Ignition Comics

2007 - Hydraxon's Tale

Adapted by Michael Larson

Yesterday, the Toa Mahri saved the universe, then abruptly disappeared from the Pit. They left behind a shattered Mahri Nui, six very angry Barraki… and one being who had to clean up the mess.

“I have six cells ready and waiting… now I just need Barraki to fill them,” Hydraxon said to himself, stalking through the ocean waters in pursuit. He held his Cordak blaster at the ready, wary of any attack that might come.

He was following the trail of one of the six Barraki, but he couldn’t be sure which warlord it was until he got his first clue. A school of fish-like Rahi with red bodies and silver fins swam by, darting several ways at once. As fast as they could they swam around the jailer to avoid something else. Typically, they felt safe in a group, able to pester any major predator into submission or flight from a battle.

“Reef raiders, in a panic,” thought Hydraxon. “And the only thing that sparks that…” Then he saw three of them, coming at him with jaws open wide, filled with teeth. “…is sharks!” The Takea swam faster, ready to rip and shred past the armor to enjoy the delicacies of meat.

But the cool Hydraxon was ready for them. “They’ll find me a most disagreeable meal,” he smirked, firing a rocket from his Cordak blaster and throwing a razor-edged boomerang at the same time. Angling his throw inward toward the rocket, the two collided just in front of the Rahi, causing a massive explosion that deterred the sharks and displaced them from the battlefield. The percussive forces and resulting hydrodynamics threw them far from the jailer.

“But where there are sharks…” Hydraxon turned, feeling more motion in the water. “…there’s Pridak.”

“Come to me, impostor!” Pridak called, seemingly amused by something. His own shark tooth blades ready to tear and around him were two more sharks as support. “The leader of the Barraki waits for you!”

Without missing a beat, the weapons master threw two more blades off of his wrist-mounted gauntlet. As they sliced through the water leaving a trail of bubbles, he answered, “Good. Saves me the trouble of hunting your miserable carcass down.”

At Pridak’s bidding, one shark swam in front of him to block a blade in its side while he deflected another with his own tool. “I have a gift for you, pretender,” he said, as the unfortunate Rahi began to sink, struggling to fight its wound. “A little something Mantax found in the ruins of the Pit, buried in the mud, covered in death…”

Hydraxon had any number of weapons ready if this was an attack, but he allowed Pridak to continue. The white Barraki held up his tool, hilt-first. A silver helmet rested on the tool, its eyehole hooked on the weapon. A pair of olden, destroyed breathing tubes dangled from it, swaying in the ocean currents.

Pridak smiled, obviously proud of something. “Recognize it? You wear its twin on your face. This belonged to the real Hydraxon—the one we Barraki killed 1,000 years ago.”

Hydraxon was intrigued, but still didn’t see how that was possible. He was obviously here, alive, now. How could he have died? But then… there was never a prisoner who wore gear like that… “What are you babbling about, monster?” he asked, encouraging Pridak to continue.

The Barraki studied Hyrdarxon, mystified, as if seeing him for the first time. This new piece of evidence had convinced the warlord, too. “I don’t know who you are… or what you are… but you are not Hydraxon; this proves that fact. You’re a fake, a sham… nothing more than a mirage of the sea.” With that, the sharks lunged forward in attack.

Hydraxon’s clawed hand caught the first Rahi’s underbelly and allowed him to kick it away. He made sure to place his kick right on the snout, disorienting it enough to neutralize it. He swung his remaining wrist-mounted blade at the other, landing a critical blow that defeated it, as well.

The jailer thought back to Nocturn’s surprise: You’re… Hydraxon!? But… Takadox killed you. I saw it. You’re dead. “You’re not the first to make this claim,” he eventually admitted to the Barraki. “But I have Hydraxon’s skills, memories, power…” he dashed forward and slammed into Pridak, landing a strong blow to his body. “…and most of all, Hydraxon’s hatred of you!”

With Hydraxon’s arms wrapped around his torso, Pridak struggled to find a way out of this hold. He tried kneeing his foe, but this duplicate’s armor was just as protective as the original’s. He finally found a small portion on the rear and elbowed that. Hydraxon flinched just enough that Pridak squeezed one of his blades between the two and slashed him away.

“Hatred?” spat Pridak. “Spend 80,000 years in a cell and then you can speak to me of hatred!”

Hydraxon flipped through the water, landing in a crouched position with a hand on the floor to steady himself. “You forget—I had to spend those 80,000 years staring at your ugly faces through the bars.” He stood tall and strong, aiming the Cordak blaster on his outstretched arm at his enemy. “Surrender. You’re going back to your prison cell… or you’re going nowhere, ever again.”

Pridak swung the old, decrepit helmet on his free blade back and forth. “But if you kill me, you’ll never know who you really are… for I am the only one who can tell you.”

Hydraxon knew he should probably just fire, or throw a knife just right to incapacitate the Barraki, but his curiosity got the better of him. Maybe if he heard the other side of the story, he would be able to puzzle together why everyone seemed to think he wasn’t the jailer of the Pit when he clearly was. He lowered his arm, but kept the weapon trained on Pridak. “Go ahead, then,” he allowed. “Spin your fable.”

Pridak thought back to just several days ago, picturing a yellow-and-black Po-Matoran with a powerless Kiril on his face… and a much more powerful mask in hand. “There was a Matoran named Dekar, who thought the Mask of Life to be too dangerous for the hands of any being and wanted to destroy it.”

The Barraki remembered Ehlek attacking Dekar, forcing him to drop the mask. “But I and my fellow Barraki found him first, and took the mask. Despite his protests, I promised the fall of the Great Spirit and organizations through the universe and stole the mask. As I did so, the mask emitted a blinding flash of light, knocking the present Barraki and Po-Matoran unconscious. Dekar came about before we did and left the cave, leaving the mask with us.”

Pridak glanced down at the destroyed helmet Mantax retrieved from the original Pit, causing Hydraxon’s eyes to fall on it as well. “His air bubble was thinning—his air supply dwindling. He fled into the ocean, and was never seen again.” Pridak’s eyes slid back up to the jailer, suspicious. “And then… you appeared.”

The Barraki waited for Hydraxon to say something, but he did not. A chuckle came from the warlord, amused at the mixture of confusion and denial he was sensing. Recalling his tale, he remembered holding the Ignika high and victorious. “So what happened? Did the Mask of Life need a protector? And with the real Hydraxon dead,” he speculated, “did the Mask of Life use Dekar to make itself a new one?”

Hydraxon hesitated. He had seen other memories intrude before, but now, hearing these events narrated by Pridak, they came back in growing intensity. He could remember everything clearly of his recent activities in the Pit, but when he pushed back before that, he saw those intrusive memories from before. Those memories were: hiding with the Mask of Life in a cave from the Barraki in a small, powerless form; defending the city from an army of Venom Eels, and receiving the mask from a Ga-Matoran sentry.

When Hydraxon reached back farther, he found himself unnerved by pairs of memories—memories dating back to when the original Hydraxon and Dekar existed at the same time. He saw himself winning countless battles at the same time as his life as a Matoran. Both felt real, and both really happened. To his defeat, Pridak had a good question: who was he, really? Should he resign from his job if he was never meant for it?

Pridak chose then to rush forward, shouting in anger and in taunt, “Is that all you are? An inferior copy!?” He attacked with both blades, now, the motion dropping the archaic helmet where it drifted downward through the water. “Are you simply a powered-up Matoran who doesn’t know his place?”

Despite Hydraxon’s internal conundrum, his practiced reflexes parried the blows out of muscle memory with his own weapons and armor. The act gave him new self-assurance and an answer as he followed in the flow of combat. Mentally launching a blade from his back, it flew forward and caught Pridak by surprise, stunning him. Hydraxon grabbed his shoulders, placed the Barraki below him, and kicked off with his feet. “I know my place, Barraki… it’s here, fighting sea trash like you.”

By the time Pridak had stopped spinning from the two-legged kick, Hydraxon caught him with another slice from his blade. “You don’t get it! It doesn’t matter who I was before. All that counts is who I am now—Hydraxon. Nothing can change that.” With that, he triggered another back blade as he fired his Cordak blaster. The rocket hit the projectile blade, causing an explosion to set off right next to Pridak. The heat and force sent him rocketing through the water until he landed hard on the ocean floor beneath them.

Hydraxon swam below and hauled the dazed Barraki to his feet by his dorsal fin. “I am not a single being; I am a character, a symbol, a legend. Hydraxon was your enemy, your jailer, and your nightmare for 80 millennia; and I am still those for every day that’s left to you.”

Hydraxon swam away, carrying the defeated warlord in hand. “And you left one thing out of your ‘fable’, Pridak…” As he swam away and spoke, the ravaged helmet of the original Hydraxon finally drifted to a rest on a strip of coral, passed by a reef raider. Hydraxon left it behind, finishing, “the happy ending.”