Lesser beings...wonder what that could mean?

You decide; I already go way too into depth with these things. In the meantime, I'm going to eat some Mac & Cheese.

-vorox1027


Chapter 1-12: Lesser Beings

"Good. Again."

Adan felt tired, but he performed the jump-kick once again, hitting the tall stone pillar in front of him. Being a Ex-Borog sailor certainly was hard work, but he knew it would all pay off sooner or later.

"I'm impressed..." Natalia said, "Now one more time."

Adan glared at her and spoke, out of breath from doing the same thing hundreds of times. "Y-you can't-hgn-seriously?"

"It's for your own good, Adan," she said, "If we encounter beasts along the way you'll need to be able to at least fend off smaller things."

"Easy for-hgn-you to say..." he replied, "you literally have a body that's half robot. You can't expect me to-"

"-be as awesome as I am?" She said, "It's understandable."

He rolled his eyes and walked over to Piglet. The Eagle-pig, sitting down, noticed his presence and started salivating. Adan then reached into his pocked and brought out 'Scaro food' (modified Scaro meat that they raided form Scaro camps). He then tossed it to Piglet, which then started to devour the meat. In a short while, Grinlock joined in and they started to fight over the last morsel.

Adan chuckled slightly. So far, life with these three individuals seemed so much more peaceful than life inside the countless Borog encampments and training facilities. All they did was plan, raid, and walk.

To him, it was a nice change of scenery.

Except for...well...

Them. The troublemakers.


Eliza and Calico sat in the small mountain cave in an unknown (to them) part of Thailand. They had caught some wild insects, birds, and rabbits wandering the place and huddled around a fire at night to share a meal. So far, it has been the most non-eventful happening in the past week.

"And then after that," Eliza said, telling Calico a story of his Toa team before the great cataclysm, "me and Valck moved in and blasted the three rakshi with everything we had. The poor things didn't even have a chance to move. Afterward, we moved the Kraata into this cavern of sorts. It was strange looking-there was a green lake and six pillars filled with the green water. We put the Kraata into the lake."

"Hm," Calico said, "so there was a time when you weren't obnoxious..."

"Oh shut up." Eliza said playfully.

"And what about this 'Vlack' fellow? Why does it seem like she's with you all the time?"

"We were close as matoran," Eliza said, "she was always at my side, always there for me-" he then abruptly cut off.

"So anyway, after we got rid of the Kraata, we-"

"Wait, slow down there." Calico said, confused. "She was always there for you...what?"

Eliza seemed to look slightly irritated. "Can you please drop it? Like, now?"

Calico had the same expression as before, when Eliza was trying to hide the Flamel thing. "Brother. Be sensible."

Eliza hesitated, like he was contemplating on whether or not to continue. "Look, brother...this is a very painful memory of mine, and I don't want to re-open any wounds," he then suddenly got up and his eyes glowed menacingly, "So please, DROP IT."

"Did. She..." Calico said, "die?"

His eyes continued to glow. Then, it died down and he sat back on the boulder he was sitting on before. "Yes. She did."

"I-I'm-your right, I shouldn't have brought it up, I'm sorry..."

"No..." Eliza said, "I understand. Curiosity is a dangerous thing."

Calico looked at him with his Kanohi Ruru lighting up the dim night. "Of course. I'll stop asking anything more."

"Thank you," Eliza said. He then got on his side and laid down on the cool rocks.

"One more question, though," Calico whispered as he, too, got on his side, "what was Valck like?"

Calico didn't see it, but a little smile grew on Eliza's face. "She was a good Toa. Always has been."


After several days, Adan and the rest of his group moved out of the dim cave in Madagascar and set off to meet their new 'companions', as Natalia so happily put it. She revealed that they were still in Thailand however, and were not so easily reachable. Therefore, they would transverse across Asia until they inadvertently 'run into' them.

Right then, they were preparing the boat they had constructed (named 'Sujoy' by Adan, the Borog word for 'Odyssey') for transport to India, right across a large body of water. From there, they would travel to the most prominent Scaro camp in India: the coastal town of Mumbai.

Considering that it was both 1) a coastal town, allowing easy access for the boat, and 2) a relatively small encampment, it would be easy to sneak in and out of India through there.

Once inside the ship, they got ready to sleep since it was relatively dark out, and Adan couldn't stop yawning. He was on top of the deck in order to prepare the fishing rods for the next day's meal when he noticed Natalia and Grinlock sitting on the edge of the boat. She had a slightly forlorn look on her face while she pet the Golden Retriever, sleeping quietly.

"Having a rough night?" Adan asked. She didn't reply.

"Hm. You miss him, don't you?" He asked again. Once again, she didn't reply.

"Well..." he continued, "this is exactly why I say feelings suck. They just leave you there with nothing to grab on to once it's broken or gone."

Silence.

"Hm. I guess you just want to be by yourself." He finished up with the rods and went below deck to get some sleep. As he was going down the ladder, he heard her sobbing very quietly.

She does miss him. Well, feelings really do suck, then.

He then went below the deck, shutting the trapdoor behind him.


After a rather restless sleep, Adan got up and went above deck. He saw Natalia and the dog sleeping besides one another, with the dog snorting every once in a while. He chuckled slightly at the strange sight as he went over to the fishing rods. He sat down with one of them and began looking for some fish.

He heard a slight rumbling of feet approach him from behind. He looked to see that it was the dog.

"Well, good morning there, you little pooch," he said, "how was your sleep?"

Grinlock walked up to him and sat down. He looked at Adan expectantly.

"Fish?"

Grinlock suddenly started drooling.

"Okay then. Only one, though." He reached into his makeshift 'fish bucket' and took out a medium sized Tilapia fish. He tossed it to the dog and the dog began to devour it.

He kept fishing while Grinlock ate the fish. As he did, Adan heard more footsteps approach him from behind. When he turned to see who it was, it turned out to be Natalia, who was awake at last.

"Good morning, miss," he said, "did you have a good restless sleep?"

She had an irate look on her face. "No, I had a perfectly fine sleep. There's no need to insult me." She sat down and started petting Grinlock. However, she seemed a bit nervous in her strokes.

He grabbed the chance. "Okay, I'm going to ask one more time, and clearly so you can hear me: do you miss him?"

She stopped petting the dog and said, in an aggravated tone, "Yes. I do miss him." She looked at Adan with the same irate glare as before. "Well? Are you pleased with that answer?"

He didn't want to say anything in risk of getting some random limb paralyzed, but he wanted to make her see.

"Natalia," he started cautiously, "do you remember last night when I said 'feelings suck?' Well, I wanted to tell you how I came up with that phrase." He looked at her. "Do you want to hear it?" He waited, but she didn't reply.

"Very well," he said ,"when I was little, my parents were a very religious sort. They always insisted that I go to church every sunday, however I was not one to worship some other-worldly being. However, they would still teach me some of the religious practices they performed so that I could still 'properly' worship our gods.

"Whenever I did something bad, they would always just take me to our living room and we would discuss why I did it and why I should never do it again. Then, when we were done, they would always say, 'son, we are all small compared to our gods. To them, we are all just lesser beings; what we do never affects them. If we were to change the world, they wouldn't care. We are all below them.'

"So, when I got older, I started saying 'feelings suck' whenever someone felt down because to this day, I still believe my parents. We are so caught up in our own emotions that we forget that we wallow within a much bigger picture. If you can realize that, then you can see that he will come back for you. You can't be like this forever."

He fell silent. The dog, who was just finished with the fish, started whimpering.

Finally, after a long while of complete silence, she spoke. "Your parents...were they...good people?"

"Well, we aren't all perfect," Adan said, "but my parents were good in their own way."

She was silent again. However, her frown was curled up into a smile.

"I guess, in your own way, you are a little bit more awesome than me." She reached over and hugged him.

He found himself in an unfavorable position. "Uh, Natalia," he breathed out, "y-you're kinda-kinda crushing-can't-breathe-"

"Oh, sorry!" She said. She let go of him and he started faking breathing heavily. She laughed. "You don't like being hugged, do you 'mate?'"

He chuckled. "Nope. Not at all."

Afterward, they had a nice breakfast of Tilapia. As they finished, they overlooked the distant ocean they had to cross in order to get to their destination. For once in a while, he felt like he would be okay on the journey ahead.

He was sure that he was definitely okay.


"Tell me...do you believe in god?"

The tall figure was hesitant at first, but eventually responded. "Yes. I do believe so."

"Do you also believe in the power of prayer?"

Again, he was hesitant. "Yes. I'm fairly sure I am."

"Good. Now let me tell you something; I was sent from god to help you. I was sent to help you prevent the disaster that occurred just weeks before. I was stuck in transition for a while, but I finally got here."

The tall figure looked confused. "But...why me? Why just a simple agent? Why not help Alpha?"

"He is no longer with us."

"Oh..." he said, "I figured as much." He looked at the figure, with a scorched brownish-red mechanical like appearance. "So, where do we start?"

"We start with the bottom of the barrel. We start with Captain Stein."


OMGWTFBBQ

Yes. I'm going pyro up in here.

Oh, and a side-note: do any of you believe the philosophical thing I mentioned? Not saying I do...do I?

I guess it's up for interpretation.

-vorox1027