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Toa Mata


Planetperson

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A specific group of Toa named the Toa Mata – Tahu, Toa of Fire; Pohatu, Toa of Stone; Onua, Toa of Earth; Lewa, Toa of Air; Kopaka, Toa of Ice; and Gali, Toa of Water – was simply known to the Matoran of Mata Nui as “the Toa.” Just like all Toa, they were gifted with amazing elemental powers and Great Kanohi masks. Their name referred to the Great Spirit Mata Nui, as it was their destiny alone to awaken him. Led by Toa Tahu, the Toa Mata were a part of the legend of Mata Nui, a legend that the Turaga of Mata Nui often told to the Matoran during the millennium between the Great Cataclysm and the Toa Mata’s arrival. The legend itself was spawned by a mix of common Matoran legends, the past experiences of the Turaga as the Toa Metru, and Turaga Vakama’s visions.

 

The legend, as the Matoran of Mata Nui knew it, stated that the Great Beings sent the Great Spirit Mata Nui from the heavens into the world to care for all living things. Mata Nui brought with him the Matoran to the paradise that was the island of Mata Nui, named so in his honor. Mata Nui gave the Matoran the Three Virtues to live by: unity, duty, and destiny; and the Matoran lived happily under Mata Nui’s loving protection. Unfortunately, Mata Nui’s dark brother, the Makuta, had followed Mata Nui from paradise and coveted the world and all that his brother had. Makuta cast a spell over Mata Nui that caused him to fall into a deep slumber. Then, Makuta claimed the world as his own, bringing darkness and destruction everywhere. Fields withered away, sunlight grew cold, and the ancient values of the Matoran were eventually forgotten. However, all was not lost; for the Great Beings would send six mighty Toa to defeat Makuta and awaken Mata Nui once more; and one day, the Toa finally did appear.

 

The Toa Mata’s past before coming to the island of Mata Nui is very mysterious. The Toa probably came into being about 95,000 years before they arrived on the shores of Mata Nui. They had never been Matoran prior to being Toa, and it is possible that their sole purpose was to serve as a failsafe for the Great Spirit Mata Nui should he ever have fallen into danger. As happens with every Toa, their spirit stars came into being, which rested in the sky above Mata Nui. Whatever island that Tahu and the rest of the Toa Mata came from, they were trained in the use of their powers as Toa: the use of their elemental powers, the use of Kanohi, and the ability to form Toa Kaita. A Matoran local of the island once described the place as the “world that feeds the world,” the “wellspring of flame that burns none but its bearer until nothing is left, not even ashes.” Some time later, on the same island, the Toa Mata willingly put themselves into transportation canisters that the local Matoran created especially for them to fall into a deep sleep and await a call to action.

 

The Toa Mata’s call came when the Great Cataclysm occurred and Mata Nui was cast into endless slumber. Their canisters were activated and rocketed up into the sky above Mata Nui to safely fall back down again into the ocean surrounding the island. Had their canisters been working properly, the Toa would have arrived on the shores of Mata Nui, made their way underground to Metru Nui, and found a way to defeat Makuta while he was still weakened and awaken Mata Nui. Unfortunately, an unintentional mechanical fault caused their canisters to malfunction. Instead of steering themselves toward the island of Mata Nui, the canisters floated freely in the ocean with the Toa inside of them for a thousand years. Due to their prolonged time sealed in the canisters, some of the Toa’s biological ligaments decayed over time, causing some of their mechanical parts to fall apart. Their memory faded during that time as well. All the while, on Mata Nui, Makuta harassed the Matoran for a thousand years with his Rahi beasts.

 

A thousand years after the Great Cataclysm, the adventurous Ta-Matoran Takua gathered the Toa stones from all over the island of Mata Nui and brought them together at the Kini-Nui. In doing this, he unwittingly sent a beacon to the Toa’s canisters that finally steered them toward the island. The Toa Mata’s canisters each landed on the coast of their Toa’s corresponding Wahi. Each of the canisters opened, and the loose pieces of each Toa’s body flew out onto the beach. The Toa reassembled themselves, their organic tissue regrowing once they fitted their mechanical parts back together; and once they put on their Kanohi masks, they felt a surge of energy course through them that they had probably not felt for centuries. Just as the Matoran’s legends had foretold, the Toa remembered nothing except dreams of darkness and their own names.

 

The first thing the Toa did after arriving was to travel inland and find their Koro (except Gali, who found Ga-Koro later), where the Turaga and Matoran lived. The Turaga told each of the Toa Mata of their situation: how Makuta had been using the Rahi to harass the Matoran for centuries, and how Makuta had cast the Great Spirit Mata Nui into endless sleep. The Turaga informed the Toa that, in order to gain the strength needed to defeat Makuta, they needed to go on a quest for the Kanohi masks of power that were hidden all over Mata Nui. Additional to the Great Kanohi that each of the Toa already wore were the thirty Great Kanohi that were hidden all over the island and the thirty Noble Kanohi that had been stolen by the Rahi. The types of hidden Great Kanohi were Hau, Kakama, Pakari, Miru, Akaku, Kaukau; and the types of stolen Noble Kanohi were Huna, Komau, Ruru, Mahiki, Matatu, and Rau.

 

The six Toa all met each other later at the bottom of Mount Ihu. After a heated discussion, they decided to split up to find the Kanohi masks of power on their own rather than working together as a team. They got a first taste of Makuta’s own power when he sent a brief combination of hail, lightning, and an earth tremor against them to disrupt the meeting.

 

Each Toa battled their share of Rahi and the forces of nature that Makuta used against them to collect a few Kanohi masks. As the Toa collected Great Kanohi, the masks were teleported back to the Toa’s Suva shrines when they were not in use, and could be summoned back and forth for the Toa’s use at any time. If a Toa came across a Noble Kanohi, they returned it to their Turaga when they had the chance. As the Toa collected more and more Kanohi, they each gained more and more abilities from the Great and Noble Masks. After the Toa realized they all had limited success in finding the Kanohi masks alone, Onua called a meeting near his landing site. The Toa returned from all over the island to discuss their situation. After a great battle against the Rahi and Makuta’s power over the island, this meeting ended in one unanimous decision: the Toa would work together as a team.

 

The Toa turned to the Ta-Matoran for the location of the next hidden Kanohi mask to find. The Ta-Matoran told the Toa that Tahu’s Kanohi Miru was beneath the waves of the shoreline just south of Po-Koro. With this in mind, the Toa traveled to this location as a group. The Toa wasted much time over petty disagreements. When they arrived at their destination, the Toa who already possessed the Kanohi Kaukau – Onua, Kopaka, and Gali – went underwater to retrieve the mask while Tahu, Pohatu, and Lewa guarded the beach. The Toa underwater encountered a Tarakava from which they removed its infected mask. The Toa retrieved Tahu’s Miru and returned to the surface successful.

 

After the Toa collected several more Kanohi with significant success, they split off into two groups to find Pohatu’s two last Great Kanohi. Pohatu, Lewa, and Kopaka went to Po-Wahi; and Tahu, Onua, and Gali went to Le-Wahi. Both groups were successful, and met up with each other once again.

 

The Toa’s quest for the masks finally ended in the drifts of lower Mount Ihu where they found Tahu’s Kaukau. After the Toa had collected all of the Great and Noble Kanohi and had for the most part freed the Rahi from Makuta’s control, they were uncertain of what to do next. They had heard rumors of Gold Kanohi, and both Kopaka and Gali had had brief, mysterious visions of the Toa Kaita and of a massive temple in the center of the island. The Toa having each collected all six of their necessary Great Masks, they returned to the Koro. When they visited their Suva shrines, where their Great masks were kept, and placed their own mask on it, each of their six Great Kanohi formed into a single Gold Kanohi.

 

Armed with their new Gold Kanohi, which gave the Toa the powers of the six Great Kanohi they had collected, the Toa journeyed together to the Kini-Nui. It was there that they met the Chronicler’s Company, who agreed to defend the Kini-Nui from the Rahi while the Toa were facing Makuta, and then unlocked an underground passageway to Mangaia, Makuta’s underground lair, with the Makoki stones. The Toa traveled through this tunnel down to Makuta’s realm. When the Toa encountered the Manas – Makuta’s two most powerful Rahi guardians – on the way to Makuta, they could not find a way to defeat them until they merged their beings together to form two Toa Kaita: Akamai and Wairuha. The Toa Kaita were able to defeat the Manas and move on toward Makuta’s inner lair.

 

Once the Toa Kaita reached Makuta’s inner lair, they split apart once again into the six Toa. It was there that the Toa faced the Shadow Toa – dark essences of themselves given independent life by Makuta. The Toa were evenly matched against their Shadow Toa counterparts. Faced with essentially fighting themselves, the Toa still managed to triumph by acknowledging that the darkness was a part of themselves, just as it was a part of all beings. This realization enabled the Toa to reabsorb the Shadow Toa back into their bodies, ending their threat.

 

With the Shadow Toa defeated, the Toa faced the Makuta himself. Makuta revealed only a small part of his true form to the Toa, at first taking on the appearance of a pitted, scarred, infected Matoran. Then, after greeting the Toa, he transformed into a mass of tentacles that quickly beat back the Toa. It was only when the Toa used their elemental powers together against Makuta that they were able to defeat him. The Toa started back up to the surface of Mata Nui victorious. The Toa, it seemed, had saved the Matoran at last.

 

When the Toa reached the surface, they did not hear the sounds of peace but the sounds of turmoil all over the island’s landscape. They found a Ta-Matoran near the Kini-Nui who repeated one word over and over: Bohrok. The Toa used their Kanohi to speed their way to Ta-Koro to investigate, where they found mysterious creatures attacking the village. It turned out that these new creatures were swarms of Tahnok, Pahrak, and Kohrak. The Toa were able to drive away the Bohrok swarms, but the Toa had just faced Mata Nui’s newest threat: the Bohrok swarms.

 

As the Toa stood around a single fallen Pahrak, Turaga Vakama told the Toa the legend of the Bohrok, which was yet another prophecy spawned by his visions. This legend stated that the Bohrok had slept a seemingly endless sleep for thousands of years. Whenever they awakened, they would rampage throughout Mata Nui and devastate the island. The weakness of any Bohrok, however, was its Krana – a purely organic creature within the Bohrok’s headplate that guided the Bohrok on its mission and gave it extra power. Even the mightiest of Bohrok would be rendered helpless if parted from its Krana.

 

Turaga Vakama told the Toa of a new mission: to gather the eight Krana breeds from each of the six Bohrok swarms – a total of forty-eight Krana to collect. The Toa took a Krana Xa from the fallen Pahrak. As leader, Tahu ordered the other Toa to split off and return to the Koro to make sure their villages were safe and to start on their mission to gather the Krana.

 

After many struggles against the Bohrok in gathering Krana and defending the Koro, the Toa finally gathered the forty-eight Krana necessary for their mission. All six Toa later met on the foothills of the Mangai volcano. At Lewa’s suggestion, the Toa wasted no time in traveling with their Krana to the entrance of the underground Bohrok nests in the rocky wastes between Ko-Wahi and Le-Wahi. The Toa descended into the tunnel, trying their best to avoid exiting Bohrok and fighting past them when they couldn’t. After the Toa traveled into the tunnel for some distance, Tahu descended down an opening in the floor that sealed itself shut once he was inside Tahnok nest below. Meanwhile, a slab of stone suddenly came down and sealed the tunnel ahead of the Toa waiting up above. The five Toa then faced a surge of lava flowing down the tunnel they had come just down through. Desparate to escape, Pohatu and Onua worked on shattering the stone slab while Kopaka tried to slow the lava flow. Despite all of Pohatu and Onua’s strength, they could not produce even a scratch in the stone. It was Lewa, who had survived the experience of having a Krana attached to his face, who realized that the stone slab was an illusion. Once the Toa stopped believing that the stone was actually there, it dematerialized. The five Toa escaped from the tunnel; and they met up with Tahu once again when he burst through the floor, having heated the air in the Tahnok nest until the pressure blew the nest apart.

 

The floor gave way under the Toa, sending them falling into a large chamber below. The Toa used their mask powers to cushion their fall and landed safely. They noticed special niches in the ground specialized for the Krana they carried, so they placed in them the Krana they had worked so hard to collect. Once the Toa did this, the ground shook, causing six doors in the walls of the chamber to crumble. The doorways revealed six entrances; each Toa went into their own passageway. The Toa discovered Exo-Toa armor in the new chambers, which gave them more power than ever before.

 

The Toa returned in their new Exo-Toa to the larger chamber, where they met the Bahrag – the twin queens of the Bohrok swarms. The Toa quickly surrounded the Bahrag and drove them into the center of the chamber. The Bahrag’s symbiosis allowed them to grow more powerful as they came closer together; and when the Toa attacked the Bahrag with the new weapons of the Exo-Toa, they had no effect. Despite the new power that the Exo-Toa gave the Toa, their battle with the Bahrag did not seem to be in their favor. Tahu finally reasoned that the only hope to win the fight was to get out of the Exo-Toa, which hindered the use of the Toa’s elemental and Kanohi powers; and so he ordered the Toa to shed their Exo-Toa armor. The Toa surrounded the Bahrag once again, this time combining their elemental powers in a single beam against the Bahrag. This created a barred cage of a type of indestructible solid protodermis. Since the Bahrag were imprisoned, their mental link was cut off from the Krana, and in turn cut off from the Bohrok. The Bohrok all over Mata Nui ceased their rampages at once. The Toa had saved Mata Nui once again.

 

Simultaneously, the Toa were drawn into tubes in the floor of the chamber filled with energized protodermis. As destiny would have it, the Toa were transformed by the substance into something more powerful than any other Toa had ever been, with greater elemental powers, stronger Kanohi masks, and shiny new armor. No longer were they Toa Mata. Forever after, they would be known as Toa Nuva.

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It's giving you that "you don't have permission..." thing, isn't it? That's because the Akaku entry isn't published yet. I'll get to doing that one of these days ;) .

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