Brotherhood External Base

A white door with a shiny brass handle spins around out of the sky and begins to land.

The Door burst open and The Hatter jumps out with a flourish. 

"Hello, alo, alo, What's this? You look kinda spiky dontcha know? Do you play games? I love games."


Throughout the entire conversation the Hatter plays around with a deck of cards grinning behind his very, very strange looking mask.

The Hatter looks a the trooper in front of him with a little bit of concern...

"You don't look too chipper mate...How about a cup a tea? So, do like cream or sugar? or both? You should totally try both. Both is really, really good"

The Hatter pulls out a saucer and teacup out of one of his pockets and a teapot out of another a round table rolls out of the Door and sets itself up with two chairs.


"Do you want to sit?"

A lightning bolt crashed to the ground, shattering the metallic surface and sending the chunks of iron spinning into the air, where they remained. Electromagnetic fields clashed, causing boulders of pure iron to explode and reform, the gleaming fragments riding the magnetic force lines like a Le-Matoran would ride a Metru Nui chute. This kind of chaos surrounded the cloaked figure as he slowly made his way across this living Hell of a Wahi.

He was red-armored, although years of unending combat had dulled the plates of protodermis and left them scarred with pockmarks and burns. His feet were clawed, with protosteel talons gleaming at the point of each toe. Beyond that, it was hard to discern much about the figure, as he was concealed in a ragged brown cloak that was fluttering in the howling wind. Underneath the billowing hood, two red eyes gleamed maliciously, and an observer may have caught the occasional white glimpse of a perpetual, toothy grin.

The figure was holding a standard-model Kanoka Launcher in his hand, loaded with a Felnas Disk. He used it to prod his prisoner in the back.

"Eyes up. If you aren't alert, your usefulness will have run out."

The prisoner, a maskless Toa of Magnetism, gulped and kept staggering along. He continued his purpose, which was to ensure the safety of the cloaked figure as he traveled to his destination. He fought off the fatigue and the nausea he was experiencing due to the figure having crushed his mask, knowing that if he slowed down again, he would be dead before he could take a breath. 

The figure continued walking behind the Toa, tightening his claws around the launcher in an effort to resist the temptations his surroundings were presenting him. How easy it would be to forget everything and go laughing into the path of an exploding boulder, or to throw his head back as lightning coursed through his body and filled him with the familiar warmth of destruction. But Rilok, for that disciple of oblivion was indeed the identity of the figure, knew that his mission was not yet done. He could not embrace the flames himself until he saw the rest of the world burn in them first.

Rilok glanced behind his shoulder, remembering why he had chosen this particular Brotherhood base to seek refuge in. Though he had no doubt his hunters would gladly follow him into this maelstrom, he knew that he had a much better chance of evading them here as opposed to the base in Po-Onu-Ov-Ba-Wahi. Still, remembering the purpose that the shades hunting him were created for, he felt he couldn't be too careful.

Eventually, the storms and the magnetic riptides began to thin out, and Rilok knew he was entering the Safezone the Brotherhood had set up around its base. Rilok slung the launcher over his back and reached down to his thigh-plate, retrieving one of the autopistols he had mag-locked there.

"Stop."

The Toa gladly obliged, falling to his knees panting. He shut his eyes, fighting off a splitting headache, and when he opened them again, he was looking down the barrel of Rilok's pistol.

"O-Oh Mata Nui, please. P-Please don't kill m-"

The Toa's cries were cut short by the muffled spitting noise of a burst of superheated, monomolecular-edged shavings of Lightstone being hurtled down a magnetic barrel and out the back of the Toa's photon-based, crystalline brain. The Toa slumped to the ground, the light in his eyes and on his chest fading to black.

Rilok returned the pistol to his thigh and used his foot to roll the corpse over onto its face. Then Rilok continued walking, waiting for a Rahkshi patrol or a Brotherhood agent to find him.

And all the while he kept looking over his shoulder.

"Look, we're really busy here..."

Some turrets are set up on the base and adjusted accordingly.

Rilok presented his empty claws to show the Rahkshi that he was unarmed, then flipped the hood down on the cloak.

"Name's Rilok. I'm a mercenary. I previously served in the Rogue Makuta Strikeforce directly under Inharax during... oh, one of those wars. The big one, where he conquered everything. I'm here to seek asylum, and to speak with Inharax, or at least one of his lieutenants. It involves not only my safety, but the Brotherhood's as well."

Rilok coughed lightly, his throat agitated from having spoken so much. In the past year, Rilok had been working as a gun for hire for various native tribes, becoming something of a bogeyman among the Bone Hunter population, having eradicated many of their villages. Rilok had never bothered to pick up the language however, and since he had been working alone since leaving the RMS, his need to talk had virtually gone away.

Rilok remained twitchy and wired thanks to his surroundings, and began scraping two of his talons together to try and relieve the impulses to rip the Rahkshi apart and crush the slugs inside beneath his heel.

Rilok followed the Rahkshi, still glancing over his shoulder, and kept his hands near his guns.

Rilok grunted, ignoring the obvious insult, and kept walking.

"I was a Dark Hunter a long, long time ago. Deserted, fell in with a Steltian warrior-princess, her teleporting bodyguard, and a rogue Toa of Shadow. We did a few jobs here and there, even got a few brutes after we amassed enough money, then we took a job on Destral. A Toa of Fire bent on revenge slaughtered the entire team and left me for dead."

Rilok says this all very nonchalantly, obviously not caring about his fallen comrades.

"I managed to make my way into Destral's armory where I nursed myself back to health. Then there was some attack, a Toa team kidnapped Inharax or something, and I got back in the game. Woke up one of Inharax's pet monsters and we tore some stuff up. Inharax had us work as a team for the rest of his conquest. I served with the RMS at the front edge of the war the whole way."

"Anyway, once Lohraz seemingly killed ol' Inharax, and the war was more or less over, I retired. Started raiding desert villages in Po-Onu-Ov-Ba-Wahi until I realized that they were hunting me. By then news had reached me that Inharax was alive and I thought, 'Might as well go to him, he owes me anyway'."

Rilok never slowed in his pace or looked at the RMS agent once.