I thought a double post on episodes would be in order this time around. The inspiration on this mid-season two-parter was primary looking at the culture of hackers in the cyber community. Knowing that the Matoran Universe is all inside a giant robot, functioning as a colossal computer, I wondered how others might "hack" their way around the rules set in place. From a more personal perspective, there's a real desperation to Adrinor in the two-parter. I won't spoil it here, but the deeper effects of the previously hinted depression he's coping with are definitely coming to the surface more and more. Corruption, as a two-parter, is not all downers and sad stuff, and it was a fun opportunity to toy around with a fun science fiction concept in the Matoran Universe. There are several more adventures left as we head into the second half of Cynosure, and I think there's something for everyone to enjoy along the way. Always looking for criticisms though, so share a reply on your thoughts so far. As always, thanks for reading! -Ced
  21. Cederak

    Cynosure

    While everyone's lost, the battle is won. With all these things that I've done. –The Killers Episode 12: Corruption (Part 2) Zanteox lunged from the viewing platform and I defended with my gunblade, unexpectedly backhanded by his enlarged claws. He batted me out the door, clean across the engineering deck's sky bridge. I bounced a couple times on my back, digging my weapon into the floor to catch myself. I leapt to my feet and Zanteox crossed half the sky bridge in a single bound. "The ship's course is plotted, Adrinor. If you want to redirect it, all you have to do is get through me. I will tear your head off before I let that happen!" It was Toa that prided themselves on being above their enemies, a distinction that required they never kill and never bring further harm to an opponent who was unable to fight. I was more than capable of doing both, and as my vision began to distort an overlap of Drelinok with Zanteox, my will to fight was renewed. I studied the gunblade a moment, admiring the condition I had kept it in. "It's sharp enough to end him." The voice had come from nowhere, and everywhere. When I looked back across the bridge, it was Drelinok standing there. He waited for me, silently, watching. "There's a chance you could kill him." The words were in my head, but the false Drelinok's mouth moved perfectly with them. "Still, I think I'll help you out. You saw what I can do to Rahi on the Southern Continent, and while you may be a little brighter than the beasts of the world, I can give you a push in the right direction." I was losing control of my mind and it was the only way I could win. There was something wrong in my head, a sense, a feeling that did not belong. Drelinok had me, playing upon my desire to kill the Magistrate across the bridge. I thought about fighting it, although there was little chance that Zanteox would give me the opportunity to overcome Drelinok and best him in combat. As I gave in, the presence of Drelinok with me was more inviting and warm than I had expected. "Let's destroy him." I dashed ahead, letting my blade run the edge of the crossing as I charged a bullet for my first strike. I could see Zanteox as a bug monster again and his clawed hand rose to meet me. I fired a round through his palm and doubled my swing back, cutting through an opening in his forearm that nearly severed it from his elbow. Zanteox emitted a horrific, pained roar just before I threw my gunblade into his chest. It pierced the exoskeleton, but not the tissue beneath. In one fluid movement, I kicked my way up to his shoulder, using my weapon as leverage to hurtle over him. I tugged the gunblade out as I launched over his head, slicing the pair of spindly legs protruding from his back and charging another round. I whirled back, shouting, "Hey, Zanteox!" "Come here!" Zanteox hissed through raspy breaths, turning to face me. Just as he did, I took a couple shots at his face with enough ballistic impact that his head swung sideways. One round ripped through his right mandible and the other shredded his insectoid eyeball. I watched him fall to one knee, clutching his face while his other arm sat limp at his side. The virus was leaking out from every point I had struck, oozing into a dark green puddle at Zanteox's feet. "He has suffered enough. Remember that this was about saving a city." Voices again. This time it was Toa Jovan. While I did not always agree with his kind, there was no point in wasting any more effort on Zanteox. He pitifully gargled up the virus, making sounds that made me think he might be choking to death on the slime that made him such a potent adversary. "Hold still!" Zanteox yelled, spitting up so much green ooze in the process. Just as Zanteox was standing up, the exoskeleton began to fall away. His remaining eye reverted back to normal and the Trevahkan shrunk to a regular size. Limping out of the spent transformation, Zanteox stood up straight and took a long breath. "What place it is of yours, to stand in the way of a Magistrate? Have I not provided order to the world? And you would wrack us in anarchy and ruin the legacies we have built. Give me that weapon, you little ingrate. I have protected and served while you wrought chaos, and I will tolerate you no longer." I froze. I had never met someone quite so brazen, utterly defeated, to demand I turn over my gunblade. He was talking to a trained killer, and one with a terribly damaged psyche at the moment. In the long list of executions I had performed, recalling what I did to Zanteox is one of those events that, while I hold myself somewhat responsible, he absolutely brought it on himself. "I said…give me…your…weapon." "Gladly," I fumed, storming up to him. Zanteox's eye widened, instantly realizing his mistake. "Adrinor!" He tried to warn me. I took him by his ruined forearm, kicking him back and slicing it off with the gunblade at the same time. Zanteox screamed and I flipped him onto his back. Still howling in agony, I put a hand to his mouth and clutched it shut, trying to silence him. "Take a look," I said, wrapping his severed hand around the grip of my gunblade. "You wanted it, you got it." "You nasty little piraka," Zanteox struggled to say. "You wanted to rip my head off a few minutes ago, so that's more than a little hypocritical. I give you my weapon, as you asked, and you want to call me names? Fine. Let me ask you something. Do you want to wear my gunblade like I do?" "Adrinor, no. No, no, don't do this," Zanteox pleaded. "I wear it," I continued, plunging the gunblade through his spine and into the bridge floor, "on my back." Ignoring the rest of his screaming, I returned to the control deck and gazed out the window. We were approaching Zakaz. "Drelinok was right," I muttered. "The world is lost." I gave the computer the proper commands to tilt the aircraft downward and prepare our descent for the island of the Skakdi. Scanning for an intercom system, I finally found the switch I was looking for and lowered my head next to the speaker. "This is your captain speaking. We have rerouted our final destination for beautiful Zakaz. Make the necessary travel plans to ensure a safe survival and thanks for flying with us. We'll be on the ground shortly." "Attention!" the computer shouted. "Reactor core energy source, designated Iridiex, has been removed. Reserve power will fail in a few hours if sufficient energy is not restored to the reactor core." "Nicely done, everyone," I muttered with a satisfied nod. I ran back to Zanteox, throwing his severed forearm aside. I removed the gunblade from him and dragged him into the control deck room. A low moan filtered out of his broken mouth the entire way and I set him down on the observation platform. "You would have destroyed one of the few things left in the world that I care about. She deserves to live, but not you and me," I said quietly. "I don't want her to know this, but my mind is very fragile right now. A lot of…voices, bringing me a lot of opinions. Have you ever met a divine power, Zanteox?" The Trevahkan was fading in and out of consciousness when I smacked him back to his senses. "Hey, are you listening to me?" He would not respond and I took a knee at his side. "I have met a divine power. Not like the Great Spirit that some claim to feel and sense the presence of, I mean something active. He lifted me up and berated me for what have become. And…he was right. There is no place in the universe for monsters. The good and the light of the world will sustain the fortunate, somehow. As cruel as you may be to have killed your queens to gain power, I am not a faithful guardian here to finish you for your wickedness. The abyss swallows the abysmal, and we shall plunge into the night together." I looked out the window into the bright daytime sun above Zakaz. "Okay, metaphorical night," I specified. "Don't…kill…me," Zanteox whispered. I smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "We are about to embark on a great journey together, Zanteox. I will not kill you. The fall on the other hand…that might kill you." "What?" Zanteox spat out in terror. I swung the gunblade up along the glass window, creating a long crack in it. I then fired a single shot that shattered the pane to bits. "Let's go!" I told Zanteox, grabbing him as I jumped out the window. I released the Trevahkan after a few seconds, becoming more aerodynamic as I brought my arms to my sides and soared down toward Zakaz like a bullet. This was easily the most unstable I had become in my entire life, beginning to wonder what would happen when I hit the ground. Everything was telling me I would die, which honestly was not what I wanted. Even dealing with the overwhelming regret of Rovaius' death and Drelinok's return, I never wanted to die. What I will say is that I felt miserable enough to no longer want to deal with my problems, and leaping out of an airship seemed like the simplest method to accomplish that. I could feel Drelinok's influence leaving my mind, fully in control again. "It's over," I told myself. "It's finally over. I can only hope that Drelinok will return light to the universe someday." "But I still need you." "Me?" I asked, my eyes still shut, listening to an unfamiliar voice in my head. "Yes. Just a while longer." "I can't. It's too late." "And what if I gave you another chance? Would you carry on for me?" "But…life is so hard. No matter how old I get, nothing is easier." "And have you not gotten better?" "I have adapted." "And you will adapt again. Please, Adrinor, let me save you." "If I live, what can I do about Drelinok?" "Though powerful, he is still but Meldin and metal. There is nothing that lives that cannot die." My eyes could see nothing beyond swirling gulfs of shimmering white and deep black. It was hard to tell what I was hearing or where it was or why it would call out to me. Still, something told me to trust the voice. Drelinok was mortal, and that meant he could be stopped. I had to try. "Then save me…if you can." I opened my eyes, staring up as the Panacea's ship closed in on me. I was in free fall—and could only move so quickly—but the aircraft was running on thrusters. I could save myself. I waited a moment before spreading out my limbs, sinking the gunblade into the hull. It was a shaky connection and I hurried up the bow, estimating the vessel would impact in a matter of seconds. I ran as fast as I could, and the instant I felt the metal beneath me begin to shake, I made a long jump. The sound of the impact was thunderous, shattering through the coast and plowing into the beachside architecture. Buildings collapsed, dozens of Skakdi were injured or dead, and I was soaring over an airship's hull. The craft had mostly come to a halt when it crashed, but I was still hurtling backwards at an alarming speed. I cleared the ship and the choppy waves skipped me like a stone a few times before I fell into the water. I started to sink and felt around for my gunblade. I brushed the edge of the hilt and dove a bit to retrieve it. Staring up at the surface of the sea, light shimmering over the waves, I was disheartened. There was no understanding how I had gotten caught up in rescuing the universe. I had just thrown someone out a window to their death and something out there saw me as a prime candidate to put an end to the most powerful light entity that had ever lived. I wondered if that was what it would take. Darkness. Not elemental, but the ability to embrace the shadows in my own changing nature and put down the enemies to my cause. My lowest moment had passed, prepared enough to confront the mounting danger to the world. Even if I could not stop Drelinok, there was no point in running from him any longer. There was still the matter of resolving my regret over Rovaius, but it would have to wait. After the mysterious voice entered my mind, all of the others seemed to fade away. There was only a single thought that lingered, one that seemed to stem from the unknown speaker. A battle between the light and the dark was coming, and I could not yet imagine what forces would challenge Drelinok for control of the world. I swam to the shore, examining what I had done. The Panacea's aircraft had torn the beach apart, sirens blaring out as medical specialists tended to the wounded and carried away the deceased. Among the debris field were a number of escape capsules, and my crew. They stood waiting for me and I glanced into the skyline above them, following the trail of several more capsules across the sky. "The Panacea lives on," I told them. "They're hardly a threat without their research," Kyrhus replied. "Research that is now under our jurisdiction," a Skakdi law trooper clarified. "The survivors of this incident are being taken into custody for questioning, yourselves included." "We're going to respectfully decline that offer," I said, glancing past him at the Magistrates that had been placed in energy shackles by some of the law troopers. "The Trevahkan Magistrates aboard this ship were privately calling themselves the Panacea, planning to drop a viral bomb over Metru Nui. They arrested us when we got too close to that truth and I terminated their leader before this ship smashed into the beach." The Skakdi gave me a curious look. "Terminated?" I nodded slowly. "Yeah. As in, dead. Take a watercraft about a kio or two out in the water and I'm sure you'll find him." "So let me get this straight," The Skakdi went on. "You had nothing to do with this?" "Not my ship, not my shady new world order," I explained. "Good luck with your investigation. We're leaving." I motioned to the group to leave the scene just as a Steltian airship landed nearby. The door swept open and Elendra exited the craft, a hint of shock spilled across her face as she studied the area. "You missed quite a mission," I told her, chuckling. "I can see that," she replied, still somewhat distracted by the sights and sounds. "My own airship wasn't quite ready, but Voporak's guards came along with me. Am I taking you back to Stelt now?" I shook my head. "Let them head back, I could use a little fresh air. You'll want to hear about this one." Elendra motioned in toward the pilot before walking up to us, nervously pulling one of her revolvers. "Are we safe out here? You're going to have to bring me up to speed." I took the lead in heading away from the beach and tried to summarize the events as quickly as possible. "Zanteox and the Magistrates we met on Ilisi were planning to release a chemical agent in Metru Nui to give the Matoran augmented strength and abilities to properly end the war. I took down their flagship and killed Zanteox in the process." "So you really killed Zanteox, is that right?" Hadliek asked. "How'd you manage that one?" "He made a mistake and I took my opening," I said without missing a beat. "The particulars are messier than I'd like to discuss." "Are you going to be okay?" Celvey asked. I forced a smile for her. "I'm always okay." "That's the Meldin I trained, all right," Elendra said proudly. It was the first moment following my near-death experience that I had a chance to reflect on everything. I think the rest of my crew felt similarly about their escape from the ship, because no one was really talking about anything for a few minutes. Elendra knew the gist of the situation and apparently had nothing else to address. "Help! Someone stop him!" We all turned in the direction of a frantic Skakdi down the road, watching the edges of a figure disappear around the corner. "It could be a Magistrate," I said. "Let's catch him." Review
  22. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Am I a part of the cure, or am I part of the disease? –Coldplay Episode 11: Corruption (Part 1) I sat with Kyrhus on our flight to Trevahka, silent as I stared at the double tetrahedron of Iridiex. I turned it around in my hands, over and over, watching the sunlight dance inside its facets. It was odd that a Matoran would manage to get his hands on something so precious and valuable, but the most likely theory in my mind was that he stole it. The Onu-Metru Archives was a monument, not to the study of Rahi, but to history. The Onu-Matoran valued the understanding of everything in the world and while Iridiex may have a price to some, I believe they saw it as another item to keep on display. Even protected, I knew what war could accomplish. There was no barrier, no distance, no force short of death that would keep a commander from his objectives. We had given Trevahka a wide berth on the way to Todrano and flew low over the sea. Coming back, our aircraft was high above a cloud layer that sizzled with electrical bursts and sent lightning dancing through the veil. "I can't see a thing through the storm system." Kyrhus cleared his throat. "That's not the most unusual thing about this place. Did you notice anything on our approach to Trevahka?" I gave him a curious stare. "I was trying to pierce the cloud cover." Kyrhus flipped a switch and tilted the controls up, sending us higher. He disengaged the autopilot and took the ship into a slow rotation while maintaining our altitude. I could see an endless expanse of dismal gray below us, and the sun not far above. Then another sun. Then another. It came into view too quickly to be the same object in the sky and I stuck my face closer to the windshield. "Three suns?" "Weird, isn't it?" Kyrhus asked. "They seem to be firing all of that electrical energy into the storm, like artificial batteries." I craned my neck up and saw no sign of a larger, more natural sun in the sky. I knew the tales about the Southern Islands existing bereft of the light I knew in the north, but even Todrano had a sun. Perhaps the Great Beings had overlooked Trevahka for reasons of their own and Zanteox's brethren chose to correct the situation themselves. It made me wonder what genius it would require to construct an artificial sun and ensure it would remain suspended eternally in the sky. Kyrhus slowly tapped a blinking light on the controls. "I believe we're being requested to open a communication line. Let's see who wants to chat with us." Kyrhus held down a button next to the light until it stopped blinking and turned green. "This is the Magistrate Air Command Division. Your vessel is approaching Trevahkan airspace and you are ordered to state the nature of your business or reroute your trajectory." "We are travelers from the northern lands, hoping to speak with Magistrate Zanteox. If you are able to contact him about our presence, it's worth noting that we are with an Ilisian named Celvey." A moment of radio silence followed before we got a reply, and I gave Kyrhus what was surely an astonished stare. "Zanteox was going to kill her!" I whispered. "Do they need to know she's with us?" "Do you think they would approve of our arrival without her?" Kyrhus hissed quietly. "Besides, mentioning the Iridiex would have meant they could shoot us out of the sky and collect the metal in our battered remains!" "Your entry into Magistrate controlled airspace has been approved," the Command Division controller replied. "You will take your vessel directly to the Magistrate Hall of Order in the city of Xylen, situated at the northern end of the island. Your destination is the tallest structure in the city – simply land your vessel in the designated aircraft parking area adjacent to the Hall of Order. We will engage a path for you momentarily." "You mind repeating that?" Kyrhus asked. "Engage a path?" "Affirmative. A large glowing ring will appear ahead of your ship in just a second. Pass through the ring and our systems will handle the rest. Do not attempt to manually pilot your ship until you arrived on the ground." The green light faded out and I watched a series of metal beams soar out of the storm before connecting together in a massive ring. The ring had an electric blue glow around it, rippling with a mysterious energy. Kyrhus took us into the ring and we accelerated immediately. Another ring appeared instantly and we passed through it, picking up speed as several more rings met us and tilted us down onto the path that Magistrate Air Command had approved. We whizzed down through the clouds, entering a light sprinkle that looked beautiful in the dusky orange air over the island. Trevahka was a sprawling halo of technologically advanced cityscapes. Pristine white highways wrapped and looped about the frosty-colored architecture of every metropolis on the island. The personal transports did not touch the paths, but hovered just above in a magnetic relationship like the trains on Zakaz I knew well. Ribbons of bright teal glowed among the buildings and the highways, electrified all across Trevahka. As we drew closer to the city of Xylen, however, I could see inside of a snow white dome with a circular opening in the middle. The dome consumed the entire central section of the island, and through the opening, I could see a lush jungle that appeared completely wild and untamed set next to the society the Trevahkans had built. I was reminded of my conversation on Ilisi with Hadliek about the subject. "…The rest of Trevahka is a jungle-like ruin of violent beasts, and a legend that these creatures are spawned from a strange cavern in the center of the island." "Spawned?" "I don't know what other word to use. The stories go that a massive pool of silvery liquid rests far below the cavern's surface, and that it creates and twists life into things that should not exist." Whatever the substance was that Hadliek had heard about, the Trevahkans had managed to keep its creations sealed within the confines of their dome. Perhaps the most terrible crimes on the island were punished with being dropped into the jungle, forced to navigate the impenetrable thickness of leaf and tree, eventually picked off by a mutant transformation so potentially dangerous and nightmarish, the Magistrates feared the risk enough to seal them off. I smiled at the thought of the Magistrates, purely out of irony that I was staring at their headquarters. The Hall of Order towered over all of Xylen's skyscrapers, its glossy walls reflecting an image of the city back on itself. It was shaped like a colossal bullet, adorned near the top with an enormous, bright letter "M" that only added to the inflated sense of self I knew Zanteox possessed. The last ring launched us gently toward an aircraft docking station outside the tower and Kyrhus wasted no time in carefully landing our ship. A team of Magistrates were headed toward us, surrounding the aircraft with energy rifles drawn and loaded. "Open the door," I told Kyrhus. "I'll take point." "No," Celvey corrected me, putting her hand to my shoulder. "I'll do it." I glanced up at her and smiled. "You'll do it." Celvey walked out into the rain and boldly marched up to the nearest Magistrate. Many of the enforcers had their weapons trained specifically on her, but Celvey seemed absolutely composed in that moment. I thought it might be rage under the surface, the thought of vengeance, that held her so calm. In an instant, she had the power to unleash a massive amount of focused psionic energy, but she chose not to. We were standing in the shadow of the tower's enormity, strangers in a strange land whose officers would allow their leader to murder his brides for political power. "Good day," the guard said sternly. "Yes, it is," Celvey replied with a smile. "My friends and I were hoping to speak with Magistrate Zanteox. Is he available?" "Zanteox is a very busy individual. Why should I grant you an audience with him?" "Show him, Adrinor." I slowly put my hands up, trying to keep the guard at ease. "I'm going to reach for an item in the compartment in my back. Please don't treat this as an act of aggression." "All right," he agreed, readjusting his grip on the rifle. "Out with it then, come on." I pulled the double tetrahedron of Iridiex out and displayed it to the guard, watching him marvel at the sight. It sparkled in the rain with an aura it did not possess when I retrieved it on Todrano. "Mata Nui," he whispered. "I wish to trade this to Zanteox in exchange for a respectable payment." The guard appeared ready to speak, but decided against it at the last second. He motioned to his fellow Magistrates and they lowered their weapons before retreating to the gate station nearby. The guard pressed a hand to his audio receptor, activating a communication device. "This is Docking Station Alpha. Notify Zanteox of a code zero," he said. "I repeat: this is a code zero." I could hear someone responding, but they were too soft for me to hear. "Understood. There are four of them. I'll have them enter the Hall and someone can escort them the rest of the way." The guard released the communication device and it was my turn to be suspicious. "Code zero? What was that all about?" "Law enforcement needs a way to communicate so that civilian criminals cannot impede our actions. I'm sure you can appreciate why I cannot divulge any more to you. If you would, continue on to the nearest Hall entrance and a Magistrate will be there to meet you." I glared at him as I replied, "Thanks." I looked back to my crew and motioned them to follow me inside. "Let's move." We continued toward the Hall of Order and, as soon as we were out of the guard's hearing range, Hadliek moved uncomfortably close to me as we walked. "Code zero? I can't be the only one that feels like something is wrong here," he said in a hushed tone. "You're not," I muttered. "He didn't even bother to confiscate our weapons, and we're entering an establishment of the law. Stay alert." The entrance to the facility was a revolving door and we went through individually. On the other side, I found myself standing in a grand entryway with an immense, metallic monolith in the center that consumed most of the room. Three spiral flights of stairs headed in separate directions up through the building, while a large pair of elevator doors could be seen just above the first floor. "Welcome to the Hall of Order," a Trevahkan female greeted us. She stood barely taller than myself, clad in armor of gunmetal and with strips of neon violet light that ran in a symmetric pattern up the sides of her legs, branching off onto her breastplate and back plate, before reconnecting and running down each arm. Her eyes were a powerful crimson that whispered of her strength, intense and intimidating. At her side was a gunblade unlike any I had seen before. It was made of two separated blades, nearly meeting each other in a triangular shape, if not for the rifle barrel between them. "I take it you'll be our escort to Zanteox?" She nodded politely. "Very astute. My name is Magistrate Liucik." I studied her face for a second before realizing something unnerving. "You were standing with my friends on the day of the wedding." "As were we." Startled and caught off guard, our lines of sight shot up onto the staircases where the other two Magistrates that Zanteox had chosen to stand out for his ceremony were positioned. They were both wielding a long weapon I had never seen before, but I watched them take a shot at my crew. I heard a high pitched sound blast through my audio receptors and then there was only darkness. <<<>>> I awoke in confusion and winced as the inside of my head throbbed angrily. I blinked a few times and realized I had been sleeping on a cold, dirty floor in a confinement cell. There were no bars on the window and I peered out into the city of Xylen. I was at least 20 floors up, still inside the Hall of Order. I extended a hand toward the window and my fingers were greeted by a faint crackle of bright red energy that faded when I withdrew. "An energy field that only becomes visible with proper interaction," someone said behind me. "I invented that accidentally." I turned around and felt my mouth open slightly as I stared at Zanteox. He was standing in the hallway and it appeared there was no barrier between my cell and him. "There's an energy field between us," I said. "There is, indeed," Zanteox replied. He displayed a small rock to me and placed his hands together, separating them to reveal a flower. Zanteox proceeded to press the flower against the energy field and I watched as the pressure caused it to disintegrate into ashes. "Maybe Celvey fell for that, but I'm not impressed with your magic tricks," I said, glaring. Zanteox sighed. "There is no magic in this universe, Adrinor, only science beyond your feeble mind. You would have taken a handful of Iridiex to the highest bidder and thought nothing of it, but such rare material has far more practical uses than bargaining for a fortune." "What did you have in mind?" I inquired. "Let me ask you a question first," Zanteox replied. "It's the least you can do after interrupting my wedding. The Ilisians would have been a strategic ally to have in our rapidly changing world, Adrinor, and I will have to drag Celvey back to her homeland to have the ceremony completed this time. I had all but given up on the idea, until a few hours ago when your Iridiex fell into my lap." "Don't you touch her," I growled. Zanteox groaned. "I suppose I should get to my question now. Do you know where Rahi come from?" It felt like a trick question. "Destral. The Makuta make them." "Yes, yes, they are made there. But have you ever wondered how they are made?" The idea had honestly never crossed my mind. "I always thought the Brotherhood possessed some innate power to bring them into existence. Makuta are so immensely powerful that it just made sense." "A decent theory, but incorrect. Allow me to show you something." Zanteox revealed a second rock, and in his other hand, he displayed the tiniest vial of a bright green substance. He dropped the stone to the ground and let the open vial fall onto it, allowing the green liquid to consume the rock in a small, but thick layer of shadowy gases. "This is not magic, Adrinor. This is the answer to all of our problems." I watched the cloud of gas dissipate and stared in bewilderment at the flower sitting on the floor. "That's…amazing. Where did you learn how to do that?" "I didn't do a thing," Zanteox assured me, "it was the virus." "Virus?" I repeated, mystified. "I don't understand." "A virus is a substance or chemical that can manipulate the parameters and laws of our universe, sometimes permanently, often temporarily. If fused properly, they can even create the beasts that roam the world. This esoteric knowledge was imparted to me in secret, many centuries ago, by an ancient clan that dwells much further south. It was their belief that it would serve me well in my efforts to protect the universe." "Protect it from what?" "Itself," Zanteox replied, as if he had been hoping I would ask. "For some time now, the Magistrates have operated in secret beneath Xylen, hard at work with plans to save our world. Disease, famine, war, and even death can be prevented through our scientific achievements. We privately referred to ourselves as the Panacea, but it quickly became clear that our best attempt at curing the ailments of the world would require wiping some of them out entirely. Your Iridiex will fuel the engine of our vessel, and we shall soar through the realms of the Great Spirit, delivering judgment unto its inhabitants." "So why didn't you just kill me then? Why tell me anything about this plan to destroy all that is wrong in your eyes?" "Pride, mostly," Zanteox said, chuckling. "You came between me and my plans, and I want you to watch from confinement as Celvey stands at my side. We will burn the darkness from this universe and all those unworthy of Mata Nui's salvation. Zakaz, Stelt, Xia, and so many more will fall to my power. Then I will come for Meldio, and I will not leave until every last one of your kind is annihilated." "That's going to be rather difficult for me to witness sitting in a prison cell here on Trevahka." Zanteox pressed his thumb beneath his chin and rested his head against it. "Iridiex is so powerful, the smallest portion can unleash energies beyond that of a Makuta. For some time now, the Magistrates have been hard at work designing a ship that will take us across the universe. We have estimated a level of destruction we intend to rain down on our enemies, and there was only one place it could be built away from prying eyes. Here, inside the walls of this tower. And when I return to the controls, we will depart to begin our campaign in the farthest northern reaches of the universe." "Metru Nui?" I asked. "The city is still at war and you want to take your airship there? They'd blast you out of the sky!" Zanteox laughed. "It's funny. Celvey told me about Drelinok's Amplifier the night before our ill-fated wedding, and it brought to mind what viruses are capable of. They possess the ability to enhance the power of biomechs, to make them stronger and more aggressive. If made to obey, they could even be a formidable army. And so I thought, if viruses could enhance power, they could make the very act of warfare all the more dangerous for its combatants. My ship contains a viral bomb that we will drop onto the city of Metru Nui, causing the Matoran to grow powerful enough to finish their war. The city will cease to exist, and the test run of what I have planned for so many other undeserving biomechs will be complete. And you and your crew, Adrinor, will be my audience. Let's see what Drelinok can do against an artificial horde of monsters." I folded my arms, wholly unconvinced. "He compared his power to Mata Nui. There may be sinister plots lurking in minds like yours, but Drelinok has the power to make his twisted dreams a reality. Before I was an outlaw, his command of my homeland was terrifying. And now, as he is, you and I would be fools not to fear what he is capable of." "Drelinok used his wits to build the Amplifier, Adrinor. He was smart enough to advance himself into the entity he is today. In that respect, he and I share a common interest. In time, all life in our universe will experience an evolution, but it takes someone truly gifted to accelerate the process. There is so little crime on Trevahka that the justification of this monstrosity of a tower has proven difficult at times. My Magistrates have done a fantastic job at sweeping up any wayward citizens, which has led to more than one curious investigation about why the Hall of Order was designed with such large specifications in mind. And so to keep the island preoccupied, we have resorted to, on occasion, quietly releasing the beasts within the central dome. The Magistrates locked the jungle away when we built the dome, and deducing that some creatures simply have the ability to 'get out,' we track them back down after carefully placing them in a Trevahkan city, keeping the populace convinced we are working hard for them at all times. If I were to try and explain the scope of the Panacea, however, they would find my actions inconvenient in contrast with their comfortable lives. Sometimes we have to go to extremes to make the right call…to make the best call." "You're in a funny position to talk about the right calls," I said, giving him a wry smirk. "Threatening to cast the universe into upheaval is an interesting way to maintain order, first of all. Also, I'm not typically kept armed when held as a prisoner." "Your imprisonment here is a formality. Should you escape, there are enough Magistrates aboard to put you down in an instant, Meldin. A swordsman, though you may be, you are hardly a threat in the face of our training." "Care to test that by letting me out?" "I have more important matters to attend to," Zanteox replied, starting to walk away. "We'll continue this conversation soon enough, though." "Wait a second, get back here!" Zanteox laughed. "We'll be taking off soon. You should spend some of that time figuring out how you'll fight gravity when our directional shift sends you hurtling against the cell's laser barrier. I'll be on the bridge if you need me." "That's a…" I paused and stared at the floor, lowering my tone, "good point." I was alone in my confinement, with no bars or tools to assist me. True, I still had my gunblade, and my ammunition. Even a couple bullets that would unleash abilities a Meldin would not ordinarily have access to. Did Zanteox want me to escape? Was there some sense of egotistical pride that gave him the confidence to think there was nothing I could possibly do to stop him? "It's unwise to get in your own way when dealing with your enemies, Zanteox," I muttered, loading a round into the gunblade. The building started to shake and I headed to the window. Whole sections of the Hall of Order were falling away, crashing down onto the streets below. One particular piece smashed our Ilisian transport to bits and I cringed, curious how we might get back to Stelt without it. As eerie as it was for me to witness a tower shed away its exterior to allow the flagship to depart, I thought about how it must have looked to the rest of Xylen. The city had placed their trust in the Magistrates, not the Panacea that Zanteox had created in darkness. We were beginning to tilt and the laser barrier would soon be beneath me. Of all the elements in the universe, plasma was the one I understood the least. It reminded me of fire, mostly, like an electrical burst of flames that scattered and reacted in a very unusual way. One thing I knew for sure was that a concentrated plasma shot in my special bullet would tear a laser apart, and that was all I needed. I held my gunblade out and hovered my finger over the trigger, waiting until I could no longer hold my ground. I wanted to be close. In seconds, my feet started to slide and I took my shot, watching the bullet catch the laser field's attention before it's plasma influence expanded and consumed the entire contraption, neutralizing the barrier an instant before I passed by it. The flagship had made its transition entirely and I landed hard against the door. I laid there a moment, catching my breath, wondering if the rest of my crew had escaped or if they had even been placed in confinement like I had. I knew finding Zanteox was the most important factor at the time though, and I shoved my gunblade between the doors, twisting the blade and prying them open. I dropped down into a hallway, upright this time. It was lined with several large cylinders along the way to the door, but I was still quite a distance from the bridge. I smiled, impressed that the Panacea had built the inner portions of the Hall of Order, not only as an airship, but in a direction that surely made construction all the more difficult. "I've located one of them, he's escaped from his cell. I'll deal with it." I whirled at the sound of another voice, catching Magistrate Liucik down the hall, talking into a communication device on her audio receptor. She lowered her hand and detached her elaborate gunblade from her hip, holding it at her side. "Did no one ever think to just build this ship underground?" I asked her, clutching my own gunblade a little tighter. "It would have left a similar degree of damage in its wake and you could have avoided building at such an odd angle." "Do you have any idea what lurks beneath Trevahka?" Liucik questioned, marching toward me. "The dome in the center of the island hides a deep cavern, containing a silvery liquid that can destroy anything it touches. And what is not destroyed…is turned." "Turned to what?" "Terrible things. Zanteox said he spoke to it once, in private. He braved the monsters and entered the poison's den, claiming it talked to him. No other member of the Panacea has ever witnessed the liquid behave in such a way, but he said it told him something important. The liquid came before us, from a distant place consumed by war. It told Zanteox that we are one component in a timeless cycle, doomed to repeat what others have done. Whether or not that story is true, we have to put an end to the cycle. We know about Drelinok and his intentions, and it's clear that the Panacea will side with him in the end. Something must be done, and it's the ones like you that are standing in the way of progress." "I'm sorry you feel that way, but you're probably right," I admitted. "I don't have an interest in bettering the world or making everything equal and fair all the time. I have the interest of my crew in mind…my friends. I look out for them, and they for me. As a leader, my responsibility to them will always come first, because without them, I am the leader of nothing." "In the face of our noble work, you are nothing." Liucik moved to slash and I blocked her, returning with three swift blows of my own. She was able to keep up, clearly stronger than I was. A bright purple energy flared up around her blade and Liucik focused everything toward forcing me to buckle. I had one last special round left on me and I had been planning to save it for Zanteox. I withdrew and leapt to safety behind one of the hall's cylinders. Liucik took a few shots during my retreat, but none landed. I threw the bullet into my gunblade and quickly glanced out. "Come out from behind there, Meldin," she demanded, a sound clicking on her rifle. "I'll tear it to pieces with a blast of my own power, or you can do the honorable thing and take the bullet with your name on it that I have ready for you." I let out a long, smooth exhale, and swept fast to take my one shot at her. The sound I had heard on Liucik's weapon had been a burst fire feature being activated, and I felt a series of rounds hit me along the outside of my torso and along my left arm. It was nothing damaging enough that could not wait until Hadliek would be able to properly heal me, but the impact definitely stung. As for the Magistrate across from me, she was experiencing the effects of liquid nitrogen just below her heartlight. Liucik cursed. "What did you…?" She clutched at her wound in vain, watching as it spread over her breastplate and onto her heartlight. I stood ready, glad that I did when she ran at me and charged a wicked bolt of purple energy through her gunblade. I had a perfect stance to counter, although it was pointless. Liucik's own power surged back on her heartlight, trying to regulate through her body, and shattered the hardened ice away. Unfortunately for her, everything in the center of her chest had been frozen all the way through by the bullet, and Liucik was dead in the air. She dropped like a pile of bricks and the energies faded from her blade. I tried to make a kill quick when I had to, especially if the target had not put me in a particularly bad mood in the first place. Still, a shattered heartlight, while immediate, was a cruel end. I swung my gunblade around my hand a couple times and shook my head at her, listening to the communication device crackle out a message. I plucked it from her audio receptor and put it up to my own. "Copy that?" "I say again: all prisoners have escaped. A Todrano, a Gekalan, a Meldin, and an Ilisian. Be advised, the Ilisian has been reported to possess a form of psychokinetic abilities. Disregard Zanteox's order to keep her alive – if you see her, take her down with everything you've got." "Understood," I replied before tossing the device aside. I had no idea how far the bridge was from my location, but I wanted to keep the element of surprise as long as I could. Even if the Panacea knew we had escaped, they did not know where each of us would strike from. I was willing to take any advantage I could get. As it turned out, I think most of the Magistrates were in the lower levels of the Hall of Order during takeoff, because I only had to sneak by a few of their number on my way to the bridge. The journey was all of half an hour, but in the end, I was standing at the end of a long walkway to the bridge entrance doors. I set my weapon against my side and unfastened the transponder beneath my wrist armor. I clicked the device together and caused a small red light to start blinking inside of it. "Okay, Elendra, you'd better come through for me." I felt prepared for any conflict ahead and clutched my gunblade with both hands. I took a deep breath and threw myself into a slash with the doors, forcing them apart. The bridge was a crescent room with a long window cut into a diamond pattern. A pair of empty terminals were on each end, but I was more concerned with the viewing platform in the center. Specifically, the biomech with his back to me who was standing on it. "Hello, Adrinor," Zanteox said calmly. "That gunblade certainly works wonders, doesn't it?" "Get down here!" I demanded. Zanteox took a deep breath and stood up perfectly straight. "I have a gift for you." "I'm not playing games," I replied, shooting him square in the back. Zanteox gasped and lurched forward, coughing for a moment. "Good…shot." "The next one's going in your head," I told him. The Trevahkan spat up a slimy substance before whirling around to face me, forcing a smile. He clutched the wound in his back with one hand and held out the other in a fist. "Is that my gift you have there?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. I lined up a shot with Zanteox's head and watched him carefully. "After all your talk of a better tomorrow, it looks like I won't be seeing you in that future you dreamed of." Zanteox chuckled, squeezing his fist as tight as he could. "You have no future." "Wrong answer." I fired a round for his face, amazed that Zanteox dropped himself onto his back with enough speed to avoid the bullet. I was about to take another shot, but I hesitated. Instead, I simply watched as Zanteox screamed out in pain, miserably writhing on the viewing platform as he sputtered up more of the slimy material. I expected he might die at any moment or that he would pass out from the level of agony he was experiencing. The last thing I expected was for a pair of spindly legs to jut out of his upper back. "That's a nasty virus," I muttered. Zanteox had been mutated into a creature that was still partially Trevahkan, but very much an insectoid nightmare. His eyes were larger and glowing bright emerald, while his jaw had grown a set of mandibles. His skin was covered in an exoskeleton, each foot had split into a pair of claws, and his fingers had fused from five to three. "What, you couldn't kill me by yourself?" "I'd call it insurance," Zanteox hissed, getting to his feet. "My gift to you is a worthy adversary in your very last duel." I scoffed. "And here I was, assuming your transformation into a bug monster was leading up to a rousing debate." "I think you're out of time for jokes," Zanteox said, glaring. "Yeah…and I think I liked you better when you were just trying to marry Celvey." Review
  23. Episode 10 is live! …And far overdue on the release date. I apologize to my readers on this one, but the middle of Cynosure has been a serious hurdle to jump with a lot of other more pressing matters in my life. Anyway, excuses, excuses. I promise there will definitely be less of a gap before Episode 11 is up. That's not saying much, but if I hold myself to it publicly, I can focus on keeping myself honest versus trying to self-motivate on busy weekends and such. This episode is…different, I guess. I removed an element from the team and was inspired by stories of hidden and stolen gold in the American Civil War. The story definitely takes on a life of its own, and the mid-season two-part episode is up next. Hope you enjoy this lead in! As always, thanks for reading! -Ced
  24. Cederak

    Cynosure

    Alone we traveled armed, with nothing but a shadow. We fled, far away. –Of Monsters and Men Episode 10: Majestic Eclipse The day started with a sense of promise that whole centuries preceding it could not equal. I smiled from my bedroom window, gazing far into the distance. Drelinok was dead, the universe was safe thanks to Toa Jovan, and the end of my journey seemed so close. After learning from Kyrhus that Zanteox knew about Iridiex on Todrano, I had to set course for Hadliek's homeland and secure a lucrative future for us all. Trylac and his agency's scientific research mattered little to me without Drelinok in the picture, and I had every intention of finding a high bidder for the precious metal. Once that was accomplished, I would be free to live the rest of my days in immense and comfortable wealth. King Auredel had presented us a royal airship to depart Ilisi, faster and more agile than most aircraft. Even Elendra marveled at the technology, an elegant metal blade bolting through clouds and air. As if on cue, she silently stepped up to my side and looked out the window with me. "I really can't convince you to come along, huh?" She shook her head. "I'd prefer to work on the damaged aircraft that Voporak was kind enough to have his clan return here. Metru Nui was a solid test-run for the modifications I'll need to implement, and it should be ready for the sky when you return from Todrano." "What happens if I get in trouble?" I teased. "Your quick trigger finger will be far away from me." "Then you'd better be careful," she warned. "Besides, you already know my favorite secret to staying alive." I smirked, immediately remembering her joke. "Not dying." She handed me a small, blinking device that was roughly the size of my eye. I tapped it a couple times and looked back at her. "That is a long-distance beacon I've linked with my ship. If you need me, you can activate it by holding the light down for a short time. An alarm will display on the ship's control panel and start to actively triangulate your position." I attached it just beneath the armor on my wrist and snapped it into place around a tiny opening. "Thanks, Elendra. If all goes according to plan, I won't even need this." Elendra was walking out the door when she said, "If theory were the same as practice, we could all stop training tomorrow." <<<>>> Kyrhus took the helm on our flight to Todrano mostly just to monitor our course. The Ilisians were dynamos in aircraft development and the ship practically drove itself. Even with the Great Spirit rescued, the atmosphere began to darken when we reached the first dome leading into the Southern Islands. It contained the land of Trevahka, home to the Magistrates. Through the next gateway was a wild place, conquered by local fauna where the mighty Tahtorak roamed free. South of that was the dome housing Todrano, steadily becoming less bright along the way. As I recalled, the next dome would take us down to Trylac's homeland of Dectraz, a place he once said was shrouded in perpetual night. The resentment that inhabitants of the Southern Islands held against the "light-walkers" in the north began to make sense, because I could tell dwelling in these conditions for too long could become miserable and gloomy. Todrano was coming into view when I peered out the window with Hadliek and Celvey, looking for discernable landforms. Most of the northern section of the island was a volcanic mass that towered over the lowlands like a fiery castle, spewing out long, winding streams of lava and thick clouds of ash. Down through the east and into the south sat a colossal dome, encapsulating a large chunk of the island's forest. Hadliek tapped the window glass a few times toward it. "That's new." I scanned the west and the lengthy expanse of green fields that grew into the southern coast. Along the way, I counted seven small towns dotting the verdant landscape, curious where Hadliek had lived his early life. Despite the gray skies in the north and the weakened lighting high above, Todrano seemed okay. I wondered what made Hadliek leave behind his quiet home. Before I would address that subject, however, I did the courteous thing and slowly refocused onto the dome. "Why would they build something like that?" I asked. "Where would the resources have even come from?" "I don't know," Hadliek admitted. "There are no riches to be unearthed on Todrano and my species lives a simple lifestyle. Most of us know one another personally and we often brought the towns together on important projects." "And you left it all behind?" Celvey questioned. "That sounds so…nice." "I guess I just got bored after a while," Hadliek replied. "I packed a bag and said goodbye to my close friends, and then I sailed north. This was back when the League of Six Kingdoms was still active, so my travels eventually brought me into contact with their armies. It was the legions of Barraki Pridak, specifically, who saw my ability to heal as a strong advantage in battle. I think I've told you this part already, but I met with Pridak after a while and he assigned me as a remote training officer, taking particularly gifted soldiers to distant lands to hone their skills in the private silence of nature. I was on leave when the League fell and I met Elendra and Adrinor." "Seems like you left on a positive note," Celvey said. "Ready to go back?" "Yeah," Hadliek told her calmly. "Yeah, I am. Kyrhus, plot a course for the town nearest to the forest, please," Hadliek requested. Kyrhus gave us a wave from the controls and I felt him gently tilting our direction. "Is that where your home was?" Celvey asked. Hadliek lowered his head and gave her the smallest smile. "It was. I have a lot of good memories down there. We call the place Alinov." "Alinov," Celvey repeated happily. "Maybe someone you know can tell us why they constructed the dome." "We'll find out pretty soon," Kyrhus interrupted. "The ship takes commands pretty easily and we should be on the ground momentarily." I walked up to the cockpit and hovered over Kyrhus, studying the control panel. The airship had been given a landing point and the computer was already calculating the distance to arrival and the proper speed to maintain. Elendra was right to harbor an interest in studying the airship further, and Kyrhus did not touch the controls again until we were resting in an empty field between Alinov and the forest. The Gekalan flipped the switch to open the cabin door and we headed outside. Hadliek took a deep breath and put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the town. "Good to be back." The air was warm and humid, with a hot breeze rolling past us. I looked up into the sunlight and barely squinted, surprised by the lack of intensity. It was bright, but more similar to staring directly at an interior light than a sunny sky. "Very tropical," Kyrhus noted, wagging his tail. "Shall we head into the forest or into town first?" "I'd rather visit Alinov. The Iridiex is somewhere in the forest, according to Zanteox. We shouldn't go in blind, don't you agree, Adrinor?" "No arguments here. Let's get some intel." The path into town was lined with potted plants, exotic multicolored flora that bloomed full of life and ripe berries. Businesses and living quarters were basically well-put-together huts, open enough to let in the wind and sturdy enough to weather a hurricane if necessary. It was not enough that the Southern Islands were legendary for their shadows and volcanic activity, but stormy conditions were also a regular occurrence. A couple Todrano waved to us from their hut's balcony, smiling at the sight of one of their own in our group. We waved back and Hadliek abruptly made a beeline for the building. "Old friends of yours?" Kyrhus asked him. "Probably," Hadliek replied. "The faces seem vaguely familiar, but the names are long gone from my memory." We entered the hut and the pair of Todrano hurried down the stairs to greet us. "The traveler has come home!" one of them said with a chuckle. He was a tall, strong looking figure wrapped in armor of dark gray and rust. "What brought you back here?" the other asked. She was a tad shorter, and her armor was mostly shades of green. "Nice to have a warm welcome back," Hadliek told them. "We heard a rumor that there was a rare metal hidden in the forest here. It's called Iridiex." The taller Todrano glanced uneasily at his companion before looking back at us. "Please, have a seat, all of you. I don't think you understand the risk you're putting yourselves at." The lower level of the hut was essentially a common area, and we sat down around a small table with Hadliek. "My line of work these days, well…it's not what you'd call traditional," Hadliek explained. "We know the risks. I'm more curious about why a dome has encased most of the forest." "It's very seldom that we provide the answer to outsiders, but you are one of us. I remember you living here long ago. What is your name?" "Hadliek." The tall Todrano beamed. "I do remember you. Very fondly. My name is Cinlok and my friend here is Ediru. Can you promise me that your friends will keep the dome's origins a secret? We are upholding a long-standing agreement." Hadliek turned to me and I gave him a nod, staring beyond him at the tall Todrano. "You have my word that the story does not leave this room." "Very good," Cinlok replied. "Did you know there is a war raging in Metru Nui?" "To this very day, yes." "During the earliest days of the conflict, we were visited by a Matoran. He came to us with a crew of species from various lands with the promise that he could prevent the volcanoes in the northern sector of the island from ever violently erupting again. To prove himself, he performed the mysterious work required to achieve this and promised to return in a decade and stated that no eruptions would befall us." "The volcanoes were explosive when I lived here," Hadliek replied. "At best, a year would pass before the northeast was engulfed in molten land and ash." "Long ago, yes," Cinlok admitted. "The Matoran made good on his deal and returned after a quiet decade with a request. He would sail down with a small fleet of vessels filled with building equipment to construct a dome in the forest where he could discreetly seal away all of his riches." "But how?" Celvey wondered. "I mean, not referring to the architectural possibility of building the dome, but rather how a Matoran came to possess so much money." Ediru smiled. "Living down here, on the edge of the darkness, we often assumed the dwellers in the north were wealthy beyond compare. And none would be granted such gold than the Great Spirit's chosen favorites – the Matoran. We thought little of it, until one of the townsfolk here in Alinov decided to ask for a little more information from a Steltian in the Matoran's employ." "What did you learn?" "This particular Matoran was a monster. They called him a Barraki, using the chaos of the war to steal and murder. He was not interested in the objectives he gave his field commanders, to capture land or enemy forces, but in the money they could take. The crew heard tales that the Matoran was a serial killer before the war, wearing the masks of his victims for a time after their death." "And you let him build a dome on your land?" "We had no idea when we agreed," Cinlok replied. "He prevented the volcanoes from erupting and gained our trust. When the truth came out about his violence, the dome was finished, and the sailing vessels had long since departed. That Matoran built his dome here to keep the prying eyes of the northern world from ever finding his riches, and he chose the forest to keep the Todrano from it as well. Hadliek should know as well as any local resident that the forest is not to be wandered about." "Did the Matoran ever return to collect what he left here?" Cinlok shook his head. "He said he would come back when the war was over. It would appear that day has not come yet, but we have lost kindred and visitors to that forest over the last few centuries who sought the Matoran's riches for themselves. I have seen what lurks between the trees and have tread no further than the beasts that mean me harm. And to the teams who thought they were more intelligent, more powerful, and more adept, none have returned." "If we enter and retrieve the Iridiex, are we free to keep it?" Cinlok sighed. "The way I see it, I'm not in the position to say what should and should not be taken from the dome. That Matoran built a vault and dared anyone bold enough to try and obtain his ill-gotten riches. I will simply tell you what I have told those in the past who wished to step inside the dome. Don't." <<<>>> Completely ignoring Cinlok's level-headed warning and the best words of wisdom he had to give, it was not long before I found myself staring into the shrouded dark of the Todrano forest. "What will we find in there, Hadliek?" Hadliek pulled the heavy pistol from his hip and clicked the incendiary activator back and forth. He muttered, "Still functional," and pointed his weapon at a gap in the plants. "The forest is quiet and the trees tower high above, blocking out most of the sunlight. There are temperamental, territorial Rahi that make a home in this place, all of which are immune to the effects of a high population of deadly organisms. They are not animals as you know them, but they are alive and hungry. We call them mire masses, electric blue and slimy looking. If you get one on you, there's not much that can save your life, so stay alert." Even with my first steps into the forest, I could sense something was wrong about the place. I wondered if my own mind, thoughts programmed into me when I was born, were trying to keep me away. Whatever the sapient life of the Southern Islands was designed to withstand, Meldin were not granted such power. I kept moving, keeping a tight grip on my gunblade and unable to shake the feeling there was something watching me. "There's something watching us." I shook off my thoughts like a haze and looked at Kyrhus. He slowly motioned for us to crouch and I watched him get into a prone position with his weapon ready. In its basic form, Kyrhus had what I would call a long-range handgun. He was aiming it up into the trees when he carefully reached for the scope magnetized to a piece on his back and screwed it onto the end of his weapon. "What are you looking at?" I asked. Kyrhus pulled the attachable stock from his back and clicked it into place, nuzzling the end of the rifle against his shoulder. He realigned his sights and became completely still. "I don't know what I'm looking at," he whispered. "It's carrying some kind of crossbow. Not crudely fashioned either, no…this thing looks powerful." Celvey tried to get a glimpse of what Kyrhus could see. "Are you going to shoot it or fire a warning shot?" Kyrhus pulled the bolt back on his weapon and very gently pushed it forward. "It's got the crossbow trained on your head, actually, so you should really hope I don't miss." Hadliek narrowed his eyes. "How many legs does it have?" "Four." "I thought so. Kill it." Kyrhus inhaled sharply and his clawed finger gave the sniper rifle's trigger a bit of pressure. Nothing happened until he began to exhale, at which point a round left the weapon and pierced the silence of the forest. Kyrhus immediately reloaded and detached the stock, placing it on his back and shoving a claw into the nearest tree. He started climbing and glanced back down at us. "I'll meet you at the dome. This is the best air support you're going to get." Kyrhus leapt for a branch and bounced right off it to the next tree, hurrying ahead. "Follow him!" I ordered. "Keep him in your sight. And Hadliek, I'd like to know what you think it was that Kyrhus shot." "An arboreal walker," Hadliek replied, frantically searching the trees as we ran. "We think they have some level of sentience, but our earliest attempt at building a village in the forest was met by total aggression from the walkers. They destroyed our colony and murdered any Todrano who could not flee in time. Since then, we have kept our distance from this place." Hadliek was panting by the time he finished and I gave him a pat to the back. "You can give me the long version later. We need to focus on keeping up with Kyrhus." I ran through an area of massive plants twice my height, growing so strong that I started hacking through them with the gunblade. I was keeping a steady pace when I tore through a blooming flower the size of a Matoran and froze. Celvey ran into my back and I slammed my blade into the dirt, trying to keep myself from falling forward. Directly ahead was a clearing overrun with mire masses. Just as Hadliek had described, the bright blue objects had a gradual sort of breathing as they inflated and deflated back and forth every few seconds, securely attached to the rich soil. "Mire masses," Hadliek said, cringing. "I can see why you stopped," Celvey said, trying to laugh. She picked herself up and scanned the field of gelatinous life forms with me. "We could go around them. Still, I think I can see the edges of the dome on the other side." "That's where Kyrhus will be," Hadliek told her. "It looks like he handled the walkers for us." An eerie screech rang out through the trees and I stared up, quickly noticing that we were losing sunlight. I also noticed that a walker was glaring down at us, three furious red eyes locked on intruders. In its grasp, the walker held a mire mass, hurling it at us like someone trying to skip a stone. I sidestepped the creature and it rolled into the field, attaching to another of its kind. When it did, the field started hissing, as if the mire masses had transformed into a choir of livid serpents. More of the walkers were coming into view, waiting in the trees with their crossbows to see what we would do. "We just killed one of their kind," Celvey muttered. "They're scared." Hadliek flipped the incendiary activator on his weapon. "Then let's give them something to be scared of and start burning this place down." Celvey shook her head. "If they destroyed your colony, then the walkers have no fear of Todrano. We can't get them to stay away like that. They need to experience something they've never seen before." The Ilisian held out her hand to the field of mire masses and everyone present watched her mentally bind the slimy creatures together, smashing them into a singular frame before casting the entire thing aside and creating a path for us. She turned back to the walkers and held her hand out at them, silently daring them to attack. Several of them exchanged quiet sounds with one another before cautiously departing. Celvey looked at the sonic assault rifle in her left hand and put it on her back. "That was nice. I was worried they wouldn't let themselves live." "I remember the first biomech I ever saw do something like that," Hadliek replied. "He was a Toa, and the power was tied to his mask. Even though I knew he couldn't lift a thing without it, I knew it would conflict with my own well-being to try and steal his mask to prove a point." Kyrhus dove down from one of the trees and landed a few bios in front of the dome, placing a claw to it. I watched his hand pass through before he suddenly withdrew it, appearing confused. "What is it?" I called ahead, dashing toward him. "The dome just let me put a hand inside," Kyrhus replied. "I'm not even sure where the support beams are on this thing, but I think we can walk right in." I slowly pressed my palm into the dome and easily passed through the entrance. The dome was not even shielded, just coated in an opaque veil of bright gray. If there was a more advanced technology at work, I could not detect it. Inside the dome, the skies were tinted an artificially dark blue and the forest was mostly destroyed. I could see a temple in the center, a thin pyramid that towered over us and touched the dome's peak. The four of us had walked through the veil when the dome began to grow darker still, almost entirely erasing any trace of the daylight above. "Greetings, travelers." An array of lights blasted together in front of us and fused into a hologram. I watched as a luminous Matoran approached, toting a laser cannon at his side. He smiled at us, but there was more to his expression. It seemed to suggest he thought very little of us. "Do you seek the Ancient Prism?" I studied the pyramid in the distance, watching it begin to glow. "That's what you call the pyramid?" "Yes, I was programmed to do so. I am an artificial intelligence program, a partial copy of the mind that financed the dome's construction. His status as a warlord dictates that you will refer to me as a Barraki." "Very well then, Barraki," I replied bitterly. "What is standing between me and the Ancient Prism?" "Much…or little," the Matoran responded, pacing around us. "The answer is dependent upon your skill in battle. I have dimmed the lights, but you are welcome to depart at your leisure. The combatants you face here will not pursue you beyond the walls of the dome. I will unleash the Prism defenders when you declare your readiness, or they will deploy automatically if intruders are detected in a certain proximity to the Prism." "Is that what happened to the local Rahi?" Hadliek asked the holographic Matoran. "Did they come too close to the treasures hidden within the dome?" The Matoran gave Hadliek a sinister grin. "They were wary when the dome was built, but they did not draw near until the project was finished. I unleashed the defenders and the Rahi did not dare to enter again. I have watched others attempt to discover the intricate mystery to this place, but none have passed. A warlord would not leave his riches without a strong security system." "A warlord of Metru Nui, though. A Barraki in the eyes of mere Onu-Matoran and Ga-Matoran. I have known enemies from many lands, and I prepare myself to encounter most of them." I carefully popped open one of the protosteel capsules on my hip. I only carried three at a time on any given mission, but I displayed the contents of one to the hologram. It was a translucent bullet, a personal favorite of mine that swirled with deep violet and black energies. I inserted the round into my gunblade and started walking toward the Prism. The Matoran followed me and I caught his inquiring eyes. "I have no elemental powers of my own," I said. "So sometimes, I have to improvise. I doubt you would fortify this place against Toa, because they would not seek wealth when they could spend their time being heroes. Although, perhaps you considered it. Maybe the dome is prepared to face any element a Toa could throw at it. If that's the case, I have a surprise for you." "You'll trip the defenders soon if you keep walking toward the Prism," the Matoran warned me, his tone begging to release them. "I have anticipated many scenarios." I stopped abruptly and swung the gunblade a few times in my right hand. "They make these bullets on the island of Xia. I have seen this particular strain level a city block. Let's see if you anticipated that." I took the gunblade with both hands, lunged forward, slammed the weapon against the ground and immediately pulled the trigger. In that moment, I felt like Rovaius. For a split second, I was a Nohtalian warrior, full of shadow power, shattering any obstacle that challenged my power. The darkness surged through the dirt and the defenders erupted in battered metal heaps. "I've got your backup right here!" Hadliek raced forward and must have loaded a similar round into his heavy pistol, because the shot he fired at the base of the Prism burst into a spherical bomb. The flaming dark rippled up the Prism and reacted with an electrical system running through the pyramid. I watched the top section of the Prism collapse and the dome began to violently flicker into an amalgamation of strange colors. "What have you done?" the Matoran screamed just before he vanished. The dome was sectioned into hexagonal frames starting near the middle and working all the way up, emptied of their foggy lights. I could see the daylight again, shining down past the support beams. I wondered how long it would take the Rahi to feel bold enough to approach the scene, and with that thought, I hurried for the entrance to the Prism. A better word would be the opening, because Hadliek's shot had ripped the Prism entrance apart. "I think that went well," I told Hadliek. "I'd agree with that. How often do you get to shut someone up without touching them?" "Not often enough." I peered inside the Prism, first staring up at the charred mechanics of the dome system, and finally down a long spiral stairway lined in lightstones. "Let's go collect our reward." I held my gunblade ready for any additional traps that could be waiting for us, but none came. The Barraki Matoran had risked his entire collection of riches on a ground-level defense system that we disabled in a matter of seconds. Even with advisors from other lands, there was no preparing for a team of outlaws at your door. We were unconventional, crafty, and very determined. And as Hadliek had shown the hologram in its "dying" moments, if we wanted a door opened, we would make it happen. I arrived at the bottom of the staircase and felt myself smiling, examining the hoard of treasure I had stumbled upon. There was only a dirt floor at the bottom of the Prism, but the shimmering gold and silver coins and items were highly impressive. "Wow," Celvey whispered. "He should have invested a few more of those coins in better security." "His greed certainly made our job easier," Kyrhus replied. "Yes it did," I agreed, marching up to the largest pile of coins. The dirt began to rise around the mass of treasure and the chamber rattled. Directed by an unseen force, dozens of golden widgets ascended in a mad spiral, glowing brighter and brighter. The widgets exploded in a blinding flash and the room settled into quiet. I had shielded my eyes from the blast of overwhelming light, slowly lowering my hand in dread. Hovering above the treasure was the nightmare himself. Drelinok. "An outlaw in search of untold riches," he said. "You have truly become a parody of yourself, Adrinor." I was not about to reveal I had come for the Iridiex, slowly wrapping a finger around my weapon's trigger and trying to feign calmness. "What I do is a lifestyle, actually. That'd be satire, don't you think?" He laughed. "You're going to lead with semantics? You're not the least bit curious how I regenerated and concealed my new energy signature from the Brotherhood? It's an interesting story, but I can see you're in more of a boring and serious mood at the moment. Also, your sudden release of massive levels of dark energy caught my attention from countless kio away." I shot him with my gunblade and the round bounced off his armor without leaving a dent. "Nice to know that I'm not hallucinating, but here's the deal. I want to feel shocked for you, I really do. I can see it would make your day. The problem is that I already had this lurking suspicion that my day was going a little too well. You can't surprise me with your survival twice in the matter of a couple weeks. Now, get out of my way or destroy me." Drelinok raised an eyebrow, almost chuckling. "It's possible I was expecting a bit much to think this would overwhelm you. I know that Toa Jovan and his friends took their precious Kanohi into the depths of the universe and saved Mata Nui's life, but there can be no salvation until Metru Nui is at peace. For now, the future is a vision of darkness that only I have the ability to extinguish with the light. I want what is best for us, yet you regard me as a disease. Take heed, Adrinor, for you will find monsters in the shadowy path you walk." "And you will surely fight them, my champion of the sun," I said sarcastically. Drelinok hinted at a smile. "The Amplifier evolved me in a sense. I had not been able to fully appreciate that fact until Krika attempted to kill me." I watched as his form melted into billions of golden particles and swarmed around me. I swatted them away with my gunblade a few times before they halted and remained suspended in the air. The particles converged and reformed into Drelinok, standing right in front of me. "We have the potential to move beyond the limitations of muscle and metal, Adrinor. The result of the Amplifier could be the destiny of our species, no longer reliant on sustenance, sleep, or a Great Spirit and his universe to protect us. In the few legends of the Great Beings, their abilities were regarded as magical. Consider that they simply became something more and embraced it. We have been provided a similar opportunity." "No, you have been provided an opportunity. You're as selfish and egocentric as they come, Drelinok, and I may be one of the few who can actually tell when you're lying. The Amplifier was never meant to be your gift to the future of all Meldin, it was just your ticket to reaching a distance far beyond that of your enemies. Your entombment was our blessing." Drelinok opened his mouth in disgust, taking offense at how directly my words had bruised his weakest point. "In the dawn of this new age, I promise you an imminent strife, with or without my intervention. If you'll excuse me, however, I have a legion of Makuta to meet with. I can only hope they will preserve my ego a tad more than this encounter. Perhaps their discovery will prompt a gasp at the very least." Drelinok began to shatter into golden particles that glittered in the low light before disappearing entirely. After watching Triphaz die on Suizek, there was a brief span of hours where I really thought Makuta Krika possessed the power to annihilate Drelinok. By the time we were back on Stelt, however, I was in total disbelief. Feeling the universe restored by the Mask of Life managed to suppress my cynicism, though I could see that had been my mistake. Now my theories were confirmed. As far as I was concerned, Drelinok was unstoppable. In spite of that, it felt good to deny him the reaction he wanted. It felt less so that I could tell my hands were shaking when Drelinok had gone, trying to hide my anxiety from even myself. "Well that blew all of my expectations about today out of the water," Hadliek said. "We are giving the Iridiex to Trylac still, aren't we?" "I wasn't planning on it," I replied tensely. "Trylac didn't need the Iridiex without Drelinok in the picture, and seeing as how Drelinok survived being atomized by a Makuta, I doubt handing the metal over to Trylac's agency now will do us much good. I'm selling it off and splitting the profit with all of you." I marched ahead toward the mound of treasure, stepping over the coins Drelinok's arrival had strewn about the floor. Sticking out of the pile was a platinum silver double tetrahedron, just properly sized to fit in the palm of my hand. I easily scooped it up and held it aloft, examining the metal I had come to collect. Despite its size, the application of minute amounts of Iridiex made the item in my hand worth enough to commission the assembly of the Metru Nui Coliseum twice over. Kyrhus dragged his hand through a pile of coins, letting them drop through the spaces between his claws. "Do you really think anyone on Stelt would pay for precious metal?" I placed the Iridiex into the compartment on my back and casually swung my gunblade through the air a couple times, still trying to shake off the nerves of seeing Drelinok. "Now that I think about it, Zanteox and the Magistrates seemed rather wealthy. They could afford a massive airship, artificial teleportation technology, and his status apparently makes him noble enough to marry a princess." "He knew the Iridiex was here, but I think Zanteox realized the dome would take more than a law enforcement team," Hadliek replied. "He would not risk the casualties to get his hands on the metal, and he would lose several more Magistrates if he tried to haul these coins back through the forest. You're probably right, Adrinor. He would pay handsomely for this." "Nobility or not, Zanteox is dangerous," Celvey argued. "Don't forget that he wanted to kill me the other day." I glared in her direction, putting my gunblade away. "He's not like Drelinok, Celvey. I can hurt Zanteox, and I will. We'll get our payment, steal the Iridiex back, and then I'm going to put the blade of my sword through him. As much as I'm concerned about securing payment over the Iridiex, this is my opportunity to correct something. Zanteox needs to pay." "You sure this is about corrections?" Kyrhus asked. "Sounds a lot like revenge to me." "What importance are my intentions when the objective stays the same?" I countered. "Elendra can tinker with her ship a little longer and we will still have the Iridiex if Trylac comes asking. The journey out of the forest may prove easier, but keep your guard up. We have a difficult road ahead to Trevahka and this could very well be the last mission we ever need to finish." "That's the plan, huh?" Hadliek wondered. "We get our money and then we're free to live our lives doing anything we want?" "Yeah," I breathed. "One last mission, and then we'll go home." Review
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