Ok, this has nothing to do with bionicle, so turn away now if you’re uninterested. This story is something I’ve been meaning to work on for a while, and have finally got around to doing. That being said, here’s the intro to my magnum opus, Tetraverse. I hope you enjoy! (Also I copy pasted it into here, so if someone finds some language that isn’t appropriate for the message boards, pm me and I’ll fix it right up!)
Tetra found himself surrounded by the smoldering remains of his old home, kneeling over the charred corpse of his uncle. His one remaining arm desperately trying to pull him out of the rubble, the other bleeding profusely, soaking the icy ground below him. The limb had been blown off by the explosion that had caused all this destruction. The explosion that the burning demon had created. He had quickly disappeared after witnessing the bodies of Tetra and his uncle Raleigh sent flying into a layer of once fluffy snow that surrounded their little cottage in the woods. His uncle had raised him there, abandoning his obsession with treasure hunting to raise his brother’s now orphaned son.
Life had been simple, tech free and happy. Until the man came into their home this dreadful night. He had seemed like a normal burglar, (or what Tetra had assumed a burglar looked like) until Raleigh charged him with an antique broadsword, and knocked off the man’s pitch black cloak. What was under that hood was not a normal burglar, the left half of his face bearing eyes with slit, red pupils. An odd marbled orange and white stone was seemingly implanted under the being’s eye, as though it was stuck into the skin. Besides the razor sharp teeth, illuminated by the moons light, there wasn’t too much wrong with that side of his face. The left side however, was composed entirely of ice, with three wide gashes in the ice where his eye should have been. His teeth were triangular and thick, each one interlocking with the one next to it, like a zipper of fangs. Where hair would normally be found, flames shot forth, blue on the frozen side, and red on the other. A pair of curved horns emerging from his forehead and his pointed elf-like ears drove home the fact this thing wasn’t human, more demonic than anything. The light wasn’t strong enough for Tetra to see anything but its face, but somehow, he didn’t really want to see anything else.
Raleigh’s assault continued, hacking and slashing at the intruder, his expert moves easily dodged by the other, until the demon was driven into a corner of the cottage. Seeing his chance, Raleigh thrust the blade at his opponent, aiming straight for where a normal human’s heart would be. But instead of bothering to dodge the strike, the intruder simply reached his hand out, his palm facing the oncoming sword and… melted it. The weapon was reduced to nothing but a puddle of molten metal as soon as it came near the white hot palm. Shocked and confused, Raleigh stumbled away from the intruder, who was now emanating so much heat, the stone tile it was standing on began to char. The wooden walls of the home ignited as well, trapping the three inside of a box of raging flames. Unbothered by this, the intruder walked towards Raleigh’s fallen form and leaned over him, chuckling. Still laughing, the demon spoke for the first time.
“Tell Eagle I said hello”, its voice as harsh as the dancing flames around it. Raleigh scrambled backwards, as a ball of pure energy formed in the same palm that had melted the blade. Turning towards his nephew, who was peaking over the table he was using as refuge, Raleigh tried to speak. The sweltering heat caught his voice in his throat, but the look in his eyes told Tetra all he needed to know. The last thing the boy wanted to do.
“Run!” Raleigh finally rasped, still trying to escape the demon. Just as Tetra got to his feet and began dashing out of the flaming home into the cold outside, all hell broke loose. He felt the shockwave first, followed by an earsplitting boom, and finally the wave of fire. As Tetra was thrown off his feet, time seemed to slow down. He could see his left arm begin to detach from the shoulder, his uncle being reduced to a charred husk, the thing he called home now nothing but splinters, and the thing that had caused this grinning like the madman he was. Suddenly, time resumed at normal speed, and Tetra was a crippled ball of nine year old in the snow.
Before you say anything, I’m working on a segment that shows Tetra and Raleigh’s relationship, and am trying to find a place to add in the explanation for how Tetra lasted for as long as he did, with his arm blown off (it’s sorta the main plot point of the story)