Because We Could Not Be You
opens as Krika fades from existence in Karda Nui, watching the energy storms incinerate his fellow Makuta... until the power of the storm shocks him back to corporeal form, and gives him enough strength to teleport away to a world with a broken moon, giving him the chance to run into a young Cinder Fall...
This work contains examples of:
- Alien Sky: Having spent his entire existence inside Mata Nui's body, the true stars and broken moon of Remnant are completely foreign to Krika.
- Feed It with Fire: When Cinder first runs into Krika she tries to use her Semblance on him, assuming that he's some weird Grimm. All it does is fuel his heat-sucking powers, so the drain quickly breaks her Aura.
- Language Barrier: When Krika ends up on Remnant, he quickly realizes that he cannot understand the local language. When he finds a young Cinder he starts learning by peering into her mind, but he's only able to learn a word after she uses it, and since she's not really in a talkative mood that makes it slow going.
- Lifesaving Misfortune:
- An enraged Gorast uses her mask power to send Krika's intangibility out of control, causing him to start to fade from existence. This means that, when the energy storms start, the jolt sends him back to tangibility instead of immediately frying him like the other Makuta in Karda Nui, and he's able to use the boost to fuel a teleport before being overwhelmed, which sends him to Remnant.
- Cinder running into Krika and essentially getting kidnapped by him allows her to avoid the police after her.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Krika is nowhere near the most powerful member of the Brotherhood of Makuta, and as this takes place after the events of Karda Nui and his mutations, he's lost access to a number of his powers (including shapeshifting), and to make things even worse, he has to regularly feed on heat, otherwise he'll lose control of his intangibility and fade away. Despite all this, his status as a Makuta, even a weakened and handicapped one, makes him one of the most powerful beings on Remnant.
- Parental Substitute: Krika essentially starts slipping into the role of Cinder's parental figure of sorts. It says a lot about her life up to that point that he's probably the best one she's ever had.
- Title Drop: The title is based on the last part of something Krika said to Tahu in canon, and Krika thinks back on it right as he's about to fade from existence before the energy storm zaps him back to corporeal form.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Just as Cinder is wondering why Krika even bothers to keep her around given his own powers, he suddenly begins to weaken and begs Cinder to use her Semblance on him, feeding him the heat he needs to survive, and causing her to realize she has leverage over him. However, the next chapter reveals that Krika had read her mind and was playing up the whole thing to give her an illusory feeling of power over him. While he was starting to feel his control over his intangibility slipping, it wasn't as immediately serious as he had made it out to be. Furthermore, while the fact that she is essentially a portable generator of heat energy for him to feed on certainly makes Cinder useful to him, she isn't actually necessary for Krika's survival, as he notes there are plenty of other heat sources across Atlas and Mantle that he could easily feed on.
