Fractures

[Click]

Fractures

By: Click

Credits to Expanded Multiverse Contributors

“My world was falling apart, literally. It seemed like it would always last, but it had been slowly falling apart for thousands of years, but we could have prepared for it. I know we could have. We shouldn’t have relied on those lying silver freaks that call themselves Agents. Our worlds are much closer now, but it takes time to heal scars of the past. They have destroyed without mercy, without reason, everything the beings of the Aethion have worked so hard for, but they couldn’t stop there. They destroyed the things we took for granted but tried to hide it. Now, all of us will succumb to the same fate, and only this tablet may help us. I have been exploring the causes and every piece of evidence points to the Agents. I’m sure…”“Come on now, Soren, you know you can’t believe that. None of your evidence points to them. In fact, they have helped us more than your narrow-minded head can see.”Soren looked up from the tablet he was writing to see Turaga Vanhri peering over his shoulder. With his anger barely under control, he hissed “How many times have I told you to knock when you come in, Turaga? And this is private business!”“It isn’t very private if you do it in the middle of your hut. It was all too easy to come in and watch.”Soren slid the tablet under a desk, and his Gadget quickly grabbed it and hid it carefully away. He slowly got up to eye level with the ancient Turaga. There were a few tense moments with the two trying to stare each other down. Finally, Soren spoke. “Maybe you should keep your mask out of other matoran’s business. I know there is something strange about the agents, and they know more than they show. This is all their fault, even if no one else knows it. They can call my crazy, but I know this for a fact!”Turaga Vanhri slowly walked out of the hut. Soren just stood there, staring daggers at the door. Eventually, when he was sure the Turaga wasn’t going to come back, he motioned to his Gadget, who brought out the tablet.##########3 months earlier…“Today was a day like any other. No one looked at me, no one really even acknowledged me except when they had to. I’m not even sure why they would do that. I’m just an element like any other. We are much rarer, but there is a few of us out there. No matter what I do, it’s like I’ve been disgraced from my home, just for being me. Unfortunately for them, I know a lot of things they don’t. Shattered is falling apart. I’ve been detecting lingering radiation from the coldstone, and it’s making everything unstable. It’s just one of the abilities of Ur-Matoran: a sixth sense for radiation and it’s everywhere. One false move by anyone, and this whole planet could be destroyed. I have to watch for any suspicious behavior, but there’s only so much I can do. I can’t see what Ko-Clysmax is doing, and as much as everyone fears them, I’m more worried about Enlightened. Their visits to Po-Clysmax are growing more frequent, and with every visit, the radiation is stirred up more. It must be how they get from planet to planet. Today, I’m going to try to find out how they do it.”Soren finally took a break from his writing. He had a busy day today. He needed to get all the way to Po-Clysmax and back to watch for the Agents. Whatever they are doing is accelerating the countdown, and if they continue, bad things are going to happen. There was only one way to stop them, and that is face to face, but the only place they visit on Clysmax anymore is Po-Clysmax. There’s no time to lose. It’s either get on the Spacetrain now, or wait until tomorrow, but there isn’t enough time to wait until tomorrow, so Soren quickly packed up and left for the station.On his way, as usual, no one even looked at his bizarre green and black colors with silver armor. Even though there are plenty of strange creatures on Shattered, to everyone else, he was the strangest. He shook it off as usual, and continued walking. He ordered a ticket for the first Spacetrain from Ta-Clysmax to Po-Clysmax. The wait wasn’t long, and he was glad for that. The Spacetrain quickly pulled up, and they went off to Po-Clysmax. Suddenly, something didn’t feel right. Soren could sense a gathering of radiation, and knew he was running out of time. The Spacetrain could almost make it, if it just hurried a bit faster. Soren stiffened up, preparing for the worst, when he realized the train was airtight in case of just such an emergency. He couldn’t speak for the others, because Shattered was feeling safe. No apocalypse has happened for thousands of years, so why would one happen now? The airfields were very hard and expensive to make, so not every train had them anymore.The radiation gathered and seemed to dissipate, as Soren had noticed it had, and then suddenly exploded outwards, doubling in energy and quantity, and four beings appeared on the opposite side of Po-Clysmax. Four was far too many, and the radiation had reached a dangerous level. Anything could set it off now. Why couldn’t Enlightened just use a Totem for once? The coldstone radiation was powerful enough to go off, but only something drastic could set it off…And then something drastic happened.A satellite out the window suddenly started arcing energy. The beings with the electricity element suddenly looked nervous, but seemed to quiet down. Then suddenly, the satellite exploded, rocking the Spacetrain. Everyone in the train could only watch as the airfield that provided Shattered’s atmosphere faded out and the air inside was sucked into bluespace. The lights inside the Spacetrain blinked out, and it began free floating. The train was the least of Soren’s problems as the beings on Po-Clysmax began feeling the effects of the thinning air. Soren worked his way up to the front through floating passengers and baggage, and jumped out the door before the driver could stop him. He floated gently to the surface, and immediately began yelling “Everyone, to the train! The airfield is still working, it can help! Go to the train!” Some got the message, and struggled though the vacuum towards the Spacetrain, which had now landed on a nearby rock.Soren began feeling the effects of the vacuum. He tried to continue yelling, but his vision was fading, and he was gasping for breath. He was just about to pass out when something shiny landed in his vision, and hooked something to his mask. Precious air began to flow in, and Soren fell on his back in relief. Through his dimmed vision, he could make out a silver figure flying around handing out the strange Enlightened technology. Those nearest to the train were given a bit of an extra push and got there safely, or so they thought. Coldstone radiation was building up again, and there was another power surge, shutting off most of the power, including the airfield. The Agent now had many more victims to save. Soren knew he couldn’t do it alone. He ran up to the Agent and said “Let me help! You know you can’t do it alone!”Soren couldn’t get the Agent’s attention, because he was staring at something off in the distance. Soren followed his eyesight and saw Ta-Clysmax. Suddenly realization hit him. “No!” he cried out as the first explosions shook the fragment. The gases inside Ta-Clysmax were ignited by the ‘controlled’ flames of the fire farming. The fragment blew apart, pushing the other fragments around. Ice fragment got the worst of it because it was near opposite Ta-Clysmax. Before the Agent could do anything about it, the Ice fragment floated off into the Bluespace. It disintegrated on contact, and only a few ships got off the fragment, probably military leaders and the King. With nowhere to land, they each aimed towards the nearest fragment. One came directly towards Po-Clysmax, just about where the Spacetrain landed. This one seemed different, and it came in veering out of control. It hit the dirt without any landing gear, and stopped just in front of Soren and the Agent. A quick look inside told Soren all he needed to know. There had been no Agent on Ko-Clysmax, and this ship was not airtight.The two Agori inside were dead.

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With the sudden shock, the Agent remembered what he was doing, and he quickly handed Soren a few of the strange rebreathers. The two quickly searched out beings in need of help. Soren was just bending down to help a Nurop, and was trying to figure out where to place the rebreather, when the quakes happened. The radiation had unleashed again, this time causing huge quakes in the remaining fragments. Buildings all around were falling, and Soren was having trouble keeping his footing. Suddenly, he heard a yell, and looked around just in time to see the Agent underneath a building. Soren didn’t believe it at first. Surely there was some nanite power that would help him escape it! And yet, the Agent sat there, not moving, not trying to do anything, at least, for a moment. Then, the nanite moved around like a rough sea, and flowed out from under the tower. Soren sighed in relief, but then realized the nanite was empty. The Agent’s body was left behind, uncovered. Soren quickly ran towards the Agent, suddenly stopping. His body was unlike anything Soren had ever seen. It was almost completely mechanical, with a strange color of a light blue with a lot of silver beams and pistons holding it together. There were also a lot of bluish crystals along the body, pulsing energy, mostly leading into his hands and legs, where the biggest crystals were. The Agent wore a noble mask of night vision, also in the crystal, which was very strange for a Toa.Suddenly, Soren became aware of a figure sitting next to him. He almost thought it was another Agent, but when he looked, it was a figure in a nanite cloak. Then, the figure turned his head, and Soren jumped backwards. Instead of a usual mask and head, the figure had a pulsing ball of molten protosteel and electricity. Its hands were of the same composition. It didn’t have much of a body, and yet, it almost reminded Soren of the dead Agent. It was like his nanite armor had come to life. Soren couldn’t take it anymore, and he ran. The three other Agents came down over him, and the cloaked figure fled. The other Agents looked at Soren curiously, and then left to examine the body of their fallen comrade without saying a word. When they had seen that none of their technology remained for anyone to examine, they left, and Soren saw their radioactive auras disappear in another teleport. Soren silently collapsed from exhaustion.

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By the next day, enough radiation had been sucked into bluespace that everything was back to normal, or as normal as it can get after an apocalypse. Le-Clysmax was working frantically to repair the airfield, and no one could explain how it shut off. It wasn’t the lingering radiation, but seemed to come from inside the satellites themselves, as reported by Toa Hanashi. Soren watched the news on a borrowed Gadget in a Po-Clysmax building, breathing slowly into the rebreather. Apparently, the loss of life was not as great as someone would expect, due to the remains of the equipment previously designed for this kind of emergency.Soren quickly sat up when he didn’t hear anything about Agents. It was either the Agents pulled some strings to not get advertised, or Po-Clysmax had the only one. Soren knew there were three more Agents that appeared that day and maybe more afterwards. During the chaos, Soren didn’t have time to notice any more Agents. Soren had to find out for himself. He quickly, but reluctantly, got aboard another Spacetrain to Ga-Clysmax. He knew what happened last time he was aboard a Spacetrain, but the ride still passed without an incident.When he got to the station at Ga-Clysmax, it was like he had never left Ta-Clysmax. Almost no one even looked at him, and those that did only looked with curious eyes. Soren tried to shrug it off, but he still needed to talk to someone. Every time he tried to talk to someone, they ran like he had some kind of disease. Maybe he did, maybe being a matoran of radiation had some harmful affect to those around him. He was just about to go home and forget about the whole incident, when suddenly, he heard a voice from a hut. He carefully moved towards the hut, wondering if the brief whisper was for him. What he saw was an old Turaga of Electricity.“My name is Turaga Vanhri. I can tell you are one in need of some assistance.”Soren was stunned that someone would actually talk to him, and he didn’t have to force them to. He couldn’t speak for just a moment, but he finally got the words out. “Uh…I guess. I just was wondering about something. I could only go to another fragment to find out the answers.”“I see. No wonder I’ve never seen you before, and yet, you remind me of someone I met long ago. It seems you two have the same problem.”“Someone else came wondering about the Agents?”“What? No, he was also a rare element. I think he might have come back to Ga-Clysmax a short time ago. Listen, I’m not supposed to be sharing this, but there is a Toa of Technology inside Lake Aerospace. If you are wondering about Agents, or need someone who can sympathize, you should go see him. Just get into Lake Aerospace somehow, and ask for Daelus. They should know what you’re talking about. If they persist and say that there is no Daelus there, tell them Turaga Vanhri sent you. They should be much more open to that.”“Oh, um, thanks. How do you recommend I get to Lake Aerospace? That place is more heavily guarded than a Tyrant castle.”The old Turaga smiled. “Just walk in the front door.”

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Edited May 5, 2012 by Click