Wotz

IC: Noka (Fowadi Gym)

"...Do you mind if I ask what you were doing...?"

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"Good to see you too."

IC: Noka (Fowadi)

"It'll be my pleasure." She nodded, saluted and left the room, heading for the crew quarters.

Noka couldn't help but smile on her way down the corridor. She had missed this. Years ago, it had always felt like a struggle; 'Duty' always felt like a chore. But nobody talked about the Three Virtues anymore. The world had grown up - it didn't need the old ways of the Turaga anymore. She certainly didn't.

But after all of her time away, military interactions were - no matter how informal - refreshing. Everybody held respect for each other, but it was respect with distance. With space. Nobody cared about who she was, where she came from, or her favourite soup. Everybody was there with a common purpose; her thoughts were her own.

...Anyway, hammock or mattress...? Screw it, let's go for the hammock. I'm sick of mattresses.

There was an appropriately-sized compartment for her possessions. She made to leave her blade there, too, but someone entered the room. It was a Ga-Matoran sailor, with whom she made eye contact as he crossed the room to his bunk. He grabbed whatever he needed and left, most innocently. Almost without thinking, and with her eyes still lingering on the empty doorway, Noka strapped the sword back onto her back.

Internally, she said nothing, but remembered there was a gym at the other end of the corridor. When she got there, there was someone else inside, a Toa, meditating (or some such practice - it was alien to her) on the other side of the room. Good. Then he won't disturb me.

After finding a good spot, she fell forward like a pillar, and caught herself with two well-placed hands flat against the floor, proceeding into pushups. After a minute or two, she questioned herself. Rude? Is this rude? What is he doing, anyway?

She rotated her body so that she was facing him on one arm, the other behind her back, and called across the room, "I'm not disturbing you, am I...?" She slowly moved up and down unconsciously as she spoke.

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"Nor you your... Infinite beauty," I declared theatrically, enjoying the louder volume of my voice reflecting off the ice, and bowed down to a knee, twirling one of my claws comically. I was the old Zar again, my armour gleaming green, my skin unscarred; it was so easy. But it was as much a performance as my faux-simpering. I knew nothing was going to be easy now.

IC: Xaruthan (Batca- Dragon Nest)

"Mmm, almost as good, I suppose." From my tone it was evident that she looked spectacular - relatively speaking.

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

The words 'half-dead' reverberated in the cave and in my mind. They punched a hole in the door on which the memories were pounding. I felt like I needed to be closer to her, to show her we had been through it together, but I only got to stand near her - it still didn't feel right to touch her. I tried to ally us with my eyes, but there was no way of knowing what was behind hers. We were alien.

I mentally sidestepped everything and raised my arms theatrically, grinning falsely. "How do I look?"

IC: Noka (Fowadi)

"Thanks, I'll try both. What, um..." her eyes rolled back, as if searching for an appropriate phrasing behind her mask, but she didn't seem to find it by the time they returned to Kale. "...This seems like a stupid question, but what job have I been accepted for?"

IC: Xaruthan (i was thinking that like accy is The Dragon and he rules the nest? but yeah maybe just Dragon Nest? idk)

"A few weeks-?" A dumbfounded smile appeared on my face. "I thought it'd been years! My chamber's entrance had frozen over, the ice was - no, seriously - the ice was inches..."

Wait.

"...Thick..."

Inches thick.

Her expression said, Don't make me have to tell you.

"How long...?" Sorry, I need to know, my expression said back.

IC: Xaruthan (...fine. The Dragon's Nest. how bout that?)

Tentatively, I pulled up a stool and sat across from her. "Been getting acquainted then, have we...?" It felt hostile, so I tried to redirect to the topic at hand: "You didn't answer my question." My tone was hoarse; it had been a long time since my larynx had been used for anything.

IC: Xaruthan (The Batcave)

Without replying, I reentered the cave, steam hissing from my feet. My eyes met hers questioningly.

IC: Xaruthan (The Batcave)

I didn't laugh. "How long have you been awake?"

IC: Xaruthan (The Batcave)

"More than anything." I looked at her, and something was... Off. The last time we had spent a moment alone together, I looked into her eyes and it felt like she looked back - like we were the same. But I couldn't see past her eyes. I had no idea what she was thinking.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I didn't know what there was to say to her. Memories were knocking on the door, but I refused to let them in - I knew what they were, and there was no way I could look them in the eye. Not just yet. It was too early.

Looking away, I croaked over my shoulder, "I guess Aclaraung does breakfast around here, then...?"

IC: Xaruthan (The Batcave)

"You can talk." My smile was involuntary, and shortlived. I approached her as a baby taking its first steps, the snow around my feet becoming steam in neat circular patches. "Sleep well?"

IC: Aounda (The Great Takea)

I slammed the book shut. What a load of misty-eyed nonsense - to think I could have written that all those years ago. Cynical, miserable Aounda, practically furniture at the Takea at this point, writing about the Three Virtues, Wisdom and Valour like it all made sense, like there was some kind of rationale behind everything. I yearn for those days, when we could pretend the Great Spirit was somehow talking in his sleep. Now it seems like there's no escaping the bleak truth. This.

The Takea was busy today - some strange new foreigners had arrived with magnificent clothing and whatever else. Certainly, it was exciting. But excitement was far from what I was looking for when I came in that morning. Just a nice drink, that was all. Just a nice, relaxing drink to cloud the mind and discourage my prying memory from dwelling. Alas.

IC: Noka (Fowadi)

Following on from what she had just said, she added: "I spoke to the captain on deck. He said you'd be able to tell me which bunk...?" She nodded her head in the direction of the crew quarters she had walked through on the way in. Then she smirked, "I'd be willing to settle for a hammock."

IC: Various

It is often discussed what it is like to be dead - but is never discussed what it is like to never have been born.

I remember being young, growing up under his controlling wing, the black wing that blocked out the sun and reigned eternal night over our clan. I was at home. Never safe, nor secure, but at home. That was where I belonged, under the obsidian umbrella. Conditioned from the age of six to be a warrior, a killer. Convinced (and I believed, wholeheartedly) that all other beings were animals, beasts in a beast world to be tamed and enveloped by the underworld. The open sky, the fresh air, the sun, all of it, was a sin, a blight on the perfect utopia of everlasting darkness. All of the surface was to be ruled from stalactites and some brutal throne to which all inferior life would bow. We, and we alone, were permitted to roam free. But we were entombed.

All living things with the capability to dwell, at some point, on what it might be like to be something other than alive. What is it like to be dead? I happen to be among the few with the unique privilege of knowing the answer to that question. Only, there is no language built to relay the experience, because none who speak exist in death. They simply cease to be.

It is never discussed what it is like to never have been born, because there is no experience to be related. Before birth, there is nothing. It is naturally assumed, by those living, with no point of reference, that to be dead is much the same. But it isn't even close.

To be dead is to be entombed. (Your agency is robbed; you are no longer yourself.) The black wings that shield away the world, become a world, and your non-reflection is laid bare, until there is nothing but darkness, and endless void. (All life is beneath you; it is other.) Only in a state of death do you walk the earth a zombie, mindless and empty, plaguing the living with your never-ending hunger for consciousness, your thirst to exist being the only semblance left of an identity concept. (Through death you become it; throw death upon all.)

None who are dead speak of life, for it is they who have never been born. When we were exposed to the light, we were exposed to true life. We saw Ignotus, the keeper of we, the dead, in his true colour - not black, nor void, but a very, very, very dark blue. Where there is colour, there is life, and where there is life, it can be killed. It became my mission, then, to degrade death, to humiliate him, torture him, and kill him, then kill his memory and its children. All I dreamt of was him and his utter obliteration. It was my sole fantasy. Our - my - glorious leader, smeared off the face of history like a dust darter, vaccinated from the ingrown pores of our race; my dreams were those of birth. A first birth for all Mystix kind, from the darkness into the light - and we could already see the end of the tunnel.

I knew my destiny.

But destiny is a fickle Mahi - horned and temperamental. I moved too quickly and too soon; I was disgraced, cast out from his dark wing and discarded into the grey caves of limbo, purposeless and empty. My destiny was a hopeless facade. Soon, one of those rogue horns would impale me, cold steel in my chest, my back, my bussy, and my ballsack. I wish my last breath had taken just a little longer. Perhaps then I could've appreciated the irony. I might've laughed.

What is it like to have never been born? It is to betray the betrayer of trust, be betrayed again in turn, and stabbed in the back by a stranger. Then, a moment of nothing passes, a moment that spans from creation to destruction - millennia - and from destruction to creation - eons - nothingness and every single individual moment in the whole of time all at once. Beyond light and darkness, apathy and desire, within and without. All values mean nothing to you. You are a naked flame on a bed of nails.

Then, somehow, I returned. Somewhere in the eternal oblivion was an opening, all of my nothingness was sucked through by the vacuum, forced through a gap an atomic fraction of my size. After that, I was back. I wasn't me, but I was still myself, and I was back - but not better. I have to confess, it wasn't a pleasant experience. For six months, I wished I had stayed dead. Besides the searing taste of superheated bile, chilblains, and the crushing overload of all my fully-functional senses firing at full power, was the traumatic image of my final frame—the last image I had seen, and the feeling of dying. I may talk learnedly of what it is like to be dead, and to have never been born, but dying is a very real, dread-soaked sensation. It haunted me for six months; for six months, I was in delirium. I was still the unidentified corpse kept in cold storage in the hopes that someone might come and at least explain the death rites for this strange species. I was still the forgotten body, a nobody used as fodder in some sick game or other. My muscles, cartilage and flesh tore through their long and painful recovery from semi-decomposition, while my mechanical parts carried them (barely) from cave to cave, a winged, broken shell.

By the time I could think straight, I was already single-mindedly assembling a small army of mercenaries to act as cannon fodder in my fight against Ignotus - but they would never be paid. The job would never even take place.

Death was over - I had been born, like all who live, against my will. It was his brother who had killed him and forced me to breathe free air. Was I grateful? Yes. Did it also fill me with bitter resentment? Indeed. I'd believed until then that the reason I had come back, or defeated death, was to kill Ignotus, my oblivion. Now, again, my destiny had been torn from me like a child stolen from its mother. Yet I found myself under a new wing nonetheless, this time not suffocated by a deathly embrace, but instead incarcerated in an open prison. Zarnarax's feigned benevolence easily seduced me. Here, I thought, was a true leader, one I could follow. It seemed so natural to slip back into subservience and ignore, comfortably, the blatancy of his sadism.

My illusion was short-lived, however. It was Aru who saved me, the demon's daughter, but where the demon was a toxic fume she was clean air, fresh water. And, rarely seen, there was Flame-of-Summer-Sun, Aclaraung of golden scales, whose ancient eyes slept open and vigilant. Did the two of them meet at that time? Was the plot to topple the new order not mine, as I had been allowed to think, but the work of Ignotus' most ancient enemies? I have never had the chance to ask. In my darkest nightmares, I learn that I am nothing but a tool, replaceable and devoid of agency. I try to take control, but the spectres of the unknown plague me until I think I am dead, again and again, and my only life is lost at last.

 

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Onu-Wahi. One week before Makuta’s defeat.

The criteria for the meeting were simple: For starters, He had to be busy. Secondly, the chamber couldn’t be too large, or have many entrances - it didn’t matter if the attendees were Aru’s former conjoined twins; they weren’t to be trusted. I knew that much from experience. 

While the premise of the meeting may have been straightforward, the actual timing was immensely tricky; the Initiations only took place on sporadic occasions, according to the whims of Zarnarax. This was the only time when Zarnarax would be sufficiently occupied for us to hold our covert meeting. 

There was no message sent out, nor a signal. Everyone knew to keep their eyes peeled for when the window was open, and immediately assemble in the antechamber. On at least two occasions, meetings had to be called off because our cover was nearly blown by some clutz or other. Zarnarax knew, he must have, that we were planning something. Only, to suppress our uprising he ran the risk of nobody talking, and thus no evidence, which didn’t exactly line up with his ‘by-the-book’ image. Regardless, all we needed was one meeting to form a plan - then it was only a matter of time.

Ensuring the small party of Mystix we had assembled was here in its entirety, and hearing someone slide the cave entrance shut, my eyes spared the group my suspicious glare and drifted over to Aru. I was still in awe of her dummy thicc thighs determination to topple our deceptive leader, not least because he was her own father - it had taken me my entire lifetime to even see Ignotus as a mortal, let alone to recognise that my faith in him was a forgery, even longer yet to bite his poisonous hand. I didn’t know the first thing about her, but I felt a certain sense of kinship with her, a certain familiarity.

There was something ironic about the fact that I was finally enacting a years-old plan to decapitate the Mystix cult, but on the wrong cult and the wrong leader. I found some pointless consolation in the fact that the antechamber was about the same as I had remembered.

 

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The darkness.

The cold, empty darkness, quiet save for the occasional drip of water somewhere deep within. He detested the darkness. He longed, as ever, to be out in the air, soaring among the mountains, delighting in the rays of the sun beating down upon his scale-armored body. To dive down from the heavens, tackling some unsuspecting prey and claiming his kill. He longed for the light.

For outside.

But as always, there were tasks to do, and this task brought him deep within the caves. Caves he’d been trapped in for so long, forced to suffer the indignities thrust upon him by the bat-kin. Always the other, denied even the barest scraps of respect. Always treated as something unsavory. Something lesser.

“No more.”

The words’ echo quietly spread, barely registering as recognizable language each time it came back to him. It was a vow, his own quiet promise to himself that he would never suffer such treatment again. A vow that would soon be sealed in blood.

For the Mystix had accrued quite a debt to him, over the years, and in one day he intended to repay them in kind.

“No more will these delusions of dominion be allowed to persist. No more will these spurious claims of supremacy be heeded.”

His sinuous, serpentine tail coiled around one of the supports holding up the roof of another tunnel, before yanking it aside quickly. Immediately, that branch caved in, throwing dust up in the dark, winding caves. So far out from where the others were situated, the sound would scarce be likely to be noticed, over the constant, small tremors that they had grown so accustomed to.

Aclaraung closed his eyes against the dust that rose; while his sense of hearing wasn’t so heavily developed as the cave-rats he sought, it was still sharp, as was his sense of smell; both could easily guide him to the cavern that was his goal. And all along the way, another branch cut off, another path to the open air rendered unusable. Coinciding with all those that had already collapsed in times past, whether while they were all trapped below or in more recent years. Some accidental, some by those who rebelled against Ignotus’s rule, and some during the tumultuous shift of power after Ignotus’s death.

And so, as he walked, the all-too-familiar web became a maze—

A labyrinth—

A hunter’s trap.

 

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“Keep your voices down!” I snapped, and the room descended into silence. I continued in a hushed tone. “We all know why we’re here. We can’t afford to risk being overheard.” 

Having said that, I moved in a little closer and gestured for the others to shuffle inwards as well. A brutish, but well-spoken Mystix to my right was still holding the chisel he had been working with in the main hall outside, which I gently relieved him of and knelt down. I began drawing a bat’s-eye view of the entrance to the initiation chamber, pointing with the chisel at individuals around the room and back at markings on the map, assigning roles, positions, everything about how the ambush was to take place, but without a single word uttered. Months had been spent mentally rehearsing this part, and we were banking on the other attending members of our little revolt having done the same.

Like clockwork. Wasn’t that what Xar had said when they first began planning? Or maybe that was just what Aru herself had thought at the time. It was, after all, more like her to think of war and politics as machinery.

Xar, on the other hand, made it sound like a dance, as if planning a revolt was the same as laying out choreography. Steps and timing and positions. Aru had never known revolution to be so elegant, and she wondered - not for the first time - if Xar was truly prepared for the blood and chaos that would follow when his grand designs met reality. Still - now wasn’t the time for doubts. She was committed, and she could not allow her appearance of confidence to falter, not this late in the game. And so she stood at Xar’s side, watching silently as he reduced civil war to lines in the dirt.

 

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Before long, he found himself at the threshold.

Aclaraung gazed at the great stone door, taking in every detail, every last little scratch that had not yet been worn smooth by time’s passing, as the flickering light of his flame passed over it. Just a bit longer—a few hours at most—and that door would be sealed forevermore, the final chapter of Ignotus and his bat-kin brought to a close.

Ignotus.

The thought of the name threatened to make the rage contained in Aclaraung’s chest explode prematurely. Ignotus. The petty king. The worm emperor. The ringleader of these Mystix, and the one who had cemented Aclaraung’s place of disfavor amongst the flying rats. Yet, for all Ignotus had done to secure his rule, to eliminate any possibility of challenge, Aclaraung had seen the records. Old correspondences, ‘court records,’ and histories.

Many had been destroyed, to ensure that none questioned the Lord of the Caverns in his right to rule. But others were still partially legible. And they spoke of many things; a diplomatic mission, a land over the oceans, far past the horizon, the twinkling of starlight, the heat of high noon. Over all, they spoke of a different leader, a different patriarch of a different people.

They spoke of himself. Aclaraung, He-of-Golden-Scale, Flame of the Summer Sun.

They were his vindication after countless cold years of ignominy beneath the dirt.

 

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There was something wrong. Something was in the room. Someone. I froze in place, the chisel still midway through etching the east side of a pincer maneuver. I dared not look up, I couldn’t - yet somehow I knew what was there, at the back of the room, in the corner of the eye. The dreams of self-immolation, the inner death of my preborn self; yes, I knew what was next. My eyes crept upwards, and I saw it before me, black wings in shadow: my destiny. 

The others were growing steadily more uncomfortable, unsure whether to break the silence to try and snap me out of it, then - SLAP!

Okay, so, that was slightly harder than intended. Either way, it had done the trick - Xar seemed to be (vaguely) lucid again. “If you’re gonna throw up, you probably shouldn’t do it on your battle plan.”

I looked up - not at Aru, but at the suspicious eyes of our cohorts. I was losing them. Some of the ones further back were whispering amongst themselves.

 

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One clawed hand raised to rest upon the portal. For a moment, he felt himself caught in the liminality; the unmistakable knowledge that this entrance represented a fundamental shift in his existence. A departure of what it had been, an egress from the shame, and a pathway to what should be.

The light of the flame disappeared without warning, leaving Aclaraung in total darkness. Alone with his thoughts, before he would leap over the precipice into a new realm of existence. “I know not through what sorcery you stole my memory from me, emperor of rats and parasites,” he whispered, each sibilant hissing out slowly, dangerously—as though the steam from a kettle soon to boil over.

“I know not how you made me forget my birthright. But I never forgot my place. Neither did you, and yet you ensured so many of your followers did, even if they should have known better.”

The claws tapped lightly, impatiently, against the stone hatch.

“A pity I could not invite this retribution upon you as well. Nonetheless, cousin, know that your unworthy children shall suffer this punishment as well, for so blindly believing your lies.” He pushed, hard, and the door slid open at his command.

 

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Before I could respond, I could hear the stone door slide aside. Were they leaving? Or… No.

I rose to my feet. He was here.

 

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Empty, at first, save for the voices, ever so quiet, of those who were awake. The grinding of the door covered the growl that he could hold no longer as he moved forwards, into the halls he’d hated for so long. Eyes narrowed as he cast his head about, carefully watching for any possible ambush. He could not risk losing his surprise so easily, so worthlessly. A moment passed, silent, still, tense, before, in satisfaction, he continued onwards.

 

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Zarnarax allowed each step he took into the antechamber to echo, savouring the moment, casting his cold blue eyes over the room, before finally settling on Xaruthan’s. This, he silently told him, is true power. To walk into a room, and have all eyes on you.

 

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He crept, slowly, quietly, along the hard stone floors in the halls of the Mystix. Toward the central chambers, where he knew many of them would be, save Zarnarax and his lieutenants, who by now had likely come to confront Xaruthan and Learu. For once, he did have something to thank Ignotus’s brood for; they’d at least seen fit, in their grandiosity, to expand the size of every passageway. It made maneuvering his own bulk around in the darkness easier.

Ahead, he could sense them, he could smell them. There were few who were sleeping in the normal way, but the majority had settled into their hibernations. To sleep away the years until memories were lost and they could more safely wander the island above, seeking to subvert the rule of the Matoran to install themselves as rulers.

Zarnarax, foolish Zarnarax, just as imperially minded as his brother, but trusting too much in his own honeyed words to realize that the very idea was foolish.

“No more will the lies be perpetuated.” Claws scraped against hewn granite tiles as he pulled himself deeper into the heart of his foes’ territory. “No more will the minds be polluted, and the souls turned towards the sin of such overweening arrogance.” The growl built deeper within his chest. Animalistic, predatory, in a way that only one among the bats would understand.

The same scheming, ignorant schlemiel who’d thought Aclaraung’s ambitions amounted merely to re-sealing him and his ilk. And even then, that same bat was more inclined to trick and deceive, rather than to subdue and kill.

He stopped in the center of the chamber. Up above, even in the very dim light of nearly fully covered lightstones, he could see the many Mystix that hung from the ceiling, already in slumber.

 

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Had her father ever actually looked intimidating before?

His pristine white complexion had certainly stood out, surrounded by caves and darkness as he always was, but it marked him as a misfit. The spikes of ice on his armour, likewise, had always seemed a vanity. But flanked either side by his loyal followers, standing at the mouth of the cavern, his chin stained red…

Zarnarax noticed the looks focused on his chin, and chuckled drily, wiping it clean with the back of his taloned hand. “Well, I suppose the cat’s out of the bag now. Not that anyone in this room will live to tell.”

Suddenly, it all clicked into place: “In you flows the very stuff that makes us what we are, and it would be a shame to lose that." The way he had looked at Zaruthan from the start, that perverted lust in his eyes - I thought I was imagining it. He wasn’t eager to recruit another enemy of Ignotus, he saw something, he knew… My blood!

Immediately after Zarnarax spoke, I stepped forward and unleashed three beams of plasma from my fingertips at him and his two front-most bodyguards. Not a complicated maneuver. I wasn’t yet so accustomed to this element like I had been for that of air, but I was only trying to buy some time to let the others spread around the room a little.

 

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”MYSTIX!

His voice thundered in the cavern, echoing far. Many of them began to stir in confusion, shaking awake those others near them.

Aclaraung reared up to his full height, one arm languidly grasping around the skull of one of the Mystix still stirring.

And he pulled.

The bat screamed, forced to full wakefulness as its legs snapped apart from being so forcefully yanked from the cavern’s apex.

Then the blood-curdling screech was cut immediately short, as the dusty grey floor exploded in a shower of red under the dragon’s grasp. He threw the limp body aside, where it collided with one wall with a dull, lifeless thump. The building growl shifted into the laughter of anticipation.

“Wake up, my precious flying rats. Ignotus isn’t here to safekeep you. Zarnarax himself shall be gone soon enough. Now, however, is the hour of your reckoning.” Many of them dropped, still groggy, to the floor, landing carefully.

Watching him warily, some already with knives in hand.

Good.

 

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And just like that, the spell holding the room in stunned silence was broken. Before she could even blink, Zarnarax had grabbed one of his bodyguards by the arm and physically thrown him into the path of the plasma. The other bodyguard, moving almost as quickly, rolled out of the way - but not before his shoulder was scorched by the blast.

“Don’t be like that,” Zarnarax snarled, sidestepping the screaming mass of melted metal and melted man that had fallen to its knees in front of him. He gently laid his palm on the once-bodyguard’s face, and silenced it with a spike of ice directly through its eye. “Weren’t you the one who wanted to avoid bloodshed?”

The façade was gone, then. I knew he had been hiding his true self, Aru told me as much. But to see his mask be discarded in such a brutal display was sickening. I looked at each of his entourage in turn, my eyes pleading - but there was no point. They belonged to him, just as I had once belonged to Ignotus. Their agency was robbed; they were no longer themselves.

“The blood is on your chin, Zarnarax.” I threatened him again with a ring of ionised earth around where he was standing. “Believe me, the last thing I want is for anyone else to die. This is your last chance to fly, before I render you unrecognisable.”

“Funny, I was about to say something rather similar myself.” Mentally, he reached into the ice on his armour, and-

The torrent of water burst forth without warning, taking even Aru herself off guard as it swept Xar off his feet. Her father pounced on the opportunity, freezing the floored Mystix in place. And then he turned to Aru, and her heart dropped into her stomach. He looked… proud. I’m sorry.

This didn’t make any sense. This didn’t make any sense. This-

“Aru-? What?!”

Zarnarax’s lips twisted into a smile, baring his bloodstained teeth, as he kept his gaze on Aru. “Ah. He didn’t know.”

He stepped over the fused heap of metal and flesh in front of him, approaching Xaruthan. “I thought you might have figured it out by now. After all, blood is thicker than water.”

I’m sick of this #####.

Zarnarax, his reflexes as fast as they were, still didn’t have time to defend against the next torrent of water - only to turn towards it, allowing Aru a split second in which to savour his surprise. As her father was thrown back, she saw the perplexed looks on the faces of ally and enemy alike. “Well? What the Karz are you all waiting for?”

 

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“Not one of you is blameless in the sin which has encompassed your tribe. Not one of you in this room kept themselves pure of the Worm-Emperor’s delusions or the Vampire’s lies. However, despite the years of mistreatment you subjected me to, the decades of ignominy, the centuries of indignity, I am not without mercy.” He launched forth a gout of flame, the heat melting away the covers that shrouded the lightstones around the exit.

“Many of the tunnels have collapsed,” he stated, though the ominous undertone of his words clearly wasn’t missed by his audience. “But paths to the surface still remain. Should you find your way into the clear air, then you have my word: You will be safe from my retribution. But know this, little mice—I will be hunting you.”

He leaned in towards the closest, who involuntarily stepped back.

”Every.”

He turned again, rapidly, and the group backed away.

”Last.”

He could hear the rustling of others, their armour shifting as they lifted their small knives.

”Step.”

His mouth split into a wide, predatory grin.

“I was even nice enough to leave your weapons down here, though I’ve moved them throughout all the tunnels. Should you find them, and attack me...know that you will at least have my respect, for once in your miserable, worthless existences. And if you should kill me, well, you’ll all be safe, won’t you?”

One rushed him. He swiped lazily with a wing, knocking the thin, would-be-warrior to the floor, and pinning him down. “I certainly invite you to try.” His gaze shifted downwards, drinking in the fear in the young bat’s eyes.

With a heave of his mighty shoulder, the armour crunched inwards. Bones shattered, lungs and heart were punctured. The bravest of the lot died not with a yell of defiance, but in a whimper of agony.

The great yellow eyes rose again, the grin unchanged. “My little flying mice.” His voice dropped to a whisper.

”Run.”

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

His head was swimming. As he picked himself back up, Zarnarax saw- Chaos.

A tongue of flame whipped past him and he dodged, ducking just in time to miss a fist of stone that swung towards him. Learu - his Learu - had one of his faithful drowning in a sphere of water, holding off another with her bare hands. What was that sound-

His attacker’s punch connected this time, leaving him reeling, with just enough wherewithal to impale them on a spit of ice, which he quickly retracted back into his armour. What in the-

Zarnarax looked up just in time to see my two clawed feet hurtling towards him in a flying dropkick. 

The attack sent him back momentarily - I took that split-second to scan the room. It was bedlam; in that small snapshot I already witnessed someone I didn’t recognise getting blinded by jets of flame, and another ripped in half at the midsection by, I assumed, a manipulation of gravity.

By the time my gaze arrived back at Zarnarax, he was beginning to recover. I was about to follow up when I realised I was still holding the chisel from earlier; clutching it tight, I willed it to heat up to just below its melting point, then launched it like an oversized dart at Zarnarax’ torso.

As quick as ever, Zarnarax grabbed the projectile in mid-air - a reflex he quickly regretted as he hissed in pain and let it clatter to the ground, clutching his wrist. “You insolent RAT!”

In the instant he spent closing the distance with Xaruthan, he had sheathed his burnt hand in a blade of ice, its point on a collision course with Xar’s throat.

I leaned back and whirled my body around in such a way that the knife narrowly missed my jugular. The maneuver nearly cost me my balance, but I shifted my weight onto my right wing and cartwheeled into the air, where I hung from a stalactite for a second to catch my breath. I smacked my lips. There was a taste in my mouth.

Looking down, I saw that, while he had indeed missed my jugular, Zarnarax had snuck in another slash before I was out of arm's reach, splitting my abdomen. Glowing fluid oozed out, but for now, it was only skin deep. Plus, I was going to make him regret it.

Gobbing a mouthful of searing-hot spit at my fast-approaching opponent, I swooped down to tackle him to the ground.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Many scattered, disappearing into the tunnels like rabbits into their warrens. Aclaraung watched them with a careful eye, taking note of each tunnel taken, where each route could lead, before returning his full attention to the few that now stood surrounding him. He circled his head around warily, taking count of his current foes. Five.

Disappointing.

“Know this, children of the catacombs,” he rumbled, bringing his head low to the floor, muscles tensing, ready to pounce. “This sacrifice of yours has earned some small respect, an honour that none of your cowardly kin possess. I’ll remember you as the few who were brave enough to stand against the oncoming destruction.” With the scent of blood on the air already, he could spare no more words. The glow of energy spread quickly from his chest, travelling up his neck in a split second.

And when next he opened his jaws, the first of the doomed protectors fell as he was consumed in a gout of flame, blackened armour sliding off a charred corpse. Reduced to ash before he even had a chance to scream. The others, though, let loose their battle cry; the dragon wheeled around, raising a wing to protect his head as a barrage of sharp spikes of ice flew for him.

Many bounced off the leathery membrane or shattered on his scales; some few, however, penetrated, sublimating to steam upon meeting the heat of his blood. He swatted outwards, and the Mystix flew into the wall. Another stabbed at his flank, managing to slip their knife between his scales before he shifted away, turning the thrust into a thin cut. His tail whipped up, catching that one’s neck and slamming him to the ground.

Then a hard impact between his shoulder blades, the last attempting to find purchase atop his back. Aclaraung rolled, wiping her off onto the rough granite floor before coming upright again. The short battle paused, each would-be ‘hero’ dazed by the impacts they’d sustained.

”Hmph.”

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Zarnarax dropped down and slid forward on the very same ice that he formed into a spike behind him, shooting up to intercept Xaruthan’s path. His smugness was short-lived - a clawed foot shot out and pinned him to the floor, his daughter at the other end of it. If she expected him to hesitate in striking her down, she was mistaken; ice jutted from his chest armour, throwing Aru off balance as he got to his feet.

The ice pierced my wing, I winced as I turned my fall into a roll, and by the time I was back up the pain was suppressed. Seeing his attention taken by Aru - whose side was she on? - I fired three concentrated beams of plasma at Zarnarax, one after another, each lasting about a second in duration.

Oh #####.

Once again, his reflexes failed him - with his attention on Aru, he noticed Xar’s attack a fraction of a second too late. He was alive, and he had scrambled out of the way of the latter two blasts, but not without cost.

His left eye was watering - he blinked it back. He still needed his one good eye.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Aclaraung moved towards the one he’d caught with his tail, stomping down upon the neck of the earth-wielding Mystix who’d tried to jump atop him, rather than simply bury him. Her heaving breaths turned instantly to choked gasps of pain, her crushed trachea unable to draw in air. His claws wrapped around the other’s neck, pinning him to the floor.

“Aclaraung,” he gasped, reaching up to try, futilely, to loosen the grip. The dragon watched the struggle dispassionately, cocking his head to the side in the mildest of curiosity. “P-plea—”

Snap.

The earth Mystix rapped her heels against the floor, brought to convulsions even as her lips were turning as blue as her eyes. He stepped over her, this time, towards the ice-wielder who he’d slammed into the wall. That one was starting to stand, though his eyes were still hazy, unfocused from the impact.

His last word came in a strangled, agonizing gasp as Aclaraung pinned him back to the wall, claws dug deep into his abdomen and wrapped around something. “Why?”

The great scaled head turned, one large, golden eye trained upon him. “Your kind have a debt to me, Traxus,” he snarled, and yanked backwards. Traxus fell to the blackness swiftly, his last sight being Aclaraung, covered in blood—his blood, spirits forbid—and a trail of detached viscera that flew to splatter against the opposite wall.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Aru felt nauseous. The entire right side of her father’s face was-

White armour had turned black and charred, melting over his eye, his mouth, trapping his face in an excruciating snarl. Ice crept up his neck to cool the burn, but steamed when it made contact. She winced - and then realised-

He barely even had time to register that he was choking. The steam condensed around his head - Learu. As usual, the girl was surrounded by puddles - for the first time, he was glad instead of disappointed that her element had taken after her mother - and he froze her to the spot, breaking her concentration long enough for him to launch the same - now frozen - water she had tried to drown him with directly at her, before refocusing his attention on Xaruthan.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Arctan ran, heart pounding in his ears.

He’d already lost track of how long he’d been running. Ever since Aclaraung had first told them to. He’d already run into three different dead ends, deep in the web of tunnels. Aclaraung had picked and chosen which supports to break, which tunnels to collapse, very well; even for one with power over the earth like himself, it would take too long to clear each one. Nevermind trying to use his element to dig himself out in a straight line.

“Too deep,” he muttered to himself, panting heavily. “Too deep. Too far. Too much.”

It was stupid, all of it. Ignotus’s dreams of conquest, Zarnarax’s plans of subversion. The way that he had helped raise this generation of Mystix to worship the ideals of power and dominion above all else. How he had helped Ignotus to easily deny Aclaraung’s own status to the other Mystix.

How he’d even completely lost track of which direction he was going. Zarnarax was yet somewhere within the tunnels, he knew. He just had to find him. Perhaps, together, they could save themselves.

He came to a stop in a relatively open cavern, catching his breath. As he did so, he strained his ears, listening—and his breath caught in his throat. “No,” he whispered. “Not now. Not so soon.” He could hear the sound of others falling beneath the scaled beast’s claws and teeth, and when that stopped, he heard the dragon’s bounding stride, claws scraping the rock, coming down the tunnels.

Arctan did the only thing he could think to do. He lifted into the air, crawling up to the ceiling of the cavern and curling up as small as possible. The aged Mystix couldn’t run fast enough to escape the dragon, but perhaps he could avoid notice by hiding in the darkness, being as still and quiet as possible.

He even held his breath as Aclaraung burst into the space, crouched low to the floor, eyes open and wary as he looked through the cavern. There was no light, Arctan wasn’t making any sound; there was no way the dragon’s eyes could catch him, so long as he didn’t loose any flame.

He tried to shrink into himself more as he heard Aclaraung’s sniffing, and his reptilian tongue sliding between his teeth, tasting the air. Eventually, just as he was beginning to feel lightheaded, Aclaraung continued on past, down one of the side tunnels. Arctan permitted himself a small sigh of relief, and began to uncurl his body—

Just to feel white-hot teeth sink into his shoulder.

But that pain didn’t compare whatsoever to the agony that came as Aclaraung ripped him down, throwing him to the floor. Somewhere beyond the immediate, mind-consuming, torturous waves that raced along his nervous system, he could recognize that his legs were ruined. Blinking away the tears, he looked down to where his ankles were supposed to be, and realized he was screaming.

“You thought you could escape me so easily, Arctan?” he heard the dragon say in his harsh, deep, guttural, almost unnatural voice. Somehow he found the will to stop screaming, and noticed Aclaraung slinking towards him with a predatory glare. He rolled over onto his front, clawing at the ground, pulling himself away, only to be held down by the same legs he’d never walk on again, superheated claws instantly cauterizing the wounds at his knees.

“I was hoping to find you most of all, record-keeper,” the hateful creature said. “Or shall I say destroyer? Tell me, how many centuries of history have been lost by your working with Ignotus? What power do you have now of what he promised you? What about the others that once led your kind? Did you help discredit and ruin them, as you sought to do with me?”

The claws released him, and he resumed his mad crawl towards one of the cavern’s exits. He couldn’t even register the laughter behind him.

“Crawl, Arctan, and see what your arrogance has earned you! Where is your superiority now? How now can you claim to stand above any Matoran? Crawl, scribe, and see if your new precious master can save you, see if you can still be made viceroy like you dreamed of!”

Had this been any other time, he might have had the presence of mind to feel insulted at Aclaraung’s words, but all he had was terror. He didn’t even notice when Aclaraung left him behind to hunt down the other tunnels, propelled onward along the floor through nothing more than the sheer imagination that Aclaraung hunted him still.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

The room was starting to feel emptier. I looked down - a pool of blood flowed beneath me, diluted with something else - no time to get distracted. Can’t even check on Aru-

I looked up to the ceiling and obliterated the base of the stalactite I had been hanging from only moments before, and was now directly above Zarnarax’ position. This I followed up with a wave of molten rock, torn up like a carpet from the cave floor in front of my enemy.

The stalactite struck ground less than an inch from where Zarnarax’s head had been mere seconds before, the molten rock colliding with it before his eyes. Eye. Singular. For that, I will make sure you suffer.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Somewhere along the line, the noise had subsided, at least for the moment. The screams had ceased, there was no echo of rushing flame or harsh laughter through the tunnels.

Somehow, Atare found that worse.

At least when he heard others screaming, he knew Aclaraung wasn’t right behind him. That was a luxury he’d lost within the last few minutes. Not only that, he’d already found himself blocked off at three different routes to the exit, and was forced to backtrack.

Again.

“What is this?” he complained, petulantly, into the mostly-silent tunnels. “I deserve better than this.” And he did! He’d put his faith and trust into Ignotus and Zarnarax, just like he was supposed to. Why now should he be punished like this? And all because of that scaled giant!

Atare reared back one arm, hurling a stone he’d been fiddling with down one of the tunnel branches. Unfortunately for Atare, he’d not taken too close a look down said tunnel, before hearing the rock bounce off of something hard and metal; and he froze to the spot, almost paralyzed by fear, as a great eye opened.

“You do?”

Oh no.

“Poor, devoted Atare, never receiving his dues.”

Atare couldn’t take it anymore. He lashed out, sending a gout of flame in Aclaraung’s direction, only to be met by one stronger from the scaled beast in turn. He fell back, tripping over his own feet to the floor, but just as he thought the flame would consume him it fell short, leaving the air clear.

Just Aclaraung, waiting expectantly, who nodded down another tunnel. “Walk. You haven’t far to go to see the rewards of your loyalty.”

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Her father’s attack was clumsy - it took Aru full on, and still could only have left bruises at most. Whether he had hesitated to kill his own blood, or he was simply being worn down and his attention split in too many directions, she was thankful for it, and set to freeing herself.

Turned out, she needn’t have bothered - the earth below her feet was torn up and tossed against the cavern wall, Aru along with it. Her head spinning, she managed to pick out her attacker - not that it was hard. The room was a bloodbath, corpses strewn everywhere, stabbed or crushed or torn limb from limb. Are we… the only ones left?

She was swiftly brought back to reality by a gut punch from the Mystix with the melted shoulder, who looked positively gleeful at being one of the final few left standing. Before she could hit back, she felt the wall burst forth behind her, closing around her wrists.

And then, she felt the cavern wall deform once again; this time, constricting her throat.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Without much choice, Atare got up, and with the dragon at his back, he walked. And walked; evidently ‘not far’ for Aclaraung was further than he’d ever consider describing in such terms. “What is this?” he asked, peevishly, after another minute or two. He could already feel the air growing dead, as they walked further from any route that led to the exit.

“Light your way and see.”

So he raised a hand, a small orb of flame within it, and looked onwards. The tunnel opened up slightly ahead of them, into a small little alcove, but within it...His blood ran cold again. Corpses. Not even fresh ones, but a few that he’d known missing for a while, each unmoving, cold, and frightfully pale.

“Tell me, Atare, how long were you from your initiation into Zarnarax’s circle?” Aclaraung asked, his voice harsher than usual. “You were so excited for it, weren’t you? Even after your own sister disappeared after hers. You honestly believed what he’d said, didn’t you? That she’d been sent out to scout the Matoran? But somewhere, you had to know. Yet you remained ever focused on yourself.”

Claws at his back shoved him roughly, and he stumbled forward, landing with a yelp in the embrace of the dead. He pushed up, tried to get his footing, and stumbled again as the arm he planted one foot on slipped beneath him.

“This is your reward for your service, Atare.”

Wood splintered and cracked behind him; he rolled over just in time to see Aclaraung rapidly moving back, the tunnel collapsing behind him.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

My eyes darted between Zarnarax and Aru, trying to prioritise - the enemy was nearly defeated, and she had nearly betrayed us all earlier-

Us all? Who? I looked around the room at the carnage, body parts external and internal jumbled into an indecipherable mass that infested the cave floor. ‘The enemy is nearly defeated’: what a pointless concept! Some of us had to survive, or all of this would all have been for nothing.

Chucking a wad of heat at Zarnarax, I whirled around and tore across the room towards Aru’s attacker, springing off a corpse into the air and down onto his back. So focused was he by his sadistic glee that he didn’t even notice until I landed on him, rolled backwards and kicked him overhead. 

The Mystix slammed into something, it didn’t matter what, and I was on him in seconds. His feet already melting, he roared in pain as I stabbed my fingers up through his lower jaw, and ripped the armour from his chest, superheated it, and impaled him with it.

Leaving the degraded corpse to slide to the ground, I turned back to look for Zarnarax. I couldn’t see him anywhere at first, until-

“How very gallant of you, Xaruthan.” Zarnarax’s words were a slurred hiss, but the gleam in his eye made it all too clear that his agony had only made his mind sharper. He shoved his scorched fist further into the small of Xar’s back, jamming the blade of ice even deeper. “How fitting that you should die the same way as your precious Ignotus.”

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

“Take the sword, idiot. This is no time to hold yourself to ancient customs, not when your life is at stake!”

Cerax couldn’t stand the pair she’d found herself with. Brothers, but two of the most old-fashioned, conservatively minded to be found within the tunnels. Still, at least they’d agreed that they needed to try and turn the tables on the dragon, hunt him down rather than be hunted. To that end, they’d been walking back towards the last sounds of fighting they’d heard, eyes—and more importantly, ears—open to any sudden changes.

It didn’t help that Aclaraung had always been hard to recognize down in the tunnels, whenever light didn’t hit him and shine off his scales. It was that shape. That cursed, reptilian shape, so long and low, and the scales that deflected sound around him as badly as some of the rough-hewn tunnels further out from the central chambers did. Why couldn’t he have just been a proper Mystix? She wouldn’t have trouble finding him then.

She didn’t even notice the mass on the tunnel ceiling that she walked under, covered in blood and dust so that it didn’t shine like before.

“Blasted dragon. Why couldn’t he just accept the way things are supposed to be?” One of the brothers whined, the other grunting agreement beside him. “There’s no way he’s even Mystix, with a body like that.” His scales bristled in anger, still unnoticed as the trio passed fully beneath him, his breath held to avoid giving himself away.

“Shut up. Do you think Ignotus would’ve let him stay around so long if he wasn’t one of us? Or Zarnarax, or even Arctan? He has to still be a Mystix.” Behind them was a heavy thud against the ground, dusting kicking up in the tunnel. Cerax and the brothers whirled around, weapons raised, to see Aclaraung slowly lifting himself off the floor.

“Looking for me?”

Cerax lunged forwards with the spear she held; it was swatted aside, the haft snapped entirely by a set of red-hot claws. She stepped back, raising her hands, giving the brothers the opportunity to step in and try and attack without her in the way. One did, the old, dull sword clanging uselessly against the dragon’s scales. The other dropped his axe, shouted “Run!” and all three did.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Aru had just managed to prise herself free - earth, after all, was rather more flexible when wet - when she saw her father stab Xaruthan in the back. She couldn’t speak; all that escaped her throat as she fell to the floor was a choked whimper.

Xaruthan’s boiling blood was making the ice steam up and melt, but the searing pain only fuelled Zarnarax further, his focus on keeping the blade solid unbroken as he began ever-so-slowly to twiiiisssssssst…

“I would have killed you quickly, you know. As quickly as I killed him, at least; the poor ##### never knew what hit him. But you just had to dig. Deeper.” He punctuated both words with a jerking twist of the knife, his good half grinning.

Not like this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Zarnarax was oblivious to her. If she could just get to him - if she could just keep her eyes open-

None of us can survive, or all of this was for nothing…

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Thankfully, Cerax had always been quick, and knew the tunnels well. The brothers were quick as well; the three of them outpaced Aclaraung quickly as he came up behind them, this stretch of the tunnels a bit narrow for his bulk. If only they could outrun the flames he might unleash—

She saw a strange nod out of the corner of her eye, and the brother to her left slowed slightly. Before she even had the opportunity to tell him to keep moving, she felt the hands of the other on her back, yanking her roughly to the ground before they kept going. She slid with a cry, trying to turn over so she could get back on her feet and at least look death in the face, before the blood-and-dirt covered shape of Aclaraung sailed over in a single leap, claws still glowing bright red with heat.

She watched, incredulous, as he descended upon one of the brothers, screams and searing flesh accompanying a spatter of blood against all three of them, Aclaraung digging his superheated claws along the unfortunate man’s back. The other turned, ready to fight—

Cerax was thankful she couldn’t see in detail what happened as the first one’s screams ended with a wet ripping sound. Then Aclaraung whipped his arm around, and the second brother grabbed at his throat, something slick with blood choking the life away from him amidst Aclaraung’s animalistic growls of hatred.

Shuddering, she stood, turned, and ran down a side hall, following the quiet sound of rushing air as much as she could manage to hear it. She had no clue if she was the only one or if there were others, but if Aclaraung intended to spare her, she wouldn’t argue.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

It may be assumed that dying once may serve as adequate preparation for dying a second time. This is not the case. My breath was snatched away in shock, for I had nearly forgotten how it had felt the first time - only this time it was ice. As the cold spread through my body, the world seemed to dissolve into a swirling mass of images, faces, the earth fell away and oblivion yawned before me, eager to correct the marring of its non-reflection with my mortal soul.

Your agency is robbed; you are no longer yourself.

The blade was gone now, and my body remained cold as it fell into the abyss, past memories and places and things, and I watched it fall, capable of only apathy. Death simply was, and I welcomed it yet again: my home in the void.

But then, who was this? His armour so green, his flesh so whole and unscathed - was this Zaruthan, the rogue puppet of Ignotus? He stood with such pride, such unbridled, perhaps undeserved, self-confidence. His naivety would be his undoing, his weakness… But he was me. Since he had died, he had been something other to me, but now I looked upon him, looked into him, his own eyes looking back - and he was me.

It was my mission to degrade death, to kill him, his memory and its children. My sole fantasy. Our - my glorious leader, smeared off the face of history. Finally, birth for all Mystix kind, from the darkness into the light - and here, now, was the end of the tunnel.

All life is beneath you; it is other.

I looked down to see Matoran moving into the caves of the Mystix, repurposing them, colonising them. Their lives were by now untainted by infighting, their way of life finally triumphant over the shadows that tormented their existence. It… Did not disgust me. It felt right. This was the way. Destined.

But then their world was swallowed into a great quaking chasm, huts, machinery and all. They screamed helplessly as their world collapsed away into the obsidian wings of-

Oblivion.

Ignotus was oblivion’s burning eyes, glaring back at me.

There was a voice in my- ear? I was beyond physical, but the voice spoke to me, first Aru, then Zaruthan, then Zarnarax, then-

“...of us can survive, or all of this will have been for nothing. It was nothing. Don’t make me go back there. Don’t turn back now, Xaruthan. This is your final use. You must die. For the good of our kind, you must die. Into oblivion, now. Die, Zar. Die! Die!-”

DIE[---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]DIE

DIE[------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]DIE

DIE[---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]DIE

    DIE[----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]DIE

DIE[------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIE

 

…

 

No.

I reached out my hands, and grasped Ignotus’ oesophagus with all the strength left in me. I squeezed and squeezed the life out of him, my destroyer, keeper of my oblivion, my death, I was killing him, I hated him, finally, his death, death, kill him, I was killing him die die die i hate you everything you did to me everything i became because of you i hate you i hate you i haTE YOU I HATE YOU EVERYTHING YOU DID TO MEEEEEEEEEE

Now the plasma melted his insides, his remaining eye exploding out of his head, his torso glowing with white hot energy, his armour melting and fusing with his liquifying flesh, and I squeezed harder, harder, till whatever I was holding wasn’t Ignotus anymore, it was just a husk, the excretion of my rage, my vengeance, the placenta of my final birth-

My hands slipped through his neck like a hot knife through butter, what was left of his head disappearing into the mess of bodies that surrounded us. I fell back, and looked up to see his torso explode in a fountain of ionised blood and guts, showering the surrounding area in its glimmering majesty, sending his limbs spinning into nowhere.

He was death. And I had killed him.

The umbilical was severed. I was finally alive. I was finally free.

 

-            -            -            -            -

 

Arctan had been crawling for...minutes? Hours? Too long. He could still hear the echoes of fighting. He didn’t even know when Aclaraung had left him, had ceased his chase, only that he had to get to the meeting room Zarnarax had mentioned earlier. Surely, between Zarnarax and Learu, they’d managed to deal with Xaruthan’s treachery, and they could stand against the beast—

He crawled, fighting to ignore the pain in his bitten shoulder, the agony from where his legs used to be, around the turn, to the threshold, and stopped for a moment, gawking at the sight before him. Learu and Xaruthan alone remained alive, the latter’s hands still wrapped around a lifeless, maimed Zarnarax’s throat.

“X-Xar,” he croaked, before shaking his head, struggling to maintain his composure. “Xaruthan, you have to help! It’s—it’s Aclaraung, he’s finally lost it, he’s slaughtering the others—”

“Slaughtered.”

His eyes went wide, bulging, as the dragon, caked in blood, sweat, dirt, and worse, came around the corner he’d just been by. “I must admit, Arctan, watching you crawl like this, once I caught back up with you, has been enjoyable.” The dragon turned from him, eyes landing upon the other two.

“Very good, Xar. And Aru as well, when she should awaken.” His tone sounded almost...congratulatory? Arctan couldn’t believe it. “Removing Zarnarax like that, well done. I imagine you didn’t wish for him dead, but...he and Ignotus were stains on our world that needed to be removed. Much like this one.” And the great orange eyes fell upon Arctan.

Aclaraung crossed the room in a single bound, rolling Arctan onto his back and pinning him with one leg. “Arctan, scribe, viceroy, I find that you have been entirely complicit in spreading the delusions and mistruths of Ignotus and Zarnarax both, and moreover, for not speaking up to warn your people how they had been so utterly deceived.” Aclaraung’s left hand came down, forcing his jaw wide open, cutting off any protestations he might have made.

In the other, he could see the claws growing heated again, burning away the blood and viscera that stuck to them.

“But I have lived among the Matoran, Arctan, and I know they aren’t unworthy slave-stock like you helped to preach. And I read those records you and those other two didn’t manage to destroy. Yes, Arctan, I know my rightful place, and I know just how vehemently you denied it, just another set of lies sprouting from a diseased tongue.” By now, the claws had passed red hot, and were glowing white, Aclaraung’s own flesh around them starting to crack and blister.

“Let me remove that disease.”

Aclaraung plunged his claws deep into Arctan’s mouth, slicing carefully and pulling out a charred, red mass that he dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Arctan sputtered and choked, unable even to scream around the blood that he was asphyxiating on as the dragon turned away, back to the other two.

“Now. At last, the disease is wiped away. The tumor excised. And the two of you...” He stepped forwards, planting his claws on the expired Zarnarax’s chest as he inspected Learu’s unconscious form. “I have an offer for you, Xaruthan, if you would hear it. Of protection, and a place to heal.”

I was barely conscious when he spoke to me. All I could think about was Learu… The two of you, he had said. The two of you...

I must’ve said yes. I remember the journey - he helped us, carried her. I don’t think I spoke. If I had, it would’ve been thank you, thank you...

 

-            -            -            -            -            -            -

 

The screaming and the crying was over. Since then it has been… Nap time. Years and years. Dreams within dreams upon dreams without dreams... A liminality as old - and as new - as me  we  the Mystix. 

Once again, I had slept on ice - the caves of Ko-Wahi have very unforgiving temperatures for the unprepared. But this time, there was heat within me - energy, plasma, whatever it was - and the two extremes met and subsided where they clashed, both in equal measure, leaving me quite comfortable where I hung.

By the time I awoke the cave was empty. Had Aru been here with me? I could still smell her. Was she even alive?

I detached from the ceiling and collapsed in a brittle heap on the ground. My skin seemed to wake up suddenly, and the cold hit me in a way that it only can after a long hibernation. There’s no point trying to translate the sensation into Matoran. It would take hours.

Promptly, my body had heat up - I was surprised to find that my new powers had become instinctive, just as they had been when I was what you might call a Le-Mystix. In fact, my muscles, bones, eyesight - everything was as it should be. Everything was as it should be.

I sat there on the ground for a minute, collecting myself, discerning dream from reality (not everything was exactly discernable), sorting through my misted consciousness until-

Aru.

I rose - too quickly, as the flickering lights before my eyes informed me - and went to leave the small Mystix-sized cave I was in. Only, I in-SLAM-stead walked directly into a thick layer of ice, and slid cartoonishly down to the floor in confusion, my claws leaving a trio of straight lines carved into its frosted surface - the cave must have frozen over while I had been hibernating. My wing still pressed against the ice, my instincts kicked in again and in a second I was drenched. In another I was dry again, and stepped clumsily out of the chamber into the main cavern. My eyes still adjusting to being open, it was an impressive sight.

The cavern was shaped like an enormous pine cone, with maybe a hundred small openings (much like the one I had just melted my way out of) lining its walls. I suppose(d) it was a sort of hive or nest, no doubt carved out by Aclaraung or some relative of his. A few of the other openings weren’t frozen over - I was banking on one of these belonging to Aru.

There was a short tunnel, then 

d a w n

Inside the cave, light had been refracted via the ice, creating a crystalline fluorescence - but this was something else. I hadn’t seen, let alone felt daylight in literally years, and although by nature Chiropteran Mystix favour the darkness, the experience was sublime.

And there she was, standing with her back to Xaruthan, facing out into the rising sun. Her eyes closed, Learu allowed the sun's warmth to wash over her, to soak deep into her bones; this had become routine for her, now - sometimes, she would even allow herself to stare out onto the horizon, savouring the sublime sting of the sunlight in her eyes, relishing the chance to feel.

"Long time no see, Xar." She didn't turn, but she didn't need to; the sounds of his footsteps, and even his breathing, were entirely distinct from Aclaraung's, and her heightened senses meant that she had known he was awake from the moment he began to fumble his way through the nest. "Welcome back to the land of the living. Again."

IC: Noka (Fowadi)

Noka smiling sensibly. "Just the kind of change I was looking for. I'm a little... short on naval experience, but if you point me and pull the trigger I'll be there - as long as it isn't overboard."

IC: Noka (Fowadi)

Might as well speak now, lest I'm forced to forever hold my peace. "Speaking of getting filled in - Noka, sir, Sentinel first class," she saluted, stepping forward. "Seems like I picked a good day to sign up. Maybe you guys need to start using pamphlets to save us newbies all the rodeo."

hi also waiting on the lt's orders, the orders, and dad, good of the three of you to join us

IC: Noka (Fowadi, Ostia docks)

She couldn't tell whether the Toa was smiling or not, but the suggestion led involuntarily to form a tight-lipped simper in return, as she saluted with an otherwise perfectly straight-backed Po-Koro stance. Ignoring her embarassment, she disappeared below deck.

(Fowadi, interior)

On her way inside, Dehkaz had given a brief description of what Kale looked like and where to find him. Even so, Noka couldn't for life of her figure out her way around the ship. The corridors were narrow and staircases steep; everything was apparently made to cram as many different rooms in as possible. Still, she found herself impressed by the scale of the vessel - she had been stationed in forts with less manpower, and easily less firepower.

Eventually, she found Kale and a number of others surrounding a Ta-Matoran who was looked, also, to be a new recruit. She stepped politely into view and waited to be spoken to.

IC: Noka (Fowadi, Ostia Docks)

"Thank you, sir, much obliged. And... I think I'll get back to you on that one, if you don't mind. I'm still finishing up my own interrogation. Just know I'm eager to get back to it - I've had far too much time off."

IC: Noka (Fowadi, Ostia docks)

"Here to sign up, captain. And forgive me for stumbling on the pleasantries. I've had a... Very long vacation." Her eyes drifted overboard. Not long enough to evolve gills, unfortunately.

IC: Noka (Fowadi, Ostia docks)

"Sir," she responded without thinking, surprising herself. Still second nature, huh? You just couldn't keep yourself away.

Immediately she marched up the gangplank, exchanging tentative glances with one or two crew members who looked up from their duties. Some were vaguely familiar, but it didn't look like anyone she had been stationed with before was here. She sighed, silently, through the nose.

Turning her attention to Dehkaz, she saluted, a little more informally than she had intended. "Noka, sir.

"...Are you a 'sir'? I'm not entirely up to speed on the naval lingo."

IC: Grolasch (Fort Garsi)

There was almost a silence as they stood there glugging - at least, the equivalent concept for a post-bloodbath Skakdi drinking fest. Several others crowded around, craning their ugly heads over one another, placing hurried bets, clenching their fists and grinning - ready to expell their pent-up energy in violent fashion. Then, unexpectedly, Grolasch stopped.

He tore the flagon away from his mouth and sprayed, spinning in a circle, red booze flying in all directions from his monstrous lips. "Tricked you! Tricked you!" He roared, like a schoolboy in the body of a gigantic, drunk-as-sin troll.

IC: Noka (Ostia)

CHOO-CHOOOOOOOOOO

The fumes were thick - too thick, at first, to see. They filled the platform, swallowing prospective passengers in its opaque embrace. Then, like a magic trick, it was gone, and the doors of the train cars slid open, Matoran spilling out in a hurry, darting in different directions, tools in hand. After the main throng of commuters had dissipated, calmer travellers followed, amongst whom was a brown-armoured Matoran with a rather exquisite blade strapped to her back.

Noka was not entirely used to train travel. As she stepped onto the platform, she turned to admire this marvellous machine that had just carried her across the Motara Desert - a lethal journey - in a matter of hours. Its pistons, wheels, plating, everything had been created with such utter precision. A true technological marvel.

Looking around, she realised she had been getting some funny looks from others around her, particularly fellow Po-natives. She had almost forgotten that the trains had been in place for years now - but for a woman like her, who had scarcely stepped out of Po-Koro in that length of time, they were spectacular.

Her amazement did not remain limited to only the train. Descending the lift, she gazed out over Ostia. It was... Battered. Nautical. But it was different. She almost wondered why she had kept herself cooped up in same-old Po-Koro, painting landscapes of the skyline night after night for the last few years.

It's because those paintings sell, Noka, she reminded herself. What are you doing here? Adventure doesn't count as work. It hardly even pa-

She stopped herself there. That was her grandfather talking. She hadn't exactly come here on a whim; it had been weeks since she had heard the Fowadi was recruiting. She decided what the right decision was, and this was it.

Before long, she had reached the docks. One thing that was off-putting was the water. She was a Po-Matoran - learning to swim had never exactly been at the top of her list of priorities. Just... Make sure you don't fall in.

Peeling her eyes away from the water below, she strode across the jetty towards the gangplank of the Fowadi.