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Link to Story Masterlist: 【BIONICLE】Knight of Nights: Knoxus' Story (Masterlist) - Literature - The TTV Message Boards
Audio Version:
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Prologue 1
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- 40th Dimension, 61st Timeline
- Matoran Universe
- 20 years after the shattering of Spherus Magna
On a mysterious island south of Metru Nui, the horrid being known as ‘Karzahni’ is hammering away at a machine that will change his universe forever. The machine, now nearly completed, was of exquisite design. Easily Karzahni’s best work. Its purpose, however, would prove cataclysmic to the Matoran Universe when activated.
The machine was designed to detect artifacts of power from within alternate universes. After which, it would extract these artifacts by sending them through a dimensional rift back to Karzahni’s lab. With this machine, he could become the strongest being in the Matoran Universe. All that was left to do, was activate it.
A shrill voice cries out to its master, “He’s going to activate it!”
“Let him activate it. He won’t be able to handle the power anyway. It will destroy him.” A strong, commanding voice replies.
“If we don’t stop him, he’ll destroy that entire universe! You MUST stop him!”
There was a flash of light as a rift opened next to the head of the shrill-voiced servant. A shard of metal spun through it, and out through another rift. Taking the servants head off in the process.
“You mustn’t tell others what they must do.” The strange voice said in satisfaction. “You had overstayed your welcome in my realm anyway, useless thing.”
The Master summoned another rift below the servant’s limp, lifeless body, disposing it to who-knows-where. The being then turned back and looked through a rift at Karzahni’s island.
“Hmm… He’ll do.”
Karzahni stared at his creation. After a quick double-check, the machine was complete.
“Finally, absolute power, just a pull of a lever away! After I take over the Matoran Universe, I’ll trap those ungrateful Turaga here! Then we’ll see how THEY like repairing the stinking Matoran!” He walked over to the activation panel, grasped the lever, and without hesitation, pulled it.
The machine whirred to life. The central turbine started to glow with electricity, and pulses of energy started to course back and forth through coils along the sides. Sparks went flying, and the walls and floor shook. Then a beam of green energy shot from the front of the machine, stopping in midair about 10 feet from it. Space turned to liquid as the beam tunneled through the multiverse. The air around the end of the beam seemed to boil, getting more and more intense.
Then the Master intervened. A rift suddenly opened in front of Karzahni’s machine. Startled, Karzahni went to deactivate it, but the controls stopped responding. He desperately searched for a way to power down the machine as it continued to fire its beam into the mysterious rift.
“Shame isn’t it?” A voice said from behind Karzahni. He whirled around, only to see another, smaller rift, suspended in midair, staring back at him like a single, unmoving eye. “So much work, all for nothing.”
“W-Who are you?” asked Karzahni.
The rift spoke back, “I am the cause of your predicament. You tried to tread on MY territory. I don’t appreciate that. Mortals like you cannot possess such power. I just saved you, and this universe, from the destruction you were about to bring.”
“You stole my power from me! I created that rift, now give it back to me!” Karzahni yelled.
The talking rift rose above Karzahni, expanding in size. “Watch yourself. The last thing that told me what to do was decapitated.” A chain flew from the rift and wrapped around one of Karzahni’s hands. “I am the only reason you mortals even have the ability to manipulate rifts. For I am the keeper of the multiverse, and all trans-dimensional transactions go through me.”
The chain around Karzahni’s arm jerked, pulling him straight up through the talking rift. As it closed behind him, Karzahni’s machine continued to fire its beam into the Master’s rift. The other end of which was now somewhere deep in the depths of space.
Karzahni fell flat on his face after emerging from the other side of the talking rift. He opened his eyes and jumped. All he saw was void, with thousands of eyeball-like rifts opening and closing all around him. He stood on an invisible surface, and six feet away, sat a dark figure on an ornate, golden throne. Karzahni couldn’t get a good look at the figure, but he could make out the shape of a Kanohi Olmak on its head.
“Welcome to my realm. Cozy isn’t it? Having the entire multiverse at your fingertips really makes for a fine living situation.” The dark figure said slyly. “I have an opportunity for you.”
Mata Nui’s sensors suddenly went haywire. He was flying barely a light-hour from the shattered Spherus Magna, when an ill-timed anomaly had completely distracted him from his important research. A rift had suddenly opened next to him, with a strange energy beam firing out of it. At the end of the beam, another rift was slowly forming.
What could this be? Mata Nui wondered. This is most unusual.
Mata Nui attempted to scan the two rifts to find out what had caused them. The more stable rift led straight back to Karzahni’s island, but the other led to so many different locations that Mata Nui’s instruments crashed almost instantly.
Blast! I’ve never seen anything this strange before. Something like this shouldn’t be left unattended. My gravitational beams should be able to close these rifts, but one of them is unstable. It might prove to be difficult. Mata Nui thought. Quickly, he closed the stable rift, without any trouble or signs of resistance, almost as if it had wanted to be closed.
Suddenly, the unstable rift began to pulsate violently and expand at an incredible speed. Mata Nui lurched back as the rift increased in size, until it rose to roughly half his height. The Great Spirit was awestruck. Mata Nui floated there, speechless, as the boiling rift spat out a single, tiny object. Mata Nui scanned it, and after a second of delay, his heads-up-display was overloaded with energy readings and information on the tiny object. He had never seen something that small contain such valuable data.
“Incredible! The rift has retrieved an object of immense power! What an interesting find indeed!” Mata Nui exclaimed, overjoyed by his discovery. “Maybe this artifact will help me on my mission to recombine Spherus Magna!”
The rift, however, was just getting started. Another tiny artifact came out. Mata Nui scanned it and retrieved a similar result.
Then another emerged…
…and another…
…and another.
Mata Nui became suspicious. But that feeling was quickly dwarfed by what happened next. The rate at which the rift was retrieving these powerful objects was increasing exponentially. Now it was spitting out at least two of these super-powerful objects per second.
This is too much. If anyone with ill intentions found this rift, they could conquer the entire universe in a day. Mata Nui thought, fearfully. I’ll definitely have to close it, but I can’t handle all these artifacts alone. Mata Nui sent a distress signal to his most loyal followers – The Order of Mata Nui.
The island of Daxia was suddenly a buzz of activity. The construction of their new fortress was still underway, but the Order’s agents dropped everything as Mata Nui’s message was put on high priority. Helryx, Toa of Water, Leader of the Order, and first and most experienced Toa ever created, knew this was a mission of dire consequence, so she called upon the assistance of her Toa team:
Nomi, Toa of Peace. A recently transformed Toa with mysterious barrier manipulation abilities.
Regron, Toa of Gravity. The Ex-General of the Hand of Artakha.
Shelok, Toa of Iron. A masterful swordsman.
Khafu, Toa of Stone. An extremely powerful, yet precise warrior.
Glace, Toa of Ice. An intelligent tactical mastermind.
Ayhax, Toa of Air. An expert at stealthy and speedy recognizance.
The team gathered their weapons and equipment and boarded several airships. The airships took off and flew through a portal that teleported them out of Mata Nui’s giant robotic body. The seven Toa were shocked by what they saw next.
Mata Nui was firing his gravitational beams into a massive rift that was spewing small clouds from its opening. The clouds, however, were not mere space dust. They were made up of super-powerful objects. Mata Nui had a horrified expression on his face, for no matter how hard he tried, the rift was not only not closing, but growing.
“Gather up all these objects! Quickly! Before they spill out into space!” Mata Nui shouted desperately to the Toa team. “The rift is unstable, if I take my attention off it for a second it’ll expand exponentially!” Helryx nodded and turned to her team.
“Nomi, do you remember your training?” Helryx asked earnestly.
“I do, why do you ask?” Nomi replied.
“I need you to make a barrier around the rift and Mata Nui.”
Nomi recoiled at the sound of the order. She had barely used her powers before this, and something of that caliber sounded impossible. “I can’t make one that big! It’s impossible!”
Helryx reassured her. “It’s possible, I know it is. You just need to focus, and trust in your own power.” Helryx turned to the rest of her team. “We are all going to help gather the artifacts and protect Nomi. She needs to concentrate on keeping the barrier up. Ayhax, Regron, and Shelok will do the brunt of the gathering. I, Khafu, and Glace will pilot the speeders around and transport the objects up to the airships. Is that a plan?”
Everyone nodded, and immediately set to work. Khafu, Helryx, and Glace all regrouped at the airships and deployed speeders with vacuum hoppers trailing behind them to gather the artifacts. Regron and Shelok immediately started using their elemental powers to gather up heaps of artifacts at once, and Ayhax flew around at supersonic speed gathering them by hand.
Nomi took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stretched her arms out in front of her. The area around her illuminated, and a glowing barrier orb formed in her hands. She concentrated hard, and it slowly grew to her height.
Her muscles tensed up, and she cast her arms forward, flinging the orb right into the center of the action. With intense effort, she whipped her arms back to either side again, causing the orb to rapidly expand around the rift, Mata Nui, the Toa, and the artifacts. Her eyes began glowing blindingly white as she strengthened the walls of the orb, stopping any artifacts from escaping into space.
Helryx urged her team to work quickly, as there was no telling how long Nomi could keep the shield up. At first, the gathering was easy. The speeders rode fast and true, scooping up hundreds of artifacts before needing to be emptied out into the airships. This continued for several minutes before the Toa realized, no matter how many loads of artifacts they collected, the amount floating around them never decreased. If anything, it was increasing. Helryx paused to look around. The rift was dumping thousands of artifacts now and was beginning to pulsate even more violently.
Suddenly, a laser blast flew by Helryx, followed up by several more aimed at her fellow Toa.
“Whoa!” Regron shouted from a distance “Where’s all this hostility coming from?” Helryx’s eye caught a large, oddly shaped object lurking in the distance. It was hard to see against the darkness of space, but it appeared to be moving on its own. A bolt of energy was launched out of the strange thing, which struck Helryx square in the chest before she could react. Shelok and Ayhax noticed, racing over to her side. Helryx was dazed. She felt a splitting pain in her head, like a chunk of it had just been ripped out, though Shelok assured her she looked fine. Helryx slowly rose to her feet, pointing Shelok and Ayhax toward the source of the blast.
“Stay away Toa! The mask is mine! It remains bonded to me, as I am to old Fenrakk here!” The crazed being shouted, “Where am I anyway? What did you do to me?”
“We have no idea what you’re talking about, strange one. All we know is you attacked our leader, and that’s unacceptable.” Shelok said nobly, “Prepare to die.”
“We’ll see about that Toa! I, the mighty Vezon, will not be defeated so easily!” Vezon lunged toward Shelok. With that, the fight began. Vezon struggled to keep up with the skill of Shelok’s swordsmanship, only narrowly managing to hold his own with Fenrakk at his side. Ayhax jumped in, soon getting the idea to use several of the nearby artifacts against the insane Skakdi. However, the fight turned to the worse when Fenrakk knocked Ayhax back at the same time Vezon used his so-called ‘Spear of Separation’ to disarm Shelok and corner him. Ayhax turned around, looking for anything Shelok could use to parry Vezon’s finishing blow. She found her answer. A spiky, pitch-black blade floating nearby.
“Shelok, here!” Ayhax shouted as she lobbed the sword to her Toa brother. Shelok caught it, and brought the blade close to his chest, blocking Vezon’s attack. He twisted the blade, knocking Vezon’s spear to the side, followed up with one heavy swing aimed directly at Fenrakk. The giant spider was cleaved in two as a flaming red mist poured from the blade. Vezon screeched in pain as his pet was severed from his body. Shelok immediately silenced his foe with the powerful artifact, separating his head from his shoulders with one clean swipe. Shelok and Ayhax paused, staring in awe at the swords’ power. They collected the Spear of Separation and Vezon’s head, which was still fused to the Mask he cared so much about, and then turned their attention back toward their fellow Toa. They noticed their friends were also locked in combat with similar beings, and immediately rushed to their aid.
Suddenly, there were enemies everywhere. The rift was not only spitting out artifacts, but various powerful beings as well which the Toa were now desperately trying to fend off. Khafu had retreated to where Nomi was floating, defending her all by himself. He was punching back unusual Rahi beasts when an artifact whizzed by him, narrowly missing his head. The clouds of artifacts floating through space were beginning to act strange, flying in unusual patterns at various speeds. The rift was looking strange as well. The Toa were so busy holding off waves of enemies that they had not noticed that the rift was still growing.
The edge of the enormous rift was getting dangerously close to intersecting with the walls of Nomi’s barrier. Someone needed to warn her, but the Toa didn’t dare take their attention off the enemies. At this point, however, the artifacts were flying so fast that they were doing more damage to the enemies than the Toa were. They took cover, as storms of artifacts tore the area to pieces. Then a low rumble emitted from the rift as the speed at which it was widening increased, finally intersecting with the edges of the barrier. Nomi screamed as the barrier was split through billions of universes. She passed out from the shock, and the barrier fell. All the Toa immediately rushed over to her. They shook her, desperately trying to wake her up. The artifacts were moving so fast now, that there would be no stopping them if any flew out into space.
Then came the moment that would change the entire universe forever. A gigantic, glowing sphere slowly began emerging from the rift, which had now grown much taller than Mata Nui. Mata Nui instinctively scanned the object, and quickly realized that it was not an artifact. It was a planet that was torn from the multiverse itself.
The data gathered from the planet showed it was nearly identical in both size and shape to Spherus Magna, although it did not resemble it in appearance. The artifact clouds were now reacting to the sudden change in magnetic fields created by the new planet. They bent back towards it and began falling through its atmosphere like a meteor shower.
Nomi suddenly lurched back upwards and resumed her original position. Something about her was different, however. She didn’t say anything or make a single sound to acknowledge the other Toa, and her entire body was glowing blindingly white. She instantly brought the barrier back up, much larger, and stronger than it originally was. Hesitantly, Helryx and her team tried talking to her, but an intense heat was starting to emanate from her, and she was not responding.
“I think she’s going nova!” Glace shouted. There was nothing the Toa could do but retreat and continue trying to collect the artifacts.
At this point, the massive planet was almost completely through. Mata Nui could tell that the rift was releasing a huge amount of energy to push its payload, and if it was weak enough after the planet moved through, he may be able to close it. Suddenly, a flare of energy erupted from the rift, finally propelling the glowing planet out of its original universe. It was exactly what Mata Nui needed. He focused his gravity beams on the edges of the now weakened rift, and with one final push, he was able to reverse its gravitational flow. The rift folded in on itself, sucking a significant portion of the artifacts back in, until finally crumpling into nothing. They had succeeded.
The Toa gathered the remainder of the artifacts as fast as they could, using the speeders, and Shelok and Regron’s combined elemental powers. After a while, their task was completed, and the Toa returned to Nomi to tell her that she could bring the barrier down. But when they got there, only a small, glowing orb remained where Nomi had been floating. Helryx approached the orb gingerly.
“Nomi… is that you?” Helryx whispered. The second she stopped talking, the massive barrier surrounding them all collapsed. The little orb floated there for a few seconds, then fizzled out and disappeared. Nomi was gone.
The Toa spent some time mourning their fallen sister. All of them besides Helryx had barely known her, and the small amount of time they had working together was all they had to remember her by. Helryx felt the worst. It was her command that caused Nomi to die. But without her, the mission would likely have been a complete failure, so those few frustrating months of training Helryx put Nomi through hadn’t been for nothing.
The Toa returned to the airships, setting course for the new planet. They took inventory of the artifacts they obtained along the way. When they landed on the surface, they were approached by a terrified looking crowd. It was there they discovered the planet’s name - Luna Magna. The local population had a monarchy, the King of which, a Toa of Air named Gringat, was not happy.
They tried to explain what happened. The rift had apparently stolen their kingdom’s legendary artifact, a Moondial called the Luna Dial. Helryx checked the inventory of the airships and found an artifact matching the Luna Dial’s description. She proudly retrieved the Luna Dial, and showed it to Gringat. His reaction proved that this was the right artifact. Angrily, he swiped it from Helryx’s hands, and began to storm away, but then stopped and looked back.
He pointed at the Toa and shouted, “All of you are never to return here again! Both you, and your so-called Great Spirit! From here on out, the planet Luna Magna is closed off to any outsiders!” With that, he turned back around and disappeared into the crowd.
Helryx and her team obeyed the King’s demands and returned to the airships. Ayhax was waiting there for Helryx, cradling something in her arms.
“I found this little one slithering through a pile of artifacts, she must’ve been scooped up by one of the speeders during those last moments of artifact gathering.” In her arms she held a small, armored, snakelike creature. It looked up at Helryx and purred. The frail little thing had been through all that chaos and survived, and for some reason, Helryx felt a strange connection to the creature. She looked back up to Ayhax.
“I’ll take care of her. After losing Nomi, I can’t leave the poor thing out here to fend for itself. It would never survive on its own.”
“That would be nice.” Ayhax responded, handing the creature to Helryx. “If we Toa cannot respect all living things, who can we expect to respect us?”
The two Toa entered an airship, which flew back out into space. Once they reentered the Matoran Universe, the Toa were tasked with hiding a small percentage of the collected artifacts around the islands of the Matoran Universe, in order to keep the balance of power in check. As the Order’s Headquarters were still under construction, they resorted to storing the remaining artifacts in a heavily guarded underground bunker at the now-defunct Hand of Artakha’s headquarters. Finally, the six Toa went to get some rest. They had a lot of work ahead of them.
Mata Nui was hesitant to leave Luna Magna. He had already learned a lot from just a few hours analyzing the planet and its population. The Matoran on Luna Magna shared many familiarities with the Matoran inside Mata Nui, except there were a few anomalies. Each Matoran on Luna Magna had traces of an unknown light energy locked within them, and the same energy was present all throughout the planet itself.
As well as that, data regarding the distribution of the population’s elemental powers was also different. Stone, Ice, and Iron were the most common elemental abilities on Luna Magna, and all other elements occurred only rarely. All of this was extremely fascinating to Mata Nui, but he could not remain long. The Luna Magnans were already annoyed at his presence enough.
Reluctantly, Mata Nui began to fly away from the planet. As he did, however, he noticed a blip on his scanners. Not too long ago, they had picked up traces of a single Makuta on the surface of Luna Magna. Realizing this was unusual, Mata Nui risked a few more seconds to take a closer look. and was shocked. There was indeed a Makuta on Luna Magna, and it was attacking two Matoran on the surface, while a Toa of Ice was desperately trying to defend them.
The Great Spirit didn’t know where the Makuta came from, but he assumed that it must’ve escaped from his body. Mata Nui had originally created the Makuta species, and he would not stand by while a rogue one invaded Luna Magna. He reached down to the two Matoran, and gently lifted them away from the fight with a gravity beam. After the Matoran were safe, the Makuta vanished.
Mata Nui spoke to the two Matoran, “Don’t worry little ones, you’re safe now.” Contemplating his next actions very carefully, he realized this could very well be the last chance he had to continue his study of Luna Magna. The data gathered from this new planet was the most valuable he had retrieved in decades, and he held two of its citizens in the palm of his hand. Mata Nui realized what he was thinking, looking to the two Matoran solemnly. They could very well be his best hope of discovering how to recombine Spherus Magna in the future.
Reluctantly, Mata Nui took the two Matoran, and placed them in pods which recorded and wiped their memories. New memories were then artificially created for the two Matoran, their armor colors were changed, and they were placed amongst similar Matoran within the Matoran universe. The first Matoran, a Matoran of Iron, was placed with a small band of renegade Fe-Matoran on the island of Stelt, and the other, a Matoran of Ice, was placed in Ko-Metru. These Matoran’s names were Knoxus and Matoro.
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End of Prologue 1
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Link to Story Masterlist: 【BIONICLE】Knight of Nights: Knoxus' Story (Masterlist) - Literature - The TTV Message Boards
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