BL11 - Drained

A powerful jet of water passed through Krika’s intangible form, doing him no harm. He turned to see Toa Gali flying toward him, her ghost blaster ready to fire. If the Toa expected cries of rage or shouts of defiance from Krika, though, she was disappointed.

“Must we dance this dance, Toa?” asked the Makuta. “You may not know how it must end, but I do.”

“Then let me in on the secret,” Gali said, firing her blaster. Bars of energy appeared from thin air around the Makuta.

“There is an old saying on the island of Zakaz,” Krika replied. “Only a fool fights in a burning forest. While you waste your time battling us, your universe is burning to the ground, little Toa.”

Krika suddenly passed through the bars and shot forward. Before Gali could react, he had turned solid and grabbed her, draining some of her energy in the process. “Come with me,” said the Makuta, steering her flight away from the battle, “and I will tell a tale that will freeze your heart and turn your hopes to ashes.”


Pohatu saw Gali being carried off, but was in no position to help. He had been slugging it out with Makuta Gorast for what seemed like an eternity. So far, she had plowed her way through a hail of light spheres, shrugged off boulders, and survived direct hits by uprooted trees. He had even flown around her at super-speed, delivering a thousand blows in a second, and done little more than shake her up.

“Fall down already,” the Toa of Stone grumbled. “You’re making me all frustrated.”

[...]

“We were not always like this, you know,” Krika said, with something in his voice that Gali never thought she would hear from a Makuta: regret.

The Toa of Water was still feeling weak and dizzy from Krika’s attack. She did her best to ignore it. One of her strengths had always been the ability to listen and to try to understand both her friends and her enemies. She had a chance to do that now with this Makuta, and she wasn’t going to blow it.

“I know,” she replied. “The swamp water must have mutated —”

Krika shook his head, sadly. “I’m not talking about how we look. I’m talking about what we are. A piece of advice, Toa — if you keep focusing only on the now, there isn’t going to be any later.”

The Makuta turned ghostly and floated up off the ground. “There was a time, back when Makuta Miserix led us, that the Brotherhood stood for something. Oh, you would not remember him — you were asleep at the time — but he embraced our true mission. Under his guidance, we created Rahi beasts that are still of use to the Matoran today. When the Matoran civil war happened on Metru Nui, it was Miserix who decreed we Makuta must get more involved in the world outside our laboratories.” He paused for a moment, then added, “That was the beginning of the end.”

Gali knew the rest of the story all too well. The Brotherhood rebelled against the Great Spirit Mata Nui, casting him into an unending sleep and plunging the universe into a time of darkness. The mission of the Toa Nuva was to undo that criminal act and awaken Mata Nui once more.

“When we saw the universe beyond our towers, we discovered how Mata Nui was honored, respected, and loved by the Matoran,” said Krika. “That was love and devotion we felt we deserved for the thousands of things we had done to better their lives. Jealousy turned to resentment, and resentment to hate. And when Makuta Teridax proposed we strike at Mata Nui and seize power, we turned away from Miserix and followed his lead.”

“And what happened to Miserix?” asked Gali. She could feel her strength returning. If she could keep Krika talking, she would soon be able to make a break for freedom.

“Teridax wanted to kill him,” Krika replied. “Makuta Spiriah and I were given the job, but Spiriah didn’t have the stomach for killing mask to mask. I told him I would handle it… but instead, I brought Miserix to a volcanic island in the south and imprisoned him there.”

“So you disobeyed,” said Gali. “I didn’t think Makuta had the spines to do that.”

Krika shrugged, sending a strange ripple of motion through his intangible form. “Perhaps we do not,” he said quietly. “Should the volcanoes erupt with enough force and for enough time, Miserix will have no hope of survival. I gave him a chance, that’s all.”

Gali said nothing. She was remembering how Tahu and Kopaka had been dispatched by the Order of Mata Nui to stop a series of volcanic eruptions on a southern island, shortly before the team came to Karda Nui. Could it have been the same place that Miserix was imprisoned? Was that why the Order wanted the eruptions blocked?

“As I now give you one,” said Krika. He pushed something toward her through the mud. Gali picked it up and used the slightest bit of her elemental power to wash the soil away. She saw it was a piece of stone, about the size of her hand, with the symbol of the Brotherhood of Makuta engraved on it.

“With that, anyone — even you — can pass unharmed through the forces of the Brotherhood,” Krika continued. “Take it. I will lead you to an exit from this place. Return to Metru Nui, Xia, anywhere that is not here. Just go, Gali, if you value your universe.”

Gali was surprised at the urgency in his voice, but unconvinced by his plea. “If you want me gone, why not just kill me? You have the power.”

Krika smiled. The expression gave Gali chills. “The Makuta have a legend. It says that when one of us dies, all that we have put out into the universe comes back to us. For tens of thousands of years, I have put fear, pain, and death out into the universe, Toa. Perhaps I want to add a strain of mercy to that mix.”

Gali studied the Makuta. Was this a trick? Some attempt to weaken the Toa’s ranks? None of it made sense.

“Why?” she said finally. “Why do you want me gone? Or is it that you simply want one less Toa Nuva in Karda Nui?”

Krika laughed softly. It was a hollow and horrible sound, somehow worse to Gali’s ears than a scream of rage would have been. “You should have been a Makuta, Gali, you are far too clever to be a mere Toa. You Nuva are here to awaken Mata Nui, a mission that requires all six of you. I tell you that if you do this, you and everything you know, everything you love, will be doomed to a future more horrible than you can imagine. Leave here now, and that future cannot come to pass.”

[...]

It had been two hours since Takanuva, Toa of Light, stumbled through a hole in space and fell face-first into the mud. After what he had just been through, even so messy and humiliating an arrival felt like a victory.

He had been traveling in between dimensions for what felt like an eternity. His journey had begun in the city of Metru Nui, courtesy of a damaged Great Mask worn by a being named Brutaka. His mission was to travel to Karda Nui and bring vital information to the Toa Nuva. But the ride had been a stormy one, and more than once he had wound up in strange, sometimes frightening alternate dimensions. Takanuva could only hope that this time he had finally reached his destination.

Since his arrival, he had been flying east, looking for some sign of the Toa Nuva. He had spotted figures flitting through the sky and what might have been battles, but he was too far away to make out clearly who they were or what was going on.

That was about to change. He spotted Gali Nuva on a spit of mud, being menaced by what looked like a giant insect with an attitude. Takanuva hesitated for just a moment — he had all too painfully learned the dangers of judging by appearance in recent adventures — but he couldn’t escape the fact that Gali was lying on the ground and that thing was closing in on her.

Takanuva fired a warning blast of light in front of the insectoid’s path. The being turned his head to look at the Toa, and Takanuva would forever remember the expression on his face. It wasn’t fear or anger — more like sadness, as if the bone-white creature had finally accepted his fate.

The Toa of Light braced for an attack. Instead, the insectoid being turned ghostly and vanished into the ground. Gali got to her feet as Takanuva joined her. The two spoke at the same time.

“How did you get here —?”

“Are you all right —?”

“It’s a long story,” said Takanuva. “Where are the others? I have news you need to hear.”

Gali glanced down at the spot of ground into which Krika had disappeared. “They’re back that way. Karda Nui is under attack by the Makuta, and —” She glanced up at Takanuva, eyes wide. “What happened to you? Your armor… your mask… and is it me, or are you bigger?”

“I don’t know about the last,” Takanuva said grimly. “But as for the rest— I’ll tell you while we travel.” He reached behind and took something off his back. Gali recognized it as a smaller version of the sundial Lewa had retrieved from the island of Mata Nui.

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked.

Takanuva put the sundial on the ground and then shot a beam of light at it from his left hand. The arrow on the sundial cast a shadow that pointed to the east. Takanuva had no way of knowing it, but it was pointing right toward the Codrex.

“Okay,” he said softly. “So I still go that way.”

Gali looked at him, thoroughly confused.


- BIONICLE Legends 11, The Final Battle, Chapters 1, 2, and 3