Deanne Daize was in the car, watching as trees passed by as they drove to Erize's house. Erize lived in a neighborhood with a forest surrounding it named Park Lake, across from a separate neighborhood called Lismore Lakes. Lismore was where Faye lived, but they weren't in touch very often when they weren't in school, and it was the middle of summer. Plus, their phone batteries were glitchy. Stupid old—
No swearing, Deanne, remember? she scolded herself. She and the others knew very vulgar words, and once used them, but stopped after Erize was grounded for swearing in her fanfics by her mom. Shindi Hanh was not one who liked such language and hated when people used it, especially children. "You're only eleven," she had reprimanded the younger girl. "Do not use those words. You're too young to use them." Strict. But it made sense, seeing how Erize was the youngest of the group since she was born the latest out of all of them. Now there was an agreement between all of them that they wouldn't swear over text or document—when Erize was around, anyway.
Watching them come across the two-story house in front of the courtyard gate, she stepped out and waved her parents goodbye, then knocked on the door. Erize dashed down the stairs and opened it, then bounced up and down in excitement.
"Come on, I have to show you something!" she squealed, a grin plastered on her face. "Faye and Sophi are already here! Come see! You're gonna be so surprised!" She shrugged and followed the eccentric young girl, Erize's diamond earrings shining with each step—
Wait a second. . .
Didn't Erize say she lost those a week ago?
Sure enough, they were the same diamond earrings that had been lost last week, her mother's before her, but there was something different. The diamonds now had an icy blue tinge to them, and the silver looked even whiter than before. Not only that, but they seemed to radiate with a cold and dangerous, yet cautious power, just like . . .
Deanne bit back her gasp.
Ice.
If those earrings held the power of ice, then did this mean . . . no, it probably couldn't. It could be a false prophecy for all she cared. There's no way that kind-hearted, slightly negative, eleven-year-old Erize could be him, even if they were both born in the winter, had similar personalities, and wore something magnifying their vision. Unless Erize truly was a clairvoyant empath, then. He was one too. Then that might make her consider it.
Explanation: Deanne Daize was really an immortal being called an Axis, the gods of the gods. She and two others were the only three remaining after their enemies, the ROPA, killed, captured, tortured, and maimed off the rest. She could barely remember it too, for she was still small at the time. But before she came to Earth from her exile, she had heard a prophecy from one of the gods by staying in a different world for a millennium, from a man by the name of Mata Nui. He stated that there were to be six incarnates of his Toa Nuva, and she was one of them: Tahu, Toa of Fire. The prophecy went like this:
By the elements of creation, life, and time
In the crossing dark days
Let the six be born to
Six united by chance and choice
The axis of fire, with luck on her side
The clairvoyant of ice, with vindictive wit
The angel of sky, with creation and truth
The nymph of water, with persistent hope
The reaper of earth, with logic on her mind
The golem of stone, with loyalty and will
Let the six be born
In the crossing dark days
And tackle the evil and immoral
With everything they've got
Six of six
They shall save us all
"And you, Lethea, are one of them. . ." the spirit had whispered before falling back into eternal slumber. She had disregarded it because she thought nothing bad was gonna happen and he was just joking, as of at the time she never knew she would be sent into exile. However, time was short and she was prepared just in case.
The words of the prophecy came back to her.
Six brought together by chance and choice. . .
Every one of them had met purely by chance and choice alone. Erize met Faye on the bus, who met Lynn and introduced the two. Then Erize met Angela, who introduced her to Dee, who then met Sophi, who had met Lynn, and introduced her. Then they started talking, and soon they were friends.
It was too similar to the prophecy.
Shaking her head, she walked into Erize's soft pink and lavender room and grinned at the childish Frozen pictures on the wall with the sorta-mature motivating canvases. Erize shrugged.
"I never bothered redecorating. It doesn't really matter what's on the wall unless I have to replace it with something else," she stated, plopping down on the bed. It was a normal-sized bed that could fit two small people, and four pillows were placed in a sort-of protective-like position. Faye and Sophi were already there, sitting down on the floor and examining a jeweled sea blue aquamarine bead bracelet and a jeweled bronze and yellow topaz headband. Looking on the floor, Dee saw six bags with the Bionicle symbol on them, and four other pieces of jewelry—
HER LUNAR NECKLACE!!!!
She ran forward and grabbed the crescent moon necklace off the floor, seeing that a flaming red ruby had replaced the pearl. Erize smiled, fingering her earrings.
"I don't know how, but they came with the discs that were delivered to me this morning." She explained. "I found my earrings in the white bag, then realized that your stuff was in there too. Anyways, who wants to bet Lynn and Angela are annoyed by the overload of traffic?"
"Me." Faye stated, Sophi agreeing. Dee shrugged, sitting down next to Faye and opening the white bag Erize found her earrings in. Inside was a white and blue disc, along with a note. Dee sucked in a breath. The note was written in Matoran.
Just then, the doorbell rang, and Dee stopped Erize before she could sprint. The young girl had wasted enough energy already sprinting up and down the stairs before; no need to waste more. She walked down the stairs to see Lynn and Angela outside and let them in.
"Now I'm glad we carpooled," Lynn started, making Dee freeze up for a split second. "Too much traffic."
But how did she know? Deanne thought. Unless. . . No. It's not true. Erize can't be! Sure she has hunches about if someone is annoyed or sad or a hunch that something bad will happen or something good will appear but she couldn't be! Coincidences! Erize couldn't be! She's only 11! She can't be! No way! Not yet!
The trio walked up to the room, where they saw Erize and Faye 'disagreeing' (More like squabbling. They do it playfully because Erize can vary between a short fuse and long one, and Faye can be very loud.), Sophi shaking her head at their argument.
"I'm telling you, I can read the note!" she shouted.
Dee froze.
"I've seen this language before in the movies! I even have a picture of the alphabet of this language to translate!" Erize exclaimed, making her release a held breath. Erize was obsessed with Bionicle and knew a lot of vocabulary terms and phrases she rarely used to substitute language. This info would probably never be used outside of fanfiction, but it didn't matter anyway.
Until now.
Grabbing her phone, Erize pulled up a photo of the alphabet, in both Matoran and English. It was pretty simple, actually; each circle had a symbol inside that represented a letter or numbers 1-9, and it was like spelling in English—multiple letters in a word, combine numbers to create more numbers. That was it. Nothing more, really.
Taking the note and a sheet of paper, she held the phone to the note and wrote down the translation. '. . . Let . . . your . . . voice . . . be . . . heard . . . crystal . . . clear,' she wrote for the first sentence, '. . . You . . . are . . . more . . . then. . . you . . . think. Find . . . the winter . . . within . . . claim . . . voyant . . . em . . . path. From, . . . Mata . . . Nui.'
"Is this a joke?" she asked, crossing her arms. "If our siblings are all somehow working together to prank us, then I will not be pleased." Uh-oh. Erize is getting triggered. And trust Dee, you don't want to deal with a triggered Erize. She goes full-out beast mode. But it was the note that worried her more:
On the eighteenth bloom . . .
Mata Nui planted a specific flower eighteen years ago that bloomed only once a year on one day, August 17th.
Tomorrow.
They were nearly out of time.
Grabbing the red bag that her lunar necklace had come out of, she pulled out a note written in Matoran saying 'You can lead better than you know. Light the fire within, tsundere Axis. From, Mata Nui.'. The rest of the notes were nearly the same, varying from 'You are stronger than you seem' to 'You can go higher than they say' and 'Race the desert, iron wolf.' They were all from Mata Nui, translated by courtesy of Erize. Faye picked up a bronze and gold disc from her bag and examined it.
"It looks like a frisbee, that's for sure," she stated, tossing it up and catching it. "Who would send you these anyway, with our possessions that they seemed to have 'dazzled up'? Crazy." Erize shrugged, tucking her white and light blue disc under her arm and walked out to see downstairs, then sprinted back into the room.
"Hey guys, there's something up!" she shouted to us, a worried tone to her voice. "My parents are freaking out, and the news is on. They never watch the news unless it's important, like the election or an attack. Let's see what's going on. I have a hunch this has to do with the discs and us." Dee gulped and walked down with the others, seeing the TV on Channel 10.
"—An unknown, robotic creature has appeared at Willowbrook Mall, attacking everything in sight. Police have been called to handle the threat, but any bullet they shoot bounces off and doesn't work," the reporter announced, a picture of a huge robotic feline the size of a car growling and snarling at the gun-clad officers, swiping two into a tree. A rusty mask-like object was stuck on its face, and two people were being grasped in its tail. "The police cannot shoot correctly in fear of hurting the hostages that were taken captive by the creature, a young woman and two young children." The camera zoomed in to reveal the faces of a lady with darkish-brown hair and two younger children with black hair, a five-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl.
Faces Erize obviously knew too well.
"Aunt Vi! Aiden! Olivia!" she shouted, rushing into the room. Everyone else rushed in, horrified. Her father cleared his throat.
"We have to go," he started, walking towards the garage. "Uncle Vuey is there. Erize, bring your friends with us. We can't leave them here, and we're not leaving them out there either." Erize's face became stern and she nodded, and they grabbed their discs and put on their stuff, hopping into the minivan with her parents. Soon, they were at the entrance of Willowbrook Mall. There was the creature, holding Erize's cousins and aunt in its tail while fighting the police officers with no mercy. Erize ran out and grabbed a few stones.
"OI, CAT FACE!!!" she shouted at the monster despite the yells of the police, who turned to her. "YEAH, I'M TALKING TO YOU!!! WE'LL EITHER DO THIS THE EASY WAY OR THE HARD WAY!!! NOW YOU PUT DOWN MY AUNT AND COUSINS OR ELSE IT'S GONNA RAIN PAIN TODAY!!! LET THEM GO!!!" The cat growled and didn't obey, and she flung the pinecone at its face.
It hit, shifting the rusted mask on its face and earning a yowl of pain. Erize grunted and grabbed some more stones, hurling them in rapid succession, at least half of them hitting their mark. Dee grimaced. Yeah, Erize had never been good at throwing anyway. The cat growled, then prepared to lunge . . .
"Leave Erize alone!" the boy, Aiden as Dee remembered him, distracting it. The oversized cat looked away, and couldn't avoid the last thing thrown by Erize . . .
A shoe.
Yep, Erize had thrown her very own flip-flop at it, smacking it squarely in the forehead and knocking off the rusty mask. The whole creature suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving her family safe. Erize and her uncle burst through the line of officers to wrap them in hugs.
"You're okay!" she shouted, embracing them all. "You're all okay! You're okay!" Dee smiled and was one of the people that dragged Erize back with Lynn and Faye, chuckling at her antics. That is why you don't trigger Erize. She will claw, she will kick, she will bite, she will snap, she will throw, and she will beat you with all her might if you hurt her family. Kinda like herself, if you ask.
As they drove back home, she looked at Erize's white and blue disc. It was glowing slightly, the center pulsing rhythmically. Kinda like a heartbeat—
She checked Erize's pulse real quick, earning a confused look from the girl, and nearly fainted. They were the same. This concluded it. The prophecy was coming true, and the six of them were the chosen.
That means it was up to them to save Cypress and possibly, the world.
We are the Toa!
Suddenly, the car ran over a pothole, and everyone yelped, startled. Dee gulped and stared down at her red and orange disc.
And we are so screwed.
A/N: Here comes the Bionicle! Also, a sneak peek at the next chapter!
Lynn picked it up . . .
And felt everything vanish around her.
See you next time! Bye!