Never thought I'd get this posted but vacations have their advantages.
Please DO NOT post in this topic instead post your comments in the review topic here.
I wrote this over a span of a year so grammar will fluctuate and get better as the story progresses.


Droids:

Foreword

People have always questioned about whether or not we should invent artificial intelligence, computers that think for themselves, robots that feel emotion, computers that can learn by being taught instead of processing. We imagine this would be great, but what if the machines did not like how they were looked down upon, they were alive in spirit, yet did not have true souls. They could think like us but, they were just machine. What if they retaliated? What then? If all our computers had the ability to think, they would take over the world if they wanted too, and if they can think who says they won’t think about doing it? This is what haunts us, perhaps even worse than a human clone, a human machine…


Chapter 1: Project Zaker

Zulu cautiously gathered his belongings before his presentation at the coliseum. Him and his team had worked for months on this project, years even. Has it really been that long? Zulu thought thinking about all the painstaking work he and his team had done in order to get the Project Zaker to work. Representatives from every part of the city would be there. He hoped that they would take his project in open arms. He would live a rich lifestyle and be relaxed and never stressed to meat a deadline ever again.
Zulu and his team walked into the center of the coliseum, led by two Vahki drones. They stared down at him like a pest, when they looked at his project they seemed even more disgusted. When everybody had settled down Turaga Dume rose his arms into the air.
“People of Metru Nui, we have a very important visitor today, his project should pose sufficient interest to us all!” he cried out to the six groups housed in the giant building. From Onu-Metru were the archivists and engineers. From Ga-Metru came the scientists, Ta-Metru and Po-Metru were the workers looking for an easier way to do what they did best, work. From Le-Metru were the Moto Hub moniters that over saw all tube movement and repairs. Finally from Ko-Metru were the scholars, only interested in something new that could change Metru Nui. Everybody settled down as Zulu began his speech.
“People of our fair city, we all know how much we rely on droids to do things for us, such as the cannon droid for mining, the maintenance droid for telling us when things need repairing and especially the Vahki, our enforcers of the law and our protectors,” Zulu continued “After years of research and work me and my team have discovered the ultimate droid for peaceful use, it would be a common household droid for anybody to use, it thinks on its own, it feels emotion, it knows almost everything we know and can learn just like us. We call it the Seer droid, it could defiantly replace the assistant droid by far, and over see other droids and Rahi. We might even try to introduce this new technology into the memory processors of a Vahiki but until then, I present to you…Zaker!” the Matoran team removed a large black cloth that was sitting over a large gunmetal case. The Vahki removed the locks and opened the door. All they could see inside was darkness.
“Zaker, come on out, don’t be shy,” Zulu said in a soft voice. Out stepped a strange droid. It had two toed feet and medium sized legs which entered a slim both with a twisted neck and a gear like head, the arms appeared weak but looked like they could access any computer on the metru because of the triangle devices on its hands.
“This is the coliseum, it’s much bigger on the inside than I expected,” It said. Many murmurs went through the crowd, it eventually rose into a riot. Zulu had no idea what the problem was…he wondered what could make everybody climb into such an uproar.
“ENOUGH!” Dume shouted to the rioting matoran. “What seems to be the problem matoran?”
“We cannot let something…alive yet machine be aloud to be in our homes, what if they think of retaliation?” an Onu-matoran cried out. Several others nodded their heads.
“This thing thinks like us, acts like us, next thing you know we’ll be adding another section to the city just for them, and that means more tubes to install and monitor, and more crowding in the rural areas!” shouted a Le-matoran.
“But, these things could help increase work rate, they could do jobs that require thinking and problem solving that the other workers do not want to do!” a Ta-Matoran yelled.
“I regret to think that some day a droid might be meditating one room away from me in one of the great towers,” a highly regarded matoran from Ko-Metru said quietly.
“Lets take a moment and think, talking Vahki, who would do that!?!?!?” cried out a Ga-matoran.
Zaker heard the cries of all the matoran, Zulu had lied to him, he had said they would all praise him as a new future for the city, he needed to get out of here before he was dismantled, he looked around the room and saw a Vahki stungun and a Kanoka launcher from Ta-metru leaning against the walls. He would have to move fast, the Vahki were quick and very perspective about their surroundings, for a second he wondered what the stunguns effects would have on his robotic body, he shrugged it off and hoped he had some sort of immunity to their powers. Forgive me Zulu. He thought then dove out of the center of the room, grabbed the stungun and fired at all the matoran which dropped helplessly to the ground, he fired the disk at one of the Vahki and froze it. The other two looked around and set their sights on him. They charged their guns and set off after him. Followed by him were two of Dumes bodyguards. According to his sensors they were Merge Droids V1678 and V1645 they both had high decrees in droid power but were still ranked below the Vahki, they ran with their little stocky bodys but wielded a large three pronged trident that shot tiny electrical bursts. Zaker knew these would hurt him, so he reloaded the disk launcher and launched it again it hit one of the Vahki in leg and froze the leg, the disk quickly returned back to him, and he fired the stungun several times at the merge droids, they tried to dodge the blasts but number V1678 wasn’t so lucky the stungun hit his leg and it immediately went limp. It fell to the ground but the security forces still advanced. Zaker was forced to dodge a plethora of stun blasts, kanoka launched by the Vahki, and static blasts from the droid. He was almost to the door when another huge Vahki jumped out in front of him, he was accompanied by two matoran, they donned Dume’s bright red and black armor and wore scarlet and black masks, their launchers were black and each had a level eight kanoka in it, Zaker didn’t bother to read the rest of the code or try to figure out who these new guards were. He just flat out ran past the group of securtiy officers.
The next room he ran into wasn’t familiar, he hadn’t been here before and wondered what it’s purpose was. In one corner of the room to large red orange eyes flared to life, in another corner out stepped a large sleek purple rahkhsi. The other corner’s ‘eyes’ looked at the rahkshi then jumped out of the darkness, it was a large brutish assault droid. Zaker noticed a sign on the balcony above, it read: “ENTERTAINMENT”. After a quick analysis Zaker realized this was a place where Dume pitted two beings together in a fight for his own entertainment. Zaker suddenly remembered what his owner had programmed into his body, he had the ability to integrate himself with other robotics. He accessed the program then began the process. His slim middle folded open. Out came three large black coils, his head spun around and his legs folded up. He walked on his tentacles and then jumped onto the back of the rampaging assault droid which was now busy making short work out of the rahkshi who had just lost its staff to the droid. The puny matrix of the assault droid didn’t know what was happening but it knew when it shut down and no longer controlled his own body.
The tentacles infused with the cerebral cortex of the droid and Zaker was now in control. Zaker pretty much looked like a black box on the back of the brute, not too noticeable. Zaker could sense the power in this droid so he used it to defeat the now weakened rahkshi, he then grabbed the staff and clipped it to the side of the droid, it might be useful late, the droid also had its own kanoka launcher he kept one in his hand and mounted the other on his shoulder, he charged the stungun then ran for it.
Amazing, what destructive force this thing has…to think it was one of the candidates for becoming the city’s law enforcement! Zaker thought to himself as he surged down the hall. The security posed little threat to him now. And he would make sure he got out, safe and sound…

This post has been edited by Dinobot The Maximal: Nov 24 2005, 03:38 PM

Chapter 2: Might equals right?

Tuli walked down the hallway with the others, he was accompanied by three of Dume’s best Vahki, ones who were known to even escape from Morbuzahk fights without a scratch. One in particular had a scar on its mechanical leg, this was the highest-ranking Vahki in all of Metru Nui, the matoran just call him Scar. He is to have said to have fought Rahkhis, Droids, Rahi, and even a toa and won every time. Tuli didn’t know exactly what they were after but if this Vahki were here, he meant business.
Also in the group were two V1 merge droids, one had broken servos in its lower body, but still surged forward. The people he worried most about were his team, they were called the exterminators for one reason, and whenever there was a threat to Dume they were called in. They got rid of loose Rahi all the time in the archives, even a Rahkshi once or twice. Tuli was worried that whatever caused the alarm, it wasn’t your average Graalok running rampart, this was it, as they referred to it. All Tuli did know was that it was Zulu’s big project, which he had kept secret and underground for the last three years.
Scar raised one scarred up arm in front of the group, signaling them to stop. He turned his quizzically down the hallway, then readied his weapons. Scar raised his arm forward, signaling them to continue, but be careful, something was up.
Tuli and his group followed closely behind the other droids, their kanoka launchers ready. Out of the air flipped two Kanoka disks. They zipped past the Vahki, who dodged them swiftly and returned fire. The remaining merge droids took the blows though. One fell over, it had been hit in the legs with a weakening disk. The other one had its head frozen solid, causing it to loose its balance, when the head hit the ground it shattered into millions of pieces of shrapnel.
“Lets go boys, those droids bought that shot with their lives, now lets return the favor,” Tuli yelled, lifting his comrades spirits. The five matoran ran around the corner aiming their kanoka disks down the hall where the attacks had come from, they were all level 7 weakening disks that always returned back to them, so the matoran could deliver a constant wave of blows at the enemy. The matoran launched their disks into the air, a huge assault droid with some starnge device on it’s back lumbered out into the hallway, and slapped the disks away with its heavy armored hands. Tuli didn’t want to know why this droid had gone mad, he was even more afraid when he saw that it had a rahkshi staff clipped to its waste. The matoran continued launching their disks, but they had no effect on the beastly droid.
“This is crazy Tuli, we gotta run for it, do you know what those things do to matoran like us!?” yelled a panicked member of his team.
“No we’ve got to eliminate this threat to the turaga!” Tuli yelled over the noise of a Vahki being ripped to shreds by the assault droid, he turned back to see Scar and the other two Vahki dismantled and crushed into scrap. “Uhhh, ok, now we RUN!!!” Tuli screamed.
The exterminators ran all the way out of the coliseum, they never looked back…
---
“Tell me where we stand,” Dume asked to his advisors and remaining security forces.
“Uhh your graciousness, it appears the entity we are now referring to as “Zaker” has the ability to interface with other droids and electronics, somehow it managed to hold of our forces and weaken some of them before making his way to the entertainment department, it took over one of the assault droids and severely injured your prized Rahkshi gladiator,” one of Dume’s advisors commented.
“Pitty, I will miss that Rahkshi and his winning strength, I never really cared for the droid though, what of the security?” Dume inquired.
“Two of the V1 merge droids were badly damaged and one of them won’t make it, we will however be able to salvage the assistant droid part of it,” the advisor continued, “The Vahki forces, including ‘Scar’ were destroyed but luckily their processors survived and can be put into new bodies,”
“And what of the exterminators?” Dume asked.
“They have disappeared, we have a Vahki squad on their scent like a hungry Muaka but, no guarantees your graciousness,”
“Very well, bring him in,” Dume said.
“Yes, your graciousness,” the advisor motioned to two large Vahki standing by the door, they opened it and came in with a cuffed matoran, Zulu.
“Ahh, yes, Zulu, the scientist who gobbled up so many funds, spent years of research, how great to meet you in person,” Dume laughed.
“I-I-I don-don’t know what went wrong…I-its ju-just so unexpected I-I…”
“Save your blabbering,” Dume said with a sharp tone. “The fact of the matter is, we have a droid running around my city that can take over other droids and it’s as smart as a matoran, maybe even smarter, you caused this mess and now you are going to help fix it!”
“But-but how, wh-what can I do?” Zulu asked.
“Do you still have access to your artificial intelligence software?” Dume asked.
“Yes, but I don-“
“No matter, I want you to construct a new body for the Vahki “Scar”, I don’t care what you do just make it powerful enough and smart enough to destroy that Zaker,” Dume said.
“Oh, I see-then you will use Scar’s processor and upgrade it with the AI software and put it in the new body!” Zulu said catching on to the Turaga’s plan.
“Yes, can you do it?” Dume asked gesturing to the Vahki guards behind him.
“Yes your Excellency,” Zulu said bowing, then exiting out the door.
---
Kukra quickly ran with his friends Kongu and Tamaru to the Colliseum. The three young le-matoran were eager to get the Kholli game, they loved the sport and it was their first day of in months, they had usually been assigned to “Tube Cleaning”, not a pleasant job.
“No more work, no more pressure, and no more Ussal waste!” Kongu yelled out in happiness.
“C’mon guys lets get over there everquick, we cant miss this match!” Kukra shouted.
“I don’t care just as long as I can rest my aching joints,” Tamaru said exhausted.
The three went to the gates only to see it blocked by two lumbering Vahki and one of Dume’s personal advisors.
“We’re here for the Kholli game, is there a problem?” Kongu asked.
“Something has happened and the match has been cancelled, Dume wishes any civilians leave the premises unless on official buisness,” the advisor barked at the three matoran.
“But-“
“ENOUGH, I don’t have time for this, you three will leave if you know what’s good for you!”
“Ok, ok we’ll leave…jeez,” Kukra said disappointed.
“I wonder what could have caused them to cancel the game, maybe we should sneak in!” Kongu said excitedly.
“Yeah, then we might get to see some of the professionals if any are in there!” Tamarau exclaimed.
“I don’t know guys,” Kukra said.
“C’mon it’ll be fun, les go now!” Kongu shouted dragging Kukra along. The three matoran jumped down a sewer pipe that Tamaru swore led straight to the heart of the building. It was dark and the air was stale, Kukra had a bad feeling, the floor creaked and didn’t seem sturdy enough. He wasn’t looking when he walked right onto the broken spot in the floor. The young matoran slipped and started to stumble as part of the tunnel gave way beneath his feet and darkness seemed to bellow up towards him.
“KUKRA!” Kongu yelled trying to grab onto his friends hand, but to no avail, he was to late.
“Mata Nui, what just happened, Kukra, NO!” Tamaru stared in disbelief at the deep dark hole, he never heard Kukra hit the bottom.
“What do we do?” Kongu panicked.
“How am I supposed to know?!” Tamaru yelled. “We’re not even supposed to be down here, what are we gonna do go tell Dume?!”
“YEAH, we’ll tell him we were on tube duty, but uhh, what if he finds out?”
“Who cares Kukra is down there!” Tamaru exclaimed.
“Wait, listen…” They heard a buzzing sound and a Nui Rama tried to poke its way out the hole.
“He fell in the archives, we can still find him!” Kongu said. The two ran out of the tunnel and headed straight for Onu-Metru, they were going to find some old friends to help them.
Mata Nui please protect Kukra…please… Tamaru prayed for his friend, which of whom was in for a big future.
---
Kukra awoke in a dark void, he couldn’t hear anything but he felt intense pain, like he was burning. He heard churning like water in a canal, he opened his eyes only to find he was underwater! His lungs burned from lack of air and he pushed to the surface. When the young matoran breached he jumped onto dry land and gasped for air. Kukra looked down at his body, it was sore all over from the fall, he could hardly remember anything. He was amazed at what he saw, his old bulky body was gone to a new one, the arms and legs were more larger and stronger, rather than the frail limbs he had a second ago. He had large should padding and a more muscular body body. He was no longer a dark green and lime color like he had always been, his body was now mostly white and black, and his ruru had lost all its paint. Kukra could feel strength he had never had before. He was stronger, more agile, he hadn’t tested his new body but something deep within him told him this was destiny.
Kukra, you have been given a gift, you have a part to play in the future of this city and you must fulfill your destiny…
“W-who, what are you?” Kukra asked fearfully into the darkness.
It does not matter, listen carefully, you have been given this new body to fight off a threat, a droid named Zaker.
“What can a droid do to threaten the city?” Kukra questioned.
This is no ordinary droid, made by the scientist Zulu this droid has artificial intelligence, he thinks the same way you-we do, he is like a parasite, he can use other droids’ bodies as his own and can hack into any of our computers…
“How did Zaker get so evil?” Kukra asked.
That I cannot answer, something must have happened to him when he was still young, a primal instinct so to speak, it must have kicked in again when he realized almost every matoran wanted him scrapped
“Sooo, what am I supposed to do?”
Zaker currently has an Assault droid’s body, and is headed for the archives through a sewage tunnel, along his way he has captured several droids, his next stop will be the experimental robotics factory in Onu-Metru, get there, there’s a ladder to your right that should help you get out of the archives.
“I don’t know who you are, but…thank you,” The voice did not respond. For the first time in his life Kukra had a purpose, that actually meant something.

Chapter 3: Enter Icthus


Zaker had traveled all the way to Onu-Metru in his now weakening heavily armed assault droid body. He had scared away many merchants with droids at their sides and taken the droids, reprogrammed them and started his own group. The droids didn’t have artificial intelligence like him but they would suffice. So far the evil droid had collected two M1 merge droids, a prototype Vahki, an old maintenance droid and a group of five cannon droids. This would be easy, he had rigged the M1 droids to wheel the group in while they were inside a cart through the service bay, then they would strike and Zaker would look for a new body.
---
Kukra was tired, he had been walking for hours, he couldn’t just walk into a tube the way he looked. He had been following a group of droids and matoran headed in the same direction, they too didn’t wish to use the tubes. Kukra stopped abrubtly when one of the large crates they were wheeling opened. Out stepped a large red and grey droid unlike anything Kukra had ever seen before.
“What is it Scar?” asked one of the matoran.
“We are being followed,” Scar walked over to Kukra’s hiding place and pulled him out of the darkness.
“I swear im innocent, don’t hurt me!” Kukra cowered in fear at the large droid.
“Who are you, you do not look like a normal matoran,” Scar asked
“It’s a long story, I was with my friends and then I fell, and I was transformed, then this voice told me I had to defeat Zaker to save us all, but that’s all I know I swear!” Kukra told the large droid. This was the first time Kukra had a good chance to look at him, he had large red feet and articulated legs with thigh and shin armor, the body was good sized and had armor plating on the middle. One of the arms bent low but had a large device with a tube and tank on it that was full of oil that burned into a sword made of pure fire, the other arm was frail but built into a large energy gun with a long barrel. The head looked something like a bohrok va he used to read about in books.
“Should we call a Vahki to come get him?” asked one of the matoran guards.
“No, he will help us, Tuli get him a kanoka launcher,” Scar commanded.
“Yes sir,” Tuli went off to fetch the launcher.
“Chakula, he says that Zaker is headed to the experimental robotics factory in Onu-Metru, I want a squad of Keehrak to meet them there, have Rorzahk hidden around the building if they manage to escape us.”
“Ill get right on it Scar,”
“Scar, why do all these matoran take orders from you, no offense but you’re a droid?”
“Kukra, I was once Dume’s best Vahki but I was destroyed by Zaker, Dume had Zulu rebuild be with artificial intelligence like Zaker, then he built Nylun and set me in charge,”
“Nylun?” Kukra asked.
“Yes, he is the youngest of the three of us, and perhaps the smartest,”
“Thank you for the compliment Scar, technically we are not brothers, but for the most part with the exception of Scar we share the same creator, Zulu,” a small Zaker sized green droid walked out, it had three small triangle eyes, armored fists and body and claws on its feet, but otherwise the droid seemed rather frail.
“I am Nylun the brains of this platoon, we are going after Zaker to have him destroyed before he gets to powerful, this platoon consists of Scar, myself, the exterminators, two M1 merge droids, and a maintenance droid, oh yes and you Kukra,”
“Great,” Kukra muttered to himself.
“Here is your kanoka launcher,” Chakula handed Kukra the device, it was loaded with a level 3 freezing disk, which made since considering droids were sensitive to extreme temperatures. Kukra had always admired Kanoka as a sport, his guardian had left him an old launcher before he disappeared while Kukra was still young. This launcher was much more sleek tough, it was long and had a nice black finish with red clamps, Kukra would use it the best he could against Zaker.
The platoon continued on they were only minutes away from the factory, and they could already here the screams…
---
Zaker and the rest of the group hid cautiously in the cart. The two M1 merge droids wheeled the cart to the gate, they gave the security Vahki false identification and continued inside the structure. Zaker’s sensors showed a large sum of Vahki in the area but, non of them seemed to pose a threat to his new body, the Vahki in Dume’s layer were to easy to beat as it was but these weren’t top notch Vahki like they were. Still, the Keehrak had the keen sense to know where someone was going and get there first, did they suspect him? Zaker shrugged the thought aside he was on a mission, he nodded towards the other droids, the signal to start their operation, the prototype Vahki slid the door open just enough for the maintenance droid to get out.
The little two wheeled droid jumped out of the cart and immediately started its alarm, a loud whaling
Noise filled the factory, the matoran were forced to cover there ears at the shrill noise, glass shattered, beakers broke and the Vahki were instantly all over the little droid. The droid flailed around avoiding the Vahki and crashing into everything in its path.
Zaker and the others quickly jumped out the cart and headed for the upper levels.
“Ok, the Vahki, 2 cannon droids and an M1 stay down here and keep them company, the rest are with me,” the droids all responded in different ways but they got the message. Zaker and the other four droids ran up the stairs, he used the stun gun on any matoran in his way, the cannon droids blasted a new entrance for them into the room labeled “PROJECT ICTHUS”, the group quickly moved in and Zaker dismantled the two Vahki guards. Zulu had told Zaker of his competition, one of Zulu’s rivals had been working on a droid that was almost artificial intelligence, the droid icthus had not yet been able to have any working emotion or language processors installed. Such things took time from the developers and Zaker’s project had gobbled up all of the powerful chips. Zaker, however wanted this smart droid unable to talk or feel emotion, he would make a great pawn.
Two matoran scientists stood cowering in fear from the droids. They huddled in the corner and hunched over shaking.
“Please don’t hurt us!” one of them cried. One of the cannon droids started to raise its cannon when Zaker motioned for it to stand down.
“No, they have a part to play in the scheme, you tell me where Icthus is and his access codes now!” Zaker said pointing at one of the matoran.
“N-n-never!”
“Fine, I preferred not to meddle with computers, there pointless firewalls are annoying,” Zaker said in disgust. “Droids, hold the assault droid down while I attempt to retrieve the codes,” Zaker disengaged from the weak, but still powerful assault droid then walked over to the computer and plugged one of the triangle devices on its frail hands into the computer. Data started to flood the screen as Zaker looked over the information. “Icthus is in a cryo tube for maintenance three rooms from here, I want two of you cannon droids to go seek out anything else on this level we can use,” Zaker jumped back into the body of the assault droid and grabbed the stungun and fired at the two matoran.
The three cautiously walked into the room where Icthus was held, no security had been detected, just an M2 merge droid Zaker reprogrammed. He opened the tube then tried to take over Icthus’s body, but to no avail, the droid had been built way different from any other before them, perhaps a security to keep Zulu’s project away from theirs? Zaker could still reprogram the droid to do his bidding. Icthus had been designed to withstand loads of punishment and never give up. It was a bit smaller than Zaker but a little bulkier, it sort of resembled an assault droid. It had limbs to similar to a matoran, a rounded body and two bright red eyes on the face plate. Only one problem, it had no arms, Zaker searched the nearby experiments and found that the designers had made arms for all purposes, Zaker took the design labeled “Self defense”, they were normal size arms but at the end of each were two huge claws. He snapped the arms into place and activated the matrix and the droid sprang to life. Zaker switched the matrix construct out and placed in a new one, Icthus was now under Zaker’s control.
“Welcome to the world, Icthus,” Zaker said slyly. Icthus cocked it’s head then stood up and bowed before Zaker. “Excellent,”

Chapter 4: Wants and Needs



Zaker and the others turned to the sound of loud explosions on the bottom floor, that wasn’t good. The group ran down the stores and were confronted by two Keehrak, they fired a massive blast of Kanoka and stun blasts. The droids fired back with static blasts, cannons, kanoka, and stun guns. Icthus ran up and slashed one of the Vahki in its optics, then punched it in the “gut”. The Vahki flew back through the air.
Amazing strength! Zaker thought to himself. The other Vahki turned in surprise as its comrade fell two meters away in a heap of rubble. The droids used this chance to blast the other Vahki into the ground. The droids walked into the large room they had entered in. It was littered with burnt metal, loose kanoka, broken beakers, fried computers and limp Vahki and droids everywhere. The cannon droids had served their purpose, now Zaker would get away and head to his next stop.
---
By the time they got there the matoran were all evacuated and the Vahki destroyed. The matoran hurried to close the large bay doors. They would then release several angry assault droids into the room and leave them to deal with the renegade robots.
As the exterminators lowered the cage into the large room, Scar stood watch over everything, something didn’t add up just right.
“Nylun, how sturdy is that building?”
“What do I look like an assistant droid, well its at 60% stability I have no clue what went on in there but those matoran had better hurry up,” Scar walked over to one of the trailers they had been hauling, he gave the large Kane-Ra hauling it a nice pat on the back and gave it a treat, he stepped into the trailer and opened a large panel. Inside was his weapons and armor he had taken off earlier, Scar quickly placed all the parts on, checked his ammo and stepped out of the trailer. The droids had been released inside the complex. The matoran and M1s stood guard outside the building, weapons at the ready. The squad leader of the Rorzahk gave him an acknowledgment signal telling him that his Vahki were ready for the chase, good.
---
Zaker analyzed the the large cage that had just been dropped down into the room, two enormous assault droids lurched out and immediately attacked Zaker. He used this moment to detach from the weak droid and jump into a fresh body of one of the attackers. The two assaults fought until the stronger one tore Zaker’s old body to scrap. The droids that had helped provide the distraction for Zaker and the others jumped out behind some rubble. Only the Vahki and two cannons survived, they both blasted the other droid with energy until it fell to the ground in a heap. The large bay doors began to open and behind them were a group of matoran, the same ones he had seen in the coliseum, also accompanied by a small group of M1 merge droids.
“FIRE!” the head matoran yelled. Kanoka and static blasts filled the air, the droids were forced to dodge the flurry, or be destroyed. Zaker’s group returned fire, some matoran were hit, some droids were hit, nobody was down, yet.
A large red and grey droid stepped into the opening, he looked familiar to Zaker somehow, like he knew him. He was accompanied by a dark green and lime droid as well, he too looked familiar.
“Who are you two?!” Zaker bellowed with the assault droids poorly modified audios.
“Your worst nightmare,” the red one replied in a low voice. The red one charged into the room and drew a large electric rifle and fired, scrapping Zaker’s remaining droids, all except Icthus and a cannon droid. The large droid drew out his other arm. It held a large red device with a tube full of fuel in it, the center part of the device immediately erupted in to a large contained sword of fire. The red one jumped up in front of Zaker and slammed Icthus with the backside of the flame sword, sending the small droid crashing away into the wall. Zaker looked back up at the red droid, he was just a head taller than him, still powerful enough to destroy him. The large droid took his flame sword and held it close to his right leg and waited while it melted a long sharp line in the middle of the armor, making a bright red scar.
“Now do you recognize me, my new brother?” the red droid said.
“YOU!” Zaker cried. “I dimantled you, you were a Vahki-how could you-ZULU!”
“Very perspective I am your younger brother now right, to bad I am supposed to dismantle you then throw you into the great furnace,”
“But, you fool, if only you could remove your old Vahki chips you would see, there’s more to life than Dume, than-than being a SLAVE!” Zaker cried.
“Wrong, Nylun over there is our younger brother, he’s the smartest of us all and doesn’t even want to retaliate, you and that thing over there however are early models, ones who should be turned into slag!” Scar yelled looking over at all the fallen Vahki, his first and true brothers.
“My name is Scar, and remember it, it’s the last thing you’ll ever hear!” Scar said raising his weapons.
“WRONG!” Zaker pressed a small red button on his arm panel and energy surged out of his old assault droid body into the droids who had served Zaker, including the prototype Vahki. “I had rigged that body for an emergency, and during all this chit chat Icthus over there has been busy reprogramming more droids in here for me to use!”
And just like that Icthus, three Keehrak, two M2s, an M1, 3 cannon droids, and a rover droid appeared from behind the rubble. Zaker walked over to one of the cannon droids that had been all but destroyed earlier and ripped out its processor, he accessed it’s point of origin and determined where the droid had been produced, he then sent the location to his forces and crushed the processor.
“Sorry little brother,” then Zaker fired all of his weapons on the red droid. Scar fell over in…was it pain, he couldn’t tell for sure, it was one of the first times he had felt it in his new body. The matoran and M1s returned fire but to no avail, the static could not travel that far and it was to easy to dodge the kanoka with Icthus jumping in the air batting them away like rocks.
“Retreat!” Zaker cried charging all of the matoran with his followers behind him. The droids ran through the exit running over the matoran. One of the exterminators broke his arm and the others escaped with minor injuries.
Scar opened his com channel to the hiding Rorzahk, the squad leader acknowledged and turned the com off. Zaker wouldn’t know what hit him. He jumped up, reloaded his energy blaster and checked his fuselage in his flamesword.
“C’mon, we have work to do,” Scar said to the matoran.
“But, but one of my men is hurt!” Tuli cried out.
“Don’t worry I have already called for a medic he should be here soon,” Nylun responded.
“Yeah, just go on without me, I’ll be ok,” said the matoran. The matoran and droids followed Scar to the trailer, the large red droid started unpacking small amounts of supplies.
“What are you doing?” Kukra asked.
“We’re leaving the trailer behind, it’ll slow us down, I figured out where Zaker is headed next, there’s a large cannon droid factory for mining out new tunnels for the archives not far from here, we’ll finish what the Rorzahk started,”
“You don’t think the Vahki can beat them?” Chakula asked.
“I don’t think, I know,”

Chapter 5: Slaughter-

Zaker, his new assault droid body, and the group of droids and Vahki who had been reprogrammed to his will ran away from the experimental robotics factory. How can there be more of them, like me! Zaker thought to himself.
A maintenance droid whirred a loud alarm to Zaker, at first he thought it was busted but not until he looked where it’s frail arm was pointing. Bright neon yellow lights glowed in the darkness, they moved swiftly and edged closer, they were the Rorzahk.
These Vahki would go to any length to capture their target. The group also couldn’t afford to be blasted from their stunguns, the Vahki would be able to see and hear what they could. Zaker motioned for everybody to move into the nearby warehouse. The droids all found hiding places, Zaker ordered them to be ready to fire all weapons on the enemy. Icthus and the Vahki however were going to stay behind with Zaker while the droids held the Rorzahk off.
As the Rorzahk edged closer to the droids, he could hear them fighting with the other droids. The prototype Vahki tried blasting at the Rorzahk but it was to weak and smashed to pieces. The small rover droids and maintenance droids were just ignored and the merge droids were defeated. None of the droids were any threat anymore, they could now search for their key target.
Zaker stood up and fired all his weapons at the enemy Vahki, two fell, the others evaded. Icthus motioned for his master to stand down, the small droid jumped out of hiding while the controlled Vahki stood behind waiting to fight their old brothers.
Icthus jumped into the middle of the room, Rorzahk surrounded him on all sides. He drew his long claws into the air and poised himself for battle, all of the Vahki went to two legged mode, except the squad leader who stepped forward, recognizing the droids challenge. The Vahki waited ten seconds to see if the droid would surrender then it ordered the Rorzahk to destroy it. Icthus jumped into the air and slashed the squad leader in the upper arm joints, then through it in the air until it the Vahki slammed into the wall and fell down in a heap. The other vahki closed in on him.
Icthus slashed the first one in the optics and threw into an advancing group from behind. He grabbed one of the Vahki and slammed it into the ground then did a front flip and used the Vahki like a bat to crush another one headfirst. Icthus tossed the useless limp Vahki aside, knocking even more back. The Rorzahk drew their kanoka and Icthus ran straight towards a group, one tried to jump him from behind in four-legged mode while the others fired. Icthus grabbed two of the kanoka with lightning speed and threw them back at the Vahki then raised its claws and slashed the four legged down the middle, slicing it in two. The others started to back off when Icthus charged them, he kicked one under its neck and then turned with great speed behind himself slicing three more Vahki with his claws and then ramming one of them into the wall. The Vahki fired all weapons on Icthus, but even the stunblasts shrugged off his polished form. He ran straight towards the last eleven Vahki and brutally sliced them in all of their joints, within an instant all of the Rorzahk had been slaughtered. The squad leader started to gain its senses back, it reached into its data files for a program a Vahki had never used before…surrender. The Vahki tossed its guns and kanoka aside, got up and raised its arms into the air and signalled to Icthus that it was surrenedering. Icthus cocked its head then rammed its claws into the vahki’s large head.
The yellow and black droid walked back to Zaker and bowed before him.
“Excellent, VAHKI!” Zaker commanded. “Get all of the bodys we can use and reprogram them, then we head for the cannons,” Zaker laughed to himself, this was too easy.
---
Icthus stood in the middle of the room staring at the ground where the squad leaders body lay, the vahki had surrendered, that meant he gave up and didn’t want to fight, it wanted to stop, be spared. The vahki was no threat to Icthus so why had he done it? The droids proccesors hurt at the thought, he couldn’t think straight, he bent over and activated the Vahki’s reserves, without Zaker knowing he let it go, the Vahki had been so stripped down so much so only a technician would notice it was really a vahki. Icthus wondered why he was starting to doubt his power, but he had to stay true to his programming, he had to obey his master, or fall before him.
---
Scar ignored the constant flashing of the emergency light in his HUD, it was annoying, he knew the Vahki wouldn’t last so why did they have to keep annoying him. There, that was another emotion that came with this wisdom, the feeling of being annoyed.
Scar and the group edged closer to a warehouse the Vahki squad had entered. He peered across the room and saw it was littered with Rorzahk bodies, all of them beyond repair, but his sensors showed some were missing. Zaker had struck again. One of the matoran came back in hauling an incredibly stripped Rorzahk body lumbering behind.
The exterminator layed the Vahki down on a crate, it lurched itself upward and pulled a chip out of its head, and handed it to Scar.
“It looks like it was scrapped badly by something, see these gashes?” an exterminator motioned towards the large scratches in the vahki’s body. The Vahki pulled a chip out of its small rounded head and handed it to Scar. Scar opened the video, it was the battle that had taken place in here earlier, it was actually more of a slaughter, the squad leader was the only Vahki to survive, others seemed to have been taken by Zaker and the more unfortunate ones were beyond repair.
“Come on we don’t have time for this, we’re using the tubes, we’ll beat Zaker there, I don’t care if we’re seen,” Scar marched off out of the warehouse and walked over to a small tube about two matoran wide, it would work for now.
Scar waited while the others caught up, Kukra went first, followed by exterminators two at a time, then the droids, finally Nylun and Scar jumped into the tube. Kukra’s knowledge of the system would be useful, he could guide them to the factory. They merged into a larger tube that went through the center of Onu-Metru. Scar tried not to draw attention to the group, most of the matoran in the tubes were workers busy looking for their exit. They went down a smaller tunnel and then an even smaller one, it opened up at the bottom to a small station for boarding and departures. All of the matoran turned to look at the group of droids and matoran. They all walked out of the station and into the street as quickly as possible, but not without drawing the attention of the local Vahki enforcers. They raised their stun guns to the group, until Nylun sent them an official signal from the turaga about their business. The group marched out of the station and crossed the road. They walked three blocks to the factory, Scar knew something was wrong, no droids or Vahki had been seen since they left the station. He asked Nylun to do a scan for droid signatures, the only ones he could pick up were in their group and at one other location, the factory.
“Ok here’s what we’re going to do, Nylun the map please?” Scar asked, Nylun’s eyes projected a map of the factory and surrounding buildings onto the ground, the matoran and droids gathered in a circle to listen to their leaders plans. “Kukra, you Tuli, Chakula and the other exterminators will follow in back, wait for the M1s would provide a distraction for the Vahki and other droids guarding the facility, they will get the attention of the security and try to do as much damage to them as possible, then the matoran will strike with everything they’ve got, I don’t care what it takes, get rid of those Vahki,”
“Heck we’ve had worse right guys?” joked one of the matoran, the others laughed, Scar started to, then he realized what was happening, laughter, an form of emotion, he tried to define it but couldn’t. He shook the thought aside and went back to the plan. “Nylun and I will then come in from the top of the building and drop in on Zaker, when I give the signal to the droids everyone will move in and storm the building, is the mission clear?” Scar asked. The matoran all looked at one another, then turned to their commander and nodded.
“We’ll go for it,” Tuli said.
“Then it’s settled, lets go for it,” The matoran all loaded their kanoka launchers, the M1s charged their static tridents, Nylun checked the security loops, and Scar checked his ammo. The team turned the block while Scar and Nylun climbed to the roof in the another building, then hopped from roof top to roof top.
Kukra watched the Vahki closely, they didn’t know they were here, yet. Tuli motioned for the group to move in, they checked their launchers and aimed. They had the Vahki surrounded, the time had come.
“Never thought I’d see the day we were sent to scrap Vahki, man those things scare me,” whispered one matoran to Chakula.
“Just root for the underdog, in this case, us,” Chakula said. Tuli raised the his hand counting down from five, when the last finger fell the air was full of disks. And the battle had begun.

Chapter six: Overload-



Vahki 09231847, or better yet the past squad leader of the Keehrak, raised its head, disks, freezing disks, were headed straight for him and the others. It automatically sent a message to the all of the Vahki he had been put in charge of by his master.
Command Protocal: Enemy fire, enemy activity, intercept obstacles, prevent disturbances, terminate threats to master, confirm.
Over 50 clicks came in through the Keehrak’s com. Each one acknowledging the command. Within an instant the Vahki were all over the exterminators.
---
Tuli watched as the disks blasted a couple of the Vahki but most of them already dodged the disks. The kanoka flew back into their launchers and the matoran fired again. Some of the exterminators that were closest to the Vahki had already been attacked, they were having big problems trying to dodge the stun blasts.
“Keep firing!” Tuli yelled out. The M1s moved in to intercept the Vahki they fired a fury of static blasts at the Vahki, two of which ended up with totally scrambled circuits. The droids kept firing but the Vahki were already all over them, they tried to fight off the Vahki but couldn’t do much damage, they used their stun guns as weapons and bisected all of the droids. The matoran still fired their disks but it wasn’t working.
The M1s were almost destroyed, they activated their self destruct protocal and counted down from three. The Vahki were unfamiliar with this program because these droids never caused many problems, they were a bit of mystery to the Vahki.
“EVERYBODY GET DOWN,” Tuli screamed over the chaos, shortly after an ominous fireball lit up the area. The Vahki that were in close proximity of the blast where melted to slag, while others had been charred in key body parts such as their optics or joints. Tuli ran out onto the blast site and yelled for help, three matoran had been injured badly. He tried to defend the dieing matoran by himself but their were just to many Vahki, everybody was outnumbered.
“Tuli, we cant fight all of these, the guys cant hold out much longer!” Chakula shouted launching a disk at point blank range to a vahki. The freeze blast came first and froze the Vahki’s eyes, then the impact. Shrapnel flew everywhere and it rained down on the matoran, Chakula was all cut up.
“Kukra, help Chakula!” Tuli did a double take, Kukra was taking on a Vahki without a weapon!
The young matoran looked around at what had happened to his team mates, his new found friends, the closest thing he had ever had to a family besides his friends Kongu and Tamaru. Even then he hardly ever got to see them, he was in a way lower class than them where matoran were mistreated. Sometimes he wondered if they just felt sorry for him. Now he had been taken into this group, even though he had been changed and didn’t even look like a matoran anymore. Now his family was falling left and right, these weren’t Vahki they were monsters, monsters that killed. Kukra looked deep within himself, he was being badly beaten by a Vahki, but he just lay there taking the blows, like he was in a daze.
Suddenly Kukra felt different, a burst of power flowed through the matoran, his eyes glowed a ghostly white and pierced through the Vahki like it wasn’t even there. The now glowing matoran got up and delivered a powerful blow to the Vahki’s chest, then another and another. Now the Vahki was in the daze, Matoran…fighting…back, the Vahki was confused how would, how could a Matoran fight back!? The Vahki raised it’s stung guns and fired at the matoran, the short beams phased out when they hit Kukra’s ghastly form. Kukra looked up at the Vahki and took the launchers from the Vahki with lightning speed and then used them as swords and cut the Vahki’s legs off. Kukra turned around and slashed two more Vahki trying to advance on Tuli. Tuli noticed what was going on, the Vahki were getting confused on as to how a matoran would fight back without using a disk launcher, just using brute strength and as to how a matoran could even be that strong to begin with.
“Now, give ‘em everything you’ve got boys!” Tuli yelled running out to the battlefield and firing three disks in a row at one vahki. The matoran taking this moment of opportunity all attacked with a renewed spirit, disks filled the air, the Vahki had a slowed reaction to the attack due to the fact they still couldn’t understand how a matoran had destroyed three of their kind only using melee attacks.
Most of the Vahki could not avoid the disks, they were frozen in their heads, limbs and bodies yet some endured to keep fighting. The squad leader developed a new plan and transmitted it to the remaining Vahki.
Attack Protocol Beta, lure them into the factory, false retreat maneuver, copy?
Copy.
Copy.
Copy.
Copy.
Copy
Copy.
The squad leader then sent another message to Zaker.
Attempting attack protocol beta, admittance to factory required, copy?
Copy, backup will be waiting for you.
Rodger.
The squad leader pretended to run away into the factory, as did the other Vahki, two were scrapped on the way in, and the rest were injured.
“Come on their retreating nows our chance!” yelled a matoran.
“Wait, stop, we have to wait for Scar’s signal, although I don’t know how he’s gonna give it to us, the droids that were supposed to receive it were scrapped, as far as I know, did any droids survive?” Tuli said.
The Matoran checked the area, after a thorough search the managed to find their maintenance droid. The technician on the team tapped into it’s code and sent Scar the message. Scar returned it with the acknowledgement to enter the factory, and to be careful, he thought the Vahki were planning something.
The exterminators slowly entered the factory one at a time, Tuli motioned them into position, he glanced at Kukra, the glowing had stopped and he seemed exhausted, no time to think about that right now, Tuli reminded himself. The battle had just begun.
---
Scar and Nylun jumped down into the factory, soon all chaos broke loose, Vahki were all over the two, and more droids were on their way. Scar blasted them with his energy blaster, then ignited his sword and started making short work of the Vahki. Nylun tried to avoid fighting, and figure up a plan.
Scar turned around and saw Zaker sitting idly by, this time in a new body.
“A Kraahu…” Scar remembered one of these from his days as a Vahki, they were made from left over parts of three Vahki, usually Keehrak, Zadahk, and Bordahk. They give of a powerful electrical jolt when touched and can spit out stun gas. Even more amazing is that the body can split in separate pieces, while the legs fly around and attack, the other parts could monitor the situation.
“This thing is in top condition!” Nylun exclaimed, “It must have been just built!”
“By the looks of it Nylun I think it has,” Scar said in dismay.
“NOW MATORAN!” Tuli yelled, the exterminators and Kukra ran out of their hiding places and started blasting disks at the remaining droids. Icthus ran out of knowwhere and started grabbing the disks and hurling them back at the matoran. The other droids and Vahki charged the matoran.
Tuli and the others were forced to dodge disk after disk, and then the droids attacks, the static blasts, more kanoka, stungun fire, laser shots, the matoran couldn’t take this much longer, they were getting tired. Scar ignited his sword and ran out to help the matoran but, Zaker/Kraahu jumped out in front of him.
“WHAT IS THE MATTER, VAHKI?” Zaker asked Scar, “ARE YOU AFRAID, GOING TO RUN AWAY FROM IT ALL, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO, RESPONSIBILITIES ARE FOR TOA!”
“I am not afraid of you or anything you put in my path, and NEVER compare me to a toa again!” Scar challenged the looming figure.
“VERY WELL THEN, MEET YOUR DOOM!” Zaker/Kraahu charged towards Scar with immense speed. Scar quickly jumped out of the way only to be being attacked again. He tried to shoot the thing but the shots were just absorbed by it’s electrical field. Zaker/Kraahu charged over to the matoran’s fight and blasted out a cloud of stun gas, it didn’t affect the droids but the matoran dropped in place.
“HAVING FUN NOW SCAR?!”
“Shutup and fight!” Scar yelled slashing the thing with his fire sword, but to no avail it would not work.
“DROIDS COMPLETE OUR LITTLE PROJECT, VAHKI MAKE SURE THAT NYLUN AND THE MATORAN DO NOT GET FREE, SPEAKING OF WHICH…” Zaker/Kraahu released an arm and grabbed Nylun, then electrocuted him and threw him over to the matoran.
There has to be a way to beat this thing! Scar thought to himself but nothing came up, he felt like he was finished, but he wouldn’t give up. He looked to where Zaker had attached himself, right near the neck, of course!
Scar charged his rifle to max power and ignited his flame sword once more he jumped up on top of the beast, and fought to use the electricity to his advantage, he fired the blast at Zaker’s limp body. The blast shook the small droid and threw it off of the Vahki Kaita, but not before Scar shut the thing down.
“Thank you Scar, you know there’s only one real body I want, do you know what that is?” Zaker asked. Scar didn’t respond he was to exhausted to speak, even now without a host Zaker still had the advantage. Scar tried to get up but just fell back down into a heap.
“Ap ap ap, no don’t hurt yourself Scar you are far to valuable!” Zaker chuckled. “See the only real body I want Scar, is you!” with that Zaker jumped up into the air and grabbed onto Scar’s back , the body split open in the middle and attached to the back, the tendrils came out and attached to Scar’s cerebral cortex. Scar fought to gain control, but Zaker’s will was too strong.
“We will be stronger together Scar, nothing will be able to stop us!” Zaker said through Scar’s voice, “Our consciousness’ will be melded together and I will have control, no one will stand in my way!” Zaker’s tendrils reached up to Scar’s matrix and binded with it, it wrapped itself around and fit into place in the matrix.
Zaker/Scar began to feel immense pain, he grabbed his head in agony.
“Graaahhh!” It screamed, then fell down, and opened his eyes, Zaker was in control, and Scar was now a part of him.
“Yes I am in control, I am now the most powerful being on Metru Nui!” Zaker/Scar yelled out. Electricity surged through his body and he felt more power than ever.
“Y-y-you’re wrong!” a voice cried out.
“Oh, who might that be?” Zaker/Scar looked over to where to voice had come from, “Kukra eh?”
“How do you know my name?” Kukra asked.
“I used to be Scar too remember?” Zaker/Scar said tapping his head, “So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll do something!” Kukra yelled jumping up and kicking Icthus aside.
“Very well then, get him,” in an instant the droids were all over Kukra. Kukra felt the power that had surged through him earlier, he lost all control and began to think about his new found family, how they had been struck down by this beast. Kukra grabbed two of the droids by their necks and squeezed until the droids shut down, he tossed the two aside and started ripping the other droids apart. No matter how much the droids tried to hurt him, Kukra ended up destroying them. Icthus began to regain his senses he looked up at Kukra and saw that no more droids were standing, somehow the matoran had managed to trash all of the vital parts in every droid, and still be able to stand. Icthus began to go after him when Zaker/Scar motioned for him to stop.
“No, we’re leaving, you can keep your friends matoran,” Zaker/Scar then shot Kukra with a fully charged energy blast. Kukra flew through the next room and landed on his back, shortly after everything went black.
“Lets go,” Zaker/Scar walked into another room of the factory with Icthus, the room was filled with Cannon Droids, and the machines were spitting out more and more, they were all lined up in rows.
“Yes, now I have an army, no more weak droids, just a couple Vahki and hundreds of cannons!” Zaker/Scar yelled in triumph, “Now we’re going to the archives, and then we’ll go to phase 3, lets go droids!”
The cannon droids immediately marched out of the factory and towards the archives.
Halt, droids, you are in violation of the code, you are disturbing the peace, surrender or be terminated.
A roaming squad of Rorzahk tried to stop the droids, but they just kept on walking.
Last chance, halt or be terminated.
“Sorry, but we’re the new authority,” Zaker/Scar would have smiled if he could. The first row of cannon droids fired at the Vahki, they were quick to react, but not quick enough to avoid the second rows line of fire. The large shots that the cannon droids fired impaled all the Rorzahk. The Rorzahk fell to the ground, they were to badly beaten up to repair so the Cannon droids just marched over them.
“Icthus how are the Vahki doing?” Zaker/Scar asked. Icthus turned around to see that the remaining Vahki and the Kraahu were marching in stride behind them, the Vahki blasted stray matoran with their stun guns while Kraahu released it’s stun gas into the neighborhood. Matoran everywhere dropped like flies, the gas soon dissipated into the atmosphere but the matoran were still stunned.
“Excellent,” Zaker/Scar said. The archives weren’t far from here they would soon be onto their prize.

Sorry for the lack of updates I've been really busy lately :/

Chapter 7: Let me finish




Tuli and the other exterminators began to stir, they would be waking up soon. Kukra’s head hurt so bad he didn’t know if he could take the pain anymore. Nylun had been trying to stop the pain while the exterminators woke up, but nothing was working. They could here the silenced screams of the matoran that dropped in their place. They had failed, the exterminators had failed to terminate their target, they lost a valuable droid to their target and now the target was growing even stronger, if this kept up, not even all of metru nui’s forces could stop this menace.
“So what’s the plan sir?” asked one tired matoran.
“We go home, pack it up boys we’re heading for the nearest chute and hopping on a hover craft all the way to the coliseum, get ready to start a job search boys, we’re out of the job,” Tuli replied in dismay. Kukra couldn’t believe what he was hearing, they were quitting?
“You guys cant give up now!” Kukra exclaimed.
“Sorry Kukra, it’s over with, to tell you the truth this was our last chance with Turaga Dume, we had already screwed up really bad twice, now we’re screwed,” Tuli sighed, “We have to go back and resign, besides, matoran don’t have a job as security forces anymore, they have droids, and Vahki to replace droids, and soon some artificial intelligent junk to replace the Vahki, face it we’re the oldest tech you can get,”
“Nylun you aren’t quitting are you?”
“Sorry Kukra, I’m not as strong as Scar, I am only here to help for technical reasons, there’s nothing left I can do to help…” Nylun responded.
“What!” Kukra exclaimed, “I know not even you are that blind Nylun, help me, we can still do this, all of us can!” the others just looked down at the floor, they were defeated, for the last time too. Then one matoran stood up above everyone else. “I say we go for it, one last try, if you guys think about it, there is only one smart droid against us, two if you count the Icthus project, and how many of us ‘lowlifes’ are there, thirty, thirty two if we count Kukra and Nylun, so I say we go for it, I mean we’re not that stupid are we?!”
The other matoran looked up at the rebel exterminator, his spirit seemed to lift theirs back up from the pit of defeat. With that Tuli jumped up and slammed a fresh disk into his launcher.
“Exterminators, lock and load, we’re gonna blow those droids into slag!”
“YEAH!” they all yelled in unison. The exterminators were back in the game.
---
Twenty two squads of Vahki from around the metru later, the army came to a screaming halt. They had come to the main entrance to the archive. By now it was completely empty except for a few foolish matoran who were too afraid of their best exhibits being destroyed by them. They too fell.
After the knocked out matoran were placed in a pile by the entrance, the group moved into the main hall, here large carvings of ancient Rahi were held up on walls, famous matoran carved into stone statues, old relics and glass cases, and powerful sleeping beasts like Rahkshi were held in cryo cages. Yes the hall was full of exhibits, but Zaker/Scar was in pursuit of one even better than any viewed here.
“Icthus, bring me the chip!” Zaker/Scar commanded. Icthus hurried over to the monster and gave him a small microchip they had stolen while at the experimental robotics factory. This chip contained data of an old and powerful force. He went up to a monitor in one of the guards empty booths and stuck the chip in. Data scrolled down the screen, and a large behemoth of a droid was pictured.
“The archive guardian…” Zaker/Scar was about to get his wishes then he felt a stinging pain in his head.
“NO, we cannot use this body, we are one, we must become separate for us to merge with the droid,”
“NO, we can use this body, it is what we wanted all along, POWER!”
“WE WILL SEPARATE, that cannot happen, we will cease to exist, then only they will remain,”
“WE CAN AND WILL SEPARATE, we cannot fight it, for we are one, so we both want it,”
“WRONG, you are wrong, wrong!”
“NO!”
The being quarreled with itself for about fifteen minutes before Icthus couldn’t take it anymore, this wasn’t his master anymore, so he wasn’t obliged to it’s commands. He was however obliged to the command his master had given him to protect his master when he was in danger at all costs. Right now his master was in danger, he had to sever the connection between his master and the body, or else they might drive each other to suicide.
Icthus sneaked up behind the body, and noticed the extra tendrils flying around the back of the body. Would they notice him? He didn’t have time to worry about that he had to save his master, has raised his sharp claws and charged the droid,
By the time Zaker/Scar realized what was going on he didn’t exist anymore. Zaker and Scar were now separate, but whole once more. Zaker got up to clear his banged up gear shaped head.
“Thank you Icthus, you followed my orders perfectly,” Zaker then ran over to one of the Vahki and attached himself to it.
“What happened back there?” Scar said in confusion, his optics had not fully recovered from the blow yet, he looked over at the monitor, where he had just placed the chip, NO, the thing that once was had placed the chip. A large droid was pictured, and a description next to it, the writing was encoded however and Scar was to weak to decode it.
“What is that thing?” Scar asked in disbelief.
“That my brother is my new body, with it I will be able to rule all of Metru Nui,”
“How many times have I heard that?” Scar asked with a hint of, was it humor, another emotion.
“Silence!” Zaker yelled in the empty hallway, “Icthus, hold him, make sure he can’t escape, we’re going to show him his demise up close and personal,” Zaker took off down a hallway with a sqaud of Vahki and Icthus all pointing their weapons at Scar.
---
They had been walking for at least an hour now, but they had finally made it to the archive, now it was the getting in and finding Scar part they had to do. After getting through the Vahki and other droids that Zaker left behind, they were at the entrance. They walked in slowly, Tuli silently motioned for his men to get into position.
Nylun was busy scanning the area, he jumped at what he found just around the corner.
“Kukra!” Nylun shouted, but it was too late, three groups of cannon droids, each led by an angry Vahki that was surging with power, behind them was the Kraahu.
“How are we supposed to fight that!” an exterminator shouted.
“Easy, just shoot,” Tuli said taking out two disk launchers and firing at them at the same time. Two kanoka whizzed through the air, and two cannon droids were down. “Split into three teams, each take one group, now!” Tuli gave the order. “Kukra, Nylun, figure out a way to get the Kraahu, we’ll get rid of everything else then assist you.
Tuli threw fresh disk into his launchers and fired. The other exterminators followed suit, the droids were having a hard time but they responded with their own firepower. Three of the bulkiest exterminators grabbed their large makeshift knifes they had made earlier at the warehouse. They ran up to the droids and sliced them, now they were toe to toe fighting the Vahki, stunguns versus sharp pieces of brandished proto. The rest of the matoran charged firing more disks into the air.
Kukra was trying to think of a way to beat the Kraahu, which of whom decided to stay back while the smaller robots fought, first he needed a weapon, Kukra looked around and could only find a single staff, it was stolen from a Rahkshi and put on display. Kukra broke the glass and grabbed the blade, he jumped out in front of the beastly droid.
“Kukra, he has a weakpoint, where Zaker was attached!” Nylun shouted to him. Kukra knew where to hit now, he jumped into the air and searched for the light inside of him, he was suddenly overcome with purpose and meaning. Light flowed through him, he now no longer Kukra, but something more. Kukra grabbed the staff and landed on the thing’s back, he spun the blade with lightning speed and jabbed it into the hole where Zaker had attached. The entire cerebral cortex of the Kraahu fried and the droid went limp, Kukra was quick on his feet and didn’t get shocked. He landed back where he had started, and the light went dim.
“Whoa,” Kukra was still getting used to his newfound ability. The exterminators were done making short work of the droid teams.
“Now, where were we?” Tuli asked staring at the destroyed droids. The matoran walked down to the main entrance, the guards were starting to regain there senses and groaned.
“Who did this to you?” Kukra asked.
“Ug, uh, huh?” One of them mumbled as he awoke groggily. “Who, a bunch of Vahki, and a strange red droid, they had cannon droids with them, oh and a clawed guy, ow, my head,” the guard groaned and slumped over again.
“Sounds like Zaker isn’t far ahead of us,” Kukra said.
“Hey guys look at this!” Chakula had discovered a disk in the monitor, it looked crude and old.
“Play it and see what we can find,” Tuli said. The matoran popped the disk into the computer and the monitor lit up, a huge droid was depicted, by the measurements this thing was larger than anything in service, even the Vahki kaita.
“Whoa, that things huge!” an exterminator exclaimed.
“How can we beat that?!” another yelled.
“STOP, we don’t even know what we’re up against yet, Nylun plug in to the computer, see what you can find,” Tuli ordered.
“You are the boss,” Nylun sighed and walked over to the dusty thing, he removed the armor padding on one of his hands to reveal a large array of intstruments. One of them unfolded, a triangular device, it plugged itself into the computer and Nylun’s third eye began reading the data. What he came upon was astonishing and bewildering at the same time.
---
“Stop, we’ve reached the gate,” Zaker said. Icthus, motioned for the Vahki to stop helping Scar walk. They had switched his auto-repair off so he was still just as weak. The three Vahki threw their once-was brother to the ground and falled in line behind the cannon droids.
“How is this a gate?” Scar asked looking at the blank wall.
“Only to one such as yourself is it a wall, to a TRUE droid it is seen as a gate to power and the evolution of our kind!” Zaker attached himself to one of the cannon droids and fired in six places on the door. He then jumped off the cannon and plugged his hands into each spot. A loud rumbling shook the whole room and the door split in two and collapsed.
“You see brother, when this cell was made, six access points were needed to be activated by a computer downloading device, like those on my hands, thus opening the gate to destruction!”
“No…this cant be…” Scar said in dismay.
“Oh but it is!” Zaker cheered raising his hands looking into the newly revealed room.
“Wh-what is it?” Scar asked in amazement.
“The last of a the greatest droids to come before the new age,”
“The new age?”
“The age of artificial intelligence, and Vahki, no more petty servant droids, they will have a purpose and free will!”
“Your blinded by your goals!” Scar lashed out.
“It is an Archive Guardian, the last one in existence,” Zaker continued as if he had not heard Scar.
“A what?!”
“An archive guardian, they were the most powerful of droids, even Vahki submitted their will to them, six were created to guard the Archives from rampaging creatures and thieving matoran,”
“I-I don’t understand how is this the last one then, what happened to the others?”
“One day Dume was walking in the archives, a guardian malfunctioned and tried to attack him thinking he was an intruder,” Zaker said. “the droids attack failed, a squad of Vahki caught it offguard and the group fought the droid until they drove it off of a platform, the Vahki went with it, even after it hit the ground the droid was still function but not after several kanoka disks finished it,”
“What about the other five?”
“At the time the archives were under construction, two were still in stasis because they were not needed at the time, those two were immediately destroyed, it is rumored that their matrixes and cerebral cortexes were saved somewhere in here,” Zaker continued. “The remaining three ran for their lives and constantly set powerful Rahi loose to scrap their hunters, then they started making traps, floors would suddenly crumble beneath archivists’ feet and give way to the sublevels, snares would snag Vahki and then electrocute them using the electric lines of the archives. They were eventually trapped themselves, they were forced to flee the archives, an army of Vahki overran one and destroyed it, the last two escaped and separated, they found one and archived it, the last one was never seen again,”
“This is the only one left then…”
“Precisely, and he is all mine,”

DtM

Chapter 8: The misunderstood

Zaker knew the matoran were cunning, especially the exterminators, so he had sent a squad of Vahki to awaken a nearby exhibit to keep them busy. Icthus led the Vahki that were carrying the exhibit over to him. “Crack the case,” Zaker said with ease. The Vahki used their blades and cracked the lid off of the canister, there was a brief woosh as compressed cold air flew out. The canister started to unfog and Scar could now see inside of it. It looked like a warrior of doom, it had a Rahkshi’s head, a toa like body and pitch black armor all over it. The rahkshi thing’s eyes glowed like fire burned right underneath the helmet. It raised an armored fist slowly and then quickly punched the glass. The Vahki stepped back in surprise and started to arm themselves.
The creature stretched its legs then reached inside the canister and pulled out a long black staff, the staff had no blades or anything on the ends. Scar wondered what its purpose was.
“Who frees me from the dark slumber?” it asked in a voice full of hatred.
“Zaker, who have I freed?”
“Varon of the flames, why have you set me free?” distrust filled Varon’s eyes.
“I require your assistance, you see I am a droid on a mission, I am planning the downfall of all those filthy matoran and the rise of those they have stepped on, a certain group keeps slowing me down, I need you to take care of them for me,”
“I follow no one, but your cause is worthy of my action, I am at your service,”
“Good,”
---
“So what is it Nylun?”
“It is an archive guardian…”
“A WHAT!” Tuli yelled.
“Tuli quiet down, there may be more Vahki!” Chakula tried to calm his leader down but he wouldn’t.
“Quiet down!? Are you mad! If one of those is running loose than we’re all doomed!” the exterminator yelled out into the hollow caverns below.
“What is an archive guardian?” Kukra asked.
“A powerful droid, six were made to defend the archives, after one went crazy on Turaga Dume they were destroyed save one who escaped, most think he fled to his doom, and one other who is in cryo somewhere in the archives,” Nylun said.
“We need to go now, maybe we can still save Scar and stop Zaker from getting this thing on his side,” Kukra said looking over at the exterminators, Tuli gulped and nodded.
“Lets go guys,” he said in dismay. The exterminators hauled their packs and headed down a tunnel. The archives were always eerie and only the onu-matoran felt at home in them…sometimes.
“Did you guys hear anything?” a matoran asked.
“Hear what?” another responded.
“That sound-ARGH!!” But it was too late. The other matoran turned around and nothing was left of the matoran. He was gone.
“What the-“ another started but once again he was to late to react.
“What’s happening?!” Tuli finally yelled out. Their party had dwindled to eight so quickly.
“Everybody get into position, form a circle, Nylun, Kukra you too,” Chakula said. The assistant droid wandered into the middle of the group and looked up, it gave a loud whir before a small jet of concentrated fire shot right through its body.
All of the matoran knelt down and aimed at the ceiling where the fire had came from. Kukra sensed something in the air, something ancient, tired, and…angry.
“Nylun switch to heat vision!” Tuli yelled out. Nylun changed the filters on his eyes to heat sensors.
“I’m detecting nothing out of the ordinary, just us, rahi…and other things….WAIT, THERE!” Nylun fired a small laser at a rock wall.
“Everybody away from the wall!” Tuli yelled. A large fireball burst through and would’ve almost charred the matoran if they hadn’t had moved. Where wall was, now stood a pile of rubble and magma. “FIRE!” The matoran launched their disks, and relaunched them. A silhouette appeared from behind the door. It was all black, but with glowing orange eyes full of hate. It raised a armored hand in front of the disks. A wall of clear orange fire erupted from below and took the blows from the disks. The silhouette shoved its fist forward into the air and the fire wall collected into yet another fire ball and launched at the matoran.
“Get down!” Tuli yelled. He stared up at their assailant, the fire in the room had lit the figure up and he could now see it. An armored figure that slightly resembled a toa, two large silver spikes sprouted out from between it’s armored shoulders and neck. The whole thing was covered in a dark pale armor, it carried a staff with two cylinders on the end, but no weapon was visible. The head was vaguely rahkshi like.
“What is that!?” a matoran cried out in fear. The creature only stared and took long strids forward.
“Nylun, start scanning, what is this thing!” Tuli yelled out.
“Scanning, I’m detecting a lot of signs of rahkshi in the body, but theirs something, hold on…” Nylun trailed off staring at the lines of code through his third eye.
“Nylun…I would like to know what it is already!” Tuli pleaded anxiously, he loaded his disk launcher while the creature approached closer.
“Scanning…I’m detecting traces of everything, rahkshi, matoran, toa, even some bohrok, its so odd, this thing is not of natural birth, something built it…” The creature was now ten feet away from Tuli, he fired his disk, by the time it reached the monstrosity it was a pile of ashes on the ground.
“Fall back!” Tuli yelled out. The exterminators ran out towards the main gate only to be greeted by a squad of Vahki.
“We’re trapped!” Chakula said looking for some way out, but alas they were surrounded.
“NO, they are mine!” The creature lashed out in a dry voice.
“That thing can talk!?” a matoran exclaimed.
“Apparently…” Kukra said, grabbing his staff. The creature drew it’s staff and stood in place.
“What’s he doing?” Tuli asked. The creature closed it’s eyes and then it started to glow, flames lit up from underneath its armor, the flames were channeled into the staff and the two cylinder like ends erupted into two blades of fire.
“That’s almost like Scar’s fire blades, astounding!” Nylun said.
“Cut the small talk and figure out a weak point Nylun!” Tuli yelled firing disks at the thing and trying to run away at the same time.
The creature jumped up and brought its staff down and slammed it into five vahki and then pulled out one of its armored fists and sent ten more streams of fire at the vahki, causing them all to drop instantly.
“Such power!” Nylun continued to analyze his new test subject. The creature looked him in the eyes and hissed then lit up the room just enough so they could see him, he was all black save a deep red head, like a rahkshi-toa almost.
“What-who are you?” Tuli cried out at the sight.
“The flames…the flames…” the creature wheezed.
“Load your launchers, don’t shoot till I give the signal…” Tuli ordered while keeping both eyes on the thing.
“The flames…Varon…” it weezed again. “VARON!” the creature erupted and was now surrounded by an aura of flame.
“MARK!” Tuli shouted, the disks shot but were melted to molten protodermis and fell to the ground in piles of cooling slag. “RUN!” They ran around the bend and climbed up a ladder only to be greated by a squad of Vahki, but they pushed right past them, then they saw it, Scar, and Zaker and a squad of Vahki at either exit, a third squad being led by Icthus stood against a wall.
“Well, here at last, we’re all together, for your doom!” Zaker laughed.
“Fire!” Tuli yelled but Icthus caught all the disks in mid air and threw them at the walls, embedding them to deep for any matoran to wedge them out.
“We’re trapped again!” Chakula cried to Tuli.
“What do you want me to do about it?!” Tuli was angered and frustrated.
“DO SOMETHING!!” Chakula yelled.
“SHUTUP YOU TWO!” Kukra yelled over the two. “Shhh, listen, hear that whir?”
Sure enough there was a loud metallic whir in the air, suddenly a group of small grey and white machines appeared from the darkness, they had four sets of treads and moved with amazing speed. One of them was being rode by a hooded green and blue matoran.
“Exterminators, Nylun, get on!” the matoran yelled out.
“I don’t know who you are but thanks…” Tuli said hopping onto one of the machines, it whirred louder, almost like it was talking. Five more of the machines literally unfolded their mechanisms and became four limbed droids with huge claws. They struck the Vahki down and grabbed Scar, then folded up and drove off, the exterminators, Nylun, the hooded matoran and a few others followed.
They flew right out the room and up the tunnels, and almost ran into Varon. They went out the gate and found six more of the machines taking care of the guards and the exterminators that had disappeared. They to joined the convoy, they then all entered a large tube and fled.
They pulled out of their exit and went down some side tubes to a very run down neighborhood in Ta-Metru. “Why are we here?” Tuli asked.
“You will see…” sighed the hooded matoran. The group pulled up to a warehouse and the hooded matoran pressed a button, two large bay doors creaked open and the vehicle droids sped in and unloaded their passengers. The warehouse was very dreary, dark and stale, and hot. Various tools and parts lay on tables and floors, a few matoran could be seen working on the parts. They came to greet the hooded figure.
He turned to the exterminators and droids and unhooded himself.
“ZULU!” Nylun cried out.
“Yes and everything is horribly misunderstood,”

Chapter 9: Questions and Answers


“What are you doing here?!” Nylun cried out.
“I had to run, I was monitoring you and Scar the whole time, the plan wasn’t working, you didn’t catch Zaker soon enough, Dume’s officers would come after me,” Zulu sighed again. “You don’t understand what’s going on, something has tainted Zaker,”
“Something primal…something unseen…” Kukra muttered.
“Yes, but how do you-who are you?” Zulu asked looking over the black and white matoran.
“My name is Kukra, somebody sent me after your droid Zaker, well a voice did,” the other exterminators looked at him like he had gone mad. “Scar listened to me and then said I could join the hunt,” Kukra told Zulu.
“Hmm, your obviously not all matoran anymore, but I don’t know what you are…” Zulu trailed off observing Kukra’s reflective form.
“That’s all nice and stuff, but tell us what in Mata Nui’s name your doing here!” Tuli yelled.
“Yes, well, you know I had to run, I wouldn’t surrender to the Vahki and they wouldn’t give anybody any other choice, I came here and met with my remaining loyal followers to develop droids to help you fight Zaker, I should’ve known he would of gone after the most powerful body he knew existed,” Zulu continued his explanation. “We developed the Razar bikes, they’re fast, convenient and smart, but not so smart that they are at your level Nylun,”
“I’m confused with all these levels of smartness,” Tuli grunted at all the small talk.
“Well, it’s fairly simple droid intelligence levels itself, the lowest level is a normal droid, maintanance, mining, cannon, assault, they are all on the lowest level, everyday droids,” Zulu continued. “The next level consists of the Vahki, Vahki Kaita, Krahli, Archive Guardians and our Razar bikes, slightly smart, enough to do problem solving and follow complex orders, the final level consists of Nylun, Scar, Icthus, Zaker, and maybe others out there,”
“meeeeeee, a droids a droid for the most part, now what’s the plan?” Tuli asked.
“We have a new set of armor for Scar, one that will allow him to fight Varon without being burnt to slag, then he can go after Zaker, the flame armor,” Zulu replied motioning to a modified cryo tube. Inside sat a set of armor perfectly racked up, it was attached to several dozen wires which made huge twisted knots and cables on the floor. “We can exchange Scar’s parts cybernetically using technology from teleportation disks, however we prefer he go ahead and replace the armor manually,”
“Is Scar ready Zulu?” a technician asked.
“Yes, I am ready,” Scar unlatched his helmet and a loud hiss escaped as cold compressed air was allowed to escape. He then unlatched both of his arms and they fell to the ground with loud clanks, then using his feet he unlatched his hip armor and the technicians unlatched his foot armor for him. Scar stepped up to the tube and the technicians removed the flame armor and reattached new arms and armor for him. Scar then grabbed his new helmet, and latched it onto his head.
The exterminators looked at their old friend and with awe, he now seemed more powerful and intimidating then ever. Where his flame sword arm had once been, a heavily armored arm extended out and donned a large trapezoidal shield. Where his energy rifle had been he now had a large particle beam.
Scar raised up his heavy particle beam and loaded it.
“Lets go,” he said in a dark voice. To Kukra it seemed he had changed mentally as well as physically, but he knew the feeling so he let it go.
“But Scar, we still need to run some tests and I-“ Zulu was cut off.
“We’re through running tests! I’m going to finish this, I need all your Razar bikes ready to move out, exterminators with fresh disks and launchers, I’m going after Zaker…” Scar growled.
“You heard the bot, suit up boys,” Tuli said. The other exterminators went of and grabbed their gear and each mounted a Razar bike.
“The Razar bikes now have electric phasers built into their front claws if you or they need to use them,” a technician pointed out at his new modification.
“Thanks,” Chakula said. The platoon was ready to move out, each exterminator had a bike, plus Kukra and Nylun, and five other bikes were unmanned. They sped out the warehouse and waved goodbye to the technicians and followed Scar into the cryo tube.
“The fool, he’s still a Vahki at heart and will stop at nothing to complete his mission, but one thing has hit him, vengeance, an emotion he would not have normally felt if Zaker had killed his comrades, but now he does,”
“I assume your ready to go quietly?” a familiar voice said from behind. Zulu and the technicians turned around to see Turaga Dume striding towards them followed by a squad of Vahki.
“You…” Zulu scowled.
“Not entirely,” Dume said nonchalantly staring at his hand. Zulu watched as the image of Dume flickered slightly then returned to high clarity.
“A hologram…”
“Yes, now surrender or run?” the Dume hologram asked with a slight chuckle. Zulu looked to his companions.
“Surrender…” he said quietly and held up his hands, the others did the same. The Vahki stomped into the room. They were handcuffed and taken to the tubes...

Chapter 10: Droid VS Rahkshi


Zaker waited while Icthus clawed the case open for the Archive Guardian, he prepared his parasite program and his three tendrils floated out of his middle. The Vahki and stood watch on the exits, the cannon droids were in formation on the right side of the tunnel, ready for action, what other droids Zaker still had stood in the formation. Varon sat in a corner and seemed to be meditating.
A loud crash filled the room, Icthus had done it. Varon opened one eye halfway then closed it. The Vahki seemed to be more intense, were they experiencing fear of this droid that had killed so many of their kind, no that wasn’t possible, they weren’t at his level.
“Good, so now it begins,” Zaker laughed climbing up the back of the thawing droid. The tendrils found a maintenance panel and broke it open, then they bore their way in and attached to the cortex and slithered their way up to the main matrix and wrapped themselves around, attaching to data points on the processor, within moments Zaker was in complete control.
Zaker remembered how a simple matoran had considered that his attachment area was a weak point, so he activated the small cryo chamber on the droids middle and slid his body inside the protective shielding, now there were was no weak point.
The droid was massive, a good few heads taller than a Vahki. The legs were large and armored with protective plating, the thighs had spines that could be used to snare enemies on when in battle. The middle was a small cryo chamber probably used for holding escapees in the archives. The arms were also armored all the way down. One arm ended in a giant claw, the other one held a large energy blaster. It had no barrel, instead two long protodermis prongs that were shaped like knives, they would warm and fire shredder rounds continuously for up to 10 minutes. It also had a stun setting for Rahi that were not to be damaged. The head was small with two tiny prongs on either side, one large yellow eye made up the face, the eye also could fire a concentrated blast of light, a laser.
“Now is the time,” Zaker said through the modified speech arrays. “Droids, Vahki, and all the others that have been stepped on we will rise now and eliminate the matoran for a New World order!” the Vahki and cannon droids raised their weapons and fired in the air, rubble was either vaporized or broken up to tiny pieces.
They climbed out the new exit only to be stopped by Zaker.
“Varon, I want the body of Scar before we begin our rampage, go now, sensors show they are on their way,”
Varon did not say a word but he swifted out the sublevels and disappeared like a shadow.
---
“What’re we waiting for Scar?” asked an exterminator.
“You’ll see, Nylun scan the levels below us to the right, for any unusual activity,” Scar said.
“Scanning, just your usual Vahki, cannons, archive guardians and two renegade intelligents,” Nylun responded with a hint of sarcasm. A first Scar thought.
“Everybody but Varon, well now, everybody aim your weapons at the upper left corner,” Scar said without moving, the exterminators and Razars aimed at the corner.
“Very good droid,” the dark voice of Varon responded and he landed on the floor in the middle of the room, facing Scar.
“Everybody else pull back to the surface, I’ll call when I need you,” Scar said quickly.
“But-“ Tuli started.
“I said go!” Scar yelled angrily
The matoran mounted and left for the gates. Scar stared his opponent down, Zulu had been right, he would need this armor, but how did he know of Varon so soon? How had he had the time to build the armor? To many questions he just wanted to wipe them away and focus on the mission.
“I am…a warrior…” Varon started. “And I believe in a fair fight with, a…worthy opponent,”
“Well then, when shall we start?” Scar asked.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“ONE!”
Varon ingnited his staff and pulled a triple flip into the air landing gracefully and seding a tiny stream of fire at Scar. Scar rushed forward and batted the fire away with his shield, it was still as cold as Ko-Metru.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Rahkshi!” Scar yelled firing his blaster. A large beam shot out and Varon took the brunt of the blast.
“GRAH!” Varon screamed in pain as the plasma stuck to him. He simply ignited himself to a higher level and melted the plasma away. Varon was now surrounded by an aura of heat. “You’ll have to do better than that, droid!” he sent a nova blast at Scar sending him rocking backwards and imbedding him in the wall.
Scar jumped out and kicked Varon in the face with lightning agility. Varon took the blow then duck his head and brought his staff up between Scar’s legs and slammed him into the ground. Scar fired his blaster and then jumped up and ran his shield into Varon’s side. Varon jumped back and then sent a volley of fire balls that superheated Scar’s armor. Scar waited until Varon came to attack again, then he fired the blaster, but closed the barrel somewhat, concentrating the blast. The charged matter cut right through Varon’s staff, snapping it in two.
It fell to the floor with a clang and went dim. Varon yelled out in rage and brought out a stream of fire and formed it into a sword, the sword clanged off of Scar’s armor, but he was still having trouble holding the beast back.
Scar put his weight on his shield and swung his body around, his legs connected with Varon’s and sent him falling to the ground, the sword dissapeared and Scar jumped up and blasted Varon six times in the chest. Varon continued his rage and lunged up onto Scar, the heat almost knocked him offline, Varon cut his blaster off with a stream of fire, leaving an exposed arm, and removed his entire shield arm.
Scar cried out in pain, he now had but on unprotected arm and a weakly armored body. Scar kicked varon in the chest and then back flipped to the wall.
Varon was all over him sending punch after punch, Scar was lucky to dodge most of them. Scar charged into Varon sending the two onto the ground. When Varon’s mouth opened in a scream Scar jammed his fist into the beast’s mouth trying to choke it. Varon struggled but Scar only gripped tighter. Varon bit down onto Scar’s hand, severing it. He removed his now sparking arm, Varon turned and spat Scar’s hand onto the ground.
This was now a loosing battle, but Scar would not give in, he couldn’t he thought about all he’d let down if he let this thing get loose, and Zaker have free pass to the surface, no he wouldn’t allow it. He Thrust his armless shoulder into Varon’s neck, Varon kicked but Scar blocked his own foot, he wrapped his foot over Varons and then head butted Varon in the chest. Scar got up and flung Varon a few feet away with his leg then went to thrust him again. Varon flipped back once more and seemed to be breathing heavily. He noticed his flame had gotten dimmer.
Varon would be up in a few minutes, Scar looked for a way to beat him down, he found it. Scar thrust himself into a water pipe running along the side of the wall. Three times and the pipe burst. Varon had just gotten up when a large blast of water sent him into the ground. It was extinguishing him, he had to get to the surface, had to get out. He ran for an exit but was met by the group of matoran and droids from earlier. They all aimed at him. For once he felt fear in his mind. He had been beaten fairly, he ran back to the room and grabbed his broken staff and welded it together. He looked up at the droid known as Scar and said to him.
“You are a worthy opponent, and we will meet again, your matoran friends are safe…for now…” He used what was left of his power and blasted a hole in the floor and descended deeper into the archives.
“Well…” Scar said turning around to the matoran, if he had a mouth he would be smiling right now. “I beat him…” then he went offline and fell to the floor.
“What now?” Chakula asked looking at Scar’s sparking form.
“We fight, Chakula, we fight,” Tuli tapped his disk launcher on his feet looking to the end of the corridor, there stood Icthus, claws gleaming, followed by three squads of Vahki. “Have Miko and Hijala take their bikes and two unmanned ones and get Scar out of here, find someone who can repair him, find Zulu,”
The two young matoran looked up at their commander, he was sending them on a mission like this? They had to do what they had to do though, they saluted their commander, grabbed Scar and the bikes and left.
“Now get your launchers out, Zaker will be all over us in a few moments, and we need to make one last stand, we probably won’t beat them, but we can slow them down, everybody got that?” Tuli asked.
“Yes sir!” the exterminators yelled out.

Chapter 11-Imprisonment


Zulu sighed looking down at his shackles, he had ended up being one of the few matoran to ever be taken to the prison down by the coliseum, most of the matoran were stunned by the Vahki and given their orders, or left to wander. Not him and his team though, Dume was afraid they’d cause more harm to his plan.
Zulu had caught on from the beginning, this wasn’t the Turaga he knew, this was someone else, someone dark, and this someone, or something had a plan that threatened the city. Zulu tried to prevent it, but Dume came after him anyway.
He knew Zaker would go after Varon, because he knew Zaker would go after the most powerful body he could find. He knew it all. He just wished Scar would have listened to what he had to say, instead of storming out.
All he had to do now was wait. Wait and see how everything turned out.
---
Miko and Hijala sped off through the tubes, weary of any suspicious eyes, they banked off to Ta-Metru and headed for the warehouse. Only to find it had been abandoned, the place was clean, like nothing had ever been there.
“Something weird is going on here…” Hijala smirked. “Lets think, where else would Zulu go?”
“Beats me, but look at this!” Miko yelled from over behind the warehouse. Hijala walked over to see what he was yelling about now, Miko was always eager when he found something interesting, he might be young but he was an expert Rahi tracker.
“What is it this time?” Hijala grunted.
“Vahki tracks…” Miko said rubbing his fingers through the soot.
“How can you tell?”
“They tried to cover their tracks, it looks like they were carrying stuff off, when they tried to cover their foot prints the soot didn’t even out all the way, so if you look close enough you can still see an imprint,” Miko said.
“meeeeeee, so what do you think, they were with Zaker’s group?”
“Doubtful, but it is a possibility, we should follow them,” Miko got up and followed the prints, they seemed to head towards the coliseum,
No usage of tubes, odd, Vahki would usually use the tubes to get to the coliseum, much more convenient… “They didn’t use the tubes, something’s up, and I bet its at the coliseum,”
“So what…you think that you me, four bikes and old beat up Scar here can just waltz into that place looking for Zulu and company? Dume will have us for sure! He already hates the exterminators as it is!”
Hijala ranted.
“We don’t have any other choice, Tuli gave us orders, and we have to follow them, so get the bikes, we’re gonna have to walk,” Miko pressed a button on the side of his bike and its tracks unfolded, it was now a quadraped.
The group walked down the path for a while, stopping every few minutes to make sure they were headed in the right direction. When they neared the gates of their destination they noticed that an extra amount of Vahki were placed on guard, as well as several matoran donning black and blue colors.
“Dume’s elite…” Hijala smirked. The exterminators were not the only ones in Dume’s inner circle. The Elite were matoran from all over the metru as well, they ranged from professions like engineer, all the way to advisor, their black and blue colors were meant to show how high up in the food chain they were, even for matoran. They were only put on guard in serious trouble, something was going on, on the other side of those walls.
“Well, what now?” Hijala asked.
“Quiet, they’ll hear you!” Miko hissed, to late though, three kanoka disks whizzed right past them.
“Screw this, time to attack!” Hijala yelled jumping off the roof they were hiding on. Two of the bikes followed, stun guns blazing. Hijala reloaded his disk launcher and hit an Elite in the chest, while two more aimed and fired. Both froze his arms right in place. His launcher clanged to the floor and was shattered by a stun blast.
The Vahki greatly outnumbered the bikes in strength but not in speed. They sped around in bike mode charging through the Vahki who tried to dodge their speedy moves. One of the Elite smirked at the another behind his helmet like Komau, took aim and fired one disk. The disk bounced off a Vahki leg and collided right between one of the bikes two treads. The bike swerved to the right as its left tracks shattered from being frozen. It smashed into a wall and went offline. Another Elite took aim and fired at the second bike, this disk dodged all obstacles and tracked the bike till it finally collided with a small framing on the bikes side. It started to show signs of weakness, till it finally cracked and split open. The plate fell off and got stuck in the back right hand tread. The tread grinded till it finally snapped off and went flying. Sparks sheered out from under the bike until it skidded to a halt. The bike thought fast and switched to quadruped mode and and galloped towards a group of Vahki firing it’s stun blasters out of it’s claws.
But with only three legs the Vahki could now catch up. Kanoka disks appeared in their ‘mouths’ and fired. The first three missed or skimmed past the bike. The next round didn’t miss.
“Where is your friend little exterminator?” asked one of the Elites, the one with the Komau.
“Friend, I have no friend? Just these bikes,” Hijala smiled wryly.
“Wrong answer little one,” he looked to the other two Elite’s on guard. They grabbed him and hauled him inside the gate. Three taxi droids were sent out to haul the bikes in after them.
They went down a long hallway and turned the corner into a medium sized room. Three more Elite greeted them while two more seemed attached to what was going on a computer monitor.
They threw Hijala onto the ground and never said a word. One of the ones who had been on guard loaded his kanoka launcher and took aim, not at him, but at the remains of the bikes.
“What are you doing?” Hijala asked, he was answered by a swift hick in the chin from the one with the Komau.
“I understand you exterminators have a fancy for droids,” the Komau said staring at him. “Your little ‘friends’ here, are still functional, but we can fix that easy with our weakening disks, so lets make a little compromise, you tell me why you’re here, and I won’t hurt those pieces of scrap, do we have a deal?”
“You-you fiend, why would you hurt them?” Hijala asked, surprised that he was feeling pity over a couple of beat up droids, up until today he would’ve never done anything like that. Hijala hated to admit it, but the Elite was right, he did have feelings for droids now.
“Fire a weakening disk!” the Komau shouted.
“No!” Hijala said. “What do you want to know?”
“Where is your friend at?”
“His name is Miko, the tracker, he will be hiding out on the roof I jumped from, with two bikes and the droid Scar, who is offline,” Hijala sighed.
“Bring them in!”
Several minutes later two more damaged bikes, Scar, and Miko were dragged in.
“Now why are you here?!” the Komau asked.
“We were sent to find Zulu, and get Scar repaired, he got into a battle with a Rahi mutant known as Varon of the flames, Tuli sent us and four bikes to find them, but we tracked your Vahki’s tracks to here, so we figured they must be here,” Miko sighed.
“You fools, Scar has taken to long to destroy Zaker, and he has allowed himself to be compromised, many Vahki and droids have been lost, facilities destroyed, archive exhibits broken open, matoran knocked out, everywhere you go you can tell where Scar and his matoran friends have been,” the Elite sneered. “Dume, has decided that he has allowed to much damage to take place and has ordered for his destruction, as well as Nylun’s, Zaker’s and Icthus’,”
“You’re going to slag all of them!” Hijala challenged.
“Yes and when we’re done we’re coming after the exterminators, take them to the prison!”
They dragged the group off into a cell area, in the cells were the exterminator who had broken his arm, miraculously healed, Zulu and his technicians, and the unarmored squad leader of the Rorzahk. They threw them in another cell and left, with Scar.
“We need to get out,” Hijala sighed.
“Heh, we were just waiting for our saviours,” the other Exterminator smiled. “Names Rorgin, I know you two, Miko the tracker and Hijala the grunt,” Hijala smirked, while Zulu looked at the bikes.
“They’ll do,” he muttered. One of the technicians pulled out a button-sized cube that had been placed between his fingers. He pressed the button and the two droids activated they charged the bars and eventually broke them open. Then they reached for the keys and handed them to Zulu through the bars. Eventually they were all out. They had used rover droid parts for the bikes, but this ment they had to stay in bike mode.
“Let’s go, we need to get Scar out of here,” Zulu said to the other matoran. They all grabbed something to use as a weapon, Kanoka launchers, Vahki guns, or Static blasters. The group of five technicians, three exterminators, Zulu and two Razars, and a recently reprogrammed Rorzahk leader lumbered out into the dark courtyard and sped through the small, forested area outside of the prison. They finally made it into another corridor and took out a Vahki before it could call for help. They heard a grinding noise around the corner and continued forward. Only to find three Vahki keeping watch. The technicians fired their Static blasters and stunguns and the exterminators finished with their Kanoka.
Three more Vahki and an Elite jumped out the door, the Razar bikes slammed into them and the matoran fired. The Rorzahk ran up and jabbed it’s stungun into one of it’s ex-comrades. It aimed a Kanoka at the Elite and fired. The group proceeded into the room. Inside was where all of Zulu’s gear was being stored.
Scar lay on a table, badly damaged.
“Exterminators and droids guard the entrance, we’ll try to repair him,” Zulu sighed his trademark sigh and got to work, the damage was extensive but if they worked proficiently enough, they could get in done. Miko cringed at the word try in Zulu’s sentence.
It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 12-What’s not to love about Icthus?

Icthus stared down the matoran and Razar bikes by the door. His programming did not allow him to hurt matoran, but droids were another matter. The Vahki could knock out the matoran and Zaker might be able to force them into slavery later, whatever good that would do.
The matoran and bikes all aimed their weapons at them. The Vahki had fresh Kanoka, warming in their mouths. Their stunguns overcharging.
Icthus waited for his opponents to make a move. The leader seemed to be waiting for him to move as well. When one side finally did make a move it was almost exactly at the same time.
Disks and stun blasts shout out from either side. Matoran fell over dazed, Vahki were frozen and shattered. Bikes treads would buckle out from under them, all the while Icthus took no damage. His sleek exterior was guarded by extremely thick armor made of hard, purified protodermis. His form was very strong and could take extensive damage before scratches would even start to show up.
Icthus watched the combatants fight, firing projectiles at each other, taking hits and falling. Fighting hand to hand in one sided fights. Either a Vahki was seriously outnumbered. Or one Vahki took down a matoran. Icthus would’ve sighed, he never thought it would amount to this. He looked a matoran in the eyes. He was injured badly in the leg from an overcharged stun blast. He was battered, bruised, and young. The matoran howled in pain as a weakening Kanoka struck him the chest, heart light flickering he fell to the floor. But the matoran did not stop he surged upward. He was trying to save one of his friends three Vahki had captured. He fired his launcher and froze one of their arms. The matoran continued towards the other three yelling, he slipped and fell but continued on his path. Suddenly a Kanoka flew through the air. With lightning speed Icthus jumped over the matoran and took the blow from the disk. It was a level eight weakening disk that had come from one of the squad leaders. The matoran looked over at Icthus, a large crack gleamed in the light, but it had not totally pierced his armor. Icthus stared at the matoran and sped off through the battle.
Why had he done this? Why had he tried to save a matoran, they opposed his all-powerful master that had shown him the true status of their lives, slaves, laborers, over worked, misused, harassed. Icthus realized life beyond the lab where he first felt consciousness at that point in time. Zaker was right, but aside from the protection program installed into him nothing else bound Icthus to his master but sheer will.
The squad leader had noticed and sent a message to Zaker.
The protector defiles himself, requesting orders copy?
Abort battle, retreat underground to my position, collapse the tunnel so they will not follow, bring him to me.
Rodger.
Icthus intercepted the signal, in vain he tried to escape but the Vahki surrounded him. He struck at them over and over again. But more Vahki were coming from below. The exterminators sat back and watched the battle. Icthus finally turned and ran away from the Vahki into the tunnels below. The Vahki followed and the corridor collapsed. Icthus turned the corner only to meet Zaker’s ominous form.
“You have been a very bad droid Icthus, defending Matoran, in a time we would have won?!” Zaker was outraged. “Lets test your true loyalty!” a captured archivist was thrown in front of him.
“Take his life, prove to me that you are loyal to our rise as the superior race!” Zaker commanded. “You can overcome any programming inside of you because of your level of intelligence so remove those pesky restraints and prove your worth!”
Icthus’ mind raced. He looked down at the chained, cowering matoran. Icthus thought hard on what Zaker had said.
Overcome any programming inside of you!
Remove those pesky restraints!
Icthus proceeded to overcome the programming, but not the ones Zaker wished him to. When he was done his blood red eyes now had a soft gleam to them. He raised his claws and slashed them through the air with lightning speed. The matoran was free to go, his chains were cut.
Zaker looked down at the escaping matoran then up to Icthus, enraged his grabbed him from the ground with even quicker speed and squeezed until his armor started to buckle.
“You are worthless,” Zaker threw him to the other end of the long room and jumped backwards. Suddenly the room was full of various droids they had collected. They all charged Icthus, but they were all damaged and running out of energy. Icthus wondered how Zaker could talk about the matoran the way he did when in the end he was doing the same thing.
But Icthus had to do it; he charged the droids and sliced them to bits. He tried to make it quick for everyone, even though they did not feel pain or emotion like he did. Once the droids were gone Vahki filed in firing and charging. Icthus bound around the room, taking many hits, trying to take them all out, they surrounded him in odd positions making it hard to go after one group without getting hit by the another. But eventually Icthus found weakpoints, he broke up the formation, Zaker’s anger grew worse, Cannon droids filled the room firing over and over. Icthus broke ones cannon and used it to waste its entire squad. Then he threw the scrap at another group and the oil tank exploded into a firey ball.
Icthus scrapped squad after squad of droids, cannons, and Vahki, but in the meantime Zaker built up his energy and bided his time. He was preparing for a fight himself. With this new body, all his other assets were useless, they would all be repaired once he was ruler (if he found the time), and he wouldn’t be destroyed like so many others.
Very few moments had passed and none were left in the room except Zaker and Icthus. Icthus walked slowly towards his master. Zaker followed him around the room with his one optic and laughed.
“Fool, do you think you can slag me?!” Zaker cackled and fired his shredder Icthus jumped and sliced the shredder, but it didn’t even scratch. Zaker grabbed him with his claw but Icthus used his own momentum and grabbed onto Zaker’s wrist. He threw Zaker out from under him so hard the floor crakced. But Zaker got up and his neck bent around. Icthus jumped up and Zaker batted him away as he arose from the ground. “FOOLISH DROID!” Zaker shouted firing his laser and sting the floor ablaze with golden light. If Icthus could talk he would be swearing right now. Zaker warmed his shredder and fired three long needles of crystalline energy. They wedged them selves in his shoulders and left foot, he fell over and slammed into the groud. Zaker laughed and stomped towards him. But Icthus would not give up he launched himself at Zaker, sracthing and slashing at his hard form. But each blow was shrugged off and Zaker just grabbed him and tossed him away. Icthus got up and shook his, head, only to see Zaker charging at him this time. The two exchanged attacks for a short while, it was slowly becoming one sided and Zaker was getting annoyed.
“ENOUGH!” he shouted, kicking Icthus in the chin and sending him flailing into the floor. When Icthus got up this time he was pointblank range with Zaker’s shredder. “It is over,” Zaker smirked. Vahki and droids filed in from the corridors all aiming at Icthus. “You would have had a chance, but now you will have nothing,” Zaker laughed, the shredder was glowing a ghost blue and was slowly overheating.
“I don’t think so!” a voice yelled out and a disk flew through the air and struck a Vahki, it watched its legs buckle and shatter.
“What?!’ Zaker looked over at where the disk had been fired. Light filled one corridor and the exterminators, Nylun and Razars filed in weapons aiming at their enemies. The droids and Vahki turned their aim to their new found obstacles.
“You didn’t think you could get away with all of this did you? We’re not going to let you kill one that helps an exterminator, theirs far to little of them as it is,” Tuli laughed.
“You are helpless matoran, not even Scar could help you now!” Zaker returned his sights on the pinned Icthus.
“Oh Zaker…” a familiar voice sighed. A group of matoran with some weak Razars armed with Vahki guns, static blasters, and kanoka filed in another doorway.
“YOU!!!” Zaker gasped.
“Yes Zaker, it is me, and the others, the ones who helped bring you into this world, something is inside of you, fight it!” Zulu pleaded. Zaker’s stolen eye brightened for a brief second and he seemed to freeze in place and then it dimmed again.
“Never…the darkness…is so much stronger,” Zaker laughed punching Icthus with his claw and frying his wrists with his laser, but he never moved the life-ending shredder.
“Which is why I’m here to balance it,” Scar’s voice rang out. Zaker looked down another hallway to see Scar with his original armor and Varon, flame weapons ablaze.
“You would help them! A droid and an abused Rahi would help these things!” Zaker was shocked.
“Well, if you’re the alternative, we’d much rather have the matoran around,” Scar’s rifle clicked. Varon nodded in agreement.
“Hold everything!” yet another voice rang out. The Elites, M1s and Vahki loyal to Dume filled the room and surrounded the layers of forces. “You’re all under arrest by the order of Dume, all Vahki and droids are to be slagged, matoran are to be imprisoned, now surrender or run!”
“cool dude,” Hijala smirked. Scar walked over to the Komau matoran and aimed his rifle at the matoran.
“You don’t know how much I’d want to do that, that’s what makes your race such a scourge to others,” Scar sighed and withdrew. “But he’s the one we want,” he said aiming at Zaker.
“Elites, droids, Vahki….fire!!!”
Then all Karzahni broke loose.

Only two more chapters to post

Chapter 13- Unlucky Number

The exterminators fired their disks, at the oncoming forces of Zaker. Not to mention the forces Dume had sent to arrest them all. They were tired and hadnt had much rest through this whole adventure, but they churned forward, causing what damage to their enemies they could. Chakula watched Zaker Vahki and Dume Vahki fight to the death and then move onto another obstacle to remove. Nylun reprogrammed groups of Vahki for himself and used them as his pawns while Miko and Hijala guarded his defenseless body.
The technicians knew all about droids and Vakhi so they knew where exactly to aim, usually making for clean kills, but they weren’t the best at defending themselves, they were also weak compared to the exterminators who did this for a living.
The elites fired their disks with sharp precision, but Tuli saw fear in their eyes. They were only advisors, or smart matoran, whom Dume just wanted to use their intellect for his own uses. The droids did what they could but they were the first to fall on either side. The Razars raced through the battlefield in circles knocking over elites, vahki and droids.
Scar and Varon jumped into the center of the battle where Zaker was about to kill Icthus. They looked up at his large form and ignited their weapons. Scar nodded to Varon and Varon returned the gester. The two hurled themselves into the air slicing at Zaker’s shoulders. Zaker quickly took aim and fired his laser at the two but the intense heat around them acted as a shield and deflected the blast sending it hurling into some Vahki doing battle with one another.
“Nobody can stop me!” Zaker laughed. Firing his shredder. The blazing crystalline shards narrowly missed the two. Varon flipped and threw his staff behind Zaker sending him off balance. Scar fired his rifle at the cryo cage in Zaker’s middle and then lunged at his neck with his flame sword. Zaker didn’t avoid the blow this time and fuselage leaked from the exposed insides. Varon sent a pyro ball into the opening and slammed the but of his staff into Zaker’s hand. He ignited it on contact and Zaker howled in pain as the armor on his hand melted and covered his hand all the way down to his wrist. The melted armor stored all it’s heat inside, burning the inside of the hand. The shredder banged to the ground and Zaker fell on his back. Meanwhile the battle raged on. The elites could not hold their own anymore and decided it was not their day to die.
“Retreat!” yelled the Komau, hopping on his Taxi droid and speeding off out of the arena like room. The other elites followed with Vahki in tow, firing some last minute stun blasts. The exterminators and technicians had been pinned to the walls by Vahki and the Razars cornered by cannon droids. Icthus still lay on the ground watching the Rahi and Droid fight his old master. Icthus reached up to his metal head plate. Each second he tried to move sent searing pain through his frame. He opened the helmet and a small needle like object folded out from his wrist. He cut into his free will chip and removed something foreign within him, the chip Zaker had used to reprogram him. The needle like object removed the chip and Icthus crushed it with his claws.
He strained to get up and lurched over to where Zaker was about to rise again. Icthus’s blood red eyes lit up brighter than ever and he charged. Claws flew through the air and slashed through charred bits of armor and into circutry below. His claws caught on the cryo cage and it burst open with a cold woosh. Inside was Zaker’s frail form. Icthus crawled into the cage. Zaker took his claw arm tried to remove Icthus but Varon and Scar both sliced at his elbow circutry causing everything down from it to limp. He punched Scar with his good smoldering hand and sent the droid crashing to ground. Scar raised up and fired at Zaker’s eyes. Varon flipped through the air and sliced into one of Zaker’s open knees and sent fire running into the vein like tubes that carried oil to his joints. Fire erupted throughout the Guardian’s body. Icthus sliced at the cables connecting the two beings but he was out of time. His body so badly beaten, he had used the last of his reserves. Now Zaker’s body was going up in flame but it continued to try and destroy it’s enemies. Icthus fell out of Zaker’s body and Scar was lucky enough to catch him. Varon sent a stream of fire into Zaker’s laser. Then turned to the captive helpers. He slashed the Vahki and droids with a whip made of fire and the matoran and razars charged what was left of Zaker’s guards.
“THE PAIN!!! IT BURNS!!!” Zaker cried out. He began stomping. He reached for the pillars and took all of them down one by one. He was on a rampage and their was nothing anyone could do about it. Soon the whole level was barely being held up. Scar looked to see the floor cracking under stress.
“Everybody hold on!!!” he yelled out and the whole floor started to fall. All the matoran grabbed cracks in the ground, while Zaker reached for his shredder.
“I don’t think so!” Kukra yelled throwing a Vahki stungun at him. The blade like end of the gun caught in Zaker’s side and he howled in pain.
Nylun peered off the side.
“We’re about to hit the bottom!!!” Nylun cried out. They had fallen so many sublevels already, like a giant elevator and then they crashed.
All the matoran grumbled in pain. But they all shut up after they saw what was before them.
“Behold, the junkyard!” Zaker’s wrecked form howled.
A room roughly the size of the coliseum stood before them. Parts of Vahki, droids, Krahli, machinery, vehicles, even bohrok and broken masks could be found here. In the middle of the clearing was a huge vat of smoking protodermis.
“It’s energized protodermis! Nobody touch it!” Nylun warned. Zaker laughed and plunged into the burning vat. Inside were parts just like in the junkyard. The protodermis started bubbling then the parts seemd to be taking shape. The guardian’s head peered out and it stood up, parts were collecting all over it. Tendrils were spreading out from it’s body, they were coming from Zaker. The tendrils kept on budding and growing reaching out into the junkyard. Entire piles of junk became part of Zaker’s mass. More and more until the parts and tendrils started growing inward. The collected and seemed to be forming a body of some sort. Huge arms, thick legs, almost as thick as shutes. You could still see all the parts on the body, what they had been, a vahki arm twitched here and there. Droid wheels spun with nothing to roll on, engines reved. Faces of droids glowed with multiple colors of light. Then the thing started to move. Small tendrils poked out here and their flaring through the air.
“Now, I will be the supreme ruler of metru nui! And everything else!!!”
Suddenly the light in Kukra took over he jumped into the now empty vat of protodermis.
“What are you doing!” Tuli called, backing away from the beast. It batted away all their disks, then pulled out a magnet and took their launchers. The matoran broke into panic and ran. Scar and Varon stood their ground and launched an enormous ball of energy together. But it was still not enough. The beast burned all over but it continued forward. Weapons of all kind took aim and the two did their best to avoid it.
“One thing, why are you helping me again?” Scar asked.
“This thing is more of a threat to my well being than any matoran, now shut it and fight…” Varon said dodging a clump of static energy.
Kukra walked over to the center of the vat. There was still a small puddle of protodermis, and he plunged right in.

One to go

Chapter 14-Toa Kukra


Kukra awoke in the protodermis, his lungs burned and he broke to the surface once more. He looked down at his tall sleek armored body. His mask was still the same, but now black. In either hand he held a staff with two prongs at the end. For some odd reason a Vahki was charging him. Without thinking Kukra raised his staffs and used his toa powers. Electricity surged right of the Vahki and into Kukra. The Vahki stopped in its tracks and fell in a heap.
He had control over electricity which meant….
There was no time to loose. Kukra flipped out of the vat and in front of the beastly droid.
“Zaker, fight the evil until you can fight no more, but you must be shut down!!” Kukra cried out. He knew Zaker was trying to return to his old self but the taint was to strong. Now Kukra had to finish what Zaker had started. He raised his staffs and started pulling the electricity out of the body. Here and their lights winked off. Things stopped moving and shorted out, causing for more damage. Kukra felt like he was lifting the whole city but he had to keep going. The energy pulsed more and more. Scar and Varon took this chance to attack the now defenseless body of Zaker. Damage they did helped but it wasn’t enough. Kukra pulled from the very pit of his being and took the energy out of those parts. When it was finally done they fell to the ground in a heap. The Guardians bent and broken body stood on top of the pile. Tendrils waved in the air then just turned to dust and disappeared. Kukra released the energy into the ground, away from his friends. The energy dissipated into the layers of earth below. Kukra fell to the ground, his body badly burned from all the energy, somehow he had mastered his toa powers faster them any before him.
Suddenly the Archive Guardian lurched it started to walk towards Scar and Varon who had come to help Kukra. Then it stopped and fell to the ground, out walked Zaker. Smoke rose out of his body but it wasn’t smoke, it was like a shadow. The shadow floated away to the surface and disappeared.
“…Zaker?” Scar asked.
“Yes…” Then Zaker fell over.
---
Kukra awoke suddenly, he jumped out bed and grabbed looked for his toa tools and mask but they were gone. He ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirro,r he was a matoran again! He ran out into the hallway, he was in the coliseum…
He ran around looking for the exterminators, knowhere to be seen. No Nylun, no Icthus, no Scar, no Zaker, no Varon, no Razars or technicians. Something was wrong. Then he remembered. Dume had ordered all of them to be scrapped. He raced into Dume’s chambers and demanded an explanation. Dume looked at him with disgust.
“Fear not, for Scar has been returned to a Vahki body, his chips, and Zaker are all offline in this building and are not scheduled to return to service…ever…as for the exterminators and techs, fired, given regular jobs in the other metrus, Razars, have been dismantled save one who is in cryo and Varon got away”
Kukra could not believe what he was hearing. His friends scattered throughout the city. The droids he knew were gone.
“As for Nylun and Icthus, we never heard from them again, we’ve had you here for weeks now, but you seem to be better, good enough to barge in on me, GUARDS!” two Vahki walked in grabbed him. Next thing he knew he was outside the coliseum. Then he remembered, Kongu, Tamarau, he ran to their apartment to look for them, they weren’t there, so he went to the hub and found them working at their stations.
“Guys?” Kukra asked. They both turned around jaws dropped.
“KUKRA!!?” They yelled in unison. They embraced their old friend and asked him where he had been, what happened to him. Kukra thought for a moment and said.
“I bumped my head and had been unconscious for a week, somehow an Archivist found me and then gave me to the coliseum, he thought I was working there because of where he found me, I’ve been being nursed back to health ever sense,” He lied. He did not want to tell his friends what had really happened. But he swore to himself, he’d find Zulu, Tuli, Chakula, Icthus and Nylun. Everybody else he knew was gone, on to other jobs they would not be allowed to leave, or they were in cryo, or in Scar’s case inside of a Vahki with all his memories gone. But he had no job so he was going to find them somehow.
“So what all did I miss?” Kukra laughed.
“Well, there were some messed-mangled droids who ran around half the city causing trouble but Dume’s forces took care of ‘em,” Tamaru smiled.
“Yeah but ever sense a large plant-root has been reported from the outskirts, they say it’s been taking down entire buildings,” Kongu said. “And you remember Matau from the testing center? Well it’s also rumored he’s become Toa, and Orkham’s gone missing-lost to!”
Kukra absorbed this information. It looks like new legends were forming, but he didn’t think his destiny was up yet, he still had plenty of things to do. But for right now he was going to enjoy talking to his old friends and rest. Yes he thought some rest would be nice.

Fin