This MOC has an interesting personal story. Many years ago, I had a dream, not “The Dream” (like you’re in a Bionicle filled store or given a Bionicle on your birthday), but rather a dream that felt like a fragment of a CGI movie. In that movie, we’re located in a small house, about the size and shape of a typical matoran home, but carved inside the wall of a canyon in the desert of Bara Magna, barely lightened by a single candle. Inside the house, there is a character sitting in a chair. He has pitch black armor, a Vortixx-like head, a hair made of chains that ressembled dreadlocks and a hat similar to that of Rattlesnake-Jake. He was a killer, hunting someone that wasn’t specified in the dream, but he also was a stranger in the village, but one everyone was afraid of. In the scene of the dream, Kiina (in the dream I knew it was her, though the only things that really looked like her now that I remember were some light blue parts in her armor and the face) entered the house. She is visibly nervous and frightened, which being an experienced glatorian fighter means a lot, and is gently questioned by the stranger about the guy he’s after. I can’t recall any single word they said, but I remember his voice, it was rough and low, like Rogue One’s Saw Gerrera, and it felt like each word that came from his mouth was like a cold dagger.
So, it was only a few days ago in a post of Bionicle Maskposting that someone talked about a Bionicle dream that felt like a fragment of a movie. That immediately reminded me of that dream I had so long ago. Now that I have Studio 2.0, I decided to build him, a character inspired in the hunter of my dream, and give him an interesting backstory, and I think I have. Meet Gahrro, the gunner.
Backstory:
Gahrro is a male Vortixx. He was skinny and slighly hunchbacked, and so he was dismissed even among other male Vortixx. However, once the Mountain trail was announced, he became the first and one of the very few males that not only managed to survive the Mountain trial, but also returned alone, because he made up for his physical weakness with speed and cold-bloodedness.
As a reward, he got a fitting job in Xia’s weapon industry, to test the firearms with living things, sometimes Rahi, sometimes Matoran, sometimes other Vortixx. He didn’t love to kill, to him live was meaningless, what he loved was the guns themselves, to practice his aim and speed on living things until he became a gun master. When The Shadowed One first came to Xia, looking for new recruits to his recently formed Dark Hunters association, Gahrro felt instantly interested. He was getting bored of being given easy targets and joined the Dark Hunters looking for a challenge. Once a member, he abandoned his name and took the nickname “Gunner”.
Shortly after arriving Odina, Gunner became the most demanded Dark Hunter, and the second most feared from the island, only after The Shadowed One himself, due to his firearm skills that touched perfection. He specialized on silent and fast murder of the enemies of his clients.
The mission that made him a legend took place in a small island located in the far east of the universe, 10 000 years ago. There, a tyrannical ruler lead a highly productive business creating and shipping narcotics. As a security measure, all firearms and kanohi were banned from the island. That didn’t prevent the emergence of a resistance of highly trained rebels that in the absence of kanohi and firearms developed acrobatic martial arts and sharp metallic weapons such as swords and daggers. The tyrant’s intelligence told him that a coordinated attack from the resistance was inminent and that his guards, deprived from kanohi and firearms as well due to his paranoia, were not enough to stop them. So, he personally traveled to Odina and begged for the services of the Dark Hunters to murder all the member of the resistance, and there was only one creature in the island that could take the job.
Gunner took his hideaway near the tyrant’s room in his palace, where as a spider waiting for prey to fall in his web, hid in the darkness to terminate the members of the resistance with his sniper one by one. And so he did, except for one. When everything seemed to be calm, a knife passed millimeters from his head, cutting one of his dreadlocks. He jumped frontwards outside of his no longer hidden hiding place, looking for the origin of the knife. Whit his hawk eyes, he saw a tiny movement coming from the darkness, with lightning speed took one of his revolvers and shot. The target was forced to reveal itself. She was wearing teal armor and a skirt associated with the dancers of the island. Decided to terminate her once and for all, he shot his revolver once more only to find out astonished that she blocked the bullet with a knife thrown at the exact moment. After a short pause of wonder, the ballerina took an acrobatic jump sideways and threw another knife, that Gunner destroyed with his revolver a few feet from his face. And so, each time he shot, she blocked; each time she threw a knife, he destroyed it. Gunner was having the best time of his life. Then the ballerina ran out of knifes and Gunner, with some bullets left in his revolver, had her right in front on him, with the barrel pointing at her hopeless face. But he didn’t shot, not because he felt compassion, that word didn’t exist in his vocabulary. He saved his revolver on his left leg and stood where he was, leaving her a free passage to the ruler’s room. He only asked her name. “How do they call you, girl”. “Lariska”, answered the rebel, looking askance at Gunner while she walked inside the room to take the tyrant’s life. Before she opened the door, he said “I let you live with one condition, you come with me”, as the words came out of his mouth, he threw his revolver to Lariska, which she caught in mid-air. “Thanks” she replied, and shortly after, an explosion sound came from the room, followed by the sound of a fat body falling to the floor.
Gunner returned to Odina accompanied by Lariska. Of course, news of the ruler’s demise had already come to The Shadowed One’s ears, and he was prepared to punish Gunner for his failure. Despite being the best Dark Hunter and his personal favorite, The Shadowed One had lost the juicy payment that awaited him, and even worst, he came back with a female from the island, Gunner had never care for personal rewords, ever. When Gunner apeared in front of his throne, The Shadowed One reproached him for his stupidity and menaced him with death. Gunner didn’t show a single emotion in his snake-like face. “You don’t fear death, do you?”, asked TSO. No response. “Does this female matter to you? Well then, Eliminator, rip her apart in his face”. The giant black and purple Dark Hunter with the name Eliminator approached Lariska, but in his first step she rapidly threw a knife and cut one of the four disk launchers on his back. Then Gunner looked at The Shadowed One, took a bag filled with golden widgets from his back and dropped it in front of him. “My boat is filled with these, but it ain’t a fraction of what Lariska can offer you”.
However, Gunner’s daring turned out costing The Shadowed One a great problem. If a Dark Hunter was willing to let his client die, then the organization loses credibility. Some time after, Gunner let a Toa team alive to arrest a client, because he felt like the Toa were worthy oponents to face in the future. This finally exhausted the Shadowed One’s patience, who sentenced him to death, and, to punish him even more, declared Lariska as the executioner, to test her allegiance. But, before she could say anything, Gunner proposed a deal with The Shadowed One: “We’ll make it a Fast Draw Duel. If I win, I leave the Dark Hunters”. “So be it”, said the Shadowed One reluctantly.
Gunner and Lariska stood one in front of the other. No one said a word, Lariska’s eyes showed sorrow, Gunner’s showed relieve. If Lariska won, she would be killing a friend, if she lost, she would be killed by that same friend. The way Gunner saw it, it didn’t matter who won, whe would be free of The Shadowed One’s claws one way or the other. They turned around, walked ten steps apart from each other, their deft hands on each weapon, ready to draw. All the Dark Hunters were expectating, the two greatest facing in a death match, knife versus gun. Then it happened. They drew so fast no one could see it. The sound of an explosion broke the silence, and then, Gunner’s body fell to the floor. Lariska felt the wind of the bullet passing millimeters from his head, cutting one of her braids. She knew it then, Gunner didn’t miss the shot, he aimed perfectly. Lariska’s knife was embedded in his neck. The Shadowed One placed Gunner’s body in a Stasis tube to be kept as a trophy, and Lariska took his place as the second most feared creature in Odina.
Present:
Varian awakened after 7000 years of slumber as the stasis field that kept her asleep was broken. She appeared in the ruins of what once was the industrial island of Xia, but the remanents of the building she was in reminded her a lot about the Shadowed One’s lair. Using her power of psychometry, she could rebuild the story of the place by touching it. She saw up to the battle between the Kanohi Dragon and the Tahtorak and the arrival of the Dark Hunters. She saw the lethal weapon The Shadowed One had found inside, how he killed his partner Ancient and the meeting with the Barraki, and Voporak giving him a powerful mask that could distort time. Shortly after she felt the takeover of Teridax. She couldn’t believe it, when she was alive the Brotherhood of Makuta was a honorable organization. And then all feelings disappeared, as if the floor she was touching had died, together with the whole universe. Varian took her hand out of the floor, she wondered if Norik was still alive, or any of the Matoran she knew and loved. She walked though the ruins of the Shadowed One’s new lair, clumsily as she had not used her legs in thousands of years. She found many stasis tubes just like the one she was inside. Most were broken and their prisoners gone, way before her. One of the stasis tubes was intact, and inside was a male Vortixx with black armor and a deep wound in his neck that had been healed after thousands of years in stasis. He was alive, Varian could tell thanks to her telepathic habilities, and his name was Gahrro. She saw his memories and was terrified of all the things he did, but touched by the way he died, apparently. Using her telekynesis, she broke the tube to free the prisoner, with her canohi Calix activated in case he attacked. He didn’t. Gahrro fell to the ground and saw a Toa of Psionics standing next to him. Varian entered his mind and informed him of everything she had just found out. She helped him standing up, and then they looked each other’s eyes. They both wanted revenge on The Shadowed One, and they knew he was planning something big. With the virus, the mask of time and the Barraki’s assistance, he could become unstoppable.
Varian and Gahrro walked to the shores of Xia, to see if they could find a ship to escape. The whole island was empty. The living mountain was dead. Gahrro never really felt anything for his polluted and sexist home, but it certainly was disheartening. What if they were the only living things in the universe? No ships or boats were intact, the tsunamis caused by the GSR fall destroyed every single one of them. Some days after, or what felt like days because the sky always looked dark and metallic grey, a light of hope appeared in the calm sea. It was a ship. “Is anyone alive!!” shouted a Toa. Varian recognized his voice instanctly, it was Norik. “Norik, it’s me!!!” shouted Varian, jumping and waving her hands. The ship approached the shore, with each meter, Varian could feel increasingly with her empathy the confusion and hope in Norik’s mind, and when they were close enough to see each other, full joy. The ship landed and Varian used her Calix to jump in the boat and give the Toa of Fire a powerful hug. Gahrro climbed using the ladder and saw many other beings inside the ship, Matoran, other Toa, Skakdi, Steltians and so on, most of them wounded. “There’s so much I have to tell you. Don’t read my mind, I want to tell you myself” said Norik to Varian as the ship was preparing to set sail and turn around to look for other survivors. “There’s no time for storytelling, red guy”, said Gahrro, his voice now like a hoarse wisper due to his wound. “Hunting has begun”.
