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Description
Warning: This fictional work contains descriptions of violent acts. If you are really sensitive to this, it's advised not to read this.

Chapter 3: Goodbye

When M’azzal woke up, she found herself in a small cell. Three walls were made out of solid stone, the fourth one was made out of steel bars and a reinforced door. She saw that no one was guarding her cell. Which wasn’t necessary either, because the space between the bars was too small and the steel both the doors and bars were made of was too tough to cut through. Not that she had any sharp object on her. She looked around her. The only other things in her cell were a bed, a bucket and a plate with food on it.
“Damn it!”

She threw the plate against her wall, with the purpose of shattering it into a million pieces. But before it could even hit the wall, the plate dissolved into sand in midair. The bowl, cup and food were caught by the heap of sand that had just been a plate.

M’azzal looked at the sand, paralysed. Did I just do that? She quickly shook off her fright, and grabbed the cup. She threw it at the wall, once again with the thought of shattering it. This time it did.

The oddness of the situation made M’azzal calm down. At least she had something that could mean her escape. So she couldn’t shatter the cup. Maybe she could turn the plate back to normal? She leaned forward, and touched the sand. When she thought of turning it back, the sand started moving towards her finger, and the plate reappeared under her hand. She tried turning a shard of the broken cup into sand. This time it worked, but it didn’t on other shards. “So I can only turn one object into sand at a time.”

She ran some more tests, and discovered that she could decide where the sand would move, as long as there lay a bit of sand from the same object in that direction. She walked towards the bucket that stood in the corner, and looked at her reflection. Her mask didn’t glow, which meant that it wasn’t her mask power. It made her worried, she didn’t know how she had got that power. But she was also relieved, because it meant that the mind control power of her mask still had to show up. She turned around, towards the bars of her cell. It was time for the final test.

Within the little space she had got, M’azzal jumped forward towards the steel bars. Just hoping that she could get through. A quiet scraping of little bits against metal sounded, follow by a dull sound that echoed through the corridors of the prison.

Her presence was scattered everywhere where the sand that had just been her body lay. It was too complicated to comprehend how, though so easy to understand it simply worked. She concentrated all of her mind to a tiny bit of sand on the other side of her cell. As she was that sand only, she felt how the rest was moving towards that spot, and in a few seconds, her body had been rebuilt.

Amazed by her new power, she stretched her arm and inspected her fingers. There was nothing wrong with them; they felt completely natural. She was already making plans in her head as she explored the corridors of the prison.

Lighted torches hanging from the walls caused shadows to dance across the stone. There were no guards to be seen, which for some reason disappointed M’azzal. She had expected a little more effort from the toa to keep her restrained. But of course, they probably also didn’t know of her newfound powers, so why bother guarding her cell? On the other hand, if they held her captured because they found out she was behind the murders of Kaine Noir’s gang members, they should have known better than leaving a fanatic assassin alone in her cell.

A few minutes had passed after M’azzal’s mistake, when she suddenly slipped. The fall was too quick for her to turn into sand, so she slammed into the ground. When she stood up, she was covered in a liquid that dripped off her body. She recognised the metallic smell. It was blood.

She continued her path, and around the corner, she found three dead toa, lying on a staircase that led up to a door. She recognised the work of an efficient sword fighter. The bodies all had long and deep cuts in their chest, which was enough for all three of them to mean their demise. There weren’t any signs of a struggle, the murderer had sneaked up on them.

She wasn’t shocked, but rather surprised. What was the meaning behind this? She carefully stepped over the corpses, making her way to the door. When she opened it, she found herself in a long hallway. But this one was above ground, as she could judge from the light that came from the gigantic windows that covered most of the outside walls. The black-and-white tiles of the floor were covered with blood stains, and a trail of blood led to her right before suddenly disappearing into nothing. She ran towards the end of the trail, determined to find a way out, and in the meantime find out what had happened.

She kept running in the same direction after the trail had stopped, until she had to turn left. She pushed herself against the wall, staying low, and slowly sneaking around the corner. A door appeared, this time wide open. on the opposite end of it, there stood a row of chairs, and a small table on which a plate with cups on it was placed.
What called M’azzal’s attention was the name tag on the open door. It read: Ambassador Maurak.

She couldn’t believe it. It was almost too easy to be true. Without second thoughts, she stormed inside the room. Then she realised her mistake. The door closed behind her, and clicks of rifles being loaded sounded behind her.
In front of her, a figure in black and red, wearing a Great Ruru, sat at the head of a big table. He dipped his mouth with a white piece of cloth, wiping away some ramains of blood. He breathed heavily, and M’azzal saw that he had a gash in his left shoulder. But she didn’t care one bit for his wellbeing. Because this person was Maurak.

“Ah, look who we have here. M’azzal van Kruizden!,” he said. He leaned forward, his face looked painful as he encumbered his injured shoulder. “Or should I say: the reaper toa? I don’t expect you to be surprised. Of course, you have already noticed that I had sent all my toa forces after you.” Maurak raised his eyebrows. “However, I am surprised. How did you escape?”

M’azzal didn’t know what to say. Maurak had two people pointing guns at her, why didn’t he let them shoot her? In the end, she just shrugged. “I have my fair share of secrets.”

The black and red toa just kept looking at her with his bright blue eyes.

M’azzal asked, “Why don’t you just kill me right now? I have killed dozens of your ally’s men. I am a threat that must be eliminated.”

Maurak leaned back in his seat and folded his hands. “I have great plans. And you are of little concern to me. In fact, I feel like telling someone about my plans.” Seemingly from nowhere, a spike of solid shadow shot from behind him. It went right past M’azzal’s head, charging towards the guard on her right. With a dull sound of metal being torn, the arm of shadow pierced through the guard’s mask, in his head. Everyone just stared at the guard. Maurak, M’azzal, the guard on M’azzal’s left. The last two mentioned looked at the dead toa with shock in their eyes. Then the body fell to the ground.

Maurak had already reclaimed his position on his seat. “Oh dear, M’azzal! How could you kill this brave guard?!”
M’azzal turned back to him, her eyes seemed to be on fire. She suddenly knew why those guards had already been dead when she escaped, and why Maurak killed his bodyguard so carelessly.

“You won’t get away with this,” she hissed at him.

Maurak sat up straight, and took out another knife, which he playfully twisted around his fingers. “No, M’azzal. You won’t get away with your horrible murders. We now know your identity, and yet you keep on murdering brave toa!” He taunted her again. All of a sudden, another pointy arm of shadow charged at the other guard, who was still staring at the corpse of her comrade. She collapsed on the ground beside her former partner, already dead before she hit the ground.

“There went Barcida. What a shame. She had such great potential.” Maurak’s tone had changed as soon as the second guard had been killed. He now sounded annoyed, almost desperate, in contrary to his crazy attitude from just moments ago. He stood up from his seat, and walked towards a far corner of the table, while supporting his weakened arm.
M’azzal followed his every step. She wouldn’t make another mistake. But she also couldn’t kill Maurak yet. He was going to explain his plan, which would definitely help her later. Not to mention she didn’t have a weapon on her, and she didn’t want to end up dead in a bad attempt at trying to overthrow Maurak with her bare hands.
Maurak stopped near an object that had been wrapped in cloth, at the corner of the table. He didn’t touch it, just stared at it. For a moment M’azzal thought he had forgotten about her, but then he spoke. “You know most of my plan already: I’d have Kaine send me a messenger with some scrolls, which I said were stolen from the archives, to get rid of the messenger he would send me after the toa captured him. My messenger would then pick them up, and bring them to me.”
He started unwrapping the object. “Unfortunately, two things went wrong in that stage of the plan. The first you already know. I have already killed those two who knew about the plan, and were supposed to stay shut about it.”

M’azzal interrupted him. “Actually, I already killed them.” She almost immediately regretted interrupting him. She wouldn’t blame him if she got killed right now. But what she got instead was Maurak’s surprised face. Priceless, M’azzal thought to herself.

“Then... I killed two very suspicious members, at least. Those must be taken out too, you know,” Maurak said. But he didn’t sound very convincing. He continued explaining, as if the interruption had never happened.

“The second problem happened to my messenger. He got killed by a skakdi gang that roams, excuse me, roamed the abandoned tunnels leading to my other home. I got the bag however. Unfortunately, you obtained the scroll that was the second most important to me. Not that it’s all that important, but in comparison to the other scrolls, which were about soup and nothing, it is a pretty big deal.” He was done unwrapping the object, but M’azzal still couldn’t make out what it was, because Maurak had thrown the cloth wrapping in such a position that she couldn’t see what he had unraveled.

“The most important scroll,” Maurak continued, “told me the location of this beauty here.” He picked up the mysterious object from the table. It was a big golden mask, with a bestial face carved in it. M’azzal recognised the mask from illustrations that came from the history books, back in the time she went to school. She didn’t remember the stories it was featured in, but she knew its power: interdimenional travel. This mask was one of the only two Olmak masks.

24,994 years ago, in an entirely different place, beyond the borders of the universe.

Argavyx looks over the vast desert. Black, menacing rocks jut out of the hot sand. Behind him stands a tall pole with a weathered red flag on top, waving in the strong, hot wind. Bits of sand blow through the small holes in Argavyx’ body. He looks up to the red flag, which has the symbol of the three Sins painted in white on one side, and the symbol of the three Virtues on the other side, also in white. He keeps staring at it for a few more minutes, his thoughts dwelling on memories from his life, before he was locked up. They are mostly inspiring memories, ones that have made him the toa of ice he now is. But there are also some more grim ones. The Great Beings denying his belief, the betrayal of Helryx, him being locked up underground. But those are also valuable lessons to him. To him, they show that no matter what you believe, how many friends you seem to make, people will always turn against you.

He turns away from the flag and starts walking towards a small building that is built out of rocks and sticks, but it’s more solid than one would think. When he stands in front of the small building, he knocks on a wooden hollow bit in the wall, because instead of a door there is just a piece of red cloth hanging in the opening.

A female voice sounds. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Argavyx, can I come in?”

A few moments go by before the voice answers. “Why not? Come in.”

Argavyx pulls aside the cloth that serves as a door, and walks into the building. From the inside, the building is decorated with sandstone tiles on the floor, and light gray paint on the walls. There’s a hole in the center of the ceiling, letting light shine down on a tub. The tub in question is filled wih some sort of red paint, and a Sister of the Skrall is bathing in it. Argavyx politely looks away, which makes the Sister laugh.

“Still not used to my species not wearing armor? I look just the same when I’m outside, you know.”

While Argavyx is still looking away, he answers. “You have no idea how much privacy the Great Beings demanded back at their hidden base. It was a true maze I had to solve, simply because of all the doors that were locked, or forgotten to be locked.” He finally turns back to the Sister. “I’ve been locked up for thousands of years, and in that time my manners haven’t changed that much. You can imagine how hard it is to get rid of such ancient manners, Gevere.”

Funingevere looks amused at him. In the six years after she had “freed” Argavyx, she and the big toa had become inseparable allies, if not friends. They didn’t have any secrets for each other.

“Aww, come on, I’m just painting myself! It isn’t similar to what the Great Beings did at all!” she says, while stepping out of the tub, red paint dropping on the sandstone tiles that decorate the floor. She goes standing in front on Argavyx, and turns in a full circle. “Did I miss a spot?”

Argayx grunts. He would appreciate it if the Sister had some more respect for his culture. He reaches out with his big right hand.

“Show me your hands,” he says. Funingevere does so. He looks at them for a few seconds, and then says “The paint didn’t get between your fingers all that well. It looks like they are more brown than red.” He folds his arms. “Again.”

Funingevere pulls her hands back, and takes a look for herself. “You..” She looks back at Argavyx. “You really are a perfectionist,” she teases him. But he waves that comment away.

“I wouldn’t be that precise if there weren’t any guests coming,” he says.

She walks back to the tub and dips her hands in the red paint. A minute of silence hangs in the space between them. Then she speaks up. “What are your thoughts?” Her voice is now sounding formal, instead of teasing, as she had just been.

The big toa shrugs. “They seems like a group of toa, although they could be glatorian. I just saw their silhouettes on the horizon. It doesn’t matter if they’re enemies or not.” He points over his shoulder with his thumb. “If they are just bothering us, your Sisters will easily dispose of them.”

Funingevere smiles at him, then gives him a hug. “As if you’d need them to dispose of some toa.”

Argavyx hugs her back, but then pushes her away. He has a bad feeling about the unknown visitors. “We should prepare the Sisters,” he says to Funingevere. She nods, then runs outside to sound the bells. Argavyx is left alone in the red Sister’s personal bathhouse. He stares at the drops of paint that are slowly becoming stains on the clean floor. With an almost unnoticable move of his hand, the drops freeze, preventing them from being absorbed into the sandstone tiles. With another twist of his hand, Argavyx moves the frozen bits back to the tub. After that, he shakes his head. “Maybe I should have told her to clean up first.”

He walks outside, and follows the drops of red paint in the desert sand, towards his red friend. Before he can see her, he already hears the sound of bells ringing their low tones through the village of the Sisters. He sees Sisters of the Skrall coming out of their houses left and right, already having their weapons in their hand or strapped to their back. They all look at him, since Argavyx has become the face of their tribe, as the only male member and being a big toa of ice with knowledge of ancient times. They expect him to tell what’s going on.

One Sister comes towards him. Argavyx recognises her as Kuulturi, a mediocre but stubborn warrior. “Argavyx,” she says. Her eyes still look sleepy, and he guesses that she isn’t that happy being waken up by a chorus of ringing bells. “Why are you waking us up?!” she asks.

Another Sister quickly interrupts her by saying “Us? You’re one to talk, sleepy-head!”

Kuulturi stabs the opposing Sister with the butt of her staff, right in the chest. “Shut up, Olni!”

The one who was called Olni doesn’t budge. She just shrugs, and keeps a straight face.

Kuulturi turns back to Argavyx. “Well, what is so important?”

The toa of ice just points to the horizon. Kuulturi stares at the vast desert, and so do the other Sisters. Then a few seem to notice what he is talking about, and soon they are all talking to each other, trying to solve what it could be that they just saw at the horizon.

By the time Funingevere runs back to Argavyx, her paint is already dried up. She stops before him, and leans on her knees to recover from her sprint back and forth between the bells. Then she straightens, and calls her Sisters to be quiet. When they all do so, the big toa speaks up.

“Listen up, ladies. We’ve got some visitors who are most likely toa. Whether they are enemies or not, I don’t know. What I do know, is that the Sisters of the Skrall haven’t met any other group ever since the demise of both Mata Nui and Makuta. We don’t want to scare our visitors, we just want to show them our might, what we stand for.”
He points at the outside of the village, where the flag is also planted. “We’ll line up there, but with no weapons drawn. When they arrive, I will do the talking.” He turns to Kuulturi.“So you better go back to sleep.”

The Sister grunts, then marches back to her house, doing as Argavyx had said. The other Sisters of the Skrall are already sharpening their weapons out of habit, and checking their cloaks and whether or not there are holes in them. Argavyx turns to Funingevere, who is still standing at his side. “Maybe you should put some clothes on too, Gevere. I’m not sure if our guests are used to seeing... unarmored people,” he says to her. But she shakes her head.

“We don’t have any red cloaks, you know. And wearing a black one could be bad for my status as leader of the Sisters.”

“Don’t give me that. Your head, hands and feet will still be visible.”

“Why don’t you paint one for me?”

“Stop acting this childish. Do it yourself, okay?”

“Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

“How clever of you. Thank you very much.”

As Funingevere walks towards her house to get a black cloak, Argavyx walks back to the outside of the village. On his way, he grabs a spyglass that lies in a rack, just outside of a watch tower. When he’s back at his spot in front of the flag, he looks through the glass.

He recognises six toa, each from a different element. The only toa team consisting out of six toa, from six different elements, he knows are the toa Mata, as Funingevere once told him. They were the ones who were most loyal to both the matoran and Mata Nui, and still view the world in black and white.

He puts away the spyglass, and cracks his fingers. “Well then, time to give them a warm welcome.”

“Why do you have that?” M’azzal hissed. She was now legitimately scared. It had seemed to her that no matter what happened, she always knew to find a solution. But this was total madness to her. The mask shouldn’t even exist, since it was supposed to reside on an island called Mata Nui. But that island doesn’t even exist... Or did it?

“Let’s just say that a certain someone can’t pick me up, so I have to go back myself,” Maurak answered. When M’azzal didn’t respond, he continued. “But let’s get back to the topic. Now, where was I?” While he was thinking, he filled two glasses with a bottle of wine from a nearby shelf. He turned back to M’azzal. “Want some?” He asked, with one glass reached out to her.

She held up her hand, refusing the drink. His changing attitude and behaviour made her more cautious. It could be that he was onto something. Other than taking the toa under his control.

“Well, more for me. Oh, I remember where I was! So you see, I can’t stay here and keep an eye on the toa once they are being controlled in....” Maurak looked at a clock that hang above the entrance, as if it would tell him the weeks that were to come. “In five weeks from now. I will have Kaine attack Cen-Traju, so it looks like he is taking the capital city over by force. And when the toa are under his control, it will just seem like he has won, and he is now the leader of the toa. It’s as simple as that. Any questions?”

M’azzal didn’t need to think long. “Why is your plan so elaborate?” She asked.

Maurak grinned. “Because simply climbing up in the rankings until I have full control all the time isn’t all that interesting.”

“All the time? What do you mean by all the time? Have you taken over cities before?!”

“Not cities, but kingdoms. It gets boring after a while, so by making my plans elaborate, it gets more interesting and challenging.” He once again reached out with a glass of wine. “Sure you don’t want any?”

“No. I want to know why the prison guards were lying dead on the staircase, and why you killed your guards.” M’azzal had grown more confident, now that Maurak seemed to be a lot more open. Maybe she could even find out where Kaine was hiding. But getting to know Maurak and her current situation now took priority.

“So that it would look as if you killed them,” He answered. “I was going to let you free after I had treated my shoulder wound, but apparently you found your way out. How did you get out, actually?”

But M’azzal didn’t plan on giving away her secret. She kept her mouth shut.
Maurak shrugged. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. He took off his mask, and replaced it with the Olmak. M’azzal wanted to jump on him, but he noticed her movement and he quickly pulled out his staff from under the table.

“You are not going anywhere.” As he said that, the golden mask started glowing, and a black portal with ragged and distorted edges opened in the room, the size of a big toa. Maurak stepped into the portal, still pointing at M’azzal with his staff. Then he withdrew his weapon. “Goodbye, M’azzal.” He turned around, and completely disappeared in the black nothingness of the portal.

“No!” M’azzal jumped over the table, and ran towards the quickly closing portal. As she got closer, she could see Maurak floating in interdimensional space, turning around and looking surprised at her. She put all her strength in one last sprint. She jumped through the small opening, and as she went through she could actually feel the close edges touching her feet.

Suddenly, she flew through a black nothingness, with no gravity. For a short moment, she was disoriented by the sudden change of environment, but then she looked around her. Just a few feet away from her, floated Maurak. He didn’t say anything, but his mask started glowing again, and another portal in the interdimensional space opened up.

“No you don’t,” M’azzal shouted at him. She launched herself at Maurak, pushing him away from the portal he had just opened. He tried to stab her with his spear, but she dodged it and hit him in his face. It had no effect on him, but a cracking sound came from M’azzal’s fist. She prepared to hit him in his throat, but suddenly Maurak pulled out her scythe.

“Is this yours?” He swung at her, and she barely managed to dodge his attack. As she moved away from the swinging scythe, she could see another portal closing just behind Maurak. So he has opened a portal under my bed. That bastard.

As Maurak swung at her again, she blocked the shaft of the weapon with her foot, and she quickly spun her legs around it. She tried to pull it out of Maurak’s grip, but he didn’t let go. Then, suddenly it slipped out of his hands, and M’azzal flew rapidly away from Maurak. Before she could try to get back to him, he had disappeared.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. She suddenly felt air running past her, as if she was falling. And the black abyss had now been filled with countless stars. Aside from the sound of air running past her, she also heard a more mechanical sound. She tried to turn around, facing away from the sky. And when she did, her fear was confirmed. Beneath her, she saw thousands of small metal objects, shaped like tubes, hanging in the sky, being held up by small propelling blades. They were drawing closer and closer with the second. But that wasn’t the only thing that drew closer with the second: so was a vast desert below her.

Description
Warning: This fictional work contains descriptions of violent acts. If you are really sensitive to this, it's advised not to read this.

Chapter 3: Goodbye

When M’azzal woke up, she found herself in a small cell. Three walls were made out of solid stone, the fourth one was made out of steel bars and a reinforced door. She saw that no one was guarding her cell. Which wasn’t necessary either, because the space between the bars was too small and the steel both the doors and bars were made of was too tough to cut through. Not that she had any sharp object on her. She looked around her. The only other things in her cell were a bed, a bucket and a plate with food on it.
“Damn it!”

She threw the plate against her wall, with the purpose of shattering it into a million pieces. But before it could even hit the wall, the plate dissolved into sand in midair. The bowl, cup and food were caught by the heap of sand that had just been a plate.

M’azzal looked at the sand, paralysed. Did I just do that? She quickly shook off her fright, and grabbed the cup. She threw it at the wall, once again with the thought of shattering it. This time it did.

The oddness of the situation made M’azzal calm down. At least she had something that could mean her escape. So she couldn’t shatter the cup. Maybe she could turn the plate back to normal? She leaned forward, and touched the sand. When she thought of turning it back, the sand started moving towards her finger, and the plate reappeared under her hand. She tried turning a shard of the broken cup into sand. This time it worked, but it didn’t on other shards. “So I can only turn one object into sand at a time.”

She ran some more tests, and discovered that she could decide where the sand would move, as long as there lay a bit of sand from the same object in that direction. She walked towards the bucket that stood in the corner, and looked at her reflection. Her mask didn’t glow, which meant that it wasn’t her mask power. It made her worried, she didn’t know how she had got that power. But she was also relieved, because it meant that the mind control power of her mask still had to show up. She turned around, towards the bars of her cell. It was time for the final test.

Within the little space she had got, M’azzal jumped forward towards the steel bars. Just hoping that she could get through. A quiet scraping of little bits against metal sounded, follow by a dull sound that echoed through the corridors of the prison.

Her presence was scattered everywhere where the sand that had just been her body lay. It was too complicated to comprehend how, though so easy to understand it simply worked. She concentrated all of her mind to a tiny bit of sand on the other side of her cell. As she was that sand only, she felt how the rest was moving towards that spot, and in a few seconds, her body had been rebuilt.

Amazed by her new power, she stretched her arm and inspected her fingers. There was nothing wrong with them; they felt completely natural. She was already making plans in her head as she explored the corridors of the prison.

Lighted torches hanging from the walls caused shadows to dance across the stone. There were no guards to be seen, which for some reason disappointed M’azzal. She had expected a little more effort from the toa to keep her restrained. But of course, they probably also didn’t know of her newfound powers, so why bother guarding her cell? On the other hand, if they held her captured because they found out she was behind the murders of Kaine Noir’s gang members, they should have known better than leaving a fanatic assassin alone in her cell.

A few minutes had passed after M’azzal’s mistake, when she suddenly slipped. The fall was too quick for her to turn into sand, so she slammed into the ground. When she stood up, she was covered in a liquid that dripped off her body. She recognised the metallic smell. It was blood.

She continued her path, and around the corner, she found three dead toa, lying on a staircase that led up to a door. She recognised the work of an efficient sword fighter. The bodies all had long and deep cuts in their chest, which was enough for all three of them to mean their demise. There weren’t any signs of a struggle, the murderer had sneaked up on them.

She wasn’t shocked, but rather surprised. What was the meaning behind this? She carefully stepped over the corpses, making her way to the door. When she opened it, she found herself in a long hallway. But this one was above ground, as she could judge from the light that came from the gigantic windows that covered most of the outside walls. The black-and-white tiles of the floor were covered with blood stains, and a trail of blood led to her right before suddenly disappearing into nothing. She ran towards the end of the trail, determined to find a way out, and in the meantime find out what had happened.

She kept running in the same direction after the trail had stopped, until she had to turn left. She pushed herself against the wall, staying low, and slowly sneaking around the corner. A door appeared, this time wide open. on the opposite end of it, there stood a row of chairs, and a small table on which a plate with cups on it was placed.
What called M’azzal’s attention was the name tag on the open door. It read: Ambassador Maurak.

She couldn’t believe it. It was almost too easy to be true. Without second thoughts, she stormed inside the room. Then she realised her mistake. The door closed behind her, and clicks of rifles being loaded sounded behind her.
In front of her, a figure in black and red, wearing a Great Ruru, sat at the head of a big table. He dipped his mouth with a white piece of cloth, wiping away some ramains of blood. He breathed heavily, and M’azzal saw that he had a gash in his left shoulder. But she didn’t care one bit for his wellbeing. Because this person was Maurak.

“Ah, look who we have here. M’azzal van Kruizden!,” he said. He leaned forward, his face looked painful as he encumbered his injured shoulder. “Or should I say: the reaper toa? I don’t expect you to be surprised. Of course, you have already noticed that I had sent all my toa forces after you.” Maurak raised his eyebrows. “However, I am surprised. How did you escape?”

M’azzal didn’t know what to say. Maurak had two people pointing guns at her, why didn’t he let them shoot her? In the end, she just shrugged. “I have my fair share of secrets.”

The black and red toa just kept looking at her with his bright blue eyes.

M’azzal asked, “Why don’t you just kill me right now? I have killed dozens of your ally’s men. I am a threat that must be eliminated.”

Maurak leaned back in his seat and folded his hands. “I have great plans. And you are of little concern to me. In fact, I feel like telling someone about my plans.” Seemingly from nowhere, a spike of solid shadow shot from behind him. It went right past M’azzal’s head, charging towards the guard on her right. With a dull sound of metal being torn, the arm of shadow pierced through the guard’s mask, in his head. Everyone just stared at the guard. Maurak, M’azzal, the guard on M’azzal’s left. The last two mentioned looked at the dead toa with shock in their eyes. Then the body fell to the ground.

Maurak had already reclaimed his position on his seat. “Oh dear, M’azzal! How could you kill this brave guard?!”
M’azzal turned back to him, her eyes seemed to be on fire. She suddenly knew why those guards had already been dead when she escaped, and why Maurak killed his bodyguard so carelessly.

“You won’t get away with this,” she hissed at him.

Maurak sat up straight, and took out another knife, which he playfully twisted around his fingers. “No, M’azzal. You won’t get away with your horrible murders. We now know your identity, and yet you keep on murdering brave toa!” He taunted her again. All of a sudden, another pointy arm of shadow charged at the other guard, who was still staring at the corpse of her comrade. She collapsed on the ground beside her former partner, already dead before she hit the ground.

“There went Barcida. What a shame. She had such great potential.” Maurak’s tone had changed as soon as the second guard had been killed. He now sounded annoyed, almost desperate, in contrary to his crazy attitude from just moments ago. He stood up from his seat, and walked towards a far corner of the table, while supporting his weakened arm.
M’azzal followed his every step. She wouldn’t make another mistake. But she also couldn’t kill Maurak yet. He was going to explain his plan, which would definitely help her later. Not to mention she didn’t have a weapon on her, and she didn’t want to end up dead in a bad attempt at trying to overthrow Maurak with her bare hands.
Maurak stopped near an object that had been wrapped in cloth, at the corner of the table. He didn’t touch it, just stared at it. For a moment M’azzal thought he had forgotten about her, but then he spoke. “You know most of my plan already: I’d have Kaine send me a messenger with some scrolls, which I said were stolen from the archives, to get rid of the messenger he would send me after the toa captured him. My messenger would then pick them up, and bring them to me.”
He started unwrapping the object. “Unfortunately, two things went wrong in that stage of the plan. The first you already know. I have already killed those two who knew about the plan, and were supposed to stay shut about it.”

M’azzal interrupted him. “Actually, I already killed them.” She almost immediately regretted interrupting him. She wouldn’t blame him if she got killed right now. But what she got instead was Maurak’s surprised face. Priceless, M’azzal thought to herself.

“Then... I killed two very suspicious members, at least. Those must be taken out too, you know,” Maurak said. But he didn’t sound very convincing. He continued explaining, as if the interruption had never happened.

“The second problem happened to my messenger. He got killed by a skakdi gang that roams, excuse me, roamed the abandoned tunnels leading to my other home. I got the bag however. Unfortunately, you obtained the scroll that was the second most important to me. Not that it’s all that important, but in comparison to the other scrolls, which were about soup and nothing, it is a pretty big deal.” He was done unwrapping the object, but M’azzal still couldn’t make out what it was, because Maurak had thrown the cloth wrapping in such a position that she couldn’t see what he had unraveled.

“The most important scroll,” Maurak continued, “told me the location of this beauty here.” He picked up the mysterious object from the table. It was a big golden mask, with a bestial face carved in it. M’azzal recognised the mask from illustrations that came from the history books, back in the time she went to school. She didn’t remember the stories it was featured in, but she knew its power: interdimenional travel. This mask was one of the only two Olmak masks.

24,994 years ago, in an entirely different place, beyond the borders of the universe.

Argavyx looks over the vast desert. Black, menacing rocks jut out of the hot sand. Behind him stands a tall pole with a weathered red flag on top, waving in the strong, hot wind. Bits of sand blow through the small holes in Argavyx’ body. He looks up to the red flag, which has the symbol of the three Sins painted in white on one side, and the symbol of the three Virtues on the other side, also in white. He keeps staring at it for a few more minutes, his thoughts dwelling on memories from his life, before he was locked up. They are mostly inspiring memories, ones that have made him the toa of ice he now is. But there are also some more grim ones. The Great Beings denying his belief, the betrayal of Helryx, him being locked up underground. But those are also valuable lessons to him. To him, they show that no matter what you believe, how many friends you seem to make, people will always turn against you.

He turns away from the flag and starts walking towards a small building that is built out of rocks and sticks, but it’s more solid than one would think. When he stands in front of the small building, he knocks on a wooden hollow bit in the wall, because instead of a door there is just a piece of red cloth hanging in the opening.

A female voice sounds. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Argavyx, can I come in?”

A few moments go by before the voice answers. “Why not? Come in.”

Argavyx pulls aside the cloth that serves as a door, and walks into the building. From the inside, the building is decorated with sandstone tiles on the floor, and light gray paint on the walls. There’s a hole in the center of the ceiling, letting light shine down on a tub. The tub in question is filled wih some sort of red paint, and a Sister of the Skrall is bathing in it. Argavyx politely looks away, which makes the Sister laugh.

“Still not used to my species not wearing armor? I look just the same when I’m outside, you know.”

While Argavyx is still looking away, he answers. “You have no idea how much privacy the Great Beings demanded back at their hidden base. It was a true maze I had to solve, simply because of all the doors that were locked, or forgotten to be locked.” He finally turns back to the Sister. “I’ve been locked up for thousands of years, and in that time my manners haven’t changed that much. You can imagine how hard it is to get rid of such ancient manners, Gevere.”

Funingevere looks amused at him. In the six years after she had “freed” Argavyx, she and the big toa had become inseparable allies, if not friends. They didn’t have any secrets for each other.

“Aww, come on, I’m just painting myself! It isn’t similar to what the Great Beings did at all!” she says, while stepping out of the tub, red paint dropping on the sandstone tiles that decorate the floor. She goes standing in front on Argavyx, and turns in a full circle. “Did I miss a spot?”

Argayx grunts. He would appreciate it if the Sister had some more respect for his culture. He reaches out with his big right hand.

“Show me your hands,” he says. Funingevere does so. He looks at them for a few seconds, and then says “The paint didn’t get between your fingers all that well. It looks like they are more brown than red.” He folds his arms. “Again.”

Funingevere pulls her hands back, and takes a look for herself. “You..” She looks back at Argavyx. “You really are a perfectionist,” she teases him. But he waves that comment away.

“I wouldn’t be that precise if there weren’t any guests coming,” he says.

She walks back to the tub and dips her hands in the red paint. A minute of silence hangs in the space between them. Then she speaks up. “What are your thoughts?” Her voice is now sounding formal, instead of teasing, as she had just been.

The big toa shrugs. “They seems like a group of toa, although they could be glatorian. I just saw their silhouettes on the horizon. It doesn’t matter if they’re enemies or not.” He points over his shoulder with his thumb. “If they are just bothering us, your Sisters will easily dispose of them.”

Funingevere smiles at him, then gives him a hug. “As if you’d need them to dispose of some toa.”

Argavyx hugs her back, but then pushes her away. He has a bad feeling about the unknown visitors. “We should prepare the Sisters,” he says to Funingevere. She nods, then runs outside to sound the bells. Argavyx is left alone in the red Sister’s personal bathhouse. He stares at the drops of paint that are slowly becoming stains on the clean floor. With an almost unnoticable move of his hand, the drops freeze, preventing them from being absorbed into the sandstone tiles. With another twist of his hand, Argavyx moves the frozen bits back to the tub. After that, he shakes his head. “Maybe I should have told her to clean up first.”

He walks outside, and follows the drops of red paint in the desert sand, towards his red friend. Before he can see her, he already hears the sound of bells ringing their low tones through the village of the Sisters. He sees Sisters of the Skrall coming out of their houses left and right, already having their weapons in their hand or strapped to their back. They all look at him, since Argavyx has become the face of their tribe, as the only male member and being a big toa of ice with knowledge of ancient times. They expect him to tell what’s going on.

One Sister comes towards him. Argavyx recognises her as Kuulturi, a mediocre but stubborn warrior. “Argavyx,” she says. Her eyes still look sleepy, and he guesses that she isn’t that happy being waken up by a chorus of ringing bells. “Why are you waking us up?!” she asks.

Another Sister quickly interrupts her by saying “Us? You’re one to talk, sleepy-head!”

Kuulturi stabs the opposing Sister with the butt of her staff, right in the chest. “Shut up, Olni!”

The one who was called Olni doesn’t budge. She just shrugs, and keeps a straight face.

Kuulturi turns back to Argavyx. “Well, what is so important?”

The toa of ice just points to the horizon. Kuulturi stares at the vast desert, and so do the other Sisters. Then a few seem to notice what he is talking about, and soon they are all talking to each other, trying to solve what it could be that they just saw at the horizon.

By the time Funingevere runs back to Argavyx, her paint is already dried up. She stops before him, and leans on her knees to recover from her sprint back and forth between the bells. Then she straightens, and calls her Sisters to be quiet. When they all do so, the big toa speaks up.

“Listen up, ladies. We’ve got some visitors who are most likely toa. Whether they are enemies or not, I don’t know. What I do know, is that the Sisters of the Skrall haven’t met any other group ever since the demise of both Mata Nui and Makuta. We don’t want to scare our visitors, we just want to show them our might, what we stand for.”
He points at the outside of the village, where the flag is also planted. “We’ll line up there, but with no weapons drawn. When they arrive, I will do the talking.” He turns to Kuulturi.“So you better go back to sleep.”

The Sister grunts, then marches back to her house, doing as Argavyx had said. The other Sisters of the Skrall are already sharpening their weapons out of habit, and checking their cloaks and whether or not there are holes in them. Argavyx turns to Funingevere, who is still standing at his side. “Maybe you should put some clothes on too, Gevere. I’m not sure if our guests are used to seeing... unarmored people,” he says to her. But she shakes her head.

“We don’t have any red cloaks, you know. And wearing a black one could be bad for my status as leader of the Sisters.”

“Don’t give me that. Your head, hands and feet will still be visible.”

“Why don’t you paint one for me?”

“Stop acting this childish. Do it yourself, okay?”

“Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

“How clever of you. Thank you very much.”

As Funingevere walks towards her house to get a black cloak, Argavyx walks back to the outside of the village. On his way, he grabs a spyglass that lies in a rack, just outside of a watch tower. When he’s back at his spot in front of the flag, he looks through the glass.

He recognises six toa, each from a different element. The only toa team consisting out of six toa, from six different elements, he knows are the toa Mata, as Funingevere once told him. They were the ones who were most loyal to both the matoran and Mata Nui, and still view the world in black and white.

He puts away the spyglass, and cracks his fingers. “Well then, time to give them a warm welcome.”

“Why do you have that?” M’azzal hissed. She was now legitimately scared. It had seemed to her that no matter what happened, she always knew to find a solution. But this was total madness to her. The mask shouldn’t even exist, since it was supposed to reside on an island called Mata Nui. But that island doesn’t even exist... Or did it?

“Let’s just say that a certain someone can’t pick me up, so I have to go back myself,” Maurak answered. When M’azzal didn’t respond, he continued. “But let’s get back to the topic. Now, where was I?” While he was thinking, he filled two glasses with a bottle of wine from a nearby shelf. He turned back to M’azzal. “Want some?” He asked, with one glass reached out to her.

She held up her hand, refusing the drink. His changing attitude and behaviour made her more cautious. It could be that he was onto something. Other than taking the toa under his control.

“Well, more for me. Oh, I remember where I was! So you see, I can’t stay here and keep an eye on the toa once they are being controlled in....” Maurak looked at a clock that hang above the entrance, as if it would tell him the weeks that were to come. “In five weeks from now. I will have Kaine attack Cen-Traju, so it looks like he is taking the capital city over by force. And when the toa are under his control, it will just seem like he has won, and he is now the leader of the toa. It’s as simple as that. Any questions?”

M’azzal didn’t need to think long. “Why is your plan so elaborate?” She asked.

Maurak grinned. “Because simply climbing up in the rankings until I have full control all the time isn’t all that interesting.”

“All the time? What do you mean by all the time? Have you taken over cities before?!”

“Not cities, but kingdoms. It gets boring after a while, so by making my plans elaborate, it gets more interesting and challenging.” He once again reached out with a glass of wine. “Sure you don’t want any?”

“No. I want to know why the prison guards were lying dead on the staircase, and why you killed your guards.” M’azzal had grown more confident, now that Maurak seemed to be a lot more open. Maybe she could even find out where Kaine was hiding. But getting to know Maurak and her current situation now took priority.

“So that it would look as if you killed them,” He answered. “I was going to let you free after I had treated my shoulder wound, but apparently you found your way out. How did you get out, actually?”

But M’azzal didn’t plan on giving away her secret. She kept her mouth shut.
Maurak shrugged. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. He took off his mask, and replaced it with the Olmak. M’azzal wanted to jump on him, but he noticed her movement and he quickly pulled out his staff from under the table.

“You are not going anywhere.” As he said that, the golden mask started glowing, and a black portal with ragged and distorted edges opened in the room, the size of a big toa. Maurak stepped into the portal, still pointing at M’azzal with his staff. Then he withdrew his weapon. “Goodbye, M’azzal.” He turned around, and completely disappeared in the black nothingness of the portal.

“No!” M’azzal jumped over the table, and ran towards the quickly closing portal. As she got closer, she could see Maurak floating in interdimensional space, turning around and looking surprised at her. She put all her strength in one last sprint. She jumped through the small opening, and as she went through she could actually feel the close edges touching her feet.

Suddenly, she flew through a black nothingness, with no gravity. For a short moment, she was disoriented by the sudden change of environment, but then she looked around her. Just a few feet away from her, floated Maurak. He didn’t say anything, but his mask started glowing again, and another portal in the interdimensional space opened up.

“No you don’t,” M’azzal shouted at him. She launched herself at Maurak, pushing him away from the portal he had just opened. He tried to stab her with his spear, but she dodged it and hit him in his face. It had no effect on him, but a cracking sound came from M’azzal’s fist. She prepared to hit him in his throat, but suddenly Maurak pulled out her scythe.

“Is this yours?” He swung at her, and she barely managed to dodge his attack. As she moved away from the swinging scythe, she could see another portal closing just behind Maurak. So he has opened a portal under my bed. That bastard.

As Maurak swung at her again, she blocked the shaft of the weapon with her foot, and she quickly spun her legs around it. She tried to pull it out of Maurak’s grip, but he didn’t let go. Then, suddenly it slipped out of his hands, and M’azzal flew rapidly away from Maurak. Before she could try to get back to him, he had disappeared.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. She suddenly felt air running past her, as if she was falling. And the black abyss had now been filled with countless stars. Aside from the sound of air running past her, she also heard a more mechanical sound. She tried to turn around, facing away from the sky. And when she did, her fear was confirmed. Beneath her, she saw thousands of small metal objects, shaped like tubes, hanging in the sky, being held up by small propelling blades. They were drawing closer and closer with the second. But that wasn’t the only thing that drew closer with the second: so was a vast desert below her.