Disclaimer: I am afraid I don't own or claim any rights to Bionicle. If I did, well, that would be a scary world indeed...
A/N: My best work. One that I can truely say- "I can post this shamelessly on a huge website where people will read it with a critical eye and either love it or hate it". Yes, is a big step up from BZPower, isn't it?
Doppelganger
--
He could see, but he had no eyes.
He could hear, but he had no ears.
He felt light as a feather, yet restricted, like in water.
"Where am I?" He wondered.
You are nowhere- and yet you are everywhere
"I-I don't understand."
You have no form. You have no body. You are everywhere, and you are nowhere
"But where am I? What is this place!?" He shouted, but he had no mouth. It felt strange; as if he was willing himself to speak the words, but they came out in a bizarre state between voice and thought.
Who are you
"I-… I am a Toa." He answered. Instantly, he cried out in pain as the names and images of every Toa that ever existed was forced into his mind. He clutched his head, but he had neither skull nor hands. If he could, he would've doubled over and gasped in agony, but he had no lungs, and there was no air.
Who are you
"I… Am a… Dark Hunter." He choked out. He sighed in relief as many of the names and images disappeared, but still leaving quite a large group left.
Who are you
"This is pointless!" He shouted to nobody, "I asked where I was, not who I was!"
Who are you
He snarled in frustration and thought hard to remember. "I… I went on a mission to Metru-Nui and-…" He trailed off as realization dawned upon him.
Who are you
He didn't answer; he was too shocked.
Who are you
It took him a long time to answer, but finally he said, "I'm… Dead…"
Who are you
The voice said once more.
"… Nidhiki." He whispered.
Nidhiki's eyes flew open and he gasped as if he were surfacing from being underwater. He was lying on the ground as a Toa, and the pressure in his mind was gone. There was no sky, but there was no ceiling either. There was no light, but he could see perfectly well. He looked like a Toa, but he still felt light and restricted. Getting up, he looked around cautiously. Perhaps the voice was gone?
A figure walked out of the darkness. He looked exactly like Nidhiki, except his armor was more heavily damaged, and around his neck was a metal chain, which looked like it had, at some point, held something.
"Who… Are you?" Nidhiki asked nervously.
"Don't you know?" The double said smiling, "I'm you. Or at least what you would've been had you sided with Tuyet all those years back. Oh yeah, you would've had it pretty well. You would've helped to kill Lhikan and taken over Metru-Nui, just like you always wanted, except you would've been Tuyet's second-in-command. Still, it would've probably have better than whatever junk you had to go through."
The original Nidhiki (or at least, he thought he was the original) clenched his fists, irritated with the double's haughty tone. "Oh yeah? Well if you had it so well, why do you look like something the Muaka dragged in? And what's with the jewelry; trying to make a fashion statement?"
"Oh this thing?" The double grabbed the chain around his neck. "It used to hold a fragment of the Nui Stone. Yep. If you had just sided with Tuyet, you could've had power over the whole world and everyone in it. Of course, the stone was shattered and its energies lost forever, but I suppose that's what happens when you tick off a whole city full of oppressed matoran." He said, still oddly chipper. "Still, I did manage to take down a decent number of the blighters before I went."
Nidhiki felt oddly relieved that this alternate version of himself had not met success in the end either, but something still nagged at him. Blighters? Was that how he would've seen the matoran if he had become that powerful? Would he have been able to kill matoran that easily, as if it were some sort of sick sport? Wasn't that why he hadn't sided with Tuyet in the first place? So long ago, it seemed like a dream, but he remembered, in Ta-Metru- "Back off." He had snarled to a Vahki. "This was a living being once. You wouldn't understand that."
Would he have become any different from those Vahki? Cold, mechanical, uncaring about the lives of others?
The double smiled. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking what a monster you would've become had you taken the opportunity to grab power. Hey, look at it this way- you can't walk on ants without squishing a few."
"You could not walk on them to begin with." The Toa of Air snarled.
"You would rather make way for ants than be able to walk wherever you please?" The doppelganger sneered. "Jeez, no wonder I was more successful that you."
"But would it have been worth it?" Nidhiki whispered to himself.
Another being walked out of the darkness. This figure was another double, but he had horrible gashes in his armor, and unlike the other one, there was no playful light in his eyes. "I'm the other end of the spectrum. I'm who you would've been if you hadn't been on guard duty that night you met Lariska. You would never had met her, so you wouldn't have been there to stop her from killing Dume or been there to betray Metru-Nui. Dume and his guards were killed. Lhikan took charge and we kept on fighting, but in the end, we lost, and the Dark Hunters took over." The double shook his head sadly. "Not one Toa survived."
The first double looked awfully pleased. "See? At least I had power and status and legions of Toa before I died."
"The one that has the most widgets when he dies, still dies." The second double stated.
The original Nidhiki clenched his fists. "Still dies." He repeated quietly, getting the clones' attentions. "So that's it? I either kill then get killed, or just plain get killed?"
"There are other ways to die you know." Said a third doppelganger. "I met Lariska, but refused to betray Metru-Nui. Needless to say, I died right then."
"Booooring." Said an fourth, "I'm who you would've been-" He was drowned out by the appearance of a fifth and sixth double; and a seventh and eighth, until there were so many surrounding Nidhiki that it was impossible to see the darkness unless he looked straight up.
"I'm who you-"
"would've been-"
"if you had-"
"Never gone to Metru-Nui."
"Gotten killed by the Kanohi Dragon."
"Never tried to deal with Roodaka."
"Never became a Toa."
"SHUT UP!" Nidhiki covered his ears and crumpled to the ground, but he could still hear them. He couldn't take it anymore. "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!!!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.
"But Nidhiki,-"
"you already know-"
"what happens to us:"
"we die." They all said in unison.
"No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no- NO!" He shook his head, trying to shake away the thoughts, but he couldn't. He dies. He died in his universe, and he dies in all the others, no matter how noble, or deceitful, or inconspicuous he is- he will always be destined to die. "No, no, no… This can't be happening." He muttered even as the doppelgangers continued on about how they died, and how it compared to his own death. "What kind of Great Beings would create a person always destined to die anyway?" He punched the ground. "What kind of Great Spirit would allow that being to become a Toa!?"
"Toa." All the doubles fell silent and made way for a green, insectoid monstrosity who walked, or, scuttled towards Nidhiki. "Toa?" The being repeated. "You're no more a Toa than I am, Nidhiki. After all- I am you."
"Yeah." Said Nidhiki snidely, not looking at the thing before him, "And what universe would that be?"
"Yours." The doppelganger answered. "In fact- I'm more you than you are.
"For you see, Nidhiki, this was what you looked like when you died. This was what you always looked like on the inside; Roodaka simply made your outward appearance match who you truly were.
"A monster. An insect with an annoying sting. You were never a Toa. You were never a benevolent protector. At least Tuyet tried to protect the Matoran; you tried to squish them under your heel.
"We all die Nidhiki because in the end, we are all Nidhiki. If the Nidhiki who had been on guard duty that night had had the chance to side with the Hunters, he would've taken it. If the Nidhiki who served under Tuyet had the chance to overthrow her and become supreme ruler, he would've done it. In the end, Nidhiki, we are all Nidhiki, and we are all the same
"We are all you.
"And I am all of them too."
To Nidhiki's horror, all the clones started turning into insectoid monstrosities. Even more to his horror, he started turning as well.
"You got what you deserved Nidhiki. Mutation and death!"
"Death! Death! Death! Death!" The clones started chanting.
His hands had been replaced by claws, his mask fused to his face. His legs started to split and turn insect-like.
"Death! Death! Death! Death!"
"SHUT UP!!! YOU ALL DIED TOO, WHAT MAKES ME SO SPECIAL!?!?" His transformation was almost complete. His eyes screwed shut, Nidhiki's mind flashed through all the names and faces of the beings he'd killed, some familiar, most were not. At the beginning there were just Hunters and other criminals, but then his mind ran through Toa, Turaga, even Matoran, as well as other species, and he knew that this cruel list was in chronological order and that it was going through his career as a Dark Hunter- a killer, a murderer. He was nearing the end, he knew it, and then he'd have to open his eyes and face the torturous chanting, perhaps for eternity. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was his divine punishment for betraying his friends, his city, and everything he once stood for; everything he was created to stand for. Perhaps the chanting and tormenting would go on for all of eternity and never stop, because that's what he deserved.
The mental list was at its last name, and Nidhiki braced himself for the worst, when his mind did the strangest thing. At the end of the list, was a spider. A Silver Chute Spider. Perhaps this was meant as cruel joke or final torment before he opened his eyes, but it in fact had quite the opposite effect. Slowly, very slowly, but at the same time oh so suddenly, Nidhiki understood, as realization flowed through him like river. No doubt at some point in his life he had killed a Silver Chute Spider, but had he cared? No, of course not- they die all the time.
"Just like us." He whispered, and at this, the clones fell silent. "Just like us." He repeated. "Insects die all the time, but so do sentient beings. No one lives forever, all stories must have an end, for that is the way of the universe." He slowly got up, and as he did, he started changing back into a Toa. "I understand now. It really didn't matter; it never mattered. No matter what I, or anyone else did or does in our lives, we all die in the end."
His claws had become hands.
"I chose my path, and my path has ended, just as yours has, and I have no doubts that there are others Nidhiki's in other universes who have yet to reach their end. But in the end they will die too."
His mask had separated from his face.
"We should not fear death. We should not try to cheat it. Death is simply the passing of one being to make room for another. If we cannot accept that, we'll never rest in peace."
Nidhiki stood up as a full Toa and said, "Everyone lives to die."
The insectoid Nidhiki in front of him snarled and disappeared. All around him the doppelganger started disappearing as well until all that was left was emptiness, which then grew brighter and brighter until the former Toa of Air was bathed in light.
Looking down at his body he said, "I no longer desire this false form." And once again he started to become intangible. For the first time in a long time, his mind was still and tranquil, his worries nonexistent.
Rest in peace, Toa Nidhiki
The voice spoke one last time.
"… Thank you." Nidhiki whispered as his form disappeared and once again he had no form, he had no body. Once again he was everywhere and nowhere. Once more, he whispered, "Thank you…" Then fell silent forevermore.
He felt himself drifting apart until his mind could no longer comprehend he was drifting. Soon his mind disappeared all together. At long last,
He was at peace…