Mazeka: Interlude Five

Four years ago…

“I am justice, monster!” Mazeka snarled, twirling his dagger above his opponent’s head. “You have ended the lives of my brothers in arms. Now you will finally get what’s coming to you.”

“Wait!” Krakua shouted, flinging himself between them. “Don’t do this, Mazeka!”

“He’s just another soldier in the Brotherhood’s army!” Mazeka snapped at him. “He’s no better now than any other Visorak or Exo-Toa!”

“What’s your name, Matoran?” Krakua demanded.

“V-Vican,” the Shadow Matoran stammered out.

“See?” Krakua snapped at Mazeka. “He has a name! An identity! And you would see that ended!”

“An identity tainted by evil,” Mazeka insisted. “The Makuta have revealed that he’s no better than Vultraz.”

“Don’t make me fight you, Mazeka,” Krakua growled. “We may be brothers in arms, but I will not let you kill this Matoran.”

The two Matoran faced each other, each unwilling to back down. The muted crashing of the nearby waterfalls were the only sound that pierced the night.

Then Mazeka moved so close to Krakua their masks were almost touching. As he did, Krakua observed his eyes glistening with tears.

“My mentor thought like you,” Mazeka said. “So did thousands of Matoran who became Toa and left their villages. They’re all dead now.”

Furious, Mazeka stormed off. Krakua took one glance at the terrified Vican and sighed.

“Do not move,” he said, retrieving some rope from a storeroom. “I do not know how to save you, but at least I can delay you. And by Mata Nui, you had better not forget.”

✴        ✴        ✴

By the time a chilly Mazeka returned to the suva, Krakua had dragged Vican off. What fate had awaited the Shadow Matoran, the Ko-Matoran could not know, but he didn’t particularly care to know either. Vican would continue to take lives. When he did, Mazeka would know who to blame.

The moonlight was the only illumination piercing the darkness, hidden behind the transparent waterfall wall as if it were encased in glass. Mazeka stepped into the moonbeams and gazed frostily at Krakua.

“The consequences of Vican’s survival will fall on your head, Krakua. Not mine.”

Krakua said nothing.

“I do not agree with what you have done,” Mazeka continued. “Killing is necessary. There is a reason why the Toa are extinct. If we have any hope of defeating the evil in this world, we cannot make the same mistakes they did. Even Toa Helryx has come to see this. And next time I have an opportunity to cut down evil in its tracks, I will.”

The yellow eyes of the De-Matoran simply stared quietly back at Mazeka through the moonlight.

In the distance a Rock Lion roared.

The grass rustled as a wind swept through the plains.

At great length, Mazeka exhaled, and reluctantly produced the Toa Stone that he had retrieved from the dirt outside the suva.

“But… the day Jerbraz and I first found you, he said that you were destined to become a Toa. And it seems you hold to the same ludicrous code as the rest of them. I think this is meant to be yours.”

Krakua took the Toa Stone and turned it over in his hands.

Glancing at the suva, he walked over.

He slipped the Toa Stone into the slot, then mounted the suva. As the altar released the energies of the stone, Krakua was illuminated and bathed in a column of light. A harmonious hum filled the chamber, and Krakua’s very body grew taller, stronger, and more powerful. Sleek, streamlined natural armor grew, and as Mazeka looked on, he was reminded of the ancient armor worn by Helryx and the Toa of yore. By the time it was finished, the new Toa of Sonics flung out his arms, and the entire fort resounded with a boom.

“Good,” Mazeka nodded. “Just don’t rename yourself ‘Krakatoa’ or something silly like that.”

Krakua observed his armor. “De-Koro has never permitted Toa entry,” he said, stepping down from the altar and picking the stone out of its slot. “And the only Toa that I’ve come to know since leaving the village has been Helryx. Perhaps this stone has reformed me after her.”

“Would explain your archaic armor,” Mazeka gestured.

“I am as a Toa of the past…” Krakua said, glancing at his reflection in a puddle of water. “Yet a Toa that could not come to be if the past Toa had not made the sacrifices they did… I like it.”

The new Toa began making his way back to the Swamp Strider, but the Ko-Matoran shook his head as he watched him recede.

“You will die a hero’s death,” Mazeka murmured, with a pang in his chest, “and I will be powerless to save you.”