War Games

[Nato G]

The island had no name.

It didn’t even have any actual value, with no resources to plunder, nor strategic benefit to be gained from controlling it. It was a stark, inhospitable slab, bereft of foliage or fauna, assailed on all sides by the torrential tides of the protodermis sea that surrounded it, shrinking each year as the waves wore away at it.

It certainly wasn’t worth the blood that had been spilled on its shores over the past few centuries.

And yet, that bloodshed would continue this day.

* * *

As the lightstones of the dome dimmed, signalling the shift from day to night, two figures materialised on the ragged, craggy peak in the island’s centre. It was here that the island’s only artificial landmark stood: a protosteel flagpole, upon which currently hung a black banner bearing a garish green likeness of the Kanohi Felnas.

Both of the arrivals were hued in shades of ebon and emerald, with baleful eyes burning behind their dark masks. One was spindly and serrated in silhouette, each of its six limbs tipped with cruel claws. The other was a lean, long-limbed anthropoid with butterfly-like wings sprouting from its back.

The two mismatched monsters exchanged no words, merely offering each other brief nods of acknowledgement as they turned their gazes southward, where the outlines of six fleeting figures could be seen speeding through the skies towards the island’s shores.

* * *

The island’s significance, such as it was, stemmed from the fact that it was positioned between the territories of two Makuta: to the North was the Tren Krom Peninsula, realm of Makuta Gorast, and to the South lay the Mywrenn Isles, ruled over by Makuta Aemula.

Both Makuta professed that they were the rightful owner of the island, and despite dozens of decades of dispute, neither one had been willing to relinquish their claim. Given that Aemula’s appointed region was all of the isolated islets located between the Northern and Southern Continents, hers seemed the stronger claim. But the island had originally been part of the Peninsula, separated during an ‘incident’ that Gorast had been stubbornly reluctant to explain, and she steadfastly asserted that – per the original distribution of Makuta territories – the island was still technically hers.

And so, the dispute endured.

* * *

As the invaders made their approach, the island’s six denizens rose to meet them, emerging from their caves and crevices and screeching their greetings to one another. The lengthening shadows clung to them like cloaks, dragging out desperately as if trying to draw their owners back into the deeper darkness they’d just emerged from. 

The six paid their shades no heed.

They had waited a year for this day to come. It was, after all, the only thing they had to look forward to in their brief, brutal lives.

* * *

In true Makuta style, there had been no attempt to resolve the deadlock through simple debate. Aemula had simply sent a few Rahkshi to plant her flag on the island, prompting Gorast to send her own Rahkshi to wipe them out and replace the flag with her own. Aemula had responded by sending her Hagah team to eliminate the invaders, with Gorast in turn showing up personally to eliminate them.

When the Toa didn’t return, Aemula had teleported to the island and found Gorast awaiting her in a corpse-filled crater. The two Makuta – recognising that a direct fight between them wasn’t worth the effort and would likely result in the destruction of the island itself – eventually arrived at a method of formalising the conflict: annual war games, fought between teams of six Rahkshi.

The winning Makuta was considered the owner of the island for the next year… a year that was spent preparing defences and strategy for the next round of battle.

* * *

Makuta Aemula watched as her progeny approached the beach, the blades of their staves shimmering in the dying daylight. The lingering illumination highlighted the few remaining spots of colour to be seen amidst the charcoal-coloured crags of the island: mauled motes of multihued metal, the remnants of Rahkshi who had perished fighting here in years past.

And like their predecessors, the incoming six were likely going to end this day reduced to scrap and scattered like snow.

On this island, destruction was the only constant.

For all of her outward composure, Aemula was apprehensive. There’d been a time when she hadn’t cared about this island at all, but somewhere along the line holding it had become a point of pride for her.

Like the other handful of female members within the Brotherhood, she’d long been ignored and overlooked, assigned to a worthless backwater territory and never consulted on major decisions. For the most part, she’d been fine with that. She’d spent millennia watching Gorast go out of her way to be the most demented, devoted acolyte of The Plan, pining pathetically for Teridax’s affections just to be held in the same regard as blundering, boastful oafs like Icarax. It looked like way too much work, for way too little reward. Aemula had been perfectly content to keep to herself, free to experiment as she wished without fear of interference or intrusion.

But then the dispute over the island had arisen, and Aemula had found herself faced with a grim realisation: if she couldn’t even defend one stupid, insignificant spit of land from a zealot like Gorast, she was validating all of the denigration and disdain the other Makuta held for her.

And that could not stand.

Unfortunately, Gorast had been on a winning streak of late, thanks to an irritatingly effective team of Shadow Kraata. While it was normal practice to replace team members between games to keep the numbers fair, this group hadn’t needed to. They hadn’t lost a single member since they’d first entered the fray, four years ago.

Aemula was determined to see that they wouldn’t win a fifth time. The Brotherhood was tolerant of the isolationism, insanity, and idiocy that ran rife among its members, but there were limits. Weakness was something they would not abide, and Aemula would eagerly take being viewed as an annoyance to be ignored over being deemed a liability to be eliminated.   

“Another attempt at misdirection?” Gorast sneered, as Aemula’s approaching Rahkshi team drew close enough for her to identify their variations – Illusion, Chameleon, Confusion, Adaptation, Density Control, and Limited Invulnerability. “Have you gleaned nothing from your past lessons?”

“You’re a poor teacher,” Aemula retorted.

“Then pay attention,” Gorast’s reply came out as a strained, sibilant snarl. “Maybe this time you’ll learn something.”

Aemula said nothing, content to let the outcome of this fight speak for itself. Four rounds of defeat and humiliation had taught her everything she needed to know. Gorast’s team hadn’t changed their tactics in all that time, justifiably confident in their capabilities. But confidence led to complacency, and that complacency was the key to their collapse.

Gorast’s team favoured a deep canyon that carved a furrow deep into the side of the peak atop which the two Makuta were spectating. On either side of the lowest, narrowest point waited Rahkshi of Poison and Disintegration, who used their powers to devastating effect in the close confines. In the middle, where the canyon started to widen, Rahkshi of Chain Lightning and Power Scream had been posted on opposite sides, picking off anyone who made it through the initial attack. And standing together at the cliff where the canyon ended stood Rahkshi of Fragmentation and Mind Reading, commanding the operation.

The Mind Reader was the problem.

Every time, regardless of what tactic Aemula’s team attempted, the Mind Reader plucked their plan from their heads and conveyed a counter-strategy to its own team. Not that there were many approaches worth attempting in the first place. Whether by flight or on foot, traversing the canyon directly was tantamount to suicide. Flying over it wasn’t much better. Any attempt to sneak in from another direction led to the Mind Reader detecting the approach and pointing out the interloper’s positions to the Fragmenter, who was irritatingly accurate at striking targets from afar. After four years of failures, Aemula was convinced that taking the Mind Reader out of play was the only chance she had, no matter the cost. Even if she didn’t win this year, eliminating it would improve her chances next time. Gorast wasn’t one to plan for her own failure, so she wouldn’t have another top-tier Mind Reading Rahkshi waiting to replace this one.

But getting to it was the hard part. Reaching the Mind Reader required getting past the entirety of Gorast’s team. Aemula had tried, multiple times, and been thwarted on each occasion. But this time she’d based her entire strategy around creating an opening to strike that one target.  

No matter the cost...

There was no fanfare or speech to mark the start of battle. Aemula’s Rahkshi landed down-mountain, well out of range of the first pair of defenders, seeming to confer for a moment before five of them took to the air again and flew full-speed into the canyon, leaving only the Confusion Rahkshi behind.

Gorast let out a startled laugh. “If you’re tired of the competition, you could have just forfeited,” she said. “This is just a waste of antidermis.”

Aemula closed her eyes, activating her Kanohi. Hers was the Kanohi Visus, the Mask of Spawnsight, allowing her to experience the world through the senses of her Kraata and Rahkshi, to see and feel what they did. One of the few rules both Makuta had agreed upon was that they weren’t permitted to give aid or instruction to their team, but there was no rule against Aemula spectating in this manner.

She was sending her scions to the slaughter. Experiencing their final moments with them was the least she could do to honour their sacrifice.

* * *

She opened her eyes again as the Illusion Rahkshi, leading the charge into the canyon.

It was armoured in shades of sandy beige and burnished blue, still glistening with sea spray from the flight to the island. It was slim and skeletal, even by Rahkshi standards; Aemula had used the bare minimum of material needed in its creation. There was no point in wasting material on a Rahkshi that only needed to fly fast and die… and cast one simple illusion as it did so.

Out of the corners of its eyes Aemula could see its comrades – the red-and-gold Chameleon to its left, and the black-and-green Density Controller to its right. The other two Rahkshi were somewhere behind them, bringing up the rear. The Illusion Rahkshi didn’t look back; its gaze was fixed forwards, towards the cause of its imminent demise. Gorast’s Rahkshi were already taking aim, ominous glows building around the heads of their staffs.

No matter the cost…

In the growing dark, the flurry of motion, the heat of battle, Aemula knew the enemy wouldn’t notice that of the five Rahkshi flying towards them, only four were casting shadows.

Brilliant beams of blazing obliteration rained down on Aemula’s team, reducing rock and Rahkshi alike into steaming vapour. For a fleeting instant, Aemula beheld blinding light, was wracked by awful agony, and-

* * *

-she was back in her own body, her true eyes looking out across the battlefield once more. She blinked against a light that was no longer there, involuntarily shuddered at the lingering memory of pain her form had never felt, and turned to see Gorast’s condescending stare aimed right at her.

“I’ll never understand why you subject yourself to that,” she scoffed. “Or what you were hoping to accomplish with such a… strategy doesn’t even seem the right word.”

Aemula didn’t reply, just titled her head back towards the canyon, where a plume of putrid pollution had formed a cloying cloud that obscured the fate of her team. There was no sound to be heard save for the distant hiss of corrosive poison sizzling against the ruined rock… until the soft metallic thrum of a biomechanical being in flight sliced through the silence as swiftly as its source – the Confusion Rahkshi – burst through the veil of haze, its power active and pushed to the limit.

Confusion wasn’t a Rahkshi variant that either Makuta had fielded before in their fights over the island. Its power manifested as an aura of disorientation, an area-of-effect ability that was borderline-useless in a team-based battle like this, bewildering both friend and foe alike. But it was perfect for a lone, daring attacker tasked with flying past an entire team of snipers.

Pausing just long enough to enjoy the spark of surprise in Gorast’s gaze, Aemula closed her eyes again…

* * *

…and now witnessed the world through the Confuser’s view. It soared swiftly along the length of the chasm, drifting and diving to avoid the languid lightning and sputtering energy pulses that pursued it. Stupefied to the point they could barely stay standing, Gorast’s defenders stood little chance of shooting it down.

Even the Mind Reader – not needing its power to comprehend the Confuser’s intention – could do nothing but stumble and screech as the Confuser careened towards it, stave levelled like a lance.

Aemula watched through her offspring’s eyes as it struck the Mind Reader with pinpoint accuracy, spearing it through the mouthparts, armour and Kraata alike splitting asunder from the sheer force behind the blow. Pieces of purple plating pinged off the rocks as the Mind Reader toppled, its prone form pulling the Confuser to the ground with it as the grey-green Rahkshi refused to release its staff, the twisted tines tangled in the remnants of its slain prey.

The Confuser landed unsteadily, turning around and planting a foot upon its fallen foe as it seized the staff with both hands and tried to wrench it free. Aemula glimpsed a flash of movement in her progeny’s periphery and-

* * *

-was abruptly returned to her own body once more, as the sound of an explosion rumbled across the battlefield. She let out a disappointed sigh as she looked down and took in the scene.

Even disoriented, the Fragmentation Rahkshi that had been standing at the Mind Reader’s side hadn’t struggled with striking the Confuser at such close range. But its death hadn’t been completely in vain, the detonation of its armour turning it into a hailstorm of shrapnel that had shredded its slayer. The Fragmenter was now floundering, armour mangled, one of its arms hanging limp, the dissipation of the disorientation field only now allowing it to remember why making something explode right next to it was a bad idea.

“One dead, one damaged,” Gorast glanced at Aemula again. “Was it really worth it?”

“You tell me,” Aemula said, pointing back towards the battlefield.

The smoke was beginning to clear, revealing the fissured fragments of what had once been the Illusion Rahkshi, and the much more intact forms of the Adaptation and Limited Invulnerability Rahkshi, who had been quietly clambering up the sides of the crevasse under the cover of the smoke. That the Limited Invulnerability Rahkshi had survived shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise, but Gorast let out a guttural growl as she watched the Adapter shrug off lightning bolts, sonic bursts, and globs of poison like they were nothing. Knowing what powers the enemy possessed had allowed Aemula to spend the last year training the Adapter to resist those abilities. All save Disintegration and Fragmentation, of course, there was no adapting against that… but that was what the Invulnerability Rahkshi was for.

Aemula activated her Kanohi again…

* * *

…and saw through the eyes of the Invulnerability Rahkshi as it crested the top of the canyon wall in front of the Disintegrator, its hardy armour barely buckling despite repeated blasts that would have evaporated a lesser being.

The Disintegrator lashed out with its staff, but its slate-grey assailant caught the weapon and ripped it from its owner’s grasp, snapping it over its knee and tossing the halves away. Robbed of the focus for its powers, facing a foe it hadn’t been able to fell with its full strength, the Disintegrator turned to flee, only for its attacker to draw its own staff and slash the Disintegrator’s legs out from under it.

The cobalt-coloured combatant clattered to the ground, clawing and crawling, trying desperately to drag itself away from the only thing that had ever been certain in its life: a death in battle.

Aemula watched on from behind her progeny’s eyes as it raised its staff overhead, then slammed it down through the Disintegrator’s Kraata-case, a plaintive wail escaping the ruined Rahkshi’s throat as its pilot perished.

And then Aemula’s view became flailing limbs as the Limited Invulnerability Rahkshi was struck from behind by something heavy and fast. It tumbled, bounced, then sprung to its feet, whirling to face its attacker. For the barest instant, it saw the gleaming green carapace of the Poison Rahkshi, before its view was violated by the veritable geyser of liquid death that spewed from the Poisoner’s staff. Taken by surprise, it was too slow to close its eyes and faceplates fully, inhaling a mouthful of poison that swiftly overwhelmed the Kraata within its armour.

* * *

Though there was no poison in her real mouth, Aemula still tasted something bitter as she returned to herself and watched another of her children collapse. But there was sweetness to be savoured, too, for as she looked to Gorast there was no elation to be seen in the other Makuta’s expression.

Though she still held the advantage from a numbers perspective, the loss of two of her Rahkshi in the space of a minute after having gone four years without taking any losses at all had rattled her… and her mood was about to worsen.

Aemula turned her attention back to the battlefield. With the Poisoner having flown over to the opposite side of the canyon, the Adapter had made its way down to the canyon floor and was climbing up the other side after it. Its progress was being hampered by the thunderous strikes still being rained down upon it by the Chain Lightning and Power Scream Rahkshi, their blasts not harming the Adapter physically, but cracking and fracturing the rock, making climbing difficult.

The Adapter made no effort to simply give up the climb and start flying, though. Aemula’s orders were clear. It needed to keep the enemy focused on it.

Had the Mind Reader still been alive, it would have realised Aemula’s scheme and informed the others by now. Had Gorast chosen to train her team for critical thinking rather than blind obedience, her Rahkshi might have found it suspicious that the Adapter was letting them keep firing at it instead of flying away.

But for the first time in a long time, Aemula finally had the edge. And the next phase of her plan was about to begin…

* * *

When Aemula connected with her next Rahkshi, she found herself centimetres from the ground, staring at the silver-armoured ankles of the Chain Lightning Rahkshi. Everything was distant and indistinct, sounds muffled, sensations muted, as if the Rahkshi was underwater.

In actuality, it was underground.

Floating up through the stone like a ghost, the Density Control Rahkshi – having become intangible to survive the first barrage, and been hiding inside the canyon wall ever since – rose up behind the Chain Lightning Rahkshi. The argent-armoured antagonist was hissing and shrieking, growing more frantic and frustrated with every ineffective strike against the Adapter, unaware of its impending end.

Using Density Control in this way was a tactic Aemula had attempted in the past, only for the Mind Reader to detect the intruder immediately and point it out to the rest of the team the second it had emerged from hiding. But this time, there was no Mind Reader to save the Chain Lightning Rahkshi from being struck down, bisected by a single, brutal blow that sent its two sparking halves tumbling to the canyon floor.

And where other members of Aemula’s team had been felled by surprise attacks, the Density Controller had been afforded the time needed to take full stock of its surroundings before launching its ambush. So when the Power Scream Rahkshi took to the air and let out a screech strong enough to shatter stone, the Controller was ready, phasing to evade harm. It sunk through the ground once more and reemerged beneath the Screamer when it landed, only its head and arms poking up from the ground as it drove its intangible staff through its enemy’s body, releasing its power over just the staff to turn the weapon solid inside the Screamer’s shell.

The Screamer shuddered, screeched… and then looked down, eyes ablaze with anger. The staff had missed its Kraata, or at least failed to mortally wound it. The Screamer let out another blast of its power, not harming the Density Controller itself, but smashing its staff apart.

The Controller let out a startled squeak. Though its intangible body was protected from the physical impact a Power Scream could inflict, at this range it had still heard enough to be subjected to the physiological effects. Its focus was faltering in the wake of a horrific headache, its awareness dampened by disorientation. Combined with the newfound panic brought about by the loss of the focus for its power, the Controller’s will was wavering. The Rahkshi started to scramble upwards, trying to emerge fully from the rock before-

* * *

-and then Aemula was back in her body, staring down at the stricken Density Controller, which had rematerialised with its Kraata still half inside the rocky ground. The wounded Power Screamer stood above it, twitching and contorting as it tried to find an angle from which to pull the broken-off staff out of its torso.

“And you were doing so well,” Gorast crooned. Though the comment was clearly meant to be sarcastic, Gorast’s tone was hesitant, the quip not quite as biting and dismissive as her usual insults, as if she’d realised halfway through saying it that there was actually truth to the words.

And the battle wasn’t over yet.

The Adapter had finally reached the Poisoner, with the two Rahkshi now engaged in a brutal staff duel. The Adapter was the wilier of the two, its body reshaping to be more agile, allowing it to avoid the Poisoner’s blows while landing strikes of its own too swiftly to be parried. It deftly ducked and darted, always keeping the Poisoner positioned between it and the distant Power Screamer so that the partially-impaled Rahkshi couldn’t take potshots from across the canyon without catching its comrade in the crossfire.

Protosteel scraped. Sparks sprayed. Inky ichor spattered the stones, dripping from the Poisoner’s damaged hydraulics.

For the first time since the battle had begun, Aemula allowed her Kanohi’s facsimile of a mouth to align into something approximating a smile. Against all odds, her strategy had actually worked. The Adapter could win this. She could win this. All that was left was to-

And then Poisoner and Adapter alike were reduced to sizzling shards as a beam of vicious, violet violence struck them both, compelling every component of their bodies to detonate in the same instant.

An involuntary gasp escaped Aemula’s throat, a humiliating display of shock that went entirely unnoticed by Gorast, who let out an enraged shriek in the same moment.

“You fool!” She snarled, her gaze and rage aimed squarely at the damaged Fragmentation Rahkshi responsible for the accidental double kill. Its staff was raised in a single unsteady hand, and it looked up to its irate maker with slumped shoulders and mortified eyes.

Gorast let out a long, irritated hiss, then turned to Aemula. “Well, at least you managed to make this more entertaining than last year. But I think it’s time for you to get off my island.”

“We’re not done yet,” Aemula replied.

Her words were emphasised by the discordant clatter of Rahkshi striking rock. Both Makuta looked down to see the Power Screamer sprawled on the floor of the canyon. That its head hadn’t made the trip with the rest of its body offered a clear clue to the cause of death.

“You cheated!” Gorast rounded on Aemula, lightning crackling around her claws.

“Did I?”

Gorast looked back to the battlefield, her gaze drifting from one fallen Rahkshi to another, further and further down the trench until she reached the entrance, and realised what was missing. The only Rahkshi wreckage to be seen there was tan and blue in hue: the Illusion Rahkshi. There was no sign of any gold or red remnants to mark the passing of the Chameleon Rahkshi.

“But how? It was right next to…” she let out a groan as she realised the answer to her question, “…Illusion.”

“It was never there,” Aemula’s smile returned. “It stayed back with the Confuser.”

“And you took out my Mind Reader before it could notice and alert the others.” Gorast’s claws curled into fists, before relaxing as she met Aemula’s smile with one of her own. “Maybe I’m not such a poor teacher after all?”

“Maybe not.”

Both Makuta turned their attention back to the Fragmentation Rahkshi, which was peering out over the ledge, anxiously analysing its surroundings for any sign of its camouflaged foe. Every suggestion of sound, every imagined motion, was met with a brutal blast from its shaking staff, carving craters out of the canyon walls.

But when the smoke cleared after each strike, there was no sign of a Rahkshi ever having been there.

At a scraping sound near its feet, the Fragmenter leaned out further over the ledge… and the last thing it ever saw in its life was a blur of motion as the blades of the Chameleon’s stave found its face.

Neither Makuta spoke as the Fragmenter plummeted out of sight, and the Chameleon returned to its natural colouration and clambered up onto the ledge. Gorast let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a snarl and made a dismissive gesture towards her flag, atomising it with a pulse of Molecular Disruption.

“Well played,” she muttered, not meeting Aemula’s eyes. “See you next year.”

She teleported away without a further word.

Aemula fluttered down to the ledge where her lone surviving spawn stood. The Rahkshi cooed contentedly as she brushed her hand over its carapace, unbothered by the fact that all of its kin had died horrible deaths. A year from now, Aemula had no doubt, this Rahkshi would join them. Gorast would surely hold a grudge.

She looked out at the crumpled corpses of her children, and sighed dejectedly.

“No matter the cost,” she muttered.

Her words echoed mockingly through the canyon.

* * *

Wrathful red eyes burned behind the contours of the crystal mirror that stood in the centre of Gorast’s opulent antechamber.

“Your game is over?” Makuta Teridax asked. “Who won?”

“Aemula did. She’s learning.” Gorast answered, unable to keep the glee from her voice. Even in defeat, she was victorious. “You were right… perhaps there’s a place for her in The Plan after all…”

 

 

 

 

Author’s note:

Makuta Aemula is a character who’s existed in my personal lore in some form or another for about a decade now, but has always been more of a side character or background presence. I’ve long wanted to make her the focal character of a story, and when the Biolympics came along – with the prompt for the narrative component simply being to “write a story involving a conflict that takes place within the GSR prior to the events of the main story” – I saw my opportunity.  

This character has her genesis in the Corpus Rahkshi RPG that on this site from 2014 to 2019. The basic premise was that it took place in an alternate universe where some Rahkshi randomly began gaining speech and intelligence when they were first created (rather than only at the rare Shadow Kraata stage) and were shipped off to what was basically Rahkshi high school to train and be studied.

Instead of choosing one of the canon Makuta as the progenitor for some of my characters, I came up with a very loose outline of what would eventually become Aemula: a female Makuta who was fixated on creating the strongest Rahkshi and had a rivalry with Gorast, whose territory bordered hers. In-game my characters simply referred to her as “Mother”, and out-of-game I just dubbed her as “The Rival”, not needing to come up with any more detail since she never actually appeared beyond a single flashback scene.

That RPG eventually petered out, but in 2022 I brought some of the players back together to write Class Is Out, a series of short stories resolving the tales of some of our characters. In 2023 I released one of my contributions, Sword and Shield, in which Xara, one of “The Rival’s” children, had a final encounter with her mother during Teridax’s reign.

For this story, I put a lot more work into her characterisation, making her remorseful for the harsh treatment of her children, and forlorn at how her life’s ambitions had been rendered pointless by Teridax’s triumph. I also gave her a name, “Aemula”, a Latin word meaning “rival”, in a nod to her previous moniker. This version of Aemula believed that intelligent Rahkshi were the legacy and eventual redemption of the Makuta species, and pleaded with Xara to protect others of her kind. The story ends ambiguously, with Aemula teleporting away and never being seen again, though there are hints that she survived and made her way to Spherus Magna, (a thread I want to follow up on someday).

At the same time as I was developing that story, I was also well into work on my long-form fanfic Embers, which takes places in an AU where the GSR suffers a second Great Cataclysm and shuts down shortly after Teridax’s takeover, leading to a new power struggle between the survivors. Aemula gets a mention in this story as well, once again as a Makuta known for an interest in Rahkshi development, and having a territorial rivalry with Gorast. Having mysteriously vanished before the main events of that story, she hasn’t appeared in the narrative so far, but is set to make her debut in Book 4 of the series, coming later this year. As part of development for this version of Aemula, I came up with her custom Kanohi and MOCed a design for her for the first time (with her simply being shapeshifted into a Rahkshi form in her prior appearances).

War Games is intended to work as an origin story for either version of Aemula, establishing a reason for her ongoing enmity with Gorast, and her interest in creating stronger Rahkshi. It was fun to explore this rawer, more naïve version of the character, and actually have her share scenes with Gorast.

[Master Inika]

Gorast and Aemula need to just kiss already

This was a great story. There's so much to explore with Rahkshi powers. Aemula's Kanohi also allowed for an interesting way of transitioning scenes that gave it a cinematic feel. I'm not 100% sold on all the alliterations. They are here a lot more than they are in Embers and they sound like an imitation of classic comic books and I don't know if they fit with the otherwise serious feel of the story, maybe that's just me being overly cynical though. The sapient Rahkshi have been one of my favorite parts of Embers and I enjoyed seeing a prequel of sorts to that plot thread.

[Nato G]

18 hours ago, Master Inika said:

Gorast and Aemula need to just kiss already

This will never happen. Not least because Makuta smut would never make it past the BZP filters. 

18 hours ago, Master Inika said:

I'm not 100% sold on all the alliterations. 

Totally fair. It's a bad habit of mine, and I admittedly may have overindulged a bit with this one. 

18 hours ago, Master Inika said:

The sapient Rahkshi have been one of my favorite parts of Embers and I enjoyed seeing a prequel of sorts to that plot thread.

Rahkshi are one of my favourite species in Bionicle lore. If given the opportunity, I'll always find a way to sneak one into a story. 

Edited June 21 by Nato G

[kawaii kitty]

w gorast, she keeps being the coolest minor makuta.

[Valendale]

At first I was thinking of this as something like a mystery in the form of a battle story, with us readers knowing some clever trick will be pulled and seeing all the tools laid out at the beginning, but left wondering exactly how it will be done, but now I'm thinking...maybe it's more something like a shonen manga battle. Either way, I really enjoyed it! Makes me think maybe I need to check out your epic.

And for what it's worth, I didn't notice the alliteration at all until it was pointed out.

[Master Inika]

2 hours ago, Valendale said:

And for what it's worth, I didn't notice the alliteration at all until it was pointed out.

Nooooo now he's going to do it more

[Nato G]

2 hours ago, Master Inika said:

Nooooo now he's going to do it more

Bold to assume anything was going to stop me...