Lupaxu strolled down the beach, his Guard spear leaving indents in the sand. It had been a long day of boat-building, and he had gone down Le-Wahi beach to look at the sunset. It was a beautiful day. The sunset was brilliant gold and illuminated the island of Evzan in the distance. Lupaxu stopped to look at the sunlight, then noticed it was getting dark.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

A deep voice had sounded from inside the bushes. Lupaxu had never heard this voice before.

"Yes, it is...who are you?"

The voice remained silent. A trickle of what looked like blood ran out from under the bushes.

"Show yourself!"

"No."

Chewing sounds had come from within the brush. The blood continued to run down the sand, staining it bright red. It continued to trickle until it reached Lupaxu's feet.

"Show yourself at once or I will bring the Guard!"

"No," the voice rumbled again.

"I'm armed!" Lupaxu shouted, trembling and brandishing his staff.

"I'm sure you are, little Matoran," the voice continued. "I'm sure you are."

Suddenly, Lupaxu was unable to breathe. He tried inhaling as hard as he could, but that just caused more pain in his lungs. His eyes were twitching uncontrollably; he tried to move, but he couldn't. He reached for his Guard staff, but only succeeded in toppling over. He started to levitate in the air. He was in agony. He could not breathe and he was being lifted many feet up. Then, the voice from the bushes began to laugh. Lupaxu plummeted to the ground and knew no more.

A Ta-Koro Guard scout by the name of Yayor was reporting to Jala, who had set up in an abandoned outpost on Ta-Wahi Beach. He had just found a member of the Guard dead in Le-Wahi. He was found maskless and with heavily cracked armor, but medical investigations noted that he had apparently suffocated.

"He was on the construction team for the Great Takara," Yayor was saying to Jala, who was listening intently and scribbling red marks on a small map surrounding the Guard's Le-Koro outpost. "He looked like he'd been plunged into a vacuum. He'd suffocated, but he had also fallen a distance. His organs were compressed, too."

"Make a note of this," Jala said, putting down the map, freshly marked with the location of the Takara building site and the area where the scout had been found dead. "I'll send Babbort and Kemanii to investigate."

"Surely we should send people from the outpost there," Yayor said. "Their chief scientist is an expert on elemental phenomena."

"You mean Saa'an? He's dead. He was inspecting a Takea baby and things got ugly—well, you can imagine. Plus, Babbort is the astronomer. He's studied vacuum for a century."

"Okay. Send 'em over there."

Kemanii walked down Le-Wahi Beach to the spot where the Guard scout had been killed. His partner, Babbort, was surveying the ground at regular intervals. Footprints were there, probably the scout's, but they were fading and told nothing.

"Gandra ka dem peedo towuouacci," Babbort grunted. Babbort had been raised speaking Tatong, so his Matoran was poor at best.

"Could you translate that?" Kemanii groaned.

"Er… how you said…there…feet. No Matoran feet. They big feet like Rahi."

"Could you show me?" Kemanii asked. Babbort gestured towards a huge, double-pronged footprint.

"Dere, it goes into bush. Follow track and we make find something connect dead guard."

Kemanii paused to decipher Babbort, who was often annoying due to his poor grammar. Tatong was very different from Matoran.

"We should follow the tracks?"

"Ya, la, we follow dey tracks. Into we going now the jehnihi…how you said?"

Kemanii drew his ornamental cutlass from its sheath. Holding it in front of him, he headed into the brush. Babbort's cutlass was at an angle.

There was stirring in the bushes. Crunching could be heard audibly from about thirty yards away. Babbort marched ahead, brandishing his blade and wearing a somewhat panicked look.

Then Kemanii noticed a shadow rising above the tree. Babbort was running right at it.

"BABBORT, NO! YOU'RE RUNNING…oh no…"

An agonized scream pierced the jungle air, followed by a horrible ripping sound and silence. Kemanii brandished his sword and ran into a small clearing, deserted except for what remained of Babbort.

Babbort looked as if he had been torn apart. His arms were about ten feet away from the body, and the legs were nowhere to be found. Kemanii tripped over an object. Getting up and covered in dust, Kemanii noticed Babbort's head, which looked caved in and crushed.

Kemanii was panting. He had run to the nearest Guard outpost and had warned the head of the news.

"So Babbort ran right at it…it tore him apart…"

"Go on, go on, your story is fascinating," the head of the outpost, Daccku, said lazily as he drank a cup of warm harakeke tonic.

"His head was completely flat. I escaped in moments—it came after me."

"Describe what this shadow looked like," Daccku said for the third time.

"I keep telling you, I didn't see its features!"

"But you claim you saw the shadow! You are succeeding only in befuddling me…why Jala made you his aide-de-camp…"

"I told you! I just saw the shadow! I couldn't see it. It was standing at an angle."

"Poor observation from a high-ranking officer such as yourself," Daccku drawled on, spilling tonic on himself. "What did the footprints look like?"

"Like a Toa's, but twice as big."

"How lovely," Daccku droned, "but we cannot send anybody to investigate. Yayor told me that that scout looked as if he had been exposed to a vacuum. Our chief scientist was attacked by a Takea last year."

"This is outrageous!" Kemanii sputtered. "You have at least three detectives working here!"

"They're working on the Hoi," Daccku said, summoning his assistant and asking for another drink.

"Well, call them off duty, confound it!" Kemanii screamed, slamming his fist on the table and knocking over a jar of Gukko-quill pens. "Matau can wangle it! He's pretty easy to get ahold of!"

"Look, you're breaking my heart and my stationery!" Daccku bellowed. A Matoran in one of the back rooms peeked out his head from behind a door. "They're on duty and don't want to be called off!"

With that, Kemanii lost it. He punched Daccku square in the face, sending him flying out of his chair. Groaning in pain, Daccku got up, drew his cutlass and jabbed at Kemanii. Kemanii missed it by an inch, diving out of the way and colliding with the wall.

"You, sir, are a disloyal wretch!" Daccku bellowed.

"Disloyal?" Kemanii mocked, spitting at Daccku's feet. "I'm Jala's aide-de-camp, and you run the Pala Outpost!"

Daccku began a steady stream of insults in Tatong, then swiped the sword and slashed Kemanii's mask, going right through a cheek-hole and piercing the skin. Blood leaked out of Kemanii's left cheek, but the Matoran tried to ignore the pain as he drew his own sword. With no intention of killing his opponent, Kemanii thrust the hilt of his sword forward and banged Daccku on the forehead. Daccku sprawled over, landed on the table and slumped backwards, giving Kemanii time to escape.

"YOU DID WHAT?" Jala was screaming when Kemanii returned to his outpost to explain the story.

"I punched Daccku—"

"This kind of behavior is a one-way ticket to a discharge!"

"I outrank him! He deserved it anyway—"

"The Ta-Koro Guard has a strict policy about this kind of thing! I don't care if he deserved it—you could've at least walked out!"

"Has he been demoted?" Kemanii asked hopefully.

"Yes," Jala said. Kemanii suppressed a smile with great difficulty. "This was an urgent situation—Babbort was dead and he wouldn't call his scientists off duty. I've sent Maglya with his demotion. He will be replaced by Zosui from the Grotto Six outpost."

"Who's in charge of Grotto Six?"

"Batto—you knew him from training camp."

"So," Kemanii continued, "he jabbed at me with his cutlass. I din't want to hurt him, so I knocked him out with the hilt of my sword. I escaped just before he came to."

"He attacked you?" Jala said warily. Signalling to an eager-looking communications officer, Jala addressed him. "Agni, send Maglya an NTT signal. Tell him to put Daccku back in the regiment and put his lead officer in second command." The Matoran obliged and scampered up a staircase. A few seconds later, a drum sounded, shaking the ceiling.

"Lupaxu and Babbort are dead," Kemanii continued. "There's some kind of creature around those parts. It seems to have vacuum powers. I think we'll have to dispatch a regiment from Pala Outpost to investigate. Put them in containment suits like we used during that sulfur explosion in the Onu-Le tunnel. Equip 'em with volo lutus and disks."

"An excellent idea," Jala said. "I'll tell Agni to alert Zosui and his regiment. We keep a ballista in our North March outpost we can deploy as well. Tell them to set up just outside where they found Lupaxu dead."