Corruption Curse
Chapter 7: Madness
Toa Kringe felt like he was being watched.
Of course, ever since he had picked up the mask- and, if he was truthful, probably for a while before- he had felt the same, but nowhere near as much. Now he kept feeling the urge to check over his shoulder, where his eyes showed unto him... nothing. He had, at one point, suggested to himself that it was the doing of the mask he had found, the Kanohi Iden, but that was mentally dismissed as preposterous. Masks don't do that... do they? He somewhat wasn't sure.
Then, as he walked onwards, behind Hikata and Ashen, a thought struck him. It seemed absolutely clear to him that his paranoia was caused by the others.
'It's them!'
He tried to shake the thought away. Another preposterity coming from his mind. But the thought wouldn't budge. It was stuck stiff, like it was caught in a trap.
'It's them! Get rid of them, now! You don't need them anyway, do you? Of course you don't! You are a great Toa, and they are misguided fools! They must be killed!'
He didn't know where the thought was sprouting up from. He looked around. Nobody was about but him, the team and the traveller.
Something in his head clicked. It hadn't seemed right from the start, but only then he had noticed it.
It was the traveller.
The traveller's armour was yellow and blue, colours shared by lightning using beings. And then there was the thunderbolt that had killed the androids. The other Toa had said that lightning in the alley didn't explain the explosion at the factory, but in fact, it explained it perfectly- the lightning had caused the explosion! The traveller was the one that had caused all the damage to their team and was possibly also the sniper who took them out and the lightning user in the alley! It made perfect sense to him.
Kringe cleared his throat, causing the group to look over to him. The traveller, at the front with Jorvell, had his main attention.
"'Scuse me, traveller, but what is your name?" Krige asked humbly. The traveller cracked a smile.
"Name's Livewire."
It fitted. Kringe was halfway through scrambling for his sword, when something very odd happened. The Kanohi Iden in his bag started shaking and glowing black. Tendrils started to shoot out of it, cutting up the bag and going straight into Kringe's body, like killer roots in fertile ground. His eyes began to glow bright green and huge, serrated spikes tore out of his flesh, erupting like a volcano made of knives. Long, thick tentacles fired out of his wrists. The Toa watched on in horror as Kringe was transformed into a being highly resemblant of their own enemy. Secretly, Livewire cracked a smile, then his face returned to it's serious demeanour.
'Oh my,' he thought, 'this is exciting.'
Tahu knew that it would take a long while to get to Spherus Magna, even on a powerful ship such as the Vakama. He remembered back to the first time he travelled interplanetarily; it was to get on Lunas Magna. How greatly that turned out, he though to himself. Transformed into a monster by some fluke chance because something had corrupted the lunar crystals.
The ship jolted suddenly to the left, throwing Tahu off balance. He quickly regained composure, managing to stand upright through a few lesser shudders.
"Just some turbulence from leaving the atmosphere! We are officially in space, my friends!" Rintak cheered. Devar laughed like a drunk and even Erith smiled. The only one that seemed unimpressed was Tahu, who stood steely-faced in the bridge, silent.
The cheerful sounds died down, ceased by a quiet chuckle from Rintak, submerging the Vakama in a dawn of soundlessness, apart from the engines, which roared faintly in the background.
"Are we there yet?"
"Don't you dare, Rintak, don't you dare," Tahu hissed.
"Any anyway, you're the pilot, if anybody should know how close we are, it should be you," Erith pointed out.
"Right, right. I'm the pilot. We are not nearly there yet. Well, we're not nearly there yet, yet. Soon we could very well nearly be there yet!"
The ship was, one again, near silent. This time, though, the sound of the engines was accompanied by Devar, gently tapping on the turret pod window.
"Stop that."
"Sure thing, Hotshot."
Tahu growled at this.
The newfound silence was, for a third time, broken. But this time, not by the doing of anyone in the ship.
It was a metallic clang, then a scraping sound, followed by multiple smaller clangs, like rain on a hot tin roof. Tahu looked upwards into a roof porthole to be met by a scratch running across it's surface, but nothing else in his vision.
"That sure as hell wasn't turbulence. Turbulence doesn't scratch my windows," Tahu grumbled.
"Well, they really aren't YOUR windows at all-"
"Shut it, smartmouth," Tahu growled to Rintak.
"I'm going out to see the damage. If you guys see anything in front of the ship, shoot at it. A lot. Nothing scratches my ship."
Tahu stepped beside the door and pulled what seemed to be a ball of gel-like liquid that defied the artificial gravity. It was cold to the touch and slimy. He dreaded the thought that he was going to have to put this on his head. Slowly, he raised it to his face, and it promptly gorged itself on his entire head, expanding to fit. It felt rather alien at first, but he quickly got used to the outer-space breathing apparatus.
Tahu stepped out of the airlock and into the coldness of space. He shot out his tentacles and used them to haul himself up the side of the ship, trying desperately and just managing not to fly off. When he got to the top of the ship, he saw it covered in long, thick gashes and scratch marks. And there was something else...
The Toa of Fire had heard of space Rahi before, but always had dismissed them as myths, tales, legends. However, crouching logic-abandoningly in front of him, were three winged, clawed, bat-like Rahi. He knew of them and, after him staring at them for a few seconds, they too knew of him. All three simultaneously tilted their heads in confusion. It would probably be a little cute, if it wasn't for the grinding, gnashing, pointed fangs in their mouths, glinting like polished knives. They didn't appear to have eyes, but they did have rather large nostrils.
The globulous breathing apparatus around Tahu's head bobbed around comically as his attention was diverted to the two turret pods sprung into life, firing plasma bolts out at some other space Rahi that were flying around ahead of the ship. They had them covered. Tahu looked back to the other three, or, at least, where they were.
"Dammit!" he cursed quietly, his voice muffled by the breather. Suddenly, and not for the first time of that day, he felt his entire body forced to the ground by a great weight, as if there was a boulder on his back. Two claws landed like swords either side of his head. One of the Rahi had him pinned. The other two swooped down in front of him, sitting there, raising their backs up in defiance. It was like ants crawling on a hatching bird egg.
To Tahu, it seemed that they thought they were better than him. To Tahu, nobody was better than him.
The now very annoyed Tahu threw the first Rahi off of his back and grabbed it out of mid-air by the wing before it had a chance to go anywhere, crushing it, then the other, in his powerful, clawed hands. The other two were slicing, mauling, batting and bashing at his back, which he also found slightly irritating. After tossing the first Rahi away, he grabbed the other two with his tentacles and squeezed them hard.
From what he could gather, the rest of their little swarm had been scared off by Devar and Erith's constant embatterment via the turrets. Tahu retracted the tentacles and threw the Rahi away, launching them far with his powerful arms. His intention was for them to, somehow, send a message to tall others of their kind- nobody scratches Tahu's ship and gets away with half a consciousness.
Exactly one year ago in Omni Nui, it was a dark, gloomy day. The sky was overcast and foreshadowed rain, but there was none at the time, just a thick moisture in the air. However, Livewire and Erith were not outside, they were sheltered by the Omni Nui energy factory.
However, one was significantly more awake than the other.
"Subject 1: Makuta Erith. Before test. Subject is calmly asleep," Livewire droned, examining the tall, slender, black and white body on the surgical bed before him. She was restrained to the bed using chains, the easiest thing Livewire could find in an abandoned factory.
"Test initiating."
Livewire's mask began to glow bright white, like the summer sun. Long, black tendrils slowly snaked out of his back, over his shoulders and onto the surgical bed, crawling up to Erith. They soon began to grasp at her, wrapping around her limbs and seeping into any and every place they could find.
Erith twitched just once. Livewire smiled like a viper.
The female's skin started to bulge and convulse in places, before countless spikes burst through the surface, cutting the chain restraints. In a violent, subconscious fit, she managed to break the bed and nearly give Livewire a great big smack in the head.
"Subject is reacting with hostility. Subject's nature has clearly not changed, but appearance has. Mutation has taken effect."
Erith's eyes opened. She jolted upright and shot out a tentacle from each wrist, aiming for Livewire, but he simply electrocuted them, causing her to cry out in pain.
"Makuta Erith, you have been of much use to me. Unfortunately, your infection does not contaminate, but there's still time to experiment on others. You, though, are too far gone. Well, nobody's exactly looking for a Makuta in hiding, are they? Time to die."
Livewire electrocuted Erith relentlessly, never giving enough to kill, just to torture her beyond pain until she was completely broken. Then he gave the 'killing' shock.
But the killing shock was not killing at all. With the mutation, came willpower, newfound strength and ability. That didn't stop it hurting enough to knock her out until two certain people came and disturbed her knocked-out slumber. When she awoke, she couldn't remember her old life, only knowing what her name was and nothing more.
Livewire left the building as soon as Erith was unconscious. He travelled for an hour to the other side of Omni Nui, to the Lunar Crystal shrine. He approached the shrine, a towering structure made of white quartz, with the respect of someone that knew they were better than everybody else, but was allowing themself nearness to them anyway. He gently tapped one specially placed crystal, his mask glowing for a short amount of time, then seemingly disappeared.
"Subject 1 didn't change in nature, and that is what I am wishing for. Hopefully Subject 2 will be more promising... Subject 2 approaching target. Test initiated, Toa Tahu is responding well...
Subject 2 attacking innocent civilians. Hmm, I seem to have transformed a Toa into a Makuta. Interesting. But I sense some degree of moral light in him, some willpower. No matter, this is just the prototype..."
The team on board the Vakama I arrived at Spherus Magna with no other intervening from any space Rahi. Of course, they were forced to land in the centre of a desert so their presence wasn't detected by the police, but the ship was also designed for low-altitude flight, so they were not fazed by this.
The ship glided across the dusty desert surface like a skimming stone, folding over or around large dunes and rocky spires, but simply bursting straight through smaller ones, usually once they were blasted apart by the turrets.
"So, uh, Devar, where even are these 'New Archives' then?" Tahu asked, impatience ringing in his voice.
"Underneath a Glatorian coliseum called Wheleyamis."
"Oh, good. Coliseums. I know this sorta thing, we're gonna have to fight for entry, aren't we? Great," Tahu grumbled, his voice little more than a rough sigh.
"No, actually. All you need to do is ask. Well, not you, they wouldn't just let Shadow Tahu in! I'll ask, then I'll go in, then the guards can be silently incapacitated. Then you go in, get whatever it is you need, and we leave. Got it?"
On the skyline, Rintak could see a large, black dome, standing out from the flat, desert area around it like a sore thumb. A sore thumb on someone's foot. It was made of jet and shone under the sunlight light a black bead. Wheleyamis was the first coliseum to have a roof on, as the Ice Tribe fighters complained about the heat in the sunburnt desert that used to be a part of Bara Magna before The Merging.
As the ship approached to black bead, it became clearer and clearer that this was a great piece of architecture, covered in intricate, silver and gold accented carvings, huge pillars that scraped the sky and giant, arched windows, letting light flow into the coliseum centre and make a spotlight-like effect in the central arena.
Rintak was thinking about how grand the coliseum was, how much time it would've taken to construct. Well, time was a virtue that most people possessed a great deal of, but still, it was magnificent. Erith was pondering on wether the plan would work, while Devar was proudly wondering how it couldn't. Tahu was thinking about how boring not being able to fight would be, as he loudly huffed in resent of that fact.
Rintak drew the ship to a stop just a slight distance from Wheleyamis. Devar clambered lonesomely out and walked up to the two guards standing at the gates. They didn't notice him until he was close, as if they were sleeping, which would be actually rather plausible.
"I request entry into the New Archives!" he loudly and slightly absurdly announced. If the guards weren't awake before, they sure where after that, but only because their rains were awake. Their bodies still seemed thoroughly asleep and probably had for some time; they had certainly seemed better days. But, then again, so had Devar.
One of them nodded slowly to the Toa of Gravity, then synchronizedly nodded to the other. The heavy, golden gates swung silently open, revealing to Devar the grandly decorated entrance room of the Wheleyamis arena. The room would usually be bustling with life of contestants and audienceers of many shapes and sizes, waiting to file into some respective door that would lead to either the arena or the hexagonal viewing stands. Today, though, the room was only habitat to some Matoran and Agori archivists and chroniclers, alongside the guards. Most of them were heading through a doorway that opened out into a downwards spiral staircase. Above the doorway read: 'The Wheleyami Archives', written in gold print.
Devar thought to himself a single, solitary thought. It was a musing of how the concept of silent incapacitation of everyone in the archives had actually seemed sane to him on board the ship.
He stood there, in the centre of the room, breathing a little heavy and looking confused. The latter was an obvious sign for the guards that he may need some assistance.
"Uh, sir, are you ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine," he assured a rapidly approaching guard.
"But I do have a question,"
"Oh, of course, sir! What is your enquiry?"
The guard was obviously young, judging by his height and the lacklustre voidness of any gruff sounding tones in his voice.
"Can you turn around?"