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RahiWatching

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Hi all,  this is a story I originally posted on my Tumblr account for an entry in a BIONICLE Post - Gen 1 fic contest that was being held over there. This is my take on the Marendar plotline that was left unresolved after G1 ended. Its much darker than how I would’ve liked this plotline to go if the story had continued, but exploring these things is what fanfic is for!

This is my first fanfic in over a decade, so please be kind! Hope you all enjoy it.

 

 

Salvation

By RahiWatching

Chapter 1

Faster than even the swiftest eye could follow, Pohatu - Toa Nuva of Stone, raced across the sands of the Bara Magna desert. Over his shoulder was the unconscious form of Kopaka, the Toa Nuva of Ice. Pohatu stole another worried glance at his brother, hoping impossibly that the sight awaiting him would have somehow changed.

It hadn’t.

Kopaka’s wound was deep, the blade had pierced through his Protosteel armour like it was nothing and penetrated into the delicate Organic Protodermis within. He had to find Kopaka help, and fast, or he would not last much longer.

“…Po…hatu…”

Iruni. He needed to find Iruni. His Rhotuka spinners had the power to heal wounds, if he could just find him in time…

“POHATU!!”

The shout snapped Pohatu out of it his ever-spiralling worry and brought his attention back to the world around him. It was Kopaka, he was awake!

“Don’t worry brother!” Shouted Pohatu over the howling wind rushing past them as he continued his run at super-speed, “we aren’t far from Iruni’s camp now, he will get you fixed up in no time. Just hang on a little longer, this isn’t your time yet!”

“Indeed, it is not, Pohatu” Kopaka said, his voice pained - but determined, “which is why I need you to put me down”

“What? No, we can’t stop now! I need to get you to -”

“Put me down! NOW!”

Reluctantly, Pohatu deactivated the power of his Mask of Speed and placed Kopaka down in the sand as gently as he could. With his heartlight glowing weakly and his breath coming in short, ragged gasps, Kopaka winced as he moved to touch the wound in his chest. A faint glow appeared around his hand as he activated his elemental power, sealing the hole in his chest with ice as a makeshift suture. With this done, Kopaka slowly and painfully hauled himself to his feet and stood at the ready.

“It will take too long for us to reach Iruni, even with your speed. This will… suffice for now. We must return to the fight immediately; you saw what direction it was headed. Marendar has to be stopped before it can reach the fortress”

Marendar.

Pohatu never thought any being could fill his spirit with more fear and rage than Makuta Teridax, and yet the monstrosity known as Marendar had shattered that assumption completely. The Great Beings, when creating the Toa species to which Pohatu and Kopaka belonged, knew that their creations had the potential to be devastating to the inhabitants of Spherus Magna if they were to run amok after their mission was complete. As a failsafe against this possibility, they had created a biomechanical titan with only one purpose: to kill Toa. Believing that this new creation would save their world if the Toa ever went rogue, the Great Beings named it ‘Marendar’, the word in the Agori language meaning ‘Salvation’.

Sensing the sudden influx of Toa onto Spherus Magna after the reunification of the planet, Marendar broke free of its containment and began its hunt. The Toa were already low in numbers, having spent centuries fighting a war of attrition against the forces of the Brotherhood of Makuta. By the time they emerged onto Spherus Magna, they numbered less than 40. Now, mere weeks after Marendar’s first appearance, only 6 Toa remained alive. Their elemental powers proved almost completely useless against it, and its powers proved all too effective against them. They needed to stop, rest, recuperate their spent energies. It did not. It never stopped, it never tired, it just killed. Without mercy. Pohatu had lost so much to the creature, his brothers and sisters murdered before him. Tahu, Gali, Lewa, Onua, they were all gone now. Pohatu was not about to let Kopaka join them in death.

“Return to the fight?! Kopaka, you can barely stand, let alone face Marendar! Let me get you to Iruni, then we can gather what’s left of the Toa and all face Marendar together”

“Pohatu, we both know that by that point it will be too late. With its current speed and course, Marendar will reach the fortress within the hour. Krakua is its only guardian, he will not be able to fend off Marendar alone. If Marendar is allowed to reach the fortress before Krakua can be evacuated with the stones, the future of our entire species will be forfeit. The only logical course of action is for us to return so that I can distract Marendar while you share your speed with Krakua and get the stones somewhere safe”

Kopaka’s assessment was cold and calculated, just like what should be expected from the Toa of Ice. It was a plan formed of pure logic and devoid of emotion, and as much as Pohatu hated to admit it, he knew Kopaka was right. That fortress contained perhaps the most precious and sacred items to Toa, more important than their Toa tools or even their Kanohi masks of power. It contained Toa Stones - rocks infused with a Toa’s power, given to destined Matoran and used to transform them into the next generation of heroes. The Toa had all agreed to start creating as many as they could after Spherus Manga’s reformation, so that fresh heroes could rise to protect this new world they found themselves in. If those stones were lost now, any hope for the future of the Toa was lost with them. Even defeating Marendar would be a hollow victory if the stones were lost, for the remaining Toa no longer had the energy reserves to make more.

But even so… even so, they were just things, just objects. Objects that held a possible future that felt so far away from the here and now that to Pohatu it may as well not exist. But Kopaka? Kopaka was here, alive, right now. He was his brother, the only one of his team that was left. A bond had been forged between the two in battle and friendship that was deeper and more meaningful to him than anything Pohatu had ever known. He could not lose him now, he couldn’t. Future be .

Seeing the anguish his brother was going through, Kopaka melted his icy facade, just a little.

“Pohatu, I am not under any illusions about my chances if I were to go back into battle now. And, I … I don’t want to die. But look at me” Kopaka looked down at his battered body, his armour scarred and pitted, the gaping hole in his chest and the ice that temporarily filled it, already beginning to melt in the hot desert sun, “even Iruni couldn’t heal me after this. If I die here and now, it would be meaningless, just another victim of Marendar’s onslaught. Let me go with you, let me delay Marendar long enough for you save our future. Let my death mean something, please”.

“You don’t know that!” cried Pohatu desperately, “we have seen him heal wounds that appeared fatal before! I’m not just going to stand here while you throw your life away because you’ve given up!”

“Pohatu. There is no other way. If there were, I would be doing it, believe me. But this is it, let me make my stand now. Are you with me, brother?” Kopaka raised his fist weakly, holding it out to Pohatu in the traditional Toa salute.

“You always were so stubborn, brother” sighed Pohatu, raising his fist up to meet Kopaka’s. “Unfortunately,” Pohatu grabbed onto Kopaka’s outstretched arm, “so am I!” In one smooth motion, Pohatu pulled hard on Kopaka’s arm, twisting the shocked Toa of Ice around him and planting him firmly down into the sands below their feet. Reaching down with his elemental powers, Pohatu formed restraints of solid stone around Kopaka’s limbs, ensuring he would not be getting up again any time soon.

“What are you doing!?” shouted Kopaka as he struggled against his bonds.

“Don’t bother Kopaka, in the state you are in you won’t be able to get out of those. Don’t worry, I’ve used my Nuva powers to set them on a delay, they will disintegrate in a few minutes and you will be free. Sorry to have to do this, but I can’t have you trying to stop me”

“Stop you from doing what?” asked Kopaka, still thrashing against the stone that held him despite Pohatu’s words.

“You know, I’ve gotten really sick of heroic sacrifices” said Pohatu sadly, his eyes distant, lost in memory, “how many of our siblings have we lost to them in the fight against that monster? Kongu, Gaaki…” Pohatu paused, the memory of the next name being so painful as to catch in his throat, “… Onua… each one of them sacrificing themselves, and for what? Just so the rest of us could run away from the thing that killed them? So we could get a little while longer to wait until it kills us too?” anger was rising in Pohatu’s voice now, his body shaking with rage at all that had been taken from him, “well I say NO! NO MORE!! I won’t let you die like they did. If there has to be a sacrifice today, then I swear to Mata-Nui that I’m going to make sure that it is the last one a Toa ever has to make!” Pohatu raised his head defiantly, screaming at the sky, “DO YOU HEAR ME?!? NO MORE!!!”

Raising his adaptive launcher high above his head, Pohatu fired several bursts of energy high into the air, Kopaka recognised the pattern – a signal to anyone that could see it: “INJURED TOA AT THIS LOCATION, HELP REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY”.

“There, that should do it” Pohatu said, breathing slowly and deeply in an attempt to calm himself, “you won’t get treated as quickly as if I had taken you straight to him, but Iruni’s mask should allow him to get over here and fix you up in plenty of time”. Pohatu pulled his pack off of his back and took out a flat, stone object, roughly the same size as a Kanohi Mask. Kopaka recognised it instantly, and the thought of what Pohatu might do with it next froze Kopaka’s soul more completely than his elemental powers ever could.

“Your… your Nuva symbol? What are you going to do?” asked Kopaka fearfully. After their transformation by Energised Protodermis from normal Toa into the more powerful Toa Nuva, the heightened elemental powers of Kopaka’s team had become permanently entwined with the mysterious objects. The Toa Nuva had kept them on their person ever since the war with Marendar began, fearing that if they did not Marendar may have attempted to find and destroy them, and in doing so rob the Toa Nuva of their elemental powers for good.

Pohatu sat down next to Kopaka, handling the stone slab reverently. His eyes were transfixed upon the faintly glowing symbol carved into its surface, “I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple of days. Marendar is resistant to our elemental powers, right? Resistant, but not immune. We have had some luck in causing some superficial damage to it thanks to our enhanced abilities as Toa Nuva, but the only time anyone has ever managed to cause it any significant damage was when Jaller went Nova and unleashed all his powers at once. Heh, the biggest, most powerful attack a Toa can do and all he did was injure Marendar enough to make it temporarily pause its hunt. But that got me thinking, if a Nova Blast can injure Marendar, what if we could perform an attack that was even more powerful? But it would need to be way more powerful. A Nova Blast from one of the two of us would be, but I still don’t think that would be enough. We would need it to be five… no, ten times more powerful, I think, in order to actually kill it. And it would have to be in one single, devastating strike, to completely obliterate Marendar before it had a chance to repair itself from the damage”.

Kopaka did not like where this was going, it was against the Toa Code to kill an enemy, but they both had come to the realisation some time ago that they would have to break that code if they were ever to stop this monster. Even so, it was hard to hear Pohatu speak of killing so freely. Kopaka looked over at the symbol again. He couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to be glowing a little brighter than when Pohatu had first pulled it out of his pack.

“But where could I get that extra reserve of power from?” Pohatu continued, “oh sure, I could absorb the rock around me for an extra boost of power, but a Toa’s body can only hold so much elemental energy, once I hit that threshold, I wouldn’t be able to absorb any more to add to the blast. But then I reminded myself, I’m not just a Toa, not anymore. I’m a Toa Nuva. At first, we thought our powers had just been boosted, with greater control compared to our old selves, but that wasn’t the whole story, was it? We later learned that we could set our powers on a delay, set up manipulations of the elements that would occur later on. Tahu thought it was just another way we had learned to control our new powers, a new skill that we learned as we got more experience. But I think it’s something different. Kopaka, I think we didn’t learn to do that until a few months after our transformation because we couldn’t until that time had passed. I think our powers are still growing, even now”.

Kopaka was shocked at the suggestion, it was a possibility he had not even considered before. Seeing the doubt in Kopaka’s eyes, Pohatu pressed on with his theory.

“Think about it, when we faced the Elemental Lords of this planet, they had even greater control of their respective elements than we did, and yet they did not need special symbols to contain that energy, their bodies could handle it just fine. Why would we need separate containers to house our elemental powers if our abilities were lesser than theirs? I think it’s because at some point in the future our powers will have grown to such a high extent that our bodies won’t be able to handle it anymore. I think that as time goes on, our connection to the symbols and the power within gets stronger and stronger, until eventually we will be able to tap into the full potential of the power these symbols contain.

Of course, this was all just guesswork, and it didn’t help with our immediate problem. Even if I was right, we don’t have the time to wait for us to steadily build our powers up to a point when we could effectively take on Marendar. What we needed was a way to unlock that potential right now, a way to incorporate it immediately so that we could use it to make that one massive attack that would be even more than a Nova Blast – a ‘Nuva Blast’ if you like. Hmm, Lewa would’ve loved that one…” a sad smile flashed across Pohatu’s face beneath his mask at that thought as he stood up and looked down at the bound Toa of Ice, “Anyway, it just hit me now. I think I know a way I could do it, a way to unlock all that power in one go. These symbols are made of stone after all, and I can absorb stone”

Kopaka had heard enough. He had to snap Pohatu out of this lunacy before he did something truly stupid.

“Pohatu, this is ridiculous! Just let me go and we will proceed with my plan. It has the highest chance of succeeding – not only do we not know if your theory is correct, but by your own admission the power you think may be hidden within your symbol will be far too much for your body to handle! At least with my original plan there is a chance, however slim, that I would live through the encounter with Marendar. If you are right, there is no way you would survive it. You talked of me throwing my life away before, please, don’t do the same with yours now. I can’t… I can’t lose you.”

“Kopaka, we both know that you have no chance of surviving an encounter with Marendar in this state. Trust me, brother. This will work. It has to”

“Pohatu…”

“Kopaka, I have to go. I have to do this” said Pohatu, turning his back on Kopaka and facing the doom before him.

“POHATU, PLEASE!!” screamed Kopaka, desperation and fear cracking his voice like thin ice shattering on a frozen lake, “I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE!!!”

Pohatu turned back to Kopaka, his face as twisted with grief and sadness as that of the Toa of Ice. He could not remember the last time the usually reserved and withdrawn Kopaka had showed such deep and genuine emotion. Even when the other Toa Nuva had been struck down by Marendar, he had mourned them in his own quiet way. For Kopaka to have screamed with such passion… Pohatu knelt down and placed his hand comfortingly on the shoulder of his beloved sibling. Softly, he tried his best to console him… to console them both.

“And I do not want to leave you alone, brother. But there is no other way. One of us had to do this, and I really think I have a way not just to save your life for a few more hours, but really, actually save it. This plan will work, and I’m the only one who can pull it off” he sighed and stood up again, “what is it that Turaga Whenua says? That those we lose are never truly gone, as long as we remember them here” he said, pointing to his head, “and here” he continued, pointing to his heartlight, “then they are still with us, the past holding them safe for us until we can join them again”

Kopaka looked up at Pohatu, his eyes still pleading with the Toa of Stone. Pohatu smiled warmly at him from behind his mask with that big wonderful smile that Kopaka now knew that he was seeing for the last time.

“Oh, if I could turn back time” said Pohatu with a laugh, “to think, Kopaka Nuva, the Toa who had so often insisted that he ‘worked alone’ would be so desperate for me to stay with him.”

Pohatu looked out at the sands surrounding him, so much like those of Po-Wahi on the island of Mata-Nui, where his canister washed ashore all that time ago. As places go to meet his end, he could live with this.

Looking down at the symbol in his hands, he concentrated upon the stone it was made of and his connection to it, reaching deep with his mind into the recesses of the enigmatic object to the well of power within it. Closing his eyes, he searched further within it, down and down, until he found what he sought. Kopaka looked on as pure elemental power began crackling around the Nuva symbol, arching like lightning out of the symbol in all directions, creating monolithic stone formations all around. Pohatu concentrated further, pushing his mind to the limit to control and absorb that power, and the power responded, the lightning arcing into his body now, which began to glow with such radiance that Kopaka had to close his eyes tightly shut to protect them from the intensity of the glow.

Pohatu screamed in agony as the symbol itself began to dissolve into his form, he fell to his knees as more and more of it dissolved away, converted into pure elemental energy and absorbed into his body. When Kopaka opened his eyes again, he saw Pohatu on the ground, his body crackling and sputtering with excess elemental energy. He was as quiet and still as the stone he embodied, had it been too much? No! Pohatu’s powerful legs began to move, a twitch at first, then more as he painfully pushed himself to his feet. Groaning with the effort, Pohatu turned back to Kopaka, his deep voice crackling from the energy within.

“Farewell, Kopaka. Remember me, remember all of us. Keep us in your heart as you build a new world for the generations of Toa to come. I love you, brother. Always have, always will.”

And with that, Pohatu was gone, a blurred afterimage quickly fading as he sped away towards destiny. Kopaka’s stone bonds shattered into dust, but he made no effort to move. He simply stared at the spot where Pohatu had once stood, now just an impression of his feet in the sand, slowing disappearing with the wind.

  Chapter 2

“Well,” he thought, “here goes nothing…”

Pohatu Nuva raced once again through the sands of Bara Magna, this time, in the opposite direction. He pushed the powers of his Kakama Nuva to its limit, the sands fusing to glass beneath his feet, so vast was the heat of the friction caused by his immense speed. It was not long until he spotted his target up ahead, its hulking form making its way out of the desert, towards the shores of Aqua Magna and Krakua’s island fortress beyond.

Pohatu slammed into his enemy, not slowing even for a single moment. The sheer power and ferocity behind the attack sent Marendar reeling, its body flung backwards, stunned by the force of the blow. Pohatu did not let this opportunity pass him by, grabbing Marendar and dragging it back into the depths of the desert. Pohatu’s plan would cause a significant amount of collateral damage even in the best-case scenario, so he needed to make sure he got Marendar as far away from anyone else as possible before he could make his move.

Gathering all the strength he could muster, Pohatu slammed his fists into Marendar again and again as he dragged it on towards their final destination. Marendar in turn lashed out at Pohatu, sending a torrent of its own elemental energies at the Toa of Stone, along with devastating and deadly strikes from its bladed weaponry. The attacks tore away at Pohatu, his Protosteel armour shattering and flying away in the face of Marendar’s blades, his mechanical and organic components within screaming and tearing at the waves of force being thrown against them. Pohatu ignored it all. He was getting close now, close to the end. He reached out with his powers, absorbing stone and rock for Kios around him, building upon his already immense reserves to reach his absolute maximum. His body was pleading with him, threatening to burst if he did not release the power within – but not yet! He needed to hang on just a little longer.

He looked down at the monster below him – it would be so easy now. So easy to give in to the rage within his heart and lose himself in that pain and anger. But no, Pohatu fought down those feelings. He did not want his final moments to be filled with such things. He was nearly there now, just a fraction of a second before his speed would bring them both to the site of their graves.

The last thoughts of Pohatu Nuva, Toa of Stone, were of his friends. His family. He thought of the laughter of his siblings around a campfire, listening to Lewa loudly and excitedly telling a nonsense tale of great exhilaration and heroism. He thought of his time with Hewkii in the Kolhii field, as the Matoran patiently taught Pohatu the rules of the sport of which he would one day become the patron Toa. He remembered the swelling pride he felt when he met the Toa Inika, Matoran he had once protected that had gone on to become the greatest of heroes themselves. He remembered it all: every moment of joy, every stunning vista, every heartfelt celebration and wonderous sight that he had the privilege of sharing with those that he loved.

And in that instant, he let go.

Chapter 3

Iruni had barely got to Kopaka in time to protect the injured Toa Nuva of Ice from the chaos that unfolded. Winds stronger than a hurricane blasted in a flood away from the Bara Magna desert in all directions, carrying the very sands of the desert with them into a gigantic dust cloud the likes of which the planet had never seen. Only Iruni’s elemental control over the air kept the two Toa from being swept away completely by the gales assaulting them. The ground shook with a tremor so mighty that it could be felt across the entire planet – only when the titanic form of Makuta fell in his final battle had the ground shuddered more violently.

When it was finally over, Iruni pulled himself to his feet, leaning on his Cyclone Spear for support.

“What the Karzahni was that!?” he shouted, surveying the radically transformed landscape around him. The desert sand had been completely stripped away, leaving only the bare rock beneath. The air was thick and heavy with the displaced dust, causing him to choke and cough with every intake of breath and reducing visibility to only a few Bio ahead of him.

But now was not the time to investigate such things, even ones as incredible as the situation before him. For now, he had more pressing matters. Activating his elemental powers once again, Iruni created a pocket of clear air around him and knelt down to survey Kopaka’s injuries. The Toa of Ice was unconscious, but whether that was from his wounds or from the assault of winds and dust he could not tell. The gash in his armour was serious and there was severe damage to Kopaka’s body beneath it. But Iruni had lost far too many brothers and sisters for him to let another die in front of him. Summoning all his concentration and energy, Iruni fired a Rhotuka from his shield, the spinning wheel of energy striking Kopaka square in the chest and imparting its rejuvenating powers upon him.

Kopaka’s eyes opened in a flash as he jolted back to consciousness. Gasping for air he looked around frantically, ignoring Iruni completely as his head turned left and right in what seemed to be a desperate, panicked search for something unseen.

“Woah! Easy there, Kopaka. It’s alright, we are safe here. I need you to stay still for now. I’ve started the healing process but your injury was serious, it’s going to take a good few shots from my spinners yet before we can get you back on your feet” said Iruni, assuming that Kopaka must be searching the surroundings for signs of further attacks from Marendar. Kopaka continued to ignore Iruni as he looked around, activating the power of his mask of vision to peer through the thick clouds of dust that engulfed them and out to the world beyond. Suddenly, he stopped his search, his eyes locked upon something only he could see off in the distance. With an expression of grim determination as fixed as the lines of the mask he wore over it, Kopaka reached out his arms and began dragging his still healing body forwards towards it.

“Hey!” shouted Iruni, concerned, “I meant it when I said not to move Kopaka. You need to rest while I administer the remaining healing boosts if we are going to get you fixed up properly, where do you think you are going?!”

Kopaka acted as if Iruni wasn’t even there as he kept dragging himself along the ground, his eyes never moving from whatever it was he was pulling himself towards.

Grabbing Kopaka’s leg in an attempt to stop him, Iruni yelled in pain as his hands were met with a blast of intense cold, causing him to let go reflexively to protect himself. For the first time, Kopaka looked back at Iruni and pointed in the direction he had been heading, while at the same time sharing his mask’s power of X-ray vision with the confused Toa of Air. Following the direction that Kopaka indicated, Iruni looked through the clouds before them and staggered back in shock at what was revealed.

“By the Great Beings…” whispered Iruni in disbelief. Kopaka simply turned his attention back to his slow crawl forward.

“Either heal me as we go,” growled Kopaka, “or get out of my way.”

Gigantic did not even begin to describe the monolithic structure that they saw before them. An enormous wall of rock stretching left and right as far as the eye could see. With the powers of the Akaku Nuva Kopaka had shared with him, Iruni could see that the stone towered both high into the sky far above them and deep below into ground beneath, forming a sphere of solid stone easily the diameter of the dome in which Metru-Nui had once sat back inside the Matoran Universe, if not even larger.

By the time they reached its outer edge, Iruni’s healing powers had done their work. Kopaka had said nothing else on the journey towards the towering object, simply moving as fast as he could until he reached its perimeter. He had long ago stopped sharing his mask power with Iruni, though the Toa of Air could tell that Kopaka was still making use of it himself, peeling back the layers of stone before him with his vision to see the depths within. They stopped just in front of the sphere, with Kopaka placing a single hand upon the stone, still scanning its insides with his power. Iruni tried to speak to Kopaka, ask him if he knew what this thing was, if it had any connection to Marendar, but he received no answer. Kopaka merely stood there, staring endlessly into the vast brown mass before him.

 Chapter 4

Hours turned into days as Kopaka stared relentlessly into the stone, silently refusing all offers of food and calls to rest. With no sightings of Marendar or Pohatu in that time, and with the enormous stone sphere before them, the inhabitants of the planet came to their own conclusions on what had occurred. Somehow, Pohatu had created the structure before them, and in doing so finally brought down the seemingly unstoppable menace that had hunted the Toa to near extinction. Kopaka knew that their assumptions were correct. In his scans of the sphere, he had found trace evidence of metallic Protodermis scattered throughout its structure. Marendar had been at the very centre of Pohatu’s blast, the rapidly expanding stone shattering its body and spreading what little remained throughout the entire sphere. One huge blast, destroying the monster before it had a chance to adapt or repair, just like Pohatu had said it would. But what of Pohatu himself? The logical part of Kopaka’s mind knew that this search was pointless. There was no way that Pohatu could have survived. Marendar had been hit by the blast with such force that barely any trace of its body remained. But the blast had originated inside of Pohatu himself, a blast that his body was nowhere near capable of handling. There was no chance that anything of his brother remained. But logic, it all. He couldn’t accept it. His brother was in there somewhere, he had to be. And Kopaka was going to find him, no matter how long it took.

Hahli, Toa Mahri of Water, approached Kopaka with trepidation. Of the 5 of them that were now left, all felt the pain of losing Pohatu. But she understood the depths of the sorrow Kopaka felt most of all, for she knew all too well the added heartbreak of a brother who sacrificed themselves to save the world. She knew the fact that Pohatu had saved them and the Toa Stones that were the future of their species was probably of little comfort to Kopaka right now. She knew that grief he felt would never truly go away, no matter how much time passed, though she hoped that the news she brought him this day would at the very least bring Kopaka some peace.

“Kopaka? There has been a discovery, an Agori trader found it in a valley to the east.” Kopaka ignored her has he had every other attempt someone had made to speak to him, but Hahli continued regardless, “Kopaka, please. You are going to want to see this. The valley, it wasn’t there before. We think… we think it’s something Pohatu did”.

“Show me”

That got his attention. For the first time in two days, Kopaka looked away from the stone sphere before him.

Hahli led Kopaka towards the valley, explaining further as they went.

“It doesn’t show up on any map the Agori have of the area. As best as we can tell, it appeared at the same time as the sphere did, or maybe shortly afterwards, we don’t know for sure. The sudden appearance of something like this is extraordinary in itself, but that’s not even the half of it. It’s what the valley contains that you need to see”

They reached the entrance, the flat ground around them beginning to slope gently downwards on a winding path into the newly formed valley below. Hahli stopped here and continued her explanation, “When the trader first found this place, he said there was only one of them inside. But when we arrived later, more had formed, they seem to be appearing every few hours”.

“What do you mean? What is in there?” asked Kopaka.

“Go see for yourself. Take as long as you need, I’ll be waiting here for you when you return” replied Hahli. Whatever awaited him in this mysterious valley, Hahli clearly thought it was something he needed to experience alone. His curiosity piqued, Kopaka nodded his thanks to Hahli and made his way down the path.

Kopaka did not know what to expect as he made his way deeper into the valley, his senses were alert and ready for anything, despite the exhaustion he felt from his days without sleep. Rounding a corner on this new pathway, he was struck with a sight that took his breath away. Protruding out of the valley wall was a set of statues. The statues showed no signs of having been carved from the rockface, but rather appeared to have grown, fully formed from its surface. However, that was not the fact that had shocked Kopaka so completely, instead it was the scene that the statues depicted. It was one that Kopaka knew oh so well. It showed the strong frame of a familiar Toa of Stone, standing over a rockslide and a half-buried and irate Toa of Ice. This was no mere statue, it was a memory: the first meeting between Kopaka and Pohatu on the Island of Mata-Nui, so long ago.

As he continued into the valley, more and more statues were to be found before him, each one depicting a memory of Pohatu’s life. No, Kopaka realised, it was more than that. These weren’t just random memories from his life, they were memories of all the times Pohatu and Kopaka had shared.

You sentimental fool” thought Kopaka with a sigh and a sad smile, “diverting energy away from your attack to set up all this, just to say goodbye”.

As the hours went on and the day turned to night, Kopaka went further and further into the valley, passing more and more memories preserved now and forever in stone. Ahead, he saw more forming, rising from the rock all around. Hahli had said that it was still growing, it looks like Pohatu had set this up to last a while longer yet. Kopaka continued to walk through the memories, stopping to view each one and bring his own recollection of the events it depicted to the front of his mind. He was a swirl of emotion now, walking in a daze through the past and all the joy and sorrow that brought with it.

Eventually, the valley walls shrank and spread out, transitioning into a flat grassland that extended as far as the eye could see. It was nearly morning now, and as the first faint rays of the sun began to peek above the horizon, he sensed what he somehow knew to be the final statue take shape beside him.  He did not recognise the memory, or rather, he recognised too many at once. It could have been from any of a thousand moments in his past: Tahu, Gali, Lewa, Onua and Pohatu – their stone facsimiles all sat together, looking out over the grassland beyond. Wait, where was his own likeness? There had always been a statue of himself in these memories, and yet he only saw his siblings here. He moved in closer and looked carefully at the statue, and then he found his answer.

Kopaka Nuva sat down in the space prepared for him and, surrounded by his family, peacefully watched the sunrise.

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  • 5 months later...

Hi!  I enjoyed the read much more than I thought I would, just having not been as on-board with the Bara Magna storyline and serials back when they came out. But I think you portrayed Pohatu and Kopaka very well, and their familiarity and relational dynamic drew the story along.  I'm curious if Marendar would have eventually decided the whole Matoran species should be eliminated, since Turaga and Matoran have trace amounts of Toa energy, and Matoran have that potential to transform. 

My favorite part was how Pohatu pieced together his theory for the ultimate solution - very well put together. Now, perhaps I've been conditioned too much by the "if you don't see a body, they're not dead" trope in TV shows and stuff, but I also found the "maybe he made it through" mindset compelling. 

I guess you wrote this a while ago, but I hope it did well in the contest it was originally written for! 
 

(disclaimer: none of this banner art is original, I just smooshed it together in gimp. Torchic, Matau)
ThosePeskyFirespitters.png.3dbdb65e6a28cbbc5957d81c09a685b6.png
Those pesky firespitters... 
Library | The Sculptors and the Smelters | The Ternion Review Topic 

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