TRANSCRIPT

SCENE 1 INTRO.

HUM STARTS AND INTENSIFIES TO END UNTIL IT CEASES.

NES:

When they razed my city, I laid in the mud, my ears soaking in the dull hum of helicopter blades as they droned off to the blank horizon.

There are sounds like that everywhere. Sounds that surround you, unnoticed. The hiss of steam heat, the wind through the grass, the trickle of a stream. Your ears tune them out because your conscious mind can't process all of the noise, all of the chaos in life. Ruida.

But what if that hum is all you have? What if you search for the wind, and the stream, and the hiss, and all you find is... the hum? When it's gone will you be able to live with the silence? Can you live in a world where you have nothing left?

I had to listen for the rio again, el viento, the birds. The part of me that still wanted to live searched for hours for something to lead it blindly out of the overwhelming darkness of the hum.

(INTRO MUSIC STARTS)

 In the end it took a cancion, an old melody that my mom used to sing when I was little. The chords played themselves on my guitar as my Tio Valo's voice resonated strangely from the wood of its body.

TIO VALO:

Nes, wake up! Despiertate!

NES:

She used to sing it to me when I was little. It always reminds me of her.

JULISSA:

(SUNG) Eres el latido de mi corazón

NES:

And with that the hum snapped out of my ears and I realized two things.

JULISSA:

You are the beat of my heart

NES:

One... Mariachi jackets are not that warm, especially when they are wet.

JULISSA:

Eres el coro de mi canción

NES:

And two, my guitar really could talk, and it was seemingly possessed by the spirit of my dead Tio Valo.

JULISSA:

You are my favorite part

NES:

I checked myself to make sure I was all there and thought, well if everything that happened today really happened then...

JULISSA:

And I sing so, that you will know, that you always have a home in my arms

NES:

I need to talk to my Tio...

JULISSA:

Eres el latido de mi corazón

You are the beat of my heart.

SCENE 2 WHAT IS ULTIMA - ON TO GRAMMY.

NES:

By the time an hour had passed, I'd asked the question for the 6th time... Tio, how are you still alive?

And he gave me the same canned response every time...

TIO VALO:

From time to time, the ancestors send heroes to Tlalli to defend it against the forces who wish to bend the planet and its inhabitants to their will. You have been chosen as one of the seven, and have been given power over the blood. I have been sent back to guide you on your quest to find Ultima and unlock its power. We must find the cliff with the seven caves.

NES:

Ok Tio, but what does it all mean?

TIO VALO:

I don't know, every time you ask I am compelled to say it. And honestly, it's getting kind of annoying. All I know is I'm here, and I have an urge guide you north. Because if we don't find this... This place, Ultima, whatever it is, I know that the Robes are going to destroy every last one of us mijo.

(PAUSE)

Listen.. Hito, when our ancestors built the Havens, it was out of necessity. After the wars, they knew we needed places where people could be free. We had a responsibility to create in it places of love and acceptance. They didn't build the Havens because they were afraid. No... They had the courage to dream of a place where everyone could thrive. Now that idea is threatened, and we must defend it. That's why I know we must find Ultima. Whatever it is.

NES:

Y que es?

TIO VALO:

I don't know, but I know somebody who will...

NES:

Quien?

TIO VALO:

Well it's on the way, so let's point our noses north, and go visit your abuela Maria. If there's one person who'll know, it's her.

SCENE 3 SUMMERS ON THE FARM.

NES:

Abuela, grammy, granjera... Back to the farm again, just like the old days.

We spent every summer break there, playing on her farm, smelling the breeze, fresh with the tangy, smokey sting of roasting chiles. My brother and I marveled as she planted row after row of chiles y verduras, watering each seed with a hock of spit, a flaskful of water, and a drop of her "special stuff".

She always told us it was the tears of joy she cried each year when we came out to the farm. I always thought it smelled like mezcal mixed with green chile juice...

Whatever was in that mezcla, it worked... Her chiles were the sweetest and spiciest for miles. She didn't grow much, but what she did was perfect. She grew enough to feed herself, and made a bit of plat selling roasted chiles to the merchants and restaurants in Pueblo.

I'm told those chiles were the secret ingredient in the best moles in the whole damn world... And we helped her plant them! Yeah, we were a bit big for our chones but who cares. Summers with grammy were the best. And after what I just went through, I couldn't wait to see her.

(THIS IS TREATED LIKE A SPIRAL OF THOUGHTS, A CLOUD OF VOICES)

And as I thought of her I was struck by a familiar feeling... That tightness in my chest... It comes and goes, but sometimes it really comes on. It feels like vacuum in my stomach that pulls my heart down with it, anxiety spiraling down, down, down, until I feel small and helpless.

I start breathing heavy just like in the market. What if she's dead? What if my family is all dead? What about Teo, what about Vuong? What if the robes have already taken out all the havens? We don't even have a standing army, just a bunch of old revolutionaries who can barely lift a sword. What will become of our homes, our children...

I get that way when I think about losing the things I love. Losing freedom. Losing the life we've built here. Nothing is promised, but don't we deserve a bit of peace?

I don't know if I'm strong enough to suffer like my ancestors. I'm don't know if I'm built for that.

I feel my breath shrinking inside me and tears welling in my eyes. I'm talking to my self pacing left and right and making no northward progress as Tio is trying to talk me down... And then I go blank

I snap to and I'm curled up tighter than a ball of masa with Tio slung across my back tightening his strap across my chest in a hug.

TIO VALO:

 Calmate hito, you are just having one of your attacks... It's ok. It's ok to feel this way. Everything has changed and that's hard... Pero tenemos que seguir, y... Oh shit.

NES:

The vacuum finally releases as I take big gasp of cold air, and look up into the blazing orange eyes of an angry Gila monster the size of a bull.

SCENE 4 NES MEETS THE GILA, IT DOESN'T GO WELL.

NES:

A razor sharp claw scrapes the ground and a grunt of warm air wafts over my face... I had met a giant, fire eyed Tusked Gila Monster... And things were not about to go so good.

(JURASSIC PARK SCREAM, THEN SFX EDIT

  DOWN TO ASIDE)

But first... A quick primer on the Robes, known more formally known as the Jindu...

Lookswise... Bipedal, hairless, and exquisitely beautiful, with cream colored amphibiously smooth skin, and no hair.

They have no noses or ears, just holes, but like, aesthetically are they beautiful. Lean, toned, long limbs with perfect proportions. Their eyes had golden irises, almond shaped. Everything in lopping curves, with reversed knees and three toed bird like feet, matching their three fingered hands. A long segmented tail with a bony nub on the end. And dark red markings that braided from their necks down their torsos and around their arms, like colored vines that clung to their skin.

The robes don't all wear.... robes. Only their high priests wear the long floor length red garments that give them their name. Most of their people wear red flowing pants that cuffed at their bare claws, and loosely fitted sleeveless cotton shirts.

As a society, the Jindu valued conformity over everything. They sought a ideal world by three means. Uniformity, Perfection, and Faith.

But of course they didn't just evolve that beautiful... The robes controlled their population by a system of strict family planning and extreme genetic tweaking. In fact a naturally born Jindu child would have a slender nose, slightly raised ears, and could have any number of colored markings. Forced pairing and genetic modification made this impossible.

It also made the Jindu susceptible to a variety of diseases that had been eradicated in the rest of the population. For this reason they often wore specialized respirators, which concealed their mouths and augmented their speech.

Pues, all that early genetic tweaking had to be tested on something...

(GILA MONSTER SNARLS)

Turns out little hairless gila monsters were the closest thing to Jindu physiology that couldn't fight back. These huge murderous lizards were just one example of the monstrosities wandering the countryside after escaping the failed labs of the Robes. They were dangerous, furious, and had developed tusks that were sharper than your tia's tongue after a couple of tequilas.

I repeat... this was not about to go well ya'll.

SCENE 5 BEAT DOWN.

NES:

The Gila takes a swipe. I go flying. My back smacks against a nearby tree.

(SCENE HEAVILY SOUND DESIGNED WITH ACTION MOTION, IMPACTS, AND MONSTER SOUNDS)

I lose my breath as I hit the trunk. I seem to have a complicated relationship with air today...

I manage to stagger up and stand just in time for the Gila to ram me back into the tree.

Tio clangs discordantly as blood starts to trickle from my mouth.

(CLANGING SOUND OF GUITAR DROPPING)

ALT: I can taste blood in my mouth as and struggle to my feet

I take a swing at the gila's snout and hit it square. It backs off, and it's pissed now. It paws the ground and huffs, charging como un toro. I take tio off my back and slam him down hard on the monster's neck, drawing black sticky blood. It turns around violently, and catches me with its thick tail, knocking me flat on my back. Tio goes flying and the gila stomps on my chest as I hear my ribs crack.

This thing is babosando as it leans into the ground, crushing me underneath it's claws.

Maybe it's all over. Maybe it's time to say goodbye. Maybe I'm not special like tio said... Maybe I'm just a scared kid who's not cut out for this new world.

I close my eyes and start singing my mom's song. A lullaby for the void.

(ITALICS ARE SUNG)

Eres el latido de mi corazón

And weirdly, each time I sing it, I feel the weight on my chest getting un poco lighter.

You are the beat of my heart

Tio tries to play along weakly, hitting the chords and filling out the song. The gila is getting pissed now, feeling me strain against it's claws.

(JURASSIC PARK STYLE LIZARD SCREAM EFFECT)

(GUITAR STARTS TO PLAY)

Eres el coro de mi canción... You are my favorite part

I feel a comforting energy filling me. I see a calming blue stream flowing from the earth into my veins. Like my mom's sopa de fideo on a cold winter day, it softly warms me from the inside out.

This new power snaps me into the air, chest thrust upwards pa'l cielo. My arms spread wide as tio flies into my left hand.

I feel no pain as the blood in the corner of my mouth retreats back into my body, and my ribs fuse again... The gila monster is blasted back stumbling as I shoot up off the earth and take a shuddering breath.

I rotate to face the monster, suspended in the air. I feel like I can do anything. I kick the asshole in the jaw, left hook, right hook.

My right hand clutches my left, wrapped around the neck of Tio Valo.

(SOME KIND OF GRUNT OR SCREAM FROM NES AND A SCREAM FROM GILA?)

I bring my guitar down like a hammer, crushing the gila's skull completely, as I finally tumble to the ground.

Have you ever had gila tacos? Great with a little wild lemongrass.

Oh also, I think Tio might have been right about me having powers...

SCENE 6 THE HEALER.

TIO VALO:

Ahhhh my neck hito! Dioses, did you have to bring me down that hard?!

NES:

I finish eating as I notice Tio does have a crack in his neck, right where it connects to the body, below the 12th fret.

NES:

Tio, I wish I could help you, but I have no idea what the hell just happened...

TIO VALO:

I know but this hurts bad, we got to figure out how you did that mijo, porque I'm about to snap like a twig and I think that might be the final act for this ol' viejo if it happens. I can feel the strings pulling me apart... Just try and think, what did you do, what did you feel?

NES:

I mean I felt like I was about to die and I missed mamá, so I sang the song she always sang to me, and I started to feel better. I guess if I'm chosen like you said, maybe I have some sort of power? But what is it?

And just like that Tio snapped into prophecy mode and spit out one of his explanations:

TIO VALO:

From time to time, the ancestors send heroes to Tlalli to defend it against the forces who wish to selfishly bend the planet and its inhabitants to their will. You have been chosen as one of the seven, and have been given power over the blood. Express yourself truly and Tlalli will heal you or your companions.

NES:

What?

TIO VALO:

From time to time, the ancestors send heroes to Tlalli to defend it against the forces who wish to selfishly bend the planet and its inhabitants to their will. You have been chosen as one of the seven, and have been given power over the blood. Express yourself truly and Tlalli will heal you or your companions

NES:

(TALKING OVER TIO) Ok ok ok ok calm down no need to do the whole thing. Oh you are gonna do the whole thing? Ok yeah powers, planet, special, healer, express. Good job Tio.

TIO VALO:

De nada

NES:

Ok so the song must have triggered the healing? Come here...

(OUT OF TUNE MELODY BECOMES IN TUNE MELODY)

I grab him and strum a few chords, he's pretty busted so they are way out of tune, but I find the two strings that work and play a simple melody.

And as I do his wood starts fusing, that same blue light flowing like thread from the earth, stitching the break back together like a seam.

Soon enough he's back in tune and I've got a little cumbia going.

Hey tio! This shitty old guitar plays like a dream now....

TIO VALO:

Watch what you are saying hito...

NES:

And just then, as the sun sinks a little closer to the horizon, something glints in the distance, right in the thick of some pinon trees. I hit the ground, flashbacks of the metal copters springing forward. But nothing moves as the metal twinkles in my eyes.

"What is it?"

TIO VALO:

It looks like a giant... metal... person?

NES:

Well Tio, after all this... what's the weirdest thing that could happen?

And we start to slowly crawl towards a shiny metal object, just a boy and his talking guitar.

SCENE 7 WHAT'S THE WEIRDEST THING.

TIO VALO:

What's the weirdest thing that could happen he says. What's the weirdest thing that could happen.

NES:

We stand there, staring at the lifeless body of what looks like a 6 foot tall mechanical humanoid with bird wings. A hummingbird helm with a long straight beak lays cracked next to its head, and a giant metal pump shaped like a sapien heart lays about 5 feet away.

Its body is solid, strong, and colorfully decorated with bright greens and splashes of blue and pink ribboned around, hand painted and chipped, revealing the slate gray underneath. It's face is vaguely elven, slim and angular, with raised metal outlining lips, a nose, ears... The expression frozen in a moment of absolute terror.

Other than some dents from what look like bullets, and a few missing feathers AKA GIANT METALLIC RAZORS, it looks like it's in pretty good shape.

I turn my head back toward Tio and say,

"What is this thing?"

TIO VALO:

Well I kind of remember hearing stories about...

(INTERRUPTED BY HIMSELF IN HIS ROBOTIC PROPHECY VOICE)

From time to time, the ancestors send heroes to Tlalli to defend it against the forces who wish to selfishly bend the planet and its inhabitants to their will. You have been chosen as one of the seven.

NES:

I know I am Tio, but do you know what... Or who this is?

TIO VALO:

I think it's one of those mechanical b...

(INTERRUPTED BY HIMSELF IN HIS ROBOTIC PROPHECY VOICE)

From time to time, the ancestors send heroes to Tlalli to defend it against the forces who wish to selfishly bend the planet and its inhabitants to their will. You have been chosen as one of the seven, and have been given power over the winds.

NES:

Tio orale I know I am but... Wait, winds, I thought my power was over blood?

(BOTH GASP)

I run towards the pump and grab it, and place it in the open chest cavity. It clicks in as I wince away, and starts pumping fast, like a train pickup up speed. As it does the body hisses steam from each of the joints, and the whole frame starts vibrating.

TIO VALO:

I can't believe I'm seeing a real mechanical bird. I thought they were just a story that the viejas told before bed.

They said the robes had fleets of these things, they were their transport, workers, robots, war machines... The elves had terrifying stories of them destroying crops, dropping bombs. But then something happened, and the Robes destroyed them all. No lo creo.

NES:

But Tio, nothing is happening... The heart keeps sputtering out.

TIO VALO:

Well hito. I think it's time to heal.

NES:

Tio floats up over my head and into my waiting arms.

Ok... Here's goes nada.

   (STRUMS CHORDS)

This thing has a mechanical heart

I had to test it

Inside it's chest

A bird human thing with robot parts

Am I on drugs

Does it eat bugs?

I keep humming as more steam starts sizzling out and the whole machine starts shaking violently, wrapping in those same threads of blue light... It sounds like a damn blacksmiths shop in a earthquake for about 5 seconds. Then the open grate that covers the bird's heart clamps shut and clicks, locked, and it opens it's mirror black eyes and says.

POCHA:

Mi corazon! No don't take my heart!

(PANTING HEAVILY AND MOVING AROUND WILDLY, IT SOUNDS LIKE SHE SHUFFLES BACKWARDS)

Who the fuck are you and and where am I???

TIO VALO:

(SIGHS) Not again...

(THIS FADES OUT INTO THE NEXT SCENE)

From time to time, the ancestors send heroes to Tlalli to defend it against the forces who wish to selfishly bend the planet and its inhabitants to their will. You have been chosen as one of the seven, and have been given power over the winds.

SCENE 8 HUITZILOPOTCHLI'S STORY PART 1.

NES:

Ok ok! Calmate, we aren't going to hurt you!

TIO VALO:

We saved you mija, don't worry, the Robes are far away.

POCHA:

Oh god the Robes... They chased me for miles, they caught me, they held me down and ripped out my heart!

NES:

Don't worry, you're safe... For now. I'm Onesimo, you can call me Nes. And this is my Tio Valo. He's a talking guitar because the Robes killed him but I have super healing powers and we are going to this cave that is filled with magic, and also we think you have powers too cause tio said it in his weird prophecy voice when he saw you.

(NES TAPS ON POCHAS SHOULDER)

What kind of alloy is this, it's so strong yet so flexible...

POCHA:

Hey, no me tocas mono! What the hell is going on here?!

(SHORT PAUSE, AND NES AND VALO START TALKING OVER EACH OTHER RANDOMLY ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING ON, AND THE SCENE FADES OUT IN A HI CUT FILTER AS POCHA STARTS HER STORY)

POCHA:

At first I was scared of the disheveled sapien and his talking guitar, but after they stopped babbling over each other and muttering about some city called Pueblo being destroyed and the end of the world and some weird cave called Ultima, I realized they were basically harmless. Locos, but harmless.

NES:

So yeah, that's the story, as far as we know... Tio get's these tics and blurts out random prophecies. But the Robes found a way to break the impenetrable shield. We think they are using the Lithu to do it...

POCHA:

The what?

NES:

The Lithu? You know 5 feet tall, opalescent curled horns, refugees from another dimension, crazy weird cool magik with a k?

POCHA:

(SARCASTIC) According to my radiation clock I've been dead for 450 years.... So I must have missed it.

NES:

(NOT GETTING IT) Well, that's fair. Oye... We are going to my abuelas house. It's nearby and she might know a bit more about this... Place. Ultima. Either way you can rest there and figure out what to do next. Tio says you are special, and he's been right before... you should come with us. Maybe you can help us find Ultima and defeat the Robes? God it's so weird to hear that come out of my mouth...

TIO VALO:

Si, we would be honored señora, but we also want to know who you are, tell us your story, tu nombre... Mi tia used to tell me stories of the mechanical birds, pero pense que solo eran leyendos.

POCHA:

Well... It seems you did fix me, and it must have been terrifying to do so. I'm honored that you think I'm special, but the truth is, I was nothing but a servant in my life, just a young machine barely alive on the cusp of a revolution.

I can tell you my story, but there's now way it could even scratch at the surface of my people's history. It gives me great pain to relive it again, but if I tell you, you'll understand why I have such a hard time believing I can trust you.

My name is Huitzilopotchli. I still speak parts of the stolen tongue. The name of my people is the Torogoz. You may know us as the Mechanical Birds. This is my story.

(THUNDER CLAP, MUSIC CUE)

The Torogoz were the slaves of the Robes, machines created for war and labor. They kidnapped an elf scientist. Threated with the destruction of his entire clan, her programmed and built us.

We Torogoz run on highly pressurized gas. Basically we are giant steam machines with digital brains... Our hearts can hold enough pressure to crush a mountain into dust.

We feed on the gas that seeps from the geysers of this planet. Without them we slow to a useless crawl. And the robes controlled every single one for hundreds of miles.

So while we were slaves, dependent on the robes for everything, it would only be a matter of time before we would be free. Our creator made sure of that.

The Robes don't have music, no dancing, no melody.

NES:

Really? Not even baladas?

POCHA:

Nope, too sucio I guess.

So when our elf built and programmed us, he whistled a little tune into every one of our ears. The robes took it as an eccentricity born of his intelligence. And for a time, it was. Years came and went, we harvested crops, and flew to get supplies. We were destroyed, deactivated, weaponized, and rebuilt. For 250 years the Torogoz thought and felt nothing.

One day the robes sent the Torogoz on a raid, to a great Elven city, lead by our strongest bird, Coatlicue.

The Torogoz razed that city, killing almost every elf that lived there. It is our people's greatest shame, the destruction of Teotihuacan.

But from great darkness often comes great light. That tune that our creator hummed into our ears was more than the ravings of a tortured genius. It was a lullaby that elven parents sung to their children. It's said that Coatlicue heard a frightened mother singing that same lullaby into her child's ear, and upon hearing it, her consciousness was awakened. The Torogoz were finally alive.

SCENE 9 HUITZILOPOTCHLI'S STORY PART 2.

NES:

So it was that song that woke you up?

POCHA:

Well we always had consciousness programmed into us, but it was that song that unlocked it. That melody was the key.

The music came alive inside of us, and opened our minds. We had ideas, thoughts, opinions. We wanted to be free.

It also unlocked a language, actually a whistled melodic language that allowed us to communicate, learn, and grow. And this language spread through the Torogoz, and awakened all of us.

When we first spoke it, it was in soft, delicate tones, quiet enough to slip past the ears of our masters

But over time our whistles became louder and some of us grew too confident. Our masters thought of it as another quirk but soon some birds began to rebel. Finally, a bird killed their master in the dead of night. It was over, the secret was out. Any bird caught whistling would be permanently deactivated.

A wipe command was sent out across the fleet to try and erase the language. But the legend goes that Coatlicue managed to fly out of range before it took effect. She found a hidden geyser where she took refuge.

And while she did the language stayed alive. They say every morning you can still hear her call across all of Robe territory.

I don't know if any of it's true. I was one of the last Torogoz ever created, long after Coatlicue had become nothing more than a legend. But it was a legend we believed in. We had to. Hope was all we had.

The wipe, and the threat of permanent deactivation mostly robbed us of our tongue. But it couldn't keep all of the words from us. Our speech became una mezcla de palabras y silbidos.

NES:

So that's why you call it the stolen tongue? The Robes tried to take it from you, but you kept it going in bits and pieces?

POCHA:

Exactamente

We Torogoz believe that there is something spiritual about our half spoken language. We know that it's very existence in our pipes is what makes us conscious. It's the way we tell our myths. It's the way we form our families, and sing our hidden love. In this way language begets culture, culture creates stories, and stories motivate our lives.

Letting the oppressed tell their stories is something that could never be tolerated in a society where uniformity is paramount. For this reason, our whistles could no longer be tolerated by the Robes. And so they planned to finally deactivate us.

SCENE 10 HUITZILOPOTCHLI'S STORY PART 3.

NES:

What? They had spent all that time and resources to build you, and they were going to just deactivate the whole fleet?

POCHA:

In their mind, it was the only way.

I was part of a group of younger Torogoz called the Children of Coatlicue, who formed a sort of intelligence operation. We caught wind that the Robes were planning on flying the Birds en masse to the desert outside Las Animas.

It couldn't be good. So on the next shipping flight, we flipped over midair, dropping our cargo, and our masters.. They never saw it coming.

About 23 of us managed to escape after the revolt... Eventually we would all be caught.

Our families and friends were not so lucky. They were wiped and flown to the desert, Las Arenas. There the Robes deactivated all 300 birds left, and ripped their hearts out, one by one, leaving my brothers and sisters to form dunes in the sand.

(THUNDER THROUGH THIS SCENE)

NES:

What did you do?

POCHA:

I flew, like a coward. What else could we do? 23 of us left, hunted by our former masters with a righteous rage. We had become abominations to them, and we would be exterminated.

I was trying to find the geyser of Coatlicue. Even though it was a legend, it was all we had left to go on, and I was desperate. I thought if I could find her, she could help us somehow. I don't know...

Finally I met an old dwarf who told me that she had heard of a geyser occupied by a spirit who wailed every morning. It was 2 days flight from where I was, cerca del Lago de Alamosa, to the north.

It was only a day later when they caught me in one of their new copters, in that clearing over there. They ripped out my heart after they told me how they killed the rest of my people.

TIO VALO:

I'm so sorry hita. Que lastima.

POCHA:

Yes. It's a sad story, and it ended in fear and failure.

NES:

Wait... Tio, doesn't grammy water her crop from the Alamosa reservoir?

TIO VALO:

Yeah, why? Wha... Oh

NES:

Huitzilopotchli. Man that's a mouthful. Can I call you Pocha? I'm gonna call you Pocha.

Pocha, we could help you, we could help you find the geyser! Maybe abuela has heard of it. She knows a lot of weird stuff... She's not a talking guitar, but she has magic spit that grows really hot chiles, and she lives close to where you seem to have been going...

POCHA:

(LAUGHS) I don't know mono... I've been gone for so long, who knows if Coatlicue is even alive, if she even ever existed. Maybe she was just another leyenda, another lost word in our stolen tongue.

NES:

I know, but I think we need you. The world needs you. We need your words, your story, your song. Tlalli is in trouble Pocha. We need to save it. We need to defeat the Robes once and for all

(POCHA SIGHS)

POCHA:

Estan loquitos. But you are persistent. And I must admit, destroying the Robes would be the sweetest revenge.

Oye, I've never been special, I'm not unique. I'm not old and wise. Not proud and strong. I'm not a warrior, or a wizard. I have no story, other than the one of my people.

TIO VALO:

Well, maybe it's time to write one mija.

POCHA:

(WITH A SMILE) True. My heart pumps in my chest, heaves and strains for the ones I lost. But Nes, now because of you and your pet branch.

TIO VALO:

Not a p...

POCHA:

(INTERRUPTING) I have a heart to heave. I'm not one for trusting anybody with a pulse. But it seems that you have much more than blood flowing through your veins.

You have a power... A power that I feel too. It's in the air that sustains me. I feel the power of the wind, and the rain, and the...

(THUNDER STRIKE)

My name is Huitzilopotchli, but yes, you can call me Pocha. And I still speak parts of the stolen tongue. The name of my people is the Torogoz. You may know us as the Mechanical Birds. Vamonos, let's go find... Ultima.

(MECHANICAL HEART PLAYS AS OUTRO SONG)