Chapter 1: Downpour
Heavy rain thundered down on Omni Nui, capital city of Lunas Magna. The drops of water played out drumbeat rhythms on the city; tap-tapping on the domed glass and steel buildings ominously. A grey sky, thick with fog and dark clouds hung over Omni Nui like a disease. A lonesome carriage raced through the skyway chutes, the main form of transport across the planet.
A single figure in the centre of the carriage looked out of the windows to the inside of the chute, the walls one-way mirrors, allowing him to see down to the solemn city below.
The carriage shuddered. The figure in the carriage stirred as it drew to an abrupt stop. Strange. It wasn't even near the station. With a pneumatic hiss, the door slid open sideways, revealing a head poking through the doorway. The sound of the rain outside was louder now.
Normally, people weren't allowed in the chutes, except for maintenance. After all, with the 200 mph carriages shooting through, it wasn't exactly safe. Or legal. But this person cared neither about safety, nor legality.
On the head was a Kanohi Kentus, mask of technology. That was what stopped the carriage, then. The head, and the rest of the body that it belonged to, stepped inside the carriage, the door closing behind him, cutting off the sound of the rain again.
"Look, sorry to be all cloak and dagger about this, but... Well, your money or your life," the person, a tall, lanky male Vortixx, sighed. The other figure laughed. He flicked the hood of his cloak back, revealing a golden Kanohi Hau, covering a pair of piercing green eyes that could cut steel. The mouth was twisted into a wicked sneer. He threw the tattered cloak off, showing his black and red, protosteel armour-covered body. He was tall, albeit not as much so as the Vortixx, but still tall, with arms like tree trunks and strong, thick legs. Two belts stretched in an X across his chest. All over his body were spikes: big spikes, small spikes, serrated spikes, thick spikes, thin spikes, spikes that Mata Nui only knows where they could possibly have came from. Shadow Tahu cackled at the Vortixx.
"My money or my life? Let's flip that around a bit, shall we?" the Vortixx was frozen stiff as Shadow Tahu spoke, "how about your money or your life? Or, and I like this one even more, just your life? Yes?"
The Vortixx's mouth was wide open. They could turn and run, but it's not exactly the thing that occurs to you most when you see a rather menacing looking former Toa of fire, now merged with both light and darkness.
"What an interesting thing to say!"
With that comment, Shadow Tahu shot two black, vine-like tentacles from his wrists. They were covered in a sticky, oozy, slick tar, yet he managed to grip them with ease. They continued to extend and passed across his palms, him easing them through with his clawed fingers.
The Vortixx bolted it, but it was too late. He couldn't even get to the door of the carriage before the tentacles had wrapped themselves around his neck and began to squeeze the air from his biomechanical lungs. Tahu smirked. The Vortixx choked.
With a sadistic chuckle, Shadow Tahu lit the liquid on the tentacles. Needless to say, the Vortixx didn't last long. From within the soundproof carriage, nobody could hear him yell out for help as his life began to drain away.
Tap tap tap tap tap.
The rain slapped against the top of the chutes, trying to find a way in. And if it couldn't find a way in, it sure seemed like it could make one.
After the fall of Teridax on Bara Magna, the planet was restored to it's old likeness- a thriving planet. The planet of Aqua Magna had evacuated there and were inhabiting the newly formed Spherus Magna with Toa and Matoran, while teaching the Agori and Glatorian the ways of the elements and Kanohi. Ships discovered life one of the smaller moons, Lunas Magna, and lived there too. Many groundbreaking things were found on Lunas Magna, such as the lunar radiation given off by a crystal on the planet that gives everyone to come across it the element of Moon.
Cities popped up over Lunas Magna like zits on an adolescent Matoran's face. Lunas Magna was a place of industry and new jobs, but still with glorious sights, such as the Crystal Plains or the Jade Mountains.
Tahu, a teacher, Toa of Fire and one of the ones responsible for the destruction of Teridax, took this as an oppurtunity. He travelled to Lunas Magna to teach the Toa ways there.
He had taken his Golden Hau, enchanted by Mata Nui to be fused with the element of Light, to the crystals to get it fused with the element of Moon, too, but something went wrong. The stone had been corrupted. Instead of giving him powers over Moon, it had a grislier side affect. Tahu became Shadow Tahu. He was mutated into a monster. His once pure mind was thrown into anarchy, fighting with itself for power over him.
The self-conflicting Toa became an outcast because of his mutations. He was hated. The good part of him retreated to the light side of his still golden mask, by his own doing, and he was taken over with unquenchable determination to find the ones who corrupted the crystal and turned him into this monster. One way, or another.
Shadow Tahu became a legend on Lunas Magna. Some thought of him as a protector, killing thieves and thugs, but others thought him a criminal, a murder, a psychopath. In truth, he was both. He killed to find the ones who did this to him, and he liked it.
Shadow Tahu stepped out of the empty carriage to a deserted station. Whitewashed walls were greying with damp and age, tiles were cracked. This was one of the oldest parts of Omni Nui, and it showed. The vigilante flipped up his hood and wandered almost blindly outside into the rainy chorus of aqueous drumbeats. It was pouring down thick and fast, battering him. At one point, this rain would have soddened his spirit, but now it angered him.
How dare the sky rain on him? The very nerve of it!
The thunderstrikes were like laughter, booming and magnificent; mocking him. He growled, showing his teeth like a lowly Rahi.
'Best to just get the the site and leave,' he thought to himself. If he had said it aloud, it would have no doubt been muttered with a pang of annoyance.
The Old Quarter of Omni Nui is especially known for its' factories and warehouses, supplying the great city with most of its' goods and resources. In one of these, an energy farm, some odd goings on had occurred. Odd goings on were Shadow Tahu's specialty.
He walked loathingly past the dilapidated, melancholy houses, looking through badly boarded-up windows to bleak, abandoned interiors. He was getting near the factory, he knew that much from the smell.
Sulphur. The smell of death and poison and rotting eggs. He hated the stuff. Though, in honesty, there wasn't much he liked since his situation had started.
The factory dominated the horizon, sticking out like a sore thumb but somehow fitting in with the empty greyness. There was little noise, minus the rain, as if the factory absorbed it all into it's abyssal sinistry.
And then, in the silence-but-not-quite-silence, the almost lack of sound was broken. A shout. A scream?
Rintak yelled out in pain as a flurry of fists collided with his slim, golden frame. The lime green highlights glowed intensely, eerily lighting up the alleyway, his attackers splaying pools of darkness behind them. Their faces were lit up in greenness, their cackling smiles, their deathly eyes. They were going to kill him.
Rintak the Thunderstrike was once a name to be feared. He was a powerful 'trader' in the Omni Nui criminal underworld, supplying the richest of the rich with everything they needed for the little ounce of oomph that life alone couldn't give them. Often, that little oomph was powdered and required the users to be Kanohi-less at the time of intake.
But Rintak was not that person any more. He had come clean. He had done his time. So why did these things still catch up with the old soldier?
He didn't even remember what he had done to 'wrong' this current gang. Rip them off? 'Accidentally' kill one of their members? All things he would no longer even consider, yet unfortunately, at one time, would have.
And now he was alone, on the brink of demise at the hands of a group of cackhanded, useless lowlives that couldn't even get the job done properly. He had tried to use his Kanohi Kakama, mask of speed, to get away, but their leader- a particularly angry Lower-Class Steltian, had absorbed the mask power by using his mask of absorbtion and was now swarming him with super-speed punches and kicks. How humiliating.
He would have tried to make use of some of the lightning, but couldn't move his hands enough under the restraints of the other gang-members. Rintak cried out in pain once more as the leader struck him hard in the side of the face.
"Rintak the Thunderstrike, eh? Hah! Not so good without your sparks, are you, sparky?" the leader howled. The others guffawed as if it were much funnier than it actually was.
"Funny, that, how you know my name yet I haven't a single clue as to what petty crook is going to make a mockery of my death. I mean, come on, not exactly the most exciting murder! Beaten to death? Anyone can be beaten to death! But, I dunno, electrocuted to death? Now that'd be ironic!"
In any situation other than one where Rintak wasn't out of breath and choking from the hand that found itself around his neck about halfway through speaking, his speech would've came across a little better, but the gang members seemed to be aggravated by it, exactly as Rintak expected. He giggled to himself with a deep, gravelly voice that frankly shouldn't be allowed to giggle. Better to get some amusement out of the situation of his death and savour it while it lasts.
Rintak spat in the face of the Steltian and he dropped the older man, hands frantically scrambling over his face. Some other gang members offered their hands to help, which were gratefully batted away. He took the opportunity to break free of their weakened grasps and swing a haymaker into the Steltian's face. He may be old, but he still was in near perfect shape. The gang members fell silent. Rintak giggled. The Steltian fell.
"That was easy."
He had taken out their leader, now the others were angry. Like pack Rahi, they drew around him, circling him. A huge group of them, ringing him like hungry Nui-Jaga.
Shadow Tahu saw the punch and stifled a laugh. These thugs sure were something new; no thug from his time would've fallen under one single punch. Although the thugs from his time called themselves the Dark Hunters, and they were a force not to be reckoned with.
Rintak let out another bout of laughter, louder this time. The speckles of green all across his body glowed harder, causing the gang members and even Tahu to step back, though significantly less for the latter. Rintak clenched his fists into balls. A pale green aura started to form around them. One of the thunderclouds above boomed louder and, in the terrible drumbeat, a huge spider's web of greenness cracked out across the sky like a cattailed whip. The old soldier was summoning his element of green lightning.
Finally, his eyes began to grow bright white, as more green lightning snapped out from the crowds. A huge lightningbolt struck straight down on him.
He let go of his fists.
In one swift motion, Rintak the Thunderstrike re-earned his namesake. The lightning channeled itself through him and out of his hands, directed straight into the majority of the group.
This whole process took under ten seconds, yet, for the gang members, it felt like hours, played out before them in slow motion.
The dust settled.
They were dead. All of them. Kaput. Rintak grinned. Shadow Tahu let off a quiet "woah". This guy was powerful.
Rintak must've caught some noise Tahu made, because he turned around to face him. He didn't recognise the firelord at first, but it clicked together in his brain.
"I thought they'd have sent someone a little more than just a few grunts to kill me, but I wasn't expecting it to be the legendary Shadow Tahu. In fact, I didn't even know you were in this business. Well, if I must deal with you..."
Rintak trailed off. Shadow Tahu shook his head.
"That's some impressive stuff you did there," he said simply. The corner of Rintak's mouth cracked.
"Certainly was! I hear you're quite the elemental hotshot yourself- some people have even started saying things like that you can set people on fire, just by looking at them!"
Rintak was giddy, like a Ga-Matoran on her graduation. Tahu snorted.
"Is that what they say? Hah, I guess they would say that, yet they forget entirely to mention the times when I've ripped someone's arms off for information, did they?"
"They... Might have. I'm Rintak," the old soldier said, bending over to pick up his weapon that the thugs had taken from him- a huge, almost too big, axe. The blade itself was rippling with electrical life, cracking green sparks everywhere. Under the heavy rain, it did make a lot of sparks.
Shadow Tahu sized up Rintak. Tahu was taller than him, and Rintak was slimmer, with a weaker, aged build. He was mostly gold, with pale lime green stripes and bulbs covering him. Most interesting was the right hand- it looked entirely mechanical.
"The hand, eh? Good story, that," Rintak said, noting Tahu staring at it. The hulking Toa of Fire shook his head, as if trying to dislodge water from non-existent hair, and looked back up to Rintak's face.
Shadow Tahu raised his hand, gently edging a fireball out of his palm with his thumb and forefinger.
"Wait, I thought we were-"
Bang.
That was the sound the thug about to strike Rintak down made as his head was blasted off by the fireball.
"I think you were saying about your hand."
"Ah, yes, the hand. Well, I was a young lad, being tracked by a Toa team. Toa Omni, they called themselves. I don't know if they're even still around, but because of them, I nearly wasn't. One of them, a Toa of Plasma, vaporised my bloody hand! I would've killed him, if I wasn't being overpowered by the other fools in his team."
Tahu bared his teeth.
"Do NOT call Toa fools! What I did to that thug, I could easily do to you."
"What I did to all the other thugs, I could easily do to you, too."
Tahu grinned like a cheshire cat.
"Then we're evenly matched."
He turned away from the alleyway and proudly walked towards the factory on the skyline. In less than seconds, Rintak was beside him. The white glow on his Kakama subsided and jt turned back to it's ordinary, golden sheen.
"Where are you going, Mr Oh-So-Infamous Shadow Tahu?" he sung, laughing.
"I'm going to a very important place."
"How important?"
"Extremely important."
"That's pretty important, I guess. I'm coming with you."
Tahu faced Rintak. The mutant narrowed his eyes and spat, "you're not."
"I am! And there's nothing you can do about it!" the old man laughed, walking on with a spring in his step through the cracked streets as rain poured off his golden armour.
"You're really not. I'll blast your goddamned head off if I have to."
"Hmmmmm- nope! You won't! I'm too fast for you, Hotshot!"
Rintak's Kanohi began to glow again, lighting up the street like it hadn't been for a while, and he ran a ring around Tahu, giggling the whole time.
"Mask of Speed, Hotshot! You can't kill someone that you can't catch!"
Now it was Tahu's turn to laugh. A throaty, deep laugh, thundering like the sky. He lifted a hand up and shot out three tentacles from his wrist, all wrapping themselves around Rintak's limbs, leaving his robotic hand free. The white glow on his mask faded. Rintak was speechless.
"You may come with me, if the only sounds that come out of you are those of you fighting whatever messed up creatures we find."
"Ooh, fighting, eh? Sounds like fun!"
"Not for them," Shadow Tahu retorted, brushing the wetness off his cloak shoulders.