Takal
Toa Nuva
Toa of Thunder
Posts: 211
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Avak
Sept 16, 2008 15:07:15 GMT -5
Post by Takal on Sept 16, 2008 15:07:15 GMT -5
I was recruited by Ria on Voya nui, just before Zaktan convinced us all to go into the pit. A regal red being stepped down the stairs. I instinctivly fired. He calmly rose his shield and blocked it.
"Stop, I have a job opportunity for you all. Enter the water and something terible will befall you. Join my army and while not being mutated, you will not get great jobs."
"No," replied Zaktann.
"No chance," agreed Reidak.
"Nothing doing," verified Thok.
"Not a snowball's chance in Karzahnii," added Hakann.
"Nah," said Vezok.
"Well..." I started. I wanted to get the Mask of Life, but for what reason? I had just had the idea that might be good to do, while I was in that Makuta's lair. Personally, I didn't see why not to follow the big red guy. "What kind of job?"
"For you, Avak, I thought chief engineer might suit your skills. You get to make guns, Bohrok, bombs, Exo-toa, ships-"
-"I'm in!" I shouted, unable to conceal my utter glee.
"Traitor," snarled Thok.
"Aww, shaddap, you frozen monkey," I retorted, turning my back to the other Piraka, who were already climbing down the cord.
"Good," said Ria, "Now come with me."
I followed Ria out of the mask of life chamber. The foes from earlier merely gave Ria a friendly nod. The freak with the roller blades even went so far as to start a conversation.
We reached Ria's ship, and Ria put me in the Armoury. My jaw dropped. So many tools, guns, spare parts, jets and everything else imaginable!
"Tell me when you want me," I said cheerfully, and grabbed a spanner a valve and a base level Zamor Launcher.
Now, I need to explain some details about Ria's army: We were (according to the OoMN) a secret organisation. They generally tried to clean up behind us so we remained that way by kicking the corpses under bushes, bottling the Makuta, changing records and so forth. Two examples would be Karda nui, where we all fought for the duration of the Nuva's struggle (you never hear of Exo Rahkshii, because they were sent to fight us especially, and the order didn't see why the matoran needed more on their minds. Or Antroz' defection, and how there were nine vehicles, 2 for matoran and 5 for toa.) and then there are bohrok. All made by Ria's aroumourers to such high standards that you couldn't see the joins. The order hid our presence on Karda Nui, and called the bohrok 'natural machines'. never have I heard such tripe. According to them, I'm a sea snake! We also have access to their plans and we can apply for admittance. I'd do that if I didn't hate Botar and that stupid ga-toa at the head.
anyway, back to the story at hand.
Ria sent people in with broken or malfuncioning weapons and they came out with things that generally went 'bang'.
I worked on my motorbike in my spare time. I had the engine working and was mounting the cordak turrets when a familliar red toa wandered in.
"YOU!" I shouted.
"Avak?" he replied, in an equally shocked tone.
"Jaller, get the Karzahnii out of my office or i'll pump you full of cordak." I threatened.
"Look, Avak, we're on the same side now, and do you really have anything against me?"
No, I didn't. I quite liked his personality. We'd just been on opposing teams.
"Fine, we'll start again, clean slate."
I offered my fist in a toa-handshake-thing. Jaller smiled and punched it.
We got on pretty well after that. Ria took us to Toa Metru. We had to ask Maveric, the head toa, for his services and the services of the toa he trains. I nearly had the motorbike finished and was drawing up plans for a gunship. Ria refused to let me build it, the spoil sport.
Maveric was the steriotypical toa. Red, tall, wise, powerful-looking and noble. Beside him a robot fought a white-gold toa. The toa thrashed it, then listened in.
That night. while on my guard rounds, I discovered a bomb. A bomb stolen from me during my time as a Dark Hunter.
Someone had started the timer. I ran like Karzahnii back to Ria. He told me to get everyone on his blimp. (all mention of ships refers to blimps or the T series. the karzahnii stayed in the air through antigravs, but everyone called it a blimp) Once everyone was on board, I jumped into the pilot seat, and we fled. There was a really loud bang, and the shockwave beat me forward into the control console, and I was knocked out cold.
I woke up in the armoury, to find Jaller and the White-gold toa pouring water onto my face.
"Gerroff!" I shouted, and I sat up.
"You're welcome." said the toa.
"Who are you anyway?" I asked.
"Takal."
I finished off the motorbike, and asked Ria again if I could make the gunship karzahnii, this time the answer was a reluctant "Yes" and I scurried off to my workshop on Sona Nui, Ria's base of operations.
We fought a battle in a colleseum. The infamous battle in which thousands of matoran lost their lives.
I found Maroo, a kikanalo-sized Dark Hunter, on the floor, clutching his leg, or rather his stump where a leg had been before.
"Are you okay, big guy?" I asked stupidly.
"Yes," he said sarcasticly, "It's just a flesh wound."
"Sorry, sorry... Is there anything I can do?"
Ria butted in "Yes, Avak. You can make and attach a prosthetic leg."
And so, a week later, I found myself in an operating theatre, with Antroz, who had recently changed sides.
"Scalpel." I said.
Antroz gave me a scalpel.
"Number twelve Brakas monkey wrench."
Antroz gave me the wrench, and a funny look.
This was messy, I won't lie. Protodermis and guts everywhere. Don't let anyone give you the impression that patching up wounds is easy or fun.
"Blowtorch."
"Blowtorch?" spluttered Antroz.
"The one with the flame at the end." I explained, as if to Reidak, speaking slowly and clearly.
This drew a nervous laugh from the audience.
"Why do you need a blowtorch?" asked Antroz, utterly confused.
"For welding things on, you twit!" I replied.
Another laugh.
I welded the prosthetic limb on. To test if it worked, I tapped him on the knee with a hammer.
I received excruciating pain as the solid metal leg caught me in the chin.
The spectators guffawed.
"Another successful operation from Avak!" I cheered, and bowed to the crowd.
Antroz elbowed me.
..."And Antroz!"
Maroo sat up and shouted at me.
"Look what you've done, you've welded it on backwards!"
I turned around to face him, white as Thok.
"Only joking, you did a great job."
I sighed with releif, then told hoim the bad news.
"You'll be in hospital for a while, Maroo. I can't heal, I'm no doctor, and you're leg is still in bad shape."
"I've had worse"
"Really?"
"Yeah, there was this one time..."
The conversation went on for hours. Ria eventually came over with a Zamor Launcher-like gun.
"This is a Midak Skyblaster. I want a bigger and better one for our larger operatives. One with some melee capabilities."
"I think beating someone over the head with a rifle ought to sort them out." I commented.
"No, Avak. we can't just beat the entire Makuta species over the head."
"Makuta? We'll be fighting Makuta?" I remarked, shocked.
"Yes, my grinning grunt. We'll be fighting Makuta. Now, do you have any problems, or would you rather swimming in the pit with Zaktann and company?" Blackmail. I loved the opportunities here, but hated the enemies. Botar, Barraki and Makuta. What next? Tren Krom himself?
"Fine, I'll make a gun with a knife."
I made several assault rifles, much larger than the original, with bayonettes. I made some with grenade launchers, some with scopes, some with shields and some with spinners.
I took the prototype down to the firing range. I pointed the gun at the target, fired a short burst and shot back across the room. I smashed off the wall and collapsed in a heap. I glanced at the target. It had been annihilated. Completely destroyed. The shards had blasted the targets on either side.
Lariska, beside me, stopped mid throw. She had no need to knife the Botar target, I had got it for her. She turned around and picked the gun off the floor.
"Mind if I have this?" she asked.
"No, be my guest. Just don't take it back to Dark Hunter HQ..."
I passed out. Being fired across a room does that to a Skakdi.
The Midak 'Skycannon', as I named it, was a great success. All of our larger allies carried one, Lariska, Axonn (no, not that one. This one came from an alternate universe. Takanuva brought him back, maskless and weaponless.I gave him a fake Avokii, a rocketpack and a wrist-knife.), That Other Dark Hunter and even Maroo used them. Though Maroo wasn't too keen. The motorbike was forgotten as we followed the Nuva into the codrex and discovered the T series craft. All seven were scrappers. All had to be rebuilt from scratch by yours truly. I gave the Axallara and Rockoh to the Nuva, the Anja and Revax to the doomtoran and the Jetrax was given to Antroz. Naturally I had to keep one for myself, and picked the Cannok.
Well, we battled for a while above Karda Nui, The Karzahnii obviously our greatest asset. Down in the swamp, the Karzahnii was useless. It couldn't be fired without wounding allies under the trees and starting a forest fire.
It was Jaller who discovered the first codrex key, by the way. He brought it to Tahu and the Nuva went off on a scavenger hunt. We got all the pieces in the end, with some minor bother from Sorrowix.
Ria sent us off to fight some makuta and defend the codrex so the Nuva could get in. I can't remember much except getting a bullseye on Chirox. A rahkshii fired above us and most of the loose stone from above the codrex landed on me, knocking me out. We won, but Terridax came as we were celebrating, on his way to Metru Nui. He wanted more Shadow-matoran, or so we thought. Then he grabbed Nuara the Doomtoran. Worst possible choice. Nuara herself wasn't that strong, but her guardian toa was. The toa that had seen her mutated, gored, sent to Karzahnii, and come back again slightly more mineral than before. Takal wasn't in much mood for barganing when he saw Terridax sneaking off with Nuara.
"Put her down, Terridax, or face the consequences!" roared Takal.
"You are a single toa, Takal. You have no chance of stopping me." Terridax gloated.
"I'm giving you one last chance, Terridax. Put down Nuara and No-one gets hurt." Takal was magnetising his feet, pushing himself away from the ground, so he could 'fly'.
"Takal, you are misguided. Did Ria really lead you to beleive that you could take me on and win?"
"No, I taught that to myself."
Takal 'flew' at Terridax, grabbed Nuara, threw her at the watching crowd (I caught her) and electrocuted the Maxilos untill its eyes shattered.
"Are you surprised?" asked Takal, pinning Terridax to the roof with his own sword. "Can you beat a single toa of a lesser element?"
Takal began to glow. We all knew what was about to happen. We'd all seen training targets obliterated by Takal's unique nova blast. Takal split the atoms of everything within two bio, the split atoms caused a nuclear explosion, blasting Terridax away. Takal wasn't done. He gathered all of the electrons of the destroyed atoms (it was these he used to cause the blast) and fired them out of the small nozzle on his chest. A white beam shot down the codrex, knocking out electrical devices, and hit Terridax. Boom. The armour, badly damaged, was blasted right out of the codrex at the speed of light, into the swamp. On his way out, Terridax had opened his hand, and a brown-silver crystal had fallen out, along with a tridax pod. the Pod was burnt to a crisp, but the crystal rolled along the floor towards Nuara and I. It started to glow. So did Nuara. The other members of Ria's army ran over to praise Takal, but I needed him over here.
"Why... why am I glowing? Where's Terridax?"
"Shh, Nuara, I'm trying to get Takal."
I gave up yelling and took my radio out of my pocket.
"Teeth to Takal, Teeth to Takal, come in Takal. I need you over here NOW!"
"Coming, Avak" was the reply.
Takal arrived and I put Nuara on the ground beside the stone.
"Oh" said Takal.
"Yup, oh's the word" I replied.
"I think I'm growing" pointed out Nuara.
Nuara was growing, and her blue-gray armour was turning brown-silver.
"I take it she's not a Ga-matoran, then." I stated.
"She was. I was an Onu-matoran." explained Takal.
"Why would Terridax want more toa?"
"I don't know any more than you do, but I know where we can find answers."
"Where?" I asked
"No, not there Takal. Not there." groaned the brown-silver toa lying on the floor on her back.
"Get Gali, Jaller and the Karzahnii. I'll direct you there." ordered Takal, ignoring Ria's rules and Nuara's protests. "Nuara, you don't have to come. Stay here if you want to."
"I'll come. After all, he's here isn't he. He can't do it again, can he? Can he, Takal?"
"Takal struggled to find words of comfort for his friend. I left and rounded up the two toa and the Karzahnii.
"Gali, Jaller? got a moment?" Jaller grunted in recognition and Gali nodded, stepping away from the crowd.
"Takal and Nuara need us, they're looking for answers. I think this is where their elements were... changed." I remembered Nuara's terror at the memories of that place, and thought 'changed' too weak a word.
They came with me to the Karzahnii and I wondered why Takal had asked that we take this particular ship. The Karzanii isn't for recon, it's for full scale nuclear war. Takal wasn't planning on leaving this place intact on his way out.
I prepared the radio headsets. they clip onto the inside of the user's mask (I wore mine over my skin, I don't want to wear it perminantly) and features an earpiece, mic and lens so their movement and things they look at can be recorded.
The trip took two days' preperation, in which time the Toa Nuva accomplished their task. Great-Spirit-la-de-da.
Takal came aboard with Nuara and we set off. I followed Takal's directions to an island with a small matoran village and miles of barren wasteland. A looming black shape occupied the far side. We landed in the village.
Takal and Nuara jumped to the ground, cheering. I opened the hatches and Jaller, Gali and I followed them the safe way. Once we had reached them, they had fallen silent.
"Where is everyone?" asked the bewildered Electro-toa.
"What's happened to our houses?" murmured Nuara.
The village had fallen into disrepair. Huts had caved in roofs, the fountain in the centre had run dry and apart from the Karzahnii's engines cooling down, there was no sound.
A wizened Turaga ran out of one of the safer-looking houses.
"Takal, he's taken them all! He took all of the Matoran!"
"I'm here to finish his hive. This is Nuara, she has changed. The Nuva, an army of the strongest warriors and the Mask of Life are fighting him as we speak."
"Good luck, Takal. I wish I could come with you, but I must maintain the village.
"Doing a good job, I see." I muttered. Jaller kicked me.
We treked up the mountainside to the forest of black spires. We saw no life but for the Turaga, but we heard the howlings of twisted rahi from inside the hive. We wandered up to the gate to the grounds. It was made of black metal and swung slowly and ominously although there was no wind.
"Takal, why did we come here?" asked Nuara, gripping his forearm for safety. For all she had been through in Karzahnii, this place still terrified her. Gali and Jaller too looked uneasy. I marched up to the front door of the towers, it was locked, but my gun soon saw to that. [see the Piraka animations] One quick bark, then closed no more. A dead wolf-creature lay in the corridor.
"I... I killed it?" thought Takal aloud.
"Some light, Jaller?" I asked. Jaller lit his sword.
I wandered down into the depths, my X-ray vision showing creatures even more horrible than the wolf lurking out of sight. It also showed unusual machinery below us. We made for it.
Once there, Takal picked up a dead toa from beside a bench covered in straps.
"The experiments didn't end? He continued until all our Matoran were dead or shadow-toa? I'll Kill him! Toa or not, I'll kill him! I'll rip him to shreds, I'll-"
"-Shut up, Takal. We have company. Toa." I butted in. My X-ray vision had allowed me to see a sizeable force stalking down the hallway to meet us. These were not ordinary toa.
"Gali, Takal, Nuara, help me barge the door. Jaller, keep an eye on them with your sonar."
The door, try as we would, didn't hold them.
"You four, back away! You don't kill toa, but I do!"
"No, I brought Gali here in case we ran into shadow toa. Gali, can you heal them?"
"There are so many, but I'll do my best."
"They're breaking through, and they've got Exo-Rahkshii behind them!" yelled Jaller over the crashing of weapons on the door. It gave and Jaller and Gali were flung accross the room, they smashed off machinery, and were out for the count. Nuara was blasted by a shadow ball, and stunned in a corner. Takal was trying in vain to hold them off, and my gun had jammed.
BOOM!
The toa paused
BOOM!
A crack appeared in the roof.
BOOM!
The crack widened.
BOOM!!!
The roof above the exos crashed down, Axonn and Maroo landed on the wreakage, Lariska, Maveric and Vorsis landed on either side. RIA rolled down through the gap.
The toa raised their weapons again, this blast of combined shadow could certainly kill our would-be rescuers.
A light shone through the hole in the roof. The flapping of wings sounded over the changing of staffs, swords and spears. A pair of shining red legs lowered themselves through the hole, followed by a torso. One arm carried a glaive, the other a sword crackling with electrical energy far superior to Takal's. The winged figure's head was now visible. It wore a Kanohi Avohkii. The mask was fake, but it destroyed what was left of the Toa's morale. They dropped their weapons and ran.
Ria was here.
"Is everything all right down here?" asked Ria as he floated to the ground.
"Well, half of us are unconsious, but no-one's badly wounded." replied Takal.
Axonn and Maroo picked up the incapacitated Gali and Jaller. From the doorway, I realised you couldn't see Nuara, and even if you could, no-one but Takal could distinguish her from the dead toa littering the floor. Before I could show Ria where Nuara was, a door opened accross the hall as did two further down the passage, spraying forth Exos.
"Uh-oh" breathed Vorsis.
One stood forward and I rolled beside Nuara where they couldn't see me.
"Sssssurender, Ria. Become prissssoners or perishhh." it hissed.
"Talking rahkshii? Whatever will the brotherhood think of next?" mocked Ria.
The Rahkshii shot Ria in the chest and he collapsed.
"Ria, do you ssssurender the group or mussst thisss become a bloodbath?"
"I surrender." groaned the bohrok.
The rescue team, Takal and the beaten up toa were taken to Mutran. Nuara slowly opened her eyes and got up.
"Where's Takal? Where's Jaller?"
"Mutran has them. We're going to get them back," I don't know why I started thinking like a toa, with all this talk of virtue and friendship, but I think it was because I had spent so long in their company and it was our only option.
"I don't know where he has taken them, but his control room is next door." she pointed out.
"Brilliant!" I whispered, and the cartridge for my gun finally clicked into place.
We broke into the control room, and discovered where they were holding Ria's strike force. I searched for survailance cameras for that room, and found two. I brought live feeds up on two of the three screens, and on the other I started hacking the codes for the roof-mounted mutation turrets. We watched the screens, and I pulled a mic over.
"Ah, Takal. We meet again. Maybe this time I can finish what I started." Mutran was saying. The toa and titans were all tied to benches, completely helpless.
The third screen beeped, acknowledging the input of the correct code.
"As for the rest of you, I will turn you into shadow-beings. All except you, Takal. You can have the pleasure of being killed by your friends."
Antroz glared at him (I had given him lenses in his mask wired into his head that let him see again, but the other makuta had all stolen copies.) "We will get you, Mutran. Get you and kill you. Then you will wish you had never set foot on Karda Nui."
"For that comment, Antroz, I will kill you first!" Mutran raised his sword.
Now was my cue. I turned on the mic "No you won't!" I shouted. He spun around, and leered at the camera.
"Just what can you do, Avak?" he mocked. "I have the element-turrets, the prisoners and a horde of Exo-rahkshii. What do you have? A camera and a microphone"
"And the shutdown codes for the Exo-rahkshii suits, the Turret control override and Toa Nuara." I replied, equally mocking. "I'm going to send down Nuara to free the prisoners. Any funny business and I blast you with the turrets and deactivate the Exos. I must warn you that I'm incredibly trigger happy." I turned off the screen.
"Are you sure this will work?" asked Nuara.
"I'm sure. Just follow the Exos and wear this locator. If they take a wrong turn, bang!"
"Bang indeed..." muttered Nuara, opening the door to find her armed escort waiting for her. She shuddered, stepped out and closed the door behind her. She reached the hall and I turned the screen back from Locator to Video. Mutran had predicted that I would turn off the camera, and was poised over Takal, knife raised. Takal wasn't wearing his mask.
"No!" screamed Nuara, and sent a bolt of plasma at the Makuta, launching him headlong into one of the benches. The rahkshii turned to attack her and I pushed the big red button. They collapsed, Nuara ran over to Takal, placed his mask back on his face and untied him. She freed them all and they made their way up to me.
"Nice work" congratulated Ria. "Now, we have a problem. Mutran escaped, and he will try to call for reinforcements once he's somewhere safe. However, this stronghold is the radio mast. I need you to blow this place to Karzahnii and regroup with us in the gunship." Ria produced a bomb. "Get to floor eighteen and throw this in the Air Conditioning. It cools the lower floors, and if we heated it up, the fuel for the turrets would explode and the underground area would collapse, taking the overground portion with it. Make your way back down to floor five and we'll have your vehicle on the balcony to escape with."
"Did you plan all this when you were trapped?" I enquired.
"No, unlike you, I plan. That's why I'm in control of the army, and you're not."
We ran up to the ground floor together, then the others left and I was left to finish the place. I made my way to eighteen and looked for the vent. It was behind a fan. My gun flicked out, there was a sharp bang and the fan 'dissapeared'. I threw the bomb down the hole (after hitting the detonator, of course.) and ran like Karzahnii. Most people in a hurry would slide banisters to drop floors quickly. I knew what the bomb could do, so I just jumped whole floors at a time. On the balcony, I spent very, very little time admiring the Canoc T1. I jumped into the cockpit, hit the ignition and fled for the Karzahnii. Once in the hanger, I ran up to the bridge where Ria was waiting. There was an enourmous explosion, and the mushroom cloud that grew from the ruined fortification was reward enough in itself. I received a few hundred pats on the back from the other soldiers.
"Avak, you never cease to surprise me" laughed Lariska, admiring the mushroom cloud. Suddenly something just to the left of it cought Ria's attention. A formation of stars making up the face of Makuta Terridax wearing his hated and feared mask of shadows. A small metal object collided with the window and bounced off, to Mata Nui knows where.
Nuara pointed to a giant metal being standing in the sea. "Is that Mata Nui?" she asked.
"No." replied Ria "It's Terridax."
We sat in the bridge in silence, in shock. An evil, omnipotent voice spoke out.
"I am everywhere. I am everything you see."
Takal unsheathed his staff. "Do I have to come into the Great Spirit and beat you again?" asked Takal. Everyone laughed except the giant makuta. An invisible force flung Takal against the walls, his mask fell off, and blood flowed from various cuts and cracks in his armour, but the force didn't stop. Only once Takal was completely KO'd did it stop.
Nuara and Ria ran over and pushed his mask back on. The cuts and cracks slowly healed, but Takal remained unconsious.
"What do we do now?" asked Maroo, unsure of the very air around him.
"Terridax won't be doing that again for a while. Astral projection without a mask expends masses of energy. Avak, fly us to Karda Nui. We have Makuta to kill." Ordered the winged general.
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