Class Is Out: A Farewell To Corpus Rahkshi

[Nato G]

Class Is Out

A (long overdue) Farewell To Corpus Rahkshi

For those unaware, Corpus Rahkshi was a text-based RPG that ran on this site from November 2014 to December 2019, racking up nearly 28,000 replies before eventually petering out after its GM disappeared, despite the best efforts of a small, dedicated group of players to keep it going.

The game played out in an alternate version of Bionicle canon where, for reasons unknown, some Rahkshi had begun to develop individual personalities and free will. In an effort to better understand and control this “new breed”, the Brotherhood Of Makuta sent these unruly new children to a school run off the coast of Nynrah, under the watch of headmaster Tridax (later replaced by Icarax).

Set around 10 years after the events of the novel Time Trap, the game took place in a time period largely unexplored by canon, a time where Makuta schemed and squabbled amongst themselves and would-be conquerors consolidated their power in the wake of the Great Cataclysm, while the rest of universe waited with bated breath for the next disaster.

Even before the game ended, I’d had plans to create some kind of epilogue post telling the tale of where some of my characters ended up after their time at the school, but between events in my personal life and -gestures vaguely at all of 2020- I never really found the time or motivation to get it done. Now, three years later, I’ve finally been struck by the right mix of nostalgia and inspiration to motivate myself to finish it off, and I reached out to some of the past players for their input in completing the tales of their own characters, to create one final, heartfelt farewell to Corpus Rahkshi.

New entries will be added to this archive on a weekly basis, with descriptions denoting which author/s were involved, and what character/s the story is being told from the perspective of. While there will likely be some inside jokes and references that might go over the heads of people who didn’t play the game, these stories should offer plenty of excitement and emotion to appeal to any reader.

Also, if any other former Corpus Rahkshi players happen across this and want to contribute, there’s still time to get something together. Leave a comment in the review topic, shoot me a PM, or message me on Discord if you’re interested in taking part in some way. Whether you want to write a full short story or just contribute a few lines about where your character ended up, I'm happy to include whatever you come up with. I do have a clear end point planned for this project, but that will likely be at least a few months away, depending on how many additional contributors express interest.

With all of that out of the way, settle in and enjoy this collection of tales from the surviving students of Corpus Rahkshi. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Nato G

[Nato G]

The Chronicler

(By Nato)

 

Exxan

New Atero library, ten years after the reformation

I suppose I should start by introducing myself.

The name I chose is Exxan. It doesn’t really mean anything in particular, I just put some letters together when I was first learning to read, and made the name my own. I always told myself that I would make it mean something. I still don’t know if I’ve accomplished that.

I’m a Rahkshi of Vacuum, a Shadow Kraata of what the Makuta once called the new breed of Rahkshi. That name doesn’t mean much either, anymore. With the Makuta wiped out and Teridax’s army destroyed, our kind are the only breed of Rahkshi left. Relatively speaking, I was among the first generation of the new breed rahks to come into existence, which puts me somewhere around 1110 years old now (I haven’t exactly been keeping track of birthdays).

But this story isn’t really about me. It’s about… stories.

And stories are something I know quite well.

I’ve always loved libraries. They’re places of quiet and contemplation, full of history and fiction. They’re places of mystery and memory, where secrets and stories are lost and found. They’re places of recollection and reflection, where even the lost and forgotten can continue to live on in ink and etching.

So much, and so many, have been lost over the centuries.

This place holds the stories of two worlds, twined together into one tragic tale. There’s so much my kind had never understood about the world and our place in it, and our struggles seem so small and insignificant when viewed as part of the larger story. We were all just pawns for powers far beyond what even our makers and masters ever dared dream.

But the part we played… it was important to us, back then. It’s still important to me now.

I have a duty, you see, a name I forged and chose and wielded as a weapon for centuries before understanding its true meaning: remembrance. Our remembrance.

And now I have what I need to fulfil that duty. It sits on the table before me, a battered ledger just as old as I. It’s something I never expected to see again, let alone have in my own two hands. Something a scavenger had liberated from the ruins of Tridax’s mansion at Malebranche during the deconstruction of the old Universe, not realising its true value until he’d chanced a visit to my little corner of the library yesterday.

It was a tatty old tome of fraying pages and faded ink, bound in cracked leather. It had no title, the only mark on its cover being the familiar curling pictograph representing the Rahkshi species. Knowing who had once owned it, this ledger had likely been placed in a stasis field to preserve it, otherwise it couldn’t have possibly lasted the ten-and-a-half centuries that had passed since I’d last seen it.  

This was the original Student Register of Corpus Rahkshi, bearing the name of every rahk who’d ever been enrolled, the date of their arrival, the Makuta who’d sired them, and other details and observations of note. There were so many students I’d never known, so many whose stories and fates had been lost to history, but now, at least, their names would be remembered.

And for some, perhaps, much more than that.

[Nato G]

Sins Of The Father

(By Nato, with excerpts from BIONICLE Legends 11: The Final Battle, by Greg Farshtey)

I turned to the last page that had been written in the ledger. The change of handwriting clearly showed where Icarax had replaced Tridax, though there were far fewer names after that point. The school hadn’t lasted long in his “care”.

Many of the names I didn’t recognise. Explota… Blizzard… Horro… Bliss… many who’d likely arrived at the school shortly before I’d left. One name did finally jump out at me, though, a daughter of Icarax with the power of Density Control who’d made quite a name for herself, and caused quite a bit of trouble for the Makuta, after leaving the school.

From what I understood, she’d been spawned a stunted, malformed thing, small and soft-spoken, physically incapable of living up to Icarax’s standards of brawn, belligerence, and brutality. Bullied and belittled by her maker, she’d grown to resent her father, and devoted her existence to bringing him down. Whisper was the name she’d given herself, in reference to her hoarse, strained voice.

She was one of many of our kind that I’d never had the chance to personally meet, but I’d learned parts of her story over the years. And what a story it was…

* * *

Whisper

The Codrex, hours before the awakening

“So the bat has fangs, does it?” Icarax sneered at Vamprah, taunting the blinded Makuta, “When I run the Brotherhood, we will have to see about pulling them.”

“You will never lead!” Growled Gorast, landing nearby and depositing Vamprah’s wounded Matoran aide Gavla on the ground beside her, having just rescued her from what would have otherwise been a fatal fall.  

“Stop and think,” said Icarax. “My way offers much more opportunity for battle than our current leader’s ever can. Join with me!”

“Never!” screamed Gorast, flashing forth to strike Icarax across the chest with her wing-blades, cleaving open his chestplate in a blow that would’ve spilled forth the essence of any mere Makuta.

But Icarax just looked at his new wound and smiled as inky ichor oozed forth instead.

I knew why, of course. I’d been following him since he’d first ventured off into this swamp, determined to interfere in the great Plan and claim control over the Brotherhood. I’d seen what the Ignika had done to him. He was a being of meat and muscle now, just like me. Just like all those he’d once oppressed and terrorised. All of those years I’d spent fearing him and his god-like power, and now I was watching him bleed…

…and gods don’t bleed.

“-he changed me from pure energy back to a true bio-mechanical being, muscle and tissue connected to armour,” Icarax was explaining to Gorast, “I can’t be beaten just by cutting a gap in my shell and letting my essence leak out,” His twin-bladed sword began to rotate, spinning like a saw. “Too bad, Gorast, that the same can’t be said of you.”

Hunched on my perch in a nearby tree, I watched the Makuta duel. I’d devoted years to trying to destroy Icarax, undermining his leadership at Corpus Rahkshi, leaking his battleplans to his enemies during his military campaigns, whispering rumours of weakness and strife to his enemies within the Brotherhood. But he’d always stood strong. Insurmountable. Unstoppable.

I’d gotten people killed trying to bring down Icarax. Other sapient Rahkshi like myself, senselessly slaughtered for schemes that hadn’t even succeeded. And now I was alone.

But I’d followed him here nonetheless, determined to prevent whatever power grab he was trying to make. I’d never expected to see the other Makuta turn against him… never expected my fantasy of seeing him fall to creep so close to fruition… but now even the great Gorast seemed to be struggling against him.

They were coming my way now. Icarax had scored several strikes on Gorast’s armour, and was bringing his laser vision to bear on the wisps of her essence as they leaked away. Vamprah was blindly crawling towards his Matoran, and I could even see Mutran fluttering about in the distance now, curious but clearly not having any desire to get involved in the fight.

This was my chance. Probably the only one I’d ever get.

As the duelling duo passed by my tree I leapt from it, increasing my density as I dropped down directly onto Icarax’s unsuspecting head. He grunted, stumbled, and tossed his head back to throw me off, but I slung the chain of my kusarigama around his neck and pulled tight on both ends as I fell. He gasped, waving his whirling blade weakly at Gorast to keep her at bay while he clawed wildly at his throat, trying to free himself.

He'd only been in his flesh-and-blood form for a short while, but I’d occupied one for my entire existence. I knew its weaknesses. I knew the panic that came with suddenly finding oneself struggling to breathe, a panic my father was now getting to experience for what was likely the very first time in his lengthy life.

Finally giving up on trying to get his claws around the slim chain, he enveloped his fingers in plasma and simply melted through it, damaging the armour and flesh of his neck in the process. I abandoned my grip on the weighted end of the weapon as the chain snapped, quickly gaining a handhold on Icarax’s back armour instead and lifting myself up to sink the scythe into the new wound he’d just created for me. Even with his body devolved to an organic state, I didn’t have the strength needed to breach a Makuta’s armour. I’d needed him to do that for me.

His superheated claw reached back towards me, and I decreased my density, spinning in midair as I phased through his body to land on the ground before him, brandishing my bloodied blade up at his towering form.

And now he finally saw me, truly saw me, his expression behind the Kraahkan seeming more incredulous at my presence than angered by his injuries.

“Runt!” he roared. “Cowering and creeping, lacking the courage to fight like a true warrior.”

A lance of lightning lashed from his blade, passing harmlessly through my form as I turned intangible once more.

“All of the abuse you inflicted on me and my siblings, the students at Corpus Rahkshi, your own soldiers… and you still never understood, did you?” I snarled, rage reducing my voice to a ragged rasp, “Life isn’t all about anger and aggression. There are other ways to fight.”

Gorast had evidently grown disinterested in the spectacle of my interference, choosing that moment to lunge at my maker once more, only to be swatted aside by a powerful gust of air from Icarax that likely would have sent me flying as well had I not increased my density to ground myself. Gorast was perhaps even more arrogant that Icarax, it seemed, taking her many powers for granted in favour of relying on blades and brutality. I didn’t have that luxury. My powers were what had kept me alive despite the efforts of far larger and stronger foes, but it was only a matter of time before Icarax remembered which of his myriad abilities would allow him to bypass mine.

“I should have squished you the second you crawled out of your spawning vat, you ungrateful worm!” Icarax snarled, “I tried to teach your kind how to be true warriors. You should all be standing here with me, bringing this universe to heel!”

“And instead, you’re alone, because as hard as you tried to make everyone like you, all you did was push them away. And now look at you…”

I grunted as a sudden wave of gravity enveloped me, sending me crumpling to the ground. I saw Gorast too, struggling to stand. Behind him, however, Gavla was reuniting with Vamprah, restoring sight to the blinded Makuta.

“Look at me, indeed,” Icarax grinned. “The greatest warrior in the Brotherhood – in this universe! When I’m done with you, I’ll finish off those irritating little Toa and finally claim my place-”

“-your place as a fool with no forward thinking skills?” I retorted, sputtering as I tried to keep my head out of the sodden swamp I was sprawled in. “You could’ve picked off those Toa long before they got here, long before Vamprah and Gorast got in your way. But instead you’re here, trying to take on everyone at once, brazen and boastful and bleeding. Bleeding like a mortal being.”

“Bleeding like you, you mean,” he clenched his open hand into a fist, and a crushing magnetic force exerted itself on my weapon, crushing it and the hand holding it into fragments.

I couldn’t hear whatever he said next over my own agonised howl.

And then both gravity and magnetism were gone as Icarax was forced to divert his focus towards fending off attacks from Vamprah. Gorast seized her chance, flying off towards Mutran and practically dragging him towards the fight.

I staggered to my feet, green-black ooze dripping from the stump of my wrist. I pulled my crossbow from my back with my remaining hand, thankful that I’d kept it pre-loaded. I raised it, took aim, and called out to my father one final time.

“Icarax! You call me a failure because you couldn’t make me like you…”

He whirled towards me, his baleful eyes burning with hate.

“…I say you’re the failure for trying.”

And then one of those eyes went dark forever, as my bolt struck true.

A surge of power – too many and too ferocious for me to identify which specific abilities – radiated from Icarax as he raged in wordless agony, the combined energies sending me and Vamprah flying in different directions. He struck the ground, I struck a tree, and for a moment all I could do was lie there, stunned and expecting death.

It was Gorast’s laugh that spared me.

“No need to worry, Vamprah,” Gorast said, helping the bat-like Makuta to his feet, “Mutran brings a message from below. The Toa Nuva are about to awaken Mata Nui. The Plan will succeed!”

Icarax turned his gaze from me, to her, then back to me. “I will deal with you later,” he growled, his body shimmering as he began to teleport.

And that, it appeared, was exactly what Gorast had been waiting for. She was upon him in an instant, activating her Kanohi Felnas in the same moment that Vamprah unleashed an energy blast of his own.

His teleportation disrupted, his atoms scattering from the blast, I had a fleeting moment to see the expression of profound fear on my father’s face as he utterly evaporated.

As Icarax’s last screams faded away, the three Makuta turned towards me. Mutran and Vamprah regarded me for only a moment before continuing on their way, while Gorast stalked towards me. Fiery light lashed from her eyes and searing pain enveloped… the stump of my arm, as she used her heat vision to cauterise my wound.

“I… don’t understand,” I stammered.

“Any other day, a Rahkshi helping kill their Makuta would be grounds for execution. It’s a story we would never allow out, lest it inspire more of your kind into rebelling against their makers,” Gorast chittered, “But you… you’ve earned this victory, little warrior, and I suspect death would be a mercy compared to the life you’ve already lived.”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Go, now, before I change my mind. And tell your story. Ensure that Icarax’s legend lives on only as a tale of failure and humiliation."

* * *

Whisper told her story, and it was one many of our kind were all too eager to share. Few of those who attended Corpus Rahkshi held any love for Icarax.

Not that any of it much mattered in the months that followed, after Teridax took control and wiped out the rest of the Makuta. Those were strange times, for all of us. We all had strained relationships with our makers, but many of us still loved them, in our own ways. Losing them left us with only each other to rely on in the dark days that followed.

As for Whisper, her story ends with the tale she told. No one knows what became of her after the universe fell to Teridax’s shadow. Perhaps he destroyed her, like he did the other Makuta and so many of our kind. Or maybe she’s still out there, somewhere, making a new life for herself in some distant corner of this vast new world we find ourselves in.

I like to imagine the missing had happy endings.

It’s good to hope.

[Nato G]

The Illusion Of Control

(By Nato)

 

With less than one hundred Makuta in existence, it should come as little surprise that Corpus Rahkshi was full of siblings. Not all knew of their shared parentage, and those that did often resented one another and competed for favour.

My relationship with my own sister had been decidedly adversarial, a rivalry that had left me scarred and her dead. There are days where I wonder if there could have been another way, but deep down I fear I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t killed her when I did.

But not all of the sibling stories in Corpus Rahkshi were ones of hate. Omega’s siblings had stood together, first to avenge him, and later to support each other. For all of their delusions of grandeur, the so-called “God Twins” had always had each other’s back. And then… there was the duo known simply as The Twins.

To those who knew them well, as I once had, they were Illusive and Silencer, who represented one of the few instances where two names were written side-by-side in the Student Register. Though of course, one of those names was crossed out now, and the one that remained belonged to a being who’d blundered down a dark path…

* * *

Illusive

The Island Of Artakha, Makuta’s Reign

Artakha, a literal city of legend.

Once, I hadn’t even believed this place was real. Now, not only was I here, but I was watching it fall. An army of Rahkshi now rampaged through the city’s streets, toppling its statues and structures, tearing apart its defenders… all at my command.

My army.

My Rahkshi.

I’d never wanted to rule, never really thought of myself as a leader. I’d never sought it, but I did accept when it was offered to me. Where other sapient Rahkshi had chosen to stand with their sires, to rebel or run away, I’d voluntarily pledged myself to Teridax. What kind of fool would I be to deny the will of the new lord of the universe?

Not only had my choice spared me from Teridax’s massacre of the other Makuta and those loyal to them, it had earned me this command. The army before me were all regular Rahkshi, no new breed, and I was perfectly content with that. My first foray into leadership during my days at Corpus Rahkshi had left several other students dead or wounded, all because they couldn’t stick to a simple plan. But the rahks I commanded now were different. Simpler. They didn’t ask questions, they didn’t hesitate to strike a decisive blow, and they didn’t offer mercy to enemies. They didn’t disobey orders out of cowardice or fear of death or injury, and – perhaps most importantly – they didn’t judge me for my silence.

I didn’t need words to command them, and they didn’t need words to understand that the battle was almost won now.

This island had all manner of traps and technology to aid its defenders, but in the end those defenders were still mere Matoran, and no match for my Rahkshi. They’d fought well, left dozens of my kind strewn in pieces along the coastline, but we were pushing them back, hour by hour. We’d attacked in the dead of night, and the defenders had held out until dawn, clearly hoping daylight would save them. But my Weather Control rahks had seen to it that no sun would break through the cloud cover this day. Even the mighty Crystal Serpents they’d sent against us had eventually succumbed to the command of our Rahi Control rahks, and now slumbered in their coastal caverns once more.

Now, the Matoran who hadn’t already fled or fallen had gathered at the foot of Artakha’s fortress, rallying their final barricade at the base of the silver Hau statue in the island’s centre. Their ranks stood ready with rhotuka and kanoka launchers, and an array of even more exotic weapons the likes of which I didn’t recognise.

I didn’t fear their guns.

I had numbers.

And power.

My forces were holding back one city block from the Matoran’s position, securing the prisoners and disabling any lingering traps and turrets they could locate. They were waiting for me to lead the final charge, and I wasn’t going to make them wait any longer.

My bloodied flail skittered across the cobblestones as I stalked toward the front of my force, gesturing sharply towards the Magnetism and Gravity Rahkshi among my ranks as I passed them. They were to be my front line, followed by the Illusion and Darkness rahks. The rest would follow, wait for us to break their lines, then do what they did best.

Nearby debris began to raise into the air, forming a floating wall before the Gravity and Magnetism rahks as they marched towards the Matoran. As we marched, me and my fellow illusionists projected images of more Rahkshi running and flying above and beside our formation, to draw some of the Matoran’s fire away from our defence. Explosives, projectiles, and energy blasts still battered the barricade, breaking through in some places to cut down those sheltering behind it.

We gave the Matoran little time to savour their meagre victories. As soon as they were close enough the Darkness Rahkshi brought their abilities to bear, enveloping the Matoran in a blanket of blinding blackness as our barricade suddenly became a volley of projectiles, forcefully flung towards the now-blinded defenders. Only then, with their frontline floundering and their formation broken, did our attack began in earnest.

Whirling winds and screaming sound left them dazed and disoriented, while dread demoralised them and rage rattled them. Lashes of lightning and lances of laser vision cut through those flailing in the dark, while plantlife tangled their limbs and plasma burned their bodies. Even a Rahkshi’s keen night vision couldn’t pierce far through elemental Darkness, so I couldn’t see most of what was happening, but I could still hear the screams and splatters of the Matoran being shattered and disintegrated and cut down for their blind faith in a being that hadn’t even deigned to come down from his fortress.

I strode through the dark, the dagger-like claws of my hands making short work of any Matoran who drew close enough to swing a weapon my way. Illusions of myself manifested around me as I broke through the black and started to stride up the steps of Artakha’s fortress. A few Matoran had possessed the sense to fall back this far, and they fired wildly at my duplicates, while my true self sheltered behind an illusion of empty space, my flail lashing out to strike them down one by one.

And then I was alone, at the door to the great creator’s fortress.

It wasn’t even locked, the double doors falling open as I pushed against them.

As a half-dozen of my soldiers moved up and assembled behind me, I stepped inside.

“You’re different from the others, little wormling…” the voice that greeted me seemed to whisper from everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously strained with age and filled with youthful vigour, “…and yet, not so different from those who made you.”

I raised a hand and made a swirling gesture with one finger, an instruction for my Rahkshi to fan out and circle wide as we continued into the fortress.

The building was a squat, circular structure, with staircases circling upwards and downwards. This main floor, however, looked to be home to the enigmatic craftsman’s great forge, filled with machinery and metal, tables laden with unidentifiable scraps and unfinished projects. A massive hammer was propped up against an equally immense anvil near the back of the room.

“You have a void inside you, one you’ve tried to fill with anger and ambition.”

Words. It was always words.

I’d endured a lifetime of people denigrating and denying me because I was different. Different from my brother. Different, even from others of the new breed. Words were the weapons of the weak, and I’d long since stopped letting them hurt me.

There was a flash of light near the back of the room; the hammer was gone.

“But you don’t know how to be ambitious. Not really. You don’t know what you want, so you let others want for you. Your brother… Phogen… Exxan… Icarax… now Teridax.”

The lightest laugh escaped me. No being, no matter how old or powerful, could defeat me with the doubts and despair I already lived with every day. There was no denying the truth in his words. I didn’t know what I wanted. I never had.

But what Artakha thought to be weakness, I saw as strength.

I wanted nothing, and so I had little to lose and everything to gain.

I caught another flash of light in the corner of my vision, this time accompanied by a cruel crunching sound. By the time I looked over, there was nothing to see but the crumpled remnants of one of my rahks, its kraata case crushed by what looked to be a single, brutal blow.

Illusions instinctively flickered into existence around me, though I wasn’t sure if they would offer me much protection against an enemy who seemed to possess telepathy and teleportation.

“As each one faltered or fell or fled or failed to live up to your standards, you found some new fool to put your faith in. Teridax will forsake you, just like the rest.”

Another flash, another crash, another fallen rahk.

I extended my illusions, manifesting duplicates of my remaining allies and sending them walking off in different directions. Artakha’s telepathy could evidently let him talk at me and sift through my memories, but there was no telling if being able to identify an individual on the mental plane could also allow him to determine their exact location in the real world. Every power had its rules and limitations.

We fanned out across the forge, knocking over tables, wrenching open boxes and closets. He had to be here somewhere, though it was hard to be sure where to look given no one knew what Artakha looked like. Given the size of the equipment in here, he looked to be somewhere in titan territory, which should have limited his available hiding places. Most teleportation powers required line of sight, or at least a mental image of where the wielder was trying to teleport to.

“You think you understand how the world works, how power works. You are young, and have experienced little.”

Another flash illuminated a corner of the room, accompanied once again by the crunch of rending metal. But this time it was followed by a rahkshi’s startled hiss and the sizzle of heat vision. I whirled towards the sound, this time finally catching a glimpse of our quarry: a towering figure, some ten feet tall, clad in runed armour of green and grey with an ornate, crown-like Kanohi upon their face. His hammer was tangled in the crumpled remnants of a workbench; either he’d swung at one of my illusions, or the yellow Rahkshi he’d targeted had managed to dodge the blow.

Alas, the heat vision didn’t seem to be bothering Artakha to any significant degree, failing to breach his armour, and the moment myself and the others started to move towards him he teleported away again. It was little more than a minor stumble for the titan, but it felt like a triumph for me. He wasn’t all-powerful, he wasn’t infallible, he was just a tired old man who’d hid in his fort and let his people die for him, employing petty insults and coward’s tactics when finally confront-

Light flickered, accompanied by the shadow of a presence behind me and the sound of sudden movement. Appearing directly behind the target was the oldest trick in the teleporter handbook, one I’d found myself on the receiving end of more times than I could recall. Suffice to say, I’d been expecting it. I flung myself into a furious forward roll, hearing and feeling the force of the hammer as it swept sideways through the air, passing first through several of my illusory selves, then the spot where the real me had been standing, then more of my illusions on the other side.

I came up and whirled my flail back behind me, feeling the satisfying crack of impact before there was another flash of light and my attacker vanished.

I rose fully to my feet and turned in a slow circle, eyes peeled for the next sign of a strike. Footsteps echoed by the entrance; the battle outside was all but won, and more of my forces were moving into the building. Artakha couldn’t hide forever, and I had all the time in the universe to tear this fortress apart and drive him from whatever hole he was hiding in.

“Like Makuta Kojol before you, your victory here is a hollow one,” the voice came again, “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

And then… nothing. The entire place somehow felt less alive, and though there was no way to know for sure until we’d searched it thoroughly, I couldn’t shake the certainty that Artakha was gone.

I wanted to believe he fled out of fear.

But I suspect he simply had something more important to do.

* * *

From the accounts I’ve gathered from those who fought in the final battle, an illusion Rahkshi wearing barbed armour and wielding a spiked flail was among those who fought in that fateful final battle on the sands of Bara Magna.

In all likelihood, Illusive was among the many Rahkshi destroyed by Toa Tahu that day.

Given the path he chose, it’s probably for the best that he’s gone… but I can’t help but wonder. If someone had been there for him when his brother died, helped guide him through his grief in a different direction, perhaps there’d be one more of us left in the world now.

But what’s done is done.

All we can is remember what was, and wonder what could’ve been.

[Nato G]

Patience and Progress

(By Nato)

 

Corpus Rahkshi was home to more than its fair share of abnormal and deformed Rahkshi. Mistakes, mutations, and malformities that would’ve have normally been destroyed or disposed of soon after creation were kept around, spared by the promise presented by their heightened intelligence and unique nature.

We had Rahkshi who were blind from birth, who were burly, or bloated, or broken. We had Rahkshi who were nearly as small as Matoran, or tall enough to challenge titans, and every shape and size in-between. But few were as memorable as one particular child of Chirox who memorably graced their school with their unmistakable presence: Glaciem Ignis, the two-headed Rahkshi.

Glaciem Ignis

The Island Of Visorak, 200 years after the Great Cataclysm

Corpus Rahkshi hadn’t been the best place in the universe, but there were days we found ourselves wishing we were back there. Or wishing we were anywhere but here, really.

We were standing upon the top floor balcony of the steel-and-stone tower where Chirox conducted his work, gazing out upon the island. Visorak had probably been beautiful, once. Now there was nothing but mist and murk and screeching spiders. It was early morning, but the island was so steeped in the smog of pollution and putrefaction that no daylight had made its way here in a very long time. Where there had once been light and life there was nothing but woe and webbing. Of all the lands where our father maintained his mad laboratories, this one was by far our least favourite. Unfortunately, it happened to be his favourite.

And what father wanted was the only thing that ever mattered.

It could be far worse, brother. Glaciem’s thought swam into our shared mindspace. You’ve seen the places he dumps his failed experiments.

Bold of you to assume we don’t already fit that category. Came Ignis’ reply.

He wouldn’t have dedicated two centuries to a failure. We can fight effectively now. We can use our powers properly now. We are not a mistake, and he knows it.

Then why is he working so hard to make-

Your sister is still the wiser of you, it seems. Chirox’s telepathic influence suddenly cut into our conflated consciousness. Come inside, children. We have a… visitor.

We turned away from the balcony and towards the heavy vault door that led into our father’s main laboratory. It had been locked when we’d gotten up here, but now the red light turned to green, accompanied by the sound of heavy bolts sliding away. As we pushed our way inside, we saw the familiar assortment of bubbling virus vats, cold steel slabs where past failed experiments were sprawled in various states of dissection or disassembly, and floor-to-ceiling stasis tubes containing all manner of abominations. More vaulted doors lined the walls, sealing away more sensitive or dangerous experiments. And then we saw our father and his guest, a Makuta who could very nearly have been his twin, save for the altered arrangement of limbs and green highlights on their armour.

Makuta Mutran.

“Ah, at last,” Mutran’s clawed hands clapped together as we approached. “I’ve been waiting a long time to see this pet project of yours. The big scary spikes are a bit much, aren’t they?”

“Violence isn’t the only way to win a battle. Sometimes, fear and intimidation is all it takes. It’s a principle I often apply to my Rahi.”

“That’s a very fancy way of saying you give your critters too many teeth,” Mutran sneered.

We stopped before the two Makuta, unsure of what, if anything to say. The rivalry between our creator and his fellow self-proclaimed scientist was well known to us. We weren’t especially excited to be caught up in their latest exchange of verbal barbs… or physical ones, if their argument escalated beyond words.

Mutran squinted at us for a few moments, before stepping closer and walking a slow circle around us. “I wonder… what part of you was harder to create? The kraata, or the armour?”

“The suit took a lot more tinkering, from what I understand,” Glaciem spoke, “I’m sure Chirox could tell you more.”

So eager to placate, sister.

“I’m sure he could, but I wanted to hear it from you,” Mutran murmured, “It’s not often I encounter an experiment that can talk back and give its own observations.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, then, why are you here?”

“Chirox insists you’re a one-off success, that creating more multi-powered Rahkshi is too resource-intensive to ever be a viable replacement for regular rahks,” his claw reached out to trace over our kraata case, studying its shape, “The evidence certainly backs him. Gorast tried making one, once, though I’m told it didn’t survive it’s time at Corpus Rahkshi. But still, there are some in the Brotherhood who think dear Chirox is lying, hoarding some game-changing discovery for himself… so I’ve been sent to evaluate.”

He withdrew his hand, and glanced back at Chirox, “For once, I suspect we’re going to have no cause to disagree. Don’t take that as condemnation, though. I can give credit where it’s due, and perfecting this creature is still an impressive feat.”

“They’re the impressive one, not me. It only took them a few months to learn to cooperate, less than two years to elevate themselves to Shadow Kraata level,” Chirox spoke up, “But it took me over a century to develop a suit of armour that could actually allow them to use their powers.”

“You didn’t choose the most impressive powersets, though,” Mutran tutted, turning fully away from us and walking back towards him. “Of all our abilities, why Fire and Ice Resistance?”  

It was a question we’d asked him before, nagging and needling for some deeper reason or hidden detail, but his answer had always steadfastly been the same.

“I wanted powers that were manageable,” Chirox explained, “More importantly, powers that were perfectly equal, and oppositional.”

Here it comes. He’s going to say the line.

“I wanted to create a conflict in my creature, and see if it could resolve it.”

“Fair enough. Better a kraata that’s a little hot to the touch than one that’s firing lasers or lightning around,” Mutran mused, turning back towards us. “So how did you do it in the end? Can they only use each power on one half of their body, or do both abilities activate at once?”

“Originally, their standard suit permanently left both abilities active at once, cancelling each other out. The new suit allows them to fully utilise one, or the other, or both.”

“You have two heads,” Mutran blurted out, as if he’d only just now noticed.

“Very observant,” Ignis quipped.

“Brother!” Glaciem chided.

“Sister,” Ignis sneered.

“And you both talk,” Mutran continued, his curiosity piqued. “You disagree. You have distinct personalities. You identify as different genders. If your minds are separate, how do you coordinate?”

“We have a sort of shared mindspace. We hear what each other think,” Ignis said. “The suit helps, too. We’re both connected to it, and it connects us to each other.”

“Physically we each control our own half of the body. We coordinate our thoughts and movements to act and react effectively,” Glaciem continued, “And if one of us were to be incapacitated or willingly relinquish control over our half of the body, the other could take full control.”

“You would’ve had to use multiple kraata to create this armour, then?” Mutran glanced back at Chirox, “And then modified the carapace and other components by hand to accommodate your conjoined kraata?”

“Exactly,” Chirox nodded, “We’d never be able to mass-produce Rahkshi like this. Each one would require considerable time and work to create. I don’t imagine most of our siblings would have much interest in putting in that kind of effort for what they view as expendable soldiers.”

“Well, I’m satisfied,” Mutran said. “I do so love an opportunity to slap Antroz with an I told you so.”

And then he was gone, teleporting away to do exactly that.

“You were reading his mind, father? Did he suspect anything?”

“Not a thing,” Chirox grinned, “He’s always been obsessed with one-upping me, seeing me fail. He came here with his conclusion already decided.”

“I see why you don’t like that guy.” Ignis said.

“That’s the trouble with him, and the rest of the Brotherhood,” a Shadow Hand extended forth from our father’s form, reaching past us to unlock one of the sealed side chambers, “All they think about are quick results and immediate gratification. Experimentation isn’t about success, it’s about iteration. It takes time and patience to perfect a project.”

The door slid open, revealing row after row of caged kraata more akin to Doom Vipers than mere serpents. Each was a twisted tangle of tails, harrowing hues and hissing heads. Experimental Rahkshi suits in various states of assembly were arrayed around the room.

“When I told Mutran it would take time and work to create more of you, it wasn’t an excuse.”  

* * *

Even among other Rahkshi, even on this new world, Glaciem Ignis and their other strange siblings stand apart. It’s not their fault. Even we fear that which we don’t understand… and Chirox certainly made more than his fair share of confounding creations.

Just as an experiment requires time and patience to succeed, so too does acceptance.

[Nato G]

Years ago, a pair of Toa appeared on Spherus Magna. The missing members of the Toa Nuva, long feared fallen during the final battle. They brought with them a tale of a strange world orbiting our own, a crimson construct where the dead still dwelled.

Most of the dead, at least.

According to the Toa, there were no Makuta or Rahkshi on the Red Star.

I’d never given much thought to the idea of life after death until that day. But to learn that some kind of afterlife did exist, but beings of antidermis had no place in it… it hurt. It felt like there truly was no place for us, in this life or the next. It meant that the two Rahkshi whose lives I’d taken, and the myriad more who’d lost their lives over the centuries, were truly gone.

At least, that’s what I used to believe.

A mysterious missive appeared on my desk yesterday morning, and now I don’t know what to believe anymore.

* * *

Memoirs of a Turahk

(By UltimoScorp)

Hey there. I'm Kat. That name used to be short for Catatonic but I've left that name and a few others behind.

I've also been dead for… iunno, 50 years or so?

Truth told, I kicked around a lot longer than I ever expected to. Crazy how the years slip past when you aren't paying attention, huh?

Anyway, I guess I oughta sum it up, huh? A lot happened over the thousand or so years since we finally left Corpus Rahkshi.

We lived in that little abandoned village for a good while, smuggling others out of Corpus and doing what we could to keep the new enforcers off our trail. After a while it became a veritable community. Farms and everything, can you believe that? The Order gave us odd jobs here and there, and we made a quieter living when Corpus eventually shut its doors for the last time. I heard a couple different warlords made it their fortress during that time, but I'd imagine by now it's much the way I last saw it; a dead husk.

The interim years were interesting. Teridax took over, and I had the opportunity to fight alongside(and against, once or twice) some of the big players of the winning side of that whole debacle. Honestly still think those Toa are overrated but hey I guess when you've got the mythical power of Destiny on your side you get to be living legends, huh? I suppose I shouldn't complain, after all, they didn't murder us on sight, and we even get to live in the big cities now. Our own people, with our own culture. I know I always wanted it that way but it's sure surreal to think about it. New Atero is definitely the best place I ever got to live. Even got to visit some old friends sometimes when I wasn't patrolling or hunting. Or eating. Oh yeah, guard captain. One of many but still. Your girl made it to the big leagues! Heard Exxan has a nice job as a chronicler up at the library now. Finally got to do what he wanted I guess, and I'm happy for him.

I miss my friends sometimes, but I'm pretty happy knowing they're still living happily. The ones I know about, anyway.

What? Oh, how I died? Ah jeez, well… look, it's kinda rude to ask someone that, isn't it?

Fiiine, I'll tell you but….

Alright look, my luck had to run out eventually. Truth is, I plain got sick and it got me. Some kind of virus that pretty much only hit Rahkshi. Some people thought it was a bio-weapon attack or something but honestly I can't think of anyone who would have benefitted from it so I doubt it. Nasty bug, though. Definitely the second or third worst time I've ever had. No grand heroic demise for me I'm afraid, just a sick old woman passing in the night. But hey, I hit the big one thou' so I'm pretty okay with it.

Well I can't stick around too long, y'know? The powers that be are just letting me pass this along this one time.

Hope to see you again someday, Fang. And Hoto of course! Hope you and Jayar are getting on well.

I dunno if you’re still kicking around, Cao, but we all miss ya, buddy.

Hope that leg is still holding up for you, Dodge.

Era, I know you’re doing well, you always had a knack for getting by even in the hard times. Shield, keep that head held high, kid. Well, I guess you’re a little old for ‘kid’ now, huh?

Exxan (I know for sure you’ll be getting this one way or another). Phew, where to start, huh? We had our disagreements, and I know you always saw things from a different angle than a lot of us, but I want you to know that I had nothing but the utmost respect for you. But seriously you have terrible taste in partners.

Oh, and Xara? When you get here, we’re having a proper rematch. That whole thing in the tournament? Terrible showing on my part. I got a reputation to hold up, y’know?

That’s all the time I’ve got, so I’ll see ya when I see ya!

* * *

In life, Kat was a dear friend, a Rahkshi of Fear who faced every challenge with raucous recklessness and brazen bravery. She showed me kindness at a time when I was utterly underserving of it, and even now, I feel I never properly repaid that gesture.

I mourned her passing, as I have for so many others of our kind. I’ve done my best to honour her memory. I’ve tried to move on, and focus on telling the tales of those of us who still remain.

The logical part of my mind wants to believe the letter is a forgery… an immaculate one… created by someone who somehow knew Kat incredibly well. But the handwriting, the words, the tone, it’s her. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if I even want to know.

Once upon a time, I believed the answers to all of life’s questions could be found in a library. It’s only now, as I try to write answers of my own, that I realise that knowledge only leads to more questions.

And even without answers, some questions can completely change the way one sees the world.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Nato G

[Nato G]

I sometimes wonder if there was ever anything good in the Makuta.

All I ever experienced from them was callousness and craven cruelty. That’s all most of us experienced. But despite how hard the Makuta tried to make all of their Rahkshi as cold and uncaring as they were, in the end they failed.

We outlived them.

We became better than them.

But it came at a cost. So many innocent, gentle Rahkshi have suffered over the centuries for daring to be different. Some of them survived. Some didn’t. Some of them will forever go unknown… but they will all be remembered.

A Caged Bird

(By Smudge8, featuring lyrics by Stephanie Mabey)

Specimen B-R006 tromped down the stairs into the dungeon. He could hear someone humming a mournful tune coming from one of the cells. He peered through the bars, then set down the bowl of nutrient slop and kicked it under the door. “Hey you filthy scum, it’s eat’n time!”

The cage’s occupant crawled forward to receive the meal. She was a rahkshi, like Specimen B. Her armor was a dark mottling of black and brown, covered with numerous cuts, burns, and other scars from father’s “Experiments.” The only remnant left of her past life was a seashell necklace. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely.

Specimen B furrowed his brow as he watched his sister eat. “I still don’t get why you don’t just do what Dad asks.”

The prisoner, who their father had christened Specimen M-D310 , looked up from her bowl, wiping the food off her face with her hand. She had a quizzical look on her face.

“I mean, um, look at you.” Specimen B motioned to his sister’s legs.  All the muscles and tendons below her knees had been meticulously removed, then what remained had been crushed into useless lumps.

Specimen M took a moment before replying “Nothing.”

“Whadaya mean nothin?”

Specimen M Smiled. “That’s what I did, Nothing.” She shifted around, moving her mangled legs into a more comfortable position.

“So you were lazy?”

She shook her head, “I actively refused to do what our father asked. He wanted me to hurt people.”

Specimen B sat down. He was intrigued, in his own simple-minded way. “But hurting people is the best part! Especially when they can’t fight back.”

“You really are our father’s son, aren’t you?” Specimen M leaned forward, locking eyes with her brother. “Not everyone sees the world the way you do.”

Specimen B Scooted backward, slightly intimidated. “Whaddaya mean? Is something wrong with your eyes?”

Specimen M Sighed, a tired smile crossed her face. “I mean… not everyone likes the same things you do.”

“So…” Specimen B said after a moment of silence. “You don’t like hurting people?”

Specimen M shook her head again. “Have you ever thought about how other people feel?”

“Nope!” Specimen B responded proudly. “Dad says the only thing I need to think about is following orders!” A look of horror dawned on his face. “And he said not to talk to you! If I don’t hurry he’s gonna whip me again!”

Specimen B jolted to his feet, but before he could turn to run his sister reached out and grabbed him. He felt a strange tingling sensation in his arm. He looked down and saw that the cut on his arm was stitching itself back together, causing him to pause. He took a deep breath, his sinuses were clear for the first time in his life. “How did you do that?”

Specimen M smiled. “It’s just something I do, I guess you’d call it my Rahkshi power.”

Specimen B frowned in confusion. “But I’m a Rahkshi and I can’t do that.”

The prisoner slowly pulled her brother back into a sitting position. “What can you do?”

“Well.” He furrowed his brow, then perked up. “I can touch people to make them lazy!”

“Lazy?”

Specimen B reached through the bars. As his hand made contact with her knee, Specimen M felt a wave of lethargy overcome her. Her eyelids drooped and she had to stifle back a yawn. “I see, you have the power of sleep?”

The drowsiness receded as Specimen B drew his hand back. “Can you do that?”

Specimen M shook her head. “Different Rahkshi have different powers, just like how we have different colors.”

Specimen B smiled. “So that’s why I can’t shoot lazers out of my eyes!”

That made Specimen M chuckle. “You know, people think in different ways too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Specimen M turned and grabbed something from the corner of her cell. When she brought it into the dim light, Specimen B saw it was a stack of papers and animal skins bound together with an old key ring. She leafed through it and held up one of the pages. It was covered in inky markings Specimen B couldn’t understand.   “What do you see when you look at this?”

“It looks like garbage.” Specimen B replied.

“Well,” Specimen M continued. “I see something beautiful. I’ve been working on this for a long time.”

Specimen B tilted his head like a curious dog.

“You see.” Specimen M continued. “This is musical notation, it’s like writing, but includes instructions on how to sing the words.”  She held up the paper again. This time Specimen B could parse it a little better now, in between the lines of squiggles there was writing.

“There are times when you might feel aimless and can't see the place where you belong.”

Specimen M smiled and began to sing.

“But you will find that there is a purpose-

it's been there within you all along.”

 Despite the years of living in the dungeon, her voice was still soft and melodious.

“And when you're near it-

You can almost hear it

It's like a symphony-

Just keep listening-

And pretty soon you'll start-

To figure out your part-

Everyone plays a piece-

And there are melodies-

In each one of us”

“That was..." Specimen B squinted, “...what’s the most gross, horrible, disgusting thing you can think of?”

Specimen M gave him a confused look.

“Cause I can’t think of the word, but it’s like the exact opposite of that.”

Specimen M smiled. “I think I know what you mean.” She began to leaf through her book. “I like music, it’s why I named myself Melody.”

“Oh,” Specimen B laughed. “Everyone always called me Booger, you know cause…” He gestured to his body, which was covered in pus generated by his unusual skin condition. Specimen M gave a polite smile.

“So… did you make that up yourself” Specimen B asked.

Specimen M shook her head. “No, I got that one out of a book back at the school, but I’ve had a lot of free time down here to write my own stuff.”

Specimen B leaned forward. “That’s really cool, how much do you have?”

Specimen M chuckled. “I’ve written nearly a hundred. It’s how I pass the time." She paused and looked down at her book. “I feel like I’ve put my soul in these pages.” She looked up at her brother. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to live. It’d bring me great hope to know my work gets to live on.” She held the book out.

Specimen B took it. “What do you want me to do with this?”

Specimen M paused. “I don’t know how much longer father is going to keep me alive down here. I want to pass this book on to someone who needs more hope in their life.”

Specimen B took the book. “And what makes you think I need that?”

“I’ve been down here a long time. Father’s been trying to ‘break’ me for a while. Most recently he tried taking away my cellmates in order to crush me with loneliness.” She turned and faced her brother. “But I want to see the good in everyone, I want to prove him wrong.” She sighed. “I know you think your life is pretty good, but trust me, It could be a lot better if you focused on helping others instead of beating them down.” She reached out a hand and put it on Specimen B’s knee. “At least, next time you’re picking on someone weaker than you, try passing this on to them instead.”

Specimen B nodded.

They sat in silence for another moment before Specimen B stood up with a start. “I was supposed to report to dad! He’s going to whip me so bad for being late.” He turned and started running up the stairs. Specimen M waved a polite goodbye.

It was a long walk to the top of the tower where the Rahkshi’s father stood. As he walked he leafed through the book. The scribbles on the page still looked like nonsense to him, but after staring at it a while he was starting to see a pattern. The long bars with the dots surrounded the words, so that must be the “Singing” Part. However, his musing was cut short as he reached the  door to the top.

“Well,” the Makuta said, not looking up from the papers spread across his desk. “How is my little failure doing?”

“Oh, um, I think I’m fine.” Specimen B replied.

“Not you, you idiot! I meant the prisoner!” The Makuta snapped.

“Oh, she’s um…” Specimen B’s mind raced, trying to avoid getting in trouble. “Sad! Yes, So sad, and hungry, she looked really hungry.”

“Good, it seems I’ve finally found a way to break her precious hope.” He looked up. “But you should have been here half an hour ago, what took you so long?”

“Oh, I was, um, INSULTING her.” Specimen B grinned widely, “You know, helping break her down!”

The Makuta snarled, and a ball of plasma materializing in his hand. “You should know better by now, your tardiness will be punished!” As he wound up to throw Specimen instinctively raised his hands to block the attack, but it never came.

The Makuta looked at the book in Specimen B’s hands curiously. “What exactly is that?”

“Oh this?” Specimen B said, before hiding the book behind his back. “Just a piece of garbage I was gonna throw away.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I had a look at it would you?” The Makuta stalked closer.

“No, you don’t want to touch this, it’s all gross and slimy and…”

The Makuta flung the ball of plasma. Specimen B ducked and the ball impacted the wall behind him where his head had been.

“Now,” the Makuta said menacingly, another ball of plasma forming in his hand. “Let me see what you have.” Specimen B’s self preservation instincts kicked in, and he meekly held out the book. The Makuta took it from his hand and examined it. “Fascinating, where did you get this?”

“Well, um, I was…” Specimen B thought about what his sister had said. He straitened up. “Melody gave it to me.”

“I see,” a sly smile crossed his face. “Perhaps this is how she’s been able to hang on so long.” He handed it back to Specimen B. “Throw it off the side.” He said flatly.

“What?!”

A bladed whip materialized in the Makuta’s hand. Specimen B quickly turned to the edge of the tower, taking a deep breath.

“I want to pass this book on to someone who needs more hope in their life.”

Specimen B spotted a Matoran trudging through the muddy fields, head hanging down. Specimen B wound up and yeeted the patchwork book. It sailed in an arc through the air, hitting the Matoran on the back of the head, making the poor soul fall face first into the mud. Specimen B snickered a little. The Matoran stumbled to their feet, picked up the book, looked around in wonder, then started running back home. Specimen B turned back to face his father, who was still looking over his work. “Well done, now get out of my sight, you filthy scum.”

Specimin B quickly bowed before turning and heading back to the keep. A small smile on his face.

* * *

There are few things in life more powerful, or more inspiring, than hope. Hope can spark the fires of kindness in the heart of another. Hope can bring warmth to the darkest day. Hope can turn tragedy into triumph. For us Rahkshi, hope was the light that spited the shadows.

Melody is perhaps the only other Rahkshi I know of who shared the same specific hope that I do. The hope that a few simple scribblings on a page can change someone for the better.

[Nato G]

For most of us, this strange new world was a promise and an opportunity, a fresh start, a chance to play our part in the foundation of a new future. We put our pasts behind us, focused on playing our parts and earning our places among the other races.

But some among us could never let go of the mad ambitions that made us. Some embraced the delusions of godhood that the Makuta once clung to. And with the Makuta now gone, some have sought to fill the void their makers left behind…

 

Warrior, King, God

(By UltimoScorp)

Warrior, Destroyer, The White Mountain, Brother, Traitor, Friend, King, God.

Ezec had many names and titles, some which mattered to him and many more that did not.

Many, many years had passed since he had strode through the stone doors of Corpus Rahkshi with Aza beside him. She no longer lived, having proved unfit for Godhood. He alone had braved that insidious silver pool and emerged forever changed. After such a trial, none could deny that Ezec was indeed divine. None that wished to live, anyway. He basked in his new power, gathering followers and sycophants alike. After a time he became a god-king of a mountain city, perched upon the peak. For generations he ruled and led and destroyed and rebuilt. Until the fateful day that the mountain awoke with fury and fire. Ash and lava destroyed the mountain city, and all within it. All but Ezec. Undying, he was buried in the volcanic flow and trapped within in unyielding stone prison. Death could not take him, but neither could he free himself. Hundreds of years passed. Enough for him to descend into raving lunacy and pull himself back to sanity.

Was it divine power or simple luck that prospectors inadvertently freed him searching for precious metals or stones? None can say for certain. Whatever the case, he wanders now, a God with no worshippers, a king with no subjects, a warrior with no war.

Whispers abound that he searches for death, for a way to leave the shell of his body behind and move to the next world, whatever that may be.

So be warned, if you travel the wastes and encounter the great White Mountain King, he may seek his death at your hands. And if you cannot provide it, you may find your own death at his!

[Nato G]

Of Flesh And Faith

(By Nato)

 

Family has always been a somewhat tenuous concept among our kind.

Many of the students in the ledger were related, in some way or another, but that fact meant nothing to most of them. We often referred to our Makuta as our mothers or fathers. We considered those spawned from the same Makuta as ourselves to be our brothers and sisters. But for many that relationship extended no further than passing acknowledgement of our sires and siblings, maybe slightly more loyalty or consideration, but rarely more than that.

For the most part, our deepest relationships or rivalries were reserved for siblings who’d been spawned in the same batch as us, the ones who spent considerable time with during our upbringings. They were the ones we forged the closest connections with, who we often found ourselves fighting beside. Or against.

I glanced briefly at a small display case on the edge of my desk. Within it was an old barbed arrowhead, the last memento I still had from my own sister, Sliver. She’d once sought to destroy me, and I’d ultimately been forced to reply in kind. Ours had not been a happy family.

There were some exceptions, though. Bitil had named and themed many of his children around the archaic alphabet of some old language, and that group had held a great degree of affection for each other. I’d met a fair few of them during my time at Corpus Rahkshi: Epsilon, Omicron, Alpha… Omega.

I’m sorry. If I had my time over…

But I don’t. There’s no bringing back the lost.

There was another Rahkshi family who made a name for themselves, a disgruntled group whose strained relationships left impacts on the world long after their time at Corpus Rahkshi was at an end. The so-called “gothic siblings”, who were sired by the Makuta of Stelt: the self-proclaimed god twins Ezec and Aza, their rival Thurisaz, the sun-obsessed son Sugil, Geuua the tinkerer, the oft-underestimated younger sister Reda, and others whose names and stories never reached the walls of Corpus Rahkshi.

Long after their time at the school, two of those siblings were stationed on Xia during the closing days of the war between the Order Of Mata Nui and the Brotherhood of Makuta.

Only one of them lived to tell the tale. 

* * *

Geuua

Xia, The Destiny War

More than a thousand years had passed since I’d lost it, but my missing hand still ached.

Most beings tend to dismiss the armoured suits we Rahkshi wear as a mundane machine, easily repaired or replaced. Even some new breed Rahkshi feel that way, discarding their suits when they’re damaged or disabled. But I’ve never seen it that way. I still wore the same armour I’d been spawned with, repairing and enhancing and adding to it countless times over the centuries.

It wasn’t about sentiment. It was about respect. Each suit of Rahkshi armour was made from a kraata, doused and drowned in a vat of viruses and energised protodermis. One life sacrificed, to create a different kind of life. Our suits have bones and blood and muscles and nerves. Through our armour, we can see, hear, and feel, including pain. Even the phantom pain that comes with a lost limb. I could feel it now, a persistent painful ache from a mangled hand that had long since been replaced by an Earth Claw prosthetic. It often hurt the most before times of disaster or danger, as if the pain from my past was seeking to warn me of what awaited me in the future.

It didn’t take much work to guess what it was warning me of this time. Since I’d arrived in Xia a few days ago, the island had endured one disaster after another. First a Tahtorak had suddenly appeared in the centre of the city, then it had started a fight with the karzing Kanohi Dragon, then a bunch of Toa had showed up to subdue them both, leaving just as quickly, and now the entire force of the Dark Hunters were in a fleet offshore poised to either take the island by force or raze it to ruin.

And I was here dealing with it all because Antroz was apparently busy elsewhere and my Makuta couldn’t be bothered teleporting over from Stelt to supervise the island in-person. He’d always been indolent and withdrawn, but lounging about while the rest of the Brotherhood went to war was a new low.

Now, here I was, helping my brother Sugil and a few dozen Vortixx loyal to the Brotherhood try to muster some feeble defence against the coming invasion. We were taking up position near the docks, installing cannons and barricades across the main street in preparation to repel the Dark Hunters when they made it ashore. It was a pitiful defence, doomed to fail. Just like our attempt to stop the Kanohi Dragon had. And the Tahtorak before that. And-

“Grow a spine,” Sugil snarled, leering at me from a few bio away. “These bickering brutes are nothing compared to the might of the Makuta.”

I glanced at him for only a moment before looking away again. Beyond being obnoxious to deal with, he was loathsome to even look at. Among the many advantages the new breed Rahkshi had over the old was greater resistance to the adverse effects of light, but Sugil had always sought to push past resistance to full immunity, even mastery, and after centuries of pain and patience, he’d succeeded. Nowadays he had shards of lightstones embedded directly into the plating of his garishly glossy purple-and-gold armour, effectively turning his entire suit into a mobile lens flare. His weapon, a spiked mace, was similarly studded with lightstone shards. If we were fighting other Rahkshi, it might have actually been useful. But against literally anything else, it just made him a more obvious target.

There were a number of things I wanted to say to him. Starting with some remark about it being rude to read my mind and ending with a mention of the fact that there were no Makuta here. But given that he could hear my thoughts long before I gave voice to them, I didn’t bother opening my mouth.

“In their absence, we are their chosen ones,” he proclaimed, gesturing grandly with his glittering sceptre. “I am untouchable! I’ll know their plans before they even put them into action. And you can destroy all they bring to bear against us.”

Any other day, I might have been astounded by his decision to compliment me, but in this situation his words were a gross exaggeration of both my abilities, and his own.

“And how are you going to hear what they’re thinking when they’re all the way over there?” I retorted, pointing out at the distant fleet, “They can sit there in their boats and bomb us until there’s no one left to oppose them.”

“Then we fire back.”

“With what? Most of what the Vortixx didn’t already sell to the Brotherhood got stomped to bits by the two giant monsters that just trashed half the city.”

The Vortixx standing around us murmured among themselves. They couldn’t understand our words, given that we were conversing in kraata-speak, but they could clearly tell that we were arguing, and my earlier gesture had indicated exactly what we were arguing about.  

“What would you have us do, then? Surrender the city?”

“Sure, why not? Seems like the best way to actually survive.”

I wasn’t a warrior like most Rahkshi had been raised to be. I was an engineer, a tinkerer, someone who understood how to build things up or put them back together when they were broken. I understood that sometimes the simplest solutions were the best ones, and that sometimes a failed project simply needed to be abandoned. Living as a prisoner of the Dark Hunters was preferrable to perishing in a futile fight against their forces.

Of course, Sugil disagreed. His worldview, his very personality, was constructed around steadfast confidence not only in the superiority of our species, but his own superiority over other Rahkshi.

He brandished his glorified glowstick in my direction and let out a guttural growl, “You would dare betray our glorious cause? I always knew you were weak, little sister, but this sacrilege is a step too far.”

“Our glorious cause? The Makuta have stretched themselves thin trying to wage a war with the whole universe at once. Do you see any Brotherhood army here, brother? They’ve abandoned Xia, and us.”

“The Makuta didn’t abandon us,” Sugil switched to the common tongue, clearly trying to inspire the Vortixx with his words, “They trust us to triumph in their stead!”

I just shook my head and sighed. There was no sense in arguing with him. He truly believed every word of what he said. His faith in himself as a superior specimen of our species, his mindless blind belief in the brilliance of the Brotherhood… it was everything to him. It was who he was, who he’d always been, who he always would be. In a way, I almost envied him for being so sure of himself, deluded though he was.

But I wasn’t like him.

And I was glad of it.

“If you want to die for your pride, go right ahead,” I scoffed, turning away, “I’ll sit on the sidelines and see how this thing pans out.”

“You would turn your back on this family?” He lapsed back into kraata-speak as he leaped forward to cut me off, “After everything we’ve done for you? Everything I’ve done for you?”

“After everything you’ve done?” The fingers of my Earth Claw snapped together with a metallic twang as I whirled back around to jab the prosthetic appendage in his direction, “You destroyed my hand, beat me half to death, bullied and belittled me for most of my life… and you expect me to be grateful?” 

“Pain is the path to perfection, dear sister,” Sugil’s faceplates shifted into a smug smile, “I had to burn before I could embrace the light. You had to break before you could build.”

“You didn’t do it for my benefit. You did it because you’re a bully who thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

“Because I am.”

The way he said it was what finally broke me.

He’d said it before. So many times, in so many ways, that I’d grown numb to it. But hearing it now, spoken with such conceited certainty despite the failures of recent days and the enemy fleet standing by to obliterate us at any moment… it was too much. I went numb. I stopped caring about family, or fear, or my father’s wrath. I stopped caring about the consequences.

He was alone.

Our father wasn’t here.

No one who mattered was.

No one who could stop me was.

I don’t remember actually drawing my warhammer. I just remember it swinging, and Sugil scampering out of the way, his mind reading allowing him to anticipate and evade the blow before it had even begun.

I heard angry cries from the Vortixx, heard the whirrs and whines of their launchers charging, and the steely scrape of weapons being unsheathed. But the sounds ceased a second later as I brought my powers to bear, projecting an arcing aura of molecular disruption that reduced their armour and armaments to atoms, destroying most of the defences we’d set up as well. Sugil, once again sensing my intent, scrambled back to a safe distance while the now-vulnerable Vortixx scattered in fear.

“What have you done?” He raged, “Now we have nothing!”

“Now you have nothing,” I corrected.

There was no flashy fight in the moments that followed. We were at a stalemate, and we both knew it. His power would allow him to know any move I intended before I made it. And mine could destroy any weapon or projectile he sent my way. Neither of us could get close to the other. Neither of us could do any harm to the other.

The difference between us was that I was perfectly content to stand here until the Dark Hunters came to destroy us both. But Sugil wasn’t. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to see the rage roiling within him. Nothing but his own pride was stopping him from simply walking away, but I knew that was enough. He wanted to win. He needed to, even though he knew it was impossible.

So he made his move.

His lightstone-studded staff suddenly flashed towards me, flung like a spear. I disrupted it asunder on instinct, only to find myself suddenly blinded by the resulting burst of brightness as the solid pieces of lightstone became a glowing cloud of dazzling dust. Credit where it was due, Sugil’s rage and desperation hadn’t driven him to stupidity; his strategy actually had some sense to it. But I didn’t need to see him to know what he was doing, or how to stop it.

I know how to break things.

As he ran at me, claws no doubt poised to strike at my eyes or throat, I exerted my power on the ground between us. Its molecules disrupted, the dirt essentially became intangible, and I heard Sugil cry out as he sunk, stumbled, and sprawled forward.

And I know how to rebuild them.

I released my disruption field, returning the ground to its natural state, before pushing through the haze of stinging lightstone dust to focus on the sight beyond it. Sugil lay prostrate on the grimy cobblestones, all four of his limbs now trapped in the ground. He refused to look up at me, even as I hefted my hammer and raised it high.

He knew what was going to happen next.

* * *

Of course, there was no consequences for Geuua’s decision. Within days, the Makuta and almost all that they had made were gone, and those of us that remained found ourselves living in a very different universe.

Spilling her brother’s blood bought Geuua an audience with the Shadowed One, and whatever she said to him earned her a position in his organisation. As far as anyone knows, she’s still working with the Dark Hunters to this day. Even in this new world, that group continues to cast their shadow.

Geuua’s choice is saddening, but not surprising. After so long spent dwelling in the dark, literally and figuratively, some of our kind are simply incapable of finding our way into the light. To some, the light was never anything more than a weapon to be wielded against us.

[Nato G]

Without the Makuta, what are we?

We were the flesh of their flesh, trained and treated to serve only as extension’s of our maker’s wills. There was no place for us in the world beyond what the Makuta made, no purpose beyond what they gave.

That’s what we were taught.

Many of us learned otherwise once we struck out on our own. We discovered friends and factions that we’d never known existed, places and peoples that weren’t on any map, myths and monsters beyond imagining.

But most importantly, through all of the chaos and conflict, some of us found ourselves.

 

Life and Death
(By ‘Sergei’ with input from Click)

Not far from Destral, the Brotherhood of Makuta's teleporting island fortress, floated an Order of Mata Nui battleship headed to war.

Given this purpose, the figure staring off at the waves from the ship's stern seemed a peculiar passenger. Few had ever met a Rahkshi who would draw arms against the Makuta, after all. But this one had been recruited for this mission by the Order for a very specific purpose.

"I've dispatched our distraction," came a voice from behind the wayward Son of Makuta, as Trinuma approached, "and if we're lucky, he won't mess up badly enough to ruin this whole operation. You know what to do?"

"I could hardly forget,'' the Rahkshi replied. "Rush past the front lines, get into the fortress, and make sure the teleporter gets turned off before they can use it. Singlehandedly."

Trinuma nodded. "Hey, Tobduk's taking care of Tridax, and you're perfectly suited to handle anything else in there - don't make this sound like a suicide mission. We picked you for this because it's incredibly important, and you're uniquely capable of tanking your way through a Brotherhood fortress, Jayar."

"Of course. I won't let the Order down."

Satisfied enough to proceed with his many other preparations, Trinuma left the determined Rahkshi of Quick Healing to his brooding vigil over the waves.

* * *

Valuable. Likely to succeed. Uniquely capable.

Looking out at the water, Jayar couldn't help but be reminded of the similar sea surrounding the small island of Corpus Rahkshi, and the similar expectations that had been placed on him there. There, the Brotherhood of Makuta had tried to groom him - and the other inexplicably sapient Rahkshi of the so-called New Breed - to become their new supersoldiers. Warriors and commanders with the overwhelming power of any Rahkshi, but the creativity and cunning to surpass them in every way. The diaspora of escaped New Breeds proved the cruelty and overall ineffectiveness of the Brotherhood's approach.

But the universe was a hostile place for a young sapient Rahkshi, especially as tensions grew between the Brotherhood and the rest of the world. Many of the rogue New Breed found themselves working for other powerful organisations in a similar capacity to earn safe places to sleep, support for their goals, and - sometimes - even a modicum of acceptance. Compared to the Brotherhood or even the Dark Hunters, working for the Order of Mata Nui was obviously the lesser evil... but real self-determination remained, at best, a vague hope. Was that why after a thousand years, he was still only level 6, ever short of becoming a Shadow Kraata and reaching his full potential?

Even so, he hoped, fighting against the Brotherhood this way would hasten the arrival of a world where freedom was possible. And in the meantime, his services to the Order earned a degree of protection for someone very precious to him.

Shaking his head, he turned toward the front of the boat, pushing off his misgivings. The appointed moment was at hand, and his duty would brook no distraction.

* * *

At his destination, a wide, circular room in the depths of the fortress, a hulking clawed hand depressed a stiff green button with a tactile but inaudible click.

The floor of the room was a mere ledge around its perimeter a few Rahkshi strides deep, after which a circular pit stretched into the depths of the facility. Six thick tubes emerged from the deep near its centre, and bent slightly to spit an ominous variety of wires and circuitry into a glowing crystal of pure protodermis, a few metres above the floor. Six catwalks extended from the ledge to meet a ring surrounding this nexus. At the edge of the pit between two of them, a slim podium held a control console with a green button. Above the crystal, a holographic screen showed a complete map of the Matoran Universe, a red dot blinking at the isle's ominous destination, and a timer that had just begun counting down from 3:00.

Its owner satisfied that the teleportation sequence had begun, the hand gripped the edge of the console firmly... and easily ripped the entire podium from the floor and tossed it into the pit, torn wires and all. Through it all, the equipment in the room remained blanketed in eerie silence, despite the ominous vibrations of the machinery in its centre.

A distant explosion shook the chamber as the schemer looked towards the sealed door. The Order was right on schedule... too late for any of the invaders to reach, and just in time to ensure no one on Destral checked the teleporter room again either.

But even if they did, they would need to contend with the island's most powerful defender save Tridax himself - the Makuta's right-hand Rahkshi, New Breed Shadow Kraata of Silence, Shark, who would be fighting to defend his dearest wish.

* * *

The Makuta had, mostly, wanted to make cunning and pitiless killers of their New Breed sons. Shark was, in these respects, a paragon.

From his earliest days at Corpus Rahkshi, he had excelled in Tridax' tests, and impressed Icarax himself with his strength and guile. His elevation to Prefect of Corpus Rahkshi had been the first of many. Rare among his peers, he had stuck around and progressed quickly to graduation, and served the Brotherhood well since in ever-higher capacities. Spy, saboteur, assassin, terrorist, officer...  As long as the Makuta had enemies they wanted dead, Shark was glad to make that happen, always.

So Icarax and Tridax could hardly decline to station him on Destral during this pivotal time. Neither Tridax nor Icarax (before he'd left for Karda Nui) was particularly interested in managing the fortress anyways, but Shark was impeccable. He swept through the facility scheduling guards, sending out patrols, arranging maintenance and fortification; nothing that happened on the island escaped his notice, nor his swift and formidable response. He had quickly arranged the capture of this latest babbling prisoner, met with Tridax himself regarding their warning of sabotage, and faithfully accepted when the Makuta entrusted him to guard the teleporter, just in case.

Just as he had been planning when he leaked Destral's location to the Order through his Xian weapon dealer.

* * *

Cutting a thin line of unstoppable progress through Destral's defences, Jayar soon arrived at the core of the facility. With a swift curving swing of his protosteel spear, he cut a hole in the thick bulkhead blocking his destination, and kicked the centre into the teleportation chamber as he stepped through.

The inside set off alarm bells in his head immediately. First, the hologram in the centre of the room showed a countdown, measured in seconds: the island was about to teleport... right into the heart of Metru Nui!?

That would do unimaginable damage! It had to be stopped - he had to destroy the teleporter!

But also: despite the enormous amount of energy surely flowing through the equipment here, the room was eerily silent... especially a sonic void above his head, from which no echoes returned.

In a split second, Jayar realised what that meant, and threw his spear into a parrying position above him - just in time to block a massive sword, coming down on his head like a lightning bolt as a larger Rahkshi fell upon him from his hiding place clinging to the wall above. The force of the blow pushed Jayar to one knee, but a flicker of surprise seemed to furrow Shark's brow as he pulled back the sword for another swing.

This one was a much easier parry for not being a surprise attack... or so Jayar thought, until he found himself grasping air, his spear dropping to the ground in his peripheral vision without a sound. One side of the sword was coated in a Teleportation disk...? There was no time to contemplate that as Shark, returning to true strength and speed, brought his blade crashing down at Jayar's head again.

Burning with determination, the healer threw his arms out above his head, grabbing the blade with his bare hands and slowing it to a stop just inches from his pained expression. If he were any weaker, this cutting pain would be missing fingers right before he was cut in half, but surging with healing energy and adrenaline, his hands were regenerating too fast to cut through. Grasping the blade, he shoved aside and retaliated with a firm kick to Shark's chest, sending the huge Rahkshi staggering backward - buying some space to race around him towards the crystal shining brightly below the ominous holographic map.

It was clear, Shark realised, that he would have the disadvantage in a straight fight. Silence was not an obviously offensive power, and he couldn't use his strongest weapon here for fear of damaging the teleporter. He probably couldn't even put a scratch on a healer for more than a couple seconds.

But he didn't have to. He just had to hold Jayar off for another few seconds so the teleport would fulfil its promise.

With his characteristic surprising agility, Shark sprung to his side, extending his sword to block the healer's path forward. With his free hand, he withdrew his sonic weapon the Percussor and flicked a bolt of sound towards Jayar's ankle as he slowed - but to his dismay, the joint shattered for only a split-second before the wound seemed to stream out of it. Jayar didn't even stumble as he hopped into the air, then kicked off the upturned blade of Shark's outstretched sword, leaping in the direction of the nexus once more. Quickly, Shark dropped the Percussor and spun to grab Jayar's extended ankle, then turned back to swing him overhead and slam him into the floor.

Jayar was quick to somersault backwards onto his feet once more. Blinking, he shrugged off a laser blast fired at his face from Shark's helmet, and sprinted towards the opposite way around the room to the teleporter. But once again, Shark was equally quick on his feet, leaping to block the path.

Agh, there's no time for this! He couldn't fail now... if this teleport went off, everyone on Destral and Metru Nui alike would probably die, to say nothing of the effects of such a collision on the rest of the world. But as impossible as it was for Shark to damage him, he couldn't seem to get past the massive Rahkshi, either... at least, not in the few seconds left.

Unless...

Without slowing down, Jayar leapt into the air and kicked down at Shark's blade again, striking the kanoka-forged edge, and found himself...

...airborne just beside the teleportation nexus.

Time seemed to slow. Behind Jayar, Shark turned his head to see, in the corner of his eye, that Jayar was in the last place he wanted him. He had only needed another few seconds..!

But the healer, spinning in midair, plunged his fist into the centre of the teleportation crystal, shattering it.

For just a second, the room was calm. Then the holographic countdown ticked down to 0:00, and space was smashed to shards around the broken crystal, sending both Rahkshi plummeting out of the world.

* * *

There was no gravity in the space behind space. Was there even time? Jayar twisted, trying to get his bearings, but it was impossible. Somewhere in the same space, he couldn't tell how far away, Shark seemed to be calmly taking everything in as well.

All around, scenes from across the universe and perhaps beyond flickered in ever-evolving crystal facets surrounding the Rahkshi. In one a Destral wall blinked past, now under siege outright. Another might have been a coastline on Nynrah, though the ashen battlefield was hard to recognize. For a moment Jayar glimpsed the Metru Nui skyline, majestic as ever, before he lost sight of it and found himself gazing at a dark and endless sea. The glimmers were becoming less and less buildings, streets or skylines he had seen firsthand, pictured or described; many now opened into the cold darkness of some unfathomable ocean, or a deep, abyssal night sky. Even the remaining landscapes were becoming more and more alien. Would he drift through this chthonian subspace forever, Jayar wondered? Or would he eventually break back into the universe in some primordial vacuum and suffocate?

But before this thought could truly grip him, reflections of land began to appear once more. A bird's-eye view of a seemingly endless dark forest flashed past, then another and another. Then one looking out towards the horizon. Was that a city skyline, faint in the distance?  Soon there were glimpses of otherworldly shining spires from closer and closer, until it was clear the alien metropolis was massive and majestic enough to rival Metru Nui - a veritable City of Silver, all around, until -

* * *

Jayar found himself stumbling to the ground in a wide courtyard surrounded by beautiful silver towers and glimmering gardens. A fountain murmured quietly nearby.

He turned to see Shark, standing behind and facing away from him, relax his broad shoulders and drop the tip of his sword to rest on the ground beside him.

"Well," the Rahkshi of Silence finally conceded. "Congratulations. You saved the universe."

Jayar rose to his feet, resolute. "And others like me would have done so, had I failed," he replied.

Shark's eyebrow twitched as he looked back at Jayar. "Is that so... I suppose the Order would not inform you of the true nature of our universe... if any of them even know. Suffice to say that beneath Metru Nui lies machinery that sustains the entire world... and its destruction would end everything."

Jayar, angered and shocked, took a half-step towards Shark, fists clenched. "...What? Why would the Makuta even want that?! And why would you help them?"

"The Makuta... no." The massive Rahkshi turned slightly to face Jayar sidelong. "Serving them was a means to an end." Slowly, he lifted his free hand... and tapped a single claw to his chest. "The oblivion you foiled was my heart's desire." The healer, stunned, could only blink as Shark lowered his hand to his side again, looking away and up at the starry sky. "And it only cost you our eternal exile."

Reeling, Jayar followed Shark's upward gaze. He didn't want to believe that... but he could. Both of them had watched helplessly as they tumbled through the space behind space, away from the dimension they knew. The depth and brightness of the stars in this night sky was unlike anything inside the Matoran Universe, Jayar realised. And this strange, beautiful city didn't look like something that could exist there. The Makuta would have torn it down.

"Well. Take heart. When your Order takes Destral and finds your spear and my coordinates in the teleporter room... they will think of you as a hero. Your close companions will mourn and venerate you. Everything someone like you could desire when you leave them behind... I imagine."

The healer's brow furrowed. No... that couldn't be... Surely there was a teleporter somewhere in this strange world? But he was no mechanic, and this city seemed empty, and its surroundings barren. Even if there was one, could he use it?

Where was Shark going with this, anyway?

"On the other hand... I have attained nothing," the colossal Rahkshi lamented, massaging his forehead. "My utmost desire was within my grasp mere moments ago... but now I will languish here... and never attain it." He lowered his hand and shook his head. "It seems my only consolation will be the solitude of this place - "

- in a swift motion, he retrieved a weapon and fired a projectile at Jayar.

The healer instinctively threw up his hands to protect himself - only to find them blown off by an explosion that threw him against the wall of a slender tower. A Cordak!? A few more direct hits would be too much for even a 6th level healer... As he got to his feet, arms regenerating, he saw Shark firing again and again, and the world disappeared from red to orange to white.

* * *

I am an ashen wisp, the healer realized. The idea of a person. The will to live.

Is that enough?

I braced myself on those I fought to save, but they're distant now... perhaps lost. Who was I before then? Without that... without them?

I was born a student, a war machine, a Son of Makuta. A theoretical person with theoretical ideals, but no friction on the world... little more than I am now.

There's no one around to hold onto this time. I could slip away... wouldn't dying now be a fitting and heroic end for me? Fate never wrote more than one moment of happiness for any Son of Makuta, and mine was richer than most.

So then why does my story feel so incomplete? I've done what I should have done...

...but have I been who I wanted to be?

Beyond scholar, soldier, son of an evil god - roles that were never quite complete, but which I never surpassed - though I was never expected to. There were glimpses of a wholeness... in the harmony of a Kaita resting on a tranquil rooftop... or a warm embrace in a quiet hall.

Here, on the blazing edge between life and death... rekindle that feeling within. Surpass my birthright, break fate's curse. Fight to save myself!

She is enough.

* * *

Grim as ever, Shark lowered the empty Cordak blaster. Even now... he could take satisfaction in a single death. He turned from the molten rubble of the collapsed building to consider how to proceed in this alien world...

- only to pause mid-stride as a bright green light behind him suddenly sent his hulking shadow sprawling out from his feet. He whirled just in time to see the lithe, elegant shape of an unfamiliar Rahkshi, silhouetted in the intense viridescent glow, bearing down on him. "...How???" he asked, more incredulously than he would admit feeling, stalling for info. This wasn't... entirely... unexpected... no, what? He'd reduced Jayar to ash only a Shadow Kraata could regenerate from... was this graceful enemy even the same being? "Who are you?"

"From now on... Arja!" she replied triumphantly, as she fell upon Shark with a flurry of smooth, swift blows. "Because… I healed from older wounds than yours. How could you, who desire only death, understand the will to live?"  For once, Shark struggled to protect himself from his opponent. Her strikes, though unarmed, were swift and ferocious and yet precisely focused - another level entirely from Arja's mad dash toward the portal earlier. He found himself giving ground to her, pummeled across the courtyard by his unconquerable foe, despite his desperate defensive. He could not possibly win now, unless...

"...you're wrong," he finally replied, breathing heavily as he retreated out of Arja's reach in a few quick steps. In one hand, he kept his sword extended toward her, an unsteady ward. With his other, he reached for one last sidearm. Arja tilted her head warily as she began to pace around him, coiled to spring at this new weapon.

"One thing... did compel me." Almost gingerly, Shark revealed... a slim dagger, well kept or perhaps long unused, its hilt adorned with tasteful painted patterns. "I feared that... and destroyed... her. ...Not that I regret." Idly, he spun the dagger around in his hand, and stepped away from Arja again as she flinched toward him in response. "Yet... it would almost console me... to end at the same prevailing hand."

He raised the dagger across his chest. "Unless you would take on my final triumph yourself?"

Arja's eyes widened. She gave a slight nod.

There was a blur of metal, a spray of blood, and the metallic crashing noise of the Rahkshi of Silence's suit and sword collapsing to the ground.

* * *

Arja wandered the city seeking signs of life, in every silver facade finding her own reflection, graceful and imperious. Her spines, once stubby on her boxy frame, were now long and slender, accentuating her lithe torso and smoothly muscular legs. Her armour was no longer black and silver, but green and white, accented still with noble gold.

She was certain, in spite of everything, that she had never looked or felt this strong.

* * *

The forest near the city was dark and barren, though not hostile. Arja hiked through it easily, not needing the starlight to make her way. Before long, she was approaching a brightly lit clearing, just as the creature she eventually met in the city had said. Although it had told her just what to expect, she was still slightly awed to find a radiant mask floating in the glade, seemingly awaiting her as it watched over the city.

"Hello, daughter of life," said the spectral mask warmly. "I sensed someone in the city had triumphed over a great darkness, and held off a dangerous wretch... You did well. When you are ready, I can open a portal for you."

Arja looked back at the empty city. "...Do I have to go through it?" she asked.

"You want to leave your world behind?" said the mask, sounding surprised.

"My world is a broken place," she replied. "It is filled with war and pain. I would brave it all to stand by those I love. But for all our sake, I have to ask... can we seek refuge here, instead?"

"Hmm... This place is not meant to recruit. The time will come for you to move on... wherever to," said the mask. "But perhaps this is not that time. You are really determined to save your kin this way?"

"Save them? Our birthright is struggle and doubt itself. How could I?" she answered. "But please... let me invite them to this liminal place, nonetheless. Perhaps given the chance... they could learn to save themselves."

The mask seemed to smile somehow. "Very well," it said. "Call them here in your mind. Those your conviction touches will reach this place."

Arja nodded gratefully, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

* * *

Someone will remember us
I say
Even in another time

* * *

She heard a clicking of joints accompanying light footsteps, and turned joyously to find the first one to arrive was Hoto stepping into the clearing. "...Jayar?" she asked.

"...Arja, now," she said, grimacing as her blind companion flinched at her unfamiliar voice, higher and brighter than the one Hoto knew. "I should've been Arja all along." She held out a hand, and tapped her forearm with her claws gently, a sound for Hoto to find it by. "But I'm still the Rahkshi you know. More than ever, I promise."

Cautiously, Hoto took her hand, and Arja felt her relax slightly at the familiar touch. A millennium was a long time to learn someone's mannerisms... even if they had been apart for so much of it.

Perhaps from now on, things could be better?

At least for a while.

"Arja…" Hoto repeated softly as her fingers traced up the strange yet oddly comforting limb. Arja began to pull her into a hug, such a familiar motion, and the Dodge Rahkshi reservations disappeared and she pulled herself in the rest of the way. “It’s you!” Hoto sniffled, pressing her faceplates in close. “Well, you changed, but somehow, it makes sense, I mean… I had a feeling, it’s… it’s finally you, Arja.”

Arja smiled as broadly as she ever had.

* * *

 

Author's note: So there it is, the conclusion of my self-insert's story... or the end of its prologue, perhaps.

In Journey of Takanuva, the Toa of Light winds up in the City of Silver pocket dimension after Brutaka's cracked Olmak botches a teleport to Karda Nui. Between that and the Kestora present there and in the Red Star, my take is that the City of Silver was meant to be a safety net for people who get lost in teleportation, and the Spectral Mask's job was to send them where they needed to go. It sent Takanuva not to Karda Nui but an alternate universe, though, so its perspective on that seems quite broad... who knows where Arja, Hoto, and others who followed could go next! There is, I think, a happy ending somewhere in the multiverse for everyone. The events on Destral at the start of this story happen just before Teridax's reign begins, so if nothing else, here's one way the New Breed could ride out that terrible storm.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Nato G

[confused piraka]

this is superb writing!

[Nato G]

Sword And Shield

(By Nato, with excerpts from Corpus Rahkshi by Wyrd Bid Ful Araed)

As long as my life has been, I still vividly remember my first days at Corpus Rahkshi. As much as I felt like a misfit back then, there was an innocence to those early days that I’ve long since lost.

I remember my ambitions from that time, simultaneously simple and grandiose. I’d sought to understand what we were, why we were, and even after all this time I’ve never found an answer. Nowadays, I settle for remembering who we were, who we wanted to be… and who we became.

Our makers didn’t know what to do with us. Our nature wasn’t intentional, our creation random and unpredictable. To some Makuta, we were a problem to be solved or a fault to be corrected. To others, we were a new resource to be cultivated, and to others still, we were simply the latest unexpected step in whatever strange evolution their species was undergoing. But in the end, whatever ambitions they had for us had died with them, as did any hope of continuing our species.

Or perhaps not, if a tale Xara once told me holds any truth…

* * *

Xara

The Island Of Odina, Makuta’s Reign

As a Power Scream shattered the rock around me and a blistering beam of laser light furrowed the ground at my feet, I ruminated on the fact that maybe hiding out on the former island of the Dark Hunters hadn’t been my brightest idea.

But, since the mercs who were still alive had all buggered off to Xia, and Teridax’s Rahkshi had razed and ransacked their fortress, we thought it’d be the last place anyone would look for a group of new breed Rahkshi runaways. The thought of any Rahkshi ever coming here would’ve been near-inconceivable not so long ago. In times past, one lone Dark Hunter, Phantom, had been more than most of our kind could handle. It had taken a kaita and a cave-in to stop him, and even that hadn’t been enough to kill him outright. The idea of trying to take on the entire Dark Hunter force was laughable. But now here we were, making camp in the ruins of their once-mighty fortress.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to hide anywhere for long when the guy you’re hiding from is literally the universe itself. Since Teridax’s takeover, we’d had to keep moving every few days, and on the rare occasions I’d crossed paths with some of the other rogue rahks, they gave similar stories. Fortunately for us, Teridax was evidently too preoccupied with terminating Toa and subjugating civilisations to give us his full attention or commit a large force to our apprehension. We weren’t heroes, challenging his rule. We weren’t rebels, actively threatening his plans. We were just survivors, trying to remain free. And that meant we simply weren’t worth old Terry’s time. For now, at least.

So instead of energy blasts raining from the sky or the ground simply swallowing us up, we were contending with a three-strong old-breed Rahkshi capture team – consisting of Laser Vision, Power Scream, and Stasis Field – along with their half-dozen Exo-Toa escorts, and a mysterious robed figure who seemed to be leading the group. The Stasis rahk was easily the biggest threat, having incapacitated our perimeter guards in the dead of night before they’d even had a chance to raise the alarm. My current group of charges were all young new breed rahks, low level, most of them having been spawned shortly before Teridax slaughtered their sires. They weren’t ready for a battle like this. Luckily for them, capturing any of Corpus Rahkshi’s surviving star pupils seemed to supersede the hunter’s other objectives, and it hadn’t taken much work for me to lure them away from everyone else.

It's funny, I used to enjoy being the centre of attention.

Not so much anymore.

Hopefully I was buying enough time for the others to free those who’d been stasised and get everyone to our boat on the other side of the island. They wouldn’t wait for me. They knew where to go and who to find there. They’d be in safe hands, with or without me. My duty now was ensuring that no one would follow them.

As I darted over the debris I heard another Power Scream ring out, this one shredding the soil beneath my feet and sending me tumbling forward, ears ringing and eyes watering. My mouthparts filled with dirt as I slammed face-first into the ground, and before I could even try to rise I felt the flat feet of Rahkshi on either side of me slam down atop my hands. Another set of feet – armoured in blue and black, the hues of the Stasis Field rahk – stopped before me. The hands of a fourth being pulled the swords from my back and the bandolier of throwing knives from my chest.  

“Where are the other rogue rahks?” A voice demanded, speaking in the unique kraata-speech used only by the new breed rahks and the occasional Shadow Kraata who’d bothered to learn it. The voice came from behind me; likely belonging to whoever had disarmed me. It had to be a new breed rahk leading the group, then; no regular Rahkshi would bother with a cloak. The informal shortening of Rahkshi to rahks was something mostly unique to our kind as well. And there was something familiar about that voice…

“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you,” I retorted, sounding less defiant than I would’ve liked given that I was talking through a mouthful of dirt. “Not knowing where they are is how I keep them safe.”

“I don’t think you’re lying. You’re just careful with your words,” the voice pondered. “You don’t know where the rogues are in this moment, but you know where they will be, or how to contact them. You wouldn’t have sent your little friends out into the world without your protection unless you were confident that they could find help.”

She was right. Almost too right.

Like she knew how I thought…

“We’re going to follow your friends on the boat anyway, once we’re done with you. If you tell me where they’re headed I’d be willing to go straight there and ignore the runaways for another day. It’s the ringleaders we really want.”

I wasn’t paying much attention to their words. What I was listening to instead was the clanking footsteps of the Exo-Toa as they caught up with their Rahkshi companions. Exo-Toa who I very much wanted to acquaint myself with.

“Tempting, but you’re going to have to settle for me,” I replied. “I never had many friends. I’m not going to betray the ones I have.”

“We’ll be settling for pieces of you,” the voice replied, the Laser Vision rahk unleashing a beam next to my pinned hand to emphasise the threat. “Last chance.”

The clanking grew closer.

Close enough.

Gadgets and machinery had never been of much interest to me, back in my school days. What use was a gun when I could already summon lightning? But I’d learned a thing or two about Exo-Toa since Teridax had started fielding them as his main fighting force. Taller than a Vortixx, strong enough to tank a punch from a Pakari, and with melee weapons that could crush most opponents in a single blow, they were formidable foes. Unfortunately for them, their standardised ranged weapon put them at a severe disadvantage against someone like me.

Electro-Rockets were a poor choice against an opponent who could command electricity.

I reached out with my powers, silently stoking the embers of trapped energy within their weapons and ammo storage. Electricity sparked and surged as the missiles began to activate, loosing freely from their launchers and exploding wildly against whatever they struck. The Rahkshi pinning my hands reacted as I’d expected, moving to dodge or duck, and I snapped my hands forward to seize the ankles of the Stasis Rahkshi still before me. It did exactly what I’d been hoping it would, freezing me in stasis the instant I touched it. A split second later, the missiles still stowed within the Exo-Toa’s storage compartments detonated, evaporating the droids in conflagrations of searing sparks and sizzling steel.

Rubble and robot parts rained down, bouncing harmlessly off the stasis field that was both trapping and protecting me – and had expanded around the Stasis Rahkshi itself, I now noticed. For a few seconds more, we both remained as we were, stuck in place, as the creature considered whether to free us both or leave us both frozen. And then the choice was made for it as a dark shadow passed over us, somehow breaching the stasis field and taking the rahk’s head from its shoulders. The field dissipated, and I rolled to the side as the twitching shell collapsed to the ground in a steamy spray of acrid ichor.

“Sorry,” I sighed, spotting the smouldering remnants of the other two rahks as I rose to my feet, “It’s not your fault.”

They weren’t the first I had felled, and they likely wouldn’t be the last.

“Why the remorse?” The voice sneered from behind me. “They didn’t feel anything. They’re not like us.”

I whirled towards the sound to see the cloaked figure still standing strong right in the middle of the Exo-Toa crater. Their cloak was aflame, flaking away in flickering ribbons, but the figure beneath appeared utterly unharmed. Their armour was hued in iridescent green, etched with a pattern like serpent scales. Their legs were modified to possess a second set of knees and clawed feet, adding to their height and enhancing their ability to leap and climb. And as the hood fell away, I saw the Rahkshi’s eyes were violet, just like my own.

“They didn’t have a choice, Vyper,” I snapped, finally recognising my younger sibling. “We do.”

“Defiance is a luxury you’ve abused for too long, sister,” she snarled, tossing my swords to the ground before me, “The Makuta made us. They own us.”

“So why aren’t you fighting to avenge ours? Instead of following the orders of the one who killed her?”

“My loyalty is to the Brotherhood, not any individual members.”

“But… there’s only one member left now?”

“Shut up!”

In a blur so swift I scarcely saw it, her collapsible staff was in hand, extended to its full length, and scything towards me. I darted to the side, catching a glancing blow to my faceplate, and tensed to spring once more, only for Vyper to now back off, giving me room to take up my own weapons.

“I thought you were an assassin,” I challenged, snatching up my weapons and shifting into a defensive stance. It hurt to talk. Her blade had sheared right through my armour to scratch the mouthparts of my kraata itself, “Why the sudden chivalry?”

“Are you complaining?”

And then she was on me again, staff flicking forth. I parried with one blade, retaliated with the other, and was deflected by the retractable wrist blade sheathed in the armour of her right hand.

“Back at Corpus Rahkshi-” sparks flew as her staff skittered off my sword, “-everyone said you were one of the best-” the wrist blade jabbed for my throat, “-but you ran away!” I ducked below the blow and launched a kick at her legs, forcing her to back off, “I never got the chance to find out which one of us was better!”

“Seriously?” I wavered midway through a sword swing, “Who the karz cares?”

“I do!”

The response shook me more than the blow that accompanied it, which I barely managed to block with my crossed blades. I hadn’t known Vyper especially well during our time at school. She first arrived long after I did, and I left not long after she arrived. And that had been more than a thousand years ago. But during that period of time where we’d both been there, she’d avoided me. She hadn’t wanted to be compared to me. She’d walked her own path… so why was she acting like this now?

As I backed up, she sliced her staff towards me again, and this time she brought her powers into play. As I parried her weapon, I felt my sword drawn to her staff, gravitised against it. She brought her staff sweeping wide, pulling my arm to the side and forcing me to release my grip on the sword as she swept her wrist-blade at my outstretched arm.

“You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.

Arcs of electricity danced along my remaining blade as I took it in both hands, bringing it slicing horizontally towards her face. She leaned back, blinking against the brightness, and I brought my foot up to kick her in the chest. She fell back, but her feet never budged, gravity holding her to the ground.

“Has that line ever worked on anyone?” She sneered, snapping back into an upright position in a way that belied both physics and biology.

Her angular faceplates aligned in a smile as she summoned an antigravity updraft that sent me soaring backwards, to slam against a lump of rubble that had once been a building. And then her staff was flying straight at me, soaring like a spear towards my stomach.

Lightning lashed from my armour, rending the staff asunder in midair before pursuing its owner as she scrambled for cover. I didn’t let up, flinging bolt after bolt at her, obliterating rock and rubble but somehow failing to so much as singe my sister. But it seemed enough to break her concentration, for the gravity pinning me in place soon abated, dropping me back onto level ground. I raced after Vyper as she ran, pausing only to pick up my fallen second sword.

I swiftly lost sight of her amidst the rubble, but her distinctive claw-toed tracks remained, winding their way down a slope towards the mouth of one of Odina’s canyons. It was the perfect place for an ambush, but I didn’t want to risk her going after the boat if I didn’t play her game. So down I went, adopting a defensive stance as I started to work my way through the winding walls of ragged rock.

“Why do you fight so hard to protect them?” Vyper’s voice greeted me, seeming to echo from everywhere and nowhere. “Our way is strength. Those who aren’t strong enough to stand on their own should be left to fall.”

I glanced back the way I’d come, then towards the open sky high above me, anticipating an attack from above or behind. That was the preferred tactic of an assassin, after all.  

“By that logic we should all be wiped out,” I barked back, “We’re snakes. We literally can’t stand without these suits. From the moment we’re spawned we need help and protection.”

“So aggressive. Always seizing any opening you can find, whether you’re in conversation or combat.”

“The two tend to go hand-in-hand for me.”

“You still have a warrior’s mind, Xara” she taunted, “Why have you become this, instead of the soldier you wanted to be?”

Her voice… somehow it sounded different.

And the way she said my name-

“Someone asked me a question, once. If I saw myself as a sword, or a shield. A sword, to stride out into the field and slay the Brotherhood’s foes, or a shield, to guard and shelter those who didn’t have the strength to protect themselves.”

Silence was the only response.

“I spent a long time believing I was one, never believing I could be the other, and then too long looking for a third option, trying desperately to be neither.”

“Who asked you this?”

“Palma. You remember her, right? The school nurse.”

“She wasn’t even new breed,” Vyper’s voice scoffed. “Why take her words to heart?”

“Because she was wise, wiser than I think any of us ever gave her credit for,” I smiled, “She chose her words so carefully, and it took me so long to really hear her.”

“What words?” Her voice softened, tempered by what sounded like genuine curiosity.

“A sword is someone who is sent into the field to seek out the Brotherhood’s enemies and destroy them. Perhaps you will meet them in battle, perhaps you will be tasked to assassinate them. But you must be sharp, you must be swift, and people will fear you when you are unsheathed.”

“She asked if I wanted to be a Sword for the Brotherhood.”

“A shield is, in many the ways, the opposite. You react to threats, rather than forcing threats to react to you. You will use your strength to guard and shelter those who lack the strength to defend themselves.”

“But she never said the Shield had to be theirs.”  

That was the choice that I’d made, to shield others not for the Makuta, but from them. It had been the right choice when I’d made it, and even more so now that the only remnant of the Brotherhood was one merciless madman who embodied the very worst traits of their kind.

Or at least, that’s what I’d thought until now.

“So… is my answer satisfactory to you, mother?”

The canyon quavered, the rock roiling before pulling away from me like retreating waves. Vyper stood across from me, but she was different now. Taller, broader, somehow more organic, like a reptile mimicking a Rahkshi rather than the other way around. Her eyes were the same vibrant violet, but were now full of affectionate recognition. It was really her. My mother, Makuta Aemula.

Her voice, when she spoke, was deeper now, conveying age and gravitas that had been lacking before. It was a voice I remembered all too well.

“How long did you know?”

“Until about two seconds ago, I really wasn’t certain. But I… I really hoped it was you,” old instincts kicked in, holding me back from even attempting to lie. I’d learned long ago that you can’t deceive someone who can read your thoughts, “After you shrugged off the explosion and lightning without a scratch I knew something was wrong. Even on my worst days I’m not that bad.”

“No, you’re not. You always had good instincts.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, returning my swords to their sheaths, “How are you here? You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Are you truly surprised, my child?” She tutted as she stepped closer to me, “Our kind have known of the Plan for a very, very long time. You might recall that the Brotherhood was once forced into a war against the Dark Hunters because Teridax killed two of their operatives for his own short-term gain. Those of us wise enough to see past our own egos were well prepared for the possibility that Teridax might turn on us as well if he actually succeeded in usurping the Great Spirit.”

“So… there are other Makuta out there?” I asked, truly unsure whether to be excited or terrified by the possibility.

“I’m not so narcissistic as to believe I was the only one who could find a way to survive, but I don’t know for sure. Any who survived are no doubt in hiding, just as I am.”

“So why show yourself now? Why me? It’s been centuries since we last saw each other.”

“I wanted to ask for your help, with a matter that is very dear to me. But first I needed to be sure that I could trust you, that you were fighting for the right reasons.”

“So the fight, the interrogation, it was all for show? You sacrificed three rahks just to test me?”

“Those weren’t my rahks. That was a real team of hunters. I just… took an opportunity to tag along.”

“What opportunity?”

“Vyper,” she sighed, “She’s dead. Slain two days ago trying to eliminate Order Of Mata Nui members on Teridax’s behalf. I arrived too late to… save her from herself.”

“So you impersonated her,” I realised, “To get close to the hunters who were looking for me.”

Vyper’s death didn’t surprise me. It didn’t even upset me. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d met her, and those had all been a very long time ago. She was just one more in an exhaustively long list of casualties that the Makuta had claimed. So many had lost their lives that it was hard for me to feel anything for the dead anymore. All I cared about now was the living.

And unexpectedly, it seemed like that was something my mother and I had in common.

“Exactly,” she said, her voice cracking, “I already failed one child. I couldn’t… I didn’t want to fail another.”

“Just the one?” I sneered, “I’ve met some of the siblings you made after me. They told me how you made them fight each other, even kill each other. Wasn’t it the life of a brother that bought Vyper her ticket to Corpus Rahkshi?”  

“I pushed them too far. Once that line was crossed I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t look like a hypocrite. I had to stay the course. I had to…” her head tilted towards the ground, her eyes refusing to meet mine, “…I wasn’t a good mother.”

“No, really?” I jeered, wincing slightly as I did so. My jaw ached. Trails of blood trickled from my injured cheek. But despite the pain, I felt strangely strong, now that I knew she didn’t want to kill or coerce me. She wanted my help, perhaps even my sympathy, and after all these centuries of pain I finally had the power to pry some truth out of her. “I don’t get it. Why do you care? You trained us to be weapons. You had to know how that was going to end.”

“I trained you to survive, and to strive towards something!” The confidence only a Makuta could command was back in a flash as her eyes snapped up to meet mine, “You’re the one who chose to make being the best fighter at Corpus Rahkshi your goal, remember? I didn’t tell you to do that.”

I blanched. She wasn’t wrong.

“And when you reached that goal, you realised it was hollow. So you chose something else to stand for,” her hand reached up to brush my cheek. “And I couldn’t be prouder.”

I flinched, recoiling from her touch, “I don’t understand. What is this? What do you want?” Though I was quick to pull away, her Quick Healing was faster still, repairing the rend in my armour and flesh before I’d even finished speaking.

She stepped back, waving her hand and telekinetically pulling two small boulders towards us. She sat down on one, and gestured for me to sit down at the other.

“What do you actually know of the Makuta?”

“You used to rule lands, make rahi, scheme to conquer the universe,” I replied, reluctantly taking a seat, “How’s that working out for you?”

“We were made to create. That was our purpose, to populate the barren universe with flora and fauna, to nurture life and make this world a paradise for its populace,” she said. “And that’s what we did, at first. So much beauty. The wonders we wrought in our virus vats…”

“Seems like you made a lot of monsters along the way.”

“Power corrupts. Especially when you’re cursed with an infinite lifespan to succumb to your worst urges. Many Makuta grew jealous and bitter, watching the Matoran blindly worship their Great Spirit when it was our kind who did most of the work. Others lost their way, realising they could use their power to create living weapons. I lost my faith for a different reason.”

“What reason?”

“Despair. I dreamed of being able to create intelligent life, not mere beasts. But every attempt the Makuta made to meddle with sapient species ended in evil. Spiriah’s experiments with the Skakdi… Chirox creating the Visorak… and when we reached within and tried to create life from our own essence, the kraata we created could only desecrate and destroy.”

“Until the new breed.”

“A miracle.”

“I don’t believe in those.”

“But I do,” her hands reached out to gently take one of my own. “You were my very first, did you know that? You can’t imagine the joy I felt when I realised what you were. What you could be.”

“And then you made me a soldier anyway,” I snarled, pulling back my hand. “What were you just saying about not being a hypocrite?”

“The world our kind made, the world I knew you were going to be flung into… you had to be strong to survive that. And I made you strong, didn’t I?”

There was vindication in her voice now, and I had no ways or words to counter it. As much as I resented her for what she’d turned me into, she wasn’t wrong. Me being here, having survived some 1100 years of conflicts and cataclysms, was all the proof she needed to empower her point.

“But strength wasn’t why I sent you to Corpus Rahkshi,” she continued, “I sent you there to learn, to grow, hoping you’d change for the better beyond my shadow.”

“I didn’t, though. I hurt people. Physically. Emotionally. I did awful things to people who didn’t deserve it because I thought it was what you wanted, what the world wanted of me.”

“Look what your regret has turned you into,” she said softly, “How many lives have been bettered by your remorse?”

“Get to your point,” I mumbled, “What do you want?”

“I want you to do exactly what you’ve already been doing, but for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve lost so many of my children over the years, Xara. The immature and infirm slain by their stronger siblings, my best and brightest co-opted for Brotherhood campaigns, the smartest and most skilful striking out on their own,” she pointed at me, “I lived with the losses by telling myself I could always make more, but with the way the world is now I don’t have that luxury any longer.”

“I’m still waiting for the punchline.”

“When Teridax took over, he destroyed Destral and levelled the lairs of every living Makuta. Most of my spawn didn’t survive… but I saved those I could.”

“How many?”

“Seven. Your little sisters, likely the last lives I’ll ever create. I’ve been keeping them safe as best I can, but if Teridax learns that I live…”

“…they’re not safe with you. They never will be,” I nodded, finally understanding what she wanted, and why it meant so much to her, “So you want me to look after them.”

“More than that. I want you to be a mother to them, in the ways I never could,” her hands took mine once more, and this time I didn’t fight it. “Like I said, I wasn’t a good mother. Maybe you won’t be either. But you’re better than me, and I believe you can make them better than both of us.”

“I’ll try.”

I felt her push something into my hands as she let them go. A scrap of paper containing a partial map of the Southern Continent, with a scrawled circle marking a specific spot by the coast.  

“They’re waiting for you, there,” she said, as she rose to her feet and turned away.

“I’ll find them,” I said. “I promise.”

There was no question of not complying with her request. It wasn’t a trap. It was truth. And I’d be a bigger hypocrite than her to deny help to my surviving sisters when I was already risking my life to rescue rahks I had no relation to.  

“We often wondered how and why the new breed came to be,” my mother said as she began to walk away, “My race made so many mistakes, Xara. But I think your kind are our way of making up for them. You can learn from our mistakes, be better than we were.”

She raised a hand, aglow with teleportation energy. “The best parts of me live on in all of you.”

And then I was gone, suddenly standing on the upper deck of the ramshackle boat me and the rest of the runaways had been using. We were well out to sea now, the ocean stretching out around me on all sides, Odina somewhere behind. The other rahks were likely somewhere belowdecks, with the only living thing in sight being my pet shallows cat Sand perched on the railing before me, not even reacting to my abrupt appearance.

“Hey girl,” I said, reaching out to brush my fingertips over her fur, “Let’s go find my family.”

* * *

Xara has been a lot of things over the years, but I’ve never known her to be a liar (save perhaps for her outlandish stories about being spirited away to participate in multiversal fighting tournaments). And her telling of this tale left her raw and emotional in a way I’ve never seen in her, before or since.

Our makers were imperfect beings, each unique in their vices and vile deeds. But not every Makuta was part of the Plan. Not all of them supported it. Not all of them were completely evil. And if Makuta Aemula could survive, perhaps others did too.

The Student Register was never an exhaustive list of all the new breed Rahkshi. Some Makuta never sent their spawn to the school to begin with. Some kept their most promising progeny to themselves. Given that there was no known way to predict or prevent our random creation, most Makuta continued to sire more of our kind during the centuries after the academy closed. Scouts and scavengers have encountered numerous new breed Rahkshi still living in the ruins of the Matoran Universe over the years, lost souls who knew nothing of the new world beyond. Others have been encountered roaming the distant corners of this expansive planet, having fled during the battle or the evacuation to start afresh elsewhere.

Who’s to say that some of these undocumented Rahkshi aren’t younger than they claim? Perhaps there are still some Makuta out there, bringing more of us into being… whether simply for the sake of creating new life as they were once duty-bound to do, or as part of some grander plan. With their abilities to change shape and teleport, how would we ever know if Makuta still walked among us? Maybe a time will come when they, like us, will be welcome in this new world, but until then it’s probably for the best that we don’t know for sure.

Xara claims not to have knowingly met her mother since that day, over a decade ago. Not that she’s been looking for her. Xara has taken to this new world with an enthusiasm only her indomitable daredevil spirit could ever possess, exploring and fighting and leading her sisters into all kinds of trouble. Every few months she’ll stop by to regale me with her latest exaggerated tale, insisting I scribble it down for posterity.

But amidst the adventures there are times, she’s told me, when she’s locked gaze with an unfamiliar face in a crowd, exchanged glances with a stranger on the street, seen a distant figure watching her intently, or gotten an unexpected word of encouragement from a passer-by, and each time felt an unshakeable sense of recognition.

I should be happy for her, I suppose.

I’m happier that I’ve never felt my own father’s presence.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Nato G

[Nato G]

I like to think of life as a river.

Our passage through this world is a steady stream, flowing ever forward, carrying each of us along. Sometimes there are chaotic currents, and sometimes there’s calm. Sometimes there are turns, and sometimes the river travels straight. And sometimes those of us travelling along that river sink, or swim, or make a splash, impacting the travels of those who flow alongside us.

But for a long time now, I’ve thought of myself as a bird, flying above the river instead of upon it. I follow its course, I stay close enough to see its stories, but I leave nary a ripple. That wasn’t always the case, though. Once I was a stone, skipping along the surface, leaving tidal waves in my wake.

In part, this work is about making myself forget those times. It’s easy to get lost in the memories, in the history, in remembering the lives of the lost Rahkshi instead of wondering where they might be now. But I received a letter from one of those Rahkshi today, who had heard about my work and wanted to share her story with me. A Rahkshi who I’ve never met, but whose life, it turns out, was impacted profoundly by my ripples.

Blizzard’s Chapter

(By That Matoran with a Vahi)

The first thing I learned at Corpus Rahkshi was to keep my head down. At least if I didn't want to lose it.

I have you to thank for that Exxan, I guess. I never knew you personally, and I certainly never knew the truth of what went down between you and your sister, although the rumours said plenty. But my first day at school was the same day as your last, and when a little newbie rahk sees a display like that... well, it makes an impression.

I had thought I was ready to handle anything. That final confrontation you two had told me that I was anything but.

It shattered my confidence, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe if it hadn't, I would have ended up like so many of our less fortunate brothers and sisters. As it was, I kept myself out of the spotlight. I learned. I grew, maturing through the kraata stages. I mastered weather of all kinds, including the one I'd wanted to desperately to learn, the one for which I'd named myself: the blizzard. I didn't make a scene, or make any more enemies than I could help -

Though in that place, pitting Rahk against Rahk as it did, a few enemies were inevitable.

After a while, I was called back to my Makuta father's army. He had need of a Rahk in the field with a head for tactics, one of our breed; and as the most recent specimen that he'd sent to the school, he wanted to see how far I'd progressed. And I performed capably, leading several raids of our less-gifted brethren, dirtying my hands with the blood of Matoran and Steltians and any other races you could name, all in the name of the cause.

But there was another thing I'd learned at Corpus Rahkshi, more of an attitude change than anything. And that was that I didn't want to fight. For sure I could, I was capable, and that was all any Makuta cared about... but it wasn't what I wanted to do with my powers. I wanted to strike awe with them, for sure, but not terror or death.

I wanted others to see in the weather I summoned the same beauty that I did myself: the beauty of snowflakes swirling all around in a tightly-packed blizzard, tracing their delicate trails through the air before they heaped up on top one another and buried everything under their blanket of white. The beauty of storms rumbling through the air, discharging lightning and thunder; of the most torrential downpour, washing the world in its embrace. Even the beauty of fog and mist, of wind and sleet and hail...

It was all beautiful, incredible to me, and every time I summoned my powers to control them I felt a little thrill... and I wanted others to feel the same. Not to fear me, but to join me in marvelling at what I was able to create.

Antroz may have been a more understanding Makuta than most, but not even he would have been happy with one of his commanding Rahks taking a permanent vacation from the war. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, an opportunity presented itself when Antroz recalled another Rahk - I don't remember now their name - from the school to lead their own squad in cooperation with mine. Luck is a funny thing, and as mine would have it, this Rahk had been an enemy of mine at Corpus Rahkshi, one who I'd show up several times when we'd been competing against each other, and who was dying to give me a taste of my own medicine.

Perfect.

On one mission, we got into a fight. Maybe I instigated it; more likely they did. But I allowed it to go badly for myself, let them think they'd killed me so that they would report that back to Antroz... and then slunk away into the night once everyone else had forgotten my 'corpse'.

I hear Antroz was as mad as anything. But I was free.

What did I do, where did I go? None of that was really important. A Rahk alone is unwelcomed by most other of the universe's inhabitants, so I kept to myself, travelled from one remote spot to another, where I could summon beautiful and bizarrely unseasonal weather conditions where they wouldn't bother anyone else. Occasionally, some brave Matoran would come to investigate the strange goings-on, and I'd always make myself scarce. After a while, they started to attribute my work to some restless ghost that controlled the weather. Some places, I would return to later and find they'd left out offerings to placate the supposed spirit.

I guess I became kinda fond of the little guys. They were so earnest, so sure that their restless ghost was a decent soul who had suffered some horrible trauma, and so determined to try and help her find rest... sure, it was silly. But I found myself warming to them; sometimes even manipulating the weather in their favour when I had the chance.

This must have gone on for many hundreds of years; I soon lost count. Of all the things we could have studied at Corpus Rahkshi, I never did much care for maths.

Finally, though, my deception caught up to me. The rumours of the so-called ghost had reached Antroz, and with the fact that my body had never turned up, he put two and two together. One night, in a violent storm that for once was not of my own making, he sought me out in the abandoned Matoran shrine where I was currently making my home.

"You must think yourself clever, little Rahk."

I still remember the way his voice, one that I recognised instantly even after so long, sent a chill down my spine.

"Is this what Corpus taught you? Running, hiding, playing dead? I would have expected better of Icarax; he may be as unsubtle as a Kane-Ra in a Matoran pottery shop, but I would have anticipated he would at least have instilled his own bloodthirstiness into his students."

I had already realised there was no use hiding; and if he knew I was there, he would also know if I tried to flee him. I had no choice but to face him down on his own terms... but at least here, I had familiarity with the lie of the land over him. Making sure the daggers that I preferred over a standard Rahkshi staff were sheathed at my hips, I stepped out of my hiding hole to meet my 'father'.

Even though he had known I was there, his eyes narrowed at the sight of me.

Maybe at the way I stood tall and didn't cower before him.

It wasn't that I was unafraid. Any Makuta could be terrifying, and that Antroz was calmer than most only made his rage all the more fearful to bear witness to. And yet, while I certainly knew that he was holding my life in his claws... nothing that he could do to me actually scared me.

"I learned plenty about brutality and destruction from Icarax." I was pleased to note that my voice didn't tremble; for a few short moments, at least, I was holding my own. "But it was the others of my kind there who taught me that life was worth living for its own sake."

Antroz looked at me for a long time.

"I see now that the school was a mistake. Sentiment, individuality... these may be fascinating, but they have no place in a creature whose only purpose in life is to be a soldier. Allowing so many of you to mix together has only brought out the worst in many of you."

"You call it the worst." I continued to face him evenly. For as long as he allowed me life, I could even let myself foolishly think that I was almost his equal. "But I'm still capable. I can still fight, I can still crush enemies. I'm not squeamish. But I can also decide when I'm done. When I want more out of life."

"And what more, exactly, can a Rahkshi get out of life?" His tone was condescending, but - at least to my ears - not immediately dismissive. "Do you really expect to integrate into Matoran society? As if they'd have your kind-- and as if you don't have the blood of many of theirs on your claws?"

He didn't say it, but I didn't need to be a mind-reading Rahkshi to recognise what he was thinking: As if anyone would accept a Rahkshi. We were made to be instruments of the Brotherhood, tools of war and nothing more.

But who cared?

"I can accept myself. I can appreciate solitude. And I can enjoy the beauty my powers can create."

"Beauty." He looked about as the storm crashed around us, forks of lightning striking perilously close, although I was already certain none would touch me. "The only beauty I see is the beauty of destructive chaos."

I could feel my slitted eyes flash.

"Then you're not looking hard enough."

I swept my arms upwards, seizing control of the storm. The wind picked up in intensity, swirling around us both, as the lightning sparked and clashed; its strikes no longer random, but in beautiful, meaningfully intertwining patterns. Rain and snow swirled and danced at a wiggle of my fingertips, drenching and chilling us both even in their majesty. It was the display of all displays, as I allowed the last few flecks of dying sunlight through the clouds, making every droplet, every flake, sparkle with a heart of crimson.

For all my effort, I'm still not certain Antroz was actually impressed; but he could certainly see my passion. And I would swear that he had never seen such passion from a Rahkshi before. Dare I say it intrigued him? I'm not sure, even now. Maybe he saw something of worth in a Rahk allowed to follow her own heart, after all. Maybe he was just playing some cruel game with me.

Either way, we somehow came out of that encounter with a deal struck. I hadn't known it at the time, but the Brotherhood's schemes were moving towards their fruition, the final stages of the grand Plan of the Makuta of Metru Nui. Antroz himself departed for the universe's heart only a few days after. But, he impressed upon me, he needed a proven, capable Rahk of the new breed to lead a platoon of standard Rahkshi forces in the last siege of Metru Nui. After that, he asserted, the Makuta would rule all and have no need of conquering armies; so if I served him well in the battle, I could go my own way afterwards.

Would Antroz have been as good as his word? I couldn't say. I led my platoon well; but despite all our best efforts, Metru Nui didn't fall. Antroz died in the universe's core along with almost every other Makuta. My platoon was obliterated by the arrival of the Toa vehicles at the last moment. I escaped alive only by virtue of having a greater self-preservation instinct than they.

And then it was all over.

Oh, sure. The Makuta of Metru Nui took control; but he had no attention to spare for one rogue Rahkshi like me. The universe fell; but I had no great love for the place anyway. I, like so many others, migrated out onto the new world of Spherus Magna.

These days I run my own business. In my days at Corpus and under Antoz, I am not ashamed to admit that I developed a hoarding streak; I'd collect souvenirs from every raid, pretty things: jewellery, ornate weapons, anything that caught my eye. Just one or two from each site of battle; but over time, they all accumulated. I had several crates full of such curios to my name, and with the old universe ruined many of them are in high demand. I know that who I am turns away many customers; but even so, I see enough business to get by.

And once every fortnight, I hold a display of my weather powers in all their beauty out in a secluded area, where they won't bother anyone else, for whoever wants to see them. You should drop by sometime, if you want to: there's always a seat for a fellow Corpus alumni.

We may have never met each other but I had to say it: thanks. For changing my life.

Edited June 3, 2023 by Nato G

[Nato G]

Letting Go

(By Nato)

 

Exxan

New Atero Library, six months since recovering the Register

There are days when I feel nothing but doubt and dejection.

The task I’ve set myself is an impossible one, and I know it. It doesn’t matter how long I live or how hard I look. I’ll never know the full story. I’ll never uncover the whole truth. I’ll never find out what happened to all of them. And all it would take is one stray spark or act of callous cruelty to reduce all of my work to dust and despair.

Am I wasting my life? Am I missing out? Am I just punishing myself? While I scrape and scavenge and scrawl the old stories, the others are out there creating all new ones. Should I be with them, making memories and mistakes of my own instead of sitting here remembering and recording other people’s lives? I’ve declined invitations from old friends. I’ve denied myself opportunities to reconnect. I’ve deliberately dedicated myself to a duty that keeps me isolated and insulated.

I tell myself that it’s not about me.

It’s about Era, living happy and free in the forests of Bota Magna. It’s about Bonegleam, who continues to haunt the graveyards and battlefields of the old universe. And loathe though I sometimes am to admit it, it’s about Phogen, the lost child of Teridax who may very well be the only being to have ever loved me.

Part of me still longs to look for them, to reunite and rekindle whatever it was that we’d once had. But now that I know they were one of his Rahkshi, I know in my heart which side Phogen would have fought for during the war. I know there’s probably nothing left for me to find. And even if they did somehow survive… would they still love me for who I am today? Was what we’d had actually been love? Were our kind even capable of it?

I don’t know.

Maybe I never will.

But I know that beyond all of the questions and names and stories and excuses, it is about me.

I’m hiding in history, refusing to face my fear of the future. For more than eleven centuries I’ve been burdened with guilt and grief, shame and sorrow, anger and anxiety, wracking myself with regret over the things I’ve done, and the things I didn’t do. Killing Omega, making and betraying more friendships than I could recall, faking my death to escape the consequences, only to return to the school anyway and end up slaughtering my own sister. Time and time and time again I’ve lied to and manipulated people to save my own skin, I’ve run away and hidden from my problems, all while beings far better than I risked their lives and met awful ends…

I don’t deserve to be here.

I have to make it mean something.

“Do you?” A voice stirred me from my musings. I glanced up from my notes, noticing a lone Onu-Skakdi sitting in the corner nearest to my desk. She wasn’t the only visitor in the library, but she was the first to speak to me today. Most beings avoided or ignored me, still harbouring mistrust towards my kind after the actions of Teridax’s Rahkshi during the final battle. But this particular Skakdi seemed utterly unperturbed by my presence. She was almost serpentine in her appearance, lithe and limber, with a scaly patterning to her armour and twin sets of frill-like spines that flared out over her shoulders like the wings of a Lohrak.

“What?”

“Sorry for eavesdropping,” she set aside her book, hopped off her stool, and moved over to my desk, clawed toes clacking against the floorboards, “You think you have to make it mean something. Why?”

Had I said that out loud? And in the Matoran language? Evidently my head was even more of a mess than I’d realised.

“I’ve done things,” I said, making sure I was speaking Matoran this time, “Things I’m not proud of.”

“Haven’t we all?” The Skakdi replied, “Your species weren’t the only ones on the wrong side of history.”

“I didn’t fight in the war. The things I did were long before then. They kept me alive, while people who did everything right and didn’t compromise themselves died when they didn’t deserve to.”

“And who are you to decide who deserved what?” The Skakdi scowled, “Aren’t chroniclers meant to be impartial?”

“I try. But this…” I gestured at my sprawling mess of notes, “…it’s as much my story as it is everyone else’s.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be the one telling it. Maybe it doesn’t need to be told at all.”

“No, someone needs to-”

“You already lived it,” she pointed towards the Register, “That chapter is over. Not everyone got to see the ending, sure, but those who did will always remember it, and the part they played. Isn’t that enough?”

“I… no, they… we didn’t get the ending we wanted. We let go, and went our own ways. I want everyone to know what happened next.”

“No one gets what they want. Not really,” she replied. “Most of us don’t get what we deserve, either. Most of us don’t even get the final word. And that’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

“No, I… just want to tell their stories.”

“But you just said it yourself, their story is your story. And if you’re the one telling it, then you get to have the final word, right? You get to tie it all together the way you want, coloured by your commentary, so everyone can remember you as the remorseful recluse instead of the conniving coward.”

I wavered, searching for a retort and coming up empty. I locked gaze with her inquisitive cerise eyes, searching for some recognition in them. “How do you know so much?”

“We’ve never met, but I’ve read your story. You and I… we came from the same place.”

“What do you mean? Why are you here?”

“I’m here for you. You want things to be different, but you’re what’s holding you back. You can’t bring yourself to let go of the past. Sometimes change needs a little push.”

“What kind of push?”

“It varies. A knife in the right back, a whisper in the right ear. A truth told, a secret stolen, a story shared. A short journey to a Far Shore. But in my experience, sometimes all it takes is words.”

“And what is your experience?”

I glanced towards my sword, Remembrance, resting in its sheath on the other side of the desk. Was it worth reaching for? Was mere steel of any use against… whatever this was? She didn’t seem like a threat, but she was definitely something.

“The same as yours,” she said, following my gaze but appearing unmoved. “I saw my story through to its end… but I got to keep going, long after the game was over and the final words were written. Just like you, now.”

“And what did you do, after your story ended?”

“I read. I explored. I found new stories to be a part of.”

“That’s a luxury I don’t have.”

“Why not?”

“Because, what if they still resent me? What if I go out there and I just… don’t fit in anywhere?”

“You might be right. But you’ll never know if you don’t try, will you?”

“I just… I don’t want the story to end.”

“Nothing really ends, Exxan. But we all have to stop the story somewhere,” she smiled solemnly, “It’s time for you to take a break from telling tales, and go live your life.”

I turned away from her, looking to the Register, and my records. Maybe she was right. I didn’t have to dedicate my whole existence to this. I didn’t have to become just another dusty relic on these shelves. It would all still be here, I could come back to it any time, to remember and reminisce. We all could.

The Skakdi was gone when I looked back.

Maybe she’d never been there to begin with.

* * *

I take my time packing it all away. The Register, the letters I’ve received from other rahks, my piles of scribblings and notes, those I carefully bind together and file away in one of the cabinets in the library basement. This record, such as it is, I leave on the shelves, for others to read and learn from. In time, I’ll return to both, to add more stories, or simply remember the old.

For now, though, there’s a whole planet out there that I’ve only heard about from the accounts of others. There are old friends I haven’t seen in centuries. There’s a new friend whose weather shows I’m eager to see, perhaps even help out with. There’s an old rival whose borrowed sword I’ve been meaning to return for a very long time. And maybe, somewhere out there, there’s a devious De-rahk still waiting for me to find them.

For the first time since I sputtered forth from the crystalline confines of green gloaming eleven centuries ago, I feel like I’m finally free. Free from the envy of my kin and expectations of my creator. Free from the machinations of the Makuta, and the maze of my own mind. Free from the prison and punishment I pushed upon myself. Free to see… free to be.

To my surprise, as I open the door and step out into the street at long last, I feel at peace with my decision to leave. I’m not leaving out of cowardice or laziness or spite. I’m leaving for the right reasons, and I know I’ll return, in time.

I’ll make my way back to the library, like I always do.

There are always more stories to tell.

An End