Crack!
The first bat that came at him fell to the floor, lifeless, after a full-force blow to the head it received from the crab's claw. Four left, Tamatoa realized as the remaining bat creatures circled him.
Another one leaped at the crab, batting him with its wing and knocking him backwards. A wave of panic started to rise within him as he recovered from the blow, knowing he wouldn't be able to overpower four of these at once. He tried to run, but another one of them lunged at the crab and pinned him against a rock, ready to sink its fangs into the crab's skin.
Tamatoa thrashed around to try to break free from the monster's grip, but to no avail. He cursed himself for not sticking with the demigod a little while longer; if he had just been more patient, he would have taken more care in parting ways with him and not been so stupid as to run into this mess.
Just as the bat was bending down to finish Tamatoa off, a large, ferocious-looking dog burst into the clearing, snarling viciously as it knocked the bat monster away from the quivering crab.
"Maui…?!" Tamatoa exclaimed in disbelief.
After chasing away that one of the monsters, Maui changed to his human-like form, hook brightly illuminated as he readied himself to take on the next monster. "Stay behind me, crab cake!" He ordered, slashing the wing of an oncoming bat.
No trouble there. Tamatoa wasn't planning on getting pinned again anytime soon.
Maui glared at the two remaining monsters, swinging his hook threateningly. "Go on! Get out of here!" He yelled.
The two creatures hissed angrily, but backed off regardless, seeming nervous of the demigod. Not willing to take the risk, the pair of bats flew off.
Maui then turned to face the crab, looking very unimpressed.
"Why did you come back…?" Tamatoa asked shakily, trying to process everything that just happened. "I showed you which way to go, so why did you…?"
"How am I supposed to know that you weren't just misleading me so you could get away?" Maui replied as he picked up the crab, looking him over almost like he was checking to see if the crustacean was okay.
"Why would I do that?!" The crab snapped. "That would just make you track me down again so that I'd show you the real way and make this whole dumb trip even longer!"
Eh. He had a good point. To be honest, part of the reason he came back was because Maui was actually starting to like Tamatoa. He was a funny little guy, despite his occasional annoyingness. "Well, maybe it just isn't as fun without my little crab guide." Maui said with a smirk as he held the crab under his arm again, going back in the direction of where Tamatoa said the connection between Lalotai and the surface was.
"What part of this is fun?!" Tamatoa snarled angrily. "Put me down, you big oaf! I held up to my part of the deal, you don't need me anymore!"
"Y'know, for a guy whose life I just saved, you sure don't sound very grateful. A 'thank you' would be nice." Maui said teasingly.
"Thank you?!" The crab spat in disbelief.
"You're welcome!" Maui answered with a cocky grin.
"AAAH THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT YOU STUPID DEMIGOD I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IN THAT SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU PUT ME DOWN YOU DUMB—" Tamatoa's little rant turned into a marbled jumble of unintelligible angry crab noises, which only made Maui laugh.
"So, what happened to that thing about 'being quiet'?" Maui said with a grin after Tamatoa calmed down a bit.
"You are insufferable." The angry decapod snapped back, claws folded in annoyance.
A few minutes of silence passed as the demigod trudged through the tall grass.
"… I still don't get why you went through all that trouble back there." The crab muttered quietly. "You could've found the link yourself."
Maui shrugged slightly, brushing past some of the taller grass with his hook. "Well, I couldn't just let you get eaten. That would be immoral."
"That's literally how Lalotai works! Morality just gets you killed down here!" Tamatoa couldn't believe how stupid this guy was. How humans live with such a stupid belief of "harmony" and "togetherness", he would never know.
"Really?" Maui challenged, glancing down at the crab with an eyebrow raised. "'Cause from where I stand, you would've been killed if I hadn't stepped in because of my morals."
The crab started to open his mouth to argue, but stopped when he couldn't come up with a comeback. The deity was kind of right in this case. "Hmph." Tamatoa huffed, looking away.
More silence.
When they finally reached the end of the tall grass, Tamatoa asked, "Can you put me down now? You reek."
"You're no bed of roses yourself, kid." Maui laughed as he complied with the creature's request, knowing he could keep a proper eye on him now so he wouldn't get away.
"I don't know what those are." The crab said with a roll of his eyes, scuttling alongside Maui.
"Just fancy red flowers." Maui explained casually.
Tamatoa cast him an annoyed glance. "I don't know what those are, either. Not from the surface, remember?"
Huh. Fair enough. Maui probably should've expected that, considering he didn't even know what the sun was.
The trip was longer than Tamatoa would have liked, but at least the other monsters seemed to recognize Maui's power and left them alone for the most part. Tamatoa turned his attention to the man's tattoos again; they piqued his interest to no end. Maui must have done some incredible things, he figured, if it was worth having the accomplishments permanently embedded into his skin. Tamatoa noticed a tattoo that seemed to be of Maui holding something up. He couldn't understand the art very well, even though he really liked the designs.
"What's that one for?" Tamatoa asked, pointing at the tattoo.
Maui glanced down at the picture on his chest. "That? That one's for pulling up the sky!" He said proudly, flexing his muscles.
"What's the sky?" Tamatoa asked, not really sure why he was so curious.
"It's what holds the sun," Maui answered, gesturing to the tattoo on the other side of his chest, "which I lassoed, by the way."
Tamatoa tilted his head slightly to see the other tattoo, frowning in confusion. "Why do you do that stuff?"
Maui went quiet for just a moment, then looked away and shrugged. "For the humans!" He replied matter-of-factly. "I give them anything they need!"
"Why?" Tamatoa asked skeptically. "What do you gain from it?"
Again, Maui said nothing for a moment. "… Well, I… like making them happy. That's all the payment I need."
"… Huh." Tamatoa said, still confused. "Sounds pretty dumb to me. But then again, humans are dumb as is, so—"
"You can't just call things dumb because you don't understand them, kid." Maui responded flatly, not taking kindly to his insults.
"What's there to understand?" Tamatoa inquired, genuinely curious as to why he was getting riled up over nothing.
"You wouldn't get it. It's a people thing." Maui said simply.
Great. Now Tamatoa was annoyed. He didn't like it when people thought he couldn't do something. But maybe Maui was right on this one; he hasn't understood anything about the way humans think so far, so why would he get it?
Instead, he asked about one of the other tattoos. Maui seemed to like talking about them, so maybe that would relieve some of this weird tension. "What's that one on your stomach?"
"Haha, funny story, actually… I, uh, stole fire from down here for the humans. They had been freezing at night. But it's okay, because now they can make their own and you guys still have some, so everybody's happy!" The deity laughed with a wink.
"… I see." The crab replied. "I didn't know you've been down here before."
"Only once." Maui said. "And that was just for the fire, so I didn't exactly explore like we're doing now."
"Hm." Made sense. No wonder he wasn't better educated in the ways of Lalotai.
The crustacean looked around his body for more tattoos to ask about. Hearing about his conquests was surprisingly interesting. Unfortunately, there wasn't many left to choose from. One on his shoulder, he guessed, was for his shapeshifting ability; it looked like him turning into a hawk, from what Tamatoa could tell… The crab circled around to Maui's other side, trying to get a better look.
But as he did so, he noticed something familiar from behind Maui. Oh no.
Without any warning, the crab bolted in front of Maui's feet, causing him to trip and fall.
"Hey!" Maui shouted, "What was that for?!" As he started to get back to his feet, he saw a long, sticky tongue had stuck its tip on the ground in front of him, only narrowly missing Maui due to his fall.
"Move, you stupid demigod!" Tamatoa snapped, trying to push him. "Y'wanna get eaten?!"
Reacting quickly now, Maui shot to his feet, grabbing his fish hook and the little crab, looking to the source of the tongue as it retracted.
The monster it belonged to was a huge, plant-like creature that seemed to move by uprooting itself and walking on said roots. The creature lashed its tongue around as it prepared to strike again. Maui deflected the next attack with his hook, but when the tongue struck the hook, it stuck like glue. Before Maui could react, the creature launched him into some rocks, ripping the hook from his grip and causing him to drop Tamatoa.
Tamatoa scrambled to his feet immediately, looking over to their attacker. The plant threw the hook to the side, its attention seeming fixated on Maui.
This is it. This is my chance to get away from that dumb deity. He thought. All I need to do is leave him to the plant and get outta here. The crustacean quickly turned to run away, but couldn't seem to leave.
… Why was he hesitating if this was so easy?
He glanced back again. Watching Maui struggle to get to his hook only to be thrown down again by the plant monster was, for some reason, troubling to him. Did he feel like he owed Maui something for saving his life, or…? He couldn't tell.
Tamatoa didn't like this feeling. It was strange.
He let out a sigh of pure irritation, then scuttled towards a nearby tree.
Maui punched the plant, fazing it for a moment, but only seeming to make it angrier as a final result. It shot its tongue at Maui's arm, wrapping the pink organ around his wrist. The demigod grabbed the tongue with his free arm, trying to rip it off, but even with his great strength, it was just too stretchy to rip. The creature pulled Maui towards its opening jaw, fangs now bared.
Just as the creature was about to clamp down on its prey, it got struck in the back of the head with what seemed to be a deformed coconut. Disoriented, but still holding onto its catch, the creature glared at the tree where the attack came from.
Tamatoa launched himself at the creature from atop the tree, landing on the thing's face. The creature screeched in alarm, its grip too tightened on Maui to switch targets. With impressive swiftness, Tamatoa chopped off the monster's tongue, causing it to shriek in pain and Maui to fall backwards from being suddenly freed from its grip. Writhing in pain, the creature craned its head to aim its mouth at the crab, snapping its jaws furiously. Tamatoa dodged the creature's bite, latching his claws into the monster's neck and decapitating it in an instant.
Maui watched in disbelief as the creature's large head dropped to the floor, and Tamatoa jumped down to the ground as its lifeless body followed suit. The crab seemed unfazed, shaking the thing's green blood off of his claws before looking over at Maui. "Yeesh. Thought you were supposed to be an all-powerful demigod, man. That was a terrible performance."
Maui shook the dismembered tongue off of his wrist as he reached for his hook, watching the crab with a smirk now. "Why'd you help me, crab cake? What'd you gain from that?"
Tamatoa narrowed his eyes, hating that the demigod was using his own words against him. "Shut up. That was just… to make sure I no longer owe you anything, got it?"
"I wasn't aware that you owed me anything in the first place." Maui replied, smirk widening a bit.
"Ugh, whatever! I should've just let it eat you!" Tamatoa growled, continuing along the path they were taking. "If you're done being annoying and slow, let's keep moving!"
Maui watched the crab scuttle along with a chuckle, following behind him.
Once more, they were quiet. Maui watched the little crab, still impressed with how well he fought for such a tiny thing. "I've got to apologize to you, Tamatoa."
"What?" The crab queried, turning one eye towards him. "Why?"
"I really underestimated you." Maui continued. "I never expected such brute force out of such a puny, beady-eyed—"
"—useless, ugly bottom feeder?" Tamatoa finished, narrowing his eyes a bit. "Don't worry about it. I'm…" He sighed, turning his attention forward again, "… I'm used to it."
Maui blinked, not expecting to hear such insecurity in his voice all of a sudden. He didn't really consider how often the crab must hear ridicule like that, being his size and somewhat goofy appearance in a land filled with vicious monsters. No wonder he gets so upset when Maui teases him.
… He somehow felt empathetic towards the crab now. Both of them shared strong feelings of inadequacy in their communities, after all…
Turns out they actually have something in common. Weird.
"You can see the connection now." Tamatoa said as they got over a hill, desperate to change the topic and get rid of this uncomfortable awkwardness. "That's the thing I fell into." He then pointed with a claw at a large geyser shooting out water; it was far more massive than any regular geyser from down there, and the flow of water didn't seem to be stopping.
"Oooh, so that's how all the monsters are getting shot up!" Maui realized. "I wonder why it's doing that…"
The crab shot Maui a side glance. "Shouldn't you be worrying more about how to stop it?" He reckoned. "That's what you wanted to come down here for, right?"
Maui wore a confident grin, raising an eyebrow at the crustacean. "That won't be a problem, my friend."
Before Tamatoa could protest about being called "friend" again, the shapeshifter turned into a hawk, snatching the crab carefully in his talons and bringing them closer to the jet of intense water. As they landed, the crab skittered a safe distance away, definitely not wanting to get fired into the ocean a second time.
He watched as Maui twirled his hook, eyeing a nearby wall of rock that had to be at least thirty feet tall. With one mighty swing, he shattered the stone structure, causing it to break into several large boulders. He went over to the largest rock that broke off, though still massive in size.
Surely he can't lift that, Tamatoa thought to himself.
Nope, he was wrong. Maui lifted the boulder with little difficulty, and with a hardy swing, launched the hunk of rock into the geyser like a pebble.
As Maui had anticipated, the rock was heavy enough to plug the geyser, completely cutting off the stream of water. Slapping his hands together to dust them off, he concluded, "Well, that was easier than I thought."
Tamatoa blinked, astounded at how easy that was for him.
"So. Tamatoa." Maui addressed the crab, folding his arms. "You got a home or someplace you stay? I can take you there, if you want."
"I can get there myself, thanks." He snapped bitterly.
"Hey, just offering." Maui retorted, doing his signature eyebrow-raise. "It's probably farther away than you're used to travelling, and—"
"I can take care of myself!" Tamatoa snapped, clicking his pincers together. "The only reason I got into a tussle with those stupid bats is because of you, so don't even start!"
Maui, unfazed by the crab's words, continued, "Look, kid. You did me a solid by showing me this geyser. Let me return the favour. Surely it'll be a safer trip back for you if I tagged along. After all, I'd say we've both proven that there's strength in numbers at this point, wouldn't you agree?"
The crustacean hesitated, thinking it over. He was right; it was a long way back to his lair. There weren't many things for him to hide under on the way, either… And, though he couldn't explain it, he did feel significantly safer with the shapeshifter by his side somehow...
"… Fine." He said finally, clicking his claws once more. "It's this way." With that, the crab trotted off through Lalotai, Maui following close behind.
The walk was quiet at first, as usual, but the crustacean was quick to ask him about a few more of his tattoos to pass the time. Maui was happy to oblige, providing more in-depth explanations about how he earned them. Luckily for the demigod, Tamatoa didn't notice a particular tattoo on his back due to all the hair covering it.
Their conversation seemed to make time fly, because the pair had arrived at the crab's lair much sooner than Tamatoa had expected.
"All this space for one little tyke…?" Maui wondered aloud as they wandered inside, admiring the oddly pretty aesthetics of the cave, also noticing the pool of water in the top.
"Oh trust me, I'll be needing it." The crab responded slyly. "I've still got a loot of growing to do." He started to settle himself down in the sand, then paused as a thought crossed his mind. "… Wanna see something cool?" He asked Maui.
Maui, now curious, nodded in response.
The crab then scuttled to a nearby wall, and then punched it with all his might, causing a shell to block out the light that filtered through the pool, and the demigod's eyes widened slightly as he saw the now-glowing algae light up the cave; though that paled in comparison to Tamatoa's stunning bioluminescent designs.
"Hey!" Maui laughed as he admired the crab's new appearance. "It's like you've got some tattoos of your own!"
Tamatoa shrugged slightly, crawling back down into the sand. "Not really. They can't be seen in the light, so…"
"Still kid, it's pretty cool. And hey, you're a resourceful little crab; I'm sure you could find a way to keep that shell decorated full-time if you really wanted to." Maui declared with a wink.
Tamatoa blinked, not saying anything in response, but taking a moment to think his words over.
"Well," Maui said, "I guess I should get out of your hair- or, rather, lack thereof."
"Oh, please do." Tamatoa sighed with relief, suddenly feeling the eagerness of wanting him to leave again.
With a swing of his hook, Maui transformed into a hawk, glancing back at the crab once more as he prepared to take off. "Well crab cake, this was pretty fun. Maybe I'll visit again sometime." He said with a smirk.
Tamatoa rolled his eyes at that last comment. "Don't bother unless you get some new tattoos for me to look at." He scoffed.
"I'll keep that in mind." The bird laughed before taking off, flying away through Lalotai.
Yeah, right. Tamatoa shuffled around in the sand, covering himself up a bit with it. Today was such a weird, weird day.
… But interesting. Really interesting. That was… an oddly nice change of pace compared to his normal experiences in Lalotai. Maui was better company than anyone down here, that's for sure.
… Wait, what was he thinking? Company? He quickly shook those thoughts out of his head, taking a moment to remember the ways of Lalotai. He can't think like that down here. Nonetheless, it probably didn't matter. The demigod had no obligation to come back, after all, so that was definitely the last time Tamatoa would ever see him, he figured.
Hoo boy, was he ever wrong.