Maui awoke that morning to the sound of a deafening crunch.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" Maui shouted, seeing Tamatoa snapping apart the door of his hatch; the creature had surprisingly powerful claws, even for a coconut crab, as it only took him a single snap to get through one log.
Tamatoa blinked in confusion, then growled when the demigod yanked him up by his antennae. "Hey, I was just trying to see what that was!" The crab protested, pointing at the sun. "I couldn't see it through that dumb door!"
Maui looked at the monster in disbelief and irritation. "The Sun?!"
"Oh, is that what it's called?" Tamatoa asked, squinting at the giant light in the sky. "It's so bright."
Dumb kid. Tore a hole in his boat for that? Jeez…
… Come to think of it, was he even a kid? Maui couldn't tell for sure.
"Whatever," Maui grumbled, pushing his boat into the sea with his free hand and jumping onto it, still holding the crab.
Tamatoa took in a sharp breath, startled at suddenly being on the sea. "What'd you do that for?" He asked nervously.
"Uh… So we can get to Lalotai, duh." Maui replied starkly. "Luckily the hole you made won't affect how well we float, but if you break anything else, I'm kicking you overboard."
With that, the crab squatted in the center of the boat, unmoving. He didn't dare risk getting chucked into the ocean.
The trip was quiet at first; Tamatoa watched Maui as he worked the sails, paying particular attention to the tattoos adorning his body. He couldn't figure out what the point of the intricate designs was; they didn't appear to serve any purpose, but he had to admit that they were nice to look at. He wondered if they had a purpose similar to his bioluminescent designs, but he figured that couldn't be it. After all, human skin doesn't normally have designs like that, does it?
"What are you looking at?" Maui's voice snapped Tamatoa out of his thoughts. The crab tilted his head slightly, then pointed at Maui with his claw. "What are those pictures all over your bod?" He asked.
Maui glanced at himself, then back to Tamatoa, his expression shifting to a proud one. "This, my friend, is a tapestry of my victories."
"Do not call me a friend." The crab snapped. "That's a dumb human sentiment." He then tilted his head. "What do you mean, 'tapestry of your victories'?"
"I'm a demigod, kid. I do incredible things, and when I do, these appear." Maui explained, gesturing to his tattoos.
"Why?" The crab asked, frowning in confusion.
The shapeshifter simply shrugged. "They just do. As reminders, I guess. But hey, who doesn't like having a little extra flair to their appearance?" He said with a confident grin. "I'm pretty much a walking work of art at this point. People love it."
Tamatoa blinked, taking a moment to take in the strange man's words. He had never really considered beauty to be all that useful before, though he admittedly had been referred to as ugly by other monsters many times in his life. And he had to admit that the decorations really did make Maui more interesting to look at.
As he looked Maui up and down, Tamatoa suddenly narrowed his eyes. "… Why do you look so human-like?"
Maui narrowed his eyes in return, that question seeming to strike a nerve. "Y'know, you sure do talk a lot for a monster. You chatter this much to your buddies in Lalotai, too?"
The crustacean laughed in response. "You must REALLY be an idiot if you think anyone in Lalotai are 'buddies'!" With an amused smirk, Tamatoa tilted his head again. "I can't help asking a few questions. I've never met a human before—sorry, demigod. Besides, if I'm gonna be stuck with you, I might as well try to satisfy my curiosity."
The demigod rolled his eyes, still not intending to answer his question anytime soon. "Well, you won't be stuck with me much longer." He said instead, pointing at a tall stone structure that towered over the island they were approaching. "We're here."
Tamatoa looked up at the tower, then to Maui with a skeptical look. "You kidding, man? Lalotai's down, dummy. Not up."
Picking up the crab and holding him under his arm as he stepped off the boat, Maui chuckled, "Oh, I know. This is just the entrance."
Squirming slightly under his grasp, Tamatoa grumbled, "I hope you're not planning on climbing up that thing like this…"
With a mischievous smirk, Maui twirled his hook and transformed into a hawk again, taking the crab in his talons and darting into the sky, satisfied at the startled yelp he got out of the creature.
When they reached the top, Maui plopped Tamatoa on the ground, shifting back into his regular form. The decapod skittered away from him and snapped, "Are you nuts?!"
Maui simply laughed and replied, "Oh, that isn't even the fun part."
When the human-like being started doing a strange dance and shouting excessively, Tamatoa was convinced that this man was indeed insane. But when the entrance of Lalotai did open, that was the least of his worries.
Backing away even further, the crab protested, "No no no no no, I am NOT jumping down there!"
"Too late!" Maui grinned, and before the crustacean could react, he was picked up by Maui and they were then plummeting through the hole and plunging into the sea.
When they finally landed in Lalotai, the crustacean immediately broke out of Maui's grip, masking his terror from everything that just happened with blatant rage. "You stupid moron! Are you trying to get us killed?!"
Maui, casually dusting himself off, replied idly, "If I were trying to do that, we'd be dead." He then swung his hook over his shoulder and said, "So! Where's this connection to Lalotai and the surface you were talking about?"
The decapod growled irritatedly under his breath, then went quiet for a moment. Maybe he could ditch this guy and put him on the right path all at the same time. He never said he'd take him all the way after all, just that he'd show him which way to go. "Oh, right. Yeah. Uh… Here, you just keep going this way. And be quiet; you don't want to get attacked on the way, now do you?" With that, he trotted off down a path that lead to a very bushy area.
Following closely, Maui looked around. As the crab started to enter the longer grass, the demigod was starting to lose sight of him. "Crab cake? Getting kinda hard to see you over there."
"Quiet, remember?" Tamatoa replied, a victorious grin appearing on his face as he saw his plan was starting to work.
Maui rolled his eyes, but remained quiet and continued following the creature; or at least, so he thought. After a minute or so of silent walking, Maui called out quietly, "Crab cake?"
No response.
"… Tamatoa?"
Still nothing.
Starting to worry now, the demigod hastily shifted the grass around him with his hook in search of the creature. After minutes of searching the area and finding nothing, the demigod facepalmed in annoyance. "That stupid crab…"
In a different direction, the crab ran away from where he left the shapeshifter, snickering to himself all the while. Don't have to deal with that stupid demigod anymore, I held up my part of the deal and showed him which way to go, everyone's happy.
The decapod came to an abrupt stop, however, when he accidentally ran into a clearing cluttered with a group of bat monsters fighting over the carcass of some other creature. The monsters turned their head to look at the new arrival, eyes glowing red and poison dripping from their fangs.
Oh.
This is.
Very bad.