Galer opened his eyes at the sound of some birds screaming outside, It was probably one of the many animals that got corrupted and got a new addition to their language, He got up, and he massaged his torso's side in hopes of relieving some of the slight pains t wasn't much, but at least it was better than yesterday.
It might have been the inherent advantage of a body like his, in spite of his instinct telling him to move and hit everything around him when he woke up.
Like always Galer bottled that Instinct up, and ignored it, not giving it, any attention, as he got up. Walking outside his room towards, the living room, he started to remember how his house looked before the corruption, when, the walls were not as dull gray as now when they were made out of cheap material, and didn't have parts that he, provided out of his own biological matter.
He used the back of his body instead of his arms to create working material for the house and some chairs and tables, but it didn't mean the hub wasn't in a back shape though.
As he walked towards the kitchen, the biomechanical reptilian humanoid didn't find his father, mother, and sister. They all must have been at work. In spite of his father's colossal size, and his mother's deformation, it did not diminish their devotion to their work of saving people
especially since I was more urgent than ever before.
It also applied to his sister's as a SWAT operative before all this Insanity started. Policing work gave her more experience than him. At least it made up for the dumb shit he did in his missions.
He grabbed a whole watermelon from the freezer. The side panels of his cheek opened up with a wet squelch, dripping a bit of organic matter and showing a row of sharp teeth. Some of them retained their hominid aspect but were elongated to fit the new body. His lower jaw opened abnormally, showing a large forked tongue.
He swallowed the whole fruit, and let out a burp. If both his parents were here, they would ask what was the hurry. He didn't have any particular one, beyond his own hobby. Of course, that was probably the factor of his impatience.
He made coffee, mixing the milk and sugar, then a sandwich (of course it was bigger than a normal human one), he dug into. he could just have absorbed the energy like Matoran, but he preferred eating his foods. He still was human, and he rather enjoyed his food this way.
After his meal, he brushed his teeth and practiced using his powers in his backyard. For his precision, he created a lava sphere and tried to make it into different shapes with the element, from a pyramid to a cube, to a d20 dice. All of them ended up very deformed in some way or another.
And he tried to make them as small as possible. He thought back on his mentor telling him to stop trying to throw the power around, hoping to overwhelm his enemy, though it was more in the case of his dominion over lava. It was a little bit of a problem since fire was essentially something that consumed almost everything on his path, and earth literally made him a juggernaut,
not to mention pretty much stronger in terms of strength. Mix that with his passion, and his impatience, and you have someone that likes to overwhelm his enemies rather than being precise. He wasn't fucking suttle.
If he wasn't in a horribly cold place that's it, having affinity to fire has his disadvantages after all.
He then turned his earth powers with the same method earlier, giving him roughly the same result, the pyramid, however, was smaller than the last time he did it, and somewhat symmetric, while the cube and the dodecahedron looked cracked on several areas,
This only made him more motivated to fix this and polish them until he was satisfied.
And with fire, it was significantly more difficult. after all,fire didn't have a normal solid shape, so he would normally try to do small as possible plasmasphere and throw it at a pillar made out of the earth but, he did remember that the last time that happened, he was jailed because of public unrest and borderline domestic terrorism.
Yeah, perhaps that wasn't the best of ideas when he jumped into that face first, even if he had a license that authorized him to use fire element, for humans people that used it were seen as highly destructive if they don't have enough self-discipline.
Moving on he did something different he directed the fire to surrounding the earth pillar to melt it, maintaining a constant heat through the process until he turned the earth to lava on the 22-minute mark the pillar was half-melted… was not bad all things considered.
Something that his mentor would approve off or tell him
"It would need more work, but it was very efficient,"
Then again his mentor channeled his ice powers using the Rotuka as a focus, but that didn't mean he couldn't manage to
brutally kick his ass all the time they did a spar, and being relatively chill about it.
Some people would think that the impromptu leader of a Visorak pack would be more barbaric, instead of the image of stoicism and politeness, seriously nothing could get his mentor out of his composure.
Except for
that one time.
He shook his head from that disturbing memory and started concentrating on the other power he had. He focused on himself, intentionally diverting the power away from his arms, channeling it on his back, trying to materialize imagination into tangible reality.
An ugly squelch followed with a mild feeling of discomfort and slight pain, came to him, a gray
motor formed on his back slowly bulging out becoming a distinct shape of an engine then the rest got ejected rather violently from his back.
People would wonder how this was less problematic than his arms, Galer would have responded to that with an
"It didn't trigger awful memories or horrifying nightmares," in spite of being painful.
He inspected the machine he materialized, it was a rather organic-looking chainsaw that he started fiddling around with checking for any errors, and then activated the biomechanical construct.
It sounded like a normal chainsaw save for the heart like pulses. that made the entire thing pump like crazy, he turned it off and went to his backyard
When he arrived at the house's backyard there was a little hub, beside it there was a house for his mutated Ussal crab.
His pet, or more like an actual adopted family member due to his human-like intelligence, has a different color scheme for him, except his head that was crimson colored with black eyes staring at him.
The rest of his body was roughly the size of a horse if said horse was of a bigger breed than usual, another thing to note of the creature was that he has two creepy human-like arms blooming from his back they looked spindly, but one would not underestimate the strength behind the biomechanical limbs, the quadrupedal body was also rough with two immense back legs and from legs giving a weird juxtaposition.
Galer just waved his arm toward the mutant "Hello Tom are you doing?"
He received a back from his partner carrying a signpost that describes his emotion in matoran along with the sounds of clicks, clacks mixed with a damaged drill, and a saw blade.
"Bored as usual
hu?" The crimson-faced biomechanical Panamanian returned, Tom simply nodded. "yeah I am going to do my usual hobby,"
He ended up saying that while pointing with right thumbs towards hub know confirmed workshop for his art, and his knick-knacks he created
Tom just raised his crimson Head curiously almost like he and his friend had the same interest, if one could see carefully behind the creatures house, one could see sculptures made out of wood and stone carving, some of them very psychedelic looking while others looked like cultural obelisk chief amongst than one representing the great spirit himself.
Tom's left arm moved towards a piece of wood. While Galer walked towards his workshop, inside it there was clay. the material he used for his sculptures and other works of art, though one could see other models made out of glass, rock, some even made out of metal and protodermis.
He certainly didn't stop at just that, beside him was a workbench with paints in it with several paintings either of his house or animals that he watched in his free time, they have a very simplistic art style but each of them represented something from Galer's head.
Galer grabbed a bunch of clay and started to let his imagination run wild with anything he wanted. After a minute of focus, he started molding it.
Beside him Tom started skillfully carving the piece of wood with his hand with practiced ease, he had Calluses and scars the creature got from such practice.
Eventually, Both stopped at the same time.
Galer started observing his sculpture
"It's better than the last one at least," he said, trying to see the positive side of the clay sculpture, even if his mind was criticizing him for any little error he made. Then he walked outside to Tom Hub, his friend extended his splendidly human-like appendices showing his wooden craving to him.
Galer held it in his hand, it was very well made better than his clay sculpture and better than the other woodcarvings, this only made Galer get a groan of frustration and pinch on
jealousy getting inside his mind, making him think very dark murderous images directed towards his friend, images that he had thrown aside just as quick. "This….Is a good Job Tom"
Tom just looked at him concerned, he said it with a lot of Hesitation.
Galer gave him a frown and rolled his eyes "You worry
too much, I haven't had any incidents since...you know?
That day and I do better than before so please be at ease"
Tom just looked at him giving the Crab equivalent of a face like he didn't fully buy the reassurance, but he relented.
Galer sighted and then shoved his hand on one of his bags to grab a modern-day phone a check the Hours, the Matoran, Islanders, Agory, and Glatorian were quick to adapt to this instant communication, but they still used stone tabled to guard information, diaries or messages, probably because it was cultural custom they all have.
For the point of View of Humans, or former Humans, in this case, was a little bit weird since it was very primitive, though he didn't care about as much as other people, after all, Humans in the past did the same thing and they still have advanced tech, though not at the same levels of magnitude as the magnans.
Which every time Galer thought about it it was a strange Juxtaposition between the advanced tech they have and the culture they cultivated from over
10 millennia in their Noah's arks.
Galer shook his head, it wasn't time for him to be distracted with this topic right now.
He checks the hour on his iPhone
"It's now time for me to go to Reclamation HQ," he said out loud making Tom look at him again while he turned his head at him. The Mutated Ussal crab just nodded and started looking for something.
Went that was finished, the Crab have in one of his left human-like hands a shield sharpened on the edges and a Zaamor launcher in the right, Galer for his part was inside his house got his spear and put it on his back then grabbed a backpack and put his recently repaired armor on, that integrated on his body like it was always part of his skin which it effectively was.
He opened the door of his backyard and then Tom's door, he put on the ussal crab special type of saddle so the bizarre creature he called friend wasn't uncomfortable, Galer closed the door of Toms house, then closed the family house door, and then sat on his back initiating the walk towards the Reclamation H.Q. on the shore of the Island.
Galer Hoped that he wouldn't get another Rid broken this time.
-----
The Town was a lively place. It could be said that just like Panama, Isiva Nui was a multicultural place in which all types of species converged and lived a strange sort of peace.
Non-mutated, Matoran, and human yelled, waving their arms announcing the few wares they could sell, while Zyglaks accompanied by two corrupted matoran checked the fish in a tent made by a corrupted human.
In one shop there was a Skakdi browsing for toothpaste and other essential things. He was eyeing a particular type of fruit that was being sold at a modest price.
One could even see a workshop in which a Matoran, an agony, and a human were working on a damaged Borock and Rakshi shell; they seem to have difficulties trying to do something with those two things.
There was also a barbershop made by a retired Glatorian, though his retirement was a relative thing. Since Galer didn't forget, the guy was also part of the reclamation efforts of the Island.
The shop made some people remember the dilapidated coliseum that was on the island, thought Nobody dared to go there since it was too deep on the God-forsaken place and went people go scouting deeper into Isiva then things got really weird like reality did not obey any sort of order anymore.
One could even see Visorak amongst the crows, some of them in shops selling animals they hunted and others looking out of curiosity for other Souvenirs.
It reminded Galer about the Gangs of Visorak his mentor was a leader of, one who was a total bookworm that liked to read different novels, some of them
Horribly trashy.
Something that earned Galer a
chainsaw hiss to the face, like he insulted an Idol of his or whatever god the Visoraks worshiped.
During his walk, Galer heard the skakdi Yell at the human clerk about how he charged the fruit with more money than it should. provoking a scandal in which a Zyglak that had a police badge on him intervened, he made sure to diffuse the situation. The Skakdi just let out a disgruntled growl and the clerk got fined.
Galer frowned in disapproval. While it was true that the island could be a passive place sometimes, Unity seemed to get
testy, due to cultural or racial differences, it didn't help that sometimes things didn't go so well between the island sectors due to the same problems.
While he kept walking he Noticed humans with Toa-like exoskeletons, some doing spectacles to the public with their elemental powers to make people's hopes go up,
god knew people on the island needed that nowadays due to how things were going.
Since the arrival of the magnans to Planet earth colloquially known as the continent drop, due to how literally an entirely new set of countries appeared out of nowhere on one side of the earth after an object crash-landed on earth.
After that happened the ecosystem along with earth's inhabitants changed thanks to the introduction of protodites to the planet.
On top of that, after first contact, those who were nearby Magnan of any species gained special abilities, or elemental powers, sometimes both.
Some scientists compared the elemental energy, and power energy to be similar to radiation, only benign, and didn't give you cancer.
Due to the fact that Human beings gained a special ability thanks to their spiritual power along with their elemental abilities, some Toa or matoran sometimes compared humans to Skaddy for their ability to have elemental abilities with powers already.
However, not all of them became Toa-like.
Toa energy was still needed for that to happen.
Of course, the main difference was that Humans could train their elemental energies to reach levels similar to Toa elemental control, in some cases Getting Toa energy via that method.
Agory and glatorian on the other hand needed to canalize elemental energy using a tool to do so.
This was one of the many things that gave headaches to the scientific community on earth since elemental energy, powers and protodermis violated several laws of physics, Making human beings question if what they knew the universe was right.
He lingered on the thoughts for a moment until Galer shook his head, trying to get rid of the distraction, then turned it in the direction of a bigger building.
It was a strange mix of hubs, paramilitary bases, and buildings that were repurposed for communication with short and long-range.
Also, the hubs were varied in color representing the six tribes that lived on the island along with the human buildings that were more homogeneous with some indigenous kuna pictographs, others have a Spanish style architecture, some of the Magnan buildings looked brutish like bunkers, others were green made out of visorak webbing, and finally, Some of then have a very sharp Mordor like aesthetic to then one of the many reclamation H.Q of the island.
When he reached the doors there were two guards, one a human with an exoskeleton and the other was a Guardian, it was an evolution between a Matoran and a Toa, utilizing their elemental abilities as projectiles on a Gatling gun-like apparatus.
For the looks of it, he was from the water tribe due to the blue colors while the human used plasma as an element easily recognized for the yellow coloration.
He got his documents out to get the authorizations to enter. While he told Tom to stay outside Galer patted his friend on the head making him feel less anxious.
"Is it not going to take much time ok?" Galer said, trying to Calm his friend's nervousness.
Then he entered the headquarters.
------
The reclamation wasn't picky for who volunteered for the task, except perhaps if you were mentally unstable if you don't pass the Psych examination ( or had at the very minimum a decent mental state) and the morality test, you weren't permitted to be part of the reclamation, but other than that, if you were capable to do the mission they demanded from you. they don't give much of a fuss for species, races, gender deformation, mutation, or color you have.
There were heavily armed, not mutated humans, some of the matoran have weirdly shaped heads, there was one of two Sapient Rahi doing paperwork and other myriads of beings doing their jobs or looking at bulletins, or managing something or another.
Galer could swear that there was Kralhi washing the floor and Vahi organizing some boxes.
The Reclamations or the Reclaimers as they were collectively known, were made as a response to the Toa Isiva not being capable to be present to all the thread across the entirety of the artificial island, while it was all well and good to have chosen protectors helping the island, they couldn't rely on then all the time so they were made with the intent of defending themselves and recover the island with or without Toa intervention.
That being said they weren't so arrogant as to think they shouldn't have the help of the Toa.
After all, in spite of how well organized they tried to be, communication between headquarters varied from crap at worst and decent at best with static.
Not to mention some of the other H.Q in other sectors either have Rivalry, a bad reputation for whatever reason, a bone to pick with each other, incompetent leadership, or stray up didn't communicate vital information
What didn't help matters, the island is in a state of quarantine. It was because of the fear of the island corruption spreading, however, some essentials came back for the trade; that was so sporadic that it wasn't enough to get things back to at least semi-normal.
Galer walked along the H.Q Hallways directly into the chief office.
He entered the office. and shut the door up. he heard a click and a clack behind him, in from of Galer was a corrupted Fe-matoran his legs to the waist down are biomechanical tentacles like Growths and he had two hands on his right side carrying two documents he was reading, contrasting to the only one of his left side, his face had a gunmetal Gray Kanohi Pakari covering his face, with shiny scarlet red dots staring back Galer.
He was one of the lucky ones that retained his sanity after being corrupted
In spite of the intimidating color, Tolex was amongst the ones that quickly came by to try and help in the terrible crisis everyone was suffering, along with fighting back against the abominations the island churned for time to time, with that there was his organizational skill that bordered into a neat freak attitude but they were tempered with a pleasant from.
"Rough wake up?" Tolex said with a baritone voice unfit for someone his size.
Galer touched the side of his Torax in response other than a little annoyance he was fully healed "
If you are asking if I made a mess of my bed, no I didn't, at least it means I can go back on the job"
"After what your Sister told me?" He said with some doubt behind his voice "I get that you are
enthusiastic, but this is the
4th time this weekend you go on your own, trying to help on a mission alone"
He finished with a full deadpan expression of his mask. making Galer just a sight of irritation.
"Ok.
Do I look like a lone wolf to you?" Galer shot back rhetorically, is not he wasn't being uncooperative or insubordinate, he did his orders to a T "I meant you see my track record I did my mission well"
"Sometimes returning with several
fractures, Broken body parts, and
exhaustion to hell and back?" Tolex shot bat with zero hesitation on his still like visage Making Galer shut up "Galer
stop burning yourself out this way, otherwise your body will not handle it and It will implode, seriously Take care of yourself more often
self-doubt or not"
Galer looked like he sucked an entire lemon and crossed his arms
"I...Understood"
Galer in spite of his unique abilities he wasn't the best at anything in particular, in fact amongst the reclamation efforts he was just as average as his sister and wasn't the best of the best, however, he made it up with a lot of stubbornness and persistence.
Especially his stubbornness, sometimes he was frequently compared to grumpy Kikanalo, with the motivation of a
power tool, combine that with an extreme passion for what he was doing and you had a person that would do his job even if it was detrimental to himself.
Tolex saw his type in body bags too many times to count, he would be damned if it happened again.
"Well now that we are on the same page," He said carefully "we have a new mission for you"
Galer just perked up at that.
"Our communication with the Po sector of the island got radio silenced for some reason, we only have news of it because of Toa Phourick came back to this sector of the island," He keeps with the report "His news are concerning since went he had gone to the Reclamation base a Traumatized matoran told he saw a rakshi that was to blame for it,"
"A,
Rakshi?" Galer was confused by that, they constructed the island along with the Borock and Toa volunteers a long time ago, the Rakshi presence was thanks to a Makuta of good reputation, one that has gone missing after the cataclysm, all the Rakshi fell lifeless like puppets or became wild animal."Why would Rakshi do that? unless he considered his territory but that also doesn't make much sense."
After all the Rakshi didn't want anything to do with the Matoran of the island unless they were on their turf or the Kraata and the Rakshi ended up being a horribly mutated abomination, in that case, it was a
kill on sight mission.
"Well that's the mystery, isn't it? your mission is to investigate the place with Toa Tayil and Toa Phouricks, "He said. "You are familiar with those two they are going to help you with this and don't go on your own ok,"
"A recon mission for me?" Galer asked he normally did Huntings or helped with sorting certain people on the deeper part of the island "That's new,"
"Is time for a change of pace," Tolex simply stated "On top of that I hope you don't need to engage in battle too much, just report back to me any objections?"
….
….
"
None," it took some time for him to reply because deep down it didn't sit very well for him that it just was a mission to observe and report, probably because that bestial part of himself was somewhat
disappointed that it wasn't going to be a battle or perhaps it was something else?
he didn't have any idea that the answers he sought weren't going to be pleasant news.
----
He walked toward the meeting area. It was just in the building that could be considered Bulky. It was recognizable Skakdi architecture, a style all well known because of the Zakaz civil war that was still raging on. between the barbarous warlords and the people that wanted to maintain some semblance of order in the place.
The buildings were made to endure the devastating fights between Skakdi, and Tatoracks stomps, this too made them perfect against airstrikes.
Before the cataclysmic explosion that was the corruption, they were repurposed as bunkers and part of the bases in case of an attack, they didn't disappoint on that aspect.
Galer just walked and sat on a lone bench just waiting while he was looking at his phone for the next story to read on the device, though the reception, for now, was not the best, which was annoying for the Hybrid.
"What are you reading now" a peppy if familiar voice startled him making him hiss like a snake for a second while quickly turning his head to his right side.
What he got was a metallic silver face mask with Monstrous features and what appeared to be orange embers for eyes.
When he saw that he just let his guard down letting out a Grumble " Tayil you startled me for a second there"
The female fire Toa let out a warm chuckle at Galer's reaction. Her body was red, behind it there was a shield and a double edge sword, and she was outfitted with silver bits of armor made out of protodermis, she was a fan of what humans call the classic Arthurian look, in spite of looking like a death knight due to the mask.
"Galer, how are you doing today?" She asked like a sister that haven seen his brothers in years which was technically correct given Galer fire abilities came from her in the first please...before the ugly mutated fused to her face skull mask
"I am….Fine better than before
mentally if you want to ask" he answered the question at least he wasn't having constant verbal battles with his inner beast…
.too much "then again Tolex its mad at me again for the usual thing"
"So forcing your body too hard again" a somewhat Grumpy voice replied, it was a deep one not a deep as Tolex and it have a young but wise reverberation with a touch of eccentricity to it "Last time you did something like that, your father, Mother and mentor were worried"
His left silver claw hands were pointing as his artificial arms that have Visible fleshy gray pinkis muscles covered by armor functioning as a new skin.
The brown Toa towered over him with a normal Kanohi of mind control on his face, his eyes were translucent green his hands ended up wicked silver claws that have a lot of dirt clinging on then,
Which the stranger didn't seem to mind.
"Hello Phoulick, how are you doing with that thing that
crawled up to you, and died?" Galer responded sarcastically, and just because he wanted to pester the Toa, earning him a glare from Tayil.
Phoulick just rolled his eyes slightly annoyed at him "Fine like my collection of sand, and powder-like your ribs right now,"
Galer responded with a chuckle then an annoying grump, some people would see it as bipolar behavior but Galer was just being unfocused as usual.
"Hey don't look at me like that you started it," he said with his voice changing from grumpy to good naturally.
"To be fair you woke up with, your collection of compacted dirt sculptures that have an arm broken,"Tayil pointed the eccentricity of his toa leader "I swear Kinkanalo have more normal hobbies,"
"You now? that
we" Galer interjected pointing at Phouric, her, and then at his direction "arent normal by everybody standards right?, Hell this whole island isn't,"
"Well said
Brother" Phourik said while raising his arm clenching it into a knuckle salute which Galer entertained.
She just smiled at the display with an amused expression "well while we have our fun, why not do the job we are here for,"
"Let me gear up first and get Tom out of the saddle," Galer said while getting up from his seat.
"Just you so remember this is just a
recon mission," Phourik said before he was going to gear up.
"Hey, there isn't any harm in being careful" The hybrid declared why whispering under his breath went they were at a long enough distance "
Especially in this island full of crazy,"
he finalized the sentence knowing full well the madhouse that the island had become will trow at then a curveball.
