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[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

Now that the ball has dropped, I present...

ALL CARDINAL POINTS

By Toa Levacius Zehvor

Preface
‘All Cardinal Points’ is basically a reflection of the time I have and my first good (I hope) attempt at writing an epic with the skills time has let me acquire. This story is not meant to be 100% accurate to the BIONICLE story at all, and is not set in the Matoran Universe as we know it. The exact nature of this Matoran Universe will be revealed over the course of the story. The primary islands and continents are much larger than in the canon – the Southern Continent is about 17,500 square kio in area, while in the canon it’s not even a single thousand. There is also an Eastern Continent, where the city of Kardam Jin is located – a city covering half of the continent, and within several hundred million matoran inhabitants. Even Metru-Nui is large enough to have a population of over a million in this world. There is a sun and a moon and in all other ways, it seems to be a planet, not the inside of a robot, much like on Mata-Nui. The spaces between the primary canon islands are also much greater - much like crossing from one continent to another in the real world back when all we had was wooden boats.
‘All Cardinal Points’ will, over time, cover most of the Matoran Universe that is known, and some islands that do not exist in the canon story. That is, of course, because it covers all cardinal points.
The characters are not prone to sudden developments – they have a personality, and it’s not going to change very rapidly if it changes at all.
There is no true dating system used by the entire universe. This story is set 15,000 years after the Barraki fell, or about 65,000 years before the primary events of the Bionicle canon would start.




Prologue

The water rippled slowly, with the sun shining in from up above. In a small boat, far too small to be safe for the great sea voyage it was going on, a large, tall toa wearing a silver breastplate and with a golden brown shade of armor slowly used a paddle of wood to move forward. Looking up, he frowned. The clouds above were darkened, and he was almost certain it was going to rain soon.

He sighed. He had hoped to make it back to the central islands if he could, but now that seemed unlikely. The rain was going to be annoying – it was a guarantee that his red cloak, which he had lying next to him, was going to get wet. Looking onward, he saw that it wasn’t going to be much longer until he reached the island up ahead. He stopped paddling and placed the paddle at his side, reaching into his pouch to pull out a map. Recalling his last stop at the island of Cordak Jaja (not a friendly place, even ignoring the scorpions), he used his fingers to trace where he was now.

Noting the key, he observed that the islands entire eastern half was walled around, the western half having spiked rocks making it nearly impossible to land. There was only one dock. More so than the rest, this island was marked as a dangerous location, with a small isle just a kio off inhabited by Zyglak, and a large force of them dispatched on the island itself.

Despite many years, the toa had heard the names of few minor islands outside of those near the Northern Continent. He recognized this one, though. It was a small, port island isolated from most of the Matoran Universe, rather unknown due too its unimportant location and isolation from major trade routes. But at this distance, even while he looked onward, he did not notice silvery wisps of smoke and the smell of ash coming from the island.

The islands name - Siramir










Chapter One

Midnight, two days before Prologue…

The moon shown down from up above, piercing the veil of the forested half of the island Siramir. In the darkness, a Ga-Matoran hunter raised her spear at a nearby jungle Mahi. The small Rahi was drinking from a small pool in the middle of a clearing, with the moon shining down on the water, which in turn reflected its brilliant light.

The matoran steadied her aim as the creatures ears perked up to look around. Realizing that her chance was almost lot, she hurled the spear. It was too late, however, as the Elkere had already detected her and was turning. The shot itself was a poor shot made as a last ditch attempt. The creature she had been stalking bolted off, five hours of tracking (made more complicated by the Zyglak threat of the forests) wasted. She cursed her carelessness. With imports becoming rarer ever since the raid by the reptilian creatures on a trade ship, hunting in the forest had become a necessity if one wished for meat.

The jungle Mahi was long gone now, and she was too tired. She frowned. “Good job, Zita,” she thought to herself. “No meat for you or your district. That was going to last at least a week if the Stone Rats didn’t get to it!”

Zita moved over to where she had seen the spear travelling, looking at the pool as she went. Her blue noble Miru was easy to see in the water, as was her light bluish green armor. Taking a few seconds to observe herself for any injuries from the hunt, she continued onto the spear.

When she got their, she gasped. The spear was not impaled in the ground or in a tree, but in a cold, dead Zyglak, lying against the wall. At first she thought that she had killed the creature, but a close look proved her wrong. The creature’s blood was not pouring out, as its heart had been long stopped, and only a small stream came out.

She looked down and saw the Zyglak’s spear, known for its destructive properties. Putting it on her back, she got a closer look. This Zyglak had a large, hunched back, a physical deformity marking it an exile. It had died on its own, likely due to being unable to hunt or simply the old age so much more harmful to organics.

Placing her armored boot on the creature to pull the spear out, she saw the fingers twitch. Normally she would have expected this in prey, but this Zyglak had long since gone into rigor mortis. Watching, Zita saw the entire hand twitch, followed by the arm, and then the eyes of creature flickering open and its mouth uttering a hiss.

Stumbling back she attempted to thrust forward with her spear, attempting to kill the thing, thinking that it had simply used some sort of playing dead trick. Her hopes were disregarded as the creature swiped at her with its diseased claw, nearly cutting into her body before she stumbled back onto her rear. As the creature slowly came forward, it pulled the spear out of its body. Its eyes were dark and bloodshot, and the creature seemed not even to care that it was injured, injured in a way she had seen fully healthy Zyglak screech out and back away from.

Standing up as fast as she can, Zita rushed back into the forest, trying to make it back to the walls of Sira-Koro, the village behind the walls of Siramir where she had come from. As she ran, the spear went flying a few bio past her and impaled itself in a tree. The creature continued forward, hobbling as fast as its deformed and stiff body could.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour passed before Zita made it back to the walls, where a duo of matoran watched, a Fe-Matoran and a Ta-Matoran. The two guards looked down at Zita as she came rushing out, completely out of breath and with the Zyglak spear strapped to her back.

The Ta-Matoran looked downwards, spear at the ready in case he needed to hurl it at an incoming Rahi or Zyglak. Calling down to Zita with a sarcastic tone of voice, he said, “And what brings the bravest of hunters running for her life from the forests of Siramir, bearing the token of a horrible monstrosity with her?”

Zita scowled at him and called up, “That monstrosity you mention managed to survive two spear strikes into the chest and keep coming forward without any care! I found it dead after my spear missed a Mahi, but it somehow came alive again!”

The two guards grinned as they looked at each other. This was not the first ridiculous story told by Zita, and at the rate she told them, it was impossible to tell when she was telling the truth or when the so called monstrous dragon Rahi was actually her excuse for being beat back by a pathetic Kinloka while wandering through the forests. The Fe-Matoran looked down at Zita and said, “So, the dead are coming alive to terrorize poor Zita? Shall we search the skies for flying Skakdi now?”

Zita screeched at the Fe-Matoran, “My words are not spoken falsely! Let me through the gate right now before I climb up there and have your corpses fed to the living dead army!”

The Ta-Matoran went down with an amused look on his face and turned the crank to open up the gates. Zita rushed forward and knocked him over, heading back for her hut. She would have to ponder for quite a while about the events of this night. She wasn’t sure what to think of it, but she knew no good could come from any of this.

* * * * *

Morning broke with no problem, as it always did. The sun slid across the sky, releasing itself to shine down on the massive trees of the island. The grassy patches dotting the islands eastern half were covered in a thin layer of morning dew, in contrast to the dry, thatch roofs of the many farm huts across the island.

A small area, with a two bio wall of stone isolating it from the fields, held six larger than average houses with much nicer design. A ray of yellow and white light shined down on the entrance of one of the dwellings as its door opened. Out of it emerged a toa. He was of average height, with a reasonably muscular build compared to the average toa. His armor was a dark orange, and he had small plates of armor across his body that appeared made of topaz. His mask, of an orange slightly lighter than the rest of his armor but with a metallic underlying sheen, appeared as a Kualsi. Across his back was a large sheathe holding a large claymore.

His name was Darennad, Toa of Fire serving as a guardian of Sira-Koro. Looking forwards, he considered once again his desires to move the door to the other side of the building as he had to avert his eyes and adjust to the blinding sunlight. He frowned. Another long day working as a guardian of Sara-Koro, wandering around the island and watching out for some stone rat terrorizing a matoran. And, glancing at the roster Commander Parigun had written up for the week, he knew he had been assigned to the least favorable – by the standards of his team – job of all.

“The docks…” he thought to himself. “Petty criminals and docked pirates, the later being the only excitement whenever an entire ship floods out and attempts to take the city. That’s all that the docks are. But at least it gives me a reason to check to see what’s happening off island.”

Darennad continued moving forward through the dawn lit fields, where the earliest of awakened farm workers were already hard at work toiling in the fields. As he moved past, one of the workers closest to the side of the road threw him Bula berry, which he readily accepted. Giving a nod of thanks, he continued on as the Matoran went back to his labors.

His mask peeling over near his mouth so he could take a bite into the fruit, he closed it back up as he silently chewed. As he looked forward, he saw that he was nearing the walled dock region, the closest part of Siramir to the term ‘urban’. A flock of Mata-Nui fishing birds flew overhead, and he looked up to the sky.

An embossed plaque of a Muaka almost seemed to be alive as it hung on the stone above the massive, heavily barricaded wooden gates that lead into the docks. The gates, opening inward to the docks, were infused with Kanoka disks fused together to have the properties of a Mask of Shielding, making even the strongest forces to bring it down from the front impossible to all but great toa powers and massive siege engines.

Moving past the gate, pulling the lever to open it, he was again made disgusted by the depressing, slum-like area. Unlike the great city of Metru-Nui, where work was taken care of properly and in an orderly fashion, Siramir had a much different order of inner workings. It was a Hapaka eat Hapaka world for these people. Only the insane or lazy stayed in the docks when the fields needed tending, but at this time of year they were full of those unable to work in the fields and unable to get a job working at the two factories (not that Darennad would prefer to work there either). As such, beggars lined up along the side of the road. As he passed by, most went quiet. It was common knowledge that the toa of Siramir were granted all supplies they needed by the Turaga of the island, but did not hold personal wealth. It wasn’t even worth asking one.

As he passed through the area, he headed for the short but thick tower where Turaga Kirss resided amidst a massive trove of knowledge going back to the dawn of the universe, including great secrets and records from all sorts of events, going back to the League of Six Kingdoms and the founding of Sira-Koro, when it had been used by the Barraki Carapar as an outpost for holding stores of poison and food. The Brotherhood of Makuta, even before they attacked at Metru-Nui, had killed off the population of the island by mixing the two up and tossing the bodies in the forest, leaving it a ghost town for nine thousand years before the first of the current residents landed and quickly took to using the well fortified location.

Outside of the tower, a large board was pinned with papers detailing what was happening currently. The fortress of Northgate on the Northern Continent being rebuilt, a toa of plant life gone rogue from the Southern Continent last seen only a few islands away from Siramir after killing her last companion, a new thieves guild rumored to have taken over Stelts underworld. The usual doomsday prophecy hung up, and nearby a matoran frantically cried out about the end being nigh.

He chuckled and turned. Whilst on his abnormal, looping patrol, he heard some noises coming from the barracks, likely the guards getting their exterior plates and weapons ready for their patrols. Taking his own path through the back alleys he headed past the outer dock gates over to the wharf. A large galleon had recently docked, taking the space of three normal cargo ships and unloading crates by the dozen.

As Darennad moved around the wharf, he opened his hand, and began to absorb the flames in the torches lining the streets. The flames flickered, and enlarged for just a moment before they danced into a flurry of bolts that attracted to his hand, creating an orb of flames. Closing his hands, he felt a sense of warmth as the energy of his own element empowered him.

After watching this display, a matoran wearing fine clothing came over from where the galleon had docked and approached Darennad. “Excuse me, sir Toa? I was told by the harbor master that I needed to talk to the Toa on patrol in order to unload some of the cargo on this ship.”

Darennad gave the matoran a quizzical glance. “Since when did that rule get instated? Commander Parigun never said anything about this to any of us. What is in the ship any-“

Before he could finish, another toa walked past him. He was clad in purple armor with black markings over his mask, which appeared to any observer as a Kanohi Hau. Like the mask Darennad wore, this mask had a completely different power than it appeared to. As his was a Mask of Sensory Aptitude, this mask was a Mask of Stealth. And, just a few moments ago, it had been in use. The toa, staring forward, said, “You don’t need to worry about it, brother. The rule was put into place last night. You shouldn’t have to worry about it happening too much, it’s only for some rarer imports.”

Darennad shrugged, “Well, Amfik, if that’s the case, could you take care of it before returning back to the compound? I need to make sure that some beggar isn’t trying to stab another to get some Vola-Whata bread.”

“Sure brother.” replied Amfik after Darennad had finished. As Darennad walked away to leave Amfik to take care of it, he caught a glance of the matoran holding a clipboard and saying, “Sign here, please.”

As Darennad walked around the docks, he saw a Ga-Matoran, one of the hunters, rushing frantically towards the docks. Holding his hand to stop, she looked at him frantically, fear in her eyes. Shaking her head, she said, “It’s too late! We all have to flee! It’s true, I saw it!”

Before he could react, she was already long gone. He frowned. What could have spooked a hunter so bad that they would have fled to the docks to get away?

* * * * *

After the morning signing and odd encounter with the Ga-Matoran, who he was later told had been Zita, Darennad found himself moving through another boring day. The galleon and two much smaller cargo ships were all that docked, and he didn’t see Amfik afterwards either (not that, even if he wasn’t heading back to the toa compound, Darennad would see him anyways unless he chose to be seen). At dusk, the birds flying overhead retired to the lighthouse and other large buildings to roost, while the matoran working in the factory sighed in relief after much hard work. Tomorrow he figured would be shipping day, and the galleon, which still waited in the harbor, would likely be vessel responsible for transporting most of it. Islands without agriculture had their uses.

As he sat on a bench, he rested his mask against his hand. He thought about all of the stories he had heard of the wars of the universe. The stories of the Skylance War were his favorite. The rise of a small city state to a large kingdom, and finally into an empire covering over two thirds of the continent before it fell to internal corruption. That was his favorite part. For the first time in the history of the continent, ever since the League of Six Kingdoms had disbanded and splinter groups plunged it into war, the many kingdoms on the island rose together and to usurp the corrupt emperor. The powerful Emperor Skylance III who, like his predecessors, took his name from that of the empire and the powerful artifact he was said to have carried, had been defeated in battle by great heroes, and the corruption was revealed in full of the empire when it was found that the general of the army who bore the artifact was not the Emperor in armor, but the Empress, who had been the wielder of The Skylance, trapped within a robotic suit bound to the Emperors will. But he already had discovered his own artifact – a mask that granted invincibility. In the end, the Empress gave her own life to defeat him, thrusting The Skylance through his heart. The artifact vanished, and his body was disintegrated along with the mask, leaving only her lifeless body. The city, bound to his lifeforce, vanished completely. Without it and its warriors, the rest of the empire fell, and Skylance was no more.

He wished that he could have been there, serving in those noble armies as a hero, not as a guard for a tiny village on a tiny island. But he accepted his fate as it was, and knew that at least his life was better than that of the factory guards.

However, that didn’t make it any more exciting. For two hours, he stalked around the docks, until dusk had finally faded into late night, with a new moon and hundreds of stars up above in the clear night sky. Using his powers to light the torches, he eventually made his way back to the bench.

As he sat down, he again thought of the exciting battles. If only he could be there! If only he could be a hero, one worthy of ballads and exciting stories.

In a cruel, twisted misinterpretation of his silent musing, his enhanced hearing imparted by his mask nearly tripled the far off, but extremely loud, sound of a volley of lightning bolts. Grasping his head and startled from the unexpected noise, he looked up into the sky, where a massive cloud was gathering overhead and bolts of lightning were streaking to the ground.

The sounding of a horn, three short bursts followed by a long one, marked one thing – the forest gates were under attack! Stumbling back as another blast of lightning sent thunder through his head, he shook his head and shouted, “What in the name of Mata-Nui is going on?”


REVIEW

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

Edited by Toa Levacius Zehvor, Jan 01 2012 - 12:18 AM.

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

Chapter Two

Midnight, one day before Prologue…

Toa Jathmia rubbed her hands together rapidly, causing lightning to dance in between them. From atop the northernmost of the two towers flanking the forest gate, she looked down to the small clearing right in front of the gate. There, a Zyglak was slowly surging forward, its right leg as stiff as that of a long dead corpse.

With a simple gesture, the lightning from the cloud above flowed through her open palm and slammed into the Zyglak below with enough sheer energy to incinerate a Matoran.

Normally, she would have passed the creatures survival of the attack as its species elemental resistance. But even then, the Zyglak would have at least been startled by the bolt. This one just kept surging forward, as if the bolt had never hit, even as a smoldering burn smoked from its hide.

Two more were coming out from the forest, provoking her response of a volley of lightning bolts as, from the tower opposite her, the team’s Toa of water Mayruh sounded the horn, before gathering the moisture in the air from the cloud she had created a few seconds earlier and pulling it back to the ground in a fist off water that slammed into one of the Zyglak in a high speed blast, knocking the creature to the ground before driving it back nearly five Bio, towards the forest.

From atop the towers, the two continued fighting. A Le-Matoran guard on one of the walls aimed a ballista mounted near the towers at a second Zyglak, the metal tipped wooden bolt piercing the creature’s thick hide and carrying it back, pinning both to the ground, where the creature lay immobile. From next to him, the same Fe-Matoran guard from the previous night readied a repeating crossbow and emptied the entire magazine in one volley upon the third creature, each bolt barely piercing the beasts hide.

A field of electricity held that Zyglak in place while a Ga-Matoran on the other wall fired the second ballista on the wall, pinning the reptilian horror. As the downed Zyglak in the forest began to stand back up, a blast of high pressure water blasted into a tree, knocking it down and on top of the creature, crushing and pinning it down.

The two Toa looked at each other, worried, as the three Matoran cheered at another job well done. These three had been far more resilient that others they had battled with, and seemed almost indestructible. Still, the ballistae had managed to pin down two of them, and the third one hadn’t put up much resistance after being crushed under a tree.

Darennad rushed forward along the wall, to the side where the Ga-Matoran was standing. Holding his hand out with a globe of fire to light his way, he called up to Mayruh as she stood up on the tower, “Why was the horn sounded? What’s going on?”

She replied by saying, “Just a minor skirmish, but a bit odd. It took a full on ballista bolt to bring them down… and a tree.”

Darennad put his hand up to his chin with a thoughtful expression going across his face. “Could it be some weird Brotherhood experiment that got lose, perchance?”

Activating her mask of flight, Jathmia hovered over and landed by Mayruh. “I don’t know what they were, asides from tough Zyglak, but they’re dead. That’s good enough for me.”

The three continued talking, as the Le-Matoran and Fe-Matoran gave themselves a pat on the back about taking out some of the Zyglak. As they spoke, the Le-Matoran happened to glance to the side, where the Zyglak were. His eyes went wide as he shouted, “By Mata-Nui! Look!”

The three Toa and other two Matoran looked over, and all gasped when they saw what was happening. The two Zyglak pinned with the ballista had grabbed onto the bolts and were pulling themselves up. The bolt in the first one pinned snapped, causing the creature to roll away. Ripping the wood out, it stared forward with dark, blank eyes, a massive hole in its chest. The other one simply snapped the bolt in half with its hands, leaning forward with a hole of its own going through it.

Darennad enlarged the orb in his hand when he saw this, sending a scorching blast of flames at the one. The creature was set on fire, but it kept stumbling forward without a care in the world. Two lightning bolts and it kept coming.

Mayruh frowned and activated her mask of levitating, descending to the ground below with her lochabar axe drawn. A spin of the protosteel weapon’s razor edge went right through one of the Zyglak from the top of the head down, cleaving the creature in half. The axe continued its path and was embedded in the ground. Mayruh cleanly pulled back, leaving two halves of dead Zyglak. It didn’t twitch or grasp out anymore.

The other one followed, but before Mayruh could swing, it stopped. Its entire body was pulling into itself as it collapsed into a dense orb. Mayruh turned away in disgust as gravity crushed the Zyglak into a dense organic ball.

Amfik appeared from stealth as gravity was relieved on the Zyglak, letting what was left of the creatures body fall to the ground. A wicked look went across his face as he looked at his blood drenched, spike covered mace. “Not the first one slain this night. They’re coming from the forest in the dozens, and at least half of them with those spears that they’re so keen to use.”

“Brother,” said Darennad from atop the wall as Mayruh wiped off her axe blade against the grass. “What were you doing out in the forest?”

“Nothing that can’t wait until later. I’m surprised you had to wait for Mayruh to come down. Normally you’re the hothead who rushes down and ends up with the healer for the better half of a week.” replied Amfik.

Darennad chuckled. “Well, we have to let the others have fun every once in a great while.”

“Hah, hah, hah. Very funny you two.” said Mayruh, heading over to the gate as a Matoran pulled the lever to open it up. “Let’s wait until Parigun shows to decide on our next move. If you’re right about there being a full army of them, Amfik…”

The three went through the gates, where Jathmia had flown down. After they passed through, she turned the lever and let the gate close and lock. The Matoran were stiffened on the wall with the ballista armed and ready.

Commander Parigun quickly came over, or at least as quickly as he could in a full suit of plate armor, personalized by a tabard with the symbol of Siramir – a wall with trees in front and a great gate with a shield hanging on it. Flanking him was a large Toa of air, abnormally so for his element, a large flail strapped to his back.

Slamming his staff into the ground, Parigun scanned the area in front of him, along with the four Toa. “Will one of you four explain to me why the horn was sounded, why the Koro is on high alert, and why Amfik has blood dripping off of his mace head? Again!?”

Staring into the red armored Toa of plasmas Kanohi Rode, Jathmia said, “Holding off an army of dead Zyglak that are somehow kicking. You’re late.”

The two locked eyes. It was well known across the other members of the team that Jathmia held a great deal of resentment to Parigun. She was the senior member of the team, and all silently consider her its most powerful and skilled member. More so, she vocally disapproved of how the Toa of plasma managed the team. He preferred to keep them like a town guard, patrolling the city, rather than actively defending the people as independent beings with their own schedules and plans.

Finally, Parigun responded. “It doesn’t seem that there is any problem. The four of you lazy oafs are milling about the gate. And don’t try to trick me with these accusations of some undead army.”

“You would dare to call me a liar!” replied Jathmia with a growl. “I always thought you were a prideful fool, but you’re going to call out your own team over your inability to fathom anything beyond your perfect little world.”

“Why, how dare you!” Parigun fumed. Looking over the other three, he said, “One of you confirm her story. I won’t take her excuses.”

“I’d advise that you do take them,” replied Amfik. “Considering I’m the one who saw the main force, and had to take out five of them. Or, more properly, put back to the ground where they belong. Does that answer your little blood question too?” He twirled the mace, pointing it at Parigun for a short moment to show it’s tip in grosser detail before lowering it again.

Parigun gave him an equally dark glare before he pushed forward, heading over to a ladder on one of the two towers. As hard as it was, he resolutely climbed his way up while the first four rapidly ascended in various means up to the top. Jathmia waited on the tower Parigun was ascending. He looked down to where the three Zyglak lay dead, whilst the Toa of air Uuru climbed up from behind.

“Well…” he said, looking below. “Two dead Zyglak and one of them twitching underneath a tree. That, by all respects, should be dead and not twitching.” Bitterly he continued, “It appears you were right, Jathmia. But I see no proof of a le-“

The word ‘legion’ was never completed as, silently, a javelin went flying past Parigun’s head. Had nobody been there, the weapon would have missed completely. But as fate would have it, Uuru was just then coming up from the ladder. The javelin went through his head in one clean blow, disintegrating his mask as it went through and found itself embedded in his skull, bringing him to the ground nine Bio below. Even if he had simply been pushed, the fall would have been enough.

Parigun shouted out when the attack came. Another javelin went flying, but Darennad was able to quickly incinerate it before it hit Amfik, who pulled down a whole trio to the ground from their center point, snapping their spines before they hit the ground.

A plasma geyser erupted in front of the first Zyglak to emerge from the forest. Unlike the flames that simply burned, the boiling plasma instantly melted the creature. Still more kept coming, slowly moving for the gate.

Nodding at each other, Mayruh and Jathmia readied their powers. A barrier of water rose in front of the wall, stopping two javelins, before falling and collapsing upon the Zyglak. With a gesture, Jathmia sent lightning through the water in a long line, letting it flow into all of the Zyglak. The smallest of the walking lizards fell twitching from the electrocuting energy, disconnecting whatever force kept it moving. The others were little more than scorched. Two bolts of plasma and a few fireballs erupted across the field, and a field of gravity caused four of the Zyglak, and a couple of small trees, to smash each other.

The Matoran pitched in with the ballista, one lucky shot taking a line of three down together, where a geyser of plasma almost immediately rose up and incinerated them.

After fifteen minutes of unending fighting and dodging – though it felt like hours – Darennad scanned the field. Dozens were coming with no end. “They keep coming!” he shouted. Amfik muttered something about the obviousness of his statement, though he didn’t quite catch it.

Parigun scanned the field, too. Determined, he replied with the cry, “And we will keep holding! Let not Sira-Koro and all that we stand for be toppled by the forces of the unliving!”

As Parigun turned, he spun his staff as he channeled Toa power. However, even as he readied his power, one of the javelins hit it. The elemental power within the staff instantly emerged, melting it completely and giving a slight burn to Parigun and forcing him to let go of the slagged pile made by the javelin and staff, the heat remaining until it hit the ground, where it melted through the stone.

Disarmed, Parigun swore. “One of you give me your weapon!” he shouted, staring at the others. With a silent curse, Jathmia tossed Parigun her short sword, drawing out a small hand axe that she rarely used. Sidestepping and swiping a javelin in half, she ducked past a second and whipped a bolt of lightning forward.

By this point, the Zyglak had reached the wall. Now, a second problem presented itself of them being able to scale the wall. It finally looked to the Toa like they would have a breather to simply pick at the Zyglak.

The threat became clear when they began to climb over each other. One of the Zyglak almost made it over the wall before a wave of plasma incinerated it, and a fist of water knocked over the ‘living’ ladder.

Parigun pooled what was left of the elemental energy within him together, and prepared to fire it forth in a burst to take out a cluster of armed Zyglak emerging from the clearing. But when he released the geyser, he watched as only a small blast of plasma emerged, only slightly harming the central one.

Cursing, he backed off. A volley of five javelins came at him, and he ducked down in hopes of surviving the flurry of blows.

They never made contact… with him. The thunk of three javelins could be heard as Mayruh stepped in front, taking all three that otherwise would have killed Parigun as the other two hit harmlessly towards the side. She stumbled forward and gasped for air as Parigun stood up, looking forward in horror.

Jathmia screamed in horror and rage, lightning bursting forward from her. Electric energy danced through her hands and, in a blind rage, she dropped her axe and let loose a blast of lightning to the group responsible. The last of her drained elemental energy poured out as she watched all five drop, never to move again. In a rage, she tried to move forward and off the tower to fight the creatures in melee, but Darennad was able to restrain her and hold her back.

Amfik pulled out the horn, resounding noise across the fields. Five short, one long, two short. Every one of the Matoran was up in a few moments, out in the fields readying arms and supplies. The village was compromised, and the walls weren’t going to hold. The entire village was heading for the docks now. This meant only one thing – they had to flee.

The battle was turning from bad to hopeless. The Toa evacuated, taking the Matoran down with them and any bolts to take from the ballistae to those on the dock walls. The entire village was fleeing as Zyglak came across the wall, some trying to get shots off with crossbows and the like before they fled. Maybe one or two of the creatures fell, but that was a generous guess.

The Toa team’s last four members were not the last ones to the gate, but they were to be the last ones through it. Holding the gates until the last Matoran rushed through, Parigun looked over to where the lever was hidden behind a panel, in case of emergency that the village had to hide in the docks rather than flee from it.

Unfortunately, the lever was rusted. It had been so for quite the long while, apparently. Parigun cursed. All four looked to each other, and knew what would have to happen – it had to be closed from the outside.

Before the others could say anything, Amfik rushed back outwards and past the gate. As he did so, the Zyglak came surging forward. He grabbed the functional lever on the outside and, with all of his strength, pulled it closed. His remaining powers of gravity did the rest as he crushed the lever and destroyed the mechanisms allowing it to function. Even if the Zyglak knew how to, they wouldn’t be able to use it lever to open the gates.

As he looked back, Darennad could swear that the last thing Amfik did before the Zyglak surged for him was stare directly into his eyes. He seemed to be mouthing the words ‘Carry on.’ Darennad closed his eyes even as the others were already turned away, knowing full well what he wasn’t seeing was the killing blow upon his oldest friend.

Opening his eyes, he stared at the closed gates. A stone hard look in eyes, he knew that the other two had already gone to check on the villagers, or at least have some alone time.

Looking up at the top of the walls, he was the first to speak. “Get the Matoran on the ballistae! I want every explosive and trap ready! Anyone not able to fight needs to be loaded on any docked vessels; there aren’t enough for a full evacuation. But we will hold these docks to the death!"

Review Topic

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

I didn't do a second spell check on this so the grammar and spelling may be below par.

Chapter Three

Midday, the day of the Prologue…

Parigun had finally gotten over Darennad blatantly taking over command, but that didn’t make him any more bearable. He was constantly complaining, and was making sure to assign the Toa of fire the worst job of the lot – getting the Matoran off island.

The sounding of a horn, one extremely long sound, marked another Zyglak slain. More and more were coming, but it seemed almost impossible to keep them permanently down. As the team was drained of elemental power and both emotionally and physically pained, they were unable to outright destroy the Zyglak. Resting was limited, making it a hard, slow process to regenerate elemental power.

Jathmia wasn’t doing very well. She had completely disobeyed Parigun, who had placed himself in charge of the town guard, and gave the guard different orders as she saw fit. With Darennad stuck in the middle of the two more experienced Toa, he tried to keep away.

He heard the acute shouts of a female Matoran not too far off. Turning around he saw her, the same Matoran he had run into the previous morning, being dragged by two of the town guard. She was flailing with all of her strength, but even if she was a hunter, the guards were both larger and stronger. That didn’t deter her, of course.

Darennad walked over to where the two were, holding his hand up to stop them. “What’s this all about?” he asked them, giving the trio a quizzical eye.

The guard to the right of Darennad, a Ba-Matoran, shrugged. “Zita here has been more than a small amount of trouble recently. Apparently she ran into one of the undead before anyone else did, when she was out hunting two nights ago. We caught her yesterday trying to stow away on one of the shipping vessels and locked her up. She tried the same thing just now when we were trying to get as many civilians as we can on the galleon.”

Zita ripped her arm free of that Matoran, but was restrained again quickly. “I saw it! It was horrifying! I took its spear! But I couldn’t hurt it. So I ran here, hoping to escape this place. But nobody would let me. Nobody would believe what I said about this.”

“We would have told you Toa,” continued the Ba-Matoran. “But this one has made some pretty outrageous claims before.”

“The winged Skakdi was real…” replied Zita with a hiss. “He had a really big sword, too.”

Darennad looked at Zita. “You’ve never caused a problem with the Toa before. I doubt that Mayruh, Jathmia or Amfik would have thought you were lying. If you had told us, the later and former of the three would still be alive. Undoubtedly, Uuru would be as well. But you didn’t, and now three of my team mates are dead because of your failure to tell us – your cowardly attempts to flee.”

Zita stopped struggling. “Wait…” she began. “Three of the Toa are dead? How could they have… I didn’t know there were so many. I didn’t know any of this would have happened!”

“Too late for that now…” responded Darennad, turning away from the trio. After pondering for a few seconds, he said “Take this one to the wall. She will either see the last one of these creatures fall, or she will never see another island in her entire life. If she doesn’t flee, knock her off the wall. Let her hope she dies before the Zyglak can get to her. I will not stand to have any cowards around this place. Do you hear me clearly?”

The Ba-Matoran nodded. “Yes sir.” he replied. He glanced at his companion and said, “Come on!” as the group began walking over towards the wall. Zita didn’t struggle, though, as she considered what had happened recently.

Darennad looked over to the galleon. He thought back to it being unloaded of supplies. It would be able to transport over one half of the island by itself, and combined with the other docked vessels it would be able to take all but the guard, the Toa, and a few others who would remain off of the island.

He thought about Amfik mouthing that last term – “Carry on.” He just hoped that he could. The team was weakened and the village was damaged. But that made him hold on as he began to think. As he looked over to the galleon, he said the word from his mouth. Amfik hadn’t said ‘carry on’. He had said ‘galleon’!

Spying the Matoran he had encountered the prior moment, he looked down and said, “Excuse me, Matoran. What was this vessel supposed to carry?”

“Not a swarm of refugees…” started the Matoran, before looking up. “If you want to know what it brought here, it wasn’t much of anything. Just a few non perishables, some weapons, an element crystal from the Southern Continent, and a few books. Mata-Nui knows what the books are for.”

“Or the crystal…” responded Darennad. “Aren’t those the giant bomb things used in the Kamirok Wars? That supposedly could bring down small camps once activated.”

“Ay. But you need a temple of Mata-Nui to activate the things. And I haven’t seen any of them here. More of a suicide weapon than anything else. You can set them on a timer, but not for very long. Hope you’re not thinking of using it.”

Darennad considered. The only temple on the island was outside of the docks, and if he was right, he could activate it there. If an element crystal was activated there, it would destroy the village. But it would also destroy the Zyglak. Looking down, he said, “Where is the crystal?”

The ship captain motioned over to a nearby storage house. Darennad headed over to the storage. Was this what Amfik had wanted him to use? Opening the door, he headed over to the area of yesterdays drop offs. Surely enough, there was a crate with some symbols unfamiliar to him inscribed on it, likely about the crystal. Opening it, he reached in and pulled out the crystal. Where it was now, it appeared as a harmless piece of red crystal. He knew the truth, however, was far deadlier. Once activated in a temple, one of these things was able to destroy everything within a kio. They had been used in the war by both sides – the people of Kini-Metru had used them to destroy secrets and to martyr themselves when being overrun, the most radical of those in Kamirok stole them from the enemy and activated them within their temples, killing large numbers of enemies and themselves.

Turning the crystal in his hand, he walked out of the store house. He went to inform the other two about his plan. If he could get out there, he could make a break for it and get into the temple. From there, he could in one fell swoop obliterate the entire Zyglak force.

* * * * *

“Absolutely not!” called Jathmia as she slammed her fist down on the table in front of the other two. “I will not let you risk your life in such a reckless manner. Even if the Zyglak don’t get you, you’re going to die at your own hands. This isn’t up to debate.”

Parigun stroked the bottom of his mask in thought. “The plan has merit. We can easily destroy the Zyglak in one fell swoop. If Darennad wants to do it, then at least the Matoran would live.”

“Like you care about the Matoran!” shrieked Jathmia, pointing out the buildings window to where a number of Matoran, the last of those who would leave the island, were gathering. “You only care for yourself! While I applaud Darennad for his bravery, I will not let one of our number die while I watch the coward hide away and take the credit for everything.”

“How dare you!” responded Parigun, slamming his new staff into the ground as he stood up and shooting a thin beam of plasma at the Toa of lightning, which barely missed her. Jathmia responded by whipping a bolt of lightning that knocked him back into the wall.

Darennad created a wall of flame between the two, who both turned to him. Holding the crystal, he said, “I am going to do it. And neither of you are going to stop me.”

Jathmia stared forward and caused a field of lightning to freeze Darennad in place. As Parigun tried to walk from the wall, she sent forth a wave of lightning bolts that caused him to kneel to the ground, unable to do little more. She walked forward, and kicked him to the ground.

“I never liked you, Parigun.” Said Jathmia. “You simply made your way up by kissing up to the former Toa Commander. Now you are leader of nothing. Don’t expect to ever see me again. And don’t expect Darennad to listen to you. You’re a weakling. My only hope is that you have at least one moment of honor before you die. And I hope it kills you.”

She walked over to Darennad and pulled the element crystal from his hand. Eyeing it, she said, “You’re a fool that you thought you would get out of here. I, however, can. My mask of flight can’t last long enough for me to fly off of the island. But that’s not my goal. I can make it to the temple.”

She sighed. “And I’ve lived as long as I need to.”

* * * * *

Thirty minuets had passed. Darennad had long since recovered as the lightning barrier had dissipated. Before he escaped, Jathmia was long gone. She only took time to search around and pick up her things, along with saying farewell to the Turaga and giving last commands to the guard.

Element crystals didn’t go off immediately, especially not this one here and now. Looking over the runes with Parigun’s mask (which he replaced with a Matoran one for the time, the Toa of plasma being unconscious already) he was able to read that it was specialized to take at least an hour before going off, the Toa channeling energy into it for that time. After that, there was a five minute time period before it went off in a burst of energy, though not as wide in area as a nova blast, just a deadly to all in the range.

It had already been more than long enough for Jathmia to reach the temple. By now, she was probably already channeling her elemental energy into the temple.

* * * * *

Jathmia placed the element crystal over the Toa Suva, and took a long breath before sighing. Should she have let Darennad do this? No. She should have forced Parigun to do it. Not that he would make it through the Zyglak. As she flew over, she saw at least a hundred of the creatures at the walls, and dozens more in groups, roving around and ripping apart Rahi. Why the undead needed sustenance, she knew not. But even if she did, she wouldn’t feel any better.

The doorway was sealed, and she had let forth some of her Toa power to seal the lock on it. Looking around, she saw it was only her in the central chamber. Above were the other chambers, and below even more. Looking around, she began to channel her lightning energy, releasing it into the element crystal.

She considered her options. It would be a slim hope, but she considered that if she could burst free from a side entrance, she could fly out and reach a ship out in the seas. It would be relatively simple to get haven on a trade ship. A pirating ship she could simply send the travelers into the sea from.

She would have to move over the forested region, to the west. That would lead her to the nearest island. That would be the easiest place to go. Even with the Zyglak, that small isle would allow her rest before continuing over the waters.

Her energy was slowly being pulled. The crystal wasn’t taking in as much as she expected. “Perhaps I should have learned more about the timing on this thing before I left the docks.”

Focusing forward, she did not see another entity, hovering at the top of the temple invisibly and scanning the area with pitiless eyes.

* * * * *

Parigun was finally conscious. Darennad paced in front of him, and delivered a great backhand slap against his leaders head. His Matoran mask went flying off, and he gasped. Shaping his head, Darennad placed the Rode back on Parigun’s face.

The Toa of plasma looked up at him, and said, “How dare you! I am your commanding officer! You will not touch me!”

Darennad pointed out from the window. The smaller ship had left almost fifteen minutes ago, and the galleon was leaving. “Go,” said the Toa of fire, staring down. ‘You are no longer my leader. Jathmia will be dead in less than an hour in all likelihood. Leave this place, and never return. I will remain with the guard and pick off the stragglers.”

“You would command me? You would declare yourself rogue from the Toa code? You would make yourself a rebel?” shrieked Parigun, standing up and walking towards Darennad. He felt extremely light… and then realized his plating was gone, leaving him only in Toa armor. His weapon was likewise gone.

Two Matoran walked in and grabbed Parigun, cuffing him in anti-element cuffs meant to drain the strength and elemental ability of a Toa down to that of a Matoran, engineered for rogue Toa. Darennad stared, and said, “Perhaps. But let it be known Parigun, Toa Commander of the Island of Siramir, was banished by the people of the island. I never liked you, Parigun.”

Parigun shouted oaths and curses of various natures to Darennad as the two Matoran dragged him off. Darennad sighed in resignation. If news got out from Parigun, it would be known Darennad had gone against the Oath of Mata-Nui, a recently conceived oath to honor those of higher rank. While there were many rogue Toa now, as not all accepted the oath in addition to the Toa Code, the majority did follow it. And that was enough.

It was only a matter of waiting now.

* * * * *

Jathmia backed away, weakened greatly, as all but the last of her elemental energy went into the crystal. Elemental lightning danced back and forth, and she turned to begin running. Not too long until it went off, she guessed.

A Zyglak at the doorway was quickly tossed aside as Jathmia busted out from a weak point in the ceiling top, bursting out and heading west. Within three minutes, she landed in the trees on the west coast of the island. Gasping for breath from the sudden burst and the loss of elemental energy, and she guessed some Toa power, she looked around.

An unseen force suddenly gripped around her, forcing her to grasp for breath as she was lifted into the air by whatever entity had a hold of her. Her armor started to crack under force, and a voice masked by some type of mechanical sound box spoke to her, “Hello, Jathmia. You were so predictable coming to this place.”

The Toa of lightning struggled, but was unable to gather the strength to release herself. A burst of energy went off in the background, and she realized from the crackling of thunder and lightning that it was the crystals energy going off.

She was turned around then, turned upside down in the process, and she stared forward to watch an entity hovering before her. The being wore solid ebon plate armor, with spikes emerging from them and an overtly dramatic cape coming from its shoulders. The mask was unrecognizable under an over mask made of powerless metal, bonded onto the face. It clapped, and looked forward, saying, “Congratulations, however. Events are going as both I and my mistress have planned. The elemental crystal was recovered and activated. The fact you got away was also planned for, but we could never have expected that you would leave with such a bang. Parigun is gone now, and Darennad has taken charge. I’m quite proud of him, as a matter of fact.”

Jathmia spat to the ground. “What do you expect for me to do? Beg for mercy.”

The being waved its hand, and Jathmia fell to the ground as the force vanished. It looked down, saying. “Of course I don’t. I know you better than that. Too bad you don’t know me. Or, that is, the true me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back in my real body.”

“Then what do you want? Why am I still alive… whoever you are?” she replied.

“I wanted to inform you that your death will not be a waste. You did indeed destroy our army, and permanently at that. Or, at least, the main force, and that’s about all. And know that you are not going to die as a coward, like you would be described if your existence was discovered, but as a hero. However, I would have expected you would have known from the start that the Zyglak didn’t just wake up on their own.”

“Of course I did. And I expected just as quickly that you knew more than you let on. You were one of those amongst us who were there when it began. Of course, I never expected that you were so much involved. Don’t think that I didn’t read her write up. A mask of reanimation, you with a Kanohi Iden, it was likely simple to control the body. Your new body always acted a bit odd. How long exactly have you been here, though?”

The entity simply shrugged. “She’s been her about a month. Her other servants have been moving around to make sure no one expected she was here. She was able to use a certain stone to connect her masks power to my new body here, so I didn’t need her so near.”

Jathmia sighed. “You know I cannot die without a fight, though? Don’t think you can just kill me!”

The entity once against shrugged. “Go ahead. But you know you cannot win. You saw how strong I was outside of my body. And putting the two of us aside, she still lives, and she alone can destroy Darennad and the petty Matoran.”

Jathmia channeled the last of her energy and hurled it forward at the being, shattering the first layer of its armor. The being scoffed and clenched its hand, causing Jathmia’s armor to collapse around her, squeezing her organic tissues. With a flick of its wrist, it sent her flying like a rag doll ten bio away.

She hit the ground hard, dazed from the blast. Recovering slightly, she looked up and saw the entity once again. The beings hand opened up and pointed down, and a blast of concussive energy blasted her into her skull. That was the last thing that she saw.

* * * * *

The harbors were empty. Rain poured down, as if the heavens themselves were crying over all that had happened recently. Still, as the moon shone down on the island below, a small ship docked in the harbor. From it emerged that same Toa who had long ago set sail from his homeland. His silver breastplate and Huna – truly a Matatu - gleamed against the lunar light, as did his golden armor and red cloak.

He looked around, observing the area as he took out his large shield, showing the emblem of an armored Muaka with two back legs rather than treads, and his large spear. From the small vessel, a large pile of towels was disrupted as a Muaka appearing the same as on the shield stood up and looked around, pouncing up from the ship and onto the dock. Stretching, the creature looked around and growled.

“Well, Sinto, it looks like we’re here. Now lets just find out what’s going on here.”

Information
Toa Code – In this universe, it is a very old code virtually all Toa follow. It means the protection of the Matoran and the destruction of evil. In the ancient past (20,000 years before the Leagues fall) almost no Toa followed the code. Today, the number of those who do not follow it is once more on the rise. A member who breaks the Toa code by killing another is not allowed to use the title Toa before their name.
Oath of Mata-Nui – There are many Toa in this universe that follow this oath that swears the allegiance of a Toa to their team, and to whoever the Grand Order of Toa appoints as the leadership of an island.
Grand Order of Toa – All Toa who follow the Toa Code and Oath of Mata-Nui. Their leadership enforce both being followed, and punish those who do not. The leaders of this order appoint members to the position of leader on most islands. They are opposed by the Xankah Order. When a Matoran becomes a Toa, they are supposed to present themselves to the order. While once a force of good, more and more rogue Toa are hailed as heroes despite their accusations, and many of their servants are known to be less than pleasant.
Xankah Order – The Xankah Order is a group of Toa and other beings aligned with them headed by Toa Precentus, an ancient Toa and a noble warrior. Their main purpose is the destruction of threats to the universe from both within and the connected pocket dimensions. All members retain the title Toa by their own choice, and follow the writings collectively known as The Role of the Toa.
The Role of the Toa – A parchment scrawled report by Toa Precentus with the thesis“In order to be a true hero, and truly call yourself a Toa, you need not follow a code to defend the lives of villains, but to do what is right and to defend good by actively combating evil.”. It was extremely controversial and opposed by the Grand Order. Many rogue toa who desire to aid others, and remain part of a group, gather with Precentus.

Review Topic

-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

I couldn't get this up any earlier than this, sadly, though I already had it done. Oh well.

Chapter Four

Under the rain and moonlight, Darennad stepped from the shadows, an orb of flame in hand to light the way, barely maintained due to the rain. In front of him, he saw the recently docked Toa and his massive Muaka guard. Waving his hand, he caused a ring of flames to dance around the duo. Surprisingly for him, the other Toa didn’t even flinch, and caused two arms of stone to grab onto the Toa of fires arms.

“Well, hello there,” said the foreign Toa, looking forward. The stone first twisted Darennad’s arms, and the Toa said, “Please remove these flames, or you will lose you arms.”

Staring forward, Darennad caused the flames to dissipate. The stones fists let go, and Darennad stumbled back. “Who are you?” he demanded, walking forward and to the side.

“Might I ask you the same?” replied the newcomer, looking at Darennad with Sinto staying behind him.

“I asked you first.” rebutted Darennad, continuing to walk opposite from the newcomer, so as to create a circle, with the two now having almost traded places.

“I have a Muaka.”

Darennad was about to respond, but found no words to properly go up against the Toa of stones answer. Surprisingly to him, as he stood still, the newcomer laughed and said, “I’ll humor you, firespitter. My name is Ser Herack, one of many Toa originating from the great Northern Continent. And apparently a rogue Toa now days, with that new oath and all. And you?”

“Darennad, as of a few hours ago a rogue Toa as well.” replied Darennad. “But back to you. Why are you here, Herack?”

Herack shrugged. “I’ve been sailing for a while, and my vessel isn’t exactly the most sea worthy. From what I heard, this was an old Barraki port turned into a village. But all I see is a port with no ships and no inhabitants aside from a single firespitter.”

“Had you been here three days ago, you would have seen six Toa. But four of us now lie dead, and the fifth banished.”

Herack chuckled. “Banished? By whom, I might ask.”

“By me. And the Matoran guard, the only of this village that remain here.”

“And for what reason are the others gone, then?”

“Reanimated Zyglak, and a few hours ago a massive explosion that went off outside of the dock walls. Does that sum it up for you?”

“If I was anyone else, I would call you crazy. But, you see, all sorts of weird stories have come to my ears across my lifetime, most far more unbelievable than yours. So here we are.”

“Yes. Here we are…” finished Darennad, his last word trailing off. “We have no vessel here, but we could probably use spare parts lying around here to patch up and modify your little fishing boat.”

“Perhaps.” replied Herack. Casually, however, he looked over at the boat to Darennad’s side, and said, “Unless, of course, that happens.”

Darennad turned his head to the side, and saw a very large damper in that plan. The vessel was almost completely full of water, and was now sinking into the seas around Siramir. “That does indeed put a hole in that plan, doesn’t it?’

Herack laughed. “Perhaps I will remain here and aid you and your Matoran until some vessel happens past the island.”

Darennad considered. Having this mysterious newcomer would be greatly beneficial. Two Toa were always better than one. Still, he didn’t know if he could trust this one. But, if there was any truth in this Toa, he would aid them greatly.

“We will be exiting the gate tomorrow at dawn.” responded Darennad. “I am taking seven of the guard through Sira-Koro and removing any stragglers not slain by the explosion Jathmia left as a parting gift. After that, we head through the western forests. I want to find out what happened here.”

Herack turned. “Well then, I will find rest in one of these abandoned buildings. I guess that I will see you in the morning, firespitter.”

Darennad followed just long enough to see Herack turn. Sinto gave him a dark glare before following his master, and Darennad shuddered at the massive Rahi. Not many grew that large here. Turning again, he walked directly to the barracks. He would brief the guards on this newest development, and on how it would change their plans.

* * * * *

An hour had passed after first light, and the rain had long since stopped. Darennad and his men trekked across ruined Sira-Koro, while Herack followed with Sinto. The area was a wasteland – fertile farmland was scorched and left as barren ashes and dusk. Homes were nothing but piles of dusk and occasional solidified ashen debris. The Zyglak were much the same, though nearly two dozen still patrolled, having been under cover in a hole or having come through the gate recently. The gate itself was damage, splintered into the forest with Zyglak crushed under it. The temple, as ground zero of the explosion, was little more than a crater.

The group began circling back around, and in doing so Darennad noticed something peculiar – a lone Matoran in blue armor with a javelin strapped to her back, rushing forward from the docks with a small supply sack.

Darennad signaled the others to stay back as he walked forward. Recognizing the Matoran as Zita, he scowled at her and said, “And when were you released, Matoran?”

Zita panted heavily from the difficulty of the run. “Who released me should be your question. I released myself quite easily. The guards, however, did not. I grabbed some supplies and my new javelin. I’m here to help you!”

Herack walked up behind Darennad and looked down at Zita. “Oh? With a stone tipped stick and no armoring? You’re a walking meal, you know that?”

“I’m very well aware of the circumstances, Toa… whoever you are…” hissed back Zita. Turning back to Darennad, she replied. “I got out once, and I can do it again, probably easier now that I’ll know what the guards will expect. You have to take me with you one way or another. I was there when the Zyglak first appeared, you know. And I’m a hunter. You’ll need my help if you want to find out what’s happening in the forest.”

Darennad considered. “You can follow, but promise not to get in our way. We have no need for excess baggage.”

Zita eloquently bowed and said “As you wish, great Toa.” in a mocking voice, before rushing off towards the direction of the forest. “Come on!” she said. “We’re losing daylight!”

* * * * *

Darennad had to admit, as annoying as she was, Zita was unmatched as a tracker and knew the forest better than any of them. Though Darennad physically had the sharpest senses due too his mask, he wasn’t knowledgeable about the ways of the forest, and despite his acute senses of sight and smell, he couldn’t pick out differences in things that Zita could. Thanks to her, the group had been saved from at least three surprise Zyglak attacks.

As they travelled, Zita retrieved two new javelins, and one very large spear, which she was now carrying around. The guards, too, took spares from the creatures, in hopes that they might prove more useful that a typical metallic protodermis spear like the group members carried.

Eventually, as the forest thickened, Zita stopped and turned around. “I believe you may wish to be weary past this point.” she said to Darennad and the others. “I have never trekked this far into the forest before. From now on, I will only rely on general knowledge and rumors. If we go any farther, I can’t guarantee what we’ll face, or if we’ll get lost.”

Darennad shrugged. “If we get lost, there’s always the desperation solution.” he responded, opening his palm and causing a massive ball of flam to emerge from his hand. He began moving forward, as did the others, as Zita continued leading them onwards.

The forest became darker and darker as midday turned to afternoon, and the thickening of the canopy didn’t help in the least. Eventually, the guards were forced to pull out their lightstones. Darennad and Zita, at the front, relied on the flaming orb Darennad held in his hand, whilst Herack appeared, if anything, to be closing his eyes and letting Sinto take the lead.

Darennad pondered the odd name. Herack had told him the beast’s title during the trek through the forest, and informed him of its meaning in ancient Matoran – Guide. Pondering it, and looking back at Herack, he wondered if there very well may be truth in those words.

Herack, too, pondered something. The forest was extremely dark and unusually silent. His eyes closed, he relied on a psychic connection established with Sinto, who conveyed all he saw and heard over to his master. Herack, in turn, conveyed psychic messages to Sinto, indicating non-instinctual actions, such as looking over something that a typical beast would not.

On his own, Sinto cocked his head up and growled. Herack looked through his companions eyes, and saw the source of the problem.

“Defensive formations!” shouted Herack as he dodged to the side, eyes opened. The others up ahead turned, and all lights shown directly upon the target of Herack and his exclamation – a Forest Lurker.

The creature kicked one of its legs, knocking Herack to the ground the Toa of stone hit the ground hard as Darennad pulled out his sword and let lose a blast of flame. The creature shrieked as the flaming blast hit against its chitinous shell, leaving a scorch mark. It rushed forward, barreling past Sinto, and leaped at the nearest guard. The Matoran readied his shield as the creature jabbed forward with legs and tried too bite at him. Though he saved himself from being devoured, the creature still succeeded in knocking him down.

Another one of the guards jabbed at the creature’s side with a Zyglak javelin, penetrating the shell and causing the creature to whip its front leg, knocking the Matoran to the side. Zita charged forward with a “Huzzah!” as she jabbed the spear she held into the Forest Lurkers maw. The spear pierced upwards, causing the creature to release one final shriek as she ripped it out, leaving the creature dying. Darennad swept his hand, causing a wave of fire to finish the creature.

The group looked around, and turned their attention to the Matoran guard who had been kicked aside. While his friend on the ground was still alive, the damage the kicked Matoran had taken was severe, and his armored had been shattered. And, with that having taken place, falling upon a briar covered in poisonous barbs proved lethal. By the time the others got over, he had already breathed his last.

Herack and Sinto walked over. Giving the Matoran a salute, Herack turned back onwards and said, “He’s dead. We have to move on before more nasty critters surprise us. I sense something very odd here in this forest.”

Darennad nodded. He also felt some sort of disturbance in area, as if the elemental nature of the region was out of sync with the rest of the island. However, so great was the disturbance he did not sense and even greater and far more dangerous one. Up above, the mysterious entity who acted as the face of all that had happened so far stared down. But what went through its head as it stared down were not thoughts of easy victory, but of concern. Who was this new Toa? Why was he here?

The entity faded from existence, vanishing into the twilight of the forest as if it had never been there. There was still another, and she must be informed of this change in events.

* * * * *

The moon was rising above when the group finally trekked through to a clearing in the thick forest. However, the trees up above were still incredibly high, and reached together to form a shell. What made the oddest trait of the area, however, was not the clearing, but what was in it – the entrance to an underground temple complex.

The group looked around, and the Matoran fanned out. Ruined statues covered the area, as did overgrown foliage. The disturbance felt strongest in this place, and the two Toa moved near the entrance.

“I think whatever has been causing all of our problems is down that tunnel.” said Darennad, looking down the passage.

“YOUR problems, you mean.” responded Herack, “But yes, this is the source in ally likelihood. And I’m quite interested in the events that are happening here, so I would be quite happy to help you and the Matoran travel down into the passage.”

Before Darennad could reply, however, a voice echoed down to them, stating, “Oh, I don’t think the Matoran are going to be going down there with you.”

The two turned, and Darennad gasped at what he saw. The remaining six guards were pulled together into a ball, their masks and armor shattered and their own weapons impaling their bodies. Zita was nowhere to be seen, though Darennad had little doubt that the Matoran of water was crushed in the center of the mass of bodies.

Up above, the same black plated entity seen by Jathmia nearly a day before floated up above, tossing the mass of bodies aside with some type of telekinetic force. “I didn’t expect you would find new friends, Darennad, or do anything that you managed back at the docks. I thought Jathmia had proved impressive, old pal, but you definitely changed my viewpoint there.”

Darennad looked up at the being, whose cloak fluttered in some unseen wind. “Who are you and what do you want!” he demanded. “Answer me, murdering fiend.”

The being chuckled as the mechanical mask over his normal mask pulled away, revealing a black Kanohi Hau. An extremely familiar Kanohi Hau, one that Darennad knew was not truly a Hau.

“Amfik… but… you died!” called up Darennad, looking up at the mask of the one he had once called his friend.

“That’s not my real name, ‘friend” replied the entity. “My true name is Karilel, and it was not long ago that I murdered the true Amfik. Unless you consider three months a long time. My Iden proved useful in possessing his body, and she was able to give it animation. I had to retrieve the mask, though. It was a very good mask, far better than the Iden usage wise. And as for what I want…”

A wave of Karilel’s hand sent a wave of gravity at Darennad, knocking the Toa back into a stone pillar and dazing him.

“I want you to die.”

Information
If you were unsure, know that the creature encountered by the group called the ‘Forest Lurker’ is known as a ‘Chute Lurker’ in Metru-Nui. The difference in name is because in Metru-Nui there were no natural forests for the creatures to hide in, causing them to move to the chutes. The Matoran called them ‘Chute Lurkers’ there because of the difference in hunting grounds.
If you didn’t catch it at the end of Chapter Three, Herack’s Muaka Sinto has four legs, like the one encountered by Vakama in Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows, and is covered in heavy armor plating. His mutation is not to be explained until later.

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Edited by Toa Levacius Zehvor, Jan 18 2012 - 07:46 PM.

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

Chapter Five

Herack whipped his spear in an arc, sending a volley of stone darts at Karilel. Two of the three shattered against the Toa of gravity’s armor, while the third was knocked out of the air. Darennad, now recovered, swung his sword and sent forth a wave of fire, which rushed over the armor to no effect.

Karilel used his gravity powers to grab Darennad and lift him up in an invisible, crushing grip.. He laughed, saying, “Within this suit, none of your flames can touch me, little Toa.”

The distraction was enough for Herack to create a stone fist that slammed into Karilel, knocking the Toa of gravity back and breaking his concentration, causing him to fall to the ground below. Darennad, the hold of gravity gone, fell only a few Kio away.

Herack tried to create two spikes of stone intended to rise up and impale Karilel, but found it to no avail as the Toa of gravity was already up and gone, having gone into stealth mode. Herack cursed and sent a wave of stone daggers into the air. However, before any could hit, they were crushed by gravity and turned into dust that hit the ground.

Darennad looked around, trying to find Karilel. But where was the one who had so long masqueraded as his greatest friend in the ranks of the Toa?

Before he could find Karilel, Herack already had. The Toa of stone activated his Kanohi Matatu, grabbing onto the Toa of gravity and tossing him to the ground. The mask of stealth was no longer concentrated on, causing Karilel to appear as he slammed into the ground.

Stumbling back, Karilel hissed and said, “How did you see me.”

Herack chuckled. “I have my ways…” he said, trying to keep his eyes away from a small stone sharp embedded in the Toa of gravity’s armor.

Karilel’s mask shimmered and turned a bright orange, and he said, “Well then… it matters not if I can attack from stealth or not. I have enough power to defeat both of you in combat.”

With that, Karilel slammed both with bursts of gravity, knocking Darennad and Herack back to the ground. Pulling out his axe, he twirled the weapon and slammed it into the ground, sending two bolts of energy through the ground. Both Darennad and Herack were knocked into the air, and hit the ground hard as Karilel increased their personal gravity.

Darennad rolled to the side as he recovered, standing up and causing a wave of heat to burst out from within Karilel’s armor. The Toa growled from the heat, tossing Darennad into a tree. As Herack pointed his spear to release a first of stone, Karilel caused the spears weight to increase to even greater than its wielder, pulling it out of Herack’s grasp. A follow up of energy blasted from the axe knocked the Toa of stone to the ground.

“Do you truly think you can defeat me?” called out the Toa of gravity. “I have been in this universe since you acted as Matoran laborers. I was part of one of the first three Toa teams! Do you truly believe you can take me in combat, petty warriors? No Toa can conquer me! Not even one of the Makuta can conquer me! With her, I shall rule the universe, and we will take the place of the Great Spirit from Mata-Nui. The Barraki were not ambitious enough, not strong enough, but we will have an army of the undead at our disposal. None will stop us!”

As the Toa called to the two, he was completely oblivious to what was behind him. As he channeled his elemental energy into himself, he was unaware of his third enemy. A flash of blue and a spear, and then a sharpened point bursting through the heavy armor plating as it simply disintegrated from the large Zyglak spear. The spear then pulled out, causing Karilel to look around in dismay. He never saw his killer, as his eyes were blank and void before he could even turn.

Zita looked down at the body as it fell. With a growl, she said, “Never expected a Matoran though, did you ya’ ignorant fool?”

Darennad stood up, looking over to where Zita stood. Wiping his eyes and shaking his head, he said, “Zita? I thought you were dead with the others!”

The Ga-Matoran shook her head. “Of course not. I was in the main forest, setting up traps in case unpleasant things came through the main path. I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but you two were almost out cold and he was gloating, so I had my suspicions.”

“Well, Zita, you pretty much saved our hide’s there.” replied Herack, standing up and brushing dust from his red cloak. Sinto, who had been knocked out by a misplaced gravity burst, began to stir and growled, looking around and sniffing as he stalked over to his master

“Of course.” she said. “You Toa are all the same. You look ahead and focus on one enemy, and never see where your true enemy is.”

Darennad looked at the body. “You might very well be right. We were so focused on the Zyglak. We never considered that the true enemy might have been hiding in these forests, and might have been one of us the whole time.”

He sighed. “I’m so sorry, old friend. At least now your killer is gone, and your spirit might at last find permanent rest.”

Darennad turned. “We still have one last enemy to face, however…”

* * * * *

The two Toa continued down into the darkness, Darennad lighting the way. Sinto stood guard outside, and Zita continued a scan of the forest at Darennad’s request. Herack had his spear and shield at the ready, Darennad had one hand constantly on the hilt of his claymore.

They continued into a large chamber, illuminated by a massive lightstone. Looking over at the wall, he saw patches of a highly flammable type of moss able to hold the flames on it for large amounts of time. Letting his orb of fire out onto the moss, he watched as the flames expanded from that one patch to ones covering the entire wall, making the lightstone seem dull to the fires.

Out of the darkness behind them, two vines blasted out and wrapped around the two, then connected together and pulled them back to back.

“Not the most comfortable position I’ve ever been in…” said Darennad, looking around for the one who had bound the two together.

“I demand that you show yourself!” called Herack.

From the darkness stalked forward a tall, slim female Toa clad in green armor and wrapped in vines, mosses and lichens. Her dark brown mask was of foreign shape, and negative energy filled the air around it, sending a chill through the Toa of fire.

The Toa walked around the two, circling her captives. “So these are the two who killed Karilel? You two pathetic, self fashioned heroes killed one of the few true warriors I have met in my life?”

She laughed. “Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe he was just a weakling impersonating strength. Or he’s gotten soft from that time in your friends weakling body.”

The Toa stopped. “I know of you, little flame. But you I know nothing of, Toa of stone. I would very much like to learn who you are. And, of course, what led you here to your death.”

Darennad attempted to enflame himself, sending a surge of fire that charred the vines. To his dismay, it did nothing more than make them harder.

The Toa wiggled her finger. “Don’t even try that little flame. The vines were made specifically to defeat Toa like you.”

Herack looked at the Toa. “Well, you’ve probably never heard of me. My name is Ser Herack of the Northern Continent, and I came here to hug a Zyglak. Why else?”

The Toa narrowed her eyes and squeezed the vines even harder. Two more reached from the ceiling and pulled Herack up, while two from the ground pulled Darennad to the ground face first. Walking forward, she said, “I demand you tell me why you are here! Are you a bounty hunter here for my head?”

“Of course!” replied Herack, rolling his eyes. “Because I obviously look like one. That absolutely must be it.”

“Do not toy with me!” she replied, stepping up onto the stone platform below Herack and reaching her hand up. Vines emerged and reached up to strangle him directly from her hand. “Tell me why you are here!”

Herack shook his head. “You just made a fatal mistake.”

The Toa stared at him, and then her eyes went wide. The stone platform below her shifted diagonally, pulling her back as a fist of stone emerged. The hand opened and grabbed her around the waist before slamming her into the wall, dazing her.

The focus required to control the plants gone, the vines loosened. Herack fell from above and hit the ground feet first, and Darennad was able to rip himself free, drawing his claymore.

The Toa waved her hands, and the plants around the duo shifted, revealing the metallic skeletons of seven Toa. All stood up, ancient rusted suits of armor over their bodies and with swords and shields in their hands, and hissed as they walked forward, their shattered masks falling more and more apart.

Darennad turned as two came upon him, swinging his sword. Their rusty equipment was useless, and the two fell apart under his flame licked blade.

Herack found himself under the same ease, as a slam of his spear into the ground caused the remaining five to be shattered from five bursts of stone slamming them into the ceiling and shattering their bodies.

The Toa of plant life grinned. “Very good, dealing with these cadavers. But little flame, aren’t you forgetting the bigger picture?”

Darennad’s eyes widened. “Zita!” he exclaimed, rushing up to the surface.

Herack looked at the Toa, who caused vines to rap around and snap the stone fist apart. Walking over, she pulled out a wooden staff wrapped in vines and covered in runes of elemental energy. “Now, where were we?” she asked.

* * * * *

Darennad rushed to the surface to find a tragic sight. All seven of the Matoran who had travelled with him were standing once more, but not as he remembered. Their eyes were black and vacant, and they were slowly approaching Sinto and Zita. The two were doing the best they could, but the animate guards kept coming even as Zita hurled the Zyglak javelins.

The Toa of fire swung his claymore into the nearest guard, cleaving it in half. A burst of fire and he incinerated a second, turned to see Sinto hop onto a guard and in one quick bite rip its head off.

Zita avoided a jab from a fourth guard, thrusting her spear through its head and kicking it off of the tip. Another one of the guards came behind her, but before it could stab her with its sword, Darennad launched an explosive ball of fire that knocked the guard into the air, where it went flying into another guard. Sinto leaped onto that pair and mauled both of them.

The final guard swung his axe at Darennad’s back, but the quick Toa of fire swung his weapon in an upward arc, cutting the Matoran’s arm off. A final swing down cleaved the guard in twain, and the two halves fell to the ground.

Darennad turned back. Sinto was finished with his targets, and Zita was panting as she looked around. As she turned to Darennad, the Toa of fire walked over and scanned the area. His eyes went wide as he looked over at where Karilel had lay dead.

He gasped when he looked at the empty area. “Where did the body go?” he shouted.

* * * * *

Herack dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a vine from the staff. As the Toa of plant life whipped her arm to the side, bringing the vine back, he caused a sharp razor of stone to erupt from the ground, cutting the vine in two. The cut off lost connection to the Toa, and the rest went past Herack harmlessly.

A point of his spear, and it was the Toa of stones turn. Another three razors of stone erupted near the Toa of plant life, aiming at her body. Two vines pulled her up as the three razors impaled the wall, and she allowed herself to be released as she landed in front of him.

Another whip of the vine, which Herack tried to block with his shield. The plant suddenly extended, wrapping around his shield and pulling it out of his grasp. Irritated, the Toa slammed the bottom of his spear into the ground and caused a fist of stone to grab the shield and rip it from the spear, bringing it back to him.

Herack shot out seven stone daggers, which the Toa of plant life responded to by creating a shield of leaves. When the leaves fell, she launched two vines out at Herack. He responded by creating a stone shield, blocking the two vines. He caused the shield to shatter with a well placed telekinetic blast from his map, and the razor sharp stone shards flew at the Toa of plant life.

She stumbled back in pain, cursing and swearing from the needles impaling her skin. She caused vines to whip up from the ground around Herack, pulling him to the ground. Multiple vines wrapped into an arm and a fist, and the hand crushed into the Toa of stones back.

Knocked windless, Herack was too dazed to focus on using his mask. With all the strength he could, he caused a stone razor to whip up and twirl, cutting the arm in twain. The temporary setback for the Toa of plant life gave him an opportunity to cut the vines around him and do a roll up, activating his mask and lifting the Toa of plant life into the air. A mental toss and he sent her flying across the room and into a statue.

She stood up, looking over at him and laughing. “Did I tell you my name yet?” she asked.

* * * * *

Darennad swung his sword, barely deflecting a surprise axe attack. Axe and claymore were hooked together and Darennad looked forward at his target. Unlike the guards, his new Toa was more than a simple animate undead.

“I should have expected you would have left your body before it died. I guess this was your way of half immortality, huh?” he said, looking into the eyes of his opponent. “Though I didn’t expect you’d have a chance to reenter.”

Karilel laughed as he kicked Darennad in the stomach, knocking him back a few feet and breaking the lock between the two weapons. As Zita attempted to stab at his side, he swung his left arm at her and caused gravity on her to become extremely heavy, slamming her into the ground.

Karilel pulled another axe from his back, swinging the two war axes in a flurry of blows. Darennad found his large weapon ineffective against the swift moving weapons of his opponent, and was forced to move back.

A blast of flame, and Darennad scorched Karilel’s armor. It appeared that the properties of his armor were no longer present, and the Toa of gravity stumbled back as the flames burned him. Karilel was equally surprised by the event, and Darennad pressed the advantage, swinging his sword in a deadly swipe. Karilel attempted to block with his right arms axe, but the smaller weapon was unable to hold up. The force of the blow shattered the skeletal structure as Darennad cleaved down, cutting the arm right off.

Karilel cried out in rage, looking over to the arm. While he could not feel it in his unnatural state between undead and alive, it was still enraging to him. With his left arm, he dropped the axe and removed gravity on Darennad, causing him to float helplessly up into the air. And, as Darennad floated up, the ebon armored warrior caused the branches above to pull down.

* * * * *

“My name is Orisarza,” she said, whipping her arm and sending two vines with sharpened tips at Herack, both bouncing against his silver breastplate. Orisarza sent out two more vines, but they once again deflected harmlessly against the armor plating.

Herack used his telekinetic powers to capture the next two vines and pull them into the ceiling, hooking them in place as they emerged from Orisarza’s hands. “Decent name, though a bit hard to pronounce.” he replied, using a telekinetic burst to knock her to the side as she attempted to retract the vines. As the stone above held onto them, she was pulled up and knocked to the side, forcing her to hang in midair.

Orisarza let the vines break off, and she fell down feet first to the ground. She growled at Herack clapped his hands together, causing two stone hands to also rise up and clap together, smashing her in between.

She raised her staff up, and vines reached into the ceiling. More emerged from the walls and the floor, and from the moss, two dozen skeletal Matoran rose up, vines wrapping through them and plants attached to increased hold and structural integrity. From amongst them also emerged two undead Dagger Spiders.

The skeletons lurched forward with their weapons. One wielding two gladii and no armor rushed at him swifter than the others, and Herack found his thrusting weapon less effective than Darennad’s massive sword. As the two weapons bounced against Herack’s quickly pulled out shield, he bashed the large metal object into the skeletal Matoran. Causing stone to cake over the skeleton, he was satisfied with entrapping the Matoran.

As three more stumbled over, Herack caused three fists of stone to burst out and shatter the undead cadavers. However, he was unsuspecting of Orisarza, who caused a vine to wrap around his throat and begin strangling him. He turned, grabbing the vine, and rushed at Orisarza, stabbing his spear forward. As she sidestepped, she pulled out a stone razor and cut the vine on his neck, freeing himself. The other eight skeletal Matoran continued surging as one dagger spider leapt, impaling him through his leg. He crushed it by pulling down a first of stone from above, destroying the creature as blood trickled out from his leg. The other lunged, stabbing its two legs. Herack twisted himself to avoid the attacks, but the creatures bite swiftly followed. Any poison long gone due to the creatures long dead body, the bite was nothing but a little bit of pain. Faced with little else he could do, he activated his mask, a telekinetic pulse knocking the spider away, and a second crushing it to the ground.

By the time he stood back up, kicking the ones spider’s leg out of his own and standing up, Herack found Orisarza ready once more. She slammed him with a new fist of vines, but a field of telekinetic force blocked it and caused the vines to pull apart and spread.

Another telekinetic burst and he knocked her back into the wall. With Orisarza dazed, Herack slowly stalked forward, spear at the ready. “No… no… no…” she muttered as he readied a thrust. The spear went through, impaling her through her heart light and instantly killing her.

The skeletons behind him stopped as Orisarza’s eyes went dark. All fell to the ground as bone piles. Herack ignored them, however, and simply stared down at the body. Reaching down, he pulled off a pendant from around her neck and pressed a button on it. He heard the creak of stone pulling and grinned.

* * * * *

Darennad gasped under the weight of the tree branches. His body was still being forced up, and the massive tree branches crushed his body. His structure was still intact, but he was still hurt and sore. He could do nothing but stare onwards at the enemy ahead of him.

Karilel chuckled as he stalked forward, “And now, as your friend falls, Darennad, so shall you…”

The body suddenly turned limp. Karilel’s eyes went wide, and he fell forward, hitting the ground in front of Darennad. The effects on the branches and Darennad both ended, as did that on Zita. Zita stood up and looked forward, rushing over to Darennad, who collapsed on the ground below. Sinto, knocked out once more, rushed over and exercised a move Herack had done well in training him – the Muaka grabbed his arm and pulled him out from the branches.

The Toa of fire groaned as he flipped over onto his back from his belly, looking up at the Muaka, who laid down right next to him. “Thanks and no thanks, you over sized beast.” he said.

Sinto merely growled and laid his head down to sleep.

Zita looked around, observing the once again dead corpses. “It would appear that Herack has succeeded in destroying your enemy.” she said. “It’s the only thing that can explain why Karilel finally stopped kicking.

The ground began to shake, as she said that, and the tree branches up above pulled away, opening up into the night sky, the moon shining directly onto the entrance to the underground area. The earth split open, and from it floated a vessel, appearing as a galleon made of stone covered in runes – and floating.

Herack walked over to the bow of the ship and looked down at the three. The side of the ship pulled away, and a stairway wide enough even for Sinto came down.

The Toa of stone smiled. “Well, are you three coming up?”

Epilogue – The Siege of Siramir

Even with the death of Orisarza, Siramir would not recover from the events that happened in those fateful days. The undead Zyglak were only the first trouble. In hopes of finishing off the Matoran left and under the impression they could destroy their undead cousins, the true Zyglak on the nearby island landed within a week and raided the forests.

At first, Darennad remained reluctant to leave his home. However, realizing that it was no longer his place, he gave Zita a Toa stone made from his own powers, with the instruction to choose a new guardian from amongst the Matoran. Herack and Darennad managed to use the airship to transport the other guards to where the other Matoran were, and with a final farewell, Darennad said goodbye to all whom he had ever known.

Yet this is not the end of this story – it is merely the beginning. The airship soon ran into problems with the power provided by disks of levitation, and crash landed into a small, deserted island many kio to the northeast of Siramir.

This is where our true story begins.

Preview/Prologue – The Ghost and the Griffon

The old Turaga looked into the skies above. A glimmer of light was all, and then a shake. Something had impacted from above and crashed into the island.

He grinned. It had been a long time since new people had come to the island. Maybe someone had been on the impacting object. He certainly hoped that they had. He had become very lonely, and the same voices constantly had spoken too him.

He stood up, listening to the whispers going through his head. Wisps of white and grey trailed around his head, and he closed his eyes to hear what the voices spoke to him. With a grin, he looked back up from past his white noble Kanohi Komau.

Yes. He would have new pets.

Next chapter will be coming in two weeks! Stay on the look out!

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-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

Beginning Part Two....

Chapter Six

Darennad pulled himself from the wreckage of the crashed airship, groaning as he looked around. The two had landed on nothing more than a deserted black rock, and their vessel had been shattered into nothing but ebon stones covered in no longer glowing runes.

“Good driving there, Herack…” he said with a groan, looking around for his partner. Not seeing him, he jumped up and exclaimed, “Herack?”

He looked around for his recently made friend. No sign of anything anywhere. Not even his over sized companion, a large Muaka named Sinto.

A growl and he cursed as said beast lunged at him, taking him to the ground. Sinto growled for just a moment before lying down and then pretending to fall asleep on top of him.

Herack peeked up from behind a large stone and laughed, walking over to Darennad. “It looks like Sinto has learned very well, doesn’t it Darennad.”

“He’s been doing this for nearly a week now as we’ve been stopping from island to island in search of… something! Now get your cat off of me!” replied Darennad.

Herack snapped his fingers, and Sinto pulled himself off of Darennad. The Muaka panted at him before turning away, walking over to his master.

Darennad stood up, rubbing his back. He still felt bruised even after the time that had passed from the event, but it took more than a few weeks to completely recover from having a tree fall on you. “Thanks… though I doubt you won’t do it again.”

Herack chuckled. “Of course it’ll happen again. You make the most comfortable bed I’ve ever seen, Darennad.”

The Toa of fire glared at his friend. “I’ve slain plenty of Muaka in my time. I doubt this four legged freak of one would prove much more different.”

Sinto growled at him. Herack just laughed some more.

Darennad began looking around him. The airship was the most noticeable thing, or at least what was left of it. There were also mountains that circled around the crash site. Small rocky points jotted from the ground. It was also very dark, barely enough that he could see. At first, he thought it must be a particularly foggy night, with the light of the full moon being enough to illuminate the area, and the stars being blocked out. But a second look revealed something much more troublesome.

“It’s noon.” he said, stunned. “But the sun is almost completely blotted out. How could that be possible…?”

Herack shrugged. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It seems pretty much void of life, at least here anyways. We seem to have landed in a small valley, as you can see. I’ve been looking at my compass, and I’ve been searching around while you’ve been out to see what’s around us. There’s a small pass leading to the south. Probably our best chance of finding a way off of this rock.”

Darennad nodded in agreement. “I think we should best be off of this place as soon as we can. I have no desire to be stuck on such a desolate spit of land.”

* * * * *

The trio trekked through the mountains. Darennad took the lead, holding a ball of fire in his hand to better light the path ahead, while Herack and Sinto followed behind, looking around and keeping watch for any threats that they might run into.

The howl of a Kavinika resounded through the small mountain pass the group had taken. Looking up, Herack saw one of the creatures. When the beast noticed it had been spotted, and gave a short, splitting howl before turning back away from the two.

Darennad spotted a number of the creatures as well. They seemed more than a little intimidated by Sinto, and the orb of fire that Darennad carried. Still, they were coming a little too close for comfort, and he used a jet of flame to singe one that came nearer than he would have liked. That kept the lupine beasts away from them.

As the three continued through the mountains, they finally came upon a large clearing. They could see mountains only on two other sides, but to the west they saw no mountains.

Turning that direction – to their right – they followed along the mountains they had came from. After half an hours walking, they looked from atop a hill to see the sea that surrounded the island. It was surrounded by perilous rocks and a number of small, pointed isles. Out about half a Kio from the water was a rock with a large, ruined tower poking out, the remains of a lighthouse destroyed centuries in the past, and by the look of the architecture, back in the times of the League of Six Kingdoms.

Darennad was the first to notice, however, what was farther down to the islands coast. Pointing, as he drew the flaming orb back into his hand, he said, “Look Herack!”

The Toa of stone turned, and squinted onwards. The flickering light of a large bonfire, seeming like a small campfire from this distance, could be seen nearly three Kio away from where they were, right near the edge of the beach.

Darennad shrugged. “Hopefully whoever it is won’t be hostile. I hate it when they’re hostile…”

The three left the hill and continued down the coast, watching as the tides beat up against the shoreline. The winds were relatively calm, but the waters remained unnaturally choppy, and it was easy to see that no normal ship would be able to survive getting onto this shore line.

Darennad held up his hand to signal Herack to hold back. Moving on down, Darennad could see clearly now the large bonfire. As the three neared closer, he could look and see clearly exactly how it was arranged. Moving atop a rock, he could see the flames shaped into three letters – S.O.S.

Spotting a bag of equipment, he jumped from the rock and continued walking. Looking down, he examined the bag. A few rations, a skin of water, some rope… standard exploration supplies.

A bolt of lightning whipped against the ground, startling Darennad. Looking over, he saw a Toa standing atop a small hill, clad in white armor and pointing a razor sharp shortsword in his left hand at Darennad. “Identify yourself.” the Toa called to him. “Or next time I will surely not miss.”

“A bold statement, but I doubt you have any idea exactly how dangerous I am. Some normal Toa wandering about isn’t going to scare me,” Darennad said, believing he could hold up his promise, despite it being a bluff.

The mysterious Toa of lightning called it, saying, “Do you believe that you can trick me, Toa? I call your bluff. You see, I’ve encountered many other Toa in my life, and killed numerous enemies. Many more experience than me.”

“Big words, but can you hold them up?” replied the Toa of fire, flashing a jet of fire out of his hand at the Toa of lightning.

The Toa of lightning held up his sword and the flames were sucked up into its metal blade. With another point of the weapon, now glowing with red power, the red energy transformed into lightning and blasted out at Darennad, knocking into the Toa of fire and shocking him.

Darennad rebutted, pulling out his own sword. The Toa of lightning hurled a lightning bolt, but Darennad was able to turn to the side just in time, the bolt streaking past him. He swung his sword down as hard as he could, but the swift moving Toa of lightning avoided the sword easily and cut at Darennad’s side, the blow on impact being able to cause fatal injury.

Or at least it should have. Darennad pulled put a small dagger that appeared to be made of bone, and held it up. A field of energy projected from the dagger and deflected the shortsword. From the close range, he was able to shoot flames at the Toa, causing him to stumble away.

The Toa of lightning smiled. “You have spirit, but you have no finesse. You are strong, but you have nothing to use as a focus. You are fast, but you have no balance, even with that fancy little mask of yours. Heck, that mask is the only reason you haven’t fallen on your sword already. But you should realize, to fight someone like me, you need some style in your work.”

Darennad put the dagger back into it’s sheathe and pulled his sword at, stepping to the side as he swung the weapon. The Toa of lightning pulled out a second, longer blade and held it in his right hand. With a fluid like motion, he rolled under the weapon, swinging at Darennads leg with his shortsword and thrusting his longsword up at the Toa of fires chest.

Darennad saw both weapons coming, and realized he was trapped. Still moving with his large weapon, he was forced into one action. Pushing his weapon down, he lifted his leg up and twisted to the side, grabbing onto the hilt as he turned.

The Toa of lightning was already upon him, swinging both weapons down. Darennad pulled his sword up as he started to go back into standing position, in an attempt to block. However, unable to hold on properly, the weapon was knocked out of his hand. The Toa twirled his blades as he stabbed down.

He found himself stopped by a telekinetic force, his blades stopped midair. He looked up and stared forward, seeing Herack standing right in front of the flames of the ‘S.O.S.’ with his spear and shield out at the ready.

“Hello there.” said the Toa of lightning, pulling his swords away from the downed Darennad. “And who might you be intruder?”

“Your very worst nightmare.” replied Herack, shooting forth a spike made of solid stone at the Toa of lightning.

The Toa stared at the stone from behind his gray Hau. The mask glowed with a green energy that spread over the area, and the stone spike was illuminated in golden light. It then shattered apart, leaving dust in the air and nothing more.

A wave of his hand, and the Toa caused a barrier of lightning to deflect the next stone spike. “Do you truly think you can beat me in elemental combat? You’re hopelessly outmatched by me and my mask. Mata-Nui, you’re outmatched by me by myself!”

Herack grinned, saying, “Be that as it may, I don’t need to best you in elemental combat. I just need to distract you.”

Sinto lunged forward from behind, attempting to take the Toa of lightning by surprise. However, the Toa simply turned and crossed his swords, causing the feline creature to be seized in a field of lightning and fall onto Darennad, further shocking the Toa of fire and holding Sinto in place.

Herack took the time of distraction to rush forward and thrust his spear at the Toa of lightning. The Toa was quickly able to turn back, though, and blocked Herack’s attack with his longsword while slicing at his chest with the shortsword. The blade was deflected against the Toa of stones shining breastplate with ease.

Using his mask, Herack telekinetically blasted the Toa of lightning into the air. However, the Toa executed perfectly a spin in midair, rolling back and landing feet first. As the Toa of lightning landed, he pulled his two swords together into a single hand and a half sword, which caused a field of energy to burst out as Herack stabbed at him. The spear stopped against the field of energy, and lightning went through it. Herack recoiled from the shock and stumbled back.

The Toa laughed as he looked forward. “You fight like a seasoned warrior. But I have seen more battles within a single year than most Toa can say they have in their life.”

With that, the Toa of lightning split his sword back into two and stalked forward to Herack. The Toa of stone thrust his spear, but his adversary simply rolled to the side and swung his shortsword, cleanly cutting through Herack’s leg. Herack turned and deflected a longsword blow with his shield, and thrust his spear down. The Toa of lightning rolled to the side and shot a bolt of lightning at Herack’s breastplate, electrocuting the metal clad Toa of stone.

Two hands of stone grabbed at the Toa, who jumped over and rolled forward, kicking Herack below his chest and causing the Toa of stone to stumble back. The Toa of lightning spun his longsword as Herack recovered, putting the razor sharp blade to his enemies throat.

“This is the part where I demand you talk or I kill you.” said the Toa of lightning,

“Well, what do you want me to say?” replied Herack.

“First of all, who are you and your cocky friend over there? Second of all, why are you on this island? Are you from the Brotherhood?” asked the Toa.

“The Brotherhood? What are you talking about? Do you mean the Brotherhood? The Brotherhood of Makuta?” responded Herack.

“Silence! I ask the questions here. But it does appear you’re ignorant to my situation, and who I am, so it would seem that I may be able to let you live. But once again, I ask – who are you?”

“My name is Ser Herack, a Toa from the northern continent, currently rogue. My fire-spitting friend over there is in a similar predicament, after kicking his Toa commander off of their island.”

The Toa of lightning pulled his longsword from Herack’s neck and sheathed both of his weapons. “I see…” he said, waving his hand to dismiss his lightning effect on Sinto, who slumped over. Darennad grunted as the Muaka let his full weight cover over him.”

“Your friend should be alright.” said the Toa. “And your pet shouldn’t be too bad off. You, however, may want to get your leg taken care of.”

He turned his head, looking towards the mountains to the southeast. “I might need you three. I don’t know what resides on this island. I just know it’s not pleasant.”

* * * * *

Darennad groaned as he stirred awake. Stretching, he reached for his head. “What happened…” he said, opening his eyes and looking around. He sighed. He had almost hoped this whole island had been a dream. And yet all he could see was that foggy sky up above and the bleak mountains surrounding him.

He looked over. The ‘S.O.S.’ was still there, though the flames were starting to die off. Turning his head, he saw the mysterious Toa sharpening his swords on a whetstone right next to a small campfire.

Thoughts raced through his head. That Toa was sharpening his blades. Was he going to kill him? Did he think he was already dead? No, impossible, he would still be breathing, this Toa couldn’t be that stupid. He couldn’t know that he was awake, though.

His heart raced. He had to act quickly. He doubted he was armed, so he thought about how he could channel his elemental powers. A flame up from the campfire as a distraction? If only his opponent wasn’t armed…

“You know, I’ve killed many enemies in my life, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never knocked them out. Or learned how to recognize when they’ve awakened, and thought of ways to respond to it. Believe me, you’re not the first one to try to think up a plan before of escaping. And you wouldn’t be the first to fail, either. If I truly wanted to, you would have been out cold the first time you flashed your eyes open.”

Darennad opened his eyes again and looked over. Leaning up, he found that he had been laying on a rock. All of his equipment was sitting next to it.

“Why did you let me live? And why shouldn’t I try to escape?” replied Darennad as he looked over to the other Toa.

“I let you live because your friend convinced me not to leave you both as corpses on this rock. And the reason you shouldn’t try to escape is because I told him if you did, he would never find anything recognizable as the body. Good enough?” the Toa replied.

Darennad looked over to see Herack and Sinto walking from a short distance away over to where he sat. The Toa of stones pet was dragging the dead body of some small lizard Rahi. “Good to see that you’re finally up again. No permanent damage I hope?” he called over to Darennad.

He examined his body. There were a few bruises, some of them from the crash, but a lot of them from the last encounter. There were also a few signs of electrical damage across his body from lightning attacks, and from the electric field covering Sinto previously. That aside, he only had a few cuts and gashes. Most of the strikes dealt to him had been those of one seeking to interrogate later, not one seeking to kill outright.

“No. But I’ve certainly felt better.” replied Darennad. Turning to the Toa of lightning, he asked, “What do you mean leave us both? You couldn’t possibly take both of us in a fight? You barely defeated me.”

“I’m sure you would like to think that.” responded the Toa. “And you can continue to if you would like. Now, I already know your name. You are Darennad, Toa of fire. So I am informed by your companion, Toa Herack. He speaks highly of you. So would I, if you hadn’t been taken out of the fight within less than a minute. Not that most can. They didn’t name an entire fighting style after me for nothing.”

“Oh? And what would that be?” asked Darennad, not convinced of the warriors speech about himself.

“Well, if you must ask, which I’m sure that you do, my name is of your own business. Even the style is only named after my title. They call both me, and my great ship, the Griffon.”

Darennad’s eyes widened. “You’re the Griffon? The notorious pirate wanted in every port city from Umbra-Nui to the Eastern Continent? How, and why, would you possibly be here?”

“Well, despite being the greatest swordsman to ever live, and being on the fastest ship ever built, that doesn’t mean I can beat nature itself. I was out on a scouting mission with a few of my men on a cutter, heading to this island. We were caught in some freak hurricane and cut up by the rocks and reef on this side of the island. To add insult to injury, the reason I was even interested in this rock pile is on the other side of the island.” the Griffon replied.

“But when the two of us were flying over, I looked down on the island. It can’t be much more than a kio in length!” said Darennad.

“As I explained to your friend while you were lying prone on that rock, this island is mostly mountainous, and has more than a few dangerous rahi. More likely than not, there’s only a few safe passes through this mountain range, and I’ve seen a few islands like this in my day. It’s likely to be nearly thirty kio from this area to the eastern coast.”

Herack turned to Darennad, saying “Our new friend here has informed me of a horrible creature that resides on this island. Based on his description, I would identify it as a rather dangerous creature normally found in the Northern Continent called the Ptornan Drake, a flying creature nearly four times as large as one of us able to breathe lightning bolts.”

“Sounds dangerous, but how does this affect us? We can’t take this creature with just the two… of us. Wait, are you saying that…” Darennad responded.

“Obviously, I’ll be helping. I may be all but immune to its breath weapon, but the creature is too strong for me to take alone. With the help you two could provide, I could take the creature out. Such beast’s horde all the shiny objects they can get, and a three way split could be completely beneficial. We could build a boat on the other side of the island, where it would be easier to launch from, and go on our separate ways when we reach a port island.” replied the Griffon, looking to the south.

“We shall leave when you are ready, Darennad.” said Herack. “I would like to leave this desolate rock as soon we can.”

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-Toa Levacius Zehvor

[Toa Levacius Zehvor]

I'd give an apology, but nobody would ever see it. Well, new chapter. Full week late.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Atop a desolate mountain, reaching far higher than the others in the massive, island encompassing range, an ancient Turaga scanned the land. Around him, eerily gleaming green lights danced. Looking outwards over the island, he sensed every movement. There were intruders, more than there had ever been before. They were invading his land.

The green motes of lights hovered near, taking on vague, semi-humanoid forms as they darted out into the regions nearby. They would deal with the intruders, and bring them to him. Then, the fun would truly begin…

* * * * *

Darennad groaned as a sharp rock pierced through his armored foot. While Griffon had successfully avoided all objects so far - as he walked, he seemed to effortlessly stay on the smoothest ground without even looking down once – and Herack simply manifested his power to clear the ground around him, just as easily as Darennad held out an orb of fire to illuminate the path for himself and the others.

“Your sure seem happy…” muttered Darennad, looking over at Herack.

“Of course, Darennad.” replied Herack. He smiled, knowing that he had successfully startled Darennad, who had thought himself too quiet to be heard. “All of the ground here is rock. I’m in my element, most literally. While there is indeed soil and earth under our feet, it’s covered by rock. And by my observation, volcanic rock.”

“Volcanic?” asked Darennad. “But I haven’t detected any great sources of flame…”

“Because magma is melted rock, like water is to ice. It’s not fire, Darennad. If anything, I would say that Herack would have more control over it than you. Still, never seen a Toa able to control a volcano. I knew one Toa of stone who tried to stop a magma flow. Poor chap…” replied Griffon.

Darennad frowned. “But stone is solid. How can it be a liquid? It would be like making lightning into a solid bolt.”

“Metal is harder than stone, firespitter, and that oversized piece of it you were swinging at me didn’t just form that way. And for your information, lightning, and fire, are completely different. Fire as observed is just the light and heat emitted by different chemicals. Toa, and other element users, can create fire elementally. Even though you can control the flames of a torch, it’s a different thing. Like raw and refined liquid protodermis. Lighting, on the other hand…”

“Quit with the science already.” growled Darennad.

“Irritated already?” replied Griffon with a grin. “You’re not the first. Drives my crew mad. But, you see, I’m more than a warrior. Back when I was a Matoran, I worked as a scientist for nearly ten thousand years on the Northern Continent. I eventually became a frontline warrior for my skill, true, but I had knowledge far beyond that of my counterparts. Even the high and mighty Ga-Matoran of Metru-Nui were stumped at reports I sent in.”

“Less dialogue, more action.” said Herack, pointing his spear over at the nearby mountains to the south – their right. “We’ve got some company, and it looks hungry.”

The other two turned, and all three looked up to see a Kavinika crouching towards them. Sensing its cover blow, the rahi stood up and began howling. A number of others, almost twenty of them, came rushing over the mountains or standing up from their own hiding spots.

“So, are you as good against Rahi as Toa?” Darennad asked Griffon as the creatures closed the distance.

“Less talk…” barked Herack as he readied his shield and spear. One of the Kavinika leapt at him, and he thrust his spear. The creature slid down the shaft, and the Toa of stone used his shield to push the creature off. As another attacked his unshielded right flank, Sinto leapt at it, grabbing the wolf like beasts neck, holding and down with his claws, and ripping out the creature’s throat. A third came from the left, which Herack bashed with his shield.

Darennad fared worse than those two. As a group of six creatures circled him, he swung his sword. The large weapon was easily avoided by the fast creatures, and one lunged at him from the back. He quickly blasted out a flash of flame, burning the creature instantly and killing it after a few seconds. The others backed away from the flames. Taking the advantage, he smiled wickedly and rushed forward, swinging his weapon as fast as he could and cleaving the beast in two.

A flash of lightning startled all combatants as Griffon called a bolt from the sky to strike one of the creatures, electrocuting it. He charged forward, jumping to the side of one and decapitating it with his razor sharp blade before stabbing another through the head.

The last stab by Griffon was enough to scare the others. Herack having already finished off the one had had stunned with his shield, almost half the pack was dead within less than thirty seconds of melee. A wave of fire, a flurry of stone shards, and a flash of lightning, and another five were downed. In less than a minute, only a few remained, running – or limping – away into the mountains, having long since realized the futility of the fight.

Howls continued coming as a massive Kavinika came forward just as the others came back. Nearly twelve times the size of the others, the creature has two massive heads and was covered in massive black spikes from heads to tail – again, two tails. The creatures shape was more bulky, but nevertheless retained the lupine figure of its smaller kin.

Griffon twirled his swords into their sheathes and began generating large amounts of electrical energy in his hands. Darennad moved forward, blade at the ready and flaming with elemental energy and cutting across the ground. Herack followed, shield at his side and spear pointed for a charge.

All three were startled when the creature barked, both heads releasing a massive sonic blast that knocked them to the ground. One of the beast’s heads looked down, and growled. It then opened its maw, saying, “What right do you believe you have to enter through my domain and kill my spawn. I should kill you for such an action right here and right now. Nothing is stopping me, Matoran.”

Darennad stood up. Staring at the beast, he asked, “Matoran? You believe us to simply be… Matoran? Creature, you are sorely mistaken. We are not Matoran. We are TOA. And we, unlike others, have no qualms of ending your life on this jagged rock.”

The beast’s second head laughed. The first, however, stared forward. Its eyes flashed, and it said, “Toa? So… this is what Toa are supposed to look like. I never thought I was going to encounter one.”

“Well, Karzahni of a place to live if you wanted to, creature. I doubt any Toa have been on this island since the Great Beings time.” replied Herack, standing up and preparing his equipment.

The second head, in a much higher tone than the first, stared down and said, “She built us to kill Toa. She said it was part of his plan. She took us, and placed us here to grow. To hunt. To destroy the beast on the island and take its power. We failed, so we were left. We once encountered a Matoran. Like you. A Toa. We consumed it, and we gained power. We liked power.”

“And so now…” finished the first head with the closest thing its head could have to a grin. “We will consume you. We will consume you, and drain your power. Maybe then we can hunt the beast that lives in the cave. Maybe even that Matoran hermit. For you see, once we slew the beast, our first task was to hill her personal Toa guard. And with the powers of four – and it – we might even be able to slay her. And we will….”

A lightning bolt erupted from nowhere, striking the creature to the ground and causing it to fall to the ground. Griffon stood up, with lightning once more charging through his hand, and said “I just hate it when the enemy starts explaining his plan.”

The creature stood up, but before it could roar out its power again, it was blasted with a second bolt of lightning, causing it to recoil. Griffon’s shot was less lucky the second time over as the creature jumped to the side and avoided the streaking white bolt. It opened both maws, and Griffon prepared to avoid both waves. Instead, two balls of sonic energy formed near him and exploded out, knocking him back and onto the ground.

Darennad swung his sword, releasing all of the fire energy he had stored in it. The flames knocked like a wave into the beast, which recoiled away, but seemed hardly harmed by the attack.

As the beast roared as normal with its first head, on its left, it seemed like it was going to catch Darennad. However, a wall of thin stone formed in the air between the two, being obliterated instantly but stopping the energy enough to make its effect negligible to Darennad.

Herack, hands in the air, raised them down. A large hole opened on the rock below the beast and wrapped up around it. Its eyes widened as its entire body was pulled into the mountain, sealed away.

Griffon stood up, and begun clapping his hands. “Very impressive, Toa Herack. Though I would recommend that you, oh I don’t know, finish it off so it can’t return. That’s just my recommendation.”

Herack nodded. Walking up to stand over the entombed area, he started pushing the ground down. As he did so, however, a massive eruption of energy catapulted him, and a large mass of rock, into the sky, and caused the heavily armored Herack to fall on his back, stunned by the force of the fall.

The creature jumped from the hole, charging at incredible speed to Darennad. The Toa of fire started to swing his sword, but the beast was upon him before the blade could get anywhere close enough to connect, grabbing him with one head and tossing him around, causing him to drop his sword, before tossing him away.

“You should have simply surrendered, so I could kill you together…” its first head growled. It then turned, charging forward into Griffon. The Toa of lightning crossed his swords together as the beast neared, causing an eruption of red energy. The creature hit the energy barrier, and found himself repulsed by the field.

Griffon, too, was knocked back. Uncrossing his blades, he slammed them into the ground. With a thought and activation his elemental control, he called down two bolts of lightning from the sky, which hit his blades and gained power from his own inner reserve. The two empowered bolts hit the two headed creature in both heads, causing it to fall over, stunned and apparently unconscious.

Griffon stayed back as Darennad walked over, grasping his hip and with his sword once more in hand. The Toa of fire readied his weapon as he moved close, pulling it up and chopping into the creature. However, as the weapon came close, it did nothing more than barely dent the armor of the beast.

“How could this beast have such strong armor?” asked Darennad, trying once more to swing at the creature to deliver a finishing blow. This time, however, the beasts eyes flickered open, and it swung one of its tails into his sword, knocking it away. It quickly turned, swatting one head at him and knocking him to the ground.

Griffon charged forward as the creature’s second head started mauling the downed Toa fire. Swinging both razor sharp weapons down, he cleaved halfway through the creatures second head. Pulling his shorter weapon out as it roared, he swung down and then up, causing both blades to connect in the center of the beasts neck. Both then carried through, the lower going up and the upper down.

The beast swung its other tail at Griffon, knocking him back so it could hit him point blank with a sonic roar. Just as it released its roar, sending the Toa of lightning and his weapons flying, Darennad grabbed his small dagger. The weapon, its phase dragon tooth blade made specifically to retain the creatures powers at a slight degree, completely ignored the creatures armoring as it went through its neck. The blade partially rematerialized in the beast’s spine, cutting through it.

As with an organic, the beast immediately lost access to its nerves. The head still moved around, but with nothing left to do, it was helpless as the Toa thrust the dagger into its head, time and time again, until it finally stopped moving completely.

Darennad panted as he backed away, wiping the creatures blood off the blade. The little, anyways, that had made its way on. Sheathing it, he retrieved his claymore and placed it back in its holder. Looking over, he saw the Griffon standing up to his feet already, looking around for his unusually powerful weapons.

He then turned to the mountain and started running, hoping that Herack had survived the explosive burst from earlier. When he made it up, he heard a groan from Herack, who turned over to look at Darennad. “Hey… did you kill it yet?” he asked.

Darennad chuckled. “Yes, we did,” he said. “But next time, put a spike through it before you bury it.” Reaching his hand down, he helped Herack stand back up.

Looking down, the Toa of fire could see a large amount of blood dripping down his sides. The creature had put a number of wounds on him. Luckily, it hadn’t decided to chew. Infusing his hands with fire, he reached down to cauterize his wounds.

Both came down the mountain, though Herack moved with a limp due to the damage he had taken. Griffon waited below, weapons sheathed as he studied the deceased creatures body.

“What are you doing?” asked Darennad. “It’s a dead two-headed Kavinika that can somehow drain power from those it slays. And it’s dead. Not much you can do with it.”

“I’ve been inspecting the body,” replied Griffon. “The creature is not, in fact, one creature, but two that were fused. The armoring on the body was added for a combination of better defenses and making the creature less natural. I would be willing to bet these two were fused together and armored. The enlarging process was probably done prior to fus….”

“You can write it down when we’re done, Griffon. I really don’t care what it is, or how it came to be. It’s dead now.”

Griffon stood up from his position of leaning over the beast and looked over. “I think, Darennad, you would be interested in knowing what I was going to end this with. This creature was engineered to hunt Toa, according to its own speech to us. And, based on the marks I see on it, only one group could have made it.”

“Who?” asked Herack, interested at the prospect of an organization trying to destroy Toa.

“The Brotherhood of Makuta.” said Griffon grimly. Darennad’s eyes opened wide at the idea. Herack, however, simply said, “The Brotherhood, you say?

“Indeed.” stated Griffon, seeming completely sure in his correctness. “I’ve seen more than a few of their little pets in my travels. See, almost every rahi you see was created by them. And most create extremely powerful guard rahi, normally only one of which exists. Though the fact the Brotherhood desired a creature made for the purpose of killing Toa is quite interesting. It appears that their little plan has failed, however.”

* * * * * * *

Green forms flew across at startling speeds over the landscape of the mountainous island. Energy trailed off from where their legs should have been, and maskless faces were all that could be shown of them. One, Toa size, headed the large force of smaller ones.

Each had its purpose set clearly in its mind, whatever of that there was. Each was ready for the hunt. Whether it liked it, or not.

* * * * * * *

Griffon sharpened his blades on a stone he carried in his pack. Darennad winced at the horrible sound the weapons made as the Toa of lightning casually went through the action as if he had done it a thousand times before. It hadn’t taken him very long to figure out that the entire exercise was pointless – the stone did nothing to sharpen the blades. In fact, across the entire fight they had just gone up against, they hadn’t even been slightly dulled.

“Where in Mata-Nui’s name did you find those blades?” asked Darennad. “They cut through armor as if it wasn’t even there, and unless you happened to go through some weird experiment to give yourself abilities, they have more than a few powers.”

“They’re my Toa tools.” Griffon replied. “They didn’t use to be so fancy. When I first got them, they were two little Matoran weapons. A transformation and a few ritualistic talks with some freaky Turaga on the Northern Continent, and now they’re as they are now. I talked with a Vortixx once about them, and she finished them off for me into what they are now. No matter what happens, they’ll never dull.”

“Well then,” responded Darennad. “How about tossing that stone to someone who can use it?”

Griffon tossed the stone over to Darennad, who began working on his claymore, as Herack stared off into the mountains. An eerie green light seemed to shine over the mountains, and hushed whispering seemed to cover over the area.

The Toa of stone grimaced and said, “We’ve got company…”

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-Toa Levacius Zehvor