Equestrian North Shore: Evening Star Cove.
It was just another day out on the surf for Sunny Shores. Out on her boat kelp fishing, which was done basically by lowering a giant salad fork into the water and paddling around. It was easy, slow going work that let her mostly just sit back and relax, every now and again she would meet a sea pony who had decided to come up for a chat.
Normally the water was beautiful, clear enough to see the bottom, but today the waters ran black; this was usually the product of some far off storm so she didn't really pay much attention to the small dampener on her spirits until something made the boat heave.
"Ug, stuck on a rock again?" She pulled on the rope and immediately knew something was wrong, it was much lighter than before. She pulled it up, something had cut clean through the line, leaving a jagged tangle of rope that reminded her briefly of roots. The black water churned around her and a massive tentacled form erupted from beneath the boat, sending it skipping several feet. "Holy horseapples!"
The boat rocked for a few more moments before stabilizing enough for her to look over the edge, watching for the massive squid that had tossed her boat. There was a splash from behind her and something landed in the boat with a thud. Sunny whirled around, oar at the ready. It was a yellow sea pony, badly injured, blood gushed from a gaping wound in its side and it wheezed pitifully, which didn't normally happen because sea ponies can breath underwater and above it.
"Please... you must help us... They are coming!" It pleaded, gasping for breath.
"What? Who's coming?" Sunny asked, looking around as the water started to churn again.
"They came from the blackness." Tentacles sprung from the water all around them, Sunny started paddling as hard as she could, hoping to outrace the creature below them. Luckily they were close to an outcropping, so Sunny hefted the unconscious sea creature onto her back and jumped. As her hooves left the wood a great beaked maw came up beneath them, splintering the boat. The creature let out a shrieking cry of frustration at having been denied its prey and sunk back underneath the black water.
"Well that was close, wasn't it?" Sunny said picking herself up off the rock. She turned to the yellow creature, it had stopped breathing, the squid may not have been able to eat its prey but it had still killed.
"You must help us." "They came from the blackness." The sea pony's pleas rang through her mind. Whatever it had been talking about was a lot scarier than a rogue squid, sea ponies had to deal with that sort of stuff all the time.
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Deep beneath the water, the master of the kraken snapped its tentacle like a whip. Missed that one. It sulked inwardly. Oh well, there are bigger, easier targets out there Kalmah. You just have to wait.
One day later
Canterlot Castle
"Hey! You can't go in there!" Celestia jerked her head up from her dozing as she heard shouting from beyond the door. She groaned inwardly, lighting her horn to open the door.
"You may enter." She said calmly. The guards looked back, stonefaced, before parting swiftly, leaving the mare they had been restraining to fall on her face. She was wearing a large sack on her back, had a yellow coat and a sea-foam green mane. Celestia rolled her eyes.
The mare forced herself back up.
"Hah!" She laughed at them.
"Ahem." Celestia coughed politely, causing the mare to shrink considerably and whip around before kneeling.
"My apologies your highness." The mare grovelled slightly.
"Don't go getting all formal on me now, you've already barged in." Celestia sighed, the mare got up and shrugged.
"My name is Sunny Days, and I have come in contact with the sea ponies." Celestia openly groaned and facehooved, she thought this myth had burned itself out. "I know what you're thinking but i have the body." Sunny spoke confidently, Celestia peeked around her hoof, almost eager to see how bad this forgery would be so she could laugh. But as Sunny emptied the sack Celestia gasped, if this was a forgery it the best she had ever seen. Celestia simply stared at it for a second before probing it with her magic, mystic energies pooling in the air around it for a moment. This was no fake.
"You have my attention."
Sunny related her story quickly, stressing the fact that, at least from what she had learned about their society. Sea ponies were too proud and stubborn to want anything to do with surface government much less plead for help.
"Whatever they're dealing with is serious. I figured you'd want to hear about it." Sunny finished talking, leaving Celestia to scratch her chin. Black water, why does that sound familiar?
"I'll see what I can do." Celestia turned to face the windows behind her throne. "Sunny, your part in this is over, go home and do not concern yourself any further. I have some research to do." Sunny bowed and left the room, stopping to stick her tongue out at the guards.
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Two days earlier
The Pit: Aqua Magna
"I can't believe I didn't see Takadox's treachery earlier!" Pridak was raging against anything he could get his bladed arms on. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Everyone else in the cave was looking at Mantax, waiting for him to start gloating. If any of them had been proven right on something this big, they would have held it over the others heads for as long as reasonably possible, and then a little longer. It had been almost three days and Mantax hadn't said a word to any of them, opting instead to glare at the now re-imprisoned Takadox all hours of the day. His continued resistance to said captive's hypnotic abilities had become the source of more than one angry outburst from Takadox.
Kalmah turned to their enraged leader, who had been as such since the Toa had escaped. And brought his un-mutated hand to the point between his three eyes, groaning softly. True, there wasn't much they could do without the mask of life but this was getting ridiculous and he had no plans to fall into the same monotony he had after escaping his cell. Kalmah resolved to patrol the darker waters while he took his frustration out between his eyes. He stepped to the mouth of the cave.
"And where do you think you're going?" Pridak shouted after him, stomping hard in emphasis.
"The black water." Kalmah said calmly, not stopping, he kicked off the ground and proceeded to glide through the water.
"Get back here! I wasn't done!" Pridak yelled.
"To be fair," Ehlek decided to speak up, "you haven't been done for two days, I'm going with him." Kalmah inwardly groaned, he preferred to patrol alone. Mantax finally looked up from Takadox and grabbed Carapar by the shoulder, forcing him out the mouth of the cave and joining Ehlek.
"Hey!" Takadox yelled after Mantax. "I need my brute to get out of here." He shook the bars of his cage. Pridak glared back at him for a moment before breaking into a malevolent grin. "I need a punching bag." He yanked the cage open and grabbed its occupant.
"On second thought, I don't need to get out. Just put me d-grah!" Takadox tried to put his hypnotic power into the statement but Pridak bit down on the side of his head before he could finish and proceeded to beat him like a dusty rug.
Mantax looked back, seeming to suppress a chuckle, but one could never tell with him. The group had to travel rather slowly to allow Mantax and Carapar to follow. Kalmah was still groaning on the inside, he had wanted to go in order to clear his head with solitude. Oh well, at least the two chattiest members had been left behind. Since the matoran had left, Ehlek found himself aimless as his goal and obsession for quite a while had been to destroy their city. Now that they were gone he had to reinvent himself. He had latched onto the others one at a time to figure out how they saw him. Mantax had been surprisingly open now that he had weeded out the traitor, he still barely talked but responded when addressed and seemed to have complete files on each of his "allies" personalities so he was rather useful.
They went deeper and deeper into the blackness, they had spent over a thousand years wandering around down here so they were more than comfortable with the darkness. In fact, Mantax in particular had mastered the art of navigating in low to no light conditions.
"That's odd." Mantax stated, his rarely heard voice almost causing Carapar to jump. "The current has shifted."
"So? Currents shift all the time." Carapar lightly shoved his ebony armored ally.
"We're in the Harant Gorge, the current only goes two ways. It's moving in a third." Mantax clarified, Kalmah stopped in his tracks, feeling out the currents above him.
"We're at the bottom of the gorge, currents don't even have an influence down here. How can you tell." Carapar grunted.
"Tentacles." Kalmah stated bluntly, having felt out the current himself. He waved for the others to follow and surged up towards the stronger areas of the current, intending to follow it to its destination. But within moments the rushing water led them to the wall of the gorge. The rock seemed solid as ever but the current was going through it unimpeded.
"I knew this was going to be a waste of time." Carapar said, turning to leave.
"Wait." Kalmah held up a his tentacle, reaching through the stone, a hologram. "I thought Takadox said you weren't as stupid as you look." Carapar growled. "Ehlek, go get Pridak."
"Eh? Why would we want him in on this?" Ehlek chittered for a moment.
"He makes a good shock trooper." Kalmah had no idea what was behind this wall but he had no intention of wasting someone useful in finding out.
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Pridak had just finished turning Takadox into a drooling, unconscious, hunk of twisted metal and he was feeling pretty good about himself at the moment. He decided to give himself a little pep talk.
"Hey, you may not have gotten the mask and gotten out of this Mata Nui forsaken pit but whatever, you kicked the steel off of the guy who made your first attempt at domination flop. Your team is still together and who knows, maybe you can pull something out of your fins. Let's think... reverse submersible? No, too much building; where would we even get the material to make it airtight? Concentrate the Mutagen and hit ourselves with it once we get out of the water? No, if we're not immune to the stuff by now we never will be."
Pridak had managed to put himself back into a bad mood by the time Ehlek showed up. I should really stop brainstorming like that.
"Pridak!" He turned to face Ehlek. "We found something you might want to see."
"Fine." He growled. "But this better be good." He slammed on the cage to wake up Takadox.
"Huh? What? Ooowww..." Takadox groaned and Pridak chuckled, that had brightened his day right back up.
"Hey punching bag, you're gonna be on your own for a while. If we don't come back, it means we found a way out of this place and decided not to take you." He laughed in Takadox's half conscious face and left.
"What did you find anyway?" Pridak questioned.
"We don't know yet, it's behind a hologram and we didn't want to go in without the leader." Stroking Pridak's ego, it always worked.
"Good." He grinned.
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Kalmah was feeling out the currents behind the hologram. It was weird, as far as he could tell it was a constantly shifting set of tunnels that all linked into a single massive antechamber at the front.
"Ah, to Destral with it." He muttered.
"What's wrong?" Mantax asked from above him, Kalmah had sent him up to see how far this entrance went.
"All I can say for sure is that it's going to look weird if there. Everything's shifting around, the only constant thing is this big chamber in the front, it's like the stinking walls are alive." Kalmah kicked a small stone through the hologram.
"We've seen wierder." Mantax shrugged.
Pridak shot right past Kalmah and through the hologram in a blur of white and red, causing Kalmah to jump in surprise. Ehlek drifted in behind him and set down right next to Mantax.
"Ego stroking?" Mantax asked.
"All the way here." Ehlek nodded.
"I don't hear any screaming..." Kalmah had his sensory tentacles up to the hologram. "No swearing or battle cries. It's safe." He walked through, the others followed them. They immediately realized why Pridak had been silent.
They were standing in a massive, hollowed out pillar of grey stone, the ceiling was beyond any of their vision and on the walls there were portals, thousands of them, showing similar chambers. The portals constantly moved to different spots on the walls, that explained the shifting tunnels. On a pedestal in the center of the chamber sat a mask, facing the entrance, that none of them thought they would ever see. Kanohi Olmak, Mask of Dimensional Gates. The mask glowed with power, pulsing with light every time a portal changed spots.
"Incredible." Breathed Pridak, who had fallen to his knees in awe. "Our escape has been here the whole time, just under our noses."
"Impossible, there are only supposed to be two Olmaks. One for the Brotherhood and one for the Order." Kalmah reached out to touch the mask, if only to be sure it was really there. The mask confirmed its existence by giving Kalmah a sharp shock.
"What is this place?" Ehlek asked, examining a portal.
"It appears to be some kind of hub for inter-dimensional travel." Mantax analysed. "That would explain our inability to move the mask. It's not supposed to be moved." Mantax examined the pedestal. "Which leads to two questions. One, if the mask has been here all this time, why is this place only now having an effect on the current? Two, how was it activated without a user?"
"Maybe it's timed." Carapar shrugged. No one had been expecting insight from Carapar. While his intelligence had been dulled by Takadox's constant hypnotism and he now was honestly and easily distracted by shiny things, he did offer useful input now and again.
"Yes." Mantax said. "That would explain it, only we've been down here for a massive amount of time, wouldn't one of us have noticed the shift in the current on a regular basis?"
"No." Ehlek spoke up. "Look at the edges of the room." At exactly the eye level of the mask the walls had numbers and right above the entrance the number was zero. Kalmah looked at the number next to the door. Seventy thousand. "This is probably the first time the mask has been activated if each of the numbers represent a year. The Olmaks were reportedly crafted seventy thousand years ago."
Pridak, who had recovered from his initial state of shock, shot forward through a portal.
"Freedom!" He screamed.
"Pridak wait!" Kalmah tried to grab their overeager leader but failed. All the other portals closed with a sound like tearing fabric, the portal Pridak had gone through grew huge, covering the entire back wall.
"This, cant be good." Ehlek muttered, staring at the chamber Pridak had swum into. There was a low rumbling sound from the entrance. "This cant be good at all." The mask started blowing brighter to the point where it was less glowing, more shining. It became painful to even look in its direction. The rumbling intensified and the current roared, pulling the rest of them through the portal. Kalmah wrapped his tentacles around the pedestal as he skid along the floor, his limb straining with the effort of resisting the current.
"Pridak, you idiot!" Kalmah yelled as he clung to the pedestal, unable to do anything as he saw his allies be sucked though after Pridak. First Mantax, who simply relaxed, letting the rush of water take him through. Then Carapar, who attempted to simply let his weight hold him down, as he attempted to walk to the exit. And Ehlek, who had dug his claws into the floor, they held for a moment before being wrenched out of the dull stone with a sound like a well used grindstone. Kalmah himself managed to hold on for a couple more seconds but the current kicked into overdrive, threatening to pull his limbs out of their sockets if he didn't let go. "I hate you so much." He managed to choke out around the water being forced down his throat before he accepted his fate and let go.
No sooner had he passed through the gate than it closed behind him and he found himself flung into the rest of his allies. He tore his way out, for once letting his calm demeanor be shattered. "Where's Pridak?! Where is he?" Pridak, for his part, was standing at the entrance of the new chamber, which was unconcealed and had no mask in it. "You!" Kalmah stomped over to him. "Are the most intolerable, irritating, moronic, impulse driven being." Pridak grabbed Kalmah's face and turned it to face the outside. "To ever walk the shores of Zakaz..." He trailed off.
Ehlek and Carapar, who had been watching with anticipation, winced
"Not the Skakdi." Ehlek groaned.
"Did Kalmah just call him a Skakdi?" Carapar chuckled.
"I admire his guts, too bad they're going to plastered all over the walls in a minute." Ehlek lamented sarcastically. Pridak however, simply continued to stare out the entrance with Kalmah, both seeming to have forgotten that the other was even standing there.
"Okay, what gives." Carapar growled. "I wanna see someone's head get ripped off." He snapped his pincer shut for emphasis. He walked up to the two, seemingly hypnotized, generals, reaching up to grab them before stopping dead in the water. "Hey what giv- oh Mata Nui. Ehlek, Mantax, come see this."
They were on a ledge, looking out over an underwater city, the architecture was incredible, great twisting spires reaching up almost as high as the cavern they were in. The city appeared to be made of carved rock, painted and laminated in various shades of green, red, blue and orange, to protect from erosion making for a both impressive and almost comedic sight. The inhabitants, who appeared to be some form of pastel seahorses were milling about in confusion at the sudden blackout their city was experiencing thanks to the black water sucked in from Aqua Magna.
"Just imagine what this place will be like once the black water clears." Pridak said, obviously excited. "We could live here, we could conquer here." He started humming to himself as he thought. "Ba-ba-bum-pum. But we need to learn about the natives first." He dove into the city, searching around for a sufficiently blinded citizen. "Where's the military when you need it?" He fumed.
"Military?" A red one that apparently was all but blinded said. "Those ponies can hardly deal with a rouge giant squid, much less a force of nature." Pridak almost did a backflip. They can't even handle a squid, this will be cake.
"Thank you my good sir, you've been most helpful." He thanked the sea pony before using an arm blade to cleanly decapitate him, blood blooming out into the water like a crimson flower. "But I can take it from here." He swam back to the others.
"Good news, their military is weak. These 'sea ponies' will have nothing to stand against us with, we will claim an undersea empire in this world!" He chuckled. "Go see what kinds of creatures you can command and meet me back here. I hope to have this place under our feet by tonight."
Morning Star Cove: Equestria.
Three Days Later.
Captain Shields looked over the rest of his platoon, they were rookies given but this was just a recon mission. No need to break out the big guns just yet. They were standing on the cliffs overlooking the cove. The wind howled around them as they prepared for the jump. Captain shields and the rest of his platoon were the true face of the pegasus guard. Dyed white coats and blue manes, Shields prided himself on making sure no recruit under his power broke that image. But today, taking into account the sub-marine nature of their mission, they forsook the gold-stained plating in favor of tightly woven cotton armor, with an enchanted silver medallion tucked under the collar.
"Alright you maggots, you know the drill! We get in, we get out, nopony gets hurt!"
"Sir, yes sir!" The twelve recruits hollered back at him.
"The medallions you have been given are enchanted to allow you to breath and see properly once we're in, but I don't want anypony getting careless down there. Got it?"
"Sir, yes sir!" Captain Shields turned around to face the cliff's edge.
"Alright, let's do Cloudsdale proud!" He charged off the rock face, tucking his wings in close to speed his descent. "Geronimo!" The recruits dove after him. The wind whistled in their ears as they got closer and closer to the surface of the water.
They broke the water's surface in a flurry of sound and pressure, their sleeked forms not stopping for another good twenty feet. The black water had cleared in the last few days, treating the soldiers to a truly breathtaking sight. The water seemed to go on forever, anywhere but up. Above them the surface of the water was like a mirror, only broken by the bright circle of the sun. The area back towards the cliffs was pockmarked with caves and tunnels, many of which appeared to have been carved into the rock. Beneath them the murky bottom was still, not so much a flow or an eddy to disturb the silt that clung to the sand. In fact, there was no movement anywhere, no fish or anything else that would have been considered an animal. There was a patch of kelp off towards one of the cove walls, but other than that the water was devoid of life. Even in a place as mindbogglingly massive as the open ocean there was always some sign of life. Captain Shields filed this away in his mind as proof that something big had gone down.
"Okay, Burns, Thunderhead, check out the seafloor." Two pegusi to his left nodded. They spread their wings, rowing through the water in the same way as they would in flight. As the duo sunk, Shields saw something flick on the wall to his right. "Snowflake, Blizzard, check the walls. Something's not right here." The two on his right streaked off to follow his commands. "Tumble, go up towards topside, if things go pear shaped we need somepony to get out of here. The rest of you with me, we're checking out the caves."
This didn't seem right, it was just too quiet. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when he saw something again, a glint of red, just barely moving fast enough to be considered mobile. He stopped in the water, staring down at it, it stopped moving. "Burns, Thunderhead, there's something there, get on it." He pointed down at the red object.
"Captain!" Shields recognized the voice as Blizzard's, he turned about to look over to the wall he and Snowflake had reached. "It's rays sir, the walls are coated in rays." Blizzard and Snowflake swam over to join the rest of the party. "They appear to be asleep."
"Or waiting for something." Snowflake muttered. Shields really looked at the walls now, the rays were almost perfectly molded to their resting places, now and again one of them would flutter their fins but other than that they were still. He got the distinct feeling that Snowflake was right.
"Captain!" Thunderhead yelled up at him. "It's some kind of ray, a weird one, but still a ray. I think it's dead." Shields looked down at the two soldiers and wilfed, his shoulders sagging and eyes going wide. (Wilf, wilfed or wilfing is a word used in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, meaning to slim down one's feathers in an instinctive fear display designed to make the subject appear less appetizing.) Burns and Thunderhead had their backs turned to their discovery, and it was taking avantage. A black tentacle rose from the shining black expanse of the rest of the creature, positioning itself directly behind Burns.
"Boys, get away from it!" The tentacle struck forward, a barb revealing itself just before it impacted the unsuspecting pegasus. Red billowed out from his chest as the barb erupted out, Burns choked, more blood leaking from his mouth as he stared down at the glistening harpoon that had been rammed through him. He didn't scream, he didn't call for help, he just stared at it.
"O-oh my." He choked out, going limp on top of his attacker.
Thunderhead panicked, attempting to swim up towards the rest of his platoon, a black arm erupted from the muck beneath him, grabbing onto one of his hind legs and pulling him back down. The rest of the creature rose from the murk, looking for all the world like something Discord had slapped together one day when some poor, stupid soul had asked him what death looked like. It was twice any of their height. Its shoulders were massive expanses of mottled black and silver armor, the tentacle was revealed to be a tail, Burns still hung limply from it like some kind of grotesque flag.
The sleek, black arm that held Thunderhead had a feathery tentacle that sprouted from directly underneath its shoulders and a four fingered hand, two fore-fingers and two thumbs. The other arm held, instead of a hand, a silver pincer. Its head held two ruby-red spikes, no doubt these were what had caught Shields' eye, two tentacles that were long enough to stretch across the expanse of its hunched back and burning red eyes. Its legs were thick and heavily armored like the rest of its body, ending in a pair of wide feet, that seemed to be re-purposed flippers. But most disturbing was its jaw, a pair of grotesque, silver mandibles extended from the midway point on its head, slowly flexing, and on its actual mouth the bottom jaw was split in two.
The halves of its bottom jaw chittered furiously as it reached up with its pincer, grabbing Thunderhead around the waist and dragging him to face the monstrosity.
"Thunderhead!" Captain Shields dove towards the creature, hoping to distract it from its target long enough for Thunderhead to break loose. The creature didn't even look up, instead it whipped Burns off its tail, and lashed it out into the water. A hollow booming filled the water, the shockwave kicked up the silt around the creature. The walls suddenly came alive, the rays answering their master's call. They came swooping down, encircling the rest of the squad, menacing them with lashes of their barbed tails.
Thunderhead lashed out with a kick, scoring a hit on the monster's upper arm and only gaining the dull thunk of metal in return.
"Wh-what are you?" He stuttered, struggling against the pincer. The creature's eyes blazed stronger.
"Barraki." It growled, opening all four of its mandibles wide.
"No! No! Please Celestia no!" Thunderhead screamed as it descended on him, he kicked and beat at it furiously with his wings but to no effect. With a single crushing bite the barraki took off his head, releasing a torrent of red into the water and dropping Thunderhead's body to twitch on the sea floor. The rest of the rays closed in, egged on by their master's kill. They lashed at the soldiers, the cotton armor did its job as well as it could, preventing the stingers from skewering the pegusi but not from opening up wounds all over their bodies. The squad fought back valiantly, kicking and biting at their opponents.
"Boys, blades out!" The squad pressed their front hooves together, unsheathing the short blades on their horseshoes. Lightning Tumble started swimming down towards them, hoping to help protect the rest of his group. "Lightning Tumble, go! We'll be fine!" Tumble hesitated for a moment, staring down at them with worry before turning back to the surface. Even as Captain Shields tore through the first of the rays, he knew he had been lying.
