Act I: Hunger: Brotherhood
Luna woke that evening to find both Celestia and Twilight Sparkle in the dining hall. She nodded to them as she sat down across from her sister.
“Good evening, Luna, I’ve already sent for your breakfast,” Celestia said. Luna nodded her thanks.
“Good evening, Princess Luna,” Twilight almost murmured, poking at her food. Luna blinked and shook her head to drive the sleep from her mind.
“Twilight Sparkle, does something trouble you?” She asked, the feeling of being watched she’d already come to associate with Vamprah’s presence creeping into the back of her mind. She glanced across the table and spotted him, curled up at Celestia’s side. She glanced up at Celestia with a grin, Celestia nodded back. Twilight jerked out of her thoughts and Luna returned her attention to her.
“Sorry, just wondering about the Makuta,” she said, her brow furrowed in concern, the gears behind her eyes practically turning for all to see.
“Aren’t we all?” Luna chuckled, gesturing to Celestia with a small patting motion. Celestia’s eyes darted to Vamprah for a moment before coming back to Luna, who nodded and awaited the result of her coaxing.
“Celestia was just telling me about what they’ve told you about their history.” Twilight paused and Luna gestured for her to go on. “This Mata-Nui, the way they talk about him makes him sound like he’s a machine, a god, and a world all rolled into one. Are they referring to different things by the same name, or is Mata-Nui just all of these things?”
“I would have expected you more concerned by the events they described, Twilight,” Luna said, her attention leaving Celestia to focus entirely on Twilight. “What stirs in your mind?”
“If Mata-Nui really is all three, and he created the Makuta,” her eyes flashed with intrigue, “then that might explain why the Makuta are so reluctant to let us help Krika or tell us anything about their abilities. I don’t think they’re just wearing armour, I think they might be machines. Letting us examine them might result in us learning how their bodies work, maybe even accidentally deactivating them.”
Luna heard a metallic clink and glanced over at Vamprah. His head had come up from under the table to listen more intently, resulting in Celestia’s hoof coming to rest on top of it. He didn’t react to it for a moment, evidently expecting Twilight to continue. When she didn’t he huffed silently and narrowed his eyes at Celestia, shaking her hoof off of his head and standing, stalking over to Luna’s side before setting himself back down.
Luna cleared her throat to catch his attention.
“Could you tell us if Twilight’s theory is correct?” He cocked his head before nodding. “Are you and your siblings machines?” He nodded again, “is there any risk of us deactivating you?” He shook his head, “and of us learning your workings?” He nodded again. “Thank you,” she said, unable to resist grinning impishly as she rested her own hoof on top of his head. He shot her a dirty look, baring his teeth for a moment before seeming to resign himself to his fate, tilting his head to the side slightly to coax her hoof further down to his shoulder, which she found surprisingly softer than his mask.
She blinked and tapped a bit further down his back, surprise filling her as she realized that despite the fact it didn’t appear so, his back was cushioned. She didn’t recognize the material, the texture was almost leathery, but it had considerably more give to it than even the softest of things that could be made with such a substance.
Twilight cleared her throat, drawing Luna out of her exploration. She realized that Vamprah had gone stock still, not even the slight preparatory movements he continually made still present, his eyes wide. She drew back her hoof, “ah, my apologies, noble Vamprah, I was caught unprepared.” He blinked slowly and shook his head before settling it back below the table, still unnervingly still.
“Well,” Celestia cleared her throat, “anything else you’ve noticed about the other Makuta between the three meetings we’ve had with them, Twilight?”
“Oh,” she shook her head slightly, “it doesn’t seem like they’ve ever been dealt with from a place of goodwill before, or at least it’s been a very long time. The two of you were on guard, trying to break through what they were saying to what they weren’t. They knew how to deal with that, but my primary goal and method was to try and make them comfortable, Antroz didn’t seem to have any idea how to deal with that.”
She hummed to herself, “it makes things difficult, but I think we should keep trying to do that. Once Antroz realizes we really don’t mean them any harm I think we’ll be able to work alongside them properly.”
Twilight and Celestia began to toss ideas for how to make the Makuta comfortable back and forth, but Luna found herself unable to properly concentrate on the conversation. She found her gaze returning to the shining black expanse of Vamprah's back. It didn’t seem proper for a being like him. Down on all fours his back was exposed, why wouldn’t he be armoured there?
She felt like she was spiralling around an answer, but it was just out of reach. He seemed to pride himself on his ability to silently stalk others, in the way that only an accomplished hunter would. Perhaps it was a show of honor, to turn his back to an enemy would be to expose his weakness. Yet, his methods were those of an ambush hunter, there was little honor in the sorts of assassinations that method suggested.
She blinked as another answer came to her, one that made her brow crease with concern. He hid it well, but there were slits in the expanses of his wings right along the edges of his torso, the perfect space for something to mount him.
“Vamprah,” she began, Celestia and Twilight went silent at the tone of her voice, Vamprah tilted his head to make sure she knew he was listening. “...Nevermind.” She shook her head, she’d leave it for another time. She had no real reason to pry at the moment, and if her suspicions proved correct it could be a delicate subject for him.
Celestia gave her a look that promised questions, Luna returned one that promised answers. “First order of business,” Luna decided to put the conversation back on track, “we must invite them to our hearth afore we can make them feel welcome. All in favour of granting their request?”
______
Something had Chirox ill at ease. He felt like he was forgetting something. He didn’t like feeling like that; his mind was supposed to be a steel trap, not a sieve like Mutran’s, or a single tracked mess like Gorast’s. He was collected, he had himself under control. He didn’t forget things.
Did it have something to do with Krika? He tapped at Krika’s mask with a claw, he’d been asleep for almost two entire days now. Chirox wondered what he would find if he tore that shell of a body open; would he have congealed inside? Some mutation brought on by the effort of using the Crast beyond its limit? His claws itched and he drew back. He needed something to do soon, or he might just test that hypothesis.
Back to what he was forgetting. It could have been something about the Matoran, they were far enough beneath his usual notice he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d forgotten some trivial thing about them that might have proved useful dealing with these organics. The thought rang hollow, it wasn’t about those insignificant cogs.
Mutran? He sneered, it might be, he tried his best to avoid thinking too hard about that mad fool. He didn’t think there was anything of value he’d discarded about Mutran. At least, nothing that would be valuable right now. He growled to himself as he remembered the last time his grudge against Mutran had made Chirox underestimate him.
He felt he was on the right track though, perhaps one of his other siblings. Couldn’t be Vamprah, he’d never known much of anything about him to begin with, no one did. Gorast wasn’t especially complicated, so she was out. Antroz? He was rather straightforward too, despite all his attempts to be otherwise.
Chirox found his mind drifting back to Mutran and he shook his head, if it had something to do with Mutran it couldn’t have been that important. Maybe he owed Chirox something recently and it had been so trivial he’d forgotten and now it was niggling at him because it was an empty spot in his head where there wasn’t supposed to be one. He’d fill it with something else later.
There was a knock at the door of their room and he twitched to attention as someone else opened it. For the hundredth time since they arrived he cursed his blindness. Mutran and Gorast had described the natives but he wanted to see it for himself, look close and study them. The fact he couldn’t made him want to grab one of these pitiful organics by the throat and rip, run his claws through every little piece of their workings to understand them.
He stilled his mind to calm himself, Antroz said play nice. Antroz had kept things from breaking down so far, so Chirox would play nice, no matter how it chafed to make pretty with these animals. He felt a grin tugging at his face as he ran a claw over the Tridax Pod in his chest, the very second Antroz slipped up though, the moment the opportunity arose, he would take it.
The organic said something to Antroz that Chirox didn’t bother enough about to pay attention to and he heard the door close.
“They want all of us this time,” Antroz said. His voice was calm, but Chirox had to fight down the moment of excitement that things had finally turned to a fight. “Gorast, to my right, Mutran, to my left, Chirox, you take up the back.” Chirox felt his hackles rise.
“And why do I have to trail behind like some hound?” He snipped, trying to come off far more sarcastic than he felt.
“Because you and I can’t navigate,” Antroz sighed. Chirox had to contain a sneer as he could practically hear him running his hands down his face. Like he was talking to some underling. “And I’m in charge, so they’ll expect me up front.” Chirox grunted, but decided against protesting further. It made sense, even if he didn’t like it. He wasn’t one to push ahead with his own plans if there was a perfectly serviceable explanation presented to him. He was patient, no matter how his claws itched for action, he would wait.
Letting himself be led primarily on autopilot he had time to stew in his irritation that it was necessary, but he knew if he thought on that for too long he would probably jump Mutran to take replacements for his eyes right out of his brother’s head. Instead he turned his mind back to what he might be forgetting. It felt important, and the feeling just kept growing. He trusted his instincts, this would be crucial to something they were trying to do. He didn’t know what yet, but he knew it would make him instrumental.
“Noble Makuta,” that was the Dark Princess’ voice. He felt something inside himself shift, his focus becoming more keen. He didn’t know how she did that, but at the moment it hardly mattered, it was useful.
He joined the others in bowing after a slight mental shove from Antroz. He almost sent one back, but knew Antroz was dependable enough to have done that before actually bowing, he wouldn't leave Chirox to stand like a fool. “After discussing the meetings you have had with the three of us, we have decided to grant your request for asylum.” Chirox had to fight to keep his disappointment off his face. Now it would be months at the least before he had the proper opportunity to really sink his claws into a live project.
“You are welcome to stay as long as you need, even once your brother recovers.” He didn’t recognize that voice, probably that Celestia Antroz had told him about, the Light wielder.
“And the offer to lend you any facilities we have to help with that stands.” That was Twilight Sparkle. As Antroz began speaking to them- some nonsense about taking them up on the offer, as if these creatures would have the kind of equipment needed to treat a Makuta- Chirox let his mind return to the true problem at hand and found his focus centering on Mutran again. He huffed to himself; fine, if it had something to do with him, he’d power through.
He pulled his internal folder on Mutran. It wouldn’t be anything supremely recent, nothing before the Karda Nui mission. He delved the corners of his thoughts, looking for any gap, anything he may have dismissed as trivial at the time. His investigation led him to the Shadow Leeches.
His brow furrowed; what about the Shadow Leeches? They didn’t have enough of them to be using them liberally as they had in Karda Nui, and the chances of the ponies having the kinds of environments needed to breed more were slim to none. They were a precious resource, sure, but what about them was he forgetting?
Their creation. There was something about their creation. Loathe as he was to do it he thought back on Mutran’s boasting about them. He’d claimed he’d had to do most of the work because Tridax had been working on some vapid side project. Something to do with- his mind came screeching to a halt and he internally cursed Mutran for making it so easy to disregard everything he said.
He felt around for Antroz’ mind, not caring that the organics might see his eyes blazing red.
He connected to an immediate feeling of disapproval from Antroz, but he pushed through it regardless to shout into Antroz’ head.
“Makuta Tridax! He has the third Olmak!” He felt Antroz’ mind freeze, too. “We just need to get a message out and he’ll be here to pick us up, he owes Mutran a favour.”
He felt Antroz’ mind start working towards that, but he’d said his piece, his presence was no longer required. A glow of pride filled his chest as he pulled his mind away; the solution to their problems had been ferried on his back, of course. About time he was back on track.
His claws stopped itching.
“Chirox and Mutran will take Krika to the University, they’ll have the easiest time learning to work with new equipment.” Antroz said, drawing Chirox out of his pleasant haze. He scowled, Antroz had no right to speak for him like that. What happened to Krika was of no concern to him, he’d already done his part. But it would be too late to reject it now, he wouldn’t be insubordinate like Mutran, so he gritted his teeth and bore his frustration. He almost groaned as he realized this was probably punishment for barging into Antroz’ mind.
A thumb started scratching at his knuckles.
______
The next morning, Twilight was practically buzzing with anticipation, they had been given almost an entire wing of the labs in Celestia’s Academy to work in. The sort of equipment they had access to was cutting edge, some of it was even still experimental!
She had to stop herself from bouncing on her hooves as she walked alongside Mutran and Chirox. They were carting Krika on a gurnie between them and Chirox for one was grim-faced. Mutran didn’t seem as concerned, looking around eagerly at everything they passed, occasionally asking questions when he couldn’t tell at a glance what a machine was for. It was odd to Twilight that he hadn’t asked about, or even given a second glance to, any of the sigils around the lab, but she figured she’d have plenty of time to ask what they knew of their magic later.
For now, though, their focus was the Internal Imaging Array. Mutran had practically cackled when she’d suggested it, but both of them had insisted she use that first.
The IIA was a large pair of metal rings that could be adjusted so that their target could sit between them no matter how large or small. The rings themselves were imprinted with nearly a dozen different glyphs. Mutran kept glancing at them as they positioned Krika between the rings but still didn't say anything about them.
Of the six Makuta, Twilight found Krika the most unsettling from a visual standpoint. He was stretched and elongated in ways that felt unnatural to her, like someone had taken a much smaller creature and only scaled up the portions it needed to become taller. His armour was a mixture of bone whites, dull blacks and bloody reds that only added to that impression.
His mask was easily the largest of the six Makuta’s. A small, white, bug like face trailed back into a mottled red-white skeletal arch that swooped along the hunch of his shoulders and down his back to end in a wicked white blade.
He had three forelimbs, two black, almost comically short front legs that ended in frighteningly enormous yet spindly bladed spires, each as long as his entire body, shaped like spinal columns and coloured in the same mottled blood and bone colours as his mask. The third arm seemed to erupt from the base of the back of his neck, ending in a three fingered claw.
His torso was gaunt and flat, armoured in white, seeming malnourished despite the fact that it was covered by armour, and his hind legs had similar black to bone colouration as the front, though the spines on his back legs were large enough to shake the skeletal look that permeated his mask and forelimbs.
She was very glad Mutran and Chirox had insisted on carrying him, just about every inch of his body was barbed or bladed, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to avoid being stabbed if she’d so much as brushed up against him.
Twilight sparked her horn against the side of one of the rings and they both sprung to life, humming with magic they lifted into the air, capturing Krika’s prone form in a tunnel of blue light. Mutran tensed and grinned, but after a couple seconds his expression fell.
“This, doesn’t work with magnetic imaging, does it?” He said, sounding rather disappointed.
“Strong magnetism doesn’t really agree with our magic, so no, why?” Twilight asked, though she had her suspicion.
“Should have figured,” Mutran huffed, “I was looking forwards to him slamming face first against the top of it or something.” Twilight threw him an incredulous look. “He would have been fine,” he assured her, holding up his hands in surrender, “it just would have been funny.” Twilight rolled her eyes, she figured that was it. She glanced over at Chirox to see if he’d been in on that, but he was still stonefaced, almost bored.
“We’re going to have a few minutes while this machine runs. We could get to know each other a bit?” Twilight said hopefully, her ears perking up. Chirox made a dismissive sort of noise. “To kill some time?” Mutran looked her up and down a couple times, one of his hands hovering around his mask for a moment before he shrugged.
“We’re already entrusting you with everything we’re going to get out of Krika, no reason not to.” She got the distinct feeling he was being sardonic.
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine,” she offered.
“Good,” Chirox grunted, but Mutran waved a hand.
“I’m just having some fun, ask away,” he said, leaning back against another machine. Twilight hummed to herself as she considered what to say. She didn’t feel like asking the usual ‘what’s your favourite food’ sorts of questions would be useful. She was unlikely to have any context for what their responses meant. She would start with what little context she had.
“Was Teridax’ plan tough to go through with?” She asked, turning her head towards Krika, but watching Mutran out of the corner of her eye to see his reaction.
It wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting. He crooked an eyebrow and glanced at Chirox, holding up his hands like he wasn’t sure what to make of what she’d asked, but there was no stress, no indication that it had even been a question to him.
“It was as difficult as instigating any sort of change,” he replied, waving a hand dismissively. “It needed doing, so we did it."
“But Mata Nui was your father,” Twilight felt her brow furrow as she turned back to him, “didn’t that change anything?”
“What nonsense are you blathering about?” Chirox huffed, “he hadn’t been our Father for nearing ninety thousand years.”
“Ninety thousand…” Twilight couldn’t help but let the weight of that amount of time sink in for a moment. That was further back than she knew any beings in Equestria even had stories. She was sitting next to a pair of unbelievably ancient beings. She shook her head to try and return to the subject at hand, “what do you mean? Being a dad doesn’t just stop.” Chirox scowled, but didn’t say anything more.
“Would you say Celestia is still your Mother?” Mutran asked- to Twilight’s sputtering disbelief- like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. Her brain short circuited for a second, her mouth drifting open and shut a couple times as she felt heat rising to her cheeks.
“What?!” She cried considerably louder than she meant to. “Celestia,” she cleared her throat and brought down her volume, “isn’t my mother, where did you get that idea?”
“She said you were her ex-student,” Mutran shrugged, “was it a more casual apprenticeship than that?”
“Wait,” Twilight blinked, “I think we’re using the same word to mean different things. When I say father or mother, I mean the people who are…” she swallowed. She was sitting next to two inconceivably ancient beings, and she might just be about to give them The Talk. “Responsible, for you existing.”
“You mean in a procreative manner?” Mutran asked, cocking his head and drawing perhaps the deepest sigh of relief Twilight had ever experienced from her core as she nodded. “We refer to the participants in that process as donors.” Chirox sneered hard enough that Twilight heard his fangs click. Twilight elected to ignore that, this situation was already weird enough.
“That seems… reductionist,” she murmured. “What do you mean when you say mother or father?”
“Mothers and Fathers are teachers,” Mutran explained, “masters of a craft who have taken Sons or Daughters, apprentices.” Twilight hummed in understanding, her eyes shifting between them for a moment before the next question came to her.
“If you don’t assign those terms based on genetic or adopted family, why do you call each other siblings?” Mutran’s eyes flicked to Chirox again.
“Siblings, or Siblings?” Mutran asked, the emphasis was different on the second, favouring the first three letters over the last three. Twilight blinked, apparently the difference here was sensitive in their culture as well.
“Which do you call each other?”
“We are siblings,” Chirox said, running the claws of one hand along each other, “not Siblings.” Mutran’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“What he means is that we are the same species so we are siblings.” Mutran paused for a moment, his brow furrowed as he searched for the words. “Meaning literally, ‘you who are like me.’”
“And Sibling means?” Twilight asked, testing the different pronunciation on her tongue.
“In that sense, Brother or Sister would mean,” his eyes twitched towards Chirox again, “you who I am devoted to.”
“So it’s a context sensitive term?” Twilight got the distinct feeling these two had fallen out of that kind of relationship rather badly.
“Yes,” Mutran nodded. “Then siblings are people who came from the same donors here?”
“Uh, sort of?” Twilight hummed to herself, “the distinction does get a bit hazy here, too. Really it comes down to the people you grew up in the same house with, but aren’t part of the generation before you. And then there’s in-laws.”
“That seems arbitrary,” Mutran said, bringing one of his claws up to his mask and biting at it. Twilight didn’t really have a counterpoint for that, so she just hummed to herself and turned to watch Krika again.
“How come you expected the IIA to work on electromagnetism?” She asked after a couple more minutes, Mutran chuckled.
“Our first attempts at similar devices worked using electromagnetic fields, not enough to seriously harm the subject, but enough that it was incredibly uncomfortable and if they weren’t strapped down they’d go flying into the machine.” He clapped his hands together firmly as if to demonstrate. “We assumed that since your kind aren’t made of metals the electromagnetic imaging would be serviceable enough and you’d have no reason to push through to other means.”
“We actually,” Twilight coughed nervously, “never considered electromagnetism for this sort of thing. Magic was already versatile enough that by the time we had machines that could harness magnetism, it had sort of filled all the niches.” Mutran clicked his teeth in consideration.
The machine began to dim, the rings drifting back down to lock into their bases. “There we go,” Twilight walked up to the machine and lit her horn, gathering the paper being printed out by the base. “This should give us a good look at what’s going on inside him.” She turned back to the Makuta as she looked it over, “I set it to emboss them Chirox, so you can help me understand what your internal structure is supposed-” Twilight blinked, unsure what she was looking at.
Her first thought was that something had gone wrong, or there was some internal shielding that the IIA couldn’t reach through. Krika was hollow, not that she would have expected a machine of this level of complexity to have every nook and cranny filled in, but his insides were cavernous, like the machine was just a shell for something, but there didn’t appear to be anything inside.
She glanced up at Mutran, who was doing a very bad job of not being noticed giggling to himself. “What am I looking at?” She asked a little numbly. Mutran walked over to look through the papers, “did all of him make it here?” Mutran’s grin stayed firmly in place as he grabbed the printout from her magical grip and looked it over.
“Yes, this is all of him,” he said, bringing them over to Chirox and letting him run his claws along the scans. “What you see before you is just a shell, Princess.” He chuckled, “we are what lives inside and powers it.”
“But there’s nothing in there,” Twilight protested, drawing another cackle from Mutran, Chirox remained engrossed in studying the printouts with his claws.
“We are this,” Mutran held out his hand and a sound like whispering filled the air. From between the plates of his armour a black-green haze began to leak out, gathering around his hand. “Not flesh or metal, like you or the Toa, we are Antidermis.” He waved his hand, the mist swirling around his fingers and gathering back together across his palm. “Insubstantial, but it contains everything we are.” Twilight stepped forwards to get a closer look at their gaseous true form.
“Enough with your lessens in the obvious,” Chirox growled. “Mutran, the internal components of his body are fused shut.”
“Fused shut?” Twilight asked, looking back to Krika.
“That shouldn’t be a problem, he can just mold it open again.” Mutran began chewing on one of his claws again.
Chirox shot something at Mutran in their native tongue. Mutran’s brow furrowed and he glanced back at Krika, murmuring something in the same language.
“Excuse me,” Twilight spoke up again, drawing Mutran out of whatever thought had him flexing his claws at his side. “What do you mean by fused shut?”
“It means he physically cannot move, and can’t slip out of his body to find a new one. All of his joints and plates have melted on the inside, but he could rebuild it rather easily, and he should still have access to all of his abilities.” Mutran walked over to Krika, “there must be something wrong with his Antidermis.” He pressed the side of his head to Krika’s chest. “He sounds fine.”
“There are other kinds of tests we could run,” Twilight offered, “though we’ll probably need a control for the others. So I know what’s normal as far as energy flow and magical fluxuations.”
Mutran chuckled nervously, drawing his head away from Krika’s chest.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to convince Chirox to stand in for that, I’m not exactly a typical specimen.”
Chirox threw a dirty look in his general direction and held out the data. He shook the papers a couple times before Twilight understood he wanted her to take them, which she did with a murmured apology.
“Let’s get this over with,” he growled. “If you let him start using me as a test subject I swear this will get ugly.”
It took a few moments for Twilight to remember where the machine she needed was, and a few more to transfer Krika over to it, but soon enough they had Chirox and Krika fitted out with half a dozen monitoring patches and a rather large helmet each.
“This shouldn’t feel like anything, so let me know if it does,” Twilight said, to an unimpressed grunt from Chirox. She started the machine on Chirox’ side, it hummed to life and began spitting out readings from across Chirox’ body.
Twilight studied the readouts carefully. There wasn’t much she could really make heads or tails of, but every few seconds she would find the beginnings of something that read similarly to the construction of Shadow Magics, but it was either interrupted or sandwiched between other things she didn’t recognize.
After a couple minutes she adjusted the parameters of the machine, whatever this was it was obviously a hodgepodge of several different things, she needed to separate it out if she was going to read it. The readouts only got even more unparseable. She blinked, then promptly put her hoof to her forehead.
She coughed to catch Chirox’ attention, “Chirox, would you mind removing your mask?” He began to rise and she scrambled to salvage the situation, “I’m sorry, it has a different energy signature than yours. The machine is having trouble parsing the two out.” He growled and seemed to puff up a little.
“Fine,” he spat, closing his eyes and clenching his fists to force himself calm before he reached up and removed his mask, carefully putting it on the table beside himself.
Twilight wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to see underneath, but the face looking back at her still sent a chill down her spine. It was the barest of essentials, evidently the mask was never supposed to come off. His eyes blazed out of sunken, rigid sockets in an otherwise minimal, angular structure, it was so bare she didn’t feel she could even call it a skull. If she squinted she could maybe make out a nose above the dully blinking series of diodes where the mouth on his mask had been, but that seemed more likely to be a weight support for the mask itself than anything properly functional.
“Alright,” Twilight said shakily, starting the machine back up. The data coming out was more coherent now, the differences between the Makuta’s energies and Equestrian magic became clearer.
She could still see the traces of Shadow Magic, but that was buried beneath several different things that were similar in structure to other spells, but still different enough that she could only say what family to put them in. Some form of remote observation, the strength of which, encompassed senses, and extent of manifestation were beyond her tell just looking at it, alongside something that almost looked like it was designed to dampen kinetic energy.
She shook her head, she’d have time to analyze what she was getting in depth later, for now she just had to get a full scan.
It ended up taking considerably longer than she thought it would, there was more going on with the Makuta’s interactions with their internal energies than she would have ever dreamed and by the end of it the pile of readouts was almost as tall as she was, but eventually she had something complete enough that she could get a full mathematical view of Chirox as an entity.
“Can I put my mask back on?” Chirox asked, tapping his claws against the side of the table.
“Oh, yes,” Twilight looked up from the readings. “Please,” she added under her breath, his face really was very unnerving.
Chirox put his mask back on and pulled all the patches off of his body. It took him a couple more seconds to reorient himself, and while Twilight got the very real idea that if she drew attention to it he would be angry, she helped him position himself in the room by tapping her hoof rather loudly a couple times so he could remember where he was in relation to her as he made his way back over to stand by them.
Twilight switched the input on the machine, “Mutran, would you mind removing Krika’s mask?” She asked. Mutran nodded and grabbed a hold of Krika’s head. He tugged once, the mask didn’t come off.
“Wow, even fused your mask on, huh?” He murmured, putting a hand on Krika’s neck, Twilight moved to say something but before she could he yanked hard. Krika’s mask came off with a loud shriek of tearing metal. Twilight gasped and moved to dash over, but Mutran held up a hand, “he’s fine, look.”
Twilight looked down at Krika’s head. His eyes were dark, bulbous protrusions on either side of his head, the interface diodes for his mask along the top of the odd, angular shape of it, but beyond that it was featureless. Unlike Chirox’ there was no activity from any of the electronic looking parts of him. Twilight hummed to herself in consideration as Mutran continued. “If I’d done something wrong he’d be leaking.”
“Okay,” Twilight said cautiously. “If you’re sure.” She started running the machine again. Twilight started comparing the two printouts almost as soon as it started printing the second out, but differences were negligible, hardly a single point out of place. She sighed and sat down next to the machine, she would probably have to wait until the entire process was done before she could really compare them.
After a few minutes longer she glanced over at Mutran. He was looking over the inside of the mask, poking at what appeared to be exposed circuitry.
She moved over to him, “something wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” he murmured in reply, “I’ve never seen this kind of deterioration on a Kanohi before, usually they shatter before their innards are exposed.” He hummed and gently slid his claw along a channel in it, “then again, I’m not a maskmaker, this might be normal for a mask that’s been used as continually as this one has.”
He put it up to his face, Twilight was about to say something when his head warped, creaking as he forced it into the mask. Twilight winced. The mask sputtered and Mutran removed it, his head returning to its previous shape. “That’s interesting.”
“What?” Chirox asked, sounding genuinely interested for the first time since he’d entered the room.
“The Crast isn’t working at all, the interface is fried,” Mutran responded. Twilight cocked her head as an idea began to take shape.
“The Kanohi have a direct interface jack, right?” Chirox and Mutran turned to her, “when Chirox took off his mask I noticed what I think are receptors in your faceplate, am I correct?”
“Yes,” Chirox said, “what of it?” His voice wavered a little, like he was trying to continue to disregard her, but was too focused on her train of thought to keep up the act well.
“If the Kanohi’s interface jack is destroyed, is it possible that similar interface mechanics in Krika’s armour were also blown?”
Mutran and Chirox both blinked.
“In order for something like that to happen, every single piece of circuitry in his body would have had to have overheated all at once.” Chirox scoffed, though his brow was furrowed, he was still thinking on it.
“The heat wave when we broke through!” Mutran shouted, wringing his hands with a grin. “That must have been his body giving out. If it’s all fried he doesn’t have access to any of his powers, he can’t even feed.” There was a beat where Chirox scowled hard, but he couldn’t help his expression lifting.
“And if his body’s melted itself shut, he wouldn’t be able to escape to a new one.”
Mutran rounded on Twilight, his grin almost manic, a second row of fangs showing behind the four in the front. Strange, his mouth looked so much deeper than what the mask should have allowed right against that blank skull.
“We need to get to the roof.”
______
Krika was worried. He could feel his energy reserves dwindling dangerously low, but that was all he could feel.
He wondered if he was about to die.
His body had gone numb when he broke through, but he remembered stars, the pale of an impending sunrise before all had become darkness. He had succeeded. He felt a chill in his soul. If he had brought the others through, and they were now loose in a new world, without him to try and hold them back from wreaking havoc-
Maybe he should die, so he would never have to see the devastation he had unleashed. It would be easy, just let himself starve, not that he had any say in the matter, anyways.
If he could he would have chuckled, at least his final act had been the sort he’d always wanted it to be. Sacrificing himself for the sake of others. When he thought of it like that, he could almost ignore the cruelty he’d no doubt forced upon another world. Maybe it wasn’t so bad of a way to die, after all.
Just as he settled in, something changed, he felt air move over his being. Startled, he made no move to escape through the opening in his armour before it was forcibly wrenched shut. He waited a moment longer, confused. Had his siblings discovered what had happened to him and come back to taunt him with it?
He pressed his being against the spot that had been torn open and suddenly, pain.
If he’d still had access to his throat he would have screamed, he felt his Antidermis connect to a piece of the body again, it wasn’t much, but it was enough, enough that he could reach out ever so slightly.
He felt sunlight, rich and powerful in a way that no light had ever felt on him before, yet still gentle enough that it didn’t cause him pain. He devoured it, feeling his strength begin to return.
He reached out from the new channel for his being into the rest of his shattered form, channeling that energy into reconfiguring it. All the components were still there, he just needed to put them back in the correct order, shapeshifting, as opposed to healing. It wouldn’t be pretty, and he would be unsteady until he properly replaced the parts or healed himself, but it would be enough to grant him access to his body again.
The world opened itself up to him again; first was touch, he was resting on something soft, the air moved over his form gently, and that almost decadent sunlight was warming his armour.
Next came hearing, he heard his brother’s voice, Mutran.
“It’s working, he’s putting himself back together!”
He could feel the air around him grow colder, he was pulling in more light than was coming, a shadow spreading out from him.
Finally, his sight returned. At first he could hardly see anything, silhouettes in the wailing storm of darkness surrounding him. Someone, a feminine voice he didn’t recognize, gasped in what sounded like awe. He began to stand, stepping off the cushioned platform he found himself on, and grasped at the storm of shadows surrounding them. He forced his mouth into a shape that would allow him to open it and took in a deep breath, swallowing the dark energy he had martialed.
He looked around. He was on the top of a building, looking out from the side of a mountain over a small city with colourful tiled roofs, a single sun was high above and the sky was a deep, perfect blue. All around below the land seemed to stretch on forever, green and alive. It drew his breath away, but his attention was brought back by the sound of an exuberant yet harsh laugh from Mutran. “It worked!”
“About time,” Chirox huffed.
Krika turned back around, having to fight down a scowl as he faced his accursed siblings, they had just saved his life, after all. They looked impossibly self-satisfied and he decided they were already getting enough congratulations from themselves, he didn't need to inflate their egos further by thanking them. He glanced down between them and saw the source of the unfamiliar voice. She was so much smaller than the Makuta. Hardly as tall as a Matoran. Yet her violet eyes were filled with wonder as she looked at him, there was no fear of the two monsters at her sides or the one before her. He blinked, and after a couple false starts forced some words out of his half reconstructed throat.
“Hello, little one.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,000 users online
1,762,178 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Fascinating all around, I'll never complain about long chapters. I thought this to be nicely sized, personally, long enough to really enjoy. You're doing a nice job with the makuta, and even better, have kept well away from the idiot ball shenanigans that all too often crop up in stories like this.
Storms, I've not thought about Bionicle in years, this story is bringing back all of the old nostalgia. Keep it up!
9106421
Yeeeeesssssss the nostalgia is good for old boooooness.
I wouldn't worry about chapter length, but the fact that you are thinking about how much you can get done in so many words and whether or not to tarry with them does show a healthy amount of thought in your writing. Keep up the good work.
Krika hell yes
He’s right that WOULD HAVE been funny no wait... it IS FUNNY. *starts laughing*
Just like Tahnok Kal.