Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

While the crystalline towers of Ko-Metru made the district’s skyline an iconic image across the universe, anyone who had actually been to the place knew that the streets below those shining towers were cramped, mist-shrouded, and chaotic. They were such a contrast to the well-ordered layout within the Knowledge Towers, it was believed that the Ko-Matorans made them deliberately unwelcoming to ward off visitors, which, given the personality of the average Ko-Matoran, was a very valid suspicion.

It was much quieter than the rest of Metru Nui. So quiet, it was said that the loudest thing on the streets of Ko-Metru was the skittering of the many-legged Vakhi transports, and Ehyre.

Unlike his fellow Ko-Matoran, Ehyre enjoyed small talk, which made him the equivalent of a whaling siren in Ko-Metru. His unerring ability to navigate the complicated routes between towers for his courier duties forced the others to deal with his chatter, a fact of which he was aware and took full advantage of.

“Matoro!” He called out. “Just who I wanted to see! How’s the talking rahi going?”

The unfortunate Matoran who had walked into the same train cart as Ehyre looked up from his notes in surprise.

“Oh. Um. Hi Ehyre.” He mumbled. “My research isn’t really about talking rahi, it’s just studies on the rudimentary methods of communication that different subspecies use.”

“That just sounds like a more complicated way to say 'talking rahi' to me, but okay! Did you get approval to move forward with it? I heard you’ve been having trouble with getting permission from the Archives-”

“S-sorry,” the scholar interrupted. “You said that you wanted to see me for something?”

“Just for the pleasure of your company,” Ehyre responded cheekily. The scholar looked like he was contemplating leaping off the moving train.

“I’m kidding, Matoro. I’ve got a delivery for you.” Ehrye said as riffled though his bag. He produced a set of tablets and handed them over to Matoro with a small flourish. The scholar took them and immediately began to examine them.

Ehrye peeked over his shoulder to get a look at what was written on them. “Is it anything good?”

Matoro responded with an absentminded hum, his eyes glued to the tablet. Ehrye sighed. Like so many other deliveries, Matoro was completely absorbed in whatever notes he had been given. He resigned himself to a boring ride with an unresponsive cart-mate for until the train reached his stop.

“Excuse me, little one, but I have a delivery as well.”

Ehrye started and whirled around to face the person who had spoken. He had thought he had been the only person in the cart until Matoro entered. But standing behind the two of them was tall, red and gold armoured being carrying a skyboard over twice as tall as the two Matoran.

“Toa Lhikan!” Ehrye squeaked. “Oh wow, you’re... why are you...? I mean, of course you’d… a delivery?”

The Toa chuckled and looked down on the Matoran with a fond smile. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small, ellipsoid object. He handed it over to Ehrye, who accepted it numbly. The starstruck Matoran watched as Lhikan leapt on his skyboard and shot off out of the train cart towards the starry sky.

“Mata Nui,” Ehrye breathed. “He came to me! He chose me to deliver something for him! He must have heard all about how quick and reliable I am if he entrusted something as important as this with me. What is this thing? I bet it’s something powerful and exciting. I bet it’s a big secret that I have to keep under guard. What do you think it is, Matoro?”

“Mmhmm,” Matoro hummed, his gaze still fixed to the tablet.

Tehutti trudged dejectedly over a mountain of shattered protodermis, searching desperately for anything of worth amongst the junk. He was in one of the few places in Onu-Metru that saw the light of the suns, and the glare off of the metal just added another barrier to finding anything that could be salvaged.

The largest barrier was the fact that the junior archivist was not at all allowed to be there. The wreck was once a Le-Metru airship that had been transporting some relics recovered from the Southern Continent to be placed in the Archive. During its descent into the gorge housing Onu-Metru’s airship docks, one of its levitate disks had failed, causing the craft to plummet to the bottom. The pilot had already been recovered, with only a broken leg that could be easily repaired back in his home Metru, but the airship had been marked as off limits until a proper scavenger team could be assembled.

However, the early Gukko gets the Fukku. There had to be relics that survived the crash, and some could be significant enough finds to make the Matoran that recovered them famous. This hope gave Tehutti the bravery to slip past the Vahki guarding the wreck and creep around its crumbling hull.

But after hours of searching, Tehutti had nothing to show for his efforts but a couple trinkets and a dozen new scrapes on his armor. His shift in the Archives was starting soon, and it looked like he was going to leave without anything of value.

An echoing groan shook him from his haze of self-pity. The part of the ceiling above him, formerly the ships starboard hull, shifted as its support was gradually warping under its weight. Tehutti broke out into a sprint a moment too late as the support gave a metallic shriek and gave. The hull pummited down, slamming into Tehutti and knocking him off of his feet.

The impact stunned Tehutti and it took him a moment to register the oppressive weight on his back pinning him the earth. He tried to push himself up, but the hull section was far too much for a single Matoran to lift. He twisted and pulled, trying to worm his way from under it, but it was just as hopeless. He was trapped.

Just as he was debating the pros and cons of calling out to the Rorzahk for help, the weight suddenly lessened. Tehutti immediately scrambled out from under the hull. He let out a sigh of relief and pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“Are you injured?”

Tehutti looked up in surprise at his rescuer. He had assumed one of the Rorzahk had came to investigate the noise and was about to drag him to the nearest disciplinary center. But the being standing before him was the furthest thing from a Vahki.

Toa Lhikan crouched down to his level, expression twisted with concern behind his mask. Tehutti pulled himself together enough to answer the Toa’s question.

“N-no. I think I’m alright,” he said, climbing unsteadily to his feet. Lhikan kept a hand on his shoulder until it was clear that the archivist was not going to topple over again. Tehutti gave a grateful bow towards his savior.

“Thank you, Toa. I guess you’ll have to turn me over to the Vahki now,” he added ruefully.

Surprisingly, Lhikan shook his head. He glanced around, as if on watch for the robotic enforcers and then produced a small object from his pack.

“I don’t think that would be wise right now. Here.” He handed the object over to Tehutti. “Follow the instructions. Make sure no one stops you on the way out of here.”

Lhikan straightened up and summoned his skyboard to his side. “I’ll distract the guards; you get yourself back to the Archives before you look that thing over.”

Tehutti stopped mid-motion to unwrap the foil covering the object he had been given. He nodded and shoved it into the bottom of his pack.

Lhikan gave him a quick smile before shooting off into the air. Tehutti saw him summoning elemental fire in his hands, causing a series of small, but loud, detonations as he flew. The chittering of the Vahki guards sounded off immediately as they swarmed in the direction of the disturbance.

Tehutti fled in the opposite direction, staying low to avoid any guards that may have lingered behind. All the while his thoughts were consumed by to little weight in his pack, hopeful that he may have finally stumbled upon something of value.

“Where in Karzani’s name is Matau?” Orkahm grumbled.

He had been partnered with the other Le-Matoran for today’s shift with the Ussal transports, and had been expecting a little bit of tardiness from him. Matau was flighty at the best of times, and driving the Ussals was not exactly a popular shift in Le-Metru. Orkahm was one of the few who actually enjoyed piloting the slow, land-bound crustaceans across the city.

He gave his Ussal, Puku, a reassuring pat and checked that the cargo was secured to her cart for what had to have been the hundredth time that morning. It paid to be cautious; Ussals were only used to transport cargo that was exceedingly delicate or volatile. Anything else would be sent through the chute system that could rocket cargo to any point in Metru-Nui at a much faster speed.

Orkahm flagged down a passing Ussal before he could depart out into the city. The driver slowed but did not stop.

“Hey,” Orkahm called up to them. “Did you run into Matau on the way here? He’s supposed to be paired with me today.”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” One of the drivers asked. “He’s in deep trouble with the Moto Hub’s test engineers. He’s stuck doing cleanup there.”

“Cleanup?”

“He totaled some sort of prototype speeder!” The driver's partner chipped in. “Pushed it past its safe speed limits and the thing just fell apart around him! It was awesome!”

“But he’s supposed to be helping me with deliveries today!” Orkahm shouted as the two gradually exited the delivery bay.

The driver looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “That’s too bad, but you can handle it by yourself. It’s just Ussals!”

Orkahm sagged as they exited, leaving him and Puku the only ones left in the delivery bay. He took a moment to stew in his frustration before stomping back to Puku. His Ussal sensed his foul mood, chittering and clicking her claws nervously. Orkahm reigned in his anger enough to give her a reassuring pat.

“Looks like Matau slipped out of having to do the ‘boring’ work again,” he said, in a calm tone that he did not at all feel. “That arrogant little mite isn’t good enough for you anyways. You’ll have a much easier go of it without him trying to make you go chute-speed around every corner.”

Puku gave a happy little coo and relaxed her anxious clacking. Orkahm gave her another pat before climbing up the side of the cart.

“The thing that really annoys me though,” he continued. “Is that he broke a perfectly good speeder to get out of this. Matoran put valuable time and effort into designing it and he just goes and wreaks it! I swear, sometimes it feels like I’m the only person in this entire Metru who won’t break a vehicle just to see how fast it can go.”

“Well, then you’re the one person in this entire Metru I can trust not to break this.”

A small stone was tossed into Orkahm’s lap. He started, fumbling with Puku’s reigns as he tried to see the one who threw it. He wasn’t quite fast enough to get more than a glance of a red and gold Toa rocketing out of the bay.

Vhisola had been given a gift by her city’s greatest defender; the heroic Toa Lhikan. A mysterious stone that glowed with a faint blue light as she held it, nothing like anything she had ever seen. He had given it to her in the winding depths of one of Ga-Metru’s many libraries, away from the prying eyes of her fellow students, and told her to keep it hidden.

Naturally, Vhisola brought it directly to Nokama.

It wasn’t really a betrayal of the Toa’s instructions, Vhisola reasoned as she watched her teacher examine the stone. Lhikan had said to keep it secret, but he didn’t expressly forbid her from telling anyone. If she had shown off the stone to the first Matoran she bumped into leaving the library, then sure, the secret would be broken. But Nokama could be trusted not to blab, and her expertise in a wide range of subjects made her the best person to take the stone to. And the fact that bringing a mysterious artifact to Nokama might earn Vhisola some of her friend’s attention had absolutely nothing to do with her decision.

“It’s frustratingly familiar,” Nokama said, turning over the stone in her hands. “I swear I’ve seen a reference to something like this, but I cannot remember where I read it.”

She looked up from the stone and Vhisola felt her heartlight sputter under her attention. Nokama had such an intense expression whenever she studied and to be subjected to that look made-

“Vhisola?”

She started as she realized that Nokama was waiting for her to respond to something.

“Sorry! What did you say?”

“Where did you find this?” Nokama repeated patently.

“Oh, did I not tell you? Toa Lhikan gave it to me!”

“The Toa?” Nokama frowned. “Did he say why?”

“Not really. He just told me to keep the stone secret. But it did come wrapped up in this!”

Vhisola unveiled a small page of writing foil and held it up for Nokama to see. There was a building layout inscribed on it, with a highlighted route from the entrance to an unlabeled room. Neither Vhisola's nor Nokama's area of study was in the architecture of Metru Nui, but the building depicted was famous enough that any Matoran in the city would recognize it.

“I searched through some other schematics of the Great Temple,” Vhisola explained. She jabbed a finger at the unlabeled room. “And this was not included on any of them! I think Lhikan wants me to bring the stone there and… catalog the room, maybe? I’m not entirely sure why, but if we go together, I’m sure we could figure it out!”

Nokama looked back to the stone and carefully placed it on her desk, as though she was suddenly afraid that it might explode.

“Vhisola,” she said, with a strained calm. “Why are you here?”

Vhisola frowned. “To ask you what you think of all this?”

“I think you should have gone straight to the Great Temple. I think you should have honored the Toa’s insistence on secrecy. I think you should not have shown me any of this.”

Nokama stood, gently picked up the stone, strode over to Vhisola and thrust it into her hand.

“I appreciate your instinct to study this and to do research before going to the Temple. But if Lhikan just needed the artifact to be brought to the temple, he would have taken it himself. If he wanted this unmarked section of the Temple examined, he would have ordered a research team to be assembled. For whatever reason, he wanted you to go deliver this stone.”

“Oh,” Vhisola replied, spirit withering from the, admittedly mild, judgement. “…So I should just take this and go now, you think?”

Nokama sighed and rested her mask in her hands. “Yes. Go right now. Sooner, actually. Before you came to show me this, if possible.”

All throughout Po-Metru the sound of Matoran labour could be heard. The chiseling of grand monuments, and the clattering of loose parts being assembled. All of them vital services to Metru Nui, and Ahkmou’s current job was the most vital by far. He was engaged in the noble pursuit of parting fools from their widgets.

“Tell your friends!” He called after his most recent customer. The Po-Matoran had bought a carved statuette that Ahkmou claimed to be from the Trem Kom Peninsula. Ahkmou had never been to the Trem Kom Peninsula, nor had he ever met someone from there. He wasn't even really confident about his ability to pick it out on a map. But Matoran seemed much more eager to buy a carving from exotic lands, rather than something that could be found anywhere in Po-Metru. So if some story-telling was needed to make them feel better about buying the results of Ahkmou's carving practice, then he was willing to provide.

Ahkmou hummed to himself as he counted the widgets he had earned and turned from counter littered with little figurines in order to stow them away. While he was there, he grabbed another carving to replace the one that had been sold. He turned it over in his hands as he mused over a good story for it.

It was a carving of a Toa. Not one of the Toa Mangai, but inspired by them in terms of armor. He had given it a Kanohi Rau, like his own, a pair of sword-axe weapons that he was pretty sure none of the Mangai had sported. He had wanted to make it look familiar as a Toa to Metru Nui Matoran, but distinct enough to look like it had originated from a distant island. Hopefully he had struck enough of a balance to prevent suspicions that this being hadn’t sprung whole cloth from his mind.

“Zakaz,” he decided. “No one goes to Zakaz, so no one will be able to say that you’re not real. We can say that the people there made this in your honor. As for a name… Preston; Toa of Storms!”

“No one goes to Zakaz because the inhabitants are half-feral,” someone on the other side of the counter said.

Ahkmou peaked over the counter and his heartlight spiked. Toa Lhikan was standing at his booth, looking over the statues with an idle curiosity. He caught sight of the one in Ahkmou’s hands as the Matoran rose.

“If your little Toa is supposed to be from there, then they should have a lot more scratches and dents. Maybe missing a limb or two.”

Ahkmou's first thought was that someone had caught on to his lies and snitched, but he dismissed it quickly. Telling creative fibs to make statues seem more valuable was not a problem worthy of a Toa. Ahkmou plastered on a smile and hoped to Mata Nui that Lhikan was only there to shop.

“Thanks for the advice! I wanted this Toa to be as realistic as possible. For entertainment purposes only of course! My customers like realistic, detailed, but totally fictitious lore about each piece.”

“Of course,” Lhikan looked down at him with a skeptical, but amused expression behind his mask. The Toa of Fire reached into his satchel and produced a small object wrapped in foil. He placed it on the empty spot on the display stand. “Here’s a new piece for you. Be sure to research the lore carefully. You might find something interesting.”

With that, the Toa turned, mounted his skyboard, and flew off. Ahkmou waited until he was out of sight before tossing Preston over his shoulder and lunging for the object Lhikan had left behind. He quickly unwrapped the foil and found the glowing brown stone hidden inside.

The sound of crumbling stone distracted him from properly examining his prize. It wasn’t a loud noise, just the sound of a few pebbles falling down a nearby cliff. But to a Matoran who lives in Po-Metru where rockslides are a serious threat, it was attention-grabbing as an alarm.

Ahkmou looked up towards the source of the sound and caught a glimpse of a hulking silhouette up on the cliff top. It lumbered across the edge before folding in on itself and floating up into the sky in the same direction as Toa Lhikan.

Even as the figure got further and further away, Ahkmou scrambled to hide Lhikan’s gift beneath the display stand. Even from that distance, Ahkmou recognized the figure, and it wouldn’t be smart to let him, or his creepy associate, know that he had been given something potentially valuable.

He kicked sand over the stone to obscure its glow. He would dig it back up later. The big one may be leaving, but there was no way to tell if his partner was still around. Ahkmou didn’t know what they wanted with the Toa, or if it was connected to his own encounter with the two hunters, but he did not want to find out.

He’d give it some time, and if the hunters did not approach him again, then he’d take a closer look at the stone. He tried his best to appear casual as he cleaned up the display stand with shaking hands. He prayed to Mata Nui and the Great Beings that the Toa was a more important target for the hunters than a little carver like himself.

Nuhrii stormed out of the foundry an hour before the end of his shift, not caring if any Vahki caught him for doing so. Being tagged by a Command Staff and spending the day in a detention center was worth it as long as he was placed in the cell furthest from wherever Vakama was.

He burned just thinking about him. The little upstart had the gall to complain about being selected for a secret project by Turaga Dume himself! He taunted Nuhrii with the assignment, all under the guise of asking for advice. He had come to Nuhrii with that stupid act of insecurity he always hid behind and told him all about the assignment that should have been Nuhrii’s in the first place.

Nuhrii walked heedlessly through Ta-Metru’s streets with no destination in mind. He let his feet carry him any place far from the foundry as he seethed. The Turaga should have gone to him with the order for this secret mask! He was the one who mentored Vakama and taught him everything he knew. Dume must have been led astray. One of Nuhrii’s rivals must have advised him to go the Vakama instead of Ta-Metru’s actual master mask maker.

He gave a spiteful kick at a piece of rubble, sending it skipping down the street. He flinched as he heard it shatter something delicate-sounding and waited for the inevitable angry shout or the aggravated shrieking of patrolling Vahki.

When none came, Nuhrii suddenly realized he was alone on this street. The buildings around him, normally lit by comforting firelight, were dark and quiet. He looked around frantically, panicking when he saw just how close to the city’s outskirts he had gotten.

He turned and sprinted back towards the light and noise of Ta-Metru. His foot caught on something, and he tumbled to the ground. He pushed himself back up, desperate to get back to the safe zones, but something tightened its grip around his ankle.

Nuhrii cried out and kicked out with his other leg. He struck nothing but air, even as the thing gripping his foot began to pull him backwards. He looked back and saw exactly what he feared the most. A thin, black vine was coiled around him, and was pulling him slowly, but inevitably, back towards the dark streets.

He screamed and scrapped his fingers on the stone street, desperately looking for crack to anchor himself. He kicked at the vine with all of his strength, but it did not even react. He called out for help as loudly as he could, knowing that even if someone heard, they wouldn’t be there fast enough to help before the Morbuzakh carried him away like it had so many other Matoran.

A massive blade came down and severed the vine. Nuhrii let out a strangled yelp as he was seized by the front of his armor and hauled into the air. His rescuer sprinted with him in hand away from the vine, even as more began to sprout from cracks in the street.

“Hold on!” the rescuer shouted. He lifted Nuhrii up to his back, where the panicked Matoran immediately latched onto the armour. With his new position, he could make out the distinctive golden Kanohi Hau of Lhikan.

The alley was now choked by Morbuzakh sprouts, writhing and grasping for the fleeing Toa. Lhikan drew his blades again, locking them together to form his skyboard. He hurled it forward and leapt up on it. It immediately accelerated, nearly ripping Nuhrii free from Lhikan’s back as it rocketed the two of them into the sky.

Nuhrii stayed locked onto Lhikan’s back with his eyes shut. He stayed there for days, hours, or minutes until he was brought back to reality by a gentle voice.

“Nuhrii… Nuhrii,” Lhikan was calling to him. Nuhrii opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. They were still on the skyboard, several stories above the streets of Ta-Metru.

“Are you alright?” Lhikan asked.

“I’m fine,” he replied, unable to hide the tightness in his voice. “Thank you, Toa.”

“Don’t thank me yet. There’s something I need you to do.”

“What?” Nuhrii said. “Why would you need me for anything?”

“I’m sorry to ask it of you after what nearly happened to you, but this is very important,” Lhikan reached back and handed Nuhrii a small foil-wrapped stone. Nuhrii accepted it warily, keeping his other arm wrapped tightly around the Toa.

“The fate of Metru Nui is at stake. Take this to the Great Temple. Keep it secret, keep it sa-“

A bolt of energy slammed into the bottom of the skyboard, ensnaring it in toxic green tendrils that halted its flight. Nuhrii and Lhikan were thrown forward off the board and plummeted through the open air. Nuhrii screamed and shut his eyes as the ground rushed up to meet him.

There was a jarring impact, though not as painful as Nuhrii had expected. He opened his eyes and found that the Toa had angled their fall so he took the brunt of it. He tried to scramble off of Lhikan, a thousand apologies and even more questions at his lips, when Lhikan reached out to stop him from moving.

“Stay low,” he said, softly. “They’ll be searching for us now.”

“Who?”

“Dark Hunters,” Lhikan stood and scanned their surroundings. They had landed on the roof of a building overlooking one of Ta-Metru’s molten cannels. Lhikan’s board was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to draw them away,” he said, eyes still searching the rooftops around them. “Stay still until you see them break cover to chase me. There are two of them. Once you see them both, get off the roof and run away. Get the stone to the Great Temple; all will be made clear there.”

Before Nuhrii could respond, Lhikan took off running. He leapt between roof tops heedless of any noise he was making. He had only gotten three buildings away from Lhikan before a juggernaut fell from the sky, slamming into the roof right in Lhikan’s path.

Lhikan did not hesitate for a second. He leapt up at the larger creature, slamming both fists into the brute’s face. The force of the blow shook the creature, but it recovered quickly. It lunged at Lhikan, grappling the Toa with two powerful arms and squeezing the air from his lungs.

Lhikan responded by pouring his elemental power into the brute’s armor. Within seconds, it glowed whte-hot, scalding the muscles beneath it. The brute bellowed in pain and threw Lhikan from its grasp. The Toa rolled with the impact and sprang to his feet, fists ready for the next attack.

Nuhrii watched in awe the brute charged Lhikan, and the Toa continued to fight the hunter unarmed, when he was alerted to movement out of the corner of his eye. There was large, creeping insectoid climbing the building adjacent to Lhikan and his opponent. Nuhrii had no idea how the creature had gotten so close without being seen, but it had now positioned itself to get a clear shot at the Toa.

Nuhrii looked back to Lhikan. He was too focused on avoiding the giant hunter’s stone-shattering strikes. There was no way that he would see the insectoid before it launched whatever attack it was planning. Nuhrii stood and was about to shout a warning, but he froze.

He should run. He had been told to run. If he called out to Lhikan, the Toa might be able to avoid the attack, but then he would still be facing two Dark Hunters without his weapons or a means to escape them. If Lhikan was overwhelmed, the pair would know Nuhrii had been there and could track him down at their leisure.

Burning with shame, Nuhrii turned from the fight and began to clamber down the side of the building. He was nearly down to street level when there was another flash of green light. He heard Lhikan scream in pain and the sounds of the fight suddenly stop.

Nuhrii held himself tightly against the side of the building for an eternity, listening for any sign of the hunters following him. Eventually, his impatience beat out his fear, and he dropped the rest of the way to the street.

He hit the ground hard, stumbled, and then took off as fast as he could. He had to find the nearest transport to the Temple in Ga-Metru.

It was the smart move, he told himself. It was what Lhikan wanted you to do. It’s not your fault.

He repeated those thoughts the entire way to Ga-Metru. The mantra forced him to keep moving forward and kept the fear and guilt at bay.

Chapter Text

After so much time with only Toa Lhikan to protect it, Metru-Nui had gained six new Toa. A Matoran from each of the six districts followed Lhikan’s instructions to a secret room in the Great Temple and uncovered the shrine within. Placing the stones upon the shrine caused a miraculous transformation, and where the Matoran once stood were now newly minted Toa.

Ehyre was ecstatic. Finally, finally, his hard work had been recognized, and destiny had elevated him from being a simple courier. Elevated him higher than a research position in the Knowledge Towers, something that would have been unthinkable to him before his transformation.

The other Toa were choosing weapons from a compartment in the shrine. Ehyre flitted between the options like an excited Ice Bat before settling on a pair of axes. They were light and well balanced in his hands. He gave them a couple test swings, imagining using them on a mission against rahi and Dark Hunters.

“Hey, look at this,” Nuhrii, once a harried-looking mask maker, now the Toa Metru of Fire, said. He pulled six Kanoka disks out of the shrine’s compartment, each a different colour and inscribed with the depiction of a Mask of Power.

“Those are our masks,” Vhisola, Toa Metru of Water, pointed out. “Though the colors are mismatched.”

She was right. Ehyre could see one with a drawing of his Kanohi Mahiki, but it was drawn on a green disk. The white disk that most matched his armor had the Toa of Air’s Matatu instead. Ehrye met Orkham’s eyes uncertainly.

“Should we… swap?” he asked the group.

“No way! I don’t want his mask!” Tehutti, Toa of Earth, snapped and pointed at Nuhrii, whose red disk displayed Tehutti’s mask.

Nuhrii scowled. “I forged this myself. I guaranteed it’s a better quality than that second-rate thing on your face.”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant. They both look the same to me,” Tehutti said. Ehrye thought that Nuhrii looked even more insulted by that comment, but thankfully the ex-mask maker restrained himself.

“I meant that I’ve got a Huna and you’ve mask is a Ruru,” Tehutti explained. “Their powers are invisibility and night vision. I’m an Onu-Mato- I mean, Toa of Earth. I can already see in the dark! I want to keep my mask.”

“If the disks are some sort of portent of our transformation,” Orkahm argued. “Then we should follow what they say and swap masks.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Ahkmou mumbled, eyeing Vhisola’s Mask of Mind Control.

“Good luck getting my mask when you can’t see me!” Tehutti retorted. He pulled a face of intense concentration and then looked down at his hands. They remained stubbornly visible.

“…Does anyone know how to activate mask powers?” he asked sheepishly.

The other Toa shrugged. Ehyre tried prodding his mask to see if that would initiate something, but it remained sorely inactive.

“Maybe we’ll figure it out in time?” he said uncertainly.

He looked to Nuhrii, hoping the former mask maker had some insight into how to utilize them, but found that the Toa of Fire was staring into space. His body was tense and his breathing was quick and shallow.

Ehyre reached out and gently shook his shoulder. “Nuhrii? Are you alright?”

Nuhrii reacted immediately, falling to his knees and taking deep, shuttering breaths.

“I saw it!” he gasped. “I saw Metru-Nui destroyed! The Morbuzahk will spread throughout the city! We need to find the Great Disks; they are the only way to stop it!”

“Thanks for sharing,” Ahkmou said with a smirk. “But aren’t you a little too big now to be scared of nightmares?”

“Wait,” Ehrye knelt down next to Nurhii. “Great Disks? I heard a rumor about one in Ko-Metru. I was planning to look into it before Lhikan told me to go here.”

“I found an old file about a disk in the Archive,” Tehutti piped up.

“And I heard about one in Ta-Metru,” Nurhii said as Ehrye helped him back to his feet. He glanced up at the others, his breathing steadier already. “How about the rest of you? Do you know where the others might be?”

Vhisola and Orkahm nodded. The group turned expectantly to Ahkmou, who was now looking a little embarrassed.

““I know where one might be too,” he admitted. “… Maybe it was more than just a nightmare.”

“It’s destiny!” Ehrye said eagerly. “We’re clearly destined to save the city!”

“Don’t be too hasty, we still need to actually recover the disks before we’re hailed as heroes of destiny,” Orkahm warned.

Vhisola nodded. “Right. We should split up. Everyone follows their leads and then we can meet back here when we have the disks.”

“That won’t be too hard. We’re heroes now, no one’s going to stop us while we’re trying to save the city!”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” Nurhii replied. His expression had darkened, and he looked much like had when he entered the temple, the excitement of his transformation and vision evaporating. “There’s something else menacing Metru-Nui, not just the Morbuzahk. There are Dark Hunters in the city. They… defeated Lhikan.”

There was a moment of dead quiet. Everyone in the room stared at Nurhii with varying degrees of horror.

“’Defeated’? What does that mean?” Orkahm demanded. “Is he dead, captured, or what?”

“I don’t know! He told me to run away, I didn’t see what happened to him.”

“You just left him behind?” asked Tehutti, aghast.

“I was a Matoran! What was I going to do? Kick them in the shins?”

“This is bad! This is so bad,” Ehrye babbled. “Lhikan’s dead! We have to go to the Vahki or something!”

“Absolutely not! Never go to the Vahki, ever!” Ahkmou snapped.

“What does that mean? You sound like some kind of criminal!”

“No, he’s right,” Vhisola argued. “As far as anyone else is concerned, we are strangers to Metru Nui. The Vahki will see us as invaders and try to detain us. If Lhikan was the only one who knew what those stones would do to us, then it will take forever to convince anyone that we are who we say we are. And we don’t have time for that, right?”

She turned to Nurhii, who nodded.

“I don’t think so. The vision was not very clear, but I don’t think it would have been given to me if this wasn’t urgent.”

“What about the Turaga?” Ehrye suggested. “We should go to Turaga Dume about this!”

“It’s not like we can just walk into his office,” Ahkmou countered. “Trying to get an audience with Turaga Dume will end the same way as going to the Vahki.”

“We have no choice,” Vhisola said firmly. “If we need to stop the Morbuzahk quickly, then we will have to do it on our own.”

Ehrye still felt that this was the wrong thing to do, but everyone else seemed to be in agreement. Ehrye couldn’t even say that Vhisola and Ahkmou’s points were incorrect, but it still felt too risky to split up and romp around the city while Lhikan’s killers were still out there.

Nurhii holstered his new Toa tools and headed for the exit.

“Meet here once you have your Great Disk,” he called back to the others. “Get them as quickly as you can but watch your step. We can decide what to do next when we return.”

Walking through Ga-Metru felt odd to Vhisola now. It wasn’t just how her new stature changed how she could move around the canals and walking paths; it was also the reactions of her peers as she did so. Vhisola didn’t have a wide social circle as a Matoran, and thus could expect a degree of anonymity when traversing her home. As a Toa, she was impossible to miss and had to deal with curious, awed, and even frightened stares.

She wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She never suffered from stage fright, in fact she often took the lead in project presentations and got frustrated by partners who were hesitant to speak up. But the Matoran around her were staring like she was some new strain of rahi, fresh from the labs.

She stopped and spoke with a few people to explain who she was, but the Matoran shied away. Eventually, not wanting to feel foolish, she stopped acknowledging the stares and walked towards her destination as quickly as possible. Her stoicism didn’t put anyone who saw her at ease, but at least her longer stride carried her quickly away from the whispers and awkward stares.

She had kept the notes on the Ga-Metu disk in her home ever since she caught a fellow student poking through her workstation at the school. She just needed them for a quick reference; she remembered that the disk was under the Great Temple, but she wanted to be sure of its exact location before she went diving for it.

The whole way to her home, Vhisola had to restrain herself from running to Nokama’s lab to show her what the stone had done to her. Nokama would be an effective balm against the stares and nervousness of the other Matoran. She had always been so understanding; she never judged Vhisola got overeager and made a dumb mistake in her studies, and she was much more forgiving of Vhisola’s ‘abrasive’ moments than other Matoran.

Still, Vhisola would probably die of embarrassment if talking with Nokama took too long and one of her new teammate beat her to their disk. Hers was right under the Great Temple! There was no excuse for her not to find it first.

No-one challenged her until she got to her home. Just as she was opening the door to her now-too-small living quarters, a soft ‘ahem’ caught her attention. She turned and saw one of her neighbors (her name eluded Vhisola in the moment) staring at her, hands on her hips.

“Why are you going in there? Who are you?”

Vhisola did not want to have to go through an awkward conversation about why she was no longer a Matoran. “I’m the new Toa of Water. I just need to pick up a few notes this Matoran made that can help the city.”

The Matoran (was it Halu? It was definitely something with an ‘H’) perked up. “Toa? I’ve never met one up close! You sort of have the same armour as Lhikan, I guess. Are you here to replace the Toa Mangai?”

“Um. Yes. Me and my team are here to stay.” At least, she assumed they were. The Toa Mangai had left Metru Nui one by one, until only Lhikan remained. But they had come from other islands; the Toa Metru would all probably want to stay and defend their home. For a while, at least.

Vhisola opened the door to her home and had to duck under the frame to enter. She immediately went to the far wall, removed the picture there, and began opening the safe hidden beneath it where she kept her notes. She heard a gasp from her neighbor. She turned around and saw her looking around the home with an expression somewhere between confusion and mild horror. It took Vhisola a second to realize why.

Vhisola kept a few images of Nokama around her home. Maybe more than a few. Maybe a lot. She really didn’t intend one of her walls to be dedicated solely to images of her teacher, it had just kind of happened. Vhisola was aware that this wasn’t ‘normal’ behavior enough to take them all down the few times she invited someone to her home, even if she never examined why she did it.

Hakki, or Hewkii, or whoever gave a nervous chuckled as she looked around. “Vhisola always was a little odd, I guess.”

“Odd?” Vhisola asked, trying desperately to sound disinterested in the answer.

“Just a little off, you know? Like, I know some students who used to be friends with her, and they all talked about how she would get clingier and clingier over time. When they wouldn’t act just as attached to her as she was to them, she would sulk and break off the friendship. I guess Nokama’s the latest obsession, huh?”

Vhisola did not respond. She silently opened her safe and started collecting the notes she needed.

“I don’t think she’s dangerous or anything,” her neighbor added hurriedly. “I never heard of her getting into fights or doing anything to get the Vahki on her case. But maybe she has some sort of … I don’t know, defect or something with her mind? Probably not serious enough to send her to Karzahni for repairs, but I could be wro-.”

Vhisola pushed past the Matoran and ducked out of her home, notes in hand. She walked as quickly as she could without looking like she was running away. Thankfully, her neighbor didn’t try to follow, and once Vhisola had crossed a cannel and turned the corner, she was able to take a moment to centre herself without any stares.

The moment did not last. Vhisola looked up and saw a trio of Ga-Matoran looking at her. At first, she thought it was just the same curious ogling she had been getting all day, but then she noticed their faces. They all had the same excited, almost feverish look in their eyes. They whispered amongst themselves, eyes darting erratically between her and each other. It was a type of behavior that everyone in Ga-Metru could recognize. Everyone had to keep an eye out for victims of the Ga-Metru Vahki, the Bordakh, whose staffs left troublemakers with a temporary obsession with order, to the point where they would turn over their friends for minor infractions.

One of the three suddenly ran off, probably to find a nearby Vahki squad. The others stayed to keep an eye on Vhisola. She did not have time to deal with them.

Vhisola unsheathed her Toa tools; a pair of large swords that she locked together to make a board similar to Lhikan’s skyboard. She threw it down into a nearby cannel and leapt on top of it. The hydroboard reacted immediately, knifing forward through the water faster than any Ga-Matoran could swim and pulling Vhisola along with them.

The Matoran tried to chase her, but she quickly outpaced them. She laid down on the board and gently pushed the nose down under the waterline. The board’s velocity pushed it below the surface, pulling Vhisola down along with it. Finally out of sight from the Matoran, Vhisola sped towards the Temple, eager to get this quest over with.

Nurhii watched with grim satisfaction as the Vahki Nuurakh collapsed under the heat he poured into it. The complex mechanisms within that animated it melted into slag, leaving the enforcer as pile of white-hot scrap in Nurhii’s grip. He let it fall to the ground, raising his weapons to be ready for the Vahki’s two squadmates to attack.

This squadron had intercepted him on the outskirts of the Ta-Metru Fire Pits, just before he could get to the Great Disk’s hiding place. They were likely called in to deal with the disturbances his appearance caused in the Metru, but they could have just decided to attack on their own accord. The Nuurakh were notoriously the most aggressive Vahki model, and an unknown being like Nurhii was a legitimate target for that aggression.

A Nuurakh fired a disk at Nurhii as its remaining companion charged him. Nurhii swung one of his Kanoka Claws at the incoming projectile, the weapon’s specialized claws snatching it out of the air. Nurhii spun with the momentum of the swing and whipped the Claw towards the charging Nuurakh. The disk was released and hit it dead on. It was, evidently, a Freeze disk, because the unfortunate Vakh’s limbs were locked up and its own speed caused it to topple forward into a heap.

Nurhii smiled. It had taken him a few tries to nail that trick. His new form gave him enhanced strength and reflexes, but even Toa needed to hone their skills. That was why he stayed to fight the Nuurakh rather than flee and lead them away from the Great Disk. It may have been a risk, but if he couldn’t handle a few Vakhi, then he wouldn’t stand a chance against the hunters who killed Lhikan.

The final Vakhi fell under a hail of fireballs Nurhii summoned from his tools. It was really cathartic to see the enforcers that keep the Matoran in line, often in disproportionately violent ways, crumble before him. Very few Matoran liked the Vahki, even their creator had gone on record saying he wasn’t fond of them.

Tired by the fight, but eager for his prize, Nurhii ran towards the Fire Pit that he knew hid the Great Disk. The catwalks above the Pits gave him a clear view of the menagerie of broken masks, armor, and tools being fed into them by chutes. Some would have been discarded by their makers for defects, while others saw use outside of Ta-Metru before being worn down to uselessness, thrown out, and sent here. The periotic flares of the Fire Pits quickly melted them all down and drained the liquid protodermis to be recycled into new products.

But there was one object still intact, even in the intense heat of the Fire Pit. Nurhii could barely make out the shape of a Kanoka disk embedded into the wall. It was too far, and the air too distorted by heat, for Nurhii to see the markings on it, but it was undoubtedly the Great Disk.

The pit flared up with a jet of white hot flame. Nurhii flinched at the heat, his natural resistance doing little to mitigate the pain. He backed away until the flare died down, and then returned to the edge to confirm that the Disk was, indeed, unharmed. All other items piled in the pit had been reduced to molten metal, which was slowly being drained away, even as more intact items were dropped in.

Nurhii waited, counting the seconds until the Fire Pit ignited in another devastating flare. It wasn’t a long time between flares, but more than enough for Nurhii to scale down to the Great Disk, retrieve it, and climb back up.

The second the fire died down, Nurhii sprinted forward and jumped into the pit. He flung his Kanoka Claws against the pit’s smooth, metallic walls. They cut into the metal and helped to slow his fall down to the Disk.

Once he was eye-level with the Great Disk, Nurhii poured his elemental power into his tools. The tips of the claws glowed white hot, softening the points of the wall which let them get a firmer hold and stop Nurhii’s fall completely.

Nurhii released one of the claws and reached out to the Great Disk. As close as he was, he could now make out the 3-digit code marked on it. The code showed a power level of nine, a whole tier greater than even the highest-powered disks that Nurhii had used in mask making.

He grinned and wrenched the Disk out of the notch it had been wedged in. He hooked it to his back and grabbed the dangling handle of his other claw. He then used the tools to climb back up as quickly as he could.

For the whole time he was counting down the seconds in his head. He had a minute left until the next flare when he got his claws over the edge of the pit and began to haul himself out. But before he could escape, Nurhii felt the familiar and entirely unwelcome sensation of a vine wrapping around his leg and pulling him back into the Pit.

Nurhii cried out in surprise. Far below him, a patch of twisted vines had emerged from the notch that once held the Great Disk. They had extended up to the fleeing Toa and were now dragging him back down the Fire Pit.

It took all of his strength to keep a hold of the tools anchoring him in place. He couldn’t use his powers to burn the vines; the Morbuzahk thrived on heat. All he could do was kick futility at the vines. He was as helpless as he had been the last time the Morbuzahk had attacked. Except this time, Lhikan wasn’t going to show up to save him.

The bottom of the Fire Pit began to glow, going from a dull orange to a blinding white in a matter of moments. The flare was about to spark, and the Toa of Fire would be reduced to slag. Maybe if he was lucky, the others would meet their end in equally humiliating ways; maybe Vhisola would drown, or Ehrye would be buried in an avalanche. At least that way he wouldn’t be the only one who died to the element they supposedly controlled.

Nuhrii stopped mid-kick. Control. Up until now, he had only been using his elemental power to generate heat. But Toa were supposed to do more than conjure blasts of energy. If he could produce fire, then he should be able to divert or absorb it too. Maybe.

Well, no better time to try it than now, he thought, looking down at the gathering heat. He stopped focusing on warding off the Morbuzahk vine and tried to reach out with his elemental power. Instead of pulling from the power within himself, he concentrated on the heat in the air around him. He imagined it being pulled into himself, joining the well of energy he had within.

In that moment, the Fire Pit activated, and a torrent of fire slammed into Nuhrii and the Morbuzahk. Nuhrii did not feel the heat. In fact, he suddenly felt freezing cold, even as the world around him vanished in the light of the Pit.
There was pain though. He could feel his body absorbing the heat in the air around him, but his body had limits, and the Fire Pit was forcing him to push past them. Still, he kept consuming the flames, knowing that if he stopped, it would be the last thing he did.

It felt like an eternity, but eventually the flare ended. The vines still wrapped around him, and he still held much more energy than he could manage within him.

Using the last of his strength, Nuhrii released the elemental power, concentrated down towards the bottom of the pit. Burning jet streams emerged from his feet, blasting him up and tearing him out of the Morbuzahk’s grasp.

He wasn’t sure how far he was flung through the air, and he didn’t feel it when he hit the ground. He did feel the weight of the Great Disk on his back and a great deal of pride just before he lost consciousness.

The Vahki that found his unconscious body also felt a great deal of pride. As they loaded the troublemaker onto a transport cart, their machine minds marked him off their list of objectives.

One down, five to go.

Ahkmou strode through the abandoned sculpture field, weapon drawn and ready for anything. Hearing nothing but his own footsteps as he passed abandoned buildings and half-finished sculptures was eerie in a place that should have been bustling with activity. Even a location like this, closer to the outskirts of the Metru, would normally have at least a dozen artisans out at a time to work on their projects.

The reason why no one was there to work in this particular field was obvious; Ahkmou could easily spot twisted, black vines sprouting from buildings that should have housed Matoran. The Morbuzahk had claimed most of the settlements at the edges of the city, driving out their residents and resisting attempts by Vahki to slow their growth. Po-Metru hadn’t been infested as badly as Ta-Metru, but the way that the Po-Matoran were distributed in small, widespread towns meant that entire settlements could be attacked and abandoned before anyone else in the Metru caught word of it.

The vines didn’t react to his presence as long as he didn’t get too close to the buildings. This was fine with Ahkmou; he wasn’t here to save a village that didn’t even have Matoran to thank him for doing so. His goal was further in the sculpture fields.
One sculpture he was looking for was an impressive feat of stonework that towered over the others. It was shaped like an upside-down mountain, perfectly balanced on its peak. It was one of the oldest carvings there, having survived earthquakes, storms, and battles with rahi. And, if Ahkmou was correct, the Great Disk of Po-Metru was imbedded in the stone near the top.

He approached the base of the statue and grimaced. It would be a long climb up a constant overhang. The stone was rough and porous enough to give him good handholds, but even with his new strength he doubted that he would be able to make the climb while searching for the spot where the Great Disk was hiding.

If he had some pitons, he would have been a lot more confident, but all he had with him was his Toa tool. The Shatter-point Hammer would be useful in bashing apart rahi and Vahki, but it would not be very helpful for climbing.

The Matoran who used to live here probably left some climbing equipment behind. Maybe he would have to venture near the Morbuzahk after all. Or maybe he could get creative with his elemental power and make an easier way up through the rock.
He was thinking of the best way that he could re-shape the stone into a path up without putting the carving off-balance, when he heard a voice that sounded like metal scratching metal.

“You have reneged on our deal, carver.”

Ahkmou felt a chill down his spine. He took a moment to calm himself before turning to address the speaker. It was, as he feared, the four-legged Dark Hunter. The creature was clinging to the top of a nearby pillar, staring down at Ahkmou with a look of hatred and disgust on his twisted face.

“You did not send the other destined Matoran into our snares. You did not get the locations of the Disks from them.”

Ahkmou put on his best ‘friendly salesman of legitimate goods’ smile. “And I’m really sorry about that, but I’m sure you noticed that the situation has changed.”

He gestured down at his new form. He kept up the smile, even as he subtly scanned the area around him. There was no sign of the Dark Hunter’s hulking companion. That alone bought Ahkmou some confidence. The insectoid hunter was terrifying, but Ahkmou might be able to beat him if the giant wasn’t present.

“Me and the others who were destined to rediscover the Great Disks are the new Toa of Metru Nui,” he said, resting his hammer on his shoulder in a way that he hoped projected confidence. “The traps we set wouldn’t have worked now.”

The Dark Hunter sneered. “You have been Toa for a few days at most; you’re not heroes, you are just taller Matoran. Nothing has changed, and our deal still holds.”

“Right, our ‘deal’. You get the Disks. I get paid a pittance, and I get to keep my life. I’ve been thinking it over for a while now, and I think we should renegotiate.”

“Do you?” the Hunter hissed, clacking his claws together threateningly.

“Yes. Threats don’t hit as hard now that I’m not a defenseless Matoran. And I don’t’ think I’ll need the payment anymore. I’m a Toa now; the Matoran of Metru Nui will see to their hero’s every need.”

“If you think that, then you are as dense as the stone you stand on.”

“You disagree? I guess you’d know more about the prestige a Toa gets, right, Nidhki?”

The Hunter froze. Ahkmou’s smile became a lot wider and a lot less friendly.

“It is you isn’t it? I heard your big friend say your name last time you two threatened me,” Ahkmou chuckled. “You look different. Granted, I only saw you and the other Toa Mangai up close a couple times, but I’m pretty sure you’ve gone through some changes since you were banished. What happened? Did you get sick of looking all handsome and heroic? Is looking like a nightmare Chute Spider in fashion among the Dark Hunters?”

Nidhki stared at him with an unreadable expression. He had not so much as twitched one of his spindly limbs.

“So here’s the new deal,” Ahkmou continued. “You can’t intimidate me anymore, and you have nothing to offer me. Less than nothing, actually, since I’m going to get the glory and powers that you lost. So why don’t you leave and-“

“Kill him.”

Ahkmou felt a pair of powerful hands seize him from behind and, before he could even think of reacting, hurtle him into the air. He slammed into a nearby pillar and tumbled to the ground. He coughed, shook his head to get the sand out of his mask, and looked up to see the bigger Hunter, Krekka, barreling towards him like a runaway transport train.

Ahkmou scrambled out of the way and barely avoided getting trampled by the Hunter. Krekka collided with the pillar with enough force to crack it in half, but the brute was barely phased. He whirled on Ahkmou and brought his fists down on the prone Toa.
“End of the line, Toa,” he growled. He pressed down, and Ahkmou felt the air forced out of his lungs and his chest armour starting to bend.

He swung desperately with his hammer, and miraculously hit Krekka in the head with enough force to distract the brute. The pressure on his chest let off for a moment, and Ahkmou was able to roll away from the Dark Hunter and jump to his feet.
Krekka had recovered and took another swing at Ahkmou. The Toa raised his hammer to deflect the blow, but mid-swing, a bolt of emerald energy struck him in the back. The force of the bolt made him stumble forward, bring his mask straight into Krekka’s oncoming fist.

Ahkmou was thrown backwards again, skitting to a stop in the sand several metres away. He laid there for a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

When it did, Ahkmou was greeted by Nidhki’s monstrous visage looking down on him. Energy crackled across the Hunter’s mandibles as his face split into an extremely unpleasant smile.

“So much for that glory and power. Be glad that you didn’t live long enough to find out how ungrateful the Matoran are to their Toa.”

The energy in Nidhki’s mandibles grew, and Ahkmou knew he was about to die. He felt a surge of helpless fear. That fear quickly turned to anger. He was a Toa! He was not helpless, and he would not die to some mutated traitor.

Ahkmou lashed out blindly with his elemental power. The was an earth-shattering crack. Nidhki turned his head to follow the sound, and his eyes widened.

“You stupid little carver,” he hissed. He turned and ran the other way with blinding speed. Ahkmou heard Krekka’s pounding footsteps following as fast as he could.

Ahkmou groaned and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He was scanning the sands around him for his hammer when he was suddenly engulfed in shadow.

Ahkmou looked up just in time to see the inverted mountain toppling directly towards him.

Chapter Text

Orkahm soared high above Metru Nui with his Great Disk held firmly in his grasp. His Aero Gliders carried him past an airship drifting lazily on its route between Metru. He waved to its startled pilot before he dipped downwards towards the stark white and sparkling blue cityscape of Ga-Metru.

He reached out to the winds around him to guide his decent towards the edge of the Metru where the massive dome of the Great Temple loomed over every other building. The air leapt at his commands with an eagerness that still startled him. Orkahm was cautious by nature, the type of pilot to read his vehicle’s specs twice before getting in the cockpit. He would have preferred to get some training before using his new powers, but the quest for the Great Disks forced him to learn on the fly.

He cringed as he remembered the disastrous process of collecting the Le-Metru disk. It should have been simple; he had already calculated the Great Disk’s path through the Le-Metru chute system. All he should have had to do was wait for it to pass a convenient junction and then net it. He should have been able to do it easily, even when he was a Matoran.

But no, he thought. The universe hates giving me anything easy. Despite it being a million to one chance, my disk ends up inside a Force Sphere.

It was a million-to-one chance of one forming, but Force Spheres were still the bane of everyone who worked on the chutes. They formed when a portion of a chute section’s magnetic sheath folds in on itself and starts traveling down the chute system. As it travels, the sphere pulls in cargo and grows larger until it disrupts the chute sheath’s polarity and causes it to implode. The chute it was traveling down, and all the cargo in the sphere, is destroyed.

The Force Sphere that had picked up Orkahm’s Great Disk should have been discovered and diverted to an unused route where it could be ejected from the chute or collapse without causing too much damage to the chute system. But with so many of the Le-Metru operating stations abandoned to the Morbuzahk, there was no way to catch Force Spheres that form in the edges of the district until it got to a vital section.

Orkahm had found it as it was hurtling towards an ancient, twisting section of the chutes nicknamed ‘the Notch’. He had managed to clear the Matoran out of the chute stations there before the Sphere imploded and collapsed the whole structure. As he suspected, the Great Disk had survived the devastation; an artifact that had survived the chaos that was Le-Metru for millennia had to be strong enough to withstand a Force Sphere collapse.

Still, even with the disk successfully retrieved, Orkahm could not help feeling terrible about how he handled the situation. Maybe if he had been a little quicker or a little more creative, he could have found a way to use his new powers to stop the Sphere completely.

The Matoran I saved certainly thought so, he thought bitterly. They had been too busy wailing over the state of the station to focus on how Orkahm had saved them from being part of the wreckage.

His brooding was interrupted by the sight of a familiar figure far below him. Tehutti’s height and dark armour made him stand out like a fish in Po-Metru, but Orkahm’s Toa-brother didn’t seem bothered. He was striding confidently towards the Great Temple as though he owned the whole Metru, heedless of the odd looks the Matoran gave him.

Orkahm shifted into a steep dive. The winds whipped past him as he fell towards the Ga-Metru walkways. He adjusted his Gliders a few moments before he would have been dashed against the ground, slowing his momentum enough to gently land a few steps in front of Tehutti.

He startled the Toa of Earth, but Tehutti relaxed his hold on his Quake Picks when he recognized Orkahm. He grinned and pulled out a black Kanoka Disk from his back.

“Nice of you to drop by, Orkahm,” he said. “I see you’ve got your disk as well. Any trouble retrieving it?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Orkahm replied. He sheathed his Aero Gliders and walked with Tehutti towards the Great Temple. “How about you? Did you run into any problems?”

Tehutti shrugged. “Not really. I managed to avoid running into any Vahki in the Archives. My disk was hidden in one of the older sections, so there wasn’t a lot of activity there. But the room it was stashed in had some sort of mimic rahi inside of it. It disguised itself as an empty room and ambushed me.”

“It disguised itself as a room?”

“I know! I have no clue what species it was, but it was certainly unique,” he chuckled. “It had me trapped. I needed to summon an earthquake to split open an escape route for myself.”

Orkahm stopped and stared incredulously at Tehutti. “You caused an earthquake in the middle of the Archives?”

“Just a small one,” Tehutti protested. “I didn’t really have another option. Anyways, the Archivists can handle the damages if it means that I can save the city with the Great Disk.”

Orkahm was suddenly feeling a lot better about his own performance in retrieving his Great Disk. He had assumed that his teammates would be slightly more careful than the speed freaks he worked with as a Matoran, but clearly he had been mistaken. He sighed and kept following Tehutti.

The two Toa made their way to the Great Temple uninterrupted. The Ga-Matoran kept their distance, which Orkahm was grateful for, but was also a little unsettled by. Hopefully, once the Morbuzahk is defeated and the climate of fear it was causing was dispelled, the Toa Metru could properly be introduced to the city. Then the Matoran would know to trust them the same way they had all trusted Lhikan.

Vhisola was waiting for them near the steps of the Great Temple. She was fidgeting impatiently with a blue Kanoka Disk under her arm. Her face lit up into a wide smile when she saw them approaching and waved excitedly.
“She seems chipper,” said Tehutti. “I guess her quest was a lot more fun than ours.”

“I guess…” Orkahm muttered. Vhisola had seemed a lot more reserved during the meeting at the Temple. He hoped that was more representative of her personality than the enthusiasm she was now displaying. He had enough hyperactive partners to last him a lifetime, he didn’t need that energy on the team.

“Hello!” Vhisola greeted them once they had gotten closer. “You two got back here fast!”

“Yep. It was a pretty easy trip for both of us. Just there and back, no troubles at all,” Tehutti said. “What about you?”

Vhisola looked down at her Great Disk and frowned. “Oh, I had to go diving below the city and pull this out of the teeth of a giant sea monster. It was a pretty silly thing for me to do. We should have just let our local law enforcement handle this.”

“Wait, you were the one who argued that we shouldn’t go the Vahki!” Orkahm said.

“Yes, and I was wrong. We should have gone to the nearest detention centre, turned ourselves in, and waited until we could be registered as official protectors of the city.”

Orkahm and Tehutti shared a confused look. Vhisola had finally looked up from the disk, and that wide, unnerving smile was back.

“We can still do that!” She said. “But we will also need to turn in the Great Disks. They are potentially hazardous items; it’s not safe to carry them around the city.”

“You’re joking, right?” Orkahm said. “We need to use them to save the city. You know this! What’s wrong with you?”

Vhisola shook her head. She was still smiling, but there was a condescending twist to it now. “I thought that you wouldn’t be cooperative. I had to try though.”

There was an electronic shriek and a dozen Vahki came into view. They had been lying in wait behind buildings, in alleyways, and on the temple roof. The blocked off all the pathways to the temple, trapping the Toa at the edge of Ga-Metru’s silver sea.

“It’s alright,” Vhisola assured her brothers, even as she drew her swords. “The Vahki Bordakh are some of our city’s finest. They’ll make you see the error of your ways.”

Ehrye was trapped. Ehrye was climbing a Knowledge Tower. Ehrye was on the train going towards his next delivery. Ehrye was begging for a recommendation to be made a scholar. Ehrye running from a squad of Vahki. Ehrye was being given a gift by his city’s greatest protector, Toa Lhikan. Ehrye was struck by a Vahki Keerakh that had been waiting to ambush him. Ehrye was venturing outside Ko-Metru for the first time to deliver a package.

Ehrye shook his head. His vision swam and his head pounded like something was trying to break its way out of it. He wanted to sink down and cradle his head until the pounding stopped, but his arms and legs were locked in place.

A quick look around confirmed that he was inside a Vahki prisoner transport, though he didn’t know why. Ehrye could hear the steady footsteps of the vessel traversing whatever Metru it was carting him through. His whole body was locked into the side of the vehicle’s interior and not a part of him could move. The rest of the transport was empty, except for the red-armoured stranger locked into the wall opposite Ehrye.

The stranger was unconscious but didn’t look injured aside from some superficial damage to his armour. He looked like a warrior, and Ehrye might have been a little intimidated if they had not both been locked up.
“Hello?” he called out. The stranger stirred a little in response.

“Hey!” Ehrye shouted. “Are you awake? Do you know why we’re here? I’m supposed to be running deliveries right now!”

The stranger did not respond, but something else heard him. There was a mechanical hiss as the door to the prison section opened and a white armoured Vahki marched in. It approached Ehrye, raising one of its stun staffs at him.

“Wait!” Ehrye fought against his restraints, but it was no use. The Vahki tapped the staff against his chest and fired a psionic charge that sent Ehrye’s mind back into a spiral.

Ehrye was trapped. Ehrye was climbing a Knowledge Tower. Ehrye was on the train going towards his next delivery. Ehrye was begging for a recommendation to be made a scholar. Ehrye running from a squad of Vahki. Ehrye was being given a gift by-

“Ehrye!”

Ehrye shook his head. His vision swam and his head pounded like something was trying to break its way out of it. He wanted to sink down and cradle his head until the pounding stopped, but his arms and legs were locked in place.
“Please snap out of it! We need to get out of here quickly!”

A quick look around confirmed that he was inside a Vahki prisoner transport, though he didn’t know why. Ehrye could hear the steady footsteps of the vessel traversing whatever Metru it was carting him through. His whole body was locked into the side of the vehicle’s interior and not a part of him could move. The rest of the transport was empty, except for the red-armoured stranger locked into the wall opposite Ehrye.

The stranger was awake and taking urgently to him. The words were muffled to his receptors, like the stranger was calling to Ehrye from behind a stone wall. It was hard to piece together what the stranger was telling him, but Ehrye could tell it was urgent.

“Hello, who are you?” he asked the stranger. “Why are we locked in here?”

The stranger sighed in relief. “At least you’re talking to me now. Hopefully it’ll wear off soon.”

“Wear off? What are you talking about?”

“Keep your voice down,” the stranger hissed. “Every time you start shouting, a Vahki comes by to reapply the stun.”

“Stun?” Ehrye frowned. A stun staff effect would explain his disorientation, but he couldn’t think of any reason why the Vahki would need to stun him and lock him in a transport. He had only been stunned a few times in his life, all for minor mischief or work-shirking, but he’d never been locked up before.

“Do you know why I’m here?” he asked. “The last thing I remember was going to fetch some old star charts for Nuju, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t get arrested for that. Unless Nuju’s gotten into some super-secret forbidden charts…”

“Forget about star charts,” the stranger snapped. “You’re a Toa, remember? We’re both Toa. Do you remember me? I’m Nuhrii.”

“Toa?” Ehrye thought hard, but all he could conjure were a few hazy memories about a meeting in the Great Temple.

The stranger, Nuhrii, sighed. “Look, we don’t have time for this. We could arrive at a detention centre at any moment, and I need your help to get out of here. Do you think you can summon some cold?”

“I don’t really remember how,” Nuhrii’s shoulders sagged, and Ehrye was struck by a familiar, desperate urge to avoid disappointing someone. “But I’m a fast learner! Could you teach me?”

Nuhrii glanced at the door separating their compartment from the Vahki. Ehyre could see his pained expression as he weighed their options. Eventually, he looked back at Ehyre and shrugged.

“Let’s try it. You can’t be any more frustrating than some of the apprentices I’ve mentored.”

“Some of the mentors I’ve apprenticed for would disagree with you.”

Nuhrii chucked. “Let’s hope they were just bad teachers. I’ve got an idea of how to get us out of here, but you need to be able to use your powers to pull it off. And if you can’t do it before this transport gets to a detention centre, it won’t matter how much ice you summon.”

Kanoka disks flew past Tehutti’s vision as he hung from Orkahm’s grasp. The Toa of Air flew low and fast, whipping them around buildings quick enough to make Tehutti’s head spin. Orkahm held him awkwardly by the back of his armour, which left Tehutti’s hands free, but left his legs swaying with each turn Orkahm took.

“Hey!” he yelped as his foot clipped the side of a library. “Watch the turns!”

“Shut up and focus on the disks!” Orkahm shouted back.

Tehutti grumbled, but, when a disk flew by a few centimeters from his mask, he obeyed and raised his Quake Picks just in time to deflect another shot.

The Vahki squad was dogging their trail like a pack of Energy Hounds. They had chased the Toa halfway across Ga-Metru, sending Matoran fleeing in terror. The Vahki couldn’t match Orkahm’s speed among the buildings, but they were stubborn enough to keep him in range of their disk launchers, and the enforcers were making liberal use of them. So far Orkahm’s maneuvering and Tehutti’s Quake Picks kept them from being hit, but it would only take one shot to let the Vahki catch up and swarm the two of them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the Toa of Air?” Tehutti yelled above the whipping winds. “Summon a hurricane or something! Knock them out of the sky!”

“I could, but I’m kind of concentrating on keeping a jabbering dead weight in the sky!”

“You can’t do both? I could do both!”

“Stop! Talking!”

Orkahm dived under another volley of disks, sending Tehutti’s stomach into his throat. Tehutti was about as fond of flying as the average Onu-Matoran. In fact, being cornered by over a dozen Vahki was the type of dire situation that would make him consider letting Orkahm rocket him across the city like this.

At least Vhisola can’t follow us in the air, he conceded. Two Toa might be a match for the hoard of Vahki but also pitting them against one of their own was a hopeless situation. Fleeing was more about avoiding a fight with their sister rather than avoiding the Bordakh.

Hopefully the stun staff effect will wear off soon and we can meet up with her once we escape, Tehutti thought as he deflected another Kanoka.

An explosion from below caught his attention. He looked down, expecting an ambush from more Vahki. Instead, he saw a giant geyser rising up from the canals below, carrying a very angry Toa of Water up to intercept her brothers.

“Orkahm, you need-“

“What did I just say about talk-“

“Criminals!” Vhisola shrieked as she collided with Orkahm and Tehutti.

The impact knocked all three Toa out the air. Tehutti tumbled head over heels until he landed on a school’s domed roof. He rolled down the side, but managed to lodge one of his Picks into the white stone and anchor himself before he went over.

Groaning, Tehutti pushed himself back up to a sitting position and got his bearings. The entire Vahki squadron was hurtling towards his roof. Tehutti braced for himself, but before the Vahki could overwhelm him with a wave of Kanoka Disks, the wind suddenly picked up around them. A cyclone formed, its eye perfectly centred on the school so that Tehutti felt little more than a strong breeze, while the Vahki were sent tumbling out of the air.

Tehutti turned to look further up the roof and saw that Orkahm was already on his feet, his whole body trembling with effort as he maintained the windstorm around them.

Tehutti smiled until he saw that Vhisola was also on her feet, and that she was charging up the roof towards Orkahm with a murderous gleam in her eye. Tehutti scrambled to his feet and raced up the sloped roof after her.

“You’re causing property damage!” She yelled as she lunged for Orkahm, but Tehutti leapt and tackled her by the legs. They both hit the roof hard and began to slide back down away from their brother.

“Subdue her quickly, I’m not sure how long I can do this for!” Orkahm yelled. Some of the Vahki had flown above his protective wall of wind to try and fly down at him. Others had shifted out of their flight mode and were instead trying to scale the sides of the building with their staffs anchoring them against the cyclone. Orkahm shifted the air to form a cover above them and at the same time sent gales directly down the school’s walls to buffet the climbers.

“Easier said than d-ERK!” Tehutti tried to reply as he wrestled with Vhisola.

She aimed a savage kick at his face that nearly dislodged his mask. As he struggled to readjust it, Vhisola got to her feet, water coalescing out of thin air around her Hydro Swords.

“Stop resisting!” She shouted as she sent the water towards Tehutti in the form of two pressurized jet streams. “Turn yourself in, you rabble-rouser!”

Tehutti took the jets in the chest and tumbled back down towards the edge of the roof. Vhisola followed, maintaining the conjured jet streams as she approached, pushing Tehutti closer and closer to his doom. He slid head first towards the edge, giving him an up-close view of the Vahki that were relentlessly crawling up the wall, getting steadily closer in spite of the wind.

“Wait!” He sputtered. “Wait! I surrender.”

The water immediately ceased. Tehutti took a moment to reorientate himself and clear the water from his mask. After a hacking up a lungful of liquid, he looked up to see Vhisola staring down at him with a look of impotent fury etched across her face. Her Hydro Swordswere still pointed towards him, but they were no-longer surrounded by a threatening current of water.

“You’re lying,” Vhisola accused.

“Maybe I am. But I’m a citizen of Metru Nui who just declared his surrender. It would be unlawful to keep attacking a compliant and…” Tehutti tossed his Picks to the side. “…unarmed citizen.”

Vhisola’s expression twitched as her common sense battled with the overwhelming adherence to order that the Bordakh’s staff had induced in her. Tehutti had never ran into one of their victims personally, but he’d had enough encounters with Onu-Metru’s Vahki to try and learn about how to get around the abilities of different districts’ enforcers. According to a very shady Ga-Matoran he used to know, Vhisola would struggle choosing between wasting valuable time to find a way to subdue him peacefully, or focusing on Orkahm, the only active troublemaker.

She chose the latter, turning from Tehutti and charging back up the roof towards the Toa of Air. She did not see Tehutti shut his eyes to focus his power.

The water that Vhisola had been welding had not been created from nothing. Vhisola had likely pulled the moisture in the air and condensed it into blasts of water.

Water was not the only thing floating in the seemingly empty air. There was dust, particles of dirt and sand, all kicked up by Orkahm’s windstorm. While Vhisola had been struggling with the Vahki stun staff’s effects, Tehutti had been concentrating on the dust around him, forming it into a small sphere of earth. He had formed it on the back of Vhisola’s mask, right in the gap between in and her head.

With a flex of elemental power, Tehutti had the sphere expand suddenly. Vhisola cried out as she felt a sudden pressure against her head, which ended with a sharp snap as her mask was forced off of her face.

She was immediately hit by a wave of weariness that caused her to stumble and fall to her knees. Tehutti wasted no time leaping to his feet and rushing after her. He reached her in time to kick her mask and weapons out of her reach. Vhisola looked up at him, wide eyed with anger.

“Sorry,” Tehutti said. “When the stun wears off, I hope you’ll forgive me for lying. And for this.”

While being maskless did not affect them as harshly as it did to Turaga and Matoran, a Toa was still greatly weakened without their Kanohi. Much of their physical and elemental power was stripped from them, and they were afflicted by waves of dizziness that made even standing up straight a challenge. As such, there were very slim odds for a maskless Toa to beat one of their masked siblings in a straight fight.

Vhisola did not come close to beating those odds. Not for lack of trying; she was just as vicious, but she lacked the force to back up her blows. The rest of their fight was extremely one-sided and, thankfully, brief. Tehutti felt very uncomfortable throughout about the underhandedness of it all and was very glad when Vhisola finally, mercifully, dropped unconscious.

Orkahm was still in place, straining to keep the winds going, when Tehutti approached him with the unconscious Vhisola, her mask and disk, and both of their Toa tools weighing him down. Orkahm glanced over at him as he dumped Vhisola at their feet and rearmed his Picks.

“Any bright ideas on how to get out of here?”

“Um,” Tehutti wracked his brain, franticly searching for a way out. “Oh! I saw something in the Archives once that explained how multiple beings can fuse into one. Six Matoran or Turaga, united by a common duty, can transform into a something stronger than the sum of its parts.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Orkahm snapped. “But we don’t have six people here.”

“We don’t need six of us. A Toa Kaita can be formed by three Toa,” Tehutti smirked. Then he frowned when he noticed the flaw in his plan. “Oh. Wait.”

“Oh wow, only three Toa!” Orkahm exclaimed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s so lucky for us, because we have three Toa here who are totally united by a common duty! Isn’t that great, Vhisola? Don’t you want to unite with us for a common duty, Vhisola?”

“I’m going to unite you with a detention cell, criminal,” Vhisola mumbled from her fetal position below him.

“Damn. Then I guess we don’t have three Toa either,” Orkahm said, staring at Tehutti with exaggerated disappointment.

“You know, you don’t have to be so dramatic. I just got a little overexcited,” Tehutti muttered.

“Think. Of. Another. Plan.” Orkahm said through gritted teeth.

“… Okay, I think I have another one.”

Before Orkahm could ask, he was knocked off balance as the building began to shake beneath his feet. His hold over the windstorm vanished, but it did not matter. The Vahki who had been steadily advancing on them through the wind were knocked off of their feet. Those climbing the walls lost their hold and plummeted back down to the ground.

Orkahm was pulled to his feet by Tehutti. He already had Vhisola slung over his shoulder as he pulled Orkahm down the slope of the domed roof. He ran full speed past the recovering Vahki and leapt off the building. Orkahm screamed, but it was too late to pull back. He went over the side and hurtled towards the channel below.

The Toa plunged into the fast-moving current and were immediately swept downstream. They moved fast, but not as fast as Orkahm’s flight had been. They only had a few moments before the Vahki would get their bearings, see them in the channel, and chase them down.

Tehutti seized Orkahm by the wrist and embedded his Quake Pick into the side of the channel to anchor all three of them in place. He used a small, controlled burst of his elemental power to burrow an alcove hidden below the waterline with a small pocket of air in it. He quickly pulled himself up and into it, Orkahm just behind him, and got his and Vhisola’s head back up into the air. Orkahm joined them, gasping and sputtering once he surfaced.

“Tehutti,” he spat. “Have you ever had a plan that didn’t involve setting off an earthquake in the middle of the city?”

“Stop talking,” Tehutti snapped. He pointed to the thin layer of earth above their heads and whispered; “They might hear you. We need to wait here, quietly, until they move on.”

“But how do we,” Orkahm started, before a sharp look from Tehutti made him pause and try again, quietly. “But how do we know when they’ve moved on?”

Tehutti shrugged. Orkahm sighed.

“Okay,” he said, defeated. “I guess we’re staying in this hole for a while.”

The next time the Keerakh went to reapply the stun on the prisoners, it found their compartment was filled with a thick, obscuring fog. It immediately readied its staffs and loaded a disk into its launcher, scanning for any signs of movement through the mist.

A point of bright red flame suddenly flared to life. The Keerakh’s head snapped towards the burning beacon, targeted, and fired its Kanoka all in a single, instantaneous movement. The disk flew into the fog and the telltale sound of metal on metal informed the Vahki that it had hit its target. The pinpoint of fire was instantly snuffed out.

A second, louder clang rang out from within the fog cloud. The Keerakh already had another Kanoka loaded and ready to fire, but there were no more signs of life coming from the mist. Slowly, cautiously, the Vahki moved forward to inspect its target.

Its foot made contact with the thin layer of ice that had accumulated on the floor of the compartment. Even a Keerakh, used to the frozen pathways of Ko-Metru, stumbled for a split second as it rebalanced itself, but it was a split second that cost it dearly.

Nurhii leapt out of the fog and tackled the Vahki to the ground. Before the machine could react, he poured as much heat as he could summon without his tools into the machine’s head. The Keerakh sputtered and twitched as its internals melted, and then fell still.

“Are you okay, Nurhii? Did it work?”

Nurhii got back to his feet and walked back into the compartment, careful not to slip on the ice. The fog was already beginning to disperse, and he could make out Ehrye’s form locked up against the wall, as well as the shattered remains of his own restrains.

“Yes, it worked,” he called out to Ehrye as he fumbled on the floor around where he had been bound. After a second of searching, Nurhii managed to find the disk the Vahki had fired at flame he had managed to summon as bait. “Hold on, I’ll have you free in a moment.”

“That was so cool!” Ehrye gushed. “I can’t believe my ice worked! And that idea to combine our powers to make that fog was genius!”

Nurhii hurled the disk at Ehrye’s restraints. Metal buckled from the disk’s impact, despite normally being far to strong for a hand-thrown disk to do any damage. The rest crumpled away easily as Ehrye tore himself free, just like his brother had moments before. He grinned at Nurhii.

“Pretty lucky that the Vahki decided to use a Weakening disk, huh?”

Nurhii shrugged. “It was pretty likely actually, considering the position it was in. Regenerate and Levitate wouldn’t be very helpful to disable a prisoner. Enlarge, Reduce, and Reconstruct at Random all could have given us forms that could make escaping here easier. Freeze and Weaken were its best choices, and considering one of its prisoners was a Toa of Ice, Weaken was the obvious option.”

Ehrye didn’t agree that it was obvious, but then again, he wasn’t the one who had worked with disks for most of his life. He could only name two or three of the standard disk powers on a good day, when he wasn’t getting over a long and intimate friendship with a Vahki Staff of Confusion.

Thankfully, his mind was mostly clear of the fog that had clouded it for who-knows-how-long. Nurhii had done a good job coaching him on how to access his elemental power, and the more Ehrye recognized and reached for the comforting cold that flowed through his new form, the more stable his mind became. His power felt like the brisk breeze, shocking him back to alertness, cooling him off after a trying day.

Nurhii was already heading to the door that the Keerakh had entered from. Ehrye snatched up the Weaken disk from the floor and followed. He reached out and stopped Nurhii before his brother could open the compartment door.

“Wait,” he said, keeping his voice low. “That’s going to lead into the pilot compartment. There’ll be at least one Vahki in there to drive this thing. Probably another guard as well.”

Nurhii nodded. “In that case, we should wait for them to come back here and check on their missing squad mate. Or we can just break out of here before they notice we’re gone.”

“We can’t leave yet, “Ehrye objected. “Our weapons and disks are still missing, and they might be being kept in there.”

“We can’t just rush in there without knowing the layout. I don’t like the idea of starting a fair fight in such a cramped place, the Vahki will tag us with their staffs for sure.”

“Let me handle it. I know what the pilot compartment looks like, and I know where the pilot and any guards will be stationed.”

“You’re that familiar with the insides of a Vahki transport?” Nurhii asked, skeptically. “No offence, but you don’t exactly strike me as the type to get arrested that frequently.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Ehrye agreed. “But my job involved loading and unloading goods from transports every now and then. I have a pretty good memory of the layout.”

Nurhii still looked hesitant. Ehrye knew he was about to insist that they abandon the plan and leave now, so he tried one last plea.

“Trust flows both ways, brother. I followed your lead with the ambush plan. Let me handle this. Please.”

After a few silent seconds, Nurhii turned from him. Instead of going to leave, he walked to door and placed a hand on the lever to open it.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” he said, standing clear of the entrance.

Ehrye blinked in surprise. That had worked? He may have argued for his plan, but a large part of him had expected Nurhii to just ignore him. He wasn’t used to other people listening to him, much less taking what he said into consideration.

It felt nice. Like a balm on an ache that he had been ignoring for a long, long time.

Ehrye pushed the feelings aside for now and readied himself. He was going to make damn well sure that Nurhii’s trust in him paid off. He gripped the Weaken disk in both hands, took a deep breath, and nodded to Nurhii.

The second the door opened, Ehrye leapt through and swung the disk downwards to the point he knew the pilot would be sitting. His aim was spot on; the disk slammed into the back of the Vahki’s head, which crumpled under its power, crushing the mechanisms within and deactivating the machine.

Ehrye was spinning around before the pilot had collapsed. He knew that there would be two charging ports for the transport’s on either side of the door. Sure enough, a Vahki was already disengaging from one of them and was arming itself. Ehrye sighted, brought his arm back, and threw the disk with all his might.

And missed.

He had a microsecond of stomach dropping panic before the guard threw itself at him. Ehrye was slammed back against the transport’s controls, pinned by the Vahki’s oppressive weight. By some miracle, he had managed to get a grip on the Vahki’s staffs. It tried to stab at him, but he kept its arms forced apart.

Ehrye could see Nurhii over the Vahki’s shoulder. His brother was about to rush into the room and help him. Ehrye could let him do it too. The Vahki was entirely focused on him, Nurhii could easily walk up behind it and melt its brain to slag like he’d done in the prisoner compartment.

But he needed to this alone. He needed to prove to someone, anyone, that he was capable of doing something without messing it up.

Ehrye quickly sent waves of cold over the Vahki’s staffs, coating them in a thick layer of frost before releasing his grip on them. The Vahki immediately brought both staffs onto its opponent’s chest. The blow stung, but when the Vahki activated the stun, they only gave off a dull glow under the frost. The ice blocked the charge, Ehrye’s mind remained clear.

In the same moment he had released the staffs, Ehrye had reached forward and seized the disk that was loaded in the Vahki’s head-mounted launcher. He yanked it free and smashed it down into the guards’ face. The Kanoka was, as Nurhii had predicted, another Weaken disk, and the Vahki’s launcher and optical sensors shattered from its power.

The Vahki sputtered and shrieked. Its weight on Ehrye lessened, and the Toa was able to force it off of him. He proceeded to hit the blinded machine with the disk until its head was flattened and its limbs stopped twitching.

Ehrye sighed and tossed the Kanoka to the side. He looked up at Nurhii, eager to see his brother’s approval or admiration. Instead, he saw him busy sorting through a compartment near the guard charge ports, not even sparing a glance at Ehrye.

“Um… Did you…”

“Here,” Nurhii cut him off before Ehrye could even form a sentence. He removed Ehrye’s Crystal Axes from the compartment and thrust them into his arms. He pulled out his own tools and holstered them.

Ehrye attached his axes on his back, trying to fight back the bitter disappointment lodged in his throat. What was he expecting? A pat on the head and a Copper Victory Mask for doing something that anyone else on his team could have done?

Mata Nui, stop being so pathetic, he berated himself.

He was shaken from his self-pity by Nurhii’s grunt of surprise. His brother produced three more objects from the compartment; Kanoka disks. He recognized the Great Disk he had retrieved before being captured, and the other two both shared its power level markings. From their coloration and symbols, he could tell that one was the Ta-Metru Great Disk, and the other…

“How did they get the Great Disk from Po-Metru?” he asked. “Did they beat Ahkmou to it?”

“Maybe,” Nurhii said. “Though why would the Vahki be searching for the Great Disks? They only confiscated ours because we had them on us when we were captured.”

Ehrye went to reply, but then movement out of the cockpit window caught his eye. The transport was surrounded by a squad of Vahki, apparently acting as an escort for transporting its prisoners. They were down on all fours, skittering impatiently as they waited for the vehicle to get moving again.

“I guess we can ask them.”

Nurhii looked up in confusion, then swore when he saw what his brother was referring to.

“There’s not that many of them,” Ehrye noted. “And it doesn’t look like we’re in a populated area. We might be able to force our way through them.”

He was right, the exterior was all sand and rocky canyon walls; the only buildings in sight stretched far into the distance. That, and the fact that the squadron was made up of Zadakh, told him that the transport had been taking them through Po-Metru.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over them and the Vahki. Ehrye looked up, and his eyes widened. A dozen boulders, each at least the size of a Toa, were hurtling down at them from the open sky.

“Take cover!” he shouted at Nurhii.

It turns out it was not necessary. None of the boulders came close to hitting the transport. Each of them slammed into a Zadakh. The machines were dashed to pieces, none of them even having time to dodge the missiles. After a few seconds of thunderous impacts, the entire squad was wiped out.

Ehrye and Nurhii shared a surprised look. Ehrye turned and gingerly opened the cockpit and peaked his head out. When all of the Vahki remained still and no other boulders appeared he emerged from the vehicle and leapt down to the sandy ground.

“Oh, hey!” Ehrye flinched at the shout, but the source quickly revealed himself.

Ahkmou emerged from his hiding place above the canyon. He waved to Ehrye and began to bound downwards to meet him.

“Great timing! I was about to summon another barrage for the transport!”

“Ah,” Ehrye gulped. “Glad you saved it for last.”

Nurhii had emerged from the transport as well, and lightly tossed the Po-Metru Disk to Ahkmou once he had gotten closer.

Ahkmou swiped the disk out of the air, looked down at it and grinned. “Oh good, you already found it. I wasn’t looking forward to searching for it through the wreckage.”

“Your welcome,” Nurhii deadpanned. “Why was it in there in the first place?”

Ahkmou looked back up at them. Some sort of emotion flickered across his face, so quickly that Ehrye almost thought he imagined it. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but a little sprout of suspicion for his fellow Toa crept into his thoughts. The smile was still on Ahkmou’s face, but it looked hollow to Ehrye. It reminded him too much of the manufactured smiles he had gotten from senior scholars the many, many times they rejected his applications to work in the Knowledge Towers. Mechanical, practiced, and fake.

“Dark Hunters,” Ahkmou explained. “At least, I’m pretty certain that that’s who they were. A one-eyed giant and a creepy insect guy ambushed me just as I found it.”

“Are you alright? How did you survive?” Nurhii asked, alarmed.

“I played dead. A giant statue got knocked over while I tried to escape. It nearly crushed me, but I used my powers to make a gap in it large enough for me to hide under when it fell. I waited a bit, dug myself out, and then followed their tracks.”

“Wait, if the Dark Hunters took your disk, how did it end up in a Vahki transport?”

“I’m… not sure,” Ahkmou admitted. “Their tracks lead to a cave in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of Vahki outside it. The Hunters were gone by the time I arrived, and the Vahki had the Great Disk. I stayed hidden and followed the Vahki until they met up with this transport.”

“Did it look like the Vahki had fought the Dark Hunters?” Nuhrii wondered.

“It didn’t look like a fight had happened. And I doubt the Vahki could have beaten the two of them without some sort of collateral damage.”

“Well there must have been some sort of fight. Its not like the Hunters would hand over their prize to the Vahki, right?”

The three of them fell silent, each considering the uncomfortable implications of such a possibility.

“Maybe the Hunters were able to… reprogram this squad of Vahki.” Ehrye suggested. The other two nodded in weary agreement. That had to be the answer. Because the other reason why Dark Hunters would be allied with Vahki was too terrible to say aloud.

Nurhii spoke up. “Let’s get out of here. We have a more pressing threat to deal with.”

Nurhii started walking along the canyon path, following the tracks the transport had churned up, hopefully leading out of Po-Metru. Ahkmou stowed his Great Disk and followed.

Ehrye took up the rear. He kept an eye on Ahkmou the entire time. There was nothing about his brother’s behavior that could be construed as suspicious; no more strange looks, no odd body language. By the time they left the Metru, Ehrye was certain he had been imaging things.

Maybe he was just embarrassed that he lost his disk, Ehrye reasoned. That makes more sense than Ahkmou having some sort of hidden agenda. All three of us are going to be a bit embarrassed when we meet up with the others and have to hear how easily they retrieved their disks.

Chapter Text

Ahkmou, Nurhii, and Ehrye returned to Ga-Metru to find the whole district in an uproar. Vahki where hovering above the streets like enraged Nui-Jaga swarms. The buildings were scarred by the effects of errant Kanoka Disks, and the Matoran were still afraid to step out in the open.

Most of the damage was centered around campus of Ga-Metru’s largest school. Debris littered the grounds around the building, teams of Matoran were working together to rescue the siblings who had been trapped under shattered structures and clear away the broken Vahki. The school itself was fortunate to still be standing. The earth it had been built on had shifted, the whole structure had a noticeable slouch, and its wall was webbed with cracks.

The Toa experienced a lot more hostility from the Ga-Matoran than they had last time they had traveled through the Metru. Instead of being assaulted by curious and cautious stares, the Toa had to deal with Matoran fleeing for cover when they passed by, or worse, running off to find a Vahki.

Still, the Toa were able to use the chaos to their advantage and get to the Great Temple without any further incidents. Whatever disaster had struck the Metru had left the Temple empty, so they were able to slip through the main entrance and return to the secret room with the Suva where their siblings were waiting for them.

“Brothers! Welcome back!” Tehutti greeted them with forced cheer. He was the only one pretending not to look miserable. Orkahm was visibly fuming at Tehutti. Vhisola sitting back against the Suva, cradling her head like she was nursing the worst headache. The tension between all three was palpable to the others, and a smothering silence hung in the air. Ahkmou felt like they had just walked in on the aftermath of an argument.

If it has nothing to do with the devastation outside, then I’m a Vortixx, Ahkmou thought as he smiled smiled back at Tehutti, happy to ignore whatever petty fight his siblings were having. He could figure out if what had happened later, when tempers had cooled. For now, he had to keep the team on track. He nodded to the three Great Disks, left carelessly on the floor between them.

“Looks like we all completed our missions,” he said, turning to Nurhii. “Where to next, oh visionary leader?”

The Toa of Fire had been staring curiously at their disgruntled teammates, but he turned Ahkmou with a frown.

“I told you, that vision wasn’t exactly coherent. I just know that we have to bring the Great Disks to the source of the Morbuzahk, and they can be used to defeat it.”

Orkahm scowled. “So unless your vision was kind enough to give you an address for the Morbuzahk source, we’re going to have to comb all of Metru Nui until we spot it?”

“We won’t need to search all of Metru Nui,” Nurhii replied. “I actually have a theory of where the Morbuzahk is –“

“It’s in Ta-Metru,” Vhisola cut in She hadn’t stood up, or even looked at her brothers since they entered. “Obviously. It was the first place to report sightings of the vines, and it’s the most overrun out of all the districts.”

“…Yes.” Nurhii said cattily and glared at Vhisola. “But I also have a theory on where in Ta-Metru the Morbuzahk –“

“The Great Furnace!” Ehrye exclaimed. His excitement withered as Nurhii turned his annoyance on him instead.

“Sorry, it’s just that the roots seem to like the heat, and you told Ahkmou and me about how they were not harmed by the Fire Pits,” he mumbled. “And the Furnace has been closed to Matoran for a while now, so that would be a good place to hide… Sorry. Shouldn’t have interrupted.”

“It’s fine,” Nurhii said in a way that made it clear that it really wasn’t fine.

Our local fire-spitter really doesn’t like being shown up, Ahkmou noted, trying to keep a smirk off of his face. He filed that information away for later.

“Sounds good enough to me,” Tehutti said, gathering the disks from the floor. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go break into the Great Furnace!”

Ahkmou eyed the Great Disks, conscious of how callously his brother handled them. He held back the instinct to push Tehutti aside and take the Disks himself. Tehutti couldn’t break them if he tried, and lashing out would only make Ahkmou more suspicious.

Focus on one thing at a time, Ahkmou told himself. You’ll have plenty of time to collect them all afterwards.

Orkahm, like the majority of Metru Nui’s Matoran, had spent almost all of his existence living and working in the city. Aside from some faint, distant memories of a time before the Great Spirit’s guidance, a time spent laboring in darkness, Orkahm had always been surrounded by the constant noise and motion of Metru Nui. Sometimes it was grating, other times it was comforting, but most of the time it was nothing. It was just white noise. Static.

He never fully realized how integral movement and sound was to his home until he saw how still Ta-Metru had become. The machinery that should have creaked and clattered as it transported molten protodermis was silently choked by blackened vines. The chutes were dead, their flow cut off from the rest of the city. The streets where Matoran should have played, travelled, worked were distressingly empty.

The stillness unnerved Orkahm, and his companions looked just uneasy as he felt. All of them kept a vice grip on their Toa tools as the crept towards the towering shape of the Great Furnace that dominated the skyline.

Tehutti was nervously fidgeting as he eyed the dark, twisted vines that clung to the building.

“Maybe going inside is a bad idea. There will be no room to avoid the Morbuzahk’s attacks in the corridors; we’ll be like trapped Stone Rats. Maybe I can make a big enough earthquake to collapse the Furnace onto the Morbuzahk root.”

“Zyglak filth,” Orkahm spat. He couldn’t tell if his brother was serious or not, and after spending hours trapped in a hole with him, his temper was long gone, and he really didn’t care. “Are you capable of even a speck of finesse? Is your head stuffed full of dirt? Do you have a secret vendetta against Metru Nui’s buildings? Do you win a Victory Mask if you set off an earthquake in all six Metru?”

“It’s easier for the Matoran to rebuild the Furnace than rebuild their Toa,” Tehutti protested.

“Are you sure? Because it only took six stones to build us,” Ahkmou snarked.

“We are not destroying the Great Furnace!” Nurhii said, glaring at Tehutti like the Toa of Earth had kicked an Ussal.

Tehutti wisely dropped the topic and followed the rest of Toa towards the entrance. Even so, Orkahm kept an eye on him as Nurhii melted through the door’s lock. Just in case he tried to do something rash.

The lock fell to pieces and the Toa pushed open the massive doors of the Furnace. The air inside was somehow hotter than the rest of Ta-Metru, which was already warmer than most non-natives could handle for long. Orkahm knew it would only get worse; if their theory about the Morbuzahk was correct, the root was undoubtedly hidden in the inner chambers of the Furnace.

The Toa proceeded deeper into the building. The further they ventured, the more overgrown the corridors became. They kept watch on the vines, ready for them to spring to life and attack, but they were eerily still.

The door to the Furnace’s core was in sight when the Toa began to notice a sound. Barely audible at first, it grew into a soft hissing that seemed to emanate from all around them.

“Is there an air vent leaking?” Ehrye asked.

“No,” Vhisola said. She pointed towards the vine clusters sprouting from the walls. “They’re whispering.”

There were small, pulsating bulbs hidden among the vines. The closer Orkahm got to them, the clearer the sound became. Vhisola was right; he could swear that he could pick out some words among the torrent of hissing.

“Mata Nui,” Tehutti breathed. “Is it… sentient?”

The plants around them began to shutter. Orkahm took a step back and looked over to Ehrye.

“Maybe we should see how these things handle the cold?”

Ehrye nodded. He raised his Crystal Axes and began to radiate cold, at first comforting against the oppressive heat of the Great Furnace, but quickly turning biting. Orkahm raised his own tools and summoned currents of air to circulate Ehrye’s fridged power over the bulbs and vines. The plants shriveled under the breezed, and the became a horrible, shrill scream.

Thorns sprouted from the vines surrounding the Toa, each nearly as long a Matoran’s arm and wickedly sharp. The vines shot the thorns at the Toa, who raised their weapons to deflect them as best they could.

The hail of thorns grew as more vine began to sprout from cracks in the walls and grew thorns of their own. The Toa were overwhelmed, unable to do more than dodge and deflect, even as the door to the inner chambers began to be blocked by the encroaching Morbuzahk vines.

“Ahkmou!” Nurhii shouted. “Make us a shelter! We’ll cover you!”

Ahkmou acted with surprising acquiescence, bringing his hammer down onto the floor and focusing his power through it. For the second that he was not dodging the Morbuzahk’s attacks, dozens of thorns were thrown his way. The rest of the team shifted positions to intercept, but even so, several thorns struck Ahkmou just before he made four stone walls erupt from the ground and encase the Toa.

“Where was that cover you were talking about?” he said in a pained hiss. Several of the thorns had found the gaps in his armour and pierced the flesh beneath it. He tore them out quickly, but Orkahm could see that there was a stiffness to his movements.

“We should fall back,” Ehrye said.

“The whole corridor is being overrun, I don’t think leaving will be any easier than moving forward,” Vhisola replied. “We’re surrounded.”

“But if we don’t know what we’ll encounter if we try moving forward,” Ehrye argued. “What if we spend all of our energy on getting past these vines, and something even worse is waiting for us with the root?”

“We’ll just have to conserve our elemental power as much as possible. Ehrye especially; the Morbuzahk really doesn’t like the cold.”

“So we just need to muscle our way past the vines out there? Not a single one of us are strong enough to charge through before they shoot us full of thorns.”

“We should have just gone with my plan,” Tehutti muttered. Orkahm turned to him and snapped.

“Would you shut…” He paused, mid-insult, as an idea came to him.

“Tehutti, do you remember that stupid idea you had when the Bordakh were chasing us?”

“You think all of my ideas are stupid,” Tehutti grumbled.

“The one that needed at least three Toa. The Toa Kate thing. Would that give us the strength to break into the inner chamber?” Orkahm asked impatiently.

“Toa Kate… You mean Kaita?” Tehitti’s eyes brightened and looked at Orkahm excitedly. “That might work!”

“Are either of you going to tell us what in Mata Nui’s name you’re talking about?” Ahkmou snapped.

“It’s a term for a entity formed by multiple beings fusing their minds and bodies,” Tehutti explained. “None of us have the strength to get past the vines, but as a Kaita we might be able to.”

Nurhii frowned. “How does it work?”

“I’m not completely sure?” Tehutti admitted. “I think we just need to hold onto each other and concentrate on our unity. If we share a common duty and destiny, then we’ll fuse. I think.”

“Our minds fuse together?” Ahkmou said skeptically. “Am I the only one here who thinks that sounds a little violating? I don’t want to share a mind with anyone else.”

“What ‘unity’ do we have to concentrate on? We barely know each other; how can we be united?” Vhisola pointed out.

They were interrupted by a web of cracks appearing on the walls of their stone barrier. Dark little sprouts emerged from the cracks, rapidly growing into full-fledged vines.

Ehrye raised his axes, and the temperature inside the walls plummeted. Frost formed on the walls and the Morbuzahk retreated into the cracks. An enraged hissing emanated from all around the Toa’s shelter, and more cracks began to spread.

Orkahm turned to Vhisola and Ahkmou and pointed at the cracks.

“That is how we’re united. We are united because if we don’t do this, we are all going to die here. This creature will spread to all of our Metru. It is our destiny to destroy the Morbuzahk with the Great Disks. It is our duty to protect our home. If that doesn’t unite us, then nothing will.”

He raised his fist, holding it out in the middle of loose circle they had formed. Tehutti raised his as well and knocked it against Orkahm’s. Nurhii and Ehrye followed suit.

Vhisola still looked hesitant. She slowly raised her arm, staring at the assembled fists like they were a Doom Viper she had been told to pet. But after a moment of apprehension, she knocked her fist against her brothers’.

Ahkmou glared at the other Toa and then eyed the growing cracks, as though debating the pros and cons of death by Morbuzahk. He gritted his teeth and put his hand in the circle.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered.

“Everyone, concentrate,” Tehutti instructed. “Brace yourselves and concentrate on our task.”

The Toa closed their eyes, each of them focusing on their teammates and their shared foe. They stood silently, the sounds of the slowly shattering stone and angry hiss of the Morbuzahk washing over them.

“…How long is this supposed to take?”

There was a flash of light and a blur of movement. When it ceased, six had become two.

The wall to the Great Furnace’s inner chamber was blasted apart as the Toa Metru Kaita charged through. The corridor behind them was a mess of pulverized stone and dead vines, either torn apart by Akurah’s weapons or frozen solid by Hikima’s ice.

Free of the narrow confines of the corridor, the two titans stood to their full height and took in the sight of the warped and infested Great Furnace. An enormous black-brown root grew through its centre, so large that the thousands of vines that sprouted from it looked like hairs against its bulk. Massive branches buried themselves into the walls of the cavernous room, burrowing through the walls and extending out into the far reaches of Metru Nui.

“So, this is what has menaced our city for so long,” Akurah’s voice was a rumbling echo in the massive inner chamber. The hellish light of the furnace gleamed against his golden mask, and its intense heat only seemed to bolster the Toa’s resolve.

Their sibling was less at ease in the intense environment, but they kept it at bay with a comforting shield of cold air. They raised their broadsword at the king root, readying a blast elemental ice.

The ever-present hissing grew louder, like a serpent about the strike. It emanated from the walls around the Toa, filling the chamber until it was almost like a fluid, drowning the two in the white noise.

“You dare attack the Morbuzahk?” A voice emerged in their minds, arid and twisting like a desert wind. The two Toa faltered.

“It can speak!” Hikima exclaimed.

“Not for long,” Akurah growled. “Strike down the king root, Hikima. I will defend you if it fights back."

“Sssstrike me down? You and yourssss exisssst at my whim,” the Morbuzahk whispered. “My armssss extent to acrossss thissss city. I am in the furnacessss, I am in the chutessss, I am in the chanalssss. The Matoran live only because I allow them to. Ssssoon, they will-“

The Morbuzahk’s words devolved into a scream as Hikima used Ehrye’s power to coat the king root in ice. Before the ice could melt under the heat of the furnace, Akurah used Nuhrii’s power over fire to divert heat away from the root.

Vines and branches across the chamber rose up to strike the Toa Kaita. Akurah called up barriers of stone and earth, but they barely slowed the plant. Its limbs twisted around stone and dug through earth as it lunged for the Kaita.

Hikima raised their shield to fend off the vines as they continued to pour elemental ice over the root. Akurah used his claws and hammer to defend them, tearing apart roots as soon as they came within reach.

But in spite of their ferocity, the Morbuzahk did not falter. More vines emerged from cracks and cervices to attack. Branches that had already been shattered quickly regenerated and rose to fight again.

There was a thunderous crack when a root almost as thick as the Kaita were tall dislodged itself from the wall and swung towards the Toa. The Toa were forced to leap out of its path, rolling to the side moments before it slammed into the ground.

“It’s no use, my ice cannot overwhelm it!” Hikima yelled. “It’s drawing heat from across the whole Metru!”

“Then we cut it off from the Metru,” Akurah declared. He charged the enormous branch, wrapping it in thick bands of stone to keep it in place. With all of his strength, he cut through the branch with a flurry of claw strikes.

The Morbuzahk howled in their minds as he cut through the branch. Before the Toa’s eyes, the branch, severed from the king root, disintegrated.

The Toa Kaita moved in tandem, systematically cutting through the branches that extended from the king root. Less vital vines and branches pursued them, but the Toa were too quick for the heavy branches, and too strong to be stopped by the vines. Hikima conjoured a whirlwind of freezing air and water around the pair, further warding off the weaker plants.

Soon, the King Root was dangling precariously by a few remaining branches. Its rantings grew more and more desperate in the Toa’s minds.

“This is impossible! Metru Nui is rightfully mine! You cannot sever me from it!”

The Toa cut through another branch, and the weight of the king root was finally too great. Its remaining snapped under its bulk, and the king root fell to the chamber floor with a resounding crash.

But the Morbuzahk’s struggles had shaken the building to its foundations. Only the mass of vines that had intertwined the Morbuzahk with the Great Furnace had kept it from collapsing. And now, all of those vines and branches were dust.

“We must leave,” Akurah said, as the chamber’s supports began to shatter around them.

“Not yet,” Hikima hissed.

Both Toa were battered and exhausted, but they drew themselves up and approached the fallen king root.

“You will ssssuffer!” the Morbuzahk screamed into the Toa’s minds. “I will pull you both apart piece by piece! I will dig my vinessss into your flesh and grow and grow and grow until they tear you from your metal. I will hang your naked flesh atop the Colosseum sssso you can exist in agony forever!”

“You’re a very imaginative shrub,” Hikima replied. They raised their broadsword and once again poured all of their energy through it to freeze the Morbuzahk to its core.

The plant’s screams grew weaker and weaker as all of the vines along the root withered and died. The hissing ceased as sheets of ice began to form over the king root. Even when the Morbuzahk’s wails faded from the Toa’s minds, Hikima continued to freeze it.

“Hikima, we must go now,” Akurah insisted. His sibling ignored him. Instead, they approach the unmoving root and started chopping into it with their broadsword.

“Hikima!”

“We have to be certain, brother,” they shouted as they dug their blade deep into the root’s fibrous wood. The poured more elemental ice into the blade and into the centre of the Morbuzahk’s husk.

The ceiling suddenly sagged. The pipes of the Great Furnace bent and collapsed. Akurah approached and grabbed his sibling by the shoulder.

“It’s dead. Let us leave before we join it.”

Hikima cursed, but pulled their blade from the root and sheathed it. The two Toa raced back down the corridor, Akurah leading the way and doing his best to keep the ceiling from collapsing on top of them with Ahkmou’s power.

The Toa barreled out of the Great Furnace, just as its supports finally gave up. With a thunderous crash, the building collapsed. Dust from the wreckage spread blocks from the building, turning the smoke-grey skies of Ta-Metru black as night.

Under the obscuring shroud of dust, the Kaita collapsed and two became six once again.

The Toa laid in the street for a long time, too exhausted to even move. Orkahm tried to summon a breeze to keep the worst of the falling dust at bay, but even that proved to be too strenuous. They all let the dust coat their armour and accepted that they would be coughing up the Great Furnace for the next week.

Ehrye was the first to speak. “We did it. That was incredible.”

Vhisola nodded. “We should do that again. With that power, nothing will be able to threaten Metru Nui.”

"Please no,” Ahkmou groaned. “At least give me a few weeks to get rid of this headache before I let those two into my head again.”

“Hey, your head wasn’t a very pleasant place for us either,” Nurhii shot back, though without any real venom in his voice.

They laid there in silence for a few more moments before Tehutti piped up.

“You all should have let me knock down the building to begin with…”

The was another brief moment of silence, and then Orkahm let out what sounded like a series of wheezing coughs. The other Toa looked at him with concern, until they saw the delirious smile under his mask and realized that their brother was laughing.

Ehrye started chuckling as well and shifted back to looking at the sky. The movement caused something to dig into his back, so he reached back and fished out the offending object.

It was his Great Disk.

“Wait a minute!” he shot upright, startling the rest of his team.

“We didn’t need to use these at all! Why did we need to go fetch these before we fought the Morbuzahk?”

His outrage broke the fatigue that had fallen over the Toa. The others pulled out their disks, some of them glaring like the Kanoka had personally insulted them.

Ahkmou saved his glare for Nurhii. “I thought your vision said that we needed these to save the city.”

“That’s what I thought it meant,” Nurhii insisted. “But it wasn’t-“

“’It wasn’t very clear’, yes, you’ve said that before,” Ahkmou sneered.

“Maybe it was to give us some experience?” Tehutti speculated. “I don’t think we would have survived if we had gone after the king root without testing out our new abilities.”

“Why didn’t the vision just say that then?” Orkahm griped.

“They could still be needed to save the city,” Vhisola pointed out. “We know that the Morbuzahk wasn’t the only thing threatening Metru Nui.”

“…Well I know one thing that we can do with them,” Tehutti said, groaning as he pushed himself to his feet.

“Put them in the Archives?” Ehrye guessed.

“No. We’re going to present them to Turaga Dume, get recognized as the heroes who saved the city, and finally get the Vahki off of our backs.”

“I thought we couldn’t go to the Turaga!”

“We can’t go to Dume quite yet,” Vhisola agreed. “We caused some…. incidents across Metru Nui. The Vahki will arrest us if we even think of going too close to the Colosseum.”

“Well, when can we go to the Turaga? How many more plant monsters do we need to destroy before we’re worthy enough?” Tehutti snapped.

“There will be an assembly in the Colosseum in a few days,” Nurhii said. “We could go then, announce ourselves to Turaga Dume publicly, and take credit for destroying the Morbuzahk. That will give us a few days to sort out our old lives as Matoran before we official step into our new role. We can also tell our old friends and co-workers about our quests; that way more Matoran will be primed to believe that we are who we say we are when we present ourselves.”

“Wow. Great plan. Did your visions tell you that?” Ahkmou said sarcastically.

Nurhii glared daggers at him, but Vhisola interrupted before he could retaliate.

“It is a good plan. I have some people I want to talk to before we continue our duties. I’m sure all of you do too.”

“I agree,” said Orkahm. “We need to recover anyways. It’s not like Metru Nui’s going to collapse if we wait a couple days.

The Toa slowly dispersed to their home Metru, unaware that buried beneath the rubble of the Great Furnace, a little sliver of life was growing

Awareness sparked within the rapidly thawing corpse of the Morbuzahk’s king root. The majority of the root was dead; as the ice was melted by Ta-Metru’s heat, it's bark disintegrated like all the parts that had been severed in its battle with the Kaita. But at its very center there was a little shoot that had not succumbed to the cold. It could sense that the temperature was still too low for it to grow, so it sat patiently and reflected on the hazy memories it possessed.

It remembered its creator; wrapped in shadow, gently testing its strength, praising it as the cumulation of his efforts. It remembered the city that it had been gifted. Its creator fed it information about it and the beings that inhabited it. It remembered how its creator told it that the city was its birthright; it was created to grow, dominate, and rule.

It remembered pain. Hatred. The beings who tried to take away its city and starve it with bitter cold. But the Morbuzahk would regrow. It would take back its city and its people.

And this time, it would not be so gentle with its subjects.

Chapter Text

Le-Metru was, ironically, one of the hardest districts for Orkahm to fly through. The sky was overcrowded with airships travelling between ports, each with a carefully charted path to avoid collisions. If Orkahm flew lower to stay out of their way, he had to contend with the chutes. They were a wild tangle of new chutes built over old ones built over truly ancient ones that made a clear flight path impossible.

Still, even as he veered around twisting chute paths, Orkahm had to admit that it beat walking. The only clear paths on the ground were dedicated to land transport. Everywhere else was entangled by cables. The Le-Matoran kept them in disorganized clumps alongside buildings; that way they could avoid touching the ground entirely by swinging on the cables like they were vines in a mechanical jungle.

Privately, Orkahm would have preferred it if the cables were neat and organized like they were in every other Metru, and then Le-Metru could invest in making some decent footpaths. But he knew that there were few others who cared about it, and those that did were too busy to do anything about it. Le-Metru was constantly in motion, so no one had time to change something that wasn’t actively broken. The cables worked, so the cables stayed.

Maybe I’ll be able to use my new position to improve things like that, Orkahm mused. He wasn’t sure how much influence a Toa had over their home Metru. Le-Metru never had a Toa during peacetime like the other districts, so Orkahm was without an example to follow.

He shook himself from his thoughts when he spotted his targets in an alley below. A group of six of his old co-workers were engaged in a game of street Akilini with two goals built out of spare vehicle parts. The alley’s cables worked both as obstacles to disks thrown at the goals, and as ladders to give the game an extra dimension. The players hurtled disks between swings, moving with a nimbleness gained through years of traversing the cables.

Orkahm smiled. The Morbuzahk’s vines had disintegrated less than a day ago, and already Matoran were back to playing on the street during their off hours. It probably wasn’t the safest behavior, but it felt good to see none the less.

He touched down just outside of their makeshift arena, bringing the game to a sudden halt. A Kanoka bounced off the rim of a goal and fell carelessly to the ground as the Matoran turned and stared at him in surprise.

One of the bolder players approached him. He was a transport pilot with a deep green Kanohi Huna named Boreas. He had always stuck out to Orkahm as one of the few pilots with a solid head on his shoulders.

“That was quite the landing, stranger,” Boreas said. “Are you the same high-flier who warned everyone about the Notch collapse?”

Orkahm groaned internally. He had nearly forgotten about the debacle with retrieving his Great Disk. It made sense that word of what happened at the Notch had spread, but he was really hoping it would be forgotten with the sudden disappearance of the Morbuzahk.

“Yes,” he answered reluctantly.

“Did you cause the collapse?” one of the other players, Shu, piped up.

“No!” Orkahm snapped. “What could I possibly get out of that?”

“I don’t know, what did you get out of it?” Shu asked innocently.

“Nothing!”

“Calm down, stranger,” Boreas said cautiously. The way his grip had tightened on his Akilini disk was not lost on Orkahm. “He didn’t mean any offense. He doesn’t know you or your intentions."

“Don’t bother defending the stupid, Boreas, or they’ll weigh you down with them,” Orkahm said, rolling his eyes. “If Shu really thought I destroyed the Notch, then he should have run for the Vahki instead of stand around accusing me.”

“I…” Boreas squinted up at him. “Orkahm?”

That snapped the other Le-Matoran out of their fear. They gaped at him in disbelief, trying to reconcile the image of their coworker with the being that towered above them.

“No way!” another pilot, Matau, shouted. “Orkahm would never high-fly that fast.”

“He did just call me stupid, just like how Orkahm used to…” Shu pointed out.

“That’s not the iron-clad proof that you think it is, Shu,” Matau snickered.

“Guys, it’s me,” Orkahm said before more squabbling could break out. “I’m Le-Metru’s new Toa.”

That somehow shocked the Matoran even more.

“That’s… Not possible,” Boreas sputtered.

“You can just become a Toa? Did anyone else know this?” Shu asked, bewildered.

“Toa Orkahm? Orkahm, a Toa-hero?” Matau muttered like he was genuinely having trouble imagining the idea.

“I’m not quite sure how it could happen either,” Orkahm admitted. “But the point is, my team and I were chosen to defeat the Morbuzahk, and now we’re going to take over for the Toa Mangai protecting Metru Nui.”

He paused, expecting more questions, but he was just confronted with a pack of stunned faces.

“So, you will have to find people to take my shifts at the Moto Hub,” he added lamely.

“You’re not coming back to work?” Shu exclaimed.

“Of course not,” Matau berated him. “What sort of Toa-hero drives transport carts? Did you ever see any of the Mangai riding Ussals?”

“No,” Shu admitted. “But the only Toa Mangai I ever saw up close was Nidhki, and the only things he ever did was fight, boast, and betray the entire city. So, I’m not sure what a proper Toa-hero does and doesn’t do.”

“Well, the certainly don’t do Ussal deliveries,” Matau said scornfully.

Orkahm frowned at him. “Ussals are important, Matau.”

Matau groaned. “See, this is why I can’t believe you were chosen to be a Toa! Destiny chose the most boring person in the Metru for the most exciting job!”

Orkahm bristled. Of course, Matau would think that being a Toa would only be a vehicle for adventure and glory. A job for thoughtless, showy pilots who were best suited for wrecking prototypes on the test track. He was about to tell him off for it, when he noticed the soft chuckles and tentative smiles behind the masks of the other Matoran.

Apparently, the others agreed with Matau’s opinion.

He covered up his hurt with a sneer. “Or maybe Destiny chose a Toa who wouldn’t smash into a building the second he tried to fly. Maybe you would have been chosen if you ever learned to land a vehicle with it fully intact.”

The Matoran laughed again, seeming to take his snipe as more goodwilled than he had intended. Matau took the insult on the chin. He laughed along with everyone with a rueful smile. He picked up a discarded Kanoka and offered it to Orkahm with a gleam in his eye.

“Harsh words, Orkahm. How about we settle this on the Akilini field?”

Orkahm hesitated. This felt like it could be some kind of joke at his expense, that he was missing some sort of social que that he had always been terrible at picking up on. But he couldn’t see how it was; there was no way he could lose a game of Akilini against Matoran. Was the joke that a Toa shouldn’t play Akilini? Should he refuse?

No, he decided, looking at the excited expressions of his old co-workers. They had just expressed that Toa should be fun and exciting. Unless he wanted to prove that he was as boring as they thought he was, then he should just play the game.

“Fine,” he said, calling on the air to lift the Kanoka Disks laying around them. Matoran gasped as they hovered gently above their heads, buoyed by gentle winds.

“Does six-on-one sound fair?” Orkahm said, trying to sound confident.

The Le-Matoran grinned and rushed to set up the game again. Orkahm tossed aside his Aero Shields and the satchel with his Great Disk. If the Le-Matoran wanted a foolish, fun-loving Toa, then he could provide that, no matter how awkward it felt for him to be that.

The Archivists were thrilled to have one of their own join Metru Nui’s new Toa team. Tehutti had just proven his identity to his fellow Junior Archivists, but word of his transformation had spread through Onu-Metru like lightning. Now, Onu-Matoran of all ranks were dropping by the Junior Archivists’ breakroom to see him for themselves.

Tehutti was assaulted by a million questions from inquisitive historians looking to record the first adventures of their Metru’s champion. It was a never-ending flow of repetitive questions, each Matoran demanding exhausting details about his journey to retrieve the Great Disk and destroy the Morbuzahk.

And Tehutti loved it.

He had finally gotten the acumen that he had been working so hard for. Senior Archivists who would have never needed to even talk to Tehutti before his transformation now knew his name. Everyone knew his name. He was more famous than he ever could have gotten from any other discovery that he had made.

“…And then the room began to shrink and cage me in,” he said for the fortieth time that day. He paused, reveling in the suspense of his current audience, two of which were so enthralled that they had abandoned their attempts to record his story.

“The room hadn’t been empty. The rahi WAS the room,” he said with a practiced, playful smile. It widened when one of the Onu-Matoran gave out a little, surprised gasp.

Next, he would describe the epic battle that he had with the mimic, with embellishments to ratchet up the suspense a little more. In his story, the rahi shot fireballs and had transformed into a shadowy duplicate of himself before he had managed to escape. But before he could get into it, he was interrupted by a familiar voice.

“That was you?”

Tehutti past his audience and saw that another Matoran had entered the room. His old boss.

“Hello Whenua.” Tehutti gave him an awkward wave. “Yes, it really is me. Lhikan chose me to be the new Toa of Earth!”

“Yes, I heard,” Whenua said with a scowl. “I was talking about the localized earthquake that hit the lower Archives a few days ago. It was on the same level as the Mimic. That was you?”

“Um,” Tehutti looked nervously at the other Onu-Matoran. He couldn’t lie about how he escaped the mimic rahi’s cell; he had already told other Archivists about how he had used a quake to split the room open.

“Twenty-four stasis tubes were damaged,” Whenua continued. “Fifteen rahi escaped. The Rorzahk had to call in a Kranua to get the situation back under control.”

“Were there any injuries?” Tehutti asked hesitantly.

“No Matoran were hurt,” Whenua begrudgingly acknowledged. “But some of the rahi were. And there was extensive harm done to the displays. Do you have any idea how much damage you caused?”

The other Archivists were looking between him and Whenua like they were watching a particularly nerve-wracking Kanoka Toss. Most of them looked uncomfortable; Matoran weren’t supposed to lecture Toa, after all. But Tehutti could see that more than a few of them were just as angry as Whenua. Many Matoran had spent almost their entire existences working in the Archives, so if word of this spread, they would make sure that Tehutti would go down in history as Metru Nui’s worse Toa.

“No, I don’t know how much damage the quake caused,” Tehutti admitted.

Whenua opened his mouth to continue lecturing him, but he raised a hand pleadingly to cut him off. “But, I do know that the damage was less than what the Morbuzahk would have done if it had continued to grow.”

He turned from Whenua and addressed the other Matoran with as much sorrow as he could muster.

“Making that quake was not a spur of the moment decision. The thought of damaging any exhibit is just as abhorrent to me as it is to anyone else in this room. I may be a Toa now, but I’m still an Archivist at heart.

“But the Great Spirit sent my team a vision telling us that the Great Disks were vital to saving Metru Nui. All of Metru Nui. If I didn’t escape the Mimic with that disk, then every tunnel in Onu-Metru would be choked by vines.”

He sighed and did his best to look ashamed. He had the Matoran’s attention again, and even the angry ones looked like they were considering his words.

“I tried my best to fight past the rahi with just my Picks, but I wasn’t strong enough. Eventually it became clear that the only way out was to make another exit. I kept fighting, trying to prove myself wrong, but in the end I needed to use my elemental power to escape with the Great Disk.”

His gaze swept over expressions of the assembled Onu-Matoran. Whenua still didn’t look convinced, but the expressions of the others have softened. It looked like he might be in the clear.

Before he could seal the deal with a pledge to help with the rebuilding efforts, another Onu-Matoran burst into the room.

“Flood,” he gasped. He had clearly been running for some time. He zeroed in on Tehutti and rushed over to him.

“Toa, please,” he said. “I found a flood in the lower levels! If it isn’t stopped, it could drown the Archives!”

The Onu-Matoran burst out in nervous chatter. Each trying to interrogate the Matoran about when, where, and how he found this out.

“Calm down!” Whenua yelled. “Nuparu, where is the leak?”

“It was down in the maintenance tunnels,” The Matoran, Nuparu, said, fidgeting nervously. “I-I know you’re not supposed to go down there, but I heard that the Vahki drove a Rahkshi back down there, and I thought I could scavenge some parts from the fight. But it was a maze down there, and I took a wrong turn and found myself waist deep in liquid protodermis!”

Whenua looked like he was going to chastise Nuparu for his recklessness, but Tehutti spoke over him. “Were you able to find the source of the leak?”

“Yes, I found a wall with a huge crack in it. The sea was rushing through, and it was growing!”

“That doesn’t sound too hard to fix,” Tehutti said with a reassuring smile. “With my powers, I can seal that crack in seconds.”

His confidence quelled the growing panic in the Matoran. Which was good, because if it hadn’t, then Tehutti would have started panicking along with them. Albeit, not necessarily for the same reason that they were.

The maintenance tunnels were a convoluted mess of access routes woven between and under the Archives. They had been nicknamed ‘the Fuku Web’ based on how poor their layout was. Matoran only went down there in emergencies, and over the years of disuse they had become home to all sorts of unsavory rahi.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a place that Tehutti was eager to venture into alone, but it wasn’t the main reason for his panic. The crack that caused the flood didn’t come from nothing, and the timing was uncomfortably close to when Tehutti had set off the earthquake in the Archive. Tehutti did not think that he had actually caused it, but it did not matter if he did, it mattered if the Onu-Matoran thought he did. And they had just been audience to Whenua accusing him of causing damage with his powers. It wouldn’t be much of a leap for some of them to start blaming him for this.

The only solution was to go into the Fuku Web and fix this quickly. If he ended this now, he could look like a proper hero and avoid being remembered as a failure.

So he kept the smile on his face and turned to reassure the rest of the Onu-Matoran; “I’ll be back soon. We can continue the story once the Archives are safe.”

He drew his Quake Picks and spun them once in his hands for dramatic effect as he strode out of the room. Matoran parted respectfully in the halls as he went towards the nearest entrance to the Fuku Web.

It took him a while to actually find the entrance. Partly because he never had a reason to go there before, and partly because he took a few deliberate wrong turns to give himself time to work up his courage. When he finally reached the ancient, sealed door to the Fuku Web, he paused for a bit more courage.

Get ahold of yourself, he thought. You’ve taken dumber risks for less. And you’re a Toa now; there’s nothing down there that will be a match for you. Hopefully.

He took a breath and wrenched open the seal with his hands. The show of strength eased his nerves even more. The smile was back on his face when he opened the door and confronted the pitch-black darkness within. He let his eyes adjust for a moment, then strode into the dark, disappearing from view.

Nurhii had not been looking forward to the process of divvying out his workload among his former co-workers. Mask-makers were constantly under a heavy workload providing Matoran the Kanohi that they needed to function. Damaged masks needed to be replaced immediately, or else their owners would suffer. There were quotas for Powerless, Noble, and Great Kanohi that needed to be shipped out for trade in distant lands. Nurhii went home expecting that finding a mask-makers with a free time slots for his work would take up all of his time there.

So, it caught him completely off guard when he found that he did not need to do any work at all. All of his commissions had been neatly divided up among the mask-makers the first day he had not shown up to work.

“We thought that you had been nabbed by the Morbuzahk,” Agni, one of his old co-workers, told him apologetically. “We needed to keep up production!”

And… yeah, he should have expected that, but it still rankled Nurhii that everyone had immediately assumed that he was gone forever. Sure, Nurhii and the other mask-makers had all done the same thing before with absent Ta-Matoran, but this was different. He was the most talented mask-maker in the city! Had no-one cared enough to wait before pouncing on his commissions like a swarm of Kofo-Jaga?

Well, apparently one Matoran had cared.

“You should let Vakama know that you’re alright,” Agni had suggested. “He was really broken up about your disappearance. I bet he’ll be really excited to see that you’re the new Toa!”

Nurhii did not really care whether or not Vakama was ‘broken up’ about anything, but he did not have anything better to do. So, he found himself walking up the corridor to Vakama’s workshop in spite of the ill will he held for his old apprentice.

The door was ajar and Nurhii could hear a series of violent clanks coming from the room. Not the sound of a crafter methodically hammering out his newest masterpiece, but the sounds of a crafter taking out his frustration on a dud mask. Nurhii hesitated at the entrance but then shrugged and entered anyways. If Vakama wanted privacy, then he should shut his damn door.

He found Vakama at his work bench, mask hidden in his hands, sitting over a shattered Kanohi, still glowing with the heat of the forge. A pile of similarly broken Kanohi were piled in a corner of the room, and the forge glowed in a way that told Nurhii that it hadn’t been cooled in days.

“Impossible,” Vakama moaned. “It simply can’t be done!”

“Certainly not, if you keep smashing your work like that,” Nurhii remarked dryly.

Vakama looked up with a start. He blinked at Nurhii, eyes likely adjusting from staring into the forge all shift.

“Toa Lhi-“ he started, before he got a better look at Nurhii’s armor color.

“Toa Nurhii,” Nurhii corrected. And, Mata Nui, was Vakama’s utter bafflement and awe just so satisfying. Every one of his co-workers had reacted the same way, but Nurhii doubted that he would ever get tired of it.

“N-nurhii? How? What happened to you?”

“Lhikan chose me as his successor,” Nurhii said, shrugging like it was no big deal.

“He can do that?” Vakama exclaimed.

“Apparently,” Nurhii chuckled. He was already enjoying this much more than his usual interactions with Vakama. It felt like how things had been before, when Vakama was a lowly apprentice and Nurhii his superior.
He approached Vakama’s latest project and examined the remains. Even in pieces, he could tell that the design didn’t correspond with any known mask design.

“This is the project the Turaga assigned to you,” he guessed. He still felt a touch of bitterness about that, but he kept it buried. He was beyond petty workplace rivalries now.

“Yes,” Vakama said numbly, still shocked by Nurhii’s new appearance.

“And so are those?” Nurhii asked, gesturing to the pile of broken masks.

Vakama’s demeanor darkened. “Yes. It’s been the only thing that I’ve been working on for days.”

“And that’s the only thing you have to show for it?”

“I don’t have the resources!” Vakama exploded. He looked apologetic when Nurhii shot him a chiding glance, but he continued. “It’s simply not possible to meet the requirements the Turaga gave me.”

“It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools,” Nurhii reminded him.

“It’s not the tools, it’s the resources! I’m using the most potent, the most purified Kanoka Disks in Metru Nui, but they just can’t meet the power level necessary for the mask.”

Nurhii frowned thoughtfully. If Turaga Dume wanted this mask enough to clear a mask-maker’s schedule of any other work, then there was no way that he wasn’t also providing Vakama the highest quality Kanoka to make the mask from.
“What does the Turaga want the mask to be capable of? You said you weren’t allowed to tell me the last time you brought up this project.”

Vakama hesitated a moment, uncertainty flickering below his mask. Then he seemed to decide that the project wasn’t so secret that he couldn’t trust a Toa.

“It needs to be able to control the flow of time in a localized section of space. To make time run faster or slower in that area than the rest of the universe.”

“That…” Nurhii blinked in shock. “He wants you to make something on par with a Legendary Kanohi. What in Mata Nui’s name could he need that for?”

Vakama shrugged helplessly.

Nurhii’s frown deepened as he thought about the logistics of this project. Maybe, maybe, there was a way to boost the power of level eight disks to reach the requirements necessary to control time itself to that degree. But there certainly wasn’t any precedent for it. There weren’t any records for how the Legendary Masks had been created. They were just, well, legends to the Matoran. The creations of higher powers like Artaka and the Great Beings.

Then a thought struck him; perhaps a legend was necessary to create another legend. Level eight disks were thought to be the most powerful of their kind, but that wasn’t true. There were six Kanoka marked with a power level of nine, and he was carrying one around on his back.

It would certainly be worth it to investigate what sort of mask the Great Disks could produce. Dume clearly thought that this was incredibly important, likely important enough to risk the destruction of a Great Disk. If he offered his up to Vakama right now, it might be the key to creating this Mask of Time.

And Vakama would go down in history as its creator.

He struggled with the idea. Surely Vakama would not get all of the credit. He had admitted himself that creating a mask like this was only possible with a legendarily powerful Kanoka Disk. And Nurhii would be the one who brought it to him.

Yes, a greedy little voice in his mind whispered. You’ll be remembered as an errand boy, while Vakama gets the credit of actually making the Mask of Time.

Consumed by his thoughts, Nurhii idly reached back to touch the disk. He snapped out of it when he only felt empty air. A wave of soul-sucking panic hit Nurhii as he patted his empty back in search for the disks.

“It’s gone!”

“What’s gone?” Vakama asked, concerned by the Toa’s antics.

“I… had something that I though could have helped you,” Nurhii explained. He spun around and scanned the workshop. Could he have dropped it somewhere?

“Oh!” Vakama looked simultaneously confused and excited. “I didn’t notice anything on you when you came in aside from your weapons. Maybe you left it outside?”

Nurhii growled in wordless irritation. He hadn’t taken the Great Disk off of his back since he came back to the forge. There was no way that he had just left it somewhere.

“Wait here,” he snapped at Vakama. “I’m going to find who swiped it from me and feed them the Vahki.”

He stormed out of Vakama’s workshop without waiting for a response. He leapt down the stairs four at a time and raced down the corridors of the crafters’ building. Someone had to have taken the Great Disk, and he had to find them soon before the trail got cold.

Otherwise, no one will get the credit for this Mask of Time.

Don’t be weird. Don’t be weird, Vhisola told herself as she stood outside of Nokama’s study. You managed to be normal when talking to all of your other teachers, just be normal now.

But that was different, and Vhisola knew it. Her relationship with the other teachers was purely professional, and even though they had certainly been surprised by Vhisola’s transformation, their conversations had been brief and mostly focused on passing off her projects to other students. Nokama, on the other hand, was her friend, and Vhisola couldn’t help but be nervous about how she would react.

Vhisola noticed that she was getting odd looks from a group of passing Ga-Matoran. She realized that she was already acting weird by standing in the hall and staring at a closed door. She swallowed her apprehension and knocked.

“Come in,” a soft voice from within bid her. Vhisola pushed the door open, ducked under the frame and entered the cramped study.

Nokama was at her desk with a mountain of tablets before her. She looked up from transcribing what was written on a tablet to some writing foil, and her eyes widened when she saw Vhisola.

“Oh! Um… Can I help you?” she asked nervously.

“Yes! I-I mean kind of,” Vhisola stuttered. “I’m not here for… It’s me, Nokama. It’s Vhisola.”

Nokama looked amazed. She abandoned her work and cautiously approached her student. Vhisola longed to reach out to her, but she did not want to startle her. Instead, she just knelt down to bring herself to her teacher’s eye level.

“Vhisola? What happened to you?”

“It was that stone Toa Lhikan gave me,” Vhisola explained. “I took it to the Great Temple like you suggested, and it transformed me and five others into Toa.”

“Toa?” Nokama said, her face filled with awe. Vhisola felt a strange swoop in her stomach as her former mentor examined her with such amazement and reverence. She was struck again by the urge to reach out and hold onto her hand.

Stop! She berated herself. Just be normal!

“Yeah,” she forced out a laugh. “I’m still getting used to the idea myself.”

“The new responsibility must be daunting,” Nokama sympathized. “But I’m certain you’ll adjust soon. If Lhikan chose you to be his successor, then he must have been confident in your ability to shoulder the mantle of Toa.”

“I guess so. But I have a long way to go,” Vhisola admitted, thinking back to her humiliating encounter with the Bordakh. She doubted that Lhikan or any of the Toa Magnia would have gotten themselves brainwashed into attacking their own team.

“You should know that most of all, with all of my mistakes you have had to correct,” she joked weakly.

Clearly it had been the wrong thing to say. Nokama looked stricken and she jumped to placate Vhisola.

“No, no,” she said nervously. “You were no worse than any other student. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel as though you were!”

Vhisola looked at her, confused. “It’s okay, Nokama. I wasn’t accusing you of anything. And you don’t have to boost my ego; I know I make a lot of stupid mistakes when I get excited.”

“I… Yes, you did,” Nokama still looked uncomfortable. “But if you’re a Toa now, then you’ve probably evolved past that.”

“I suppose. But I’m not that different. I’m still me!” Vhisola insisted. “Still just your friend; Vhisola.”

“Of course,” Nokama agreed. But she wasn’t acting like she agreed. She still stood stiff, and at attention. She was still looking at Vhisola with that star-struck expression; like she was staring at Toa Lhikan, not her student and friend.

And for some reason that irritated Vhisola. It should not have; all she had wanted for the past decade was Nokama’s attention. She should have been thrilled that Nokama was looking at her like she was a gift from the Great Spirit himself. But she just found herself wishing that Nokama would just relax and go back to acting how she normally did around her.

“So… I just came by to let you know that I probably won’t be able to continue my studies with you,” Vhisola said, scrambling end the silence that had suddenly filled the room. “I really enjoy your lectures and your tutoring, but I don’t think I’ll have the time to be a regular student. Maybe I’ll stop by the lecture hall when I have free time!”

“Are you certain?” Nokama asked nervously. “That wouldn’t be beneath you?”

“Of course not! How can learning be beneath anyone?”

“I didn’t mean that,” Nokama said. “But, if you need any information for your duty as a Toa, you can always request an appointment and I can teach you one-on-one. You don’t need to waste time sitting in on a lecture.”

Vhisola hesitated, because the idea of being able to be alone with Nokama whenever she wanted was extremely appealing. But still, this wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want Nokama to be around her because she was ordered to. She didn’t want the stilted respect that Nokama was giving her. She didn’t want her attention like this.

So, what did she want from her?

“Thank you, Nokama,” Vhisola said, quickly standing back up. “If I need you, I’ll let you know.”

“Of course, Toa.”

Vhisola exited the office and hurried away, weaving though the maze-like corridors of the school, dodging passing Matoran as she went. She had slipped in through the main entrance, but that wasn’t a good option right now. The streets outside were full of Ga-Matoran and she could not be around others right now. She was dangerously close to a breakdown; her emotions were welling up in her throat, rising fast and threatening to drown her.

So instead, she went to the roof. Hardly anyone ever went up there, and Vhisola used to use it to get some privacy whenever work, her peers, or her defectiveness nearly drove her into an emotional meltdown.

She slammed open the roof’s access hatch and clambered up through it. Nokama’s section of the school was staggered between three larger buildings, which blocked its roof from view of the street. It only took Vhisola a moment to confirm that no one else was up there and that she was completely hidden from view.

Content that she was alone, Vhisola crouched down, clutched her head, and lost her damn mind.

Her breathing became shallow and quick, and her vision blurred. She shook uncontrollably as she tried in vain to fight off the waves of despair, frustration, and crushing self-loathing. Even though Nokama had been nothing but respectful to her, it was still just as gut-wrenching as any time she was rebuffed by the other Matoran that her stupid, defective brain had gotten obsessed with.

This was almost worse than other rejections, because this time it was not even Vhisola’s fault. In becoming a Toa, Vhisola had leapt so far ahead of Nokama that her teacher couldn’t even conceive that Vhisola wanted to be around her just because she liked being her friend.

Right, just her friend, she thought scornfully. She was fully aware that wouldn’t have been enough. She would have wanted more and more of Nokama’s time. She would have gotten touchy and weird, until Nokama rightly broke off their friendship and never spoke to her again.

“Hello? Are you hurt?”

Vhisola snapped back to awareness and jumped back to her feet. In her frazzled state, she was barely surprised to see Ahkmou standing before her.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she hissed.

“Who’s sneaking? I was calling out to you, but you just kept crouching there!” Ahkmou said, affronted.

“Why are you even here?” Vhisola snapped. “Do you need me to draw you a map to Po-Metru?”

“First of all, kelp-head, I’ve already been to Po-Metru, and I’ve settled everything from my old life that needed settling,” Ahkmou retorted. “And second of all, I’m here because I’m bored, and I don’t have anywhere else to go!”

“Yeah well,” Vhisola paused and stared at Ahmou in confusion. “…What?”

A hint of embarrassment flickered across Ahkmou’s feature, but he folded his arms over his chest and kept up a tough front. “There wasn’t a lot for me to do. So, I decided to visit the other Metru and maybe see how the rest of you were handling the shift from Matoran to Toa.”

“Really?” Vhisola asked incredulously. “You can’t just wander around the city when the Vahki are still hunting us!”

Ahkmou rolled his eyes. “Right, and meanwhile you were the picture of stealth; sitting on a roof, rocking back and forth, and so trapped in your own head that you didn’t notice me until I was literally standing in front of you.”

Vhisola seethed but couldn’t exactly refute his point. She clenched her fists and glared at Ahkmou, debating the pros and cons of taking a swing at him.

But before she could decide, suddenly Ahkmou’s expression softened.

“Your friends didn’t react well to your new look, huh?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Hey, wasn’t trying to pry,” Ahkmou said, raising his hands defensively. “I just wanted to say that you aren’t the only one. I didn’t get the reception that I pictured either. Neither did Orkahm, from what I saw.

“Not to trivialize your… whatever it is you’re going through,” he added hurriedly. “It’s just that… you’re not alone, you know?”

Vhisola stared at him, looking for any sign that he was mocking her. In the brief amount of time that she’d known him, she had never seen Ahkmou speak sincerely unless he was insulting someone. It had seemed as though a smirk had been permanently etched onto his mask. But right now, he looked as though that mask had fallen, and under it he was just as unsure and concerned as she was.

She felt the anger drain out of her, leaving her with a weariness that seeped deep into her muscles. For a second, she was tempted to tell him everything. To finally talk to someone about the feelings that made her behave foolishly and drove her away from other Matoran.

“Whatever,” she said instead. She started walking towards the other roofs to leave.

Ahkmou looked relieved to let the topic drop. He put on a smile and followed behind her.

“So, what’s there to see in Ga-Metru? I’m looking to do a bit of sightseeing before we have to meet up with the others.”

Vhisola snorted. “You’ve already been to the only sight worth seeing. The Great Temple is what travelers come here for. Everything else is just canals, schools, and laboratories.”

“There’s got to be somewhere else to go,” Ahkmou insisted. “You’ve lived here forever; show me the good spots!”

Vhisola’s first instinct to refuse, but she stopped herself. Maybe it would be healthy for her to be around another person right now. Even if that person was an annoying, overgrown carver.

“Fine. But we’re going to hop the chutes to avoid running into Vahki,“ Vhisola smirked. “It’ll be a rough ride. Keep a hold of your stuff, or you’ll never see it ever again.”

“Excellent,” Ahkmou grinned back.

Ehrye had quit his job about a dozen times.

He probably could have stopped after the first time, when he visited the Courier Centre and told the managers there that he would not, in fact, be able to take any more deliveries. The courier managers were primarily the ones responsible for pairing scholars’ delivery requests with available messengers, so they were technically the only ones that Ehrye had to tell about his sudden career change.

But Ehrye was known for hanging around the Knowledge Towers, partially to glean some experience that he could hopefully use to become a scholar, and partially to be on-hand in case someone needed a courier to run an unexpected delivery. So, he felt an obligation to inform the scholars who were most used to having him on hand that he would not be around to help anymore.

It also helped that it felt really nice. To speak to these scholars, who Ehrye had worked under and still held a lot of respect for, and have them see what he had become. To be seen as someone important, with the potential to do great things. To be seen, period.
He soared through the skies of Ko-Metru, leaping between the crystalline towers. He used his power to form bridges and slopes that he could skate on with his Crystal Axes, building up enough speed to fling himself to the next Knowledge Tower and avoid falling and dashing himself to pieces on the mist-shrouded streets below.

He caught the attention of the Vahki several times, but he always managed to lose them. He was faster than them, and he knew Ko-Metru’s layout better than anyone. He had also learned since he had been captured by the Keerakh; he kept his movements erratic and unpredictable to prevent them from predicting his destination and ambushing him.

Ehrye flipped through the air and landed on top of the next tower on his list. He quickly unhooked his Axes from his feet and hopped off the side of the tower. He let himself freefall for a moment before he swung both his tools at the tower’s wall. The Axes dug into the crystal, slowing but not arresting his fall. He slid down the tower in this way until he was level with the balcony of Nuju’s observatory.

Nuju had always been Ehrye’s biggest critic among the scholars. He was of the opinion that Ehrye’s excitability and tendency to leap to conclusions made him unfit to work in the Knowledge Towers, and he had not been afraid to say it either. He was a very accomplished seer and his opinions undoubtedly had been a factor in the many job rejections that Ehrye had received over the years.

Most Matoran would have been bitter about this, but Ehrye had not let himself fall into that trap. Instead, he tried his best to improve himself and demonstrate to Nuju that he could live up to his standards. As such, he was particularly excited to show Nuju what he had become.

Ehrye formed a small platform of ice on the wall below him and stopped his fall. With a hint of his elemental power, he formed a bridge along the tower’s wall, connecting his platform with the balcony. He walked across it, nervously rehearsing and revising what he was going to say once he arrived.

Nuju was manning the telescope and was so absorbed in the task of mapping out the current configuration of the stars that he did not notice Ehrye until he hopped onto the balcony next to him.

“Hello Nuju!” Ehrye said cheerily. “It’s me, Ehrye! I’m just stopping by to let you know that some things have changed.”

Nuju didn’t show much surprise, aside from a slow blink and taking a moment to take in Ehrye’s appearance.

“I can see that.”

“Right, I guess that’s kind of obvious,” Ehrye laughed. “Though I was mostly referring to my courier work. I won’t be around anymore to carry messages for you, since I’ll be busy with Toa work. I just thought that I’d tell you in-person.”

“Toa?” Nuju said skeptically.

“Yes! I’m a Toa now."

Nuju abruptly turned from him and went back to his telescope. Ehrye froze in confusion. This type of behavior wasn’t unusual for Nuju, but he certainly hadn’t expected this reaction. None of the other scholars had reacted like this. Sure, some of them hadn’t been thrilled that out of all the Ko-Matoran, Ehrye was the one who had been chosen to be a Toa Metru, but they all at least paid attention to him.

“Um. Hello?”

Nuju shushed him and quickly adjusted the telescope’s position. He was clearly scanning the skies for something specific. His hands expertly manipulated focus dials and his mask was glued to the eyepiece.

Just as Ehrye was about to quietly take his leave, Nuju turned away from his telescope and back towards him.

“You are incorrect.”

“What do you mean I’m incorrect?” Ehrye asked.

“You don’t have a Spirit Star,” Nuju told him bluntly.

Ehrye froze. He had picked up enough knowledge about Seeing to know the significance of a Spirit Star. Every Toa had one. They heralded their movements in the night sky and acted as beacons from which teams could locate one another. Ehrye remembered how the sky above Metru Nui had been lit ablaze by the hundreds of Spirit Stars during the last days of the Toa-Dark Hunter War; one for every reinforcement called in to win the battle for Metru Nui.

So, if Ehrye didn’t have one…

“You’re wrong. Check again.”

Nuju scowled up at him and crossed his arms over his chest. “The star would be directly over us. Even a novice Seer wouldn’t be able to miss that. There is nothing above us.”

Ehrye opened his mouth to retort, but found the words frozen in his throat.

“Furthermore,” Nuju continued. “There haven’t been any signs in the stars that would foretell a significant event like the arrival of a new Toa. If any prophecy had been made about something so sensational, then the entire Metru would know about it. Therefore, you are not a Toa.”

“I know that I’m a Toa,” Ehrye insisted.

“Perhaps this transformation is a result of contact with Energized Protodermis,” Nuju speculated.

“No, that’s not how it happened! Lhikan gave us objects that transformed us in the Great Temple.”

“Or some other, lesser known, mutagen. The universe is full of different ways in which a Matoran might be transformed into something else.”

“Would you just listen to me?” Ehrye snapped. He raised an arm and focused his power through it. Nuju flinched as ice rapidly formed around Ehrye’s forearm, growing into jagged sheets and sharpened icicles in a matter of seconds.

“I control the elements! I wear a Great Kanohi Mask! I retrieved a Great Disk and defeated the Morbuzahk! I don’t care about what you think, I am a Toa! If the Seers didn’t foresee that, then that’s on you!”

He clenched his fist and willed the ice to shatter. Shards flew everywhere, pelting off of their armor and littering the balcony’s floor.

Nuju stumbled back from him, eyes wide with shock, and slipped on the icy ground. Ehrye felt a dark thrill of satisfaction at finally getting him to listen, but it only lasted until Nuju got his footing and looked back up at him. There was not just shock, but genuine fear in his expression.

“Just… go back to your stargazing. I shouldn’t have interrupted you,” he muttered. He turned from Nuju and stepped onto the edge of the balcony and jumped off of the tower.

He used his Axes again to control his fall until the mists hid him from sight. He dropped the rest of the way to the darkened streets, rolling with the impact and leaping back to his feet. The fall still hurt, but he barely noticed the sting.

A deep shame blossomed in Ehrye’s chest. That he had lost his temper so easily. That he had threatened a being that he was meant to protect.

I didn’t want to scare him. I just wanted him to listen to me for once. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was just a slipup. It won’t happen again.

His feet carried him aimlessly through the familiar backstreets of Ko-Metru. Quitting had suddenly lost its appeal, so now he had no destination in mind. He stayed away from the busier footpaths to avoid the Vahki’s attention, but other than that he allowed himself to wander and think.

“Excuse me? T-toa?”

A quiet voice caught his attention. He turned towards it and saw a Ko-Matoran with a Kanohi Kakama. Kokkan, he recalled. Another courier, one that he had worked with on a few occasions.

Ehrye smiled, trying to keep his body language as non-threatening as possible. “Hello! How can I help you, Kokkan?”

“I-I’m here to deliver a request to you,” the Matoran said, gaining confidence as he spoke. “From Jaa.”

Ehrye was surprised. Jaa was one of the scholars that he had announced his transformation to. He had spoken to him only a few hours ago.

“What does he need?”

“He heard that you recovered Ko-Metru’s Great Disk,” Kakkan explained. “He humbly requests for your permission to study it.”

“Of course!” Ehrye said immediately. He didn’t need the Great Disk until he met back up with the rest of his team. And watching Jaa examine his finding would give him something to do until then.

“Lead the way-“

“Toa!”

Another Matoran emerged from the same alleyway that Kakkan had emerged from. He was another courier, Pakastaa. Ehrye didn’t know him quite as well, but he recalled seeing him around whenever he visited the Courier Centre between jobs.

“We need your help!” Pakastaa cried. “A pair of Rahkshi just burst out from beneath the street! They’re attacking everyone in the chute station!”

Ehrye’s blood went cold. Rahkshi were not just another rahi that could be corralled by the Vahki. They were clever, they were cruel, and they were powerful. With enough Vahki, they could be beaten back to their territory beneath the city, but it would cost a lot of damage and injured Matoran.

“I’m on it,” Ehrye said, drawing his Crystal Axes. He turned to leave, but hesitated when he remembered Kakkan would be waiting on Jaa’s request.

He produced the Great Disk from his bag and tossed it lightly to Kakkan. “Here. Be careful with it. I’ll visit Jaa’s tower as soon as the situation’s under control.

Kakkan nodded gratefully, and then hurried away down another path, Pakastaa following close behind. Ehrye ran in the opposite direction, calculating in his head the shortest route to the Chute Station.

He was terrified at the thought of confronting Rahkshi, but there was no other choice. He could not call for his teammates to help him in time, and he refused to just let the Vahki handle it. So, he pushed back his fear, and rushed headlong towards the danger.

Ahkmou dropped a pouch of widgets into Pakastaa’s expectant hands. The Ko-Matoran grinned and excitedly showed it to Kakkan.

“Great job,” Ahkmou told them. He spun the Ko-Metru Great Disk in his hands, admiring its balance. If it wasn’t a legendarily powerful artifact, then it would be excellent for playing Akilini.

“T-this will help Metru Nui, right?”

Ahkmou looked up from the disk. Kakkan wasn’t as eager as his friend to just take the widgets they’d been promised and run. He fidgeted nervously, clutching his right elbow with his left hand, looking up at Ahkmou, begging to be reassured that he had done the right thing.

Ahkmou obliged with a smile. “Of course. You were really brave, and you’ve helped the city a lot. I’ll be sure to mention you’re names to Turaga Dume when I present the disk to him.”

Kakkan still looked uncertain, but thankfully Pakastaa had fewer scruples than his friend.

“We appreciate it, Toa,” he said, with a polite bow. He took Kakkan’s hand in his and gently pulled him away. “Come on. Our shift starts soon, and we gotta stow these widgets before we go to the Courier Centre.”

Ahkmou let Pakastaa lead his friend away. His attention had already returned to the Great Disk. He smiled in satisfaction as he pulled out his satchel where he had stowed the rest of the disks.

It had taken a considerable amount of effort, and all of the widgets that he had saved up from his figurine side business, to swipe the disks from his siblings. Tehutti, Orkahm, and Nurhii had mingled enough with the Matoran, so all it took was paying off a few enterprising laborers to lift the disks off of them while they weren’t paying attention. Vhisola and Ehrye took a bit more legwork for Ahkmou to find a way to engineer an opportunity for himself. Luckily, Vhisola had been too occupied by her whole… whatever it was she was freaking out about when he had stumbled upon her and was distracted enough for him to take her disk during their chute-hopping. And Ehrye was just plain gullible.

He slid the Ko-Metru Kanoka into the satchel and closed it up. It was time to leave this miserable, chilly Metru and get back to Po-Metru.

But when he looked back up, there was a white-armored figure blocking his path.

“You sneaky little Stone Rat,” Ehrye hissed.

“Oh,” Ahkmou said, too startled to conjure a believable lie to save him. “…You got here fast.”

“Did you seriously steal my Great Disk? Why? What possible reason could you have for doing that?” Ehrye shouted. The normally cheery Toa of Ice looked positively murderous, and Ahkmou found himself backing away as he advanced on him.

“I promise that there’s a good explanation for this,” Ahkmou said quickly.

“What in Karzani could explain this?” Ehrye demanded.

Ahkmou raised a stone wall in Ehrye’s face and sprinted away.

He turned at the first branch in his path and hurtled down it. The wall probably bought him a couple seconds, and he intended to use it to get as much distance between him and Ehrye. The maze that was Ko-Metru’s footpaths would help him escape as he maintained his lead.

Ahkmou raced across the dark stone of the alleys dodging the few Matoran that were out moving between towers. He took every turn he encountered, hoping to make his path as unpredictable as possible. He felt like he was doing a good job of it too, until he turned a corner and saw Ehrye running directly at him.

“Stop!” Ehrye shouted.

Ahkmou was so surprised that he almost obeyed. But he kept his nerve and, instead of turning and running away from him, he unholstered his Shatter-point Hammer and kept sprinting at Ehrye. Ehrye looked shocked but he raised his weapons to block the oncoming overhead swing from Ahkmou’s raised Hammer.

But instead of taking the swing, Ahkmou focused his energy through the Hammer and caused a cobble from the road to dislodge itself and rocket up towards Ehrye. It struck him in the chest and knocked the winded Toa off his feet.
Ahkmou laughed and ran past his stunned brother. Again, he turned down the nearest alley to get out of Ehrye’s line of sight as quickly as possible.

He kept running. After minutes of dodging down sidestreets and leaping over obstacles, he began to think he was in the clear. It was only then did he realize that his efforts to lose Ehrye, he had also gotten himself lost.

He slowed to a jog and tried to get his bearings. It didn’t help; every footpath in Ko-Metru looked identical to him. He tried to look up and see if he could recognize any distinctive buildings, but the mist shrouded much of his vision, and most of the structures were the same damn crystal tower shape anyway.

Ahkmou was seriously considering forcibly recruiting a Ko-Matoran to be his guide, when a white and silver blur leapt out from a nearby alley and crashed into him. He hit the ground hard and lost his grip on the Shatter-point Hammer.

He tried to hit his assailant, but in an instant, he was locked in place by sheets of ice that covered him from neck to feet. He was entirely immobile, wrapped in biting cold, and face to face with a furious Ehrye.

“How do you keep getting in front of me?” Ahkmou cried. “Seriously, am I just missing the road signs, or did you learn how to teleport?”

“Quiet,” Ehrye snapped. “Tell me what you were doing with my disk?”

“Do you want me to be quiet, or do you want me to explain?”

“I… Yo-you know what I meant!” Ehrye shouted. He kicked Ahkmou in the side, though Ahkmou barely felt it through the layers of ice.

“How did you even catch onto the lie so quickly anyways?” Ahkmou wondered.

“I got to a main road and saw that no one was panicking like they would have been if the Metru was under attack. Then I realized that Pakastaa hadn’t come from the Chute Station, and that Kakkan hadn’t run towards Jaa’s tower.”

“So, there are signs!” he exclaimed. “Also, glad to know that it wasn’t my fault that you saw through it. Those two Matoran should have been more careful. Clearly I overpaid-“

“Ahkmou,” Ehrye interrupted. His anger had faded. Now his expression was just full of confusion and hurt. It was almost worse than the anger. Ahkmou felt an unfamiliar twinge of guilt. “Please! Just tell me why you tried to trick me.”

Ahkmou sighed and shut his eyes. He had been told to get the disks unnoticed, but that was right out. Might as well break all the other rules too.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll explain.”

Chapter Text

Ahkmou looked up just in time to see the inverted mountain toppling directly towards him.

With only a split second to react, he lashed out with his elemental power again. He swung his fist upwards, willing the monument to shatter. Without a tool to focus the power through, all he managed to do was destroy a part of the mountain’s side. But that was enough.

Ahkmou dived flat just as the mountain fell with an earth-shattering crash. The shockwave snapped through his body, stunning and deafening him, but he was not crushed.
He lay in the sand for a few moments, waiting for his head to stop pounding. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was encased in a stone dome. The cut he had made in the mountain had been just deep enough to stop him from being flattened.

Ahkmou forced his muscles to relax as he assessed the situation. The ceiling was too low for him to do much more than crawl. It was too dark to see, so he shuffled around in the sand, feeling for the edges of the cut.

There was a metallic clink as his had knocked against a half-buried object. Ahkmou felt the familiar shape of his hammer and grinned. It looked like he found his exit. He took it in both hands and swung it up at the ceiling.

The stone morphed on contact with his Toa tool and shifted upwards. Suddenly there was more than enough room for Ahkmou to stand up. He got to his feet, and then shuffled forwards with his hand out. When they brushed up against the nearest wall, he hefted the Shatter-point Hammer and slammed it into the stone. The wall exploded under the blow and, when the dust settled, there was a long tunnel running through the rock.

But despite the amount of strength and power he put into cutting that tunnel, he could not see any light at the end of it.

Ahkmou sighed. It was going to be a long day.

He was correct. By the time his strike exploded an exit out the side of the fallen monument, the suns had already began to fade into moonlight. He stumbled out of the new tunnel and breathed in a lungful of fresh air. The relief was almost enough to make him forget his aching and bruised body, if only for a second. Ahkmou slumped down onto his knees and closed his eyes, taking comfort in the distant sounds of Po-Metru’s whirling winds.

But his mind could not allow him more than a moment of peace. Already thoughts of the Great Disk, the Dark Hunters, and his fellow Toa floated up through his mind. Nidhki and Krekka had a massive head start on searching the inverted mountain for the Great Disk, so the was little point in him even trying. The pair had probably already found it and left the area. If they did, then there would be no way for Ahkmou to track them, considering that they could both fly and he was earthbound.

He would need help getting the disk back, he conceded. One Toa couldn’t track down a couple of Dark Hunters who could be holed up anywhere in Metru Nui. Nor would one Toa be enough to confront them if they did find them; Ahkmou had learned that lesson the hard way and he would not be making the same mistake twice.

He would need to make up a lie to tell his teammates about how the disk was lost. A story that avoided his familiarity with the Dark Hunters, and made losing the Great Disk seem less like it was his fault.

He leaned back against the side of the monument as he mulled over a story for the other Toa. He looked idly up the sheer stone wall, and then froze.

The was a shape protruding from the side of the wall. It was not jagged or irregular that would suggest just a break in the stone. It was rounded. Like a Kanoka disk.

There’s no way...

Ahkmou raised his hammer again, despite his muscles’ screams of protest, and slammed it against the side of the inverted mountain. A crack spread up the wall until it reached the shape. Ahkmou saw the outline wobble and then slide free. He took a step back as a brown Kanoka disk crashed into the ground before him.

Destiny is real and it loves me, Ahkmou concluded.

He bent down to pick it up but was struck by a bolt of emerald energy. The energy formed into tendrils around him, constricting his arms and legs. Off balance, and unable to adjust his footing, Ahkmou fell mask first into the sand.

Oh, screw you, Destiny!

Ahkmou felt a familiar pair of giant hands grab him by the shoulder and flip him face-up. Not for the first time that day, Ahkmou found himself looking up at Nidhki and Krekka.

Nidhki’s horrific face split into a grin, and Ahkmou knew that he would not be able to escape this time. His elemental power was exhausted and he was far too weak to break free of the energy webbing. There was nothing he could say to sway the Dark Hunters, and he had nothing with which to bargain for his life.

But before Nidhki could order Krekka to pound his face flat, a shadow fell over all three of them. Both Dark Hunters glanced up and hesitated when they caught sight of a creature flying high above them. Ahkmou squinted at the silhouette to try and see what about it had so quickly changed the pair’s attitude, but it just looked like some sort of flying rahi to him. Maybe an unusually large one, but not especially uncommon sight in Po-Metru.

The Dark Hunters stared at the circling rahi for a few seconds before looking back down and exchanging a glance. Krekka shrugged, guileless as ever but remarkably less violent. Nidhki looked like he had been forced to swallow a rock. He turned to Ahkmou with a sneer.

“You are the luckiest being in this miserable city,” he hissed. “Krekka, put him to sleep.”

Krekka raised his foot and brought it down on Ahkmou’s head. Everything went black.

He slowly drifted back into consciousness, gradually welcomed back by a pounding headache and the cold floor he was laying on. He blinked blearily as his vision slowly returned.

He was in a room. A cell, he realized as he noticed the bars separating his room from an adjourning hallway. The walls, floor, and ceiling were cut from solid protodermis, lit by flickering lightstones embedded into the walls.

He was not alone. There was a small, hunched being leaning on his staff in the center of the room. He wore vestments over crimson armor and bore a Noble Kanohi Kiril. He was a being that Ahkmou had seen many times before, though rarely in-person.

"Turaga Dume?" Ahkmou croaked.

The Turaga of Metru Nui peered down at him with clinical detachment. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got run over by a Kikanalo. Where am I? How did I get here? Why am I still alive?"

"Your mask was severely damaged." Dume said, ignoring the questions. "I have repaired the worst of the damage with my Kiril, but repairing Kanohi is tricky. Can you access your mask power?"

"Um, no. I don't know how to do that," Ahkmou said hesitantly. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, supported by the wall behind him.

Dume looked unimpressed by that answer, but he asked again in the same collected tone. "Then do you feel significantly weaker? As though you are not wearing a Kanohi?"

"No, I don't think so." He was certain that any weakness he was feeling was due to a mountain falling on him, rather than masklessness.

"That will do for now," Dume relented. "Now, your name is Ahkmou, correct?"

Ahkmou was surprised, and then suspicious. Even if Dume had known him as a Matoran, which Ahkmou doubted considering the sheer amount of Matoran Dume presided over, the Toa transformation should have made him virtually unrecognizable.

"Yes," he replied. "How did you know that?"

The Turaga gave a small, apologetic smile. "It appears as though you have been swept up in matters beyond your understanding."

Ahkmou wanted to snap that cryptic non-answers would not help him understand matters, but he bit his tongue. Toa or not, a lifetime of subservience to Turaga was not easily shaken.

Instead, he asked again; "How did you know my name?"

"You were hired by my agents to assist them in recovering the Great Disks," Dume answered calmly.

"Your agents?" Ahkmou asked, dread rising in his chest. "You don't mean..."

Two figures moved into sight on the other side of the cell's bars. Nidhki and Krekka's hulking forms nearly eclipsed the hallway's lightstones, putting the cell in darkness. Ahkmou bolted upright, reaching for his Hammer, but found it missing. He heard a rumbling chuckle coming from Krekka, and looked up to see the Dark Hunter hefting the Toa Tool in his hands.

"Calm yourself, Toa Ahkmou," Dume cautioned.

"Turaga, those are Dark Hunters!" Ahkmou shouted.

"I am aware. Things are not as they seem, Toa Ahkmou, and for now, those two are our allies. Sit back down."

Ahkmou looked between the leering hunters and the stoic Turaga. This could be a trick of some sort. Maybe this Dume was an illusion somehow created by the hunters. Or maybe Dume had been mind controlled by one of them.

But Ahkmou could not think of any reason why the Dark Hunters would do this. He had been at their mercy, and they had seemed eager to kill him, and instead Ahkmou had ended up here. Something more was going on, and for now there was only one way to find out more about it.

He sat back down.

"What in Karzani is going on, Turaga?" he asked.

"A temporary alliance, born of necessity."

Ahkmou frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means that Metru Nui and the Dark Hunters share a common enemy," Dume answered. "And despite our past conflicts, we have agreed to unite against this threat."

"What threat?"

The Turaga sighed and leaned heavily on his staff.

"What do you know about the Toa Mangai's disappearance?"

"You sent them out on missions and they never returned," Ahkmou answered impatiently. "Except Lhikan, who was killed by those two hunters behind you!"

"Lhikan is not dead," Dume assured him. "He is being kept here until he recovers."

"He's not... Recover from what?" Ahkmou demanded.

"Lhikan's mind has been overshadowed by a group of beings who wish to gain dominion over Metru Nui. I had dispatched the other Toa Mangai to investigate this threat, but each of them fell under these being's power as well."

Dume took Ahkmou's stunned silence as an invitation to continue. "They call themselves 'The Order'. We know very little about them, but we do know that their intention is to control the universe from the shadows."

"They posses the power to influence the minds of any being that they get a hold of. The Mangai fell pray to them before we knew of their existence. Many members of the Dark Hunters have been similarly influenced."

Ahkmou glanced between the Turaga and the hunters looming behind them. He crossed his arms and glared at Dume.

"No offense, Turaga Dume, but you realize that I'm not going to believe this without any proof, right?"

Dume nodded amicably. "Of course. Follow."

He turned and strode towards the cell's door. Without a word, Krekka obediently opened the door for him, and then followed as Dume walked down the hall, out of sight of the cell. Ahkmou stood up but hesitated to follow.

Nidhki stared at him from behind the bars. He had not moved an inch since stepping into view, and even now he only stared. Whatever emotion that was shifting across his insectoid face was inscrutable to Ahkmou. He could only assume that the ex-Toa had calmed the murderous rage that Ahkmou had provoked and was back to his baseline level of disgust for all living things.

"Better run along, carver," Nidhki hissed. "Follow your Turaga."

Ahkmou stared back until he was sure that Ndhki would not shoot him in the back if he walked away. He straightened up and, with as much dignity as he could muster, walked out of the cell and followed Dume. He could hear Nihdki's skittering steps shadowing him.

The corridor was a winding tunnel of protodermis, with the occasional alcove where a cell was placed. Dume and Krekka had already vanished behind a bend, but thankfully there were no branching paths. Soon he caught up, and found them stopped in front of another cell.

Within, Ahkmou could see another Turaga. He stood hunched in the centre of the cell, thin and frail-looking without vestments or a badge of office. His armor was the deep red of a Ta-Matoran, and he had a golden Noble Mask of Shielding on his face.

The Turaga did not acknowledge their presence. He was transfixed by the bare wall of his cell, staring intently at it and muttering to himself.

"This," Turaga Dume said, addressing Ahkmou, "Is Lhikan."

Ahkmou looked at him in surprise. Dume shrugged at the Toa of Stone's unspoken question.

"It is no small thing to transform Matoran into Toa. He gave his Toa power to you and your siblings, and thus was changed into a weaker form."

"Why doesn't anyone tell us about how these things work?" Ahkmou muttered. He peered into the cell, watching Turaga Lhikan gesticulate urgently to the wall he was conversing with. "What's wrong with him?"

"The Order invaded his mind to make him their pawn," Dume explained. "Once he had been captured, he was useless to their plans and they abandoned him. Their influence faded, but it left him mad."

"...I don't care, Naho, if the Matoran are in danger then we must act..." Lhikan told the wall. His voice was not as strong, but it was unmistakably Lhikan's.

The sight made Ahkmou feel as though the ground had shifted from beneath his feet. He was by no means a sentimental being, but seeing Lhikan, the epitome of heroism, in this state was just so fundamentally wrong. A Toa should not have to fall this far.

"The Dark Hunters are searching for a cure for their members who have been affected. For now, we must keep him here for his own safety."

"Was he already under the influence when he gave us the Toa Stones?" Ahkmou pondered aloud, not looking away from the mad Turaga.

Dume gave a tired sigh. "We know that the Order desires the Great Disks, though we know not why. They became aware of a prophecy in which the Disks would be rediscovered, and influenced Lhikan into enact it."

"The prophecy..."

"It named six Matoran that would, when Metru Nui was in crisis, uncover the location of their Metru's Great Disk."

"And me and the others were those six." Ahkmou felt as though a vice was slowly closing on his throat. "So Lhikan only chose us to be Toa because he was tricked."

Dume gave him an odd look. "Yes. Does that matter?"

"Of course it matters!" Ahkmou shouted. He felt the Dark Hunters react to his sudden anger, but he paid them no mind. "It means that we were not destined to be Toa! Mata Nui did not chose us, we are just fakes created to undermind the city! If the Matoran find this out, they will reject us!"

Dume let out a low laugh. "Is that what you truly believe, Toa Ahkmou?" He asked. "That Destiny is some ephemeral force that legitimizes your position?"

Ahkmou turned to look incredulously at Dume. The Turaga gave another soft chuckle and shook his head before he continued.

"Destiny is written by those with power and gifted to those beneath them. We accept the destinies given to us by the Great Spirit because he has the foresight to chart a future for our universe and the power to guide it there. But not every aspect of his plans need be set in stone; they can be averted and rewritten.

"It is up to beings like us, beings who stand above the masses, to correct the deficiencies in the Great Spirit's Destiny. Before you were only a piece in the fate of Metru Nui, but now you are a player. You now have the power to determine the destinies of the city and all of its citizens. That is what matters; why you have the power is irrelevant. Destiny does not legitimize you, Toa Ahkmou; you legitimize it."

Ahkmou stared at Dume in stunned silence. He had never heard anyone refer to one of the Three Virtues like this. It felt strange, and would have been outright blasphemous if it had come from the mouth of anyone other than the city's Turaga.

And he had to admit, it rang more true than any other interpretation about Destiny that Ahkmou had been told. It felt real. It turned a vague concept that he had been told to have faith in into something tangible.

"I must ask you to to exercise that power now, though you may not like my request," Dume continued. "The Great Disks must not fall into the Order's hands, and we don't know if any of your siblings have been compromised like Lhikan had."

"What do you want me to do?" Ahkmou asked, though he could guess what the answer would be.

"Take the Great Disks from your teammates," Dume said, confirming Ahkmou's suspicion. "You must collect them quickly and without their knowledge, and then bring them here. If the Order becomes aware of what you are trying to do, they will take more drastic measures to collect the Great Disks, and then they will be lost to us."

"Okay..." Ahkmou said, mulling the idea over. "But what about the Morbuzahk?"

Dume looked at him in surprise. "What about the Morbuzahk?"

"Nuhrii had a vision that the Great Disks were needed to destroy the Morbuzahk," Ahkmou explained. "We assumed this was a message from the Great Spirit. But now that you've told me about this 'Order', I'm starting to think otherwise."

Dume gave a thoughtful hum and tapped his staff against the floor. Ahkmou waited expectantly, but the Turaga seemed lost in thought.

"Should I get the disks before they bring them to the Morbuzahk?" he prompted.

"...No," Dume said slowly. He shook his head and then said again, more firmly. "No. We can't be sure that it was not a real vision. The Morbuzahk is an immediate threat to Metru Nui; you must deal with it first. Destroy it, then bring the Great Disks to me."

Nidhki and Krekka escorted Ahkmou out of the prison. They were blessedly silent as they led Ahkmou through the tunnels, which allowed him to mull over everything he had been told. Eventually, the tight, smooth protodermis hallways changed to a spacious natural cave. They left behind the lightstones, but now he could see warm sunlight pouring in from the end of the tunnel. Soon, they emerged into the hot, barren landscape of Po-Metru.

Ahkmou blinked as his eyes readjusted to the harsh light of the dual suns. He felt a thud by his feet and he jumped in surprise. He looked down and saw that Krekka had tossed his hammer onto the sand. He ignored the hunter's rumbling chuckles and sheepishly leaned down to collect his Toa tool.

"Where's my disk?" he demanded, trying to retain some dignity.

Nidhki smiled, and pointed into the desert.

"...you can't be serious."

"See, we handed the Great Disk off to the Vahki for safekeeping," Nidhki said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "And Krekka, bless his little heartlight, thought to take some initiative, and told the Vahki to take it to the other disks they recovered."

"Other disks?"

"Yes. Two of them. It seems like your brothers were about as effective at retrieving them as you were," Nidhki sneered. "Regardless, it looks like you are going to have to chase them down. I hope you're up for nice refreshing run through the desert."

Ahkmou glowered at the pair of them.

"You know, I would get the disks faster if you flew me there."

"And you know that you'll get them a lot slower if I have Krekka break your legs," Nidhki snapped. "So you better start running now. Unless you want to try your luck against us again."

Ahkmou look between the two hulking hunters. His hands tightened on the grip of his hammer and entertained a brief, violent fantasy about what he could do to them with it.

After, he decided. When Dume doesn't need them anymore. And when I have the others to back me up.

He turned from them and ran into the desert.

Ehrye looked down at Ahkmou, still frozen to the pathway. The cold had soaked through his armor and his brother's voice had grown less and less steady as he told his story. He had kept pausing to exaggerate his shivering and give Ehrye pitiable looks, as though Ehrye was a fool enough to free him after the tricks he had pulled.

He gave one last shiver before concluding: "After a long trek through the desert, I finally found the Vahki and I ambushed them at that canyon. I think you know the rest."

He fell silent, glancing up at Ehrye nervously. He had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the whole story, and Ahkmou was clearly anxious about it.

Ehrye let him stew for a few more seconds.

"...Come on, Ahkmou, you can lie better than that."

"What?" Ahkmou exclaimed. "It wasn't a lie! I swear!"

"You're saying that you were given a secret mission by Turaga Dume that you couldn't tell any of your teammates about, but totally justifies you stealing all of the Great Disks that we collected. That doesn't sound a little too convenient to you?"

"Well, what do you think was my real reason for stealing them then?" Ahkmou snapped.

"I think that you're a shifty, selfish snake who wanted all of the valuable artifacts to himself," Ehrye retorted.

"Yeah? And what would I do with them if I had gotten all of them?" Ahkmou challenged. "Sell them? No one in Metru Nui would buy them, and I don't know anyone outside of the city to sell them to. Even if I could, whatever I could get for them would not be worth the trouble of having five other Toa hunting me once you and the others discovered what I had done."

"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" Ehrye said, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"And you haven't put any thought into it!" Ahkmou shouted.

Ehrye glared at him, but Ahkmou's points were actually solid, as much as he hated to admit it. But still, his explanation seemed crazy. Dark Hunters working with the Turaga? A mysterious Order manipulating minds? It was too wild to believe without proof.

But then he remembered his interaction with Nuju. Ehrye didn't have a Spirit Star. None of his teammates did, even though every Toa was supposed to have one. If the Toa Metru were never intended to be Toa, if they were the result of the Order manipulating Lhikan, then that might explain why the skies hadn't changed to herald their transformation.

Ehrye raised his axe and willed the ice covering Ahkmou to recede. His brother sat up, looking surprised at his sudden change of heart.

"If you want me to believe you, then you need to show me some proof. So I'm going to hold onto this," Ehrye said hefting the satchel where Ahkmou had stashed the Great Disks. "Until we meet up with the others. And then you are going to lead us to the prison cave."

"No, we can't bring the others," Ahkmou protested. "They could be influenced by the Order already."

"So could I, but you're still told me everything," Ehrye pointed out.

"I don't really have a choice in trusting you at this point," Ahkmou said. "But I don't have the same trust in everyone else. Especially not Nuhrii."

Ehrye frowned. "Nuhrii? What do you mean?"

"Don't you think that it's suspicious that his 'visions' told us to collect the Great Disks, even though they didn't help us defeat the Morbuzahk?" Ahkmou asked.

"You think he's being influenced?"

"What else could it be?"

Ehrye thought for a moment, then relented. "You're right, it is really suspicious. But I'm not traveling to Po-Metru without another person to make sure you don't run off."

"Fine," Ahkmou huffed. "We can go to Le-Metru and get Orkahm, assuming he's still flying around looking for his missing disk and not waiting for the others at the meeting point."

"Why Orkahm? Are you sure that he's clean of the Order's influence somehow?"

"No. It's just that Le-Metru is the closest to us right now, Tehutti is busy doing something in Onu-Metru's lower levels, and Vhisola will probably attack me on sight. I wasn't subtle while stealing her disk; Vhisola defiantly knows I stole from her."

"That means that the others will know too, as soon as she meets up with them." Ehrye frowned.

That put him in a bind. If Ahkmou was telling the truth about everything, then they should leave for Po-Metru, before the rest of the Toa met up and started hunting him down. Going to Le-Metru to look for Orkahm, who might not even be there, would mean they would need to go in the opposite direction.

But if this was all a lie, then Ehrye would need a second Toa to watch his back for when Ahkmou made a run for it with the Great Disks. If Ehrye was tricked into letting him escape, then the rest of the team would never trust him with anything again.

Trust goes both ways, he remembered telling Nurhii. Ahkmou was trusting that Ehrye with his story. Ahkmou needed his help. And if Ehrye helped him to deliver the disks to Turaga Dume, then Ahkmou, the team, and all of Metru Nui would see Ehrye as a true Toa; regardless of if he had a Spirit Star or not.

He reached down and offered a hand to Ahkmou. The Toa of Stone's eyes lit up. He took the hand and let Ehrye pull him to his feet.

"We're going to Po-Metru," Ehrye declared.

Ahkmou smiled wide behind his mask.

"Thank you, Ehrye," he said. "You won't regret this!"

Ehrye led them through the winding streets, heading north to Po-Metru. Little flakes of snow began to fall as they traveled; a prelude to an oncoming storm.

Chapter Text

The Toa had agreed to reconvene back at the ruins of the Great Furnace. Even with the Morbuzahk's roots disintegrating throughout the city, the Matoran were still cautious about venturing too far into the districts it had claimed. The fear would not last long, but for now the Great Furnace would be a nice private place for the Toa to convene without having to worry about patrolling Vahki.

Nurhii sat atop a piece of rubble, watching Tehutti approach the ruins. The dust from the Great Furnace's collapse had cleared, returning the skyline to Ta-Metru's usual hazy orange and allowing Tehutti to see Nurhii. He gave his brother a wave as he picked his way through the shattered stone towards him.

Once he was closer, Nurhii jumped off of his perch and demanded; "Do you have your disk, Tehutti?"

Tehutti looked startled by the abrupt question. He eyed Nurhii nervously, and then shook his head.

"Damn it," Nurhii hissed. He clenched his fists and swallowed down his rising panic. "Do you know what happened to it?"

"No," Tehutti answered hesitantly. "Do you know what happened to it?"

"Vhisola has a theory. Come on, the others are a little further into the ruins," Nurhii said, turning from Tehutti and stalking away. His brother followed behind him swiftly.

They ducked under an archway of precariously leaning stone and into an area with enough partially standing walls to provide a bit of cover from any possible passerby. Orkahm and Vhisola had been in hushed conversation with each other when their brothers entered. They both turned and looked expectantly at Tehutti.

"His Great Disk is missing too. He doesn't know how." Nurhii said before either could ask.

Vhisola threw up her hands in frustration.

"Fantastic!" She spat. "Don't tell me that I'm the only one on this team with enough awareness to notice when the single-most valuable item on my person is stolen! Was the giant, hammer-wielding Toa of Stone too stealthy for all of you?"

"We don't know for sure if it was Ahkmou," Nurhii admonished her.

"I know for sure; I saw him!" Vhisola snapped. "He tore the Great Disk out of my bag while we were in transit, and then he dived out of our chute."

"What reason could Ahkmou have for stealing the Great Disks? It makes more sense that the 'Ahkmou' you interacted with was a shapeshifter or an illusion. A trick to make you let down your guard," Nurhii insisted.

"It was him,"Vhisola replied, stubbornly. "And every second we waste here, waiting for our brothers to show up just to tell us that they also don't know how they lost their Great Disk, Ahkmou is getting away!"

"No one is forcing you to stay here!" Nurhii snapped. "You're free to go search all of Metru Nui by yourself, but I'm going to wait and make sure that everyone is on the same page so we can solve this as a team."

"I agree with Nurhii," Orkahm interjected. "We can't go off chasing the Great Disks before we have all of the facts."

Vhisola let out a frustrated growl and stalked away from her brothers. Nurhii heard her muttering some choice comments about 'arrogant, soot-addled mask-makers', but ignored her for unity's sake.

Orkahm turned to Nurhii. "But Vhisola makes a good point about wasting time. How much longer are we going to wait for the other two to arrive?"

"As long as it takes," Nurhii replied curtly.

"And if Ahkmou never arrives? How long do wait before we assume the worst?"

"He will arrive. Like I said; it does not make sense for Ahkmou to steal our disks."

Orkahm let out an aggrieved sigh.

"You're just as bad as she is. There are many reasons why one of us might steal the other's disks; ranging from mind control or simple coercion to a more..."

Orkahm's voice grew muffled, as though Nurhii was listening to him speak from underwater. Nurhii frowned and shook his head to try and clear it, but the movement felt slow and made his vision blur. His body simultaneously felt as though it was moving in slow motion and like it was rapidly, uncontrollably shaking.

"Oh," he said, not knowing if he was speaking aloud or if it was just in his head. "This again."

Suddenly, Nurhii was looking down at Metru Nui from high in the sky. His sight sharpened and focused on six points of light moving north through Onu-Metru towards Po-Metru.

"Save the heart of Metru Nui!"

He was rocketed downwards towards the lights. Nurhii winced and raised his arms to blocked the whipping winds, bracing himself for impact.

It never came. His frightening velocity stopped, and Nurhii found himself standing on solid ground. Hazy buildings surrounded him, too indistinct for him to tell where in the city he was.

"Save the heart of Metru Nui!"

Ahkmou and Ehrye ran away from him, focused on a fiery star rising from the indistinct horizon. The six points of light emanated from six Kanoka disks that they clutched to their chests as they ran.

The star shone brightly, illuminating the landscape around Nurhii and revealing something terrible on the horizon. A towering titan made of shadow, emanating tendrils of darkness that only seemed more solid under the star's revealing light. The titan beckoned Nurhii's brothers towards him, and they ran with renewed vigor. Neither paid any attention to the tendrils wrapping around their limbs, reaching for the disks.

"Save the heart of Metru Nui!"

"Nurhii!"

The vision shattered around him and Nurhii was back in the ruins of the Great Furnace. He was laying down, sibling's masks float in front of his face, concern written under each of them.

"Are you alright, brother?" Vhisola asked, the irritation from their earlier argument completely absent.

"Yes," Nurhii gasped out. He felt as though he has just sprinted for kios. "Another vision."

Vhisola and Orkahm's expressions became a lot more reserved. Apparently they had not forgiven him for the results of his last vision. Tehutti, however, looked curious.

"Vision? What did you see?" he asked.

Nurhii pushed himself back up to his feet, letting the sounds and images he had seen settle in his memory.

"You were right," he said, nodding to Vhisola. "Ahkmou has our disks. Ehrye is with him, and they are taking the Great Disks to somewhere in Po-Metru."

"What? Why are they taking them there?" Orkahm asked.

"I don't know. I saw them carrying the Great Disks towards something.... sinister. Though I don't know if they aware of it, or if they're being deceived somehow."

"I also heard..." Nurhii paused, swallowing nervously. "I heard Lhikan's voice. Telling us to 'save the heart of Metru Nui.'"

"'Heart of Metru Nui'? What does that even mean?" wondered Orkahm.

"The disks? Maybe they're more important to the city than we know," Vhisola suggested.

"Turaga Dume, maybe?"

"He strikes me more as 'the mind' of the city rather than 'the heart'. Maybe it means geographically? Like, the heart of Metru Nui being its centre?"

"No, no," Nurhii interupted. "I didn't see any landmarks or buildings. It was just Ahkmou, Ehrye, the dark presence, Lhikan, and..."

He paused, and looked up to the skies. Through Ta-Metru's haze, he could see pinpricks of light shining through.

"Lhikan's star."

"What?" asked Tehutti, looking hopelessly confused.

"His Spirit Star! That's what Ehrye and Ahkmou were running towards, I'm sure of it! Lhikan's star is still in the sky! He's still alive!"

Nurhii was grinning widely now. His siblings were trading concerned looks, but he did not care. Lhikan was not dead! Nurhii's cowardice had not killed Metru Nui's greatest hero! He was still out there and he was still guiding them.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a part of the vision?" Orkahm questioned warily, but Nurhii was too busy searching the skies.

"There!" he exclaimed, pointing towards a star north of them. To him it seemed to burn with a comforting red-gold glow, as though Lhikan was beckoning him towards it.

"...I don't think you can just pick out a Spirit Star like that unless you've been trained as a seer," Vhisola said, a note of concern rising in her voice.

"It's the same star from my vision! We need to follow it."

"It looks like literally every other star."

As the adrenaline from the vision began to fade, Nurhii finally noticed his teammate's reluctance. Tehutti was staring at him like he was some fascinating new addition to the Archives, and the other's were not much better. He scowled back at them and turned to Vhisola.

"You're the one who wanted start searching for Akhmou as soon as possible. Well, now we have a lead. Why are you hesitating now?"

"Because you're acting cross-wired."

Nurhii bristled. "The vision-"

"You do remember how the last vision turned out, right?" Vhisola interrupted.

"I remember that we all obeyed the vision, retrieved the Great Disks, and we defeated the Morbuzahk because of our experiences doing it," Nurhii retorted. "As leader of this team, I need you to-"

"Leader? Since when?" Vhisola asked incredulously. "Did I miss a vote, or is this just some Ta-Matoran nonsense?"

"I'm the one who's receiving the visions!"

"Visions that were wrong!"

"Hey!" Orkahm shouted, stepping between the two of them. "Don't you think we're getting a little off track? We can talk about leadership when this is all over, but every second we squabble is a second wasted."

"So what are we going to do?" Tehutti asked.

"I vote that we follow the star," Orkahm said, looking apologetically at Vhisola. "It's not like we have any other leads. And the last vision may not have been accurate, but it didn't lead us astray."

"You're right," Vhisola said through gritted teeth. "And without any other option, I'll go chasing stars with you. But first, I need him to acknowledge the fact that he put more stock in his cross-wired visions than the word of one of his teammates. And maybe promise that next time he'll believe me instead of waiting for Mata Nui, the Great Beings, or whatever to send him special leader-boy visions."

Nurhii regarded her coolly. "If you act calmer and more collected, maybe I will believe you next time. You can't blame me for being skeptical when you show up seething and throwing accusations at our teammate."

He turned away from them and started exiting the ruins. "You can stand there waiting for an apology as long as you like, but I'm not staying here. Follow me, or fall behind."

He tried to hide the way his muscles tensed in anticipation of Vhisola or one of the others lashing out at him while his back was turned, or worse, calling his bluff and letting him go off alone. He walked with as much confidence as he could manage, hoping that they would all get over themselves and just follow.

After a couple seconds that lasted for an eternity, Nurhii heard his sibling's footsteps following him across the ashen stone. He let out a small sigh of relief, but he stopped himself from looking back to check on them. He kept his eyes trained on Lhikan's star; leading the way for his quarrelsome team.

All four of Toa were so wrapped up in their own thoughts that they failed to notice a tiny black vine slither up from out of the rubble. The little shoot grew upwards in a twisting path, clinging to the ruined walls of the Great Furnace, just out of sight.

As the Toa passed, vine rapidly grew a small bulb at the end of it. The bulb spat out a seed, a small piece of plant matter smaller that the tip of a Toa's finger. The seed fired through the air like a bullet, hitting directly onto Orkahm's Aero Shields where they were holstered on his back. It was so small that he didn't notice the impact, but the seed was split apart and exploded to a tangle of cobweb-thin black vines that snagged onto the Aero Shields.

The Morbuzahk watched in satisfaction as its enemies carried a piece of it away from the furnace, blissfully unaware that they were going to their doom.

"I'll never get over how much empty space there is here compared to the rest of Metru Nui."

Ahkmou glanced over at his brother curiously. It was the first time that Ehrye had spoken to him when it was not necessary. In spite of the fact that he had decided to believe and help Ahkmou, he was clearly still conflicted. He had been tense and quiet for their whole journey over Onu-Metru.

Now, a few hours into the Po-Metru wilderness, his chatty nature had reasserted itself.

Ahkmou shrugged. "I never thought about it much."

"Really? It wasn't shocking to you the first time you visited another Metru?"

"It was, but not because of how cramped everywhere else in the city is," Ahkmou said.

He hesitated before he spilled anymore, glancing up at Ehrye nervously. He was not used to speaking from the heartlight, but his brother looked interested in what he had to say.

"In Po-Metru, carvers hold the position of greatest renown," he explained. "Everyone carves in their free time, but they are the ones deemed talented enough to spend valuable work time creating art to honour the Great Spirit, the Toa, or Metru Nui, instead of taking work shifts on the component assembly lines. The Po-Matoran who achieve this position are famous and respected, so obviously I spent the majority of my existence working become one.

"But after the first time I left Po-Metru, becoming a carver lost its appeal. There was so much world beyond Po-Metru, and even more beyond Metru Nui. What did people from other Metru, from other islands, care about carvers? Sure, they might respect the technical skill required, but they certainly would not venerate them."

He shrugged. "To me, Po-Metru didn't look bigger than other Metru; leaving made Po-Metru feel small."

"So, you only tried to be a carver for the glory," Ehrye summarized, frowning slightly. "And you immediately abandoned that dream when you realized that it wasn't the most respected position in the universe."

"A little harshly worded, but yeah. What's wrong with a little ambition?" Ahkmou asked defensively.

"Nothing, but... " Ehrye hesitated, grasping for the right words. "Is that all you're looking for? Glory? Wouldn't you prefer a job that you enjoy or that you're good at, regardless of how prestigious?"

Ahkmou looked at Ehrye like he was speaking another language. Was he for real?

"Prestige is what everyone enjoys about a job. Unless you're telling me that you were happy with being a courier for the rest of your existence?" he challenged.

"...No," Ehrye admitted. Something about the question had made him look very uncomfortable; Ahkmou had clearly struck a nerve. They walked in silence for a few minutes until he challenged him again.

"Well, what job do you think is worthy enough for you?"

"Being a Toa is a good start," Ahkmou answered with a smirk.

"You're still calling yourself a Toa? Cute."

Ahkmou's eyes snapped upwards to the source of the raspy, familiar voice. Nidhki was hovering above them, eerily silent and hidden against the night sky.

Ahkmou heard Ehrye give a shout of surprise, and placed a reasuring hand on his brother's shoulder to keep him from doing anything rash. He took a moment to scan the skies as Nidhki floated down closer to their eye level. Krekka was floating above Nidhki's position, his white armour standing out vividly in the darkened sky. There was a third presence above them both; Ahkmou only saw the flash of large, dark wings blotting out the stars as it soared, but he was certain that it was Dume's rahi that had saved his life last time.

Great, he thought. We should be safe, even if Ehrye ticks off Nidhki. But if Nidhki ticks off Ehrye... Better play it safe; no names.

"Hunter," Ahkmou greeted Nidhki. "You're looking gorgeous, as always."

Nidhki sneered down at them.

"Krekka, how many over-sized Matoran did the Turaga order to retrieve the disks?"

"Uhh." Krekka floated down on the other side of the Toa from his partner. "One?"

"Correct. And how many do you see in front of you?"

"...Two?" Krekka answered, sounding like he was worried that this was a trick question.

"Very good," Nidhki crooned. "That means one of these two should not be here. What do you do to Matoran who wander into places they shouldn't be?"

"Oh!" Krekka grinned as he caught on to what his partner was doing. The smile twisted into something uglier as he looked down at the Toa. "I twist their little heads off."

"Cut the theatrics," Ahkmou snapped. "I know Turaga Dume won't let you hurt us. Just take us to him."

"Oh, but Ahkmou, your brother could be infected," Nidhki mocked. "Dume could not be angry if we made sure that he couldn't follow us. We are supposed to be cautious, after all."

"I'm not going to let you deliver the Disks without me," Ehrye insisted.

"Then it's a good thing that you have no say on what I do."

"He's clean," Ahkmou cut in. "He had all of the disks in his hands, and he chose to bring them to the Turaga instead of taking them for himself. Now bring us to Dume!"

Luckily, Nidhki did not seemed too invested in harassing them. He smirked and landed; his spindly legs smoothly unfolding and catching him just before he hit the ground. He rose up to his full height and approached Ehrye, extending a claw towards him.

"Fine. Hand over the Great Disks, and you may follow us back to Dume."

"So... Are we not going to kill the white one, Nidhki?" Krekka mumbled.

"Nidhki?" Erhye exclaimed. He took a step back from the ex-Toa, hands going to the weapons on his hips. "Did he say Nidhki? As in, Nidhki the traitor?"

Oh, Mata Nui, no.

"It's a common name," Ahkmou said weakly.

Before Ehrye could do something rash, everyone froze as a rolling tremor became audible to them. Ahkmou glanced around in horror as the ground began to shake. He knew what was coming even before it crested over the horizon, kicking up a hurricane of dust as it barreled directly towards them.

"Kikanalo stampede!" he screamed.

He turned and sprinted in the opposite direction of the oncoming horde of rahi, not even bothering to see if any of the others were following. A kikanalo's horn is more than capable of piercing armour, but more often than not they just trampled beings who did not get out of the way fast enough. He had seen what those powerful hind legs could do to workers that spooked the creatures; the lucky ones did not live long enough to feel their armor, flesh and bones crushed flat.

Just need to get to high ground!

Unfortunately, the herd had found them far away from the sculpture fields where Ehrye and he could have hid on top of a column and prayed that the kikanalo did not try to push it over. They were stuck in the open desert, and the only thing they could climb was a distant hill with a sheer cliff. There was a chance that they could reach it before they got too exhausted to outpace the rahi, but it was a slim one.

Suddenly, Ahkmou heard Ehrye cry out in pain. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Nidhki had his brother pinned to the ground with his insectoid legs as he wrestled Ehrye's pack away with his claws. In seconds he wrenched it away from Ehrye, folded up his legs, and shot back into the air, Krekka trailing close behind him.

Ehyre leapt to his feet and started throwing ice bolts at the fleeing Dark Hunters. None of them found their mark, but he kept firing them off, heedless of the herd that was almost upon him.

"Run, idiot!" Ahkmou shouted back. He turned around and wasted a valuable second to create a wall of stone between Ehrye and the kikanalo. It would not be much of a barrier, but it might let Ehrye get ahead of them.

The wall erupting from the sand brought Ehrye's mind back to the immediate problem. He holstered his axes and started running towards Ahkmou. The wall behind him exploded seconds later as the kikanalo barreled through it without hesitation.

Ahkmou kept sprinting towards the cliff, but he knew in his heart that they would never make it. The herd was gaining ground quickly and seemed dead set on him and Ehrye. Something must have seriously angered them to get them in this state.

If only I knew what had ticked them off, then we might have a way of calming them down, he though frantically.

A choir of voices erupted from behind Ahkmou. He flinched and looked over his shoulder, expecting that some new disaster had appeared to ruin his day. But there was nothing there, aside from the quickly approaching wall of kikanalo and his flailing brother. However, the voices persisted; a torrent of overlapping cries that Ahkmou could just barely make sense of.

"Get the hunter-friends! Crush them! Break them! Smash the hunter-friends!"

Ahkmou stumbled and came to a halt. It can't be...

He turned and raised a hand towards the kikanalo and focused on their voices.

"Stop! We are not hunter-friends! We are... um, rahi-friends?"

The voices stopped and the herd slowed. The kikanalo were looking towards Ahkmou, somehow conveying a sense of absolute bewilderment. They stopped their pursuit metres away from where Ahkmou stood his ground.

Ehrye skidded to a halt, looking rapidly between the herd and Ahkmou. His brother cautiously lowered his hand, watching the snorting, shuffling line of rahi for any aggressive movements.

A kikanalo emerged from the herd; larger and older than the rest, pitted with scars that pulsed with a dull orange light. It trudged forward, eyes locked on Ahkmou.

"You speak."

With only a single voice to focus on, now Ahkmou could tell that the voice he heard from the rahi was not actually audible. The creature was making its usual grunts, but Ahkmou's mask wove the noises into something intelligible. There was a millisecond delay between the sounds it made and the meaning that Ahkmou comprehended.

"Yes, I speak. And you speak too! So let's talk this out so no one gets hurt and we can both leave here happy," he said, gaining confidence as he spoke. He had fast-talked his way past cannier beings than these beasts. If he could talk to them, he could trick them.

The kikanalo snorted and stamped its hind leg irritably. "You smell like hunters. You are hunter-friends!"

"No, we are hunter-enemies," Ahkmou reassured it. "We smell like hunters because we were fighting the hunters."

Ahkmou gestured to Ehrye, who was looking almost as confused as the rahi. "You saw the spider hunter attack my brother. We cannot be hunter-friends."

The elder kikanalo relaxed its stance, but still regarded Ahkmou wearily.

"Why do you hate hunters?" Ahkmou prompted.

"Big hunter attack kikanalo. Attack kikanalo that wander too far from herd, then fly away when herd comes to fight back. We smell hunters, we follow. We attack before they attack."

Ahkmou nodded sympathetically, hoping that the kikanalo could pick up on body language like that. "That sounds awful. Hunters are bad!

"Hunters are bad!" The kikanalo brayed. The herd echoed its cry, startling Ehrye with their earthshaking groans.

"We are hunting the hunters," Ahkmou told the elder. "And we know where their lair is. If you can carry us to their scent, we can get into where they are hiding and stop them for you!"

The elder growled and stomped its feet in agreement. "We do this! We take you to hunter-lair!"

"To hunter-lair!" the herd called out. They suddenly sprang into action again, thundering towards the Toa with enthusiastic bounds. Ahkmou and Ehrye started, but the herd diverged around them, like a stream splitting around a stone, leaving them unharmed.

The elder kikanalo and a second of similar size stopped next to the Toa. The elder rolled its head in a motion that Ahkmou did not need a Mask of Translation to know meant 'get on'. He hopped onto the elder, and waited for Ehrye to get onto the other kikanalo more cautiously. The second he was on, the kikanalo leapt into motion, following and quickly overtaking the rest of the herd.

Despite his hesitance, Ehrye was smiling in delight as they raced across the desert on the back of the powerful rahi.

"Was that your mask power?" he yelled over to Ahkmou.

"I think so! Did you catch any of that?" Ahkmou called back.

"Not a word. It sounded like you were just making a bunch of rahi noises back at them," Ehrye chuckled. He shook his head in amusement. "Matoro would be so jealous of you!"

"Long story short; they hate the Dark Hunters, and they think we do too. They are giving us a ride to Turaga Dume's base because they think we will fight them."

"I'm not ruling that out," Ehrye said, suddenly frowning again at him. "For being on the same side, those two were pretty damn hostile. And that's not even touching on the fact that one of them is Nidhki!"

"I know, I know," Ahkmou sighed. The moonlight lit the vast stretch of desert in a silvery glow. Even riding the kikanalo, they still had so much more land to cover.

"I'll explain it when we get there. For now save your breath and hold on tight!"

Chapter Text

Nidhki crawled down the dimly lit corridors of the Po-Metru prison with Krekka trailing close behind. His partner had been sulking about Nidhki ordering that they leave without killing a Toa, so he was mercifully silent save for the impact of his heavy footfalls. In that silence, Nidhki could make out faint whimpers up ahead.

They rounded a corner to Lhikan's cell where the false Dume waited with a pair of Vahki guards. He was focused on Lhikan's pathetic, sobbing form hunched in the centre of the cell. His expression was a perfect duplicate of Dume's stoic gaze, but Nidhki caught how the false Dume's eyes glimmered with amusement at the sight of Lhikan writhing in agony before him.

"No! Please! Take me instead! Spare them, I beg you!" Lhikan was sobbing. His eyes were blind to the world around him, passing over the beings outside of his cell and focusing instead on empty air.

Nidhki watched silently for a few moments before speaking up.

"What are you making him see?"

Dume turned to face him wearing a warm, subdued smile that was so out of place next to the torment he was putting Lhikan through. Nidhki remembered that smile well from his time in Metru Nui. It had been on the Turaga's face when he first welcomed Nidhki and the Toa Mangai to the city. It had been there again when Nihdki returned to Metru Nui in his ruined body with his brute of a partner.

That was what had made him certain that the being who had hired him, Krekka, and Eliminator was not the real Turaga Dume. The fact that he had reached out to the Dark Hunters for help, when the true Dume started a war to keep them out of Metru Nui, was suspicious, of course. But to greet Nidhki with open arms, as though he was still worthy of receiving that smile? That was beyond anything Nidhki could accept as real.

The Shadowed One and the other top brass of the Dark Hunters undoubtedly knew the true nature of Nidhki's employer, but they had clearly not felt the need to share the information with him. So he was left guessing at what exactly he was working for, based only on few abilities that the false Dume had displayed. Illusions and mental communication were the ones Nidhki had seen the most of, and neither did much to narrow down the pool of candidates. If Nidhki had cared, he could probably put some energy into investigating further, but the capacity to care about such things had been worn out of him a long time ago.

"He is seeing a future that may yet come to pass, should things go as planned," the doppelganger answered him.

Lhikan's whimpers suddenly stopped. Nidhki glanced back at him and saw that he was shakely getting back to his feet. His eyes were clear once more, widening with realization and anger as the illusions faded. He looked at the false Dume with utter hatred, and Nidhki braced himself for sickening, self-righteous speech rebuking Dume and all he stands for.

But Lhikan surprised him by staying silent. He schooled his expression and sat down calmly in the center of his cell. He did not spare Nidhki a glance.

Dume simply smirked at the Turaga's show of silent defiance and turned back towards Nidhki.

"The Great Disks," he prompted. Nidhki hefted the ice Toa's stachel and tossed it at one of his Vahki guards. The machine fumbled a little, but caught the precious payload before it fell to the floor.

Nidhki was mildly disappointed. He had heard legends of how powerful the Great Disks were, and a small part of him had hoped that the hitting the Vahki would activate them and kill Lhikan, Krekka, fake Dume, and himself.

"Nivawk tells me that the Toa are on their way here," Dume said, forcing Nidhki out of his morose thoughts. "The two that you left to the kikinalo and the rest of their siblings."

"What would you have us do?" Nidhki asked.

"The Toa of Ice and Stone will turn on us after you took the disks from them so crudely. Let them come. Let all of them come. Their unity is weak, and they will come to blows with each other. It will be easy for you to disable them."

Dume turned and beckoned for his robotic guards to leave with him. "As for how you do so, I leave that up to your expertise. Kill them or seal them in a sphere, it makes no difference; just do not fail me."

"As is our Duty, we shall not fail," Nidhki hissed, mockingly repeating words that he once said to the real Dume. The doppelganger did not acknowledge his response. He faded away into the darkness of the Prison, and soon even the mechanical whirring of the Vahki faded away.

"Go back to the cave entrance and keep watch," Nidhki ordered Krekka. "Stay out of sight. I will join you soon."

"Okay," Krekka grumbled. He stomped towards the opposite way that Dume went. Nidhki guessed that it would take him at least thirty minutes before he remembered that he was not supposed to let Nidhki out of his sight. Even the Dark Hunters, the Universe's foremost company of cutthroats and thieves, were not foolish enough to trust a traitor.

He watched Lhikan as he waited for Krekka's noisy footfalls to signal that he had truly left. His brother had closed his eyes once Dume had left, settling down in a meditative position. He did not stir as Nidhki approached the bars of his cell.

"Look at me."

There was no response. Nidhki petulantly ran his claws along the bars, making a metallic shriek. Lhikan had been plenty responsive when Nidhki had been hunting him as he delivered the Toa Stones. He had reacted with perfect horror and scorn when Nidhki revealed his new new form to him. He had raged at Nidhki during their clashes, spitting back at Nidhki's goading in a way that was almost exactly how the ex-Toa had imagined their reunion would go. Then he had been captured and transformed into a Turaga, and the anger that had burned in Lhikan seemed to fade. After that this silent treatment began.

"You were a fool to give up your power," Nidhki snarled. "Did you think that six stumbling, new Toa could really do more than you could have with all of your skills and experience? Idiot."

More silence.

"I suppose you were putting your trust in Destiny. That, by the will of Mata Nui and in spite of all odds, your little successors would win the day. Fool. Mata Nui doesn't care, and your Toa have lost."

...

"Do you think that I'm wrong? I bet you do. You've lived in this city for too long; your ego overblown by the praises of the Matoran. Maybe you've forgotten that Toa can fail. That they can die. Perhaps you need a reminder."

Lhikan finally open his eyes. Nidhki grinned as widely as his mandibles would allow.

"I could kill them all in front of this cell," he whispered. "You can watch them beg for their lives. You can hear them curse you for pushing this fate onto them."

Lhikan stared at him, but there was no anger in his expression. He looked tired. Disappointed, even. Maybe pitying. Nidhki met his gaze unflinchingly, until Lhikan finally spoke.

"Are you satisfied?" Lhikan asked.

Nidhki let out a wordless hiss and slashed at the cell's bars.

"No! When I throw your little Toa's masks at your feet, when I make you watch all of the Matoran sealed away in spheres, then I will be satisfied!"

Nidhki turned his back on his brother and stalked back down the hallway.

Let that fool play the wise, stoic Turaga, he thought. Once everything he ever fought for is destroyed, he will break.

The entrance to the Prison of the Dark Hunters was guarded by over thirty Vahki Zadakh. Their armour shone under the harsh desert sun as they stood stock still, vigilantly straining their sensors to pickup the approach of any unauthorized beings approaching the cavern's entrance.

A Zahakh at the outskirts of the squad twitched, and shifted in place. It had detected faint vibrations from the ground, slowly increasing in strength. Soon its fellows had detected it as well, and the Zahdakh orientated themselves to face the source of the vibrations. Though they did not live or feel in the same way as other beings, there was a distinct sense of excitement among the Vahki for a potential foe. Kanoka disks loaded into their launchers, stun staffs sparked to life, and the ticking of their internal clockwork audibly sped up in anticipation.

The vibrations turned into a deep rumbling as the kikanalo herd came into view. They barreled towards the cliff face that the Vahki guarded with frightening speed.

The Vahki held their ground. If they were surprised that a group of unruly rahi were running towards their stun staffs instead of away from them, they showed no sign. The front line braced themselves to meet the onslaught head-on while the back rows shifted into their flight or quadrupedal modes. While those in front met the charge, they would use their increased mobility to flank the herd and begin subduing them.

However, the clash never came. Before they came into contact with the Zahakh, the herd stopped in their tracks and bellowed in unison at them. The noise they unleashed shook the sand and air. Zahakh were physically blasted back, the closest ones simply broke under the sonic attack.

As one, the kikanalo ceased their bellows and sprang forward again. They dashed past the disorientated Vahki, crushing those that got in their way. They cleared the Vahki squadron and rushed past them into the canyon.

The surviving Zahakh recovered and quickly pursued the herd. They were so focused on the chase, that they did not detect the two Toa descending the cliffs above the Prison. The dust cloud kicked up by the herd provided Ahkmou and Ehrye excellent cover as they slipped into the cave.

Ehrye looked over his shoulder in concern as they proceeded into the protodermis passages of the Prison.

"Do you think that they will get away?"

"Doesn't concern us," Ahkmou said with a shrug. "The Vahki will only stun them if they catch them. If anything, its better for us if they do; that way the Vahki will be busy carting them to the Archives instead of guarding the cave."

Ehrye frowned at his dismissal of the rahi's wellbeing, but he kept his thoughts to himself. They were going further into the Prison's passageways, and stealth was paramount. Neither of them wanted to encounter the Dark Hunters before they found Turaga Dume. They had no idea what lies the pair had told the Turaga about their encounter with the Toa.

The darkness of the cave gave way to the faint lightstones mounted on the prison's walls. Ahkmou led them deeper into the twisting tunnels, retracing the path he had taken from Lhikan's cell. If Dume was not there, then at least Lhikan would be there to give Ehrye a crumb of proof to validate the Toa of Ice's choice to believe Ahkmou.

A bolt of emerald energy shattered the quiet. Ehrye ducked just in time and the bolt struck the wall with a clash of energy.

It had come from above. Ehrye looked and saw a shape hidden in the shadows on the ceiling. Alarmingly large, clinging upside-down, moving swiftly away from them. If Ehrye had any doubt to who the shape was, Nidhki's rasping laughter mocked him as it fled down a branching path.

Ehrye sprinted after him, ignoring Ahkmou's shout for him to wait and stay together. His Crystal Axes were already in his hands, his eyes were tracing the ceiling for signs of movement. The Dark Hunters might have escaped him before, but now their was nowhere for them to fly off to. He had them where he wanted them.

He chased Nidhki's laughter through the maze of tunnels. Several times he thought that he saw movement in the shadows and flung a bolt of ice at it, but every time they simply flew through empty air and shattered against the protodermis.

The further he cased, the less frequent the sound of Nidhki's laughter and glimpses of movement became. Eventually, he came to a dead end and was forced to backtrack.

It was only then that he realized that he had lost Ahkmou. He strained his audio receptors as much as he could, but Ehrye could not pick up any sign of his brother. Worse, he approached a series of branching tunnels, and could not for the life of him remember which one he had come from.

"Oops."

Ahkmou cursed the Three Virtues for the millionth time since becoming a Toa as he watched his brother run into what was obviously a trap. He called out to him, but Ehrye ignored him and soon disappeared down the shadowy corridors.

For a second, Ahkmou debated running after him, but he quickly decided against that. Better that one Toa get captured than two. Still, he could not leave Ehrye to Nidhki's mercy, or rather, the cold void in his soul where mercy should be. He followed Ehrye at a slower pace with his hammer out, on guard for whatever trap that the Dark Hunters had laid.

It did not take much time for him to realize that had truly lost his brother. The corridors split in more frequent intervals, and there was no way to know which one Ehrye and Nidhki had ran through. He had expected to find Ehrye close by, incapacitated by some sort of trap, but it seems as though Nidhki's goal had simply been to separate them.

Wherever he is, Ehrye is on his own, he decided. He turned and began to retrace his steps. It was clear that the Hunters had turned on Dume; Ahkmou needed to get back to Lhikan's cell and hope he could find answers as to why.

But when he arrived at where he thought Lhikan had been kept, all he found was an empty cell.

He froze. He was certain that he had gone the right way. Maybe Dume had moved Lhikan? Or maybe the Dark Hunters disposed of him?

Dammit, what do I do now?

The sound of a Kanoka Launcher was Ahkmou's only warning before he was struck in the back. He stumbled forward from the impact, and felt a creeping, freezing sensation spread out from where the disk had struck him. In seconds, a heavy coating of ice formed over his armour.

Ahkmou felt another force knock against him through the ice, lighter this time. Unable to balance himself, Ahkmou fell down face-first and slid into the open cell. He heard the door slam shut behind him.

Luckily, the ice was not as thick as the shell Ehrye had trapped him in. After a minute of strain, he managed to shatter the ice and push himself back to his feet. He whirled around, and found Krekka staring down at him from the other side of the bars, his shoulder-mounted Kanoka Launcher already loaded with another disk.

"Stay here," he rumbled.

"How in Karzani did you sneak up on me?" Ahkmou asked, flabbergasted. "It sound like you set off rockslides whenever you take a step."

Krekka pointed down to his legs, which were folded into his flight configuration. He hovered in place, silent as a ghost.

"Oh. Forgot you could do that."

"I do too sometimes," Krekka admitted. "Nidhki reminds me."

Ahkmou stared blankly at him as he turned around and floated away.

"Oh, for the love of Mata Nui. I was tricked by an idiot."

Ehrye wandered the dimly lit corridors for hours before he finally felt as though he had gotten his bearings. His well-honed sense of direction was not as effective underground where there were no landmarks to watch for and every corridor looked the same, but eventually he felt as though he had found the path that led out of the cave.

Clang!

The sound of metal striking metal reverberated down the corridor, the opposite direction from where he thought the exit was. Ehrye paused and listened.

Clang! Clang!

The sound repeated, over and over. Ehrye stalked towards it, weary about stepping into another trap, but too curious to ignore the sound. It got louder as he approached, he could practically feel the vibrations in his legs by the time he rounded the corner and saw the source.

Ahkmou was locked in a cell, smashing his hammer against the cell's bars. They had been warped and bent under the force of his blows, but he had a ways to go before he broke them enough to fit through.

He stopped mid-swing when he saw Ehrye.

"Hey," he said, as though they were meeting up for a game of Akilini after a work shift. "Did you catch Nidhki?"

"No."

"Wow. So surprising. You looked so confident when you ran after him without me, I thought you must have had some sort of brilliant plan to deal with him,. Because otherwise that would have been a stupid thing to do."

Ehrye winced. "Sorry."

Ahkmou grunted and returned to attacking the bars.

"How did you get locked in there?"

"Don't want to talk about it," Ahkmou muttered.

Ehrye nodded, deciding not to give his brother any more reason to be annoyed with him. Instead, he approached the bars and rested his Crystal Axes against them, focusing his power into the metal. Their temperature dropped drastically, and Ahkmou's next strike shattered the bar rather than bend it. He paused, gave his brother a quick nod of thanks, and started on the next bar.

"Did you find Lhikan or Turaga Dume?" Ehrye asked over the sound of the strikes.

"No."

"...So what do you think happened? Did the Dark Hunters double cross them? Or did the Order capture their minds?"

"I don't know, Ehrye," Ahkmou snapped. "All I know is that we lost the Great Disks, and now we don't even have proof to show our siblings that we were working for Dume."

Another bar shattered. Ahkmou tossed his tool through the gap and tried to squeeze through the bars himself. It was still slightly too small and the jagged edges of the bars left scratches on his armour as he pushed past them, but Ahkmou managed to squirm free.

"We still have time to find proof," Ehrye pointed out. "We can search the prison and find out what happened to the Turaga."

"I don't think we should stay here," Ahkmou said, retrieving his weapon and holstering it. "The Dark Hunters didn't try to kill us. They were just trying to keep us here, and we don't know why-"

Ahkmou's eyes widened, focused on something over Ehrye's shoulder. Before his brother could react, Ahkmou leapt to the side. In the same moment, Ehrye was swept up in a massive current of water that sent him tumbling back down the corridor. He landed on his back, blinded and sputtering.

"Vhisola! I thought I said that we were going to let them explain themselves!"

"They can explain themselves after we make sure that they can't get away."

Ehrye shook the water from his face and looked back up the corridor. The way out was blocked by his four siblings; all of them had their Toa tools drawn and pointed at him and Ahkmou.

Ahkmou sprang to his feet and raised his hammer towards the assembled Toa. The air trembled, and a wall of stone, conjured from thin air by his power, separated them from him and his brother.

"Let's all calm down!" He shouted to his siblings on the other side. "We can ex-"

The wall shattered under Tehutti's Quake Picks. The second it fell, Vhisola sent another current arching towards Ahkmou. This time she struck him dead-on.

Ahkmou staggered but kept his footing under the force of the jet. While he struggled against the water, Tehutti advanced and swung his picks to sweep his legs. Before he could complete the strike, Ehrye raised an axe and cause the Toa of Earth's feet to feeze to the floor, stopping him cold. Ahkmou ducked away from Vhisola's attack and swung his hammer at Tehutti's arms as he did, knocking his picks out of his hands.

Ehrye opened his mouth to plead with his siblings, but he found the air pulled from his lungs. Orkahm was focusing his power through his shields and formed a vacuum around Ehrye and Ahkmou. Ehrye choked and stumbled forward to try and escape, but Tehutti had pulled his feet free from the ice and slammed Ehrye backwards into the vacuum.

Erhye fell onto his back, but kept hold of Tehutti, dragging his brother along with him. Ahkmou leapt past both of them, but was met by Vhisola the instant he exited the vacuum. The two of them struggled while Ehrye and Tehutti both lay stunned, their lungs desperate for a steadying breath.

Ehrye knew that he was finished; all Orkahm would have to do was shrink the vacuum down to the point in which Ehrye stood. Tehutti would be able to breath again and he would be able to keep Ehrye in the vacuum. He closed his eyes and accepted defeat.

But to his surprise, the air returned. He and Tehutti took desperate, heaving breaths and got to their feet. Ehrye waited for Tehutti to throw himself at him again, but his brother had taken a step back and was looking at him in confusion. Ehrye glanced at Orkahm, who was looking between Ehrye and Tehutti like they were a riddle to puzzle out.

Ehrye looked down at himself and saw shining black armour in place of the familiar white.

"Tehutti!" Orkahm shouted. "Which one are you?"

Tehutti raised his hand, but Ehrye had caught on to what was happening and raised his hand a split second after him. He smiled to himself as he heard Orkahm's exasperated curse.

My mask power! Ehrye thought, gleeful in spite of everything.

A fireball exploded in the middle of the corridor. Ehrye flinched from the heat, his concentration on his Kanohi Mahiki broken. Vhisola and Ahkmou broke away from each other, arms raised to shield themselves from the heat.

"Enough!" Nurhii shouted. He raised a hand, dispelling the fireball, and glared at his scattered teammates.

"You," he said, pointing at Ahkmou. "Explain. Now."

Ahkmou glanced nervously between him and Vhisola, who had not yet lowered her swords.

"It's a long story," he warned.

"Make it short," Nurhii snapped.

"I... We," he said, gesturing to Ehrye, "took the Great Disks because we believed that Turaga Dume wanted us to deliver them to him secretly."

"Do you think that we're stupid?" Vhisola hissed. "The plan was to give the disks to the Turaga together! You didn't need to steal anything to deliver them!"

"He told us to do it in secret," Ahkmou explained. "He said that there is this group called the Order, and they're influencing the minds of all sorts of beings! We thought that they had gotten to you!"

"'Gotten to us'?" Nurhii shook his head. "Never mind. Where are the Great Disks?"

"The Dark Hunters took them from us," Ehrye admitted reluctantly.

Nurhii's eyes widened in shock. "The Dark Hunters? Are they here now?"

"Right behind you," a voice hissed from the shadows.

There was a flash of emerald light and Nurhii fell, trapped in a web of energy. Before any of his shocked teammates could react, two more bolts were spat from the darkness, ensnaring Orkahm and Ahkmou.

Ehrye felt a giant fist wrap around his throat. The titanic Krekka lifted both him and Tehutti into the air and squeezed. Their air cut off once more, all the Toa could do was struggle in the brute's grip.

Nidhki had leapt from the darkness and was attacking Vhisola. In seconds, he had her disarmed. She dodged and backed away from his slashing claws, but there was little space in the corridor and soon she would be backed into a corner.

Ehrye concentrated as much as he could and prepared to fill Krekka's hand full of blistering cold, but something in the corner of his eye stopped him. There was something sprouting from the floor, just past where Nurhii and Orkahm lay trapped. Terrifying, black vines grew and clung to the walls and ceiling, burrowing straight through the protodermis and making a thick wall of plant matter that blocked off any escape.

No, Ehrye pleaded. We destroyed it! This cannot be real!

"Toa," a voice as arid and unwelcoming as a sandstorm filled the tunnels. Nidhki and Vhisola stopped their chase and looked towards the expanding Morbuzahk root in surprise.

"You dared to try and ssssteal this city from the Morbuzahk! For your crimessss against itssss ssssovereign, you must die!"

Ehrye felt Krekka release his grip on his throat. He and Tehutti slumped to the floor as the brute took a tentitive step away from the Morbuzahk vines.

"Is that on our team?" he asked Nidhki nervously. The other hunter's response went unheard under an unsettling groan emanated from the walls and ceiling.

"I will bury you as you buried me! Begone, insectssssss!"

The vines flexed and pulled. There was a horrible metallic screech as the corridor collapsed in on itself.

Chapter Text

"And you believed him?"

"Of course I did! He's the Turaga of Metru Nui!"

"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Ehrye! You believed this with zero evidence?"

"...he sounded really sincere."

"Ahkmou wouldn't know sincerity if it walked up to him and tore off his mask!"

"Hey!"

"It doesn't matter who believed who. We all agree that something about this situation is off, and that the answers are hidden in this prison. So let's stow the arguments and-"

"Not that I'm not enjoying this conversation," Orkahm interrupted. "But I don't know how long I can hold this up."

His siblings glanced back at the position where he was pinned to the ground. Part of the ceiling had fallen onto him and his allies, pinning them to the ground, but the larger debris that should have crushed and killed them was instead hovering above their heads, kept suspended in the air by Orkahm's mask power.

They had rightly marveled at Orkahm's well-timed power awakening and thanked the Great Spirit that they were alive, but the relief wore off quickly and his siblings returned to squabbling. Orkahm was thankful that things had not escalated to violence again, though he was still miffed that they could forget the situation so easily.

Tehutti, at least, got the hint and used his power to build pillars of earth to support the debris. Orkahm kept his Mask of Telekinesis active while his brother worked, even though he was beginning to feel the strain from lifting such a heavy load for so long. It felt like a needle penetrating between his eyes, slowly pushing deeper through his skull. Even so, he only deactivated it once the earth stopped shifting and his brother shot him a thumbs-up.

He's been a lot more restrained with his power ever since the fight in the Great Furnace, Orkahm noted. A lot quieter too, thank the Spirit.

The Toa cautiously got to their feet, eyeing the new ceiling nervously. Tehutti's repairs held the debris at bay, and there was no sign of the shifting Morbuzahk root between them. After a few tense moments, the Toa let themselves relax.

"So what's our next move?" Orkahm asked, slipping his fingers under the sides of his mask to massage his temples. It did little to ease his headache, but it was something.

"We need to find Lhikan," Nurhii insisted.

"The Dark Hunters might have moved him further into the prison," Ehrye suggested. "But shouldn't we look for the Hunters first? I don't see them in the rubble, so they were either buried completely or got out before the Morbuzahk collapsed the tunnel."

"Speaking of the Morbuzahk, are we going to address the fact that it's still alive?" Vhisola interjected.

"Clearly the only way it can be destroyed permanently is through the power of the Great Disks. Just as the visions showed me," Nurhii stated in a tone that made it obvious to Orkahm that he was about to revitalize the spat that they had gotten into before going after Ahkmou and Ehrye. He saw Vhisola tense in the corner of his eye.

"Whatever reason it survived, the important thing is that it is probably still here," Orkahm interjected before another argument could ignite. "I don't want to be around when it burrows into our little bubble."
Vhisola relaxed a fraction and Nurhii's smug attitude was dampened.

"We should dig further into the prison. We won't find any answers by running away, and I, for one, would like to confirm Ahkmou's story before I keep travelling with him."

"Glad to hear it," Ahkmou said, hefting his hammer. "Now stay back. I will clear the debris."

He took a step towards the collapse, but paused.

"...Assuming you can trust me enough to do this by myself," he said mockingly. "I know that I wouldn't know sincerity if it tore off my mask, but if you would just listen to your heartlights-"

"Get over yourself!" Orkahm snapped. "Either clear the debris or shut up and let Tehutti do it."

Ahkmou and Tehutti ended up working together. Their combined elemental powers and destructive Toa tools made short work of the wreckage. Orkahm joined them as well, once he had recovered from the initial use of his mask power, using his telekinesis to shovel large chunks of protodermis out of his brothers' way.

The other three kept watch while their siblings worked in case the Morbuzahk or the Dark Hunters emerged from the wreckage to take them unawares again. Ehrye and Nurhii prepared to use their powers at the first sign of a root, one to unleash his element and the other to absorb it. Vhisola kept her swords drawn and ready to sever any limbs that might pop out of the protodermis. But their alertness came to nothing; by the time the path into the prison was clear there was still no sign of either foe.

Ehrye hoped that they had seen the last of them, but deep down he knew that it was too good to be true. They had crushed the Morbuzahk before, but it had simple sprouted again. And even if Nidhki and Krekka were caught up in the collapse, there was no way for the Toa to know how many other Dark Hunters were hiding in the shadows of Metru Nui.

The Toa proceeded down the cleared corridor, passing by Lhikan's empty cell and waking down the slanting walkways cautiously. Unlike the maze of hallways before the cells, there was only a single path for them to follow, which made Ehrye nervous. On one hand, it kept them from getting lost or separated down in the darkness, but on the other, if they found something dangerous at the end of the path then they would be bottled in.

They passed by other cells along the way; ones that held no prisoners, but neither were they empty. Clusters of metallic spheres were placed inside of them. Some had hatches thrown ajar, revealing their hollow interiors, but Ehrye could tell that even the sealed ones were empty through the small, red viewports that were set into into each sphere.

They struck Ehrye as familiar, but he could not recall what they were or where he had seen them before. Perhaps they were a type of cargo container that he had helped load into Vahki transports.

I don't know why they had design containers to looks so sinister, he thought, but then immediately felt silly. They were unusual, but they were not radically different from any other container. It's finding them in this place that's so off putting. I'd have the same reaction to anything being kept in these cells.

His siblings did not comment on the spheres but he could tell that they felt the same way. They shot nervous glances at each cell that they found, tense like they were waiting for something to burst out of the containers. The cells remained still and silent, but the Toa's tension only grew as they walked deeper and deeper into the darkness.

The sound of of metallic scraping echoed from a cell ahead. The Toa immediately stopped and drew their weapons. No one moved a muscle. Silence hung heavy in the shadows around them.

"What was that?" Ehrye whispered. A chorus of furious hushes erupted from his teammates and he shrunk back, chastened.

The sound started again. This time, Ehrye could recognize it as the faint sounds of shuffling footsteps against the protodermis floor. They were too light to be either of the Dark Hunters, and too aimless to be a Vahki.

Nurhii pushed ahead, breaking the spell of stillness that had been holding them back. The Toa moved as quietly as possible towards the cell that the sound echoed from. They rounded a corner, and found a small being in red and gold armour pacing behind the bars.

"Lhikan?" Nurhii asked softly.

Lhikan whirled around, startled but not surprised. For a moment, he looked happy to see them, but his expression quickly fell. He looked over the group warily, as though waiting for one of them to lunge at him.

"Are you..." he began, then winced, and continued in an almost embarrassed tone.

"Are you real?"

Ehrye shared a worried glance with Ahkmou. So, he really is mad.

"I'm not mad," he hurriedly assured them. "I've been tortured with illusions ever since I was imprisoned, and I... I just need you to tell me that you're real."

Nurhii crouched down to look him in the eyes. Nurhii's expression was softer than Ehrye could recall ever seeing him in the entire time that he knew him. "We're real. And we're going to get you out of here."

He gripped the bars of the cell and in seconds the bars were glowing white-hot. Turaga Lhikan took a step back as Vhisola stepped forward and slashed at them with her Hydro Swords. The blades cut through the super-heated bars like water.

The cell door fell apart and landed in a heap. Lhikan approached the opening cautiously, gingerly stepping over the still glowing metal. The Toa gave him the space to exit. His confidence slowly grew as he looked up at the ring of attentive masks. A small, hesitant smile grew as he regarded each of them in turn.

"The mantle of Toa suits you well. I am glad to see that you have persevered over the Dark Hunters' trap."

"Nidhki is one of the Hunters, Toa- I mean, Turaga Lhikan!" Ehyre blurted out. "We think he did something to Turaga Dume!"

Lhikan shook his head sadly. "I know what has become of Nidhki. But he is not the mastermind behind this plot, and we are far too late to help Dume."

He gestured to something behind the Toa, in the cell opposite to his. Ehrye and his siblings turned and that like so many others, it was filled with those strange spherical containers. But the ten within the cell were not empty.

There were Matoran within nine of the spheres, barely visible through the view ports. Curled up on themselves and deathly still, the only sign that any of them were alive was the faint pulsing of their heartlights.

The tenth sphere, the one closest to the Toa, did not contain a Matoran. The being inside of it was maskless and weakened, but all of the Toa could recognize who it was.

"Turaga Dume!" Nurhii exclaimed. He reached out touch the sphere, but Lhikan held him back.

"Do not be hasty, Nurhii," he admonished. "We do not know what affliction he is under. Releasing him improperly may harm him, and we are in no position to determine how these pods function."

The Toa stared at Dume's pod in silent horror.

"How long...?" Ahkmou started.

"At least 18 months," Lhikan answered. "That is when Dume began sending my siblings out on missions away from the city. Missions from which they have still not returned. Though, I only became suspicious that something was amiss a couple of months ago."

"Who is he?" Orkahm asked. "The false Dume?"

"I don't know. He is not a Dark Hunter; he is merely employing them. He's something else. Something powerful, with a penchant for deceit."

"This makes too much sense," Vhisola muttered. "Ahkmou's story. The Vahki's constant hunt for us. The city's feeble responses to the Morbuzahk's threat."

"Do you think it's in league with the imposter?" Ehrye asked.

"No one has ever discovered what happened to the people that it ensnared," She pointed out, her expression grim. She looked over into the dark, dead eyes of the imprisoned Matoran and Turaga. "I think we've just found them."

"If this is true, then our enemy has all of Metru Nui on his side!" Ahkmou exclaimed. "How in Karzahni's filthy ichor are we supposed to defeat this thing?"

"We have to figure out what the false Dume wants," Orkahm said firmly. "He can't just be seeking Metru Nui's destruction; there are more than enough Vahki to take it by force and, as Metru Nui's Turaga, he has control over all of them. Ahkmou and Ehrye, did he mention anything that could hint at his true intentions?"

"Oh, NOW we're ready to believe Ahkmou," the Toa of Stone griped. "No! He didn't tell me anything that wasn't designed to turn me into his courier!

"...Maybe we could try to find the Makuta?" Ehrye mumbled.

Six heads snapped towards him.

"What?" Orkahm choked out.

"The Makuta of Metru Nui," Ehrye hastily explained. "He's supposed to be monitoring the city to make sure that things are running smoothly. If we go to him and tell him that Dume has been overthrown, then he might help us."

Metru Nui's Makuta was rarely seen by the Matoran. Unlike others of his kind, he did not flaunt his position of authority over his designated island. He rarely interfered with the goings on of Metru Nui, he had barely acknowledging the Toa-Dark Hunter War, though Ehrye was certain that this was a dire enough circumstance to make him act.

However, his teammate's reactions were understandable. The Makuta's first task in overseeing Metru Nui had been to end a vicious civil war that had erupted from an inter-Metru trade dispute. His solution to the problem was as brutal as it was effective, and had made clear the value of Matoran life in a Makuta's eyes.

"You want to go to the architect of the Archive Massacre for help?" Vhisola asked, her voice rising with fear. "He'll probably just release an army of wild Rahkshi into the city until the fake Dume is dead! He can only make this problem worse!"

"Well, who else do we go to?" Ehrye asked desperately. "The highest authority in Metru Nui is in a coma! There is nowhere else to turn to!"

"What are you talking about? We don't need to turn to anyone" Ahkmou said, heated. "We are this city's Toa. Without Dume, WE are the highest authority in this city."

"Right, because you've been handling authority so well," Vhisola scoffed.

Ahkmou turned on her. "Do you ever have anything useful to say, or is the only thing that comes out of your mouth-"

"TOA!" Lhikan barked. "Remember your Unity!"

Ahkmou and Vhisola stared daggers at each other, but they heeded their Turaga. Lhikan sighed and turned to Ehrye.

"The Makuta may be able to help us. He and his brethren are sworn to protect the Matoran," he said. "But no one knows where he is. Even Dume did not know how to contact him in the few times he was desperate enough to do so. And even if we could find his lair, a Makuta's aid is never something to be taken lightly. They are not beholden to a code as you Toa are, and they answer to none but themselves and Mata Nui."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when they opened there was little trace of the fear that had made him doubt reality. They were full of steel and fire, just like the eyes of Toa Lhikan had been.

"This is our challenge to shoulder. It may seem dire, but it was your destiny to become Toa. It is your duty to protect Metru Nui. If the six of you are united, then there is no foe that you cannot overcome, no shadow that you cannot banish."

Krahka observed the surface-dwellers with silent curiosity. They were an interesting pack; squabbling as often as they worked together. She was impressed that they had survived for as long as they have, but she did not believe that they would last for much longer. Soon it would be time for her to shift out of the Toa form she had borrowed, and return to her territory with the knowledge she had gained.

She had not done this for nearly three hundred years; taking another creature's form merely to observe. It used to be common for her to live among a pack, herd, or swarm of other rahi for a time. Once Krahka had learned all she could about their abilities and their behaviors, she would return to her own kind. She would share her knowledge and partake in what information the other Krahka had found in their own wanderings.

But there were no more other Krahka. There was no one left to share with. Krahka's existence had been reduced to mere survival; shape-changing just to fight and hide rather than to learn and grow. It had been centuries since the others had been wiped out by the Visorak, but their absence was still a gaping wound that stayed with her in whatever form that she adopted.

Maybe it was that sense of loneliness that had sparked her curiosity again. Or maybe a being can only cower in the dark for so many years before they become restless. Regardless, when the black armoured Toa, Tehutti, invaded her lair in the Fuku Web she was inspired to visit the surface. She stalked, ambushed, and disabled him as she had done to so many other creatures, but what he had said gave her pause.

"You better let me go," he had threatened as Krahka had encased him in webs. "I'm more trouble then I am worth! My siblings will notice that I'm missing and come for me!"

Krahka had not understood all of the words at the time, but she had gotten the gist of what Tehutti was saying. He was not alone; he had a pack. He had beings to look out for his safety. Beings who were going to invade her tunnels if he did not return to them.

The combination of curiosity and territorial instinct drove her to venture topside for the first time in forever. She borrowed the abilities of a Rahkshi of Mind Reading that she had once killed to glean the location of Tehutti's pack from his memories, left the Toa paralyzed and restrained, and slipped up to the Great Furnace to take his place.

Now she followed the Toa and the little creature that they rescued, (Lee-Khan, she had heard the others call him), further into the underground complex. They walked carefully, their eyes apparently not as adapt as Tehutti's were at seeing in the dark and they were still wary that predators could be pursuing them. Lee-Khan had said that there was another way out and took the lead as the Toa debated their next steps.

"We should go straight to the Colosseum," the red one, Newree, was arguing. "Even if the false Dume is not there, we can still investigate his chambers and look for clues about what his plans are."

"Didn't we agree that the Colosseum was too well-guarded to break into?" Orcam replied.

"We don't have another option now."

"What about the Morbuzahk? It's still alive, and who knows how long we have until it regrows completely," Vis O'la said.

"But we need to use the Great Disks to defeat it," Airyay reminded her.

"We might need the Great Disks to defeat it permanently," she emphasized. "We proved that we are fully capable of beating it on our own. We could go back to the king root and cut it down to size before storming the Colosseum. Even if we don't destroy it, we can make sure that it doesn't cause trouble while we confront Dume's imposter."

"Its not a bad idea," Orcam said. "We don't know how it managed to attack us all the way out here. It would be safer to trim the weed before it snares us again."

Newree shook his head resolutely. "We don't even know if the king root is still at the Great Furnace. We could waste valuable time looking for it while the imposter has the Great Disks. We should focus on defeating him, then we can face the Morbuzahk once we have the proper tools for the job."

"But we need a plan to face the imposter. I don't feel comfortable rushing in to fight something we don't know," Orcam insisted.

He turned to Krahka, startling her. She had gotten accustomed to fading into the background of their discussions so she could learn their language and behaviors. She schooled her expression and focused on the words Orcam was saying to her. Her grasp of the Matoran language had grown considerably, but she did not want any gaps in her knowledge to reveal her while she was in a confined space with the whole pack.

"You were an Archivist, Tehutti. Do you have any idea what kind of creature this could be?"

She frowned. As far as she could glean, the creature he was referring to made the surface-dwellers think that it was their pack leader. Krahka knew many beings that could do this in one way or another, not the least her own species, but she was not sure how many beings Tehutti might know.

She studied the green armoured being's mannerism to try and divine what answer would be the best. There was a certain lifting intonation in his voice that correlated with uncertainty. The shape of his face, what little she could see with the mask in the way, agreed. He was not confident that Tehutti had an answer. The safest answer may be to plead ignorance.

"I have no idea," she said in Tehutti's voice.

Orcam frowned. Displeased. Krahka's anxiety spiked. Did she give the wrong response? Would she be found out? She did not want to go back to her territory yet, when there was still much she could learn.

"Sorry," she supplied.

Orcam looked surprised at the apology. "Don't worry about it. It was a long shot, we don't have a lot of information."

Krahka relaxed. It was such a little interaction, but speaking Matoran was quite stressful. She needed more practice. She listened in on a conversation at the front of the pack.

"Do you really think that the fake Dume and the Morbuzahk are connected?" Airyay was asking Lee-Khan. "Maybe he wanted the Great Disks for safekeeping? So that the Morbuzahk could take over the city unopposed?"

Lee-Khan frown thoughtfully. "It's possible. Though I doubt that this being would want artifacts as powerful as the Great Disks merely too keep them out of his enemy's hands."

"That can't be the reason," Ockmoo interjected. "He let me go even when I told him that we were collecting the Great Disks to destroy the king root. He wanted them for some other reason."

Krahka was too intent on eavesdropping that she ran into Newree. The red Toa had came to a sudden stop, a look of horror under his mask.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked him. The others noticed that he had stopped as well and were looking on with concern.

"The Mask of Time," Newree whispered. He looked at the sea of confused faces and explained; "Months ago, an old apprentice of mine was given an assignment from Turaga Dume. He wanted him to build a Legendary Kanohi mask; one with the power to control time!"

"...you think that he is going to carve this mask out of the Great Disks," Vis O'la realized.

"But why does he need a mask that can control time?" Orcam asked.

"Such a tool could have a great many uses," Lee-Khan mused darkly. "But a Legendary Kanohi is not easily controlled. No matter what the false Dume's goal for it is, using this mask can endanger Metru Nui and the universe. If you are right, Toa Nurhii, then we must hurry to your apprentice's forge before the mask is complete! Time is of the essence!"

The group began rushing forward. Krahka followed, the urgency of the pack infectious. The way that they talked about this mask made her worried that it could be a threat, not just to the surface, but to her territory as well.

She decided that it would be prudent to assist the pack to destroy this weapon for now. If it proved too dangerous to confront head on, she could always slip away and migrate to another island.

It would not be the first time that she had abandoned a home.

Nidhki watched Lhikan and his whelps from the shadows.

A Mask of Time, he mused. Dume had never mentioned his reason for wanting the Great Disks, and Nidhki had not cared enough to ask. But this possibility intrigued him.

What capabilities could this mask posses? Could it send the user forward or backward in time? Could it age creatures? Or perhaps reverse the age of a being, returning it to a form that it had once possessed?

Nidhki glanced down at his insectoid limbs. Looking at himself no longer made him ill, as it had in the first few months after his transformation. Insects had always been a phobia of his and catching glimpses of his new body had triggered that fear and disgust. Nowadays it only triggered anger. It reminded him of his many, many mistakes.

He allowed himself to indulge in a fantasy where he could wield this mask's power. Maybe he could reverse the mutations done to him. If he looked like a Toa again, he could cut ties with the Dark Hunters, find an isolated island populated with Matoran who had never heard of his past deeds, and settle down there as their honoured leader and protector. Or he could go back in time and change events so he never was mutated in the first place. He could warn the Dark Hunters that Lhikan knew of his double cross. He could go back to Tuyet's betrayal and side with her against Lhikan. Or he could just stay away from Roodaka at all costs.

Krekka was missing, dead and burred for all he knew, so there was no one to keep him from straying from the mission. The Toa thought he was gone, and Dume thought that Nidhki knew nothing about his Mask of Time.

To blazes with the job. To blazes with the imposter, the Dark Hunters, and the Shadowed One himself. With my skills, I could easily swoop in and take it for himself while Lhikan and his fools are busy fighting Dume.

A smile split Nidhki's face as he watched Lhikan and the Toa break into a run for the prison's exit. He followed silently with renewed energy. For the first time in centuries, he felt the familiar burn of ambition.

Chapter Text

After hours of trudging through dark, cramped tunnels, the Toa emerged from the Prison of the Dark Hunters to the dim, spacious tunnels of Onu-Metru.

I'll never take the sky for granted again, Ahkmou promised himself. He had no idea how the Onu-Matoran could live most of their lives underground without going crazy. No matter what measures were taken to make the tunnels more livable, there just was no replacement for fresh air. The tunnels may be more than large enough to accommodate a group of six Toa and a Turaga, it was still far too cramped for his liking.

More stifling than the lack of open space was the crushing judgment radiating from his team. Even after finding proof that Ahkmou had not knowingly betrayed anyone, they were still acting as though this whole situation was his fault. Vhisola was watching him like he was going to cackle evilly and run off to join the enemy at the first opportunity. Tehutti looked at him like he did not even recognize him. The few times Nurhii or Orkahm lowered themselves to speak to him, Ahkmou could tell that they thought he was a moron for being tricked by the false Dume.

As though any of them wouldn't have fallen for it if they were in my place, he thought bitterly.

Their pace through the tunnels was slowed by Lhikan, whose new, much smaller form made it hard to keep up with a group of Toa. Ahkmou considered volunteering to carry the Turaga so they could pick up the pace, but decided that Lhikan was dealing with enough indignity as it was. The gap in power between what he was and what he had once been was painfully apparent. Even knowing now that he was sane, Ahkmou could still not help but pity him.

The group paused at a crossroad to inspect a map of the Archives, (One-Matoran city planners were much kinder than those in Ko-Metru). Orkahm and Nurhii traced the mess of routes, trying to find the closest chute hub as the others took a moment to sit on the cold, metallic ground and rest their weary feet.

Ahkmou glanced over at where Tehutti had seated himself.

"Why aren't you helping them?" Ahkmou asked, nodding towards Nurhii and Orkahm.

"Why me?" Tehutti said, frowning.

"Because this is your home! Don't you know where the chute stations are?"

Surprise flickered across Tehutti face for a moment, as though caught in a lie. He recovered smoothly, crossing his arms and glaring at Ahkmou.

What was that about?

"I don't know where we are, let alone the chute stations," Tehutti answered. "The exit to the prison could have been connected to any point in the city. I'm as lost as you are."

Ahkmou glared back at him. "You could still help them."

"Back off, Ahkmou," Vhisola cut in. "We don't need three Toa to read a damn map."

Ahkmou scowled at her, but kept silent. He did not want to rile Lhikan up again by arguing with his teammates. No matter how annoying they were being. He could deal with Vhisola later on; the team had to stay united for the time being.

His brothers finished plotting a course and joined the rest of the group.

"The chute station is quite far," Orkahm informed them. "But there is an airship dock just a few blocks away from us. I think we should see if we can catch a ride with the first ship headed to Ta-Metru."

Lhikan nodded. "That would be wise. An airship would give you all an opportunity to rest before you confront the foe who has usurped control of Metru Nui."

Nurhii reached down and helped Lhikan stagger to his feet. "Also, we don't know how much the Morbuzahk has regrown. If it's in the chute systems again using them would be dangerous."

Ahkmou stood and stretched. "Makes sense to me. Let's hurry up and get out of this Metru. I'm tired of tunnels."

The group picked up their speed for the last leg of the journey. Nurhii and Orhakm's intel proved correct as the sounds of labouring Matoran and the deep thrum of airships soon reached their ears.

They emerged onto a catwalk overlooking the airship dock. Three ships sat below them on hexagonal landing pads being loaded and unloaded by their Le-Matoran crews and a throng of Onu-Matoran dock workers. There was a large screen was mounted on the opposite side of the docks from the Toa, displaying a list of arrival and departure times for the ships scheduled to arrive that day. The entire chamber was an enormous cylindrical hole with a clear view of the surface. Ahkmou took a moment to indulge in the fresh air and sunlight shining down on them.

Ehrye squinted to decipher the scrolling rolls of text on the screen. "The ship to our right is the only one going to Ta-Metru. It's leaving in about an hour."

"Good," Nurhii said. "Let get down there quickly and tell the pilot-"

The screen flickered. It now showed the stoic visage of Turaga Dume. The Toa froze like frightened Mahi, but the image's attention was directed towards the Matoran below.

The workers stopped in the middle of their tasks and looked up at Dume curiously. City wide announcements from the Turaga were not a common occurrence to say the least. The last one that Ahkmou could remember was to announce the end of the Toa-Dark Hunter War, nearly a millennia ago. The fact that the false Dume was doing this could not be good for anyone.

"Matoran of Metru Nui," Dume began, his voice grave. "I need not tell you that our city has been assailed by darkness the past months. Too many of your brothers and sisters have been victimized by the mysterious Morbuzahk. It pains me to admit that reason behind this threat, and the key to solving it, has alluded both myself and Toa Lhikan. We have failed you, and for that I am truly sorry."

He really did seem sorry. If Ahkmou did not already know that this Dume was the source behind Metru Nui's troubles, he would have bought his lies as easily as the Matoran beneath him. Ahkmou prided himself on being able to detect a lie as well as he spun them, so this reminder of how easily the imposter had duped him rankled him all the more.

The false Dume's expression hardened into a steely resolve. "But rest assured, Metru Nui will not fall to this threat. Though he has disappeared, Toa Lhikan was able to destroy the source of the Morbuzahk and relay a single message to me stating who was responsible for it, and why.

"The Dark Hunters created the Morbuzahk vines in another attempt to take over our city. Their intention was to kidnap and replace Toa Lhikan with protectors that they control."

Ahkmou felt his blood go cold. Things were about to become even more difficult for him and his siblings.

"Six individuals claiming to be Toa have been infiltrating our city under the guise of being Lhikan's successors. This claim, and the stories that they have told about destroying the Morbuzahk, is false. They are imposters responsible for Toa Lhikan's disappearance. Their goal is to leave Metru Nui vulnerable to a Dark Hunter attack.

"Though this situation is dire, I assure you all that it is under control. Hunting down these false heroes has been made the Vahki's number one priority. In the meantime, all citizens are to go to the Colosseum at the end of your work shifts in order to receive additional protections. Finish any outstanding tasks, then please proceed swiftly, but safely, from your workplace to the city centre. All will be made clear there."

The screen flickered, and after a moment the message started again from the beginning. A great murmur arose from below as all the Matoran in the loading bay talked anxiously with each other.

Ahkmou glanced at Lhikan and his siblings. They all looked stricken and angry, like someone had sucker punched their masks off. He could not blame them; he was just as angry. The imposter had threatened their reputation, and Ahkmou would make sure that he would not live to regret it.

"That lying piraka," Vhisola hissed.

"He's making his move. We need to get to the Mask of Time before all of the Matoran gather at the Colosseum," Nurhii said urgently.

"How?" Ehrye asked. "No way we can convince anyone bring us to Ta-Metru now!"

"No, this is our chance," Nurhii insisted. "We can slip onboard while everyone is distracted."

"The ships are all out in the open on the centre of the platforms. We'll be seen," Ahkmou pointed out.

"We could use our powers to make a distraction," Orkahm suggested. He side eyed Tehutti. "Don't you dare suggest an earthquake."

Tehutti blinked. "I... wasn't going to?"

"Good."

"A Toa's elemental powers can have a variety of uses," Lhikan offered. "But when those are not sufficient, they have other tools that they may rely on."

Ehrye brightened. "My Kanohi power! I can create illusions!"

His face screwed up in concentration, the air around him flickered, and he vanished.

Curious, Ahkmou reached out towards where he had stood. He flinched when his hand vanished as it crossed an invisible line in the air. He reached farther, watching more and more of his arm vanish, until he felt his fingers brush against Ehrye's invisible shoulder. He stepped forward past the illusory line and Ehrye popped back into his vision.

"Not bad," he granted. "Think you can make an illusion large enough to cover all of us?"

Ehrye frowned, deactivating his mask with a huff. "Maybe? I can probably cover the whole group, as long as we stay together, but I don't think I'll be able to move it that well. I could make it so that the illusion covers the areas that we will be walking through, but one of you might accidentally move outside of its range without knowing."

"It's a risk that we will have to take," Lhikan said. "Quickly, while the Matoran are still preoccupied by the message."

Ehrye gave a determined nod and concentrated on his mask again. All Ahkmou noticed was a momentary shimmer in the air around the group before the Toa of Ice flashed a quick thumbs up.

"Okay," he whispered. "Everyone stay close to me, I don't want anyone to freak out the Matoran by sticking a limb past the illusion."

Thus began the awkward group shuffle towards the ladder extending from the Toa's catwalk down to the landing pads. Once there, they waited for Ehrye again to focus the illusion along the ladder so they could then crawled down one at a time.

Ahkmou dropped off of the last rungs of the ladder as quietly as he could, careful not to bump into Nurhii and Tehutti who were waiting at the bottom or the Onu-Matoran dock workers speaking excitedly to each other not an arm's length away from them.

He moved awkwardly around the ladder as the others joined them, trying to make room for them while not breaching Ehrye's unseen barrier. He kept his eyes on the two Matoran beside them, wincing at every little creak the ladder made, certain that they would notice that something was off.

"Hey!" a shout made Ahkmou leap out of his armour. He turned and saw a Le-Matoran staring straight at him.

No, he realized. Not at him, through him.

"Would you quit the chitter-chatter and get those boxes on board my ship!" the Le-Matoran yelled at the dock workers. "We're moving up the schedule, I need to get high-flying right now!"

"Keep your mask on, we're moving," one of the workers snarked back. He and his companion hoisted up the boxes that they had been loitering beside and followed the Le-Matoran towards the ship on the right most landing pad.

Oh Spirit, no.

"Quickly, quickly." Ahkmou whispered up at Ehrye, Lhikan and Orkahm, who were sill climbing down. "Our ship is leaving any minute now!"

"Quiet!" Orkahm hissed back. But he did increase his pace, as did the Toa and Turaga above him.

Once they had gathered at the bottom, Ehrye gathered his will to recast his illusion. Using the unpractised power was taking an obvious toll on him; he looked sickly and it was taking him longer and longer to knit together the illusions. After five seconds of concentrating on the empty air between them and the airship's open cargo bay, Ehrye finally gave a silent signal to start moving.

The group shuffled boldly onward towards the Ta-Metru airship, Ehrye leading with the others trying to match his path as closely as possible. Several times, a dock worker strayed far too close for comfort. Once, Ahkmou froze in place because they were so close that he was certain they would hear his footsteps.

Miraculously, they made it to their airship without anyone noticing anything was amiss. Ehrye stopped them at the back of the airship so he could shift the illusion over the open doors. The moment he gave the signal, the Toa dashed into the laden cargo hold.

Ahkmou let out an explosive sigh and leaned against a stack of cargo crates. His heartlight was flashing like a strobe from the anxiety. He closed his eyes and took a moment to let it slow.

We did it, he assured himself. As long as Ehrye can keep up the illusion until the door closes, we will be fine.

He opened his eyes again, and nearly choked when he saw another pair staring back at him.

There was an Onu-Matoran crouched behind the crates. There was a cluster of lightstones scattered on the floor around him, and a few more gathered in the broken crate that he was holding. The Matoran looked up at him with wide eyes.

"...Hey there," Ahkmou said, summoning his most reassuring smile. He slowly reached out towards the frozen Matoran in what he hoped was a soothing way.

The Matoran tossed the crate at him and leaped away, barely avoiding Ahkmou's retaliatory swipe. He scrambled away from the stacks, and into view of the rest of the team.

The Matoran stared at them, mouth agape. His eyes darted between the Toa frantically, surprise rapidly blooming into panic.

"Please," Turaga Lhikan said softly, moving to the front of the group. "Please, friend, you must not draw attention to us."

The Matorn looked confused at the appearance of a Turaga, but Ahkmou could tell that it would not last. The second it ended, he would cry out and then the Vahki would be alerted to their location. Ahkmou doubted that there was anything Lhikan could say that could convince him to stay silent; too many Matoran in Metru Nui blindly trusted the word of Dume.

Ahkmou reached for the shaft of his hammer to ready a disabling elemental blast, but the Onu-Matoran's sharp eyes caught the movement. He turned to the open bay doors, hands raised and ready to shout for help.

"Stop." Vhisola hissed.

The Matoran froze, turned still and silent as an Exo-Toa. Ahkmou lowered his hammer, just barely calling off his elemental power in time. Seconds passed, and the Matoran stayed silent with his back to the group. Vhisola was staring at him with a look of intense concentration.

"Go outside, and keep working. Everything is fine." She whispered.

Again, the Matoran obeyed. He walked robotically out of the bay, pausing only to throw a switch to close the bay doors. They rose slowly, cutting off their view of the launchpads and plunging the Toa into shadow.

Tehutti looked nervously at Vhisola. "What was that?"

"Mask," Vhisola replied testily. She was still staring at the closed bay door, as though she could still see the Matoran behind it. "Shush. Need to keep him working until we're flying."

"Oh! Is there anything we can do to help you concentrate?" Tehutti asked.

"You can shush."

"Okay."

Ahkmou was awed by his sister's display of power. Her Mask of Mind Control had so much potential; it could potentially solve the problems that the false Dume's message had brought them. Having the power to literally sway minds could fix their reputation overnight!

There was an echoing clunk and the soft hum began to emanate from the hull around them. Ahkmou stumbled as the airship shifted suddenly. He glanced through one of the view ports on the cargo bay door and saw the landing pads begin to sink out of view. Before long, the veiw was obscured by a wispy blanket of clouds.

The Toa were on their way to Ta-Metru.

The Toa had spread out across the cargo bay. Some of her brothers sat with Lhikan, quietly discussing the mission and what they might find in Ta-Metru. Others sprawled across containers that they had pushed together to form makeshift sleeping pads that were only slightly more comfortable than the floor, according to their complaining.

Vhisola paid them no mind. Instead, she sat by herself near the bay's door with her mask in her hands. She ran her fingers across the wide, boxy visor. It had been so radically reshaped during her Toa transformation that she doubted that she would have been able to recognize it as the same type of mask if she had not already known.

A Kanohi mask's power could not be accessed by a Matoran, so most chose their mask for aesthetics rather than utility. Vhisola had known peers who chose their mask based on how 'cool' its design looked. Others selected Kanohi with powers that matched their personalities or represented ideals that they aspired to. Athletes often chose the Pakari or Kakama as a placebo to help their performance, while the Rau and the Akaku were favourites of scholars who dedicated themselves to understanding and uncovering the truth.

When asked, Vhisola had always claimed that she wore the Komau out of habit. It had been her primary mask for millennia and, like many Matoran, she had gotten so used to it that to put on a different Kanohi would feel like wearing a different face. And that was true, but it was not the entire truth.

She had always secretly fantasized about what she would do if she could access the Komau's power. She could make annoying peers focus on their studies; never again would a project be sabotaged by a lazy group member! And the next time she became obsessed with another Matoran, she could make them understand what she was feeling rather than having to subject herself to awkward, stumbling attempts at explaining them and the inevitable rejection that followed.

Of course, the way that the Komau's power actually worked was a lot less clean than what she had imagined. She had been inside that dock worker's mind, felt his fear when he saw the Toa hiding in the airship. She felt his desire to cry out for help, and she had to crush it. She had beaten him down and replaced his desire with her own. It might have been less violent than physically attacking and restraining him, but not by much.

If she was a more worthy Toa, she would have thrown it off of the airship and suffered weakness and vertigo until she found a new Kanohi. But as much as the power repulsed, it was undeniably useful.

I'll only use it on rahi and threats that I can't stop by other means, she promised herself. Using it on Matoran is a last resort. I can't let myself get used to crushing another being's will.

She sighed and reclined back on her stack of crates. She stared out the bay's windows at the city's skyline. The suns had long since shifted to evening and the buildings below resembled dark blocks of darkness covered in specks of sparkling light. Each speck was a cluster of lightstones illuminating walkways, homes, and workplaces, and there were tens of thousands. Even with the shadowy patches that marked where the Morbuzahk infestation had been the heaviest, the city still shone bright.

Approaching footsteps brought her from her ruminations. She looked up and scowled when she saw that Ahkmou had joined her. Without asking, he hopped up onto her crate stack and sat down beside her.

"Crazy couple of days, huh?" he said, as though he was making casual conversation instead of butting into her solitude. "By the way, good job with mind controlling that Onu-Matoran before he could snitch. These mask powers really like to manifest at the most dramatic moments, am I right?"

Vhisola turned away from him and glared at Metru Nui's skyline instead.

"I have some ideas about how to use your mask power."

Vhisola forced herself not to turn back to him, but Ahkmou must have saw something in her body language because he kept talking.

"We can counter the lies that the imposter told about us,"Ahkmou began with an eagerness that made her uncomfortable. "Once we defeat him, we could use your mask to make him retract everything that he said. The only way we can get the Matoran to believe our side of the story is if they hear it from Dume's own mouth."

Now Vhisola could not help herself any longer. She turned back to Ahkmou with a glare that would make a Kane-Ra flinch.

"First of all, your plan is stupid," Vhisola snapped. "Once the real Dume is awakened he can clear things up for us. Second of all, you have a lot of nerve telling me what to do with my mask after what you did."

Ahkmou had the gall to look confused.

"...I'm sensing a bit of hostility," he ventured.

"You must be a Toa of Psionics, " Vhisola said scathingly.

"Is this about the Great Disks?" Ahkmou asked. "You know now that I was tricked into stealing them. You can't possible still blame me for that."

"I'm not blaming you for what you did, I'm angry at you for how you did it!"

Ahkmou's face twisted in confusion under his mask.

"I'm... sorry?" he said hesitantly. "I really don't know what I did to make you this mad. I stole from our brothers the same way I stole from you, and they have completely forgiven me for it."

He paused and frowned thoughtfully. "Though, I guess they were not in the same... state you were in when I took their Great Disk. Is that what's wrong? Is... whatever that was still affecting you?"

Vhisola felt her face flush. There was no chance in any universe that she was going to talk about her defectiveness with Ahkmou of all people. No Matoran she had tried to explain her feelings to had understood, and there was no way that the overgrown carver would understand.

He really did not understand, did he? None of them did. She had thought that Ahkmou had been fully aware that he had taken advantage of a vulnerable moment, but, as always, it had all been in her head. None of her brothers felt the way she did. None of them would have to hide on a rooftop like a frightened Matoran because a friend was acting a little distant. None of them had lashed out at Ahkmou with the same vitriol that Vhisola had.

She let out a shaky breath to release some of the anger and anxiety boiling in her stomach. At the end of the day, it did not matter if Ahkmou had known what he was doing or not. What mattered was that she act normal for once in her life to stop him, or anyone else on the team, from learning about her defects.

Ahkmou was looking at her expectantly. She refocused on him with a much more composure.

"I'm fine," she reassured him. "And if you really are sorry, then fine; I can let it go. Just be more careful in the future."

"Trust me, I don't intend to get tricked into doing Dume's dirty work again," he chuckled ruefully. Ahkmou eyed her expectantly. "So about my plan...?"

"...You're counting your gukko before they've hatched. We are still a long way from victory; we can talk about your plan once the imposter is defeated," Vhisola deflected. She doubted that Ahkmou was the type to understand her compunctions with her mask's power, and she was not in the mood to talk him out of his plan.

She thought she saw exasperation flash across his face, but he covered it up quickly. He gave a casual shrug and walked back to the rest of their team.

"Whatever. Just let me know when you're ready to talk about it," he said over his shoulder. "Don't keep me waiting too long! We could do some incredible things together, Vhisola."

Krahka fidgeted in her perch atop a stack of crates, but the movements did little to quell the restlessness that flickered through her limbs like electricity. Like rahi in too small a cage, her instincts demanded that she break free so she could stretch her limbs and run. This was the longest time in centuries that she had gone without changing her shape, and her body rebelling against being so static.

She could not stand it anymore. She needed to change, only for a minute, or else she would go insane, but she did not want to leave this pack yet. It was risky and stupid, but if she could step out of sight for a moment, she could change and then rejoin the group before anyone could notice.

She glanced as subtly as she could down at the rest of the pack. Orcam was resting nearby, eyes closed and heartlight pulsing dimly with sleep. Newree and Airyay were conversing with Lee-Khan, and Ockmoo and Vis O'la were on the other side of the cargo bay. None would notice if she slipped away for a second.

Krahka crawled down from her perch as quietly as Tehutti's form would allow. The crate's creaked under her shifting weight and she froze. Most of the pack did not notice, but she saw Orcam twitch.

She stood stock still, but he did not shift again. She stared at him for half a minute before she was satisfied that he was not roused. Before anyone else could notice, Krahka slipped into the shadows behind the stacks of cargo.

The second that she was out of sight, Krahka let her form become fluid. Tehutti melted away, replaced by a blade burrower, then a rock worm, and then a taku. She let her instincts shift her through the shapes of creatures that she had long ago committed to memory. keeping just enough control tor prevent herself from becoming something too large for her cover.

She suppressed a satisfied hiss as she shifted between a lohrak, and an ice vermin. It felt like a much needed stretch after sitting still for too long. She got lost in the sensation of her body freely contorting.

"Tehutti?" Orcam's voice came from behind her.

Primal panic shot through Krahka, and her body responded with a flight instinct that had let her survive all these centuries on her own. She shrunk, compressing herself as much as she could until she was a nearly microscopic insect. A protodite.

The cargo surrounding her was now the size of mountains, stretching unimaginably high above her two tiny heads. With steps that sounding like thunder, an equally immense Orcam came into view. The Toa's movements were incredibly slow to Krahka in this form; she could see his expression gradually shift to confusion, his eyes drifting across the empty space where he thought his brother had been hiding.

Krahka rocketed at incredible speed on the protodite's tiny wings across the never ending flat expanse that was the floor. In seconds she had flitted past Orcam's titanic legs. She stopped what she hoped was a good distance from him before letting herself take Tehutti's form once again.

Her perspective shifted again as her body unfolded out into the shape of the Earth Toa. Orcam was now scanning the rows of cargo at a normal speed. Krahka reaches out and taps his back to get his attention, and he whirls around in shock.

"Spirits," he curses. "How did you get there?"

"I was standing here the whole time," she lied, hopefully boldly enough that he would doubt himself.

Orcam looked at her like she still had a second head. "No you weren't. I didn't see you at... Wait a minute."

He looked closely at her face, eyes narrowed and suspicious. Krahka kept Tehutti's face neutral, but on the inside she was frantically deciding on what rahi to turn into that could escape this ship before Orcam called the other Toa to subdue her. A lava eel maybe? She could quickly melt through the ship's hull before any of them could catch her and then she could turn into a flying rahi to escape...

Orcam's eyes widened. "Your mask power! You must have activated it!"

Krahka stared back at him, stunned. "What?"

"What do you mean 'what'?" Orcam asked, his excitement wilting. "Were you not trying to use it?"

"No! Yes! No, I meant yes!" Krahka stammered. She reigned in her powers, seconds away from letting them shed Tehutti's form. She thanked her luck that she somehow had a chance to salvage this deception.

"I was practising. I came back here to practice combat," she answered quickly, doing her best to avoid making the explanation seem too unnatural. She rubbed the back of her neck, aping a nervous gesture that she saw Airyay perform a few times. "I felt like I was falling behind. Everyone else has used a mask power before me, and I do not want to be a burden on the pa- the team."

"And you managed to unlock your mask's power?" Orcam asked.

"Yes."

"Just by focusing really hard on it?"

"Yes."

"Even though everyone else needed a high pressure situation to do that?"

"Yes." Krahka repeated. What was he not understanding about this?

Orcam stared at her for a moment with an unreadable expression, and Krakha was certain that she messed up somehow. She was about to recant her explanation and change it to something he might believe when Orcam spoke up again.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

Krahka cocked her head at him. "Sorry? What for?"

"I was... very critical of you back when were retrieving the Great Disks and fighting the Morbuzahk. I thought that you were acting thoughtlessly and were causing more problems than you were solving," he explained. "...And I was right, but I shouldn't have held it against you for this long. You're clearly trying to improve yourself, and I'm glad for that."

"Oh." That did not sound like a good apology to Krahka, but she did not have a strong grasp on language or Tehutti's past antics, so what did she know? Her ruse was safe, so she was happy.

She put a smile on her face and placed a hand on Orcam's shoulder.

"Thank you, brother. I really appreciate your words," she said, trying to convey reassurance by mimicking tones she had heard Lee-Khan emit.

She have not done it completely correct, because Orcam looked slightly uncomfortable. Still, he smiled back at her and gave her a reassuring nod.

"I'm glad you're on the team, brother."

Even though she knew that the words were not meant for her, Krahka could not help but savor them. Her senses must be scrambled. The flutter of happiness in her chest was just a product of centuries of isolation; she did not, should not, care about the opinion of creatures that were not Krahka. Krahka needed push it down and remind herself of why she was here.

This was not her pack. The flutter was just the satisfaction of a successful infiltration. The pleasure of knowing that she had mastered the shape and behaviours of a new rahi. True belonging was something she could only get from others of her kind. It was a feeling that she would never find again, and pretending that creatures so different from herself could provide it was a betrayal to the pack she had lost.

She should leave. Her emotions were compromised and were leading her into danger. The Toa could handle the threat to the city without her help. She should go now.

Krahka abruptly realized that Orcam was walking back towards the containers he had been sleeping on. The thought of being alone again, even though she was still in a room full of people, even though being alone would give her more time to shapeshift, was intolerable.

Orcam gave a start when he noticed that she was following him.

"Oh! Um... Are you not going back to training?"

Krahka shook her head. Orcam kept looking at her. Words. He probably wants her to use words to explain herself. Krahka pulled herself together to find the most appropriate sentence.

"I'm done training." Nailed it.

"...Okay," Orcam walked a little faster. Krahka kept pace with him until he got back to his containers and sat on top of them. She stood by his side, staring down at him.

"I'm going to go back to sleep," he told her.

"Yes. I shall too."

Orcam stared up at her for a moment, and Krahka was unsure what he was waiting for. He could want her to lay down next to him; the rest of the Toa were far too spread out for that to be typical behaviour for their species. Maybe he was waiting for her to lay down on top of her own makeshift bed.

She turned away and climbed up her stack of crates. She did not go all the way to the top this time, preferring to stay a little closer to Orcam. She settled down on top of one of the containers in her stack and turned back towards him. He had lied down as well, face away from her.

Krahka felt a wiggle of satisfaction at having interpreted the Toa's behaviours correctly. She got as comfortable as she could in Toa form on the stiff, irregular surface of the containers, and let herself drift off to sleep.

It came easier to her here than it had in the Fuku Web, she noted drowsily. There was less anxiety when surrounded by a pack as she slept. Even if they were not her real pack.

Chapter Text

The Toa Metru

Ahkmou

Ehrye

Nurhii

Orkahm

Vhisola

Tehutti

Chapter Text

The Toa Metru Kaita

Toa Kaita Hikima

Toa Kaita Akurah

Chapter Text

Nurhii found the experience of talking one-on-one with Lhikan far less intimidating than what he had pictured. Though he was a legendary hero and saviour of the city, Lhikan showed no arrogance. He was kind when he spoke, and respectful when Nurhii responded.

It was what they were not talking about that made Nurhii uneasy. Not once did Lhikan mention anything about the way Nurhii had abandoned him to the Dark Hunters. Nurhii was certain that it was purposeful, that he was attempting to spare Nurhii's feelings even though he had left him to die. The topic hung over Nurhii like a blade that he was sure would drop at any moment.

Lhikan seemed unaware of his discomfort. Instead, he was speculating over their mysterious opponent, and the Mask of Time.

"Used as a weapon, its power would be devastating," Lhikan said. "If our opponent wields it when we confront him, then we must learn its limitations quickly or there will be nothing we can do to fight them."

"If we're lucky, we will get to the forge before the Mask of TIme can be finished," Nurhii assured him.

"You know the Matoran who was commissioned to make it, correct? Do you believe that he is capable of forging a mask of this power?" Lhikan asked.

"Vakama is... a talented mask maker," Nurhii admitted grudgingly. He may be beyond petty Matoran rivalries now, but it still felt painful to admit that. "If he is given materials like the Great Disks to work with, I think he could build whatever Dume asked him to."

"I know of Vakama," Lhikan said fondly. "He is a talented mask maker with a kind heart. I understand that the two of you were peers."

"He was my apprentice," Nurhii corrected.

Lhikan nodded, not commenting on, or perhaps not noticing, the traces of bitterness that Nurhii was unable to hide. There was a far away look in the Turaga's eyes.

"Interesting, how both of you were my final two candidates to be Ta-Metru's new protector. Perhaps it was your shared dedication to your craft that caught my attention," Lhikan laughed softly.

"You were considering making Vakama a Toa?" Nurhii asked. He was uncertain how to feel about that. On one hand, there was some satisfaction to be had that Nurhii had been chosen over Vakama. But on the other, the idea that Vakama had even been considered to be made a Toa made Nurhii uneasy in a way that he could not fully describe.

"What made you chose me instead of him?" he asked hesitantly.

"I am not entirely certain," Lhikan said thoughtfully. "I wrestled with the decision for days, and then one morning I awoke with a new sense of clarity. Perhaps it was Mata Nui guiding me toward Destiny, or maybe just my own instincts speaking to me. Regardless, I have survived for far to long to ignore such a feeling. I selected my six successors that day, which was quite fortunate as that was when the Dark Hunters began following me."
Nurhii nodded, though the answer was not as satisfying as he had hoped it would be. Worse, it reminded him of his failure. The failure that had been haunting him since becoming a Toa.

"I'm sorry, Turaga," he murmured. "I'm sorry that I let the Hunters capture you."

Lhikan looked surprised. "There is nothing to be sorry for, Nurhii. You could not have stopped them if you had tried."

Nurhii shook his head. Something burned in that back of his throat. Shame. Anger. A fear that if things had been different, if Lhikan had chosen Vakama to be the next Toa, Lhikan would never have been in a situation where the Dark Hunters could capture him. If he had not needed to save Nurhii, Lhikan would not have been disarmed or taken by surprise. He could have guided to Toa since the beginning of their quest.

Nurhii felt a small hand rest on his shoulder. Lhikan gave him a reassuring squeeze and a tight smile.

"It is a Toa's Duty to sacrifice themselves for their Matoran, not the other way around. It fills me with pride that my last act as a Toa was to protect you. We all must face our Destiny one day, and I can think of no better way to meet it than helping another begin the journey towards their own."

Nurhii closed his eyes and let the Turaga's words wash over him. He opened his mouth, maybe to thank Lhikan, maybe to insist that he was still unworthy. He did not get to find out, as Orkahm, who had approached unnoticed by either of them, interrupted.

"We have a problem with Tehutti," he said quietly, crouching down next to Lhikan and Nurhii's seats.

It took Nurhii a moment to pull himself together. He needed to show Lhikan that he was a worthy successor, a worthy leader. He took a steadying breath and faced Orkahm.

"What problem?"

"I don't know," Orkahm admitted. He looked supremely uncomfortable. He was fidgeting with the edges of his armour, and he kept looking over his shoulder to the crates where Tehutti was sleeping.

"He's been acting really strange. Haven't you noticed? He only speaks when he has something useful to say and he uses his powers with restraint! Something is wrong."

Nurhii frowned at him. "That's harsh. Tehutti's not that bad."

"You're right, he isn't! And that's the problem!"

Nurhii shook his head, frustrated. He knew that there had been some friction between Orkahm and Tehutti ever since they retrieved their Great Disks, but this was getting out of hand. Tehutti may be overeager, but Orkahm's opinion of him was clearly biased.

"I did notice that he was acting slightly different ever since the three of us and Vhisola reunited," Nurhii admitted. "But that was just after we had visited our home Metru to put our old lives to rest. Haven't you considered that he was more subdued because of that? That maybe something happened in Onu-Metru."

Orkahm hesitated a moment. He obviously had not considered that, but he shook his head resolutely.

"No, there is definitely something else wrong with him. Just now, I caught him sneaking off to 'practice with his mask power', and when I confronted him, he started acting really weird. He was following me really closely, and he kept staring at me until finally he went to sleep."

Lhikan cleared his throat. The Turaga looked uncomfortable, though Nurhii could not glean why. None the less, he addressed Orkahm with his usual confidence.

"That behaviour is not as strange as you may think," he assured. "There are many Matoran and Toa who have the potential to become... especially attached to one or more of their peers. Tehutti's behaviour sounds like he may be experiencing such an attachment."

That was perplexing. Nurhii had never heard of a Matoran acting like that before and, judging from Orkahm's expression, neither had his brother. But the amount of Matoran that both Nurhii and Orkahm knew was dwarfed by Lhikan, who had patrolled all of Metru Nui and had visited distant islands that neither had even heard of. If he insisted that this was something that could happen to a Matoran, then they would be foolish to question him.

"I can speak with him, if he is making you uncomfortable," Lhikan offered.

"N-no, it's fine," Orkahm said hesitantly. "I just think that it's worth keeping an eye on him, considering the threat we are facing. The only thing that we know about our enemy is that it can impersonate others. We need to be careful, in case our team has been compromised the same way that the city was."

That was actually a good point. Nurhii was frustrated that he had not considered the possibility himself. Still, just because it was possible that the false Dume had infiltrated their team, it did not mean that any odd behaviour was proof that he had.

"Keep an eye on him," he told Orkahm. "Don't accuse him or confront him, but watch him for anything suspicious, not just weird. We can't afford to be fighting among ourselves right now."

"But if he's not the real Tehutti, then we need to know as soon as possible!" Orkahm argued.

Before he could refute him, Nurhii was interrupted once again by one of his brothers.

"Hey everyone!" Ehrye's voice was loud in the enclosed hanger. "I think we'll be landing soon!"

He was standing by the bay doors, watching the ruddy red Ta-Metru skies. Nurhii and Orkahm joined the rest of the team in assembling around him to see the buildings grow steadily taller as their airship began its descent.

"We should get out before the ship lands," Vhisola suggested. "The Matoran that I... controlled likely told someone that we're on this ship. I wouldn't be surprised if all of Ta-Metru's Vahki are waiting for us on at the landing pad."

Nurhii nodded in agreement.

"Ehrye, open the doors. Everyone else, get ready to jump," he commanded. He turned to Lhikan as he joined them at his slow, steady pace.

"Will you need help getting out of the ship, Turaga?"

Lhikan gave him a wry smile. "I may have given away much of my strength, young Toa, but I assure you; I am still capable."

Alarms blared a warning that the cargo bay door was being opened in midair. Ehrye tapped another command into the control panel and the doors begrudgingly obeyed him. Winds whirled through the cargo bay as the doors slowly lowered, revealing the rooftops that were still bio below their ship.

Lhikan peaked out over the edge sheepishly.

"Though perhaps we can wait until we are a little lower. I don't think this is the right time to test how capable I am."

The Toa abandoned the airship with ease. Orkahm assisted Lhikan's jump with a cushioning air current, but the Turaga hardly needed it. It seemed as though he had kept some relics of his former strength within that frailer body.

Ta-Metru was empty, save for a few straggling Matoran being corralled into transports by Vahki squads. The stillness was eerily reminiscent of the zones that the Morbuzahk had infested, but expanded to the entire Metru. It made Orkahm very conscious of the fact that the malignant plant was still out there and could strike at any time.

The Toa Metru avoided the remaining residence notice by travelling across the rooftops. Lhikan piggybacked on Orkahm to keep up their speed. He did not seem happy about needing to do this, but he conceded to the indignity with grace.

It took them about an hour for Nurhii to lead them to Vakama's forge. By the time they arrived, everyone but the Toa of Fire was winded, unused to Ta-Metru's smog and heat. They stopped on a rooftop overlooking the forges to catch their breath.

Orkahm let Lhikan slide off his back and sank to his knees, his breath ragged.

"Mata Nui," he heard Nurhii curse.

He looked up and saw the source of Nurhii's ire. Vakama was being herded from his workshop by a pair of Vahki. They forced him down the stairs with at their steady machine pace, unconcerned with the way the mask maker stumbled to keep ahead of them. His protests likewise fell on deaf ears.

“I need to shut the furnace down properly! If you could let me back in for just a moment, I can make sure that it is safe to leave, and then I’ll gladly go with you-”

Movement above them caught Orkahm’s attention. Cracks were spreading through the ash grey stonework of the building with alarming speed. Inky black shoots sprouted from between the cracks, growing thicker and stronger, forcing the bricks apart.

“Vakama, run!” Nurhii shouted.

The Matoran looked up at the Toa’s roof, mouth agape. The Vahki halted and swiveled their heads towards them as well, disks immediately materializing into their launchers. The moment before they could shoot, the wall above them exploded as the Morbuzahk branches emerged.

Orkahm reached out with his Kanohi and grasped Vakama. With wild desperation, he pulled the Matoran towards them with as much force as his mask could muster. Vakama went rocketing through the air, screaming and narrowly avoiding the rain of bricks that pummelled the area where he had been standing a second before.

He flew towards Orkahm like a fish on a line. Orkahm was only able to arrest the movement enough so that the Matoran was not harmed when he collided with him. The impact was still hard enough to make Orkahm stumble backwards, but he managed not to drop the dazed Vakama in his arms.

The Vahki were not so lucky. One was flattened under a dozen bricks before it could even react. The other miraculously managed to avoid being completely crushed by the building, but one of the thrashing Morbuzahk branches slammed into its head. It was thrown down the steps and crashed in a heap of sparking wires and jammed clockwork.

The branches grew higher and higher out of the broken building, thrashing as though blown by a malevolent wind. A familiar hiss washed over the Toa Metru.

“Insectsssss! How dare you continue to exist in my city!”

“This Spirit-forsaken shrub again!” Ahkmou growled.

“Ehrye, ice this thing so we can move on!” Orhakm shouted.

Ehrye stepped forward and raised his Crystal Axes at the Morbuzahk. Waves of cold radiated out from them, coating the broken building across the street with thick sheets of ice. Within seconds, the Morbuzahk’s branches were trapped in lairs of frost.

However, the plant did not whither like Orkahm had expected. There was no enraged hisses or whispered threats. Instead, the largest Morbuzahk branch reared back, not in pain, but like a Great Temple Squid preparing for a strike.

“Watch out!” Vhisola yelled.

The branch whipped down at their rooftop, The Toa scattered like leaves when the branch slammed through it. The building, split down the middle by the branch’s attack, groaned and shuttered and gradually began to collapse.

“Did you really think that it would be eassssy to destroy me? That I would not adapt from our last battle?” The Morbuzahk’s hiss permeated the streets; sourceless and overwhelmingly.

Orkahm got unsteadily to his feet. Vakama was still in his arms, his gaze unfocused and expression slack. Ehrye and Lhikan were by his side, the rest of the team was separated from him by the trench the Morbuzahk had created when it bisected the building.

Orkahm’s section of the building gave a sudden shake that nearly through him from his feet again. He knew that they had only seconds until it toppled over.

“Grab Lhikan,” he called to Ehrye, already running towards the adjacent roof.

He heard Ehrye give a respectful “Sorry, Turaga,” before he hefted Lhikan over a shoulder and sprinted after him.

As Orkahm’s feet were at the edge of the roof, their half of the building lurched out from under his feet again. Orkahm stumbled off of the roof with not nearly enough momentum to get to the other building.

Orkahm let his panic empower him and channelled it into an updraft. The air shot all four of them up and over the roof they were targeting, instead depositing them on a building a block away. Orkahm and Ehrye managed to keep their footing this time, supported by the drafts Orkahm had summoned.

Orkahm and Ehrye let their passengers slide to the ground. Lhikan immediately hobbled over to check on Vakama. Thankfully, he seemed to be regaining his senses. Orkahm let the Turaga fuss over him and instead turned to Ehrye.

“We need to run. The plant has mutated; we don’t have time to find out what it’s new weakness is.”

“I don’t think-” Ehrye began, but cut himself off.

“You don’t think what?” Orkahm asked impatiently.

“Nothing. It’s nothi-”

“No it’s not nothing,” Orkahm interrupted. “If you have any ideas, I want to hear them right now!”

“Oh, um, right,” Ehrye stuttered, looking flustered. He pulled himself together and brought Orkahm to the edge of the roof, where they had a view of Vakama’s shattered workplace.

Their siblings had managed to escape the collapsing building unharmed and were now battling the Morbuzahk on the street. Tehutti leaped to avoid the branches’ cudgel-like strikes and Vhisola cut at anything that came to close to her. Orkahm saw Nurhii swipe a disk from the fallen Vahki and hurl it at the largest branch with his Kanoka Claws. His aim was perfect, and the Slow power imbued in the disk brought the building-breaking branch to a crawl. The Morbuzahk howled as it splintered under the hail of shatter brick that Ahkmou flung like bullets at it.

None of them looked like they were any immediate danger, but nothing they were doing was causing notable damage to the Morbuzahk either. If they did not flee or find a new way to fend it off soon, his siblings would be worn down by the plants seemingly endless reserves of strength.

“I froze the branches solid, I’m sure of that,” Ehrye stated. “Nothing organic would be able to move with all of its fluids frozen.”

“Alright,” Orkahm said, unsure what point his brother was trying to say. “But it is moving, so the Morbuzahk must have mutated to resist freezing.”

“I don’t think it mutated at all. It only changed its strategy.” Ehrye pointed back to their sibling’s fight. “Look at how it’s moving. Before, it would try to trap us with coiling vines, but now it’s only swinging branches stiffly, like clubs.”

“Ehrye, our siblings need us! Don’t make me guess what you’re thinking; tell me!”

“Sorry,” Ehrye winced. “I think that those branches are made of dead matter. It grew them and then let them die and petrify so it could use them as weapons.”

“But it would still need living root to move the dead parts,” Orkahm pointed out.

Ehrye nodded. “It’s probably keeping them under cover where we can’t target them.”

“Like inside the building. Or under the street.” Orkahm scanned the battle. Ehrye’s theory looked plausible. And Orkahm knew how to test it.

“Stay out of the battle until I give you the signal,” he told Ehrye. “Once I do, summon as much ice as you can.”

He looked back at Lhikan and Vakama. The Matoran was already back on his feet. He looked terrified, and probably would have already ran away, if it were not for the Turaga’s steady assurances.
“Lhikan, do you need us to defend you?” Orkahm called to them.

The Turaga waved him off. “Go handle the threat, we can fend for ourselves!”

Orkahm acknowledged with a quick nod. Without another word, he willed his Aero Shields to spread like wings on his back, and then jumped off the roof. The wind immediately caught the shields and carried him towards his target.

He landed gracefully near Tehutti. In spite of the chaos, Orkahm could not help but notices more differences with his supposed brother. Tehutti had always been ready to lash out with his elemental power the instant he was given an excuse, and when his power was not an option, he had met challenges head on. Not only was this Tehutti not using his powers, his fighting style had changed. Instead of swiping back at the branches, he was putting all of his focus on running and dodging.

All more evidence that this person may not truly be our brother, Orkahm thought. It did not matter now, because, imposter or no, this Tehutti could still control the earth.

Tehutti brightened when he saw Orkahm, despite the deadly chaos surrounding the both of them.

At least it will not be hard to get him to follow orders.

“Open up the street,” Orkahm commanded.

Tehutti looked confused for a moment, but when realization dawned he immediately struck the ground with his Quake Picks. The pavement cracked as the earth pushed it up from neither. The entire block shook and the street peeled away. Orkahm leapt back from the rising tide of earth that Tehutti dredged up from below.

When the dirt stopped shifting, the street had been transformed into deep trench. Within, writhing at their sudden exposure to the light, was a gnarled network of Morbuzahk roots.

"Ehrye, that's your cue!" Orkahm shouted.

"Got it!"

Ehrye had followed Orkahm's flight from the ground, but he had arrived just in time to do his part. He raised his axes and once more the temperature plummeted and a chunks of ice fell upon the trench like a hailstorm.

The Morbuzahk emitted a deafening hiss as its roots withered and died. Just as Ehrye had guessed, its living roots and vines still needed heat to survive, and without them it was unable to move the parts that had been attacking the Toa. Like weapons abandoned by their wielder, the branches fell to the ground, lifeless.

Ehrye only stopped his attack when the hissing had died away completely and the roots had disintegrated into nothing. The Toa watched on the hole in the earth that it left behind with bated breath. The sudden quiet rang in Orkahm's ears.

Tehutti was the first to drop his guard. He sheathed his picks and beamed at Orkahm.

"We killed it!"

Orkahm glared at him. He did not understand the alleged Tehutti's fixation with him, but it put him on edge.

"That was just a branch. Don't be stupid."

"Oh," Tehutti said, crestfallen.

Damn it, why does seeing him disappointed feel make me feel worse? Orkahm griped. He (probably) isn't even the real Tehutti!

"...you did well," he conceded.

Tehutti's attitude immediately brightened, and, annoyingly, Orkahm felt better too. If he was going to prove this Tehutti was an imposter, he was going to stop being so sentimental.

"Dead or not, I don't think it's going to regrow anytime soon," Nurhii said. He turned to Orkahm and Ehrye expectantly.

"Still, we should move on. Where did you leave Lhikan and-" his gaze focused on something over Orkahm's shoulder and grew horrified.

Orkahm followed his gaze and saw that the rooftop where he and Ehrye had left Lhikan and Vakama was empty. Where they had gone was not a mystery for long, as bursts of flame flashed out the of the highest window.

Orkahm wasted no time reattaching his Aero Shields and summoned another updraft. It carried him back up to the building in seconds. As he came up on the window he manipulated the wind so that he flitted straight through it and landed inside.

Within he found the spider-like Dark Hunter, the one who Ehrye and Ahkmou claimed to be Nidhki, alive and well, climbing across the wall with Vakama in his grip. Nidhki held the Matoran hostage over a pool of molten protodermis that had leaked out of a broken furnace.

"Where is it?" Nidhki screamed in his face.

The terrified Matoran in his claw did not have the composure to answer. He flailed and flinched away from the sparks that shot up from the furnace spill. The fact that Nidhki was trying shake answers out of him clearly was not helping matters.

Lhikan hurled a fire bolt that Nidhki did not even bother dodging. The monsterous Dark Hunter took the brunt of the attack with hardly a flinch. He only took his eyes off of Vakama when Orkahm he noticed that Orkahm had arrived.

"Oh, you lived. Wonderful," Nidhki said without enthusiasm.

"So did you. Excellent," Orkahm said, just as deadpan. "Put him down."

"Not yet. He owes me answers." Nidhki lifted Vakama up so that his other claw was within reach of his throat. "Don't you dare try and interrupt us. Drop your weapons."

Orkahm gritted his teeth, infuriated and helpless. He could try to pull Vakama away with his mask, but Nidhki was quick enough that he would likely harm the Matoran before he was out of reach. No matter what he did, Vakama would be hurt.

He dropped his shields.

Nidhki smiled humorlessly at Lhikan. "That's cute, he has your weaknesses! You can tell that he's one of yours, brother."

"Stop this," Lhikan yelled. "Put him down Nidhki!"

"I told you; I need answers first. Ones that I'm sure you would appreciate too, so pay attention." Lhikan turned his attention back to Vakama. "Last chance, little one. Where is the Mask of Time?"

"I- I don't know," Vakama managed to say. "I gave it to Turaga Dume this morning!"

Before he could say anymore, a disk flew through the window, straight over Orkahm's head and hit the distracted Nidhki dead-on.

The disk's power shrank the Dark Hunter down until he was only half a head taller than a Matoran. The force of the blow sent his much smaller frame flying across the room. Vakama fell from his grasp and tumbled down towards the molten metal.

Orkahm reached out with his mask power, and, for the second time that day, he pulled Vakama out of danger. Slower, this time. Instead of flinging the poor Matoran across the room, Orkahm managed to gently place him at his feet.

While he had been focused on saving Vakama, the source of the disk had leapt into the room, claws aflame. Nurhii continued his assault on Nidhki with fireballs that made Lhikan's attacks look like sparks, but the Dark Hunter's smaller size made him even harder to hit. Nidhki darted and dodged around the room with fluid, insectoid speed until he slipped out of the opposite window and disappeared.

"Karzahni spit!" Nurhii swore. He glared over his shoulder at the rest of the team, who had only now caught up to them and were climbing one by one through the window. "Took you all long enough!"

"What is wrong with you?" Orkahm yelled. He marched up to Nurhii and jabbed a finger at his chestplate. "You made him drop Vakama! He could have died."

"Yes, but you caught him. Like I knew you would," Nurhii said dismissively.

"Are you serious?" Orkahm hissed. "What if I had been too slow? What if Nidhki had attacked and I wasn't able to focus on my mask power? We are Toa, for Mata Nui's sake! Our job is to protect Matoran at all cost!"

Nurhii glance over at Vakama. Lhikan was tending to the shellshocked Matoran, but Orkahm could tell that the Turaga was listening to them and was not fond of what he had heard. Orkahm saw a hint of guilt under his mask.

Good, he though vindictively. He needs to be knocked down a peg before his arrogance gets someone hurt.

Ahkmou interrupted before he could drive the point home.

"Are you two going to keep squabbling, or can we move on with our mission?" he said. "Where is the Mask of Time?"

"Gone," Lhikan answered for Vakama. "It is in our enemy's hands now."

A chorus of curses and groans arose from the assembled Toa.

"What do we do now?" Vhisola griped.

"We have no choice," Orkahm asserted. "We have to go to the Colosseum now and fight Dume."

"What?" a panicked yep caught their attention. Vakama was looking at them with mounting fear. Orkahm mentally punched himself for his poor phrasing.

"I thought that Dume was wrong about you," Vakama stuttered. "But y-you're really are evil? You really are trying to kill Turaga Dume?"

"No, Vakama," Lhikan assured. "They are Metru Nui's protectors. The Dume who commissioned the Mask of Time from you is an impersonator."

Vakama did not look convinced. He backed away from Lhikan, frantically looking for an escape route.

"How am I supposed to believe you? I don't even know who you are!"

"Yes, you do," Lhikan told him gently. "Though my form has changed, I am still the same being who defended your city."

Vakama froze, dumbfounded. "...Toa Lhikan?"

"Turaga Lhikan," he corrected ruefully. He gestured towards Orkahm and the rest of the team. "They are my chosen successors. The one pretending to be Turaga Dume lied to you."

A series of emotions flitted across Vakama's face. Surprise, doubt, fear. He looked to the Toa uncertainly, focusing especially on Nurhii. What he saw in them, Orkahm could not say, but it seemed to settle some of his fears.

"I-if that's true, then I just gave one of the most powerful objects in the city to its enemy," he fretted. "It's my fault that-"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you feel horrible about that," Ahkmou interrupted. "You can feel bad about it on your own time. Tell us how to destroy the mask."

Vakama's eyes widened. "You can't destroy it! It's power it tied to the very fabric of space-time! If it breaks, it could shatter reality as we know it!"

"But we could weaken it," Nurhii said. He still looked chastened, refusing to look at Vakama or Lhikan as he spoke. "If we could add impurities into the mask, the scope of its power could be reduced."

"T-that's true, but it would be an extremely dangerous process," Vakama said nervously.

"Well, it's a good thing that I'm the best mask-maker in the city, isn't it?" Nurhii muttered.

"It won't matter if we can destroy or weaken the Mask of Time if we can't get it from Dume," Vhisola interjected. "How are we going to do that while he is hiding in the Colosseum surrounded by all of the city's Matoran and Vahki?"

"We're out of time," Orkahm said. "It's too late to uncover Dume's plan; it's already being enacted. We have no choice but to go to the Colosseum and hope to Mata Nui that we can handle whatever he throws at us."

"Without any plan? We'll be jumping into the Takia's mouth," Vhisola warned.

"He's right, there is no time to plan. We can only react to what we find waiting for us," Nurhii said.

"It will turn out alright! We're Toa; it's our Duty to protect the city, and our Destiny to succeed!" Ehrye said optimistically. "Right, Turaga?"

Lhikan's expression was grim, but he put on a strained smile for their sake.

"Overconfidence has been more than one Toa's downfall, but yes, I do believe that you six have what it takes to defeat this threat. You'll have to; Metru Nui is in your hands."

The Toa took a moment processed that weighty remark.

"How are we going to get there? Can we at least have a plan for that?" Vhisola asked.

"Those two Vahki were probably taking Vakama to the Colosseum. I bet they have a Vahki transport nearby," Ehrye offered.

"That could help us get close to the Colosseum without being noticed," Ahkmou noted.

"Speaking of Vakama, what are we going to do with him?" Orkahm asked. "If he stays here he'll be captured by Vahki or the Morbuzahk again."

Vakama raised his hands pleadingly. "Please, I don't want to be a burden! You can leave me here; I can find a place to hide."

"...No we're not going to leave you behind," Nurhii sighed. He finally forced himself to look at Vakama. "You can come with us for now. When things get perilous, you can hide in the transport."

"Oh. Okay. As you say, Toa," Vakama said, bowing slightly. "But only if you're sure that I'm not going to make this harder for you! I don't want to-"

"It's fine, Vakama," Nurhii interrupted wearily. "I'd rather you stay in our sight, rather than wander the empty city."

The Toa of Fire holstered his claws and moved to leave the broken building.

"Let's get going. We're wasting daylight, and our enemy has all the time in the world."

Chapter Text

The Vahki Transport was not far from Vakama's forge. Fortunately, it had avoided getting struck by the worst of the debris that had been flung about during the fight with the Morbuzahk. Once Orkahm performed a quick check and confirmed that the damage it had sustained was superficial, the team boarded the transport.

Orkahm went to the pilot seat and began starting up the vehicle, leaving Ehrye and the others to cram themselves into the cargo hold. This transport lacked the restraints that had been added to the one that Ehrye and Nurhii had been trapped in, but instead most of the space was taken up by stacks of those ominous spheres that the Toa had discovered in the Prison of the Dark Hunters.

"Are there any Matoran in them?" Vhisola asked hesitantly.

"I don't think so," Ehrye replied. All of the spheres that he could see were empty, but the ones at the bottom of the stack had their portholes obscured.

"I bet that they were going to pick up Vakama first, then start collecting others," Ahkmou suggested. He looked at the corner where the Ta-Matoran had wedged himself into. "How does it feel to be fake Dume's favourite, mask-maker?"

"They were g-going to put me inside one of those?" Vakama asked, eyes glued to the spheres. "Why? What are they?"

"We're not sure," Ehrye admitted. "But the Morbuzahk has been putting all the Matoran it captures inside them. The Vahki are probably doing the same now."

"Then the Matoran gathering at the Colosseum are walking into a trap!" he exclaimed.

"Which is why we need to get there quickly," Nurhii agreed. He called to the pilot's compartments, "Are we ready to go, Orkahm?"

"Patience!" Orkahm yelled back. "I'm not used to driving this kind of transport, so it's important to take things step by step to activate-"

The transport hummed to life. Ehrye stumbled as it suddenly jerked forward, heading at full speed towards the centre of Metru Nui. The transport's many insectoid legs carried them with startling speed and agility over the damaged streets.

"Ah, there we go," Orkahm said, satisfied. "Next stop: the Colosseum."

"Wonderful," Ahkmou said sarcastically. "And what are we going to do when we get there? The place will be swamped with Matoran and Vahki, and every single one of them are looking for us."

"The Vahki Transport will let us get close to the Colosseum without getting spotted," Vhisola suggested. She shot Ehrye a glance. "After that... Do you think your Kanohi can get us inside unseen?"

Ehrye grimaced. "Maybe. I can try the same trick that I pulled at the airship dock, but if we're going through crowded areas it will be hard to stop someone from stumbling through the illusion and seeing us."

"Why bother hiding when we're in the home stretch? Let's go as close as the transport can get us and then scale the Colosseum as quickly as possible," Nurhii said.

"Sounds like a good way to get tagged by Vahki," Ahkmou grumbled.

"What about the Morbuzahk?" Vhisola suggested.

"Would you stop bring that up? We're not going back to kill the Morbuzahk," Nurhii snapped.

"That's not what I was saying," Vhisola huffed. "I meant that we could use it as a distraction. It seems to be targeting us, so why don't we wait for it to show up and then let the Vahki deal with it?"

Ehrye thought that could be a good idea. Even though the Morbuzahk and the Vahki supposedly shared the same master, neither had ever hesitated to attack each other. Maybe the Morbuzahk's indiscriminate destruction could keep Dume's forces busy and delay his plans.

Lhikan shook his head.

"The Morbuzahk is too unpredictable to be used as a distraction," he warned. "And it is far too destructive to be brought near the Colosseum. Not while the Matoran are trapped there. However, a distraction of a less dangerous breed may be the key."

Tehutti raised his hand.

"No earthquakes!" Vhisola and Nurhii said in unison.

"I wasn't-!" Tehutti cut himself off with a sigh. He calmed himself and continued. "Rahi! Vahki always chase rahi that enter their territory."

"Where are we going to get enough rahi to get their attention? Are we just going to release a bunch of Archive exhibits?" Ehrye asked.

"Don't worry, I can do it myself. Leave it to me," Tehutti dismissed.

"You can't just tell us not to worry without explaining what you're going to do!" Orkahm yelled at him from the pilot's compartment.

Tehutti frowned, but Ehrye thought that he looked more contemplative than angry.

"Please, brothers. Please trust me," he implored.

Ehrye looked at him and saw emotions that he was intimately familiar with. Loneliness. A desperate need to please, to be accepted. In spire of his own wariness, Ehrye felt the urge to support him.

"Okay," he said. He smiled at Tehutti, even as their siblings looked at him skeptically. "I say let him go for it."

Tehutti grinned back at him, and Ehrye felt proud of himself for taking a stand on behalf of his brother.

His pride turned to panic when Tehutti slid the transport's door open and leapt through it. Ehrye yelped and lunged to drag him back inside, but it was too late. By the time Ehrye stuck his head out of the door, there was no trace of Tehutti.

"Wait!" Ehrye called out. "How are you going to get to the Colosseum?"

There was, of course, no answer. Ehrye leaned back into to the transport and akwardly shut the door. He cringed when he saw the shocked expressions on everyone's faces.

"...he probably knows what he's doing," Ehrye assured them.

The second that the transport was out of sight, Krahka took on the form of a blade burrower and dug through the street. She tunneled straight downward through earth, stone, and protodermis. It took some time, but eventually she breached the mantle of raw protodermis between Ta-Metru and the expansive tunnels that ran underneath the whole city.

She knew that these tunnels, the 'Archives', were where the surface dwellers kept rahi as trophies. There were thousands of species kept there, alive but in stasis. Krahka had ventured into the Archives every few years to look for specimens that she could copy, an activity that kept her mildly entertained but there was only so much enjoyment that she could get from observing rahi that were captive and sedated.

However, her excursions had given her a good idea of where to find certain specimens. And if the pack required a distraction, then she knew exactly where to go.

Krahka transformed into a small, fast bird rahi and flitted down the tunnels. She stayed near the ceilings, hoping that passing surface dwellers would not have the wherewithal to look up. She had long ago learned that the metal hunters would give chase no matter what form she was in.

They had always been a problem whenever they infringed on her territory. With most predators, there was always some kind of creature that they were not interested in hunting, but the metal hunters were indiscriminate. Furthermore, Krahka could not turn into purely mechanical beings like them, so she did not even have the option of hiding among them. Of all the surface dwellers, they were the ones Krahka hated the most.

Now, thanks to Tehutti's shape, she had a word for them. Va-Key. Krahka thought that the word felt cold and jagged. It fit them well.

Thankfully, the tunnels were practically empty and Krahka was able to get to her destination in a matter of hours. She fluttered down to the floor and looked up at the rows and rows of brakas monkeys. They were only a little larger than the Matoran surface dwellers, their lanky limbs curled up so that they could fit inside their stasis pods.

Brakas were intelligent and used their intelligence exclusively to cause problem. Aside from that, they did not possess any especially dangerous abilities, so they would make the perfect diversion. All Krahka needed to do was break the seals on their stasis pods, create a path to the centre of Metru Nui, and herd them up to the surface.

Krahka let her shape expand and twist into a hulking kikanalo. This creature's sonic bellow would be able to crack the transparent casing that kept the Brakas in stasis. Once they were awake, the monkeys would free themselves in minutes.

She took in a deep breath and reached for the traces of elemental sonic stored in a kikanalo's frame.

And then she stopped when she realized how foolish she was being.

She was free. Krahka could run and it would be a clean escape. None of the Toa would be able to track her down even if they had the time to, which they did not. All it would take would be shifting into a small, unassuming form and slipping away.

...And then she would be alone again. And the Toa would picked off by the Va-Key while they waited in vain for her promised distraction.

But since when did she care about the feelings of other creatures? The world is harsh; this she had known for millennia. A survivor could not afford to care about anyone but herself and her pack. Every other sentiment is dead weight that must be discarded. Is that not what kept her kind alive in a world filled with others would would readily eradicate them if discovered.

But it did not keep them alive. There was no her kind anymore. There was just Krahka, alone in the cold, dark place she called her territory.

Krahka curled up on the cold Archive's floor. She never had to think like this before she took on a Toa's form. Concepts that were once so simple had unfurled into something far more complex. It was exhausting.

She just needed a moment to process it all. Then she could make her choice.

Fleets of Vahki transports convened outside of the Colosseum parked in perfectly aligned rows. There were already hundreds present, but there was still a slow trickle of traffic as the stragglers filed themselves into place. Once these late arrivals stopped, a team of Vahki would open the doors and begin loading imprisoned Matoran through the Colosseum's grand entrance.

"We're too late," Vhisola said. "The entire city must be in spheres by now."

Ahkmou had the gall to shrug.

"Makes things easier for us. We won't have to worry about Matoran getting in the way."

"No, it doesn't make things easier for us!" Vhisola snapped. "We don't know how to get them out of those spheres!"

"We'll find a way," Nurhii said with unearned confidence.

He probably thinks that he will have a vision that tells us how to fix it, Vhisola thought spitefully. Her spite turned into exasperation when she realized that he very well be correct about that.

She turned back to the cockpit’s windscreen. She, Nurhii, Ahkmou, and Orkahm had squeezed themselves into the vehicle's front to take in the scene. Ehrye sat behind them, concentrating on his mask power so that passing Vahki would see one of their own in the pilot seat instead of four squished Toa.

The illusion would only buy them so much time. Once Orkahm parked them in place, the Vahki would immediately open up the cargo doors and begin emptying the vehicle. He was driving as slowly as he could towards the Colosseum without arousing suspicion, but they only had a minute at most for Tehutti’s distraction to appear before the Toa would have to resort to improvisation.

And our improvisations never go smoothly, Vhisola admitted to herself.

A fissure opened near the wall of the Colosseum. The nearest Vahki snapped to attention, but even they were not ready for the chaos that exploded into the streets. Hundreds of brakas monkeys flooded out of the tunnel like an unstopped tide of chaos. Their whooping cries filled the night air, growing louder and louder until it drowned out all other sound.

They were the perfect way to catch the Vahki’s attention. Vhisola remembered how the brakas had run rampant through Le-Metru a century ago, bringing Metru Nui’s transportation hub to a grinding halt. The Vahki had been commanded to hunt down every single specimen, and it appeared as though those orders still stood.

Every Vahki outside of the Colosseum abandoned their work and reorientation to address the sudden threat to lawfulness. In seconds, they had formed a wall between the horde and the Colosseum entrance, but it was already too late. The brakas were clambering onto transports and pulling them apart. Scores of the dashed off towards the city, forcing squads of Vahki to break away to pursue.

"Do you think that was the distraction?" Ahkmou asked sarcastically.

"Go, go, go!" Nurhii urged, pulling open the transport doors before letting Lhikan clamber onto his back.

Vhisola was the closest to Vakama, so she seized the Matoran by the back of his armour and leapt out of the transport. Vakama yelped as she sprinted across the stretch of empty road with her brothers.

There was absolutely no way that they would have made it to the Colosseum's yawning entrance without being spotted had the Vahki not been occupied. As it were, they made it through the tower's open gates without issue.

They kept running, even when they were out of sight of the entrance. They followed the lower corridors that circled the arena at the Colosseum's base. Eventually, when Vhisola guessed that they must have ran a quarter of the way around, they slowed to a stop beside an entrance to the arena's seating.

Vhisola paused to set Vakama back on his feet. The little mask maker was remarkably steady; apparently he was getting used to being manhandled by Toa. He even had enough wherewithal to give her a small bow.

"Thank you, Toa Vhisola."

"Um, your welcome," Vhisola said. She still felt uncomfortable with the social formalities of being a Toa.

"Are you alright-" she began to ask, but the words died in her throat when she glanced at the arena entrance.

"W-what-?" Vakama followed her gaze and fell quiet.

One by one, Lhikan and Vhisola's brothers fell silent when they noticed the sickening sight. The entire arena was stacked full of spheres. Every inch of the stands had spheres wedged in place, their dull red glow looked like a sea of evil eyes. The arena floor was so crowded that the there was hardly any room for the Vahki that were carting in the last few remaining Matoran.

Vhisola felt as though her energy was being sapped away by despair. How could they fix this? Even if they could defeat their enigmatic enemy, how could they free every Matoran in Metru Nui? For all they knew, it could take centuries to awaken everyone, and all the while they would be trapped in darkness; her friends, her coworkers, her teach-.

No! Don't think of that!

Nurhii was the first to break the silence. He gestured towards the highest point of the Colossuem's tower, where faint lights could be seen moving. It looked to be the one place with any sign of life.

"Let's get moving. There are a lot of stairs between us and the Turaga's quarters."

"Any chance that they left the elevator running for us?" Ahkmou deadpanned.

"We should be careful," Orkahm said, ignoring him. "The imposter may have place traps for us on the stairways."

"What about Tehutti?" Ehrye protested.

"I made marks on the walls," Nurhii said, gesturing down the curving hallway that they had come from. Sure enough, Vhisola could make out irregular streaks of blackened stone marking where Nurhii had used his elemental power as they ran.

"Tehutti's smart enough. He'll be able to figure out where we went."

Ehrye looked unconvinced. "But what if he was caught before he could get into the Colosseum? I didn't see a hint of him while we were running in."

It was obvious to Vhisola that seeing the spheres had made the others impatient. They looked like they were willing to rush ahead without their brother despite how bad an idea it would be to face this threat disunited. Still, they could not risk going back outside to look for him. The best they could do was give their brother time to catch up.

"We can wait here and keep an eye out for him," Vhisola assured Ehrye. She turned to Ahkmou, Nurhii, and Orkahm. "We'll keep Lhikan and Vakama with us, and you three scout ahead for traps. If he's not here in a few minutes, we'll meet you at the stairs."

Orkahm looked uncomfortable with splitting up, but Nurhii spoke before he could voice his concerns.

"Fine. Stay safe, sister. Ahkmou, Orkahm, let's go."

He and Ahkmou went running down the corridor. Orkahm hesitated for moment before giving up and following.

Lhikan watched them go with a resigned look beneath his mask.

"Of all the Virtues, it appears that Unity is the one every Toa team must struggle with," he said.

"It's good to know that it isn't just us," Vhisola muttered.

"I don't think that we struggle with Unity," Ehrye commented cheerily. "It feels more like Unity is repeatedly kicking us in the masks."

Vhisola would have laughed at that, if things had been any less dire.

Vakama awkwardly raised his hand to get their attention.

"Excuse me," he said. "Should I look for a place to hide now? Or am I going to be there when you fight the thing that's pretending to be the Turaga?"

Vhisola traded a glance with Ehrye. They had not discussed what they were going to do with Vakama. As with many things, her team had not done a lot of planning about it. Having him alone was asking to get him captured, but bringing him with them would likely get him hurt. Even bringing Lhikan with them was a risk.

Ehrye unholstered his Crystal Axes. "Maybe I can make an igloo or something for you to hide in..."

Vhisola let him attend to the Matoran. They would not have a definitive answer for him anyways until the rest of their brothers were there to agree on one.

While he kept himself busy, she allowed her gaze wander back to the rows upon rows of captured Matoran. Snippets of them were visible through the sphere’s portholes. She could make out a range of different Kanohi staring blankly back at her; Hau, Pakari, Kiril, Zatth, Rau-

Panic jolted through Vhisla like a bolt of lightning. Without warning, she marched out of the corridor and began picking her way between the spheres in the stands.

"Toa Vhisola?" Lhikan called after her, but she ignored him. She needed to be sure.

It's not her. The Rau is a popular mask. It could be anyone else.

Those thoughts were dashed once she got close to the sphere. There was no mistaking who was trapped inside this one.

Vhisola felt the world drift away. Things in her periphery blurred and her vision collapsed down to the sphere before her.

Intellectually, she had known that Nokama had been captured. The whole city was sealed away, why would she be an exception? Though, on a deeper level, it was not a possibility that Vhisola had let herself consider, let alone accept. The non-stop action that she and her brothers had experienced since leaving the airship had helped push those thoughts to the back of her mind, but if she had been given a moment to think, it would have broken her.

Now she could see Nokama's body through the sphere's porthole, her breathing shallow and her heartlight dim, and Vhisola's composure cracked.

Someone was calling to her, she could not tell who over the roaring rushing past her ears. Nor did she care. All that mattered was the torrent of rage and despair that crashed through her mind.

"Vhisola, stop!"

Her shoulder erupted in pain, shocking Vhisola out of her fugue state. She gasped and brought a hand to her pauldron, finding it coated with ice. She whirled around and glared at Ehrye, who backed away from her quickly.

"Did you attack me?" Vhisola raged. Despair and anger still had a vice grip around her throat. Her vision was blurry and Ehrye's frightened face distorted like a reflection in a river.

"Y-you weren't responding!" he explained nervously.

"It was quite necessary, Toa Vhisola," Lhikan's stern voice cut through Vhisola's anger. "What you were attempting to do was incredibly dangerous."

"What I was attempting...?"

Vhisola noticed that the roaring in her ears had stopped. She looked around and saw through her blurred vision a floating current of water that spiralled around her. The current was slow now, but Vhisola knew through the innate connection to her element that just moments before it had been a torrent.

And her vision was still distorted. She ran a hand across her eyes and wiped away a film of water that had formed over them. There were streams of water running off her armour and flesh. They fell to the ground like a rainstorm only to rise again and join the growing current that extended upwards higher and higher.

"I... I wasn't trying to do... this..." Vhisola stuttered.

"I know," Lhikan assured her. "But you are a new Toa, and your powers often stretch past your intent. What you are channelling right now is perilously close to a Nova Blast. With time and the proper focus, you could level Metru Nui. Even as undisciplined as you are now, you will still hurt all of these Matoran unless you reign in your emotions. Right now."

Vhisola closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind, but the image of an imprisoned Nokama, curled up as dark and still as a corpse, was too fresh in her mind. When she opened her eyes the water surrounding her was picking up speed again.

"I can't!" She whimpered. "I can't! Not while she's trapped in that sphere!"

She froze, afraid that she revealed her defect. More so than she already had with her latest freak out. Luckily, Ehrye misunderstood her feelings.

"It's okay Vhisola," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "I would be scared too if if had been one of my friends that we found."

"We're not friends," Vhisola snapped. She floundered at finding the right words. Something that could explain why she was having so much trouble ignoring her feelings, but would not reveal how broken she was. Like so many times in her life, she just did not have the language to express her thoughts.

"We are... she's... she's important to me!" she finally said.

"...She's important to you, but you're not friends?" Ehrye asked, looking hopelessly confused.

Lhikan stepped in front of Ehrye.

"She is dear to you," he acknowledged. "It feels overwhelming, seeing her in danger. But even through these emotions, you still control your actions. Your feelings cannot dictate your power, not when you have so much of it. Otherwise, you will hurt her, along with everyone else around you."

"You don't understand," Vhisola hissed.

"Yes, Vhisola, I do," he said. His voice was firm, but gentle. "I have someone important to me too. We are the same."

The world came to a screeching halt.

Vhisola could not wrap her head around what she was hearing. This had to be a trick, a lie to keep her from freaking out again, but surely Lhikan, paragon of heroism, would not do that. However, that meant Lhikan, paragon of heroism, was defective in the same ways that she was, which was just as unbelievable.

She wanted to interrogate him, to make sure that they were actually experiencing the same thing, but there were a million questions flowing through her head and all of them were fighting to be the first out of her mouth.

“Buh?” Was all she could manage.

Lhikan nodded as though she had said something profound.

“It has been a part of me since the dawn of my memory. As a Matoran, I experienced attachments towards my peers. I thought it was a defect, some special ailment that only I was unfortunate enough to suffer from. But after I became a Toa, I met others, Matoran, Toa, Seltians, and many more, that experienced the same thing. Many years later, I was even able to accept that it was not a defect at all.”

“How…?” Vhisola breathed. “I’ve never met anyone else.”

“We are few and far between,” Lhikan admitted. “There was a slim chance that you would have found kindred souls in your section of your Metru. Slimmer still, that you would have become attached to a Matoran who reciprocated your feelings.”

“Did you?” Vhisola asked. “Find someone who reciprocated, I mean.”

Lhikan hesitated, his calm, matter-of-fact demeanour cracking for a moment. Vhisola waited for his answer like a drowning diver waiting for air.

“Naho,” he said finally.

“Toa Naho?” Ehrye exclaimed.

Vhisola started. She had almost forgotten that he was still there. From the way he cringed apologetically, he had been making an effort not to butt in, but Lhikan took his interruption in stride.

“Yes, Toa Naho,” he admitted. “We were… together. That is the best word to explain it, I think.”

So, the Toa Mangai of Water, the being who had protected Vhisola’s home Metru for centuries, had the same affliction. On one hand, Vhisola was frustrated that she had never gotten to meet her in person, but it was also reassuring in some way that Vhisola had something so intimately in common with her predecessor.

Lhikan approached her, and Vhisola realized that the current around her had evaporated at some point in their conversation. The Turaga took her hand, and led her out of the stands. Vhisola let him do so, like she was a shell shocked Matoran.

"You will have time for hurt, for anger, for sadness," Lhikan told her. "But not right now. A Toa bares the burden of strength. You must be strong now; not just for her, but for all of Metru Nui."

Vhisola nodded. The Turaga gave her hand a comforting squeeze before he released her and walked further down the corridor to give her a moment to herself.

Or, it would have been a moment too herself, if Ehrye had not been awkwardly hovering next to her. Vhisola turned to look him in the eye. Otherwise he would have waited to say his piece for the rest of the night.

“Listen, Vhisola,” Ehrye began. The gentleness in his voice was almost too much. Any other time, Vhisola would have lashed out to make him stop. However, she was already so numb, her world so thoroughly shaken, that she let him be kind.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I heard what Turaga Lhikan said to you, and I still don’t really understand the feelings he said that you both have. I’m not sure if it's something that you can just explain.

“But I do understand wanting to be understood. Wanting to belong. I understand feeling isolated, feeling different on a level that you can’t control. It’s the worst..."

Hurt flashed across Ehrye's face just long enough for Vhisola to see that he meant what he was saying. He covered hit up quickly, but it made Vhisola wonder how much of his cheerful demeanor was genuine and how much was just a shield.

“So if you ever need someone to talk to, I’ll be here,” Ehrye concluded with a smile.

Vhisola could not imagine what she would talk with Erhye about. He had said himself that he did not understand. If he was offering a shoulder to cry on when she was rejected, then he was a couple centuries too late. Vhisola had gotten too used to isolation to feel comfortable doing that.

However, Ehrye’s offer was too genuine to dismiss. He had learned Vhisola’s deepest secret, and, instead of deriding her for being different like Vhisola had always feared, he simply accepted her and offered to be there when she needed him.

She smiled back at him.

“Thank you, brother.” It was the first time that she fully felt the connection that the honorific carried.

"Why is it so wet in here?"

Everyone in the room jumped. Tehutti had approached them without making a sound. He stood behind them, staring at the little flood that Vhisola's power had caused.

"How did you get here without us seeing?" Ehrye asked.

"Mask power!" Tehutti declared proudly.

"And why are you so late?" Vhisola demanded.

"I had to get past the brakas and Vahki," Tehutti explained. He leaned past them to look down the hallway. "Where is Orkahm? Did everyone get inside? Was the distraction good enough?"

"Yes, everyone made it inside, calm down!" Vhisola griped. "Our brothers are ahead of us, and Vakama is..."

She looked around for the mask maker, and noticed a dome of ice further down the corridor. She sighed and turned to Ehrye.

"We shouldn't keep him in there," she told him.

"Why not? I made an exit for him if he needs it." Ehrye protested.

"Not all of us are as hardy as Ko-Matoran," Vhisola reminded him. "He's going to freeze."

Ehrye deflated a little. "Oh, right. I guess we could ask Ahkmou to make him a shelter instead."

Vhisola nodded. "Get him out of there. It's time we reunite with our brothers."

As Ehrye, Tehutti, and Lhikan went to retrieve Vakama from the ice ball, Vhisola turned back to take one last look at Nokama’s sphere. Her eyes were still empty and the sphere’s internal, red illumination obscured her heartlight. Though now it looked less like death to Vhisola, and more like sleep. The serene expression behind her mask assured Vhisola that there would be no nightmares plaguing her teacher, and that she might be roused from this hibernation as easily as an off-shift nap.

I’m coming back for you, Vhisola promised. I know you don’t, or can’t, share my feelings, but I swear by the Great Spirit that I will see you awake and happy once again.

Thankfully for Ahkmou's patience, his siblings, Turaga Lhikan, and Vakama arrived before Nurhii insisted on going back for them. The second that they had devised a way up the Colosseum tower, the Toa of Fire wanted to run back and grab the rest of their little team. Orkahm and Ahkmou combined could only get him to wait for so long.

The rest of their team emerged from the corridor and into the open air stairway that Ahkmou and his brothers had chosen. From this section, one could see the entirety of the arena and its stands. The Colosseum’s tower loomed directly above them, its exterior could be touched from the top of the stairway.

Tehutti was the first to spot Ahkmou and his brothers loitering by the tower’s base. He visibly brightened and hurried over to stand next to Orkahm. The Toa of Air gave him a questioning look, but Tehutti seemed content with standing next to him.

Seriously, what is going on with him? Ahkmou wondered.

“How did the scouting go?” Vhisola greeted them. Ahkmou turned away from Tehutti and Orkahm’s… thing to address her.

"The stairs are packed full of Vahki guards," Ahkmou explained. "Luckily, I found another way up."

He gestured to the semicircular platform of stone that he had created against the base of the tower. It was large enough for the Toa to stand on it and have room to spare.

“What is it, some sort of abstract carving?” Ehrye asked.

Ahkmou was not sure if that was a serious question, so he was not sure if he should be insulted by the insinuation that he would create such an uninspired art piece.

“It’s an elevator,” he corrected. He stepped up onto the platform and gestured for the others to follow suit. “All aboard.”

Orkahm, Nurhii, and Tehutti stepped up after him readily. The latter already knew the plan, and Tehutti looked like he was taking Ahkmou at his word. The rest followed with a lot more confusion.

The moment that Vakama had been hauled up the step by Nurhii, Ahkmou raised his hammer towards the Turaga’s apartments high above them. His power caused the stone to rise, sliding along the tower’s wall faster and faster. Though he was straining under the effort of keeping the platform aloft, he took a moment to take pleasure in the surprise on his siblings’ faces.

“Impressive, Toa Ahkmou,” Lhikan complimented. Ahkmou grinned, but he kept his eyes towards the dim lights of the apartments.

They had risen about halfway up the tower when a different glow lit up the night sky. A shimmering orange haze appeared over the lower Colosseum. It created a dome of faint light that encapsulated the entirety of the stands and the arena. Ahkmou brought the platform to a halt so he and the others could get a proper look at it.

“What in Karzani?” Orkahm exclaimed.

“Look!” Ehrye called out, pointing towards the dome.

A rahi bat flitted through the orange light. The instant that it passed through, the bat became a blur. It streaked through the light, and in less that a second, it emerged from the light on the far side of the Colosseum.

“It was sped up!” Vakama cried.

“The Mask of Time,” Nurhii confirmed grimly. He looked up at the tower. “The imposter must be using it now.”

“Such power cannot be easily controlled,” Lhikan said. “He may be vulnerable now.”

Ahkmou raised his hammer again and sent the platform hurtling upwards again, even faster than before. His siblings stumbled at the sudden acceleration, but they quickly steadied themselves.

“Everyone get ready,” Ahkmou told them. “We’ll be at the top soon. And when we get there, we’ll be bringing Dume back down the fast way!"

Chapter Text

Ahkmou's platform came to a stop just below the expansive window of the Turaga's apartment. The light that they had seen from the arena was plainly visible, as was its source. The diminutive form of Turaga Dume sat in a meditative pose in the centre of the apartments, orange light shining from the strange mask affixed to his face.

Orkahm bashed his shields against the glass, shattering a chunk of the pane large enough for the team to walk through. He let his siblings step into the apartment first so he could make sure that Lhihan and Vakama were safe. The Matoran was huddled in the a stone alcove that Ahkmou had carved into the platform. Turaga Lhikan stood between him and the entrance, ready to intercept anything that might get past Orkahm and his siblings.

The Toa's entrance had not gone unnoticed. Krekka emerged from the shadows at the edge of the rooms. The brute's armour was battered and dented, but he looked alarmingly spry for someone who had survived a cave-in. He stepped in the Toa's path, his hulking form almost eclipsing the glow that was cast by Dume.

No sign of his partner, Orkahm noted. His eyes flickered around the Turaga's quarters, taking in the clutter created by statues of Toa, assorted technology, and the massive sundial that dominated the chamber. Though, just because I can't see him doesn't mean that Nidhki isn't here.

However, there was a good reason to think that he really was absent. The way that Nidhki had been shaking down Vakama form the Mask of Time indicated that he and Dume may not be as united as they had all assumed.

The glow around Dume subsided, letting Orkahm finally get a clear look at the Mask of Time. Vakama had crafted it unlike any other Kanohi Orkahm had seen; a simple guard across the bottom of the face with a single fringe between the eyes. It was certainly distinct, but Orkahm could not help but be squicked out with the amount of face that it showed.

Dume's imposter looked up at the Toa with the same concern one would show to a charging taku.

"I am impressed," he said. "You arrived here far quicker than I anticipated. Congratulations."

It was not the reception that any of the Toa were expecting. Unfortunately, Ehrye was the first to respond.

"Thank you?"

"Spirit's sake, Ehrye, don't thank him!" Nurhii hissed.

"Your bodyguard isn't going to stop the six of us," Orkahm said over his brothers' bickering. "This is over. Hand over the mask now!"

Dume laughed. "So bold! But no, I will not be relinquishing the Kanohi Vahi. For without it, the Destiny of Metru Nui will take a lifetime to realize."

Orkahm was caught off guard by an explosion of sound to his left. A crashing current of water was arching from Vhisola's Hydro Swords around Krekka to strike the false Turaga. The attack was so sudden, so vicious, that Orkahm was certain that Dume would be crushed.

But the instant that the water should have struck him, Dume's body crouched just under the rushing current with an agility that no Turaga should possess. In the same instant, Dume raised his hand and electricity arched between it and the water. Before Vhisola could react, the electricity conducted up her current, through her swords, and across her body.

Vhisola screamed and fell to her knees. Her current dissipated almost immediately, which saved her from further shocks. All of her brothers raised their weapons and the room quaked as they each called upon their own elemental energies. Krekka squared up and bellowed a challenge at them, the launcher on his shoulder glowing with a charging energy bolt.

But before any of their power could be brought to bear, the very gravity of the room changed. Orkahm felt himself grow impossibly heavy in a matter of seconds. His shields slipped from his grip, and he fell to his hands and knees. He saw his siblings, and even Krekka, all fall under their own weight.

"Now now," Dume chided. "You came all this way to meddle in affairs beyond your understanding, surely you want answers. Do you truly wish to die ignorant? How disappointing."

The imposter was still standing, though something about him had subtly changed. It took him a moment to notice, but Orkahm could see that the bits of flesh visible through his armour had taken on a dark metallic sheen. The Turaga's body, he realized with a start, had become entirely mechanical.

Or maybe it always had been, Orkahm thought.

"What are you?" he managed to growl.

The imposter laughed again. Darkness leaked from gaps in his armour like an inky mist. The eyes behind the Mask of Time were now a deep crimson; the same shade as the light that emanated from the Matoran Spheres. His form morphed, armour plates on his torso twisting and shifting to reveal a pitch black Kanohi stored within. A Kanohi that every citizen in Metru Nui knew and feared.

His laughter deepened until it boomed like thunder echoing through the Dume's apartments. Though he still had the Turaga's stature, he loomed over the fallen Toa with his choking cloak of shadows.

"Has Metru Nui forgotten the mask of its guardian? What am I, Toa?" he boomed.

Orkahm could not help but gasp the answer. "Makuta."

"You were sworn to protect the Matoran," he heard Ehrye shout from his right.

"And I shall," the Makuta of Metru Nui declared. "When they awake, I shall care for them with far more attention than Mata Nui ever did."

"The Matoran will never turn on the Great Spirit to serve a liar and a traitor!" Lhikan's voice quaked with barely restrained fury. He must have approached just close enough to avoid being caught in the Makuta's gravity attack.

"Turaga," the Makuta acknowledged. "You speak true; after centuries of service, it would be impossible to sway the Matoran from Mata Nui's light. But if they were to forget those centuries, then they would be willing to turn to the shadows and serve a new Great Spirit."

Orkahm felt a terrible weight in his gut that had nothing to do with the gravity.

"The Spheres," he said. "They erase memories?"

"Very good," crooned the Makuta.

"And the Mask of Time...?" Ahkmou questioned.

"Hastens a process that would take years without it," the Makuta answered. "And will hasten the culmination of our Destinies."

"Our Destiny belongs with Mata Nui!" Nurhii shouted.

"Perhaps it once did, but it was by my will that you became Toa, not Mata Nui's. I have rewritten your Destinies."

The Makuta's words hit Orkahm like a blow to the back of the head. What he had said was so nonsensical, that Orkahm could not think of a rebuttal. It would have been more comprehensible if the Makuta had claimed that the sky was yellow and that he had built all of Metru Nui with a stick. Destiny was not something that could be changed; it merely was.

"You're insane," Vhisola said, clearly on the same page as Orkahm.

The Makuta laughed again, which did little to refute Vhisola's accusation.

"Many centuries ago, there was a prophecy that was kept secret from even the most senior Seers of your Knowledge Towers," he said. "One that named six Matoran who would take on the mantle of Toa if Metru Nui was conquered by one who opposed Mata Nui. These six names were changed, so that the Matoran could not be targeted by any who uncovered the prophecy."

The Makuta's face did not change and his voice was steady, but there was a gleam in his eyes that spoke to something dark and manic barely being kept in check.

"They attempted to deceive me, but I saw through their lies! I know the original six Matoran that Mata Nui wished to defend his rule, and I ensured that you were made Toa in their stead. I have circumvented the Great Spirit's will, and soon I will claim his place as the Universe's master!"

Ringing silece followed this declaration. It was soon broken by Lhikan's footsteps as the Turaga hobbled closer to the incapacitated Toa.

"This is foolishness, Makuta. I was not guided by the words of a prophecy that I had no knowledge of. I chose these six because I judged them worthy."

Orkahm was able to turn his head just enough to see Lhikan out of the corner of his eye. The Turaga's expression was a twisted combination of anger and, surprisingly, pity.

"You have gone mad, great Makuta," he said. "You speak of the impossible. Please, end this peacefully, and we can notify your brotherhood so that they can have you repaired."

That seemed to strike a nerve, or the closest thing that a Makuta had to nerves. Regardless, there was a hint of anger in the Makuta's voice when he responded.

"I AM the Brotherhood. And your judgment was not your own, Lhikan. Has our time together not demonstrated that I can make you believe whatever suits me?"

Lhikan froze and Orkahm felt as though his heartlight was dimming. Surely, the Turaga was not falling for this insanity? This had to be a trick to undermine their confidence.

The force of gravity pulling at Orkahm suddenly lessened. He immediately sprang to his feet, as did his siblings. Krekka rose as well, ready to fight and seemingly unbothered by being caught up in his master's attack.

"You six would have never been accepted as Toa!" the Makuta boomed. "Your works were unappreciated. Your efforts were ignored. You were ostracized for your very nature. Deep down, you all know that becoming Toa would not change this! These Matoran would only have you as heroes if they had no memory of who you used to be!

"So I give you a choice, my Toa. On this day, I shall strike down Great Spirit! Those among you who wish to take their place as Metru Nui's heroes in the new age, stay and observe my triumph. All others shall perish."

Nurhii snarled; "You are delusional if you think that we will stand aside and let you continue your attack on Mata Nui!"

"Mata Nui would have you die in a battle which he does not care enough about to intervene," the Makuta retorted. "I merely ask that you wait and let me set a new Destiny for you. For all of the Universe."

The Makuta raised his hand and a piercing shriek tore into Orkahm's ears. While he and his siblings were reeling from the sonic assault, a shape swooped down from the shadowy ceiling. Orkahm caught a glimpse of enormous, feathered wings and claws before the creature snatched up the Makuta and carried him off. Orkahm raised his hand to try and down them both with a burst of air, but a curtain of shadow fell between them before he could find his target.

The sound disappeared, leaving a phantom ringing behind. The shadows faded away gradually, and once they did there was no trace of the Makuta but the shattered remains of the wide window that once separated the Turaga's apartment from the empty air.

Before Orkahm could think about pursuing, Krekka's bellow reminded him of the threat that he had turned his back on. He reached down to retrieve his Aero Shields, but it was too late. The enormous Dark Hunter charged at the Toa, his energy launcher firing wildly. One of his titanic fists struck Orkahm, and the Toa of Air was sent soaring.

The force of Krekka's strike Orkahm arced through the air, over Ahkmou's makeshift elevator, and straight out of the broken window. Orkahm found himself in free fall, tumbling uncontrollably towards the ground far far below.

Don't panic! Don't panic! he told himself, panicking. No Aero Gliders. Can't fly. Maybe I can float if I buoy myself with an air jet! Just need to stop spinning and-

Orkahm yelped when he felt a pair of strong claws wrap latch onto his torso, and his fall turned into a smooth glide. Looking over his should at his saviour, he saw that he was in the clutches of an enormous bird.

Before Orkahm could decide if he should panic or thank it, the rahi banked sharply towards the tower. Energy flashed from its beak and shattered a window several stories below the Turaga's apartment. The bird hurtled towards the opening at breakneck speed.

Just as it carried him over the threshold, Orkahm fired an air burst at the rahi. Its wings caught the wind, abruptly slowing them, and the force from the wind tore Orkahm out of the creature's claws. He hit the ground hard, and though his armour absorbed the worst of the blow, he felt the breath knocked out of his lungs.

As he lay there heaving, the bird reorientated itself with frantic wingbeats. The creature shifted and folded into itself until it was roughly Orkahm's size. Its legs lost its claws and became plantigrade. The wings shrank down into arms. The silver feathers moulted into ebony armour, and the beak folded into the shape of a Kanohi Huna.

Tehutti landed on the ground smoothly and rushed toward Orkahm, concern apparent from behind his mask.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

He ran his hand over Orkahm's chest plate, which had been dented by Krekka's fist. Orkahm watched him fuss over the injury in stunned silence until he was able to finally find his tongue.

"I knew it!" he shouted. "Karzahni spit, I knew it!"

Tehutti jumped back from him. Orkahm took advantage of his surprise to scramble backwards and put some space between him and the thing pretending to be his brother.

"Stay back!" he warned. Again, he wished that he had his Toa tools on hand. 'Tehutti' was not acting aggressive, but who knew how suddenly that could change.

"Orkahm," he said like he was trying to sooth a panicked rahi. "Please stay calm."

"Who are you?" Orkahm said. "Another Makuta? One of his servants?"

"I am your friend," the fake Tehutti said, as though that answered anything.

"No, you're the person who tricked me and my team into thinking that you were Tehutti. Where is he? What did you do to him?"

The shapeshifter flinched.

"He's... safe."

Orkahm gritted his teeth and got to his feet so he could look the shapeshifter in the eye. He let some of his elemental power churn the air around them, hoping that the display might distract the shapeshifter from the fact that he was unarmed.

"What. Did. You. Do."

The shapeshifter shrank back. Which was good. It was good that he was afraid rather than aggressive, because Orkahm was not sure if he would be able to defeat him if he attacked. Orkahm should not have felt bad about it at all.

"Cocooned!" the shapeshifter blurted out. "Stasis! Tehutti is safe!"

"Where is he?" Orkahm shouted. He could not afford to let up. "Why did you kidnap him? Why were you tricking us?"

The shapeshifter sputtered and fumbled for words, and his whole body started shuttering. Orkahm flinched and stepped away, but it was not the beginning of an attack like he had thought. Instead, the shapeshifter transformed back into the giant bird rahi. With a single beat of its wings, the shifter launched itself into the air and away from him.

Orkahm reached out with his power to ground the bird, but, once again, he was too slow and his power was too unfocused without his Toa tools. The shapeshifter launched itself out of the window and dived out of his sight. Orkahm rushed after it, but by the time that he had gotten close enough to look down out of the window, there was no trace of the shapeshifter.

"Karzani spit," he swore. He felt so angry, and he could not tell if it was directed at the shapeshifter or at himself for scaring him off before he could offer up more answers. A real Toa of Air would have fast-talked him into speaking instead of resorting to clumsy threats.

A real Toa. There was a weird weight in Orkahm's chest as the Makuta's words came rushing back to him. All that talk about changing Destiny had to be either a bluff or delusion. Toa served none but Mata Nui; thinking that anyone could create unworthy Toa is blasphemy.

But we know of Toa who betrayed Mata Nui's will. Nidhki. Tuyet. They could not have been part of Mata Nui's plan, his treacherous mind insisted.

He shook his head. He was overwhelmed by the reveal of both Dume and Tehutti's identities and he was not thinking clearly. This was just a blatant attempt by the Makuta to prey on their insecurities. It had to be.

Orkahm stared up through the window at the bursts of light flaring from the Turaga's appartment high above him. The sides of the Colosseum were smooth, solid protodermis; no convenient holds for someone to climb with.

He let out a frustrated sigh. After all the trouble that they went to avoid them, it looked like he would have to take the stairs.

Very few creatures could defeat an entire team of Toa in a straight fight. Krekka was not an exception, but Ehrye could not help being impressed by his attempt. Even though that attempt involved him getting repeatedly slammed into a wall.

Ehrye dangled from Krekka's back, barely holding on by the axes that he had managed to embed into the brute's shoulders. The axes leaked elemental energy into Krekka's chest and head, covering them with sheets of ice. Even half blind and rapidly suffocating, Krekka was still trying to dislodge Ehrye by slamming his back against the apartment walls.

"Someone pin his-" SLAM. "-feet please," Ehrye groaned.

"I'm trying!" Ahkmou shouted back. The Toa of Stone rushed the rampaging Dark Hunter from the side and brought his hammer down on his knee. The blow would had incapacitated any other creature, but it merely caused Krekka to stumble and fall to his knees.

"A Weaken disk would be really helpful right now," Ahkmou called to Nurhii.

His brother already had another stolen Vahki disk locked in his claws. He brought his arm back, and then flung it at Krekka with the speed and precision of a professional Akilini player. Nurhii's disk struck him in the leg. The force of the blow did not seem to bother Krekka, but the ice that rapidly spread from point of impact stopped him from rising.

"I've hit him with two Weaken Kanoka so far," Nurhii replied.

"Really?" Ehrye wheezed. "Doesn't feel like it."

Krekka swung an arm wildly, knocking Ahkmou to the side. He then began clawing at the ice coating his face.

"No you don't," Ehrye muttered. He forced more energy into his Toa tools to mend the cracks that Krekka's fingers made before the brute could get enough of a grip to tear away the ice completely.

Krekka was forced to pull his hands away from the ice when Vhisola leapt in front of him and started slashing her swords against his chest armour. The hunter brought his arms down in time to deflect the worst of Vhisola's attacks. He swat at the Toa of Water, but Krekka's attacks were getting slugish. Vhisola was able to dart away until she was just outside the range of his long arms.

Instead of trying to crack the ice again, Krekka reached back to grab at Ehrye . Thankfully, the Toa was just out of the musclebound hunter's reach. Ehrye imagined that he would have been screaming in frustration, if the ice had not muffled him. The only sign of his anger was the shower of sparks flying from his shoulder cannon. The thing had been melted to slag by Nurhii, but Krekka was clearly still trying to activate it out of instinct.

"Alright, enough of this!"

Ehrye turned his head to Ahkmou. His brother was back on his feet and the air around him hummed with elemental power. Dust and debris whirled around him like a sandstorm, coalescing at a point above his hammer and fusing into a boulder that was growing larger and larger.

Vhisola realized what was about to happen and dived out of the way, but Ehrye stayed stubbornly attacked to the Dark Hunter's back. He was still grasping wildly, and Ehrye was afraid that if he released his hold on his axes Krekka would finally catch him.

"Get off him, Ehrye, or I'll flatten you both!" Ahkmou shouted.

"Wait! Wait!" Ehrye yelled. "Just give him another minute, he'll-"

Krekka shuttered and his limbs went slack. He swayed ponderously for a moment, and then dropped like a rock. Ehrye leapt off of his back just before he crashed into the floor.

"... pass out!" Ehrye finished. He flashed Ahkmou a satisfied smile, but the Toa of Stone was still poised to launch his boulder at the unconscious Dark Hunter.

"He could be faking it."

"Does he seem smart enough to fake it?" Vhisola pointed out. She sighed and sheathed her weapons. After a moment's hesitation, Ahkmou did the same, letting the boulder fall with a dull thump. Vhisola gave Ehrye a tired smile. "Good job."

Ehrye could not help grinning like an idiot at the complement. Thankfully, Vhisola didn't comment on it; she was already walking quickly towards the shattered window. Ehrye got work as well. He grabbed hold of his axe handles and wrenched them free from Krekka's shoulders. The hunter did not even flinch. Satisfied that he was indeed not smart enough to fake it, Ehrye pointed an axe at him and willed the layers of ice around his head to melt away. Ahkmou interrupted him by grabbing him forcefully by the shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Making sure he can breath?"

"Why? So he can live to attack us later? Just leave it. The universe won't miss some Dark Hunter thug."

Ehrye stared at him, mouth agape. He looked to the others, but his brother was collecting his Kanoka, and his sister and the Turaga were busy checking on Vakama. None had heard what Ahkmou had said.

"We can't do that," he hissed. "There is a code: we don't kill if we can help it. We are Toa, brother."

"Are we really Toa?"

Ehrye would have been less shocked if Ahkmou had slapped him.

"You're not saying that you believe what the Makuta said..." Ehrye whispered.

"Why shouldn't I?" Ahkmou asked defiantly. "Has anything that we've been through made you feel like we were chosen by the Great Spirit? Has anything gone right for us? We thought he were destined to destroy the Morbuzahk, but we've only ever fought it to a draw. We suffered and struggled for the sake of the Matoran, and they turned on us without a second thought. And Nurhii's visions were either the result of breathing in too much soot, or portents from the Great Spirit that we failed to fulfill."

"That's- not-" Ehrye stumbled over his words. "That doesn't mean-"

"And half of our team clearly isn't cut out to be Toa!" Ahkmou griped.

Ehrye paused, nervousness suddenly replaced by indignation. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Ahkmou rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"You know what I mean, Ehrye. Vhisola has the charm of a Nui-Jaga and she breaks down crying over random things, Tehutti is as thick as mud and he's getting weirder by the day, and our wannabe leader throws a fit whenever anyone questions his cross-wired decisions."

Ehrye scowled at him. It was not as though he disagreed with everything that Ahkmou had said, but all of his complaints were clearly coming from a place of spite.

"What about us?" he challenged. "We're the ones who screwed everything up by bringing the Great Disks to the Dark Hunters. Why are we 'cut out to be Toa' but they aren't?"

Ahkmou glared back at him with fury in his eyes. Ehrye did his best not to flinch and meet his gaze. He leaned in close and, for a moment, Ehrye was sure he was going to strike him.

"That was not our fault," he hissed. He stared daggers at Ehrye, no doubt expecting his brother to back down. Ehrye might have too, if they had not been interrupted.

"Ahkmou! Ehrye! Get over here!" Nurhii called from the shattered window.

Ahkmou held Ehrye's gaze for a moment before turning away and stalking off to Nurhii. Ehrye let out a breath that he did not realize he was holding. He raised an axe and dispelled the rest of the ice before he followed.

Nurhii stood with Vhisola, Lhikan, and Vakama. They were all searching for something in the night sky. Ehrye felt a jolt of guilt; he had completely forgotten about Orkahm and Tehutti. He had been so sure that Orkahm would be able to fly back with his elemental powers that it had completely slipped his mind that his brothers had not returned.

"There's no sign of either of them," Nurhii said.

"I assume Tehutti had a plan. He jumped out of the Colosseum's highest tower, he must have had a plan," Vhisola said.

"But he's a Toa of Earth," Nurhii said. "What could Tehutti possibly do to stop their fall that a Toa of Air couldn't?"

"He's not a Toa of Earth," their wayward brother's voice called from behind them. Ehrye turned to see him emerging from the stairway on the opposite side of the apartments. Relief flooded through him; aside from some armour damage, his brother seemed fine.

"What are you talking about?" Nurhii asked. He peered over Orkahm's shoulder, expecting to see Tehutti trailing behind him.

Orkahm crossed the room to meet them, pausing to pick up his Aero Shields from where he had dropped them.

"You know what I'm talking about," he accused. "I told you on the airship, but you didn't believe me; the person travelling with us isn't Tehutti, it hasn't been Tehutti since after the fight with the king root."

Nurhii sighed. "And I told you not to accuse him until you had proof-"

"He turned into a bird and flew away. Is that enough proof for you?" Orkahm snapped.

Ehrye, overwhelmed by this new information, interrupted his brothers; "Hold on! Tehutti is a bird?"

"No, he's not a bird. Some kind of shapeshifter was impersonating Tehutti, and then it turned into a bird," Orkahm said as though that was the most normal thing in the world.

"And you two were going to tell us this when?" Ahkmou asked.

"We didn't know for certain," Nurhii protested.

"You didn't trust the rest of us enough to tell us that we were travelling with a spy," Vhisola accused.

"For Mata Nui's sake, things have been busy! I'm sorry that I don't call a team meeting whenever Orkahm has a thought!"

The sudden darkness flooded over the Toa. Ehrye tensed, expecting an attack to follow, but he realized that this was not the same type of darkness that the Makuta summoned. That had been an inky black void impossible to see through. Once Ehrye's eyes adjusted, he could see that the orange glow that had engulfed the arena had abruptly disappeared, leaving only the natural light of the moons.

"The Mask of Time," Vakama whispered. "The Makuta's work is finished!"

"There!" Orkahm shouted, pointing up into the sky. Ehrye could see a figure floating above the arena's centre, a small blot of shadow against the starry night sky. Ehrye thought that he could make out the shape of outstretched wings and a dull orange speck that could have been the Kanohi Vahi.

The world began to shake. Ehrye felt the Colosseum tower woble. He reached out and grabbed Vakama so that the Matoran would not be thrown from the platform. Ehrye could see lightning arcing across the city, jumping from the city's power grid to the Makuta.

The Makuta's distant shape glowed with the power he had absorbed. A vortex of whirling shadow energy erupted out of him and engulfed both the Makuta and his rahi bird. Flashes of crimson red light could be seen from within the darkness. Ehrye swore that it looked like the Makuta's eyes were staring right at the Toa.

A tendril of shadow energy emerged from the vortex and arced towards the tower with frightening speed. Pitch black, razor-sharp claws emerged from the tendril as it careened closer and closer to the Toa.

"Get down!" Ehrye cried. He leapt to the side with Vakama just as the shadow claw barrelled past. The claw wrapped around Krekka's unconscious body and lifted the brute into the air. It retracted with him in its claw just as quickly as it had attacked. Krekka was dragged out the window through the night sky and disappeared into the vortex.

The Makuta's voice echoed from the shadowy maelstrom, loud enough that it could be heard from every corner of Metru Nui.

"TONIGHT EVEN THE GREAT SPIRIT SHALL SLEEP!"

The moons above snapped shut like a pair of enormous eyes, and the stars around them flickered and faded. One last quake stuck the city, larger than any in the city's history and more devastating than all of the wars, raids, and disasters that it had weathered. Buildings crumbled, streets shattered, and the Colosseum screeched and bent.

It lasted only a moment. It lasted a lifetime. Once the noise and the shaking died down, Ehrye let himself stand up from the protective crouch over Vakama. The tower was still standing, but it was one of the few buildings that was. The sky was so much darker; there was no more moonlight and the stars were barely bright enough to be seen through the roiling storm clouds that had gathered. The only sound was the wind whipping around Ehrye and his siblings.

"...Scrap."

Chapter Text

There was something missing. Ahkmou could not place exactly what it was. It was like a charge in the atmosphere had faded away. Deep down, he knew that a fundamental part of reality was gone, and the universe felt a little more empty than it had been a moment ago.

He did it. He really struck down the Great Spirit.

Lhikan, Vakama, and his siblings could obviously feel it too. They stared out into the crumbling darkness that was Metru Nui, shocked and stricken. No one spoke, no one moved. What is someone supposed to do after seeing both their god and their home fall?

The vortex of shadow had vanished, and Ahkmou could see the Makuta's shape soaring through the air where it had once been. It dipped and glided down to the Colosseum's arena where Ahkmou lost sight of him in the shadow of the tower.

"We have to go after him," Nurhii said.

Ahkmou looked to his brother, surprised. "What are you talking about?"

"What do you mean, 'what are you talking about'? He's getting away!" Nurhii replied indignantly.

Ahkmou stared at him blankly. Their other siblings were waking from their shock now too, and they looked eager to follow Nurhii's lead.

"It's over," he said bluntly. "The Great Spirit is gone. The Makuta's plan succeeded."

"No, that can't have been it. What sort of endgame would it be to rule over a broken city? There must be more to the Makuta's plan, and whatever it is, we can still try to stop it!" Nurhii insisted.

"Why? What's the point?" Ahkmou asked.

The others stared at him like he had grown a second head. Nurhii practically recoiled from him. What was their problem? Did they not understand how the situation had changed? How everything had changed?

"We are Toa; our job is to protect the Matoran, right?" He asked rhetorically.

He looked to the Turaga for approval. Lhikan nodded, though with less enthusiasm than Ahkmou had hoped for. Still, he continued.

"The Makuta's grievance was not with them; it was with the Great Spirit. He told us that his goal is to revive them after his plan succeeded. He wants to watch over them. If we fight him, we would be fighting against the only way we know of freeing the Matoran. And if we die fighting him, then the Matoran lose their heroes. They won't even remember that we ever existed!"

"Are you saying that we should side with that maniac?" Vhisola demanded.

"I'm saying that we should side with the Matoran," Ahkmou shot back. "They will need protectors when they wake up. If you're so concerned about the Makuta's mental state, then it should be important to you for us to be there safeguarding them when he takes charge."

"It sounds like you don't believe that we can beat him," Nurhii accused.

"I'm sorry, were you not paying attention when he knocked out Mata Nui?"

"That must have been done through some kind of trickery, it could not have been purely through his own power," Lhikan interjected. "Not even a Makuta possesses strength on such a scale."

"But he's still a Makuta!" Ahkmou looked at all of them incredulously. He had assumed that most, if not all of them, had been thinking the same way as he had, but apparently he was the lone sane person in this group.

Ahkmou crossed his arms and glared defiantly at his siblings. Clearly they needed a wake-up call.

"If any of you go after him, I'm not going to help you. I'm not dying in a pointless fight."

His words did not have the sobering effect that he had intended. His siblings looked even angrier, their denial too strong to let them see the wisdom in what he was saying.

"Coward!" Vhisola hissed.

"You can't be serious. You are really giving in now, after everything we've been through?" Orkahm asked.

"Toa Ahkmou," Lhikan said sternly. "The Makuta has shirked his Duty, and if you let him brainwash the Matoran then you will have abandoned your own. The work that the Matoran of Metru Nui do effects the entire Universe, it is far too dangerous to let him take control.

"The Makuta was already in control of Metru Nui," Ahkmou insisted. "The world won't fall apart if he takes a more direct hand in ruling it."

Vhisola, Orkahm and Nurhii all went to berate him but one voice, Ehrye of all people, shouted over them.

"We are wasting time!"

The others turned to look at him but Ehrye's eyes did not leave Ahkmou's. He did not look as furious as any of their siblings or Lhikan, but his gaze carried a bitter cold. Ahkmou would have preferred anger over the disdain that radiated off of his brother.

"There's no point in trying to convince him. If the options are fight for Matoran who may never be able to thank us or gain their adoration for free, he will always pick the latter." Ehrye said. "Prestige is the point of the job, right?"

Ahkmou reached for anything; a lie, a protestation, a counter-acusation. But for once, words failed him.

Ehrye turned away from him and looked to the others. "We need to form a Toa Kaita. We can't create both of them, but even one will give us an edge over the Makuta."

Nurhii nodded. "You three should form Hikima. If you attack the Makuta directly, I can get Lhikan and Vakama to a safe position. Afterwards, I can provide whatever support I can."

"You're bringing the Turaga and Matoran?" Ahkmou scoffed. "Can you not see how irrational you are all being?"

No one bothered to respond. They ignored him. He was trying to help, and they ignored him like he was a squawking taku. Even Lhikan, someone who should be wise enough to listen to reason, was going along with this foolish plan. His anger blinded him so much that he nearly missed his siblings enacting their idiotic plan.

Orkahm, Ehrye, and Vhisola stood in a circle, their hands linked and their eyes closed. There were a few silent moments, and then a burst of blinding light. His siblings were indistinct shadows amid the glow. Ahkmou could see their silhouettes shift and fold into each other. Their flesh and machinery was pulled apart and resembled over and over again until the three figures were one. When the light faded, Toa Kaita Hikima towered over all of them.

The titan looked down at Ahkmou. Their gaze felt heavy and ancient, like it somehow carried more than the combined years of the Kaita's three lives. Ahkmou hated that he could not stop himself from shrinking back.

"Make no mistake, little brother, your inaction is action," Hikima rumbled. Their voice was a harmony of his siblings' and, at the same time, something completely new. "There are no bystanders in times like this; by refraining from fighting you have chosen your side in this battle. But know that it is not a choice that cannot be undone. Whenever you join our fight, you will be welcome."

Ahkmou's resolve wavered only for a moment, then he remembered who he was really talking to. This was not some powerful being imparting ancient wisdom, it was Orkahm, Vhisola, and Ehrye lecturing him in unison. Hikima looked impressive, but even the most well crafted sculpture in the world would crumble if it was made of subpar materials.

"If you go fight the Makuta, it won't matter if you do it as one idiot or three," he told them. "You are all going to die. I am the only one who will be left to protect the Matoran."

Hikima turned from him and extended an arm to Lhikan and Vakama. The two of them clambered onto it and scaled the Toa Kaita until they clung to their back. Hikima gestured to Nurhii and the Toa of Fire was lifted in the air with Orkahm's mask power.

"Justify it however you would like, little brother. If we do fail, then I hope that the Makuta's praises are sufficient comfort for you."

They leapt through the window and soared down to the Makuta's position, the other in tow. Ahkmou walked to the ledge to watch them go. Already he could feel his indignation and anger draining away without anyone for him to push back against. Guilt rushed to replace it, but he squashed it down. He would not let his siblings pressure him into joining their suicide mission. If they were so insistent on throwing their lives away, then all he could do for them was preserve their legacy.

"I will tell the Matoran that you died heroically. You'll be more beloved in death than you were alive," he said to their retreating forms.

If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was sell Matoran some fake Toa.

Hikima descended quickly but carefully, mindful of the little ones holding tight to their back and their brother held aloft by their mask power. They could sense their apprehension in the way Lhikan held himself and Vakama tightly to their armour, and from the string of curses coming from Nurhii barely audible over the rushing wind. However, there was only so much they could do to make a flight over a thousand foot drop comfortable. They kept a steady coarse down towards the arena until they finally spotted the Makuta. Or, at least, what they assumed to be the Makuta.

The creature perched on top of the arena's walls wore the Makuta's mask, but was otherwise unrecognizable. He had grown far larger than the faux Turaga form he had worn before, now taller than a Toa and twice as broad. A pair of wings sprouted from his back, and his feet ended with large, avian claws. With the glow of the Vahi clutched in his hands, it was clear where the Makuta had gotten the parts from for this new form.

Hikima moved Nurhii closer to them so they could speak. "The Makuta absorbed Krekka and his pet."

Nurhii flailed nervously from being telekinetically manhandled, but he quickly regained his dignity. He followed Hikima's gaze to the shadowy titan below and his expression darkened.

"Shame. I hoped you could just step on him and end this. But at least we are only facing one enemy now. Do you think that you can still take him?"

"Krekka's physical strength is not a match for my own. Our chances remain the same."

"Okay, good."

"Not good, little brother. Our chances remain dire."

"Ah. Right..."

Nurhii scanned the Colosseum arena. He pointed towards a point on top of the wall a good distance away from the Makuta.

"Set us down away from the stands, we don't want any of the Matoran caught up in what's about to happen. While you face the Makuta head-on, I'll melt a shelter into the protodermis for Lhikan and Vakama, and then I will join you."

"Understood."

Hikima focused on their kanohi and shifted their brother over their back so he could grab hold of their smaller allies. Once they felt their weight disappear, they moved Nurhii down to the arena with Lhikan and Vakama hanging from his arms.

Satisfied that they would make the landing safely, Hikima folded in their wings and dove at full speed towards the shadowy titan. The Makuta was distracted by the Kanohi Vahi in his hands; maybe its use had taken a toll on him, or perhaps he was merely marveling at the power of the mask. Regardless, he did not notice Hikima's approach until they were upon him.

Hikima used the opportunity to summon a torrent of water that enveloped the Makuta. His attention snapped to Hikima, though he seemed less shocked by the sudden lack of air in his lungs than Hikima had hoped. Before he could retaliate, Hikima fired off a wave of cold that froze the water solid and immobilized the Makuta.

If his kind's reputation is at all deserved, then that will hold him for but a moment, they thought. I must secure the Vahi quickly!

They landed in front of the ice and concentrated on the element. They urged the ice to shift and push the frozen Mask of Time out of the Makuta's grip. The ice obeyed, but just when the mask was about to break contact with the tips of the Makuta's claws, both it and the rest of the Makuta became hazy and insubstantial. He floated backwards through the ice as though it was not there, and once he was free he became solid again.

"Was that your best?" he mocked.

Hikima shattered the ice between them and leapt at the Makuta. Chunks of ice, whipping currents, and bursts of air tore the Colosseum apart as Hikima pushed the Makuta further and further back. But even though they were keeping him too pressed to retaliate, neither their blade or their powers came close to touching the Makuta. He dodged and darted like a serpent. The agility was beyond anything Krekka's hulking body should have been capable of, but no matter how they attacked, he moved around Hikima's blows like he was expecting them.

"Stop," Hikima intoned, calling on the Mask of Mind Control. A part of them recoiled at having to use the power, but the rest was firm that there was too much at stake to keep one of their tools in reserve.

The Makuta's will was strong; an overwhelming force that broke the mask's hold over him almost immediately. However, the fraction of a second that he obeyed the mask slowed him just enough for Hikima to hit him. Their sword sliced across his torso, leaving a clean cut in what was once Krekka's chestplate. The Makuta stumbled back, snarling furiously as toxic green vapor leaked from the wound.

"Stop," Hikima commanded again. The Makuta recovered even quicker than before, but this time he did not try to dodge. Instead, a faint flow of energy flickered across his armour milliseconds before the tip of Hikima's blade struck him in the chest.

Though it should have pierced right through his shell, the weapon did not so much as scratch the Makuta. Still, whatever shielding he had done did not absorb all of the blow's momentum, and the Makuta was launched backwards. He reeled, wings flapping frantically to keep him from being pushed over the edge of the arena wall. Seeing him off balance, Hikima halted their assault and concentrated on their elemental powers. If they could produce a powerful enough bast, they could end the fight before the Makuta could retaliate.

Unfortunately, the Makuta's vulnerability was a ruse. The moment they had stopped harrying him, he regained his footing and called upon his vast array of powers. Hikima felt a wave of discordant energy wash over them. Anger blossomed in their mind, though it was not directed at the Makuta or anything else around them. It was directed inward. It was a rage that pitted the three distinct components of their mind against each other and threatened to tear apart their Unity. Hikima stumbled, clutching their head.

"A Toa Kaita is a formidable form. They eclipse even my species in a contest of pure power," the Makuta granted. "But we in the Brotherhood have so much more than just power at our disposal. And we have had centuries to devise ways to strip Toa of their most potent weapons."

No! Hikima leapt at the Makuta with all of their strength. They drew their broadsword back and used their mask's telekinesis to pin the Makuta in place. With the Makuta too busy focusing on the mental attack to use his invulnerability or dodging, their next strike could cleave his armour. If they could just maintained their form.

We must- I must control myself, they thought. They closed the distance in a single bound, their broadsword pulled back and aimed to split the Kraahkan in half.

We cannot... thought Vhisola.

...give in... thought Ehrye.

...to anger! thought Orkahm.

Vhisola collapsed next to her brothers, gasping for air. The mental attack that had split Hikima still echoed through her own mind, and she had to restrain herself from lashing out at Orkahm and Ehrye for their failure.

Thankfully, the Makuta's booming voice gave her a more appropriate target for her rage.

"Impressive! Most Toa never learn how to form a Kaita! It appears that I have a knack for selecting worthy Matoran!"

Vhisola pushed herself to her knees. She and her brothers had fallen just before Hikima reached the Makuta, and now he towered over them all. He looked like a nightmare that had clawed its way into reality with his wings stretched out to block the sky and darkness pouring off of his claws. The slash that Hikima had carved into his chest twisted and bent until only a faint scar was visible on the armour.

"You would have gone on to be legends. The first Toa of this new age! But you chose to throw my mercy back in my face, and so you story must end here!"

Shadow gathered around the Makuta and solidified into a giant claw that launched itself at Vhisola. She scrambled out of the way, but the claw was too close and too quick. For all the strength coursing through her, she would be consumed just like Krekka and the rahi. She would break the promise she made to Nokama.

But before that could happen, a disk sailed through the air and struck the Makuta dead on. In a blink, he and his shadow hand vanished.

Nurhii ran up to her and their brothers with another kanoka disk already in his claws.

"Get up!" he urged. "I don't know how far the disk sent him or how quickly he can get back, so you need to get up!"

Vhisola legs shook, but she planted them as steadily as she could and pushed herself back to her feet. She let out a shaky breath and steeled herself.

"Thanks." She nodded curtly at Nurhii. He returned the gesture, and for a moment Vhisola felt a solidarity between them that should have been there from the beginning.

Orkahm and Ehrye had gotten over the disorientation from the anger and the sudden separation. Their weapons were drawn and they scanned the horizon for any sign of the Makuta's return.

But it was not the Makuta who attacked. Instead, the branches of a much more familiar foe burst free from the streets and stretched up the length of the arena's walls.

"Insectssss! You have run out of placesssesss to hide!"

"It's the shrub!" Ehrye shouted. He raised his axes and sent waves of cold down the wall to meet the Morbuzahk.

It's living vines withered when sheets of ice formed across the protodermis, but only for a moment. New growths sprouted from the husks faster than the cold could kill them.

"Above us! It's him! Somehow he's empowering the Morbuzahk!" Orkahm yelled, pointing above them. Sure enough, Vhisola saw the Makuta flying towards them, hand outstretched to the Morbuzahk and emitting a muted green-brown aura. Whatever power he was using, it fuelled the Morbuzahk enough to overcome Ehrye's cold.

"Vhisola, Orkahm, get him to stop! Ehrye and I will hold off the Morbuzahk," Nurhii commanded.

Orkahm stepped up and created a downdraft that knocked the Makuta down from the air. He hit the protodermis with slam that shook the wall, but rose undamaged and his concentration on the plant power unbroken.

Vhisola did not bother with attacking physically. The Makuta had proved to be an implacable and unrepentant foe, and Vhisola had already resorted to using her Mask of Mind Control as a part of Hikima. So while Orkahm struck him with torrents of air, she closed her eyes and poured all of her focus into breaking the Makuta's mind.

"Stop!" She shouted.

It was like throwing herself at a solid wall. The Makuta's will was a fortress guarding his mind from her influence. No, this strength did not just come from his willpower; it also came from delusion. A complete certainty in his own supremacy that bordered on fanaticism. An unshakable belief that, no matter what happens, he is destined to win.

Even so, Vhisola surged against his mental defences again and again. And like the waves against the shore, Vhisola's commands gradually wore down the Makuta. She could feel the way his movements faltered through their mental connection. His attacks became slower and easier for Orkahm to avoid as Vhisola forced him to expend more energy on blocking her out.

I might not be able to break you, but I can keep you occupied.

Shockingly, she felt him respond to her thoughts. The Makuta's voice echoed through her mind.

Your will is strong, Toa. But I am beyond strength.

Vhisola scoffed. 'Beyond strength'. What does that even mean, you posturing maniac?

Without warning, the Makuta stopped resisting her command. Vhisola jumped at the opportunity and pushed forward with her mask power. The Makuta halted and the aura of power around his hands faded. Vhisola's heartlight surged with triumph.

Then a feeling like a thousand fireflyer bites swept over her entire body. Vhisola cried out and tried to shield herself, but when she opened her eyes she could not see anything attacking her. It was as though all of her nerves had decided to go haywire.

I have spent thousands of years creating rahi; all of them with the ability to inflict a unique variety of pain. I have invented more kinds of pain than any one being can know in a lifetime. I wonder how many you can experience before your mind breaks.

Vhisola's eyes widened. The Makuta must be attacking her mind through the mental link she had made through her mask. She deactivated the kanohi, but the pain remained.

You will not escape that easily, little Toa. I still have so much to show you.

Nurhii absorbed as much heat as he could from the Morbuzahk's vines, but the Makuta's power apparently provided enough fuel for the Morbuzahk to keep growing. Even with Ehrye by his side creating layer on layer of ice, the Morbuzahk continued slowly up the wall.

He could feel himself approaching the limit to the amount of heat his body could store. He was about to step back and release it as a flame blast when the Morbuzahk's advance halted. The vines withered and crumbled when Ehrye's ice touched them, and new growths did not sprout from them.

"Curssssse you!" The plant wailed.

Nurhii grinned. Vhisola and Orkahm had done it! Now it would be simple for them to ward off the Morbuzahk's advance. Ehrye might even be able to do it by himself, leaving Nurhii free to join his siblings take down the Makuta.

Vhisola's yells tore through him like a knife. He turned and saw her crumpled on the ground, shaking, her arms raised to ward off nonexistent blows. With each spasm she screamed like like the sound was being ripped from her throat.

Far from Vhisola, the Makuta was locked in combat with Orkahm. His brother was putting up a valiant fight, but the most he could do was keep the Makuta occupied by flitting around his strikes. The strikes that he managed to sneak past the Makuta's guard did not have enough strength behind them to do more than annoy the titan.

Nurhii noticed that the Makuta was only using his claws to attack Orkahm. If Nurhii's suspitions were correct, whatever was effecting Vhisola was something that the Makuta was actively concentrating on, much like when he was empowering the Morbuzahk. Which meant that if he got the Makuta's attention, he could save his sister.

He let Ehrye cover the Morbuzahk while he concentrated all of the heat that he had absorbed from its vines. His Kanoka Claws glowed white hot with the elemental power being focused into them. He kept gathering it until he could feel the armour on his hands begin to soften and warp.

"Orkahm! Move!" he shouted.

His brother shot high into the air without a second's hesitation. The Makuta's widened when he saw what Nurhii was about to do, but he was not as nimble as a Toa of Air. Before he even had a chance to flap his wings, Nurhii let loose a blast of concentrated flame that enveloped the Makuta completely.

Nurhii kept pushing waves of fire out of his claws until he completely exhausted what he had absorbed from the Morbuzahk. Spots danced in his vision by the time his fire faded. When it was cleared, Nurhii could see a that he had melted a trench into the ground as wide as he was tall. Heat still radiated off of the molten protodermis hotter than a mask forge, but the figure that stood in the middle of it all looked unbothered.

The Makuta loomed, a stark patch darkness in the white-hot glow of the trench. The tips of his wings and the edges of his armour had melted away, but other than that he was undamaged. Nurhii could make out a flicker of scarlet energy shining over his armour, evidently protecting him from the fire.

He checked his siblings. Vhisola was still on the ground, but it seemed like the Makuta had stopped his attack. Already, she was shakily pushing herself up, her eyes boring into the Makuta with a fury that would cow a doom viper. Ehrye was still dutifully chucking hailstones down the wall to ward off the Morbuzahk. Orkham landed on the wall again, so that he flanked the Makuta with Nurhii.

"Give up," he snarled at the Makuta. "It does not matter how many powers you have. You can't fight all of us at once."

"You are resourceful, Toa, but do not overestimate you abilities," the Makuta rumbled.

He raised his claw, and the energy around him vanished. Nurhii tensed waiting for the new power that would be unleashed, but he was caught off guard when he heard Ehrye cry out. Nurhii looked and saw that the Morbuzahk vines were surging over the edge of the wall, empowered once more. The Morbuzahk powered through Ehrye's attacks, coiled around him, and hoisted him into the air. As Ehrye fought to free himself, more vines surged over the wall and rushed Nurhii, Orkahm and Vhisola.

Nurhii raised his claws in defence, but, suddenly, the world went from dark to total darkness. The light of the faded stars, the residual glow from the trench, and even the glow from Nurhii's claws right in front of his face had vanished.

"The Mask of Shadows will be your doom!" The Makuta's voice emanated from the void.

Nurhii felt a vine wrap around his leg and violently pull him to the ground. He hit hard and lost his grip on one of his claws. The vine dragged him along the ground, whipping him back and forth. With a great effort, he reached down at his leg and slashed.

The Morbuzahk vine broke apart and released him mid-swing. Nurhii skipped across the protodermis and rolled to a painful halt.

The slithering sound of more vines made him scramble to stand upright. He spun around, trying to focus on where the next attack would come from, but the sound of his siblings fighting their own vines made it difficult to pinpoint the ones that might be coming for him.

Rather than take blind swings in the dark, Nurhii absorbed the heat from the ground where he was standing. A thin layer of frost formed around him in a wide radius that would hopefully ward off the Morbuzahk for a few moments.

How he would use that moment, Nurhii did not know. The Makuta's darkness was all consuming and there was absolutely nothing he could to to him or the Morbuzahk without seeing them.

Everything that we've been through, and we are going to fail because of a little darkness.

The anger and the stress of the moment caused something to click in his mind. He felt a connection to the mask on his face that went beyond the physical, one that had always existed but one he could not sense until this moment.

All of a sudden, Nurhii could see better than he could before the Makuta's darkness. The entire area looked bright as day. Familiar was he was with the mask on his face, he knew exactly what had happened.

Nuhii scanned the battlefield with the power of his Mask of Night Vision. A cluster of Morbuzahk vines was coiling around his frost circle, growing thicker and hardy enough to brave the cold and seize him. Meanwhile, his siblings were blindly struggling against the Morbuzahk. Vhisola hacked away at the vines with her swords like a woman possessed, but very few of her attacks actually hit the Morbuzahk and its vines had wrapped around her legs and torso. Orkahm lacked to tools to effectively slash the vines, so he dodged and darted around instead. However, with no way to to tell where he was going, he inevitably ran into a net of vines.

Ehrye was the only one who had avoided capture. He had gotten loosed of the initial vines and was now producing rolling waves of frozen mist to ward off the vines. His wild axe swings caught the few hardy enough to withstand the cold. But his brother did not anticipate the looming, winged figure approaching him from behind.

The Makuta's claws cut through Ehrye's armour like it was foil, leaving four parallel slices down his side. He cried out and swung at where the attack had come from, but the Makuta easily side stepped his weakened, blind, stumbling attack and seized him by the throat. Frostbite spread across the hand wrapped around his throat, but, either beacuse Ehrye's elemental power was exhausted by warding off the Morbuzahk or because the Makuta had yet another power that made him resist the attack, the titan did not flinch. He lifted Ehrye into the air, shadow gathering around his fist to deliver a death blow.

Nurhii was running, all thoughts of finding an optimal attack gone. He created a blast of fire at his feet to rocket him above the grasping vines. He arced through the air like a mortar, struck the Makuta's shoulders, and latched on. Before the Makuta could react, Nurhii ignited his remaining Kanoka Claw and struck at the Mask of Shadows.

Even the great Makuta of Metru Nui, it seemed, had to flinch at a surprise face full of fire. The veil of darkness fell away and he dropped Ehrye to reach back at Nurhii, but he had already jumped from his perch and was lunging at his new target in the Makuta's other hand. His attack had caught the Makuta off guard, and his grip on the Vahi was just a hair looser. Nurhii swung his claw with all of his strength and knocked the Mask of Time from the Makuta's grasp.

As Nurhii had expected, the Makuta completely abandoned Ehrye and lunged at the Vahi. He tried to beat him to the punch by summoning another explosion that rocketed him towards the mask. Even so, he probably would not have overcome the Makuta's superior reach, if it were not for all the ice that Ehrye had left coating the ground. The great Makuta slipped only for a second, but a second was all Nurhii needed to scoop up the Mask of Time as he flew past it.

He skidded to a halt and turned with his claw raised, expecting the Makuta to be baring down on him. Instead, he saw that the Makuta had not moved. His claw was raised above his head, guiding the movements of the Morbuzahk vines that had completely ensnared and constricted around Orkahm and Vhisola. His claw clenched, and the vines tightened around Nurhii's siblings, eliciting cries of pain from both of them. Ehrye was too injured to stand properly, but the vines wrapped around him and pulled him to the ground anyways.

"Drop the mask, little hero, and we can discuss the-"

The Makuta was interrupted by an explosion from the street below them. The sound of shattering stone and metal was eclipsed only by the titanic roar that accompanied it. All of the Morbuzahk's vines crumbled into dust and Nurhii's siblings fell to the ground. The two of them immediately scrambled away towards Nurhii, pausing only to grab the injured Ehrye, while the Makuta was distracted by the commotion at the base of the Colosseum's walls.

An enormous reptile had emerged from beneath the ground and bitten clean through the Morbuzahk's main shoot. It was nearly half as tall as the walls standing on its strong hind legs. Its smaller front limbs dug away the street to uncover more of the Morbuzahk root hidden beneath it so it could snap and tear at it with its powerful jaws.

Nurhii had only heard stories about a monster that had literally appeared out of thin air and a rampage through Ga-Metru that had left permanent scars in the district's landscape. But, even never having seen it for himself, he was certain of what the giant reptile was.

"Is that the-"

"Tahtorak," Vhisola confirmed grimly.

"GIVE ME THE ANSWER!" the creature bellowed as it tore more and more of the root out of the ground.

"What are you talking about, beasssst?" the Morbuzahk screamed back. Vines sprouted from its roots with the aid of the Makuta's power. They tried to wrap around the creature's jaws, but the Tahtorak snapped them with hardly any effort.

"GIVE ME THE ANSWER!" It repeated.

Another, much smaller creature leapt from his hiding spot on the Tahtorak's back. A column of earth rose from the ground and launched him up to the top of the wall. Tehutti flipped through the air and landed in front of his siblings with a showman's flair.

"Brothers! Sister! Knew I would find you at the centre of all the flashing lights and explosions!"

"Tehutti?" Orkahm asked hesitantly.

"The one and only!" Their brother responded with a grin.

"How did you..?" Nurhii gestured frantically at the monster below them.

"I got captured by a shapeshifter in the Fikou Web. I freed myself, but I got lost in that mess of tunnels. Luckily, I bumped into my big friend there."

"Big friend." Vhisola repeated faintly.

"Well, maybe friend is stretching it," Tehutti admitted. "But he was eager to help me get to the surface after I told him I could help him find 'the answer'."

"'The answer'?" Ehrye frowned. He could barely stand, but even he was craning to look at the battle happening below. "What's the question?"

Tehutti shrugged. "No clue. I just told him that the shapeshifter was hiding the answer from him."

"That's so reckless," Orkahm said, shaking his head. "You really are the real Tehutti."

"The real...?" Tehutti's eyes widened. "You encountered the shapeshifter!"

"We're... acquainted," Orkahm confirmed stiffly.

"What does that mean?" He glanced at the Makuta. His eyes narrowed when he recognized components that made up his new body. "Wait, that's him, isn't it?"

"Um..." Nurhii shared a look with Orkahm. They both realized that they had absolutely no time to bring their brother up to speed.

Nurhii shrugged. It could not hurt to give their brother a little extra motivation to fight. "He's definitely a shapeshifter."

"Then it looks like I showed up just in time for some payback," Tehutti said, readying his Quake Picks.

The Makuta had given up on empowering the Morbuzahk and left it to be mangled by the Tahtorak. He rounded on the Toa with a new fury in his eyes.

Nurhii glanced at his team. Tehutti was the only one fresh and uninjured. Ehrye was standing, but his left arm hung limply by his side, and he had used a large amount of elemental energy to continuously attack the Morbuzahk. Vhisola looked drained by whatever mental attack the Makuta had done to her. Though he had avoided being injured so far, Orkahm looked like he was starting to tire too.

We can't beat him like this, Nurhii realized. We need to retreat and fight another day. If we leave with the Mask of Time, he will certainly pursue. But even if the mask isn't vital to the Makuta's further plans, we can't leave a Legendary Mask in his control.

"Keep him occupied," Nurhii told his team. "I'll take care of the mask."

"Easier said than done," Vhisola muttered.

"We'll handle it," Orkahm assured him. "Go."

Nurhii turned and ran towards where he had hidden Lhikan and Vakama, trusting his team to watch his back.

When Hikima had dropped him off, Nurhii had immediately melted an alcove into the protodermis to provide some semblance of shelter for his smaller companions. While he and his team had been facing the Makuta and his pet plant, the two of them had been hard at work preparing to ruin Vakama's greatest creation.

Turaga Lhikan held two Kanoka together while super heating them with his elemental power. Vakama worked on fusing them together into a single disk using his mask-maker tool. The process was almost finished when Nurhii arrived, it was less a disk and more two lumpy overlapping circles, but Vakama halted when he spotted Nurhii approaching.

"I made a patching kanoka out of the level one Freeze, Enlarge, and Weaken disks that you gave me," Vakama told him excitedly. "Since those were the powers of three of the Great Disks, it's less likely that the Vahi will reject the fusion, and hopefully the introduction of impurities in this material will dampen the scope of its power. If you think that won't be enough, we can try an annealing technique to-"

"We don't have that kind of time, Vakama. We need to fuse them now." Nuhii interrupted. He slid into the alcove brandishing the Mask of Time.

"Right now?" Vakama exclaimed. "I thought that we would be able to bring it to a proper forge first. Working on the Vahi here will be incredibly dangerous! If we make any mistakes, who knows what could happen to the fabric of time?"

"Then we won't make mistakes," Nurhii said firmly. "We can do this. Together."

Vakama looked nervous, but he nodded and obediently took the mask and readied his tools. He turned to Lhikan to take the fused Kanoka, but was startled when the Turaga seized him by the shoulders and dragged him behind his back.

The Turaga activated his mask power, conjuring a translucent bubble of force around himself. Before Nurhii could react to any of this, a bolt of shadow flew from over his head and struck Lhikan's shield. The bolt shattered against it, but Nurhii could see from the way that Lhikan winced that it had very nearly overwhelmed the Noble Hau's strength.

Nurhii looked back at the Makuta. He was some distance away, but his gaze was focused on the Mask of Time. Luckily, a wall of earth blocked his line of sight before he could launch another shadow bolt at them. Nurhii's teammates were fending him off, but the Makuta could overwhelm them any second.

"I will stand guard, Toa Nurhii. Focus on working with Vakama," Lhikan asked, getting in position between them and the battle.

"Yes. Right," Nurhii said, flustered. He pull himself together and picked up the Kanoka from where Lhikan had dropped it. He concentrated his power on the lump of improperly purified protodermis until it heated up to the point where the material was just beginning to soften.

He knelt down and presented it to Vakama. The little mask maker touched the Vahi to the disk and started working at it with his tool. Its magnetic lead pulled protodermis from the disk and across the mask, and then held it in position. Once it was set, Nurhii created a pinpoint burst of fire that melted the protodermis into the mask, and Vakama toggled the tool to send burst of energy into the point to fuse their essences together. When they were finished, there was a new lump of material in the centre of the mask.

This process continued, and Nurhii was absorbed by the work. He could hear his siblings taking on the Makuta and he saw Lhikan block two more shadow bolts in his peripheral vision, but, in spite of it all, his focus was captured by the flowing metal and the flashes of fire. It had been so long since he had engaged in his chosen profession, and now that he was working on a mask again it was all that mattered. He worked with Vakama, and they were no longer Toa and Matoran, master and apprentice, or even master and rival. They were just two creators collaborating on the most important project of their lives.

They spoke to each other in fragmented sentences.

"Spike the temperature to-"

"I know what I'm doing, just keep working."

"This section could be smoothed out more; I'll scratch at the face whenever it's taken on or off."

"That would be a problem, if we wanted anyone to wear it. Move on to the central fringe."

"Why would you design it like this? It barely gives any coverage and it's much more fragile."

"It's a Legendary Mask; it should not be worn casually, and I wanted to make the design reflect that. It was supposed to be a last resort; not something to wear to work or take to a fight."

"The Makuta clearly did not understand your intent."

"I don't think he's one for art."

They were so close to completing the process. Three-quarters of the disk had been hastily infused into the Mask of Time. They were so close!

A scream like a hundred kikonalo bellows slammed into Nurhii, knocking him off of his feet and slamming him against the side of the alcove. The sonic force shattered Lhikan's shield and sent him tumbling. Vakama, much lighter than either of them, was blown out of their alcove and landed near the edge of the wall.

Nurhii looked to the Makuta just as his face split open and released another scream. Nurhii's siblings, already reeling from the first attack, were scattered. Ehrye was thrown over the side and Orkahm leapt off to catch him. Tehutti anchored himself and Vhisola by covering them both with a shield of earth. Before any could recover, the Makuta pointed towards Vakama and fired a torrent of shadow energy.

The world was in slow motion. Nurhii could see Vakama rising to his feet, disoriented. He would not notice the attack until it was too late to dodge. Lhikan was rising to try and intercept the blast. Nurhii thought that he might be fast enough to make it, but even if he did, Nurhii doubted that his mask had the energy left to block the attack.

Nurhii leapt out of the alcove and dived at Vakama. He tackled the Matoran and curled himself around him just as the shadow bolt struck him in the back. The impact knocked him and Vakama off of the wall and into the Collosseum's stands. He slammed into a Matoran sphere and tumbled down the arena's steps, clutching Vakama tight and hoping that he was protecting him from the impact. After an eternity of falling, they struck against another Matoran sphere and came to a halt.

He only let himself relax when he felt Vakama stir. He fell back against the ground and let the Matoran clamber out of his grip.

"Toa," Vakama groaned. He sounded like he was in pain, but at least he was well enough to speak. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Nurhii rasped, though that was not entirely true.

The actual effect of the shadow bolt hurt less than the fall had. It was not pain, it felt like loss; like the bolt had created a vacuum in his body the sucked away his energy and heat at the point where it struck him. He could see that his flesh had greyed with exhaustion, and his elemental energy felt weak.

He was in no shape to keep fighting, but given enough time, he knew he could recover his strength. However, he knew that, despite having the Vahi, time was not something that the had.

He produced the last quarter of the melded kanoka. "We have to finish it."

Vakama nodded. Nurhii had to hand it to him; not only had he kept hold of the mask and the tool through their fall, he went back to working with steadier hands than Nurhii.

Nurhii did his best to maintain the heat necessary for the crafting. His usual reserves of power were empty, drained by their use in the fight and by the sapping shadows, but desperation forced him to dig deeper and draw upon the energy coarsening through his heartlight. It hurt, and he knew that it would not last long, so he pushed Vakama to rush through the rest of the mask as quickly as they could without breaking it.

The power remained until the last of the Kanoka was fused into the Vahi. Nurhii slumped back and Vakama examines the mask as it cools.

The mask was the same shape as before, but none of the fine detailing had survived the reforging. The new protodermis from the Kanoka was unevenly distributed across the Vahi, disfiguring the detailing with random globs that made the thing look like a half-finished work from an unpromising apprentice.

"What a masterpiece," Nurhii scoffed.

Vakama let out an exhausted laugh.

"Yeah. Probably our worst collaboration. Will it be enough to disrupt the Vahi's power?"

"It better," Nurhii said. His voice sounded quieter than he had intended it. He tried to speak up a little, but found the effort too exhausting. "Can't do it again."

"What?" Vakama tore his gaze away from the mask. "Why not? We still have time. We could do more!"

His old apprentice always had been slow on the uptake, and he did not have the energy to explain that time was not the issue. There was something deep in his heartlight, an engine or a generator that had been providing heat and power for his whole existance, and now it was broken. He felt like forge that had been shut down and was now only operating off of a few, rapidly cooling, cinders. The freezing, numbing aftereffect of the shadow blast was working its way deep into his flesh and he had no more power left to fight against it.

It was getting too hard to keep himself propped up on his elbows. Nurhii sighed and let himself fall so he could lie flat on the ground. Vakama rushed to catch his head so it didn't smack against the protodermis seating.

"T-Toa! Hey! Please, you need to get up!"

"I don't think... that's happening," Nurhii gasped.

Vakama placed his head down as gently as he could. The little Matoran was distraught. He hovered over Nurhii as though he could could find an injury that he could mend. His voice became shrill and frantic as he realized what was happening.

"That attack was meant for me! You shouldn't have had to save me! I'm sorry Nurhii!"

"Nothing to be sorry for. Was my choice, " Nurhii mumbled. "Was worth it."

He actually meant it, oddly enough. He never liked Vakama; he should be angry that, out of all the people he could have sacrificed himself for, fate had made him take a blow for his old rival. He should have been upset; there was a battle still going on, his siblings were in danger, and the Matoran needed to be freed. Even beyond the immediate problems, there were a million things that he wanted to do and experience with his life, and he would never get the chance now. But he felt calm.

Maybe this is what completing your Destiny feels like, he mused. A deep sense of comfort spread across his being, completely blocking out the cold. Despite everything, he knew that deep down, if he had a chance to make the choice again, he still would have saved Vakama.

The cinders inside him were growing dark. Vakama's voice was a distant echo. Far behind him, high on the arena wall, his siblings' struggle against the Makuta was fading into an indistinct blur. He watched them for as long as he could.

Just before everything faded completely, Nurhii was struck by a vision. It was far shorter than any other he had before, but it was also much clearer. He saw himself and his siblings standing on an unfamiliar beach. The sea was not the familiar silver one that surrounded Metru Nui, it was a vibrant blue that sparkled under the light of a single sun. Nurhii and his team proudly watched the Matoran of Metru Nui explore this new land, some of them already working on setting up temporary shelters.

Another vision that would not come true. At least, not in a way where Nurhii was there with everyone else.

But my siblings are resourceful; they might make it without me. They can save the Matoran. They can bring them to that island. With or without me, they are worthy Toa.

Chapter Text

While trying to escape the Fikou Web, Tehutti had a lot of time to think about how the reunion with his Toa team would go. He had imagined his teammate's joy in finding him alive and well. He had thought about all the ways he could reveal the shapeshifter if it had managed to infiltrate the team. After surfacing with the Tahtorak and finding his city empty and in tatters, he had imagined how heroic he would look riding a legendary rahi to decimate whatever, or whoever, was responsible.

He could not have imagined how dire the situation really was. Every Matoran in the city trapped. His team injured and incomplete. The shapeshifer facing them in the form of a shadowy, winged titan that bared a terrifying, ebony mask which Tehutti only now recognized.

"Mata Nui," Tehutti breathed. "The shapeshifter is a Makuta! The Makuta of Metru Nui!"

"Yeah, we know," Vhisola snapped. "Keep throwing dirt at him!"

Tehutti grumbled. He had been locked out of the loop for a while; why couldn't she be happy that he was discovering things at his own ace? Regardless, Tehutti obediently focused on creating another dozen spheres of compact earth. Once they were all floating in the air around him, he launched them forward in a barrage that should have crushed the Makuta into the ground.

The Makuta shrugged off the attack, like he had with so many others. Tehutti's spheres devastated the protodermis around him, but they passed through his body like air. Tehutti did not have time to be disappointed by this before the Makuta launched a devastating counter attack in the form of a wave of shadow energy.

Tehutti threw himself to the ground quickly enough to barely avoid the frigid, crackling, darkness. From the ground, he saw the Makuta spread his wings in preparation to launch himself down to the Coliseum stands where Nurhii, the Ta-Matoran, and that shiny mask they had been working on had been thrown by the Makuta's attack. Before the Makuta could take off, Orkahm summoned a downdraft that kept him grounded. The Makuta snarled and turned on Orkahm, giving Tehutti time to recover and concentrate on his creating ammunition for his next attack.

Much of their battle had been like this; the Toa would keep themselves spread out and take turns attacking the Makuta. Though he had a seemingly inexhaustible suite of powers that let him counter anything they threw at him, he could only call upon one at a time. When he went intangible to float through Tehutti and Vhisola's attacks, Ehrye dropped the temperature around him until he was forced to become tangible so he could focus on cold-resistance to stop his armour from becoming dangerously brittle. When he shocked Ehrye with lightning in retaliation, Orkahm used his powers to trap him inside of a cyclone and forced him to change targets again.

Their strategy certainly frustrated the Makuta and kept him from going after the glowing mask that he was apparently after, but Tehutti could tell that it could not go on forever. Though their attacks hurt the Makuta, they were dealing very little lasting damage. Meanwhile, all three of his siblings were exhausting their elemental powers, and Ehrye's arm was too broken to do anything but hang limply by his side. The Makuta had already managed to strike at the mask once, and, even with the mysterious Turaga providing backup, it was only a matter of time before he broke through their defenses again.

Ehrye was the first to break. A magnetic wave from the Makuta caught him and sent him flying over the edge of the wall. Orkahm leapt to catch him before he could be dashed on the streets far below them.

The Makuta rained down shadow bolts on Tehutti, Vhisola, and the Turaga. Even though the Turaga's Hau shielded them from the worst of the attack, they were still blinded the onslaught. When the elemental shadow abated enough that they could see again, the Makuta had taken wing and was already gliding down into the Colosseum.

Without hesitation, Tehutti leapt off the wall after him. He landed hard in the stands, slamming against the creepy spheres that the Matoran were imprisoned in. He tried his best to muscle his way past them, but he knew that there was no way he could catch up with the Makuta.

Tehutti saw him land in front of two, prone, crimson-armoured forms. Nurhii lay on the steps, out cold, but the Ta-Matoran rose with the glowing Kanohi in hand.

"Give me the Vahi, Vakama, or you will join your precious Toa," the Makuta boomed.

The Matoran looked terrified, but he did not give in. He clutched the mask tight to his chest and started running away down the steps. Tehutti saw the Makuta raise a clawed hand, no doubt to summon one of his many powers to crush him.

Tehutti hastily gathered another sphere of packed earth and flung it at the Makuta with as much force as he could muster. It struck the titan square in the back, not hard enough to damage him, but enough to make him stumble.

The Makuta whirled on Tehutti and lashed out with another shadow bolt. Unable to dodge, Tehutti instead summoned a wall of earth between himself and the attack. With little actual earth to draw from besides his own elemental power, the wall was only strong enough dull the blow. The shadow bolt crashed through it and Tehutti was knocked to the ground. He gritted his teeth and pushed himself back up, ready to face another bolt, but a cry of pain distracted both him and the Makuta.

The Matoran was splayed out on the ground further down the Colosseum steps. A large, insectoid creature stood above him with the glowing mask, the Vahi, clutched in its claws. It smiled with twisted delight as it look up towards Tehutti and the Makuta.

"Hello, 'Turaga Dume'," it jeered. "I will be taking this as compensation for Krekka's death."

"He will not be the last Dark Hunter to die this day," the Makuta growled. A claw made of pure darkness emerged from his chest and launched itself at the creature, but it was already on the move. It's four legs folded up, and it propelled itself into the air with blinding speed, narrowly avoiding the claw.

The Makuta spread his wings and launched himself after the creature, but it was much faster and much more nimble than the titanic form that the Makuta had chosen. It had already put considerable distance between them by the time the Makuta was hurtling shadows at it. In seconds, the creature had raced far enough away that Tehutti had trouble seeing it in the star-dulled sky.

The Makuta pivoted in the air, and looked back down at the Colosseum, one clawed hand raised. Tehutti's heartlight seized. He flinched, bracing himself for a burst of overwhelming power, but the Makuta seemingly decided that he was not worth the parting shot. He turned back towards the city and continued chasing the creature.

Tehutti let out a sigh of relief that became a shriek when two impacts in the stands behind him made him leap in surprise. He turned, and found that Vhisola and Orkahm had jumped down to join him.

About time, he griped, but then checked himself. He was in no place to complain about his siblings being late.

They rushed past him to get to the Matoran and Nurhii. Tehutti grumbled and got up to follow them. As he picked his way past the Matoran Spheres, he glanced back to the top of the wall to see if anyone else was following. He saw Ehrye sitting slumped against the Turaga; injured and just barely conscious. The Turaga was doing his best to care for his injures without any of the proper healer's tools.

Relieved that they were both as safe as they could be under the circumstances, Tehutti turned back and followed his brother and sister down the stairway. He immediately felt like something was wrong when he saw the way they had both froze. They had stopped partway down the stairs, and the Ta-Matoran, Vakama, had came up to meet them. Now they were all deathly still and staring down at Nurhii. Tehutti did not understad why until he got closer enough to get a good look at his brother.

Nurhii was not unconscious like he had assumed. His eyes and his heartlight had gone completely dark. His muscle tissue had been leached grey, and his armour colour was rapidly fading. He was gently laid out on the steps, like he had sat down for an impromptu nap, but there was no denying the cold reality.

Nurhii was gone.

"It was because of me," Vakama whispered hoarsely. "He died protecting me and the Vahi. And I couldn't even keep it safe."

Tehutti was dimly aware that he should have said something to comfort the Matoran, but he could not bring himself to speak. He felt oddly detached, like he was floating outside of his body.

Vhisola and Orkahm looked like they were similarly struggling. Vhisola's fists were clenched so tightly that Tehutti could hear her armour over her palms bending. Her gaze was locked onto the body, while Orkahm's kept darting around; across the body, to the spheres surrounding them, and back to Nurhii, like he was struggling to look away but could not quite manage it.

Eventually, he found the strength to turn away. Tehutti heard him take a steadying breath before he spoke; "I'll go after them. Maybe I can swipe the Vahi while they're busy fighting each other."

He attached his shields to his back and converted them into Aero Gliders. The wind swirled around him as he prepared to take off, but before he could, Vakama leapt up and grabbed onto his hand.

"Wait, no! The mask is useless!"

Orkahm froze with his wings halfway open. He, Tehutti, and Vhisola stared at Vakama, confused. The Matoran shifted uncomfortably under the attention, but he managed to quickly explain.

"We finished the infusion process. He did." His gaze drifted to Nurhii's body before he flinched and looked anywhere else. "The Vahi's power is extremely limited now. Even if the Makuta gets it back, it won't be useful to him. If it works at all, it definitely won't be at even a fraction as the same scale or level of power."

"Are you sure?" Orkahm demanded.

"Yes," Vakama said, growing resolute. "I trust our craftsmanship."

The ground shook with the Tahtorak's roars as it do doubt continued its fight with the Morbuzahk root. Tehutti was uncomfortably reminded how unstable practically all of the structures in the city had become.

"I don't know what any of that means," he said. "But I do know that we need to get out of here before he comes back. Out of the city, if possible."

"What about Nurhii?" asked Vhisola.

Tehutti forced himself to look at the body. As an Archivist, he had experience with studying deceased rahi, but he had seen very few dead Matoran or Toa. He had lived through wars and he had seen his fair share of lethal workplace accidents, but deceased Matoran vanished within an hour, teleported away to Mata Nui-knows-where. The few times he saw a dead Matoran felt uncanny; like no matter how damaged they appeared, he felt like they should be able to wake back up at any moment.

Logically, they all knew that Nurhii would soon vanish and there was no need to do anything about Nurhii. But at the same time, Tehutti knew that they all would not feel right leaving him behind without doing something.

He approached the body and concentrated on the particles of dirt that had been kicked up into the air by the earthquakes. They coalesced and spread over Nurhii like a shroud. As it began to cover his kanohi, Tehutti recalled the first time they had met in the Great Temple and the pride Nurhii had in the mask he had forged himself. He diverted the dirt to leave the mask uncovered, showing through the shell of earth that covered the rest of the armour.

Once he finished the shroud, Tehutti spared a glance at the others. They were still staring at the body, but they looked less shell shocked than before.

He thought that he should say something, anything, to not let their teammate go to Mata Nui in silence, but he could not think of anything for the life of him. It made him realize how briefly he had gotten to know someone who was supposed to be his brother. It made him feel angry that the Makuta had taken away something as sacred as the bond between Toa before they had a chance to build it. It felt like his siblings got to mourn Nurhii, while he could only mourn the idea of him.

They were not given the opportunity to mourn for long before the silence was broken by Ehrye's cry. Tehutti looked up to the Colosseum's wall to see Ehrye and the Turaga retreating from the Tahtorak's fanged maw. The creature had climbed up the side of the wall so that it could try to snap them up, and was slowly hauling itself up so it could follow them further and further away from the edge. The Turaga tried to ward it off with bursts of flame, but the creature kept chasing them without any care for the burns that were accumulating on its snout.

"Tehutti! Tell your big friend to heel," said Orkahm.

"Not sure if its my friend right now," Tehutti protested.

Beside him, Vhisola raised her hand towards the Tahtorak. Her face pinched in concentration.

"Stop! Retreat! Back off! Sit!" She muttered. She dropped her hand, a look of panic overtaking her features. "My mask power isn't working on it! There is something blocking me from controlling its mind!"

Perhaps the Makuta decided to leave behind a parting shot after all.

Tehutti was suddenly struck by a memory of cataloging crates full of captured kraata that had been sent to the Archives. It had been a long, repetitive task, but Whenua had insisted that it was an important one. The kraata are the spawn of the Makuta, and each of their abilities were revelatory of that secretive group's powers. So, begrudgingly, Tehutti had made an effort to remember the different Kraata breeds he had catalogued.

"Kraata strain number 28. Metallic sand yellow and black. Compatible with magenta rahkshi," he spouted off reflexively. "Rahi Control."

Vhisola looked at him, bewildered. "What?"

"Run!" He yelped. He raised a fist and let loose a burst of elemental energy.

The Colosseum stands rippled like a wave under the force of the earthquake he summoned. Vhisola and Orkahm had to leap out of the way of a rockslide of Matoran Spheres that had been knocked loose. The walls shook like a fader bull with mites. Ehrye and Lhikan dived to the ground to avoid being thrown off the sides.

The Tahtorak's grip on the wall was too strong for it to be dislodged by the quake, but the metal its claws were dug into was not. The Tahtorak's weight tore the wall apart and sent the creature tumbling back down to the street. The impact of it hitting the ground was almost like a second earthquake.

"Tehutti!" Orkahm screamed. "Really? Here?"

"I know, I know! I'm sorry," he shouted back. "We have to run now!"

He seized Vakama by the back of his armour rushed up the stands. The Matoran screamed in panic, but Tehutti ignored him as he weaved around spheres as fast as possible until he got to the wall. He tossed Vakama over his shoulder, pulled out his picks, and used them to scale the wall as quickly as his aching limbs would let him.

Orkahm had flown up to the top of the wall with Vhisola by the time that Tehutti hauled himself and Vakama up. They landed next to Lhikan and Ehrye and were helping the two regain their footing. Meanwhile, Tehutti took a peak over the other side of the wall at where the Tahtorak fell. The creature was already back on its feet, shaking off the impact like it was a minor scrape.

Tehutti tore his gaze away from the rahi and rushed along the wall to the others. Lhikan was back on his feet, but Ehrye needed to be supported by Vhisola. He was leaning heavily against her and his gaze was unfocused.

"We need to go. We need to go. We need to go." Tehutti urged.

He focused on the earth beneath the cracked pavement at the base of the wall, and a tide of earth rose up. He shaped it into a ramp to connect their point on top of the Colosseum to the street below, spending only as much time as necessary to make sure the thing would not immediately collapse under their weight.

Vhisola heaved Ehrye forward and started down the ramp with him at a fast shuffle. Orkahm looked to the Turaga apologetically, but he did not ask before picking him up and leaping off the side of the wall with him. The Turaga, to his credit, did not cry out as they fell to the street, barely slowed by Orkahm's elemental power.

Tehutti looked over his shoulder at Vakama. "Are you okay?"

The Matoran looked ill, but he nodded.

"Alright. Hold on tight," Tehutti said before running down the ramp after his siblings.

By the time he caught up to them on the ramp, the Tahtorak had recovered, realized that its prey was escaping, and was rounding the Colosseum wall after Orkahm and the Turaga.

Orkahm stepped forward and pointed towards on the parts of the wall that had been damaged by the Tahtorak's claws. Chunks of stone that had been gouged by its claws suddenly came loose, and fell upon the Tahtorak like hail. The rahi stumbled under the blows, stunned long enough for Tehutti, Vakama, Vhisola, and Ehrye to join Orkahm and the Turaga to the bottom of the ramp and start running towards the city.

When he felt like they had put enough distance between them and the ramp, Tehutti gave it a mental push towards the Tahtorak. He dared to waste a precious second by glancing back at his handiwork, only to see a cloud of dust kicked up by the collapse. So, if he had not buried the rahi under the ramp, he had at least bought more time by blinding it.

Still, there was only so much time that a group of a Toa burdened by injured allies could keep ahead of a predator like the Tahtorak. They had barely made it to the edge of Le-Metru, when it was baring down on them again.

Tehutti thought frantically as the Tahorak thundered closer and closer. They were in no position to fight it head on. The buildings at the outskirts of the metru were too sparse and too small to act as cover if they tried to hide. Tehutti might have been able to weaken the ground to send it falling into the Archives, but with so much damage done to the city already there was no guaranteed that they would not be caught up in the sinkhole.

Tehutti was about to take that risk, when a shadow fell over him and his siblings. He looked up and nearly tripped over his own feet in shock.

A second Tahtorak had seemingly appeared out of thin air about a kio above them, and it was now plummeting to earth like a mortar shell. It did not make a sound as it fell, it just positioned itself in the air so that it struck the first Tahtorak feet-first.

The two monsters collided with a sound like a thunderclap. The first Tahtorak was taken completely off guard by the full weight of its new friend slamming it down into to pavement. The impact buried it into the stone, and collapsed the already unstable buildings around them. Tehutti and the rest of the Toa were knocked off of their feet by the shockwave.

Tehutti landed on his back painfully, but he quickly scrambled back onto his feet. The air was clouded with dust kicked up by the impact, turning the world beyond himself and his teammates into vague silhouettes. The glow of the Tahtorak's red eyes burned like the suns through a cloud.

Orkahm and Vhisola formed up beside Tehutti. The three of them formed a line between the rahi and their more vulnerable allies, for all the good it would do.

The new Tahtorak approached slowly. Tehutti took a hesitant step back, but before it got too close, the rahi stopped and lowered itself on it haunches enough that its shorter front limbs could touch the ground. Its piercing red gaze swept over them, its expression unreadable.

"GET ON MY BACK," it growled.

Tehutti was trying to figure out the best way he could politely refuse the giant monster's request, but Orkahm spoke up first.

"Do as it says. I think we can trust it."

"What?" Tehutti exclaimed.

Orkahm conjured a burst of air that launch himself and the Turaga up onto the creature's back. The Tahtorak hardly reacted to their weight. It continued to crouch and stare at Tehutti, Vhisola, Ehrye and Vakama expectantly.

Before Tehutti could properly explain how bad an idea this was, he felt the earth shake. Through the dust, he saw the other Tahtorak shifting in its crater. A low, almost subsonic, growl emitted from it. It sounded disorientated, sore, and furious beyond description.

On second thought, when Mata Nui drops a giant monster in your lap, it would be foolish to refuse, Tehutti decided. He approached the allegedly friendly Tahtorak and cautiously began to climb up its side up to its back.

"Don't worry," he muttered, half to himself, half to the Matoran clinging to his back. "Riding on the other one was easier than it looked. It was completely safe, until it tried to kill us. We'll be fine."

Vakama only responded by holding onto him tighter. Tehutti finished the rest of the climb silently. When he reached the back, he settled carefully behind the Turaga.

It took Vhisola a bit more time to help Ehrye and then climb up herself, but the moment she was seated, the Tahtorak reared back up to its hind legs and took off with startling speed. Tehutti wrapped his arms around one of the creature's protruding, armoured spines to stop himself from getting thrown off as the creature crashed through what obstacles it was too large to dodge around.

By the time the other Tahtorak recovered enough to give chase, the Colosseum was a distant piece of Metru Nui's crumbling skyline.

Orkahm did not know where the shapeshifter was taking them, or why he had returned to help them at all, but after this day he was too exhausted to refuse the help. The way that the shapeshifter had behaved while he was among the Toa made Orkahm doubt that he was working with the Makuta, and even if it was some kind of elaborate trap, Orkahm was not sure if he and his remaining siblings had the strength left to fight him while protecting Lhikan and Vakama.

After what felt like hours of clutching tightly to the not-Tahtorak's spines to stop himself from getting jostled off of the back, the shapeshifter lurched to a stop. They had gone further into Le-Metru, and Orkahm could already see the devastation that the Makuta had brought to the city. The quake had damaged the chute supports and caused the magnetic sheath to fail, causing them to spew protodermis and loose cargo into the streets. Abandoned vehicles had become hopelessly tangled in masses of cables that had been torn loose. Homes, chute stations, and cargo hubs were at best damaged and at worst collapsed into nothing.

The airship hanger that the shapeshifter had stopped in front of was one of the more intact buildings; entirely intact except for collapsed section of wall that let Orkahm see the three, unharmed airships that docked inside of it.

The shifter crouched low again to let his passengers climb down. Orkahm, the most used to rough transport, sprang off of the shapeshifter and set about helping Lhikan and Vakama get down while his siblings shakily clambered back to solid ground.

Once they were off of him, the shapeshifter shuttered and his body folded int itself. Armour, muscle, claws, and fangs shrank away, its mass disappearing into nothing until the titanic not-Tahtorak had transformed into an Onu-Matoran.

Orkahm braced himself for the others' surprise, but instead they stared at the shapeshifter in numb silence. The biggest reaction was an exhausted sigh from Vhisola.

The faux-Matoran pointed to the airships. "You need to get off of this island. The Archives were breached; many dangerous rahi will soon be running free on the surface. We must flee."

"Okay," Tehutti replied. He looked at the rest of the group. "Is this someone we know?"

"No," Vhisola said.

"Sort of," Orkahm amended. He glanced hesitantly at Tehutti before elaborating. His brother would not be happy when he figured out who this shapeshifter was, but he knew that this revelation was inevitable. "He was the one who was, uh, being Tehutti for the past... since we met at the Great Furnace, I think."

"The one that turned into a bird?" Ehrye exclaimed. He looked at the shapeshifter warily. "Are you a Makuta too?"

"No, I don't think so," the shapeshifter said. He gestured again at the airships, more insistently this time. "We should go."

"What are you then?" Vhisola asked.

"Are you a Krahka?" Lhikan said abruptly.

The shapeshifter froze, shocked. "Y-yes! You have met us?"

Lhikan nodded, looking at the creature with undisguised fascination. "Only once. Long before I came to Metru Nui. I had no idea any your kind was here."

"One. One of my kind is here," the Krahka corrected, hints of an old sorrow in his tone.

The whole time they were talking, Orkahm had been watching Tehutti's expression change from confusion, to realization, and finally to anger. When his brother finally rushed at the Krahka, Orkahm was there to hold him back by his pauldron. The shapeshifter looked startled by the movement, but thankfully he did not flee like he did when Orkahm confronted him at the tower.

"Calm down, brother," Orkahm said.

"Calm down? Are you kidding?" Tehutti tore Orkahm's hand off of him and pointed at the Krahka. "That's the creature that attacked me in the Fikou Web!"

"You were a threat in my territory," the Krahka said. He looked towards the ships again. "We should really be leaving now."

"Oh, we'll be leaving. But not with you!" Tehutti spat.

"Why did you infiltrate our team?" Vhisola interrupted before Orkahm could tell Tehutti off. His sister did not look half as angry as Tehutti, but she still seemed wary to get on the same airship as the shapeshifter.

The Krahka shifted in place, and his body flickered as he went from Onu-Matoran to Ga-Matoran. Orkahm wondered why he did that. Was he unconsciously mimicking Vhisola? Or maybe it was just an expression of nervousness or impatience?

"Curiosity," the Krahka admitted. "I wanted to see more of the city. I wanted to travel with a pack again."

"That matches what I know about them," Lhikan confirmed. "The Krahka are social rahi. If this one is here alone, then they may have been willing to risk themself being among new creatures."

Vhisola eyed the Krahka suspiciously for a second before letting out another sigh. She supported Ehrye by the shoulder and started walking them towards the airships.

"Fine, you can come along. Let's get going," she said.

"What!" Tehutti exploded.

"They did help us out a lot while they were pretending to be you," Ehrye said, shooting him an apologetic look back over his shoulder.

"He put me in a cocoon!" Tehutti shouted.

"She," the Krahka corrected.

"She put me in a cocoon!" Tehutti shouted. "It took me days to get out of there!"

"And now she's helping us," Orkahm said. "This is not the time to be picky with our allies. We need to get out of the city, not start another fight."

"I am not starting a fight, I am resuming a fight that she started when she kidnapped me!"

"Toa Tehutti," Lhikan cut in. "I believe that you are not aware of how dire a situation we are in. That the universe is in. Please trust that we will address the wrongs done to you once we are out of danger."

Tehutti scoffed, but there was a flicker of uncertainty in his expression now. Orkahm saw his gaze flit between Lhikan stern expression, their siblings walking to the airships, and Vakama trailing behind them. The stubbornness drained away from him as he realized that he was utterly alone in this fight.

"This isn't over," he warned, jabbing a finger at the Krahka. She tried to respond, but he was already stalking off after their siblings.

Orkahm let out a sigh of relief watching him go. It dawned at him that he had been fully prepared to step in to defend the Krahka from his brother if Tehutti had chosen to escalate things. He was not sure if that made him a bad Toa for breaking Unity with a teammate, or a good one for doing his Duty by protecting another being.

He looked to Lhikan, as though he would get an answer, but the Turaga had started hobbling towards the airship as well. Orkahm realized with a start that he was alone with the Krahka and that she was staring intently at him.

"Um. Do you have a name?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Just Krahka."

Orkahm nodded and extended his fist out to her. "Thank you, Krahka. For dropping in to rescue us. And for catching me at the tower."

Krahka ducked her head, finally breaking off the stare. For a horrible moment, Orkahm was scared that she had misinterpreted the gesture. Then he noticed that the Krahka was smiling.

Is she shy? Is the powerful, shapeshifting rahi shy?

"You don't need to give thanks," she said. "I wanted to help."

She reached up and tapped her fist against his. It was a lot gentler than how Matoran or Toa usually knocked fists, and that made Orkahm feel... odd.

Orkahm cleared his throat and gestured to the airship. "We should probably go."

Krahka nodded and let him lead the way. Her form shifted like a fluid as she walked, and Orkahm was only a little uncomfortable when it settled on that of a muaka. Her fangs were way too close for comfort, but the rational part of his brain did his best to quell parts that were screaming about a giant, predatory, cat rahi strolling right beside him.

He jumped a little when she let out a low growl. He looked at at her, but she had not broken her stride.

He was relieved, if not a bit puzzled, when he realized that it was not a growl; Krahka was purring.

Ahkmou saw very little of his siblings' battle from Turaga Dume's apartments. When the Great Spirit was struck down the moons disappeared and the stars dimmed, leaving the Colosseum blanketed in shadow. Ahkmou could only make out the distant shapes of his former teammates in the brief moments when bursts of energy would light up the battleground.

What he did see only proved that his decision to stay behind had been the right one. Hikima split almost immediately, Morbuzahk vines had sprouted up the side of the Colosseum, and a massive rahi whose bellows seemed to shake the tower appeared out of nowhere. The was no way his siblings could have stood up to such force.

Eventually, hours after fire, the quakes, and the roars ceased, Ahkmou felt reasonably certain that it was all over. He kept his hammer in hand, just in case, and turned away from the shattered window. He picked his way through the ruined apartments until he found the elevator. Thankfully, the Colosseum's backup power was functioning even with the damage done to the city. Ahkmou activated the lift and enjoyed the slow ride to the bottom floor.

When the doors opened again, he was greeted by a room of destroyed Vahki. Every automaton sported damage to the exact same spots at the centre of the chest and back of the chest. Ahkmou knew from his time on the Po-Metru assembly lines that this was where the primary and auxiliary power converters were stored. The Vahki drew power wireless from Metru Nui; they must have been overloaded when the Makuta had caused the city's power to surge.

Ahkmou smiled and gave the nearest Vahki a small kick. If he had any say in it, none of the enforcers would ever be repaired. All they ever did was get in the way of the enterprising Matoran of Metru Nui.

Ahkmou navigated his way past the dead Vahki out to the Colosseum's stands. Though the damage from the battle was obvious, there was no sign of the Makuta or any of Ahkmou's teammates.

That could have meant a number of things. There had been more than enough time for his team's bodies to be spirited away, but surely, there would have been some survivors for him to find. And with Mata Nui sent asleep, would bodies even vanish anymore?

More likely that they came to their senses and ran away, Ahkmou decided. The thought brought both relief and a fresh wave of guilt. He crushed both down; his siblings mistakes were their own and he should not pity their idiocy. Maybe if I find wherever they are hiding in the city I can make them see reason now.

Ahkmou found his way down to the Colosseum's main gate without encountering another living being. It was daybreak now, and though the suns were just as absent as the moons, Ahkmou was glad to see the washed out, grey morning light.

He only had a moment of relief before a bolt of lightning was launched at him. Pure instinct made Ahkmou leap to the side and avoid getting fried. He rolled away from the gate, and leapt back to his feet, hammer in hand.

His heart dropped when he saw what had attacked him. Three stooped, spiney, thin creatures armed with bladed staffs stalked out from behind the rubble. They armour was deep blue, one with silver and another with white, and Ahkmou could see something viscerally organic writhing within their serpentine heads.

The Rahkshi advanced with a slow, crouched steps; like predators ready to pounce the instant their prey made the wrong move. One in blue and white armour flanked left while the one with silver accents blocked his escape to the right. The solid blue rahi continued moving straight at him, forcing him further back until his back hit the Colosseum's wall. The beady eyes of their Kraata bore holes into Ahkmou through the slits of their armoured heads.

The blue and white Rahkshi's staff crackled with electricity. Ahkmou jumped at the noise and turned his hammer towards it, but the creature had been baiting him. The Rahkshi on his right raised its staff and Ahkmou suddenly felt a hundred times heavier. The unexpected weight made him fall to his knees.

Panicking, Ahkmou pulled stone from the street into a wall between himself and the Rahkshi, but even it was completed a beam of light flashed from the central Rahkshi's staff and reduced the stone to dust. Ahkmou saw the Rahkshi aim its staff at him, and knew that he was seconds away from being dust himself. He tried to leap out of the way, but with the increased gravity all he accomplished was falling prone in front of his attackers.

Ahkmou squeezed his eyes close to shut out the glow of the blue Rahkshi's staff. He laid there, breathing heavily, paralyzed by fear, until he realized that he was somehow still alive. He opened his eyes and saw the staffs of all three Rahkshi pointed at his mask.

The creatures were still as statues, even when Ahkmou slowly pushed himself back up to his knees. Gravity had returned to normal, and neither of the other Rahkshi gave any sign of activating their powers.

"You must excuse the eagerness of my children, Toa," the Makuta's voice boomed behind him. "Once given permission to hunt, they are indiscriminate when other beings get in their path."

Ahkmou forced himself not to leap to his feet. Instead, he carefully got to his feet and turned around, desperately hoping that the Makuta would not detect the fear radiating off of him.

The source of the voice was nothing physical. Shadows had gathered on the Colosseum's wall until the stone was completely obscured. A pair of glowing, slitted, crimson eyes bore down on Ahkmou from the deepest part of the darkness.

"What are they hunting?" Ahkmou asked, less out of actual curiosity and more to try and cover up his terror.

The Makuta's voice emanated from the darkness; "A traitor too foolish to learn from his mistakes. My children will rise up from the Archives to find him, and he will face the consequences he managed to avoid the last time he betrayed Metru Nui."

So Nidhki really had parted ways with the Makuta. What could have made him take such a risk?

"And my teammates?" Ahkmou ventured.

"Gone. They fled Metru Nui once they realized that they were no match for me."

Ahkmou felt a pit in his chest. On one hand, they were not dead. But they had run away without coming back for him. They left him alone in a city full of Rahkshi!

"Do you remember what I told you about Destiny, little Toa?" the Makuta asked suddenly.

"Yes," Ahkmou said. He gathered enough courage to add; "You told me a lot of things that day, and most of them were lies."

"Fewer than you imagine," the Makuta said smoothly. "Destiny is a thing that must be written and enforced, and for too long a group known as the Order of Mata Nui appointed themselves to be the ones in charge of the universe's Destiny."

"The Order..."

The Makuta's eyes grew brighter. "Though I exaggerated the degree of control, they indeed had influence over Lhikan's actions. Why else do you think that such a seasoned warrior chose to throw his life away with the rest of your team, rather than side with you? Even now, he leads your brothers and sister back into their clutches so that they can be indoctrinated into their ranks.

"They attempted to influence me as well. Many years ago, an Order agent infiltrated my lair and tried to manipulate my mind so that their set of Matoran would be chosen. But we Makuta are well accustomed to that form of trickery, and I was able to divine who they were and their intentions.

"It was only then that I truly grasped the necessity of my plan. The Order of Mata Nui are not capable of effectively managing the beings under their watch. The universe needs a stronger will than theirs to guide it."

The Makuta's darkness spread until it composed Ahkmou's entire vision. "You can have a hand in guiding, if you have the strength to do what is right. Swear your allegiance to me, and become the first and greatest Toa of the new Metru Nui!"

Only a fool falls for the same lie twice. Still, though Ahkmou was in no way convinced that the Makuta was telling the whole truth, he was also acutely aware that the three Rahkshi's staffs were still aimed at his back. And even if he defeated these ones, the city could be swarming with others, not to mention the Morbuzahk and the Makuta himself.

As he tried to tell his siblings, the Makuta held all of the power over Metru Nui now. There was no glory in dying fighting the inevitable; not when the Matoran would need Toa to guide them through the Makuta's rule.

There was only one response a reasonable being could give to the Makuta's offer.

"When do I start?"