Chapter 3

Satris sat facing Miyaji as the transport rumbled through the sands, headed towards the remains of the Great Spirit robot. While it had been decided long ago that it would be dismantled and made useful, the robot was massive, and progress had been slow-going as conflicts arose throughout the planet. It was still almost entire, its innards a dark and unwelcoming place. After it had been evacuated years before, it was unknown if anything had survived - nor what condition any survivors might have taken on. It was a simple quest, when all was considered; their team would enter the robot to recover lost items and attempt to extract their Suva. What complicated it was the conditions they were likely to face. It was a worrisome quest, not to mention that it would mean reuniting their old team.

It was a reunification he wasn't sure he was looking forward to. Theirs had been a less-than-amicable split in some ways, a collection of scars that had built up over millenia of working together. Events and hostilities that had split them apart. He worried that they would never be the same as they once were.

As he thought, Miyaji stared at him from behind her Kiril, the fingers of her prosthetic right arm clicking against the bench. Behind the visor hiding her eyes, he could only hazard a guess at what she was thinking; he imagined it had to be much the same for her.

"So…" she at last began, some hours after their trip had begun. "What have you been up to since last time?"

"The usual," he replied after a moment, reaching up to feel the scratch on his mask, left by Mutran so many, many years before. "Wandering. Helping the odd village and inhabitants. Fighting what passes for Rahi."

"That's good."

"Passable," he replied. "Something to do. You two? Still inseparable?"

Miyaji offered a weak shrug. "Still inseparable. We've been helping best we can with the deconstruction efforts, but there's so much to do and not much to do it with. We've barely scratched the surface of the shell so far. And without operational Suvas, it just makes it more, well, complicated. I don't know how the Agori and Glatorian stand it."

"Habit," replied the Toa of fire. "They never had suvas or anything of the like, so they don't have anything to compare it all to." He sighed, leaning back in his seat. "Has Crat made any more gear for us to work with during this expedition?"

"A lot, actually. Advancements over the stuff we used to have. Modifications of old designs, using input from some of the other Toa. We've managed to make a collection of kanohi for the journey from what was brought out and from some donations. It's not going to be as handy as we'd like, but we'll have to manage."

Satris nodded slowly, a soft sigh escaping him. "Who's gathered?" he asked.

"All of the old team. Mali, Graven, Dec, Ereyin. They've set up camp with some Matoran and Agori and are waiting to enter."

"So I'm the last one, then," he remarked with a small, dry chuckle. "Figures. Oh well, we were going to met again at some point."

Miya reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. "You're still our brother," she told him. "You lead us before. You can do it again."

"Maybe," he said, his eyes turning away from her, peering out into the distance. "Maybe."

Satris sat in one of the few seats on the vessel, watching as the Toa, named Harran, guided Ereyin in piloting the boat. They were all shaken by what had happened, but the Toa was still doing his duty: helping them. With his sense of direction, he was guiding them back to the southern continent and taking a roundabout path to avoid the Makuta.

None of them understood. The Makuta were meant to be their defenders, not tormentors. Why had they been so... so evil? All of them had seen or met Makuta in the past, and they had always been good and kind. It made them wonder, briefly, if it had just been a dream.

The Toa murmured something to Ereyin and walk back along the boat to the others. "None of you must speak of what just happened," he told them. "Do you understand?"

"But why?" Cratix asked. "We can't let the Makuta do this! It's evil!"

"And who would believe you?" Harran replied. "Others would think you crazy, and it would only draw the ire of the Makuta if they are, indeed, evil. This is a secret you must keep to yourselves. I will investigate on my own, but you must return to your village and continue your work."

Satris looked down at his feet, them up at the Toa. "But we have to do what's right," he said after a moment, almost too softly for the others to hear. Harran looked at him and, with a sigh, nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "But it is my duty to keep all of you safe. I must let this pass, as I cannot hope to protect you if I do not."

Something in the Toa's expression worried the ta-matoran, but rather than reply the Toa returned to the helm of the ship to continue guiding Ereyin. The rest of the trip was silent; their boat swayed along with the waves. A day passed; then two. At the end of the second day they became aware of a large landmass ahead of them. Toa Harran guided the vessel to shore as the Matoran slept.

In the morning, Harran told them to cross the Southern continent and find a way back home. "I have to return to my own land," he said after a short discussion. "And you must return to your homes. The Makuta did not keep you long enough to remember your identities. Even so, you must be careful. Keep your heads down."

"And if we can't?" asked Satris, feeling more and more irritated at the thought of being powerless.

"If you can't," Harran said, "Then I entrust you with these."

From behind his back, he extended a hand holding four stones; each seemed to glow very faintly. The matoran's mouths opened; they'd all heard of Toa stones, but had never seen one in the flesh. Cratix was the first to reach for one; he looked at it carefully, analyzed it. "How do we know they will work?" he asked Harran, who let out a small, ignorant shrug. "You don't," he said truthfully. "But from what you managed, I have a feeling you are all destined for greatness. Remain united, and let the great Spirit guide you."

Satris as next to reach for a stone. Cratix had grabbed one seemingly haphazardly, but as the Ta-matoran reached, he found himself drawn to one in particular of the remaining three, and took it with confidence he did not feel elsewise. Miyaji followed, then Ereyin. When they all had a stone, the Toa warned them to keep them close, and keep them safe; then they parted ways. He pointed them in the direction of the north while he opted for another path, and soon enough they were once again on their own.

They spent much of the day stripping possible tools from the boat, and then made off a little before nightfall. They considered stopping in the dark, but didn't dare remaining too close to the ship for so long. That, along with the fact that they were well-rested after the last stretch of the trip, pushed them onwards in their travel north.

Satris rose to his feet and walked to the front of the transport, grabbing hold of a handle on the roof to stabilize himself. Cratix was alone in the cabin; Miya remained in the back, looking faintly troubled.

As the Toa of fire sat down, his friend looked to the right and grinned again. "Brother!" he claimed, giving the other Toa a friendly shove on the shoulder. "Good thing you're awake. We're almost there."

The Great Spirit Robot was discernible in the distance, looking like a massive mountain chain. They'd make it in a matter of hours, now. Satris sighed and looked towards his old friend. "Be honest with me, Cratix," he said after a moment. "How badly is this reunion going to go?"

Cratix' smile shattered the moment his friend spoke, replaced with a tense grimace. "Well," he said after a moment. "They won't kill you, at least."

Satris let off a huff of laughter at that. "I'm surprised you managed to convince them of that much."

"It took me three weeks," the Toa of iron replied. "And Graven is still furious that you're being included, mind you. If it weren't for Ereyin and Malzi being reasonable, you might be walking into a deathtrap. Decrurin is pouting, though he won't say it."

Satris let out a slow sigh and looked out of the window. "Oh well," he said. "Better than I was expecting. At least no one has to die."

Cratix didn't seem to find the joke funny; he grimaced and pushed the transport to go faster. The conversation lulled there, and remained quiet as the old Matoran Universe grew larger and larger. Even from afar, once could see so many workers making an effort to break it down, but they'd barely scratched the surface. It would take an army of Toa and others to do it - an army that, after the war, no longer existed. Satris looked down at his hands, wondering when it would be his turn, at last, to make a Toa stone. Soon, he imagined. If he survived this, anyway.

The time passed slowly, but surely, and after a few hours had passed they pulled up to an encampment a ways away from the robot. Well, encampment wasn't truly a suitable word. Buildings had been set up, utilizing what materials had been salvaged thus far. It looked more like a small city than a camp. Cratix drove the transport through the streets, moving towards a building on the edge closest to the robot. There it stopped, and the three Toa jumped out to the ground; Satris after collecting his packs.

Cratix lead the way in, and the inside was much as Satris had expected. It was covered in bits and pieces of inventions, pods, tables, and other such things. Shelves held various kinds of gear, all of which appeared to be made for the expedition. The next room held masks aplenty, and a number of cases to store them all in- though the Toa of fire had no doubt that the selection would be greatly minimized for efficiency.

They went up a set of stairs to find more gear set in packs, and then at last entered a room populated by several other Toa. As Cratix and Miyaji walked forward to set down their things, Satris stopped the moment the tallest of the group, an unusually massive Toa of Gravity, looked at him and glared. "Look who came," he said after a moment, standing up from where he sat. Looking around him, a Toa of the Green looked and offered Satris a brief nod before walking forward - both to greet him and stop the lummox from launching himself at him. "Satris," she said courteously, though her gaze was clouded. "So they found you after all."

"They did," he replied. "I hear it took some convincing on your end."

Ereyin offered him a terse smile. "For most of us, yes. Some differences are difficult to overcome." Her gaze, as she spoke, grew accusatory, and he accepted this with a faint nod. "If we want to succeed in this mission, we'll have to," he told her, and she nodded in agreement.

Cratix walked back into the room, followed by a Toa of water and a Toa of Ice; the former seemed calm and almost pleased, while the latter seemed cold and aloof. Just like old times, Satris thought as he nodded in greeting. "So," he then said, now that they were all gathered. "Now that we're all here, what exactly is the plan?"

Cratix motioned for them all to move to a table in the center of the room; on it he placed a map and began to draw onto it. "We'll enter the robot from the primary exit that was used in the foot," he said. "This should bring us to the southernmost part of the southern island chain. From there, we'll navigate our way to the northern continent. The environmental regulation functions are scrapped, so we don't actually know what we'll be facing. We need to bring air canisters and recyclers, and a bunch of gear seeing as we can't afford to keep changing kanohi unless we have to. We'll go in using a transport based off of a rahi the Mahri team once encountered, a kind of crawler.

"The biggest risk," he continued, "is the gravity. The inner domes were damaged, and with the gravity now being aligned with Spherus Magna, it's possible that the continents will be on the ceiling. If that's the case, well… We'll have to find a way to climb through. There likely won't be any light save for whatever lightstones we find and what we bring with us, so we'll need to adapt to that, as well. Thankfully, we'll still have access to our abilities and, when we enter, there's a chance our suvas will still be active. If they aren't, however…" he motioned to the floor below. "We'll need to pick and choose. No more than a handful of kanohi each. Five or six, maybe. Kadin and Kaukau are being designated as essentials, while Ruru are being set as priority for others. After that, you get two each, not including your normal mask."

They all nodded, though all of them knew five masks was a pittance compared to what they normally could use. They would be very limited indeed, although…

Cratix interrupted their thoughts as he went on. "Even so, we'll be able to take the gear below. Everyone brings their own Toa tools, as well. We'll have visors with a number of functions, communication tools, air filters and canisters, and any essentials. It won't be easy," he told them, "But once we reorient our maps with what we discover inside, we should be able to maneuver our way through."

"What about food and water?" asked Graven after a moment, to which Cratix simply pointed to Ereyin and Malzi. "Our resources will be limited," he explained. "We'll have to depend on our own abilities to gain most of our food, or hunt fish and some Rahi, assuming we find anything edible. We'll bring some food, but the utter minimum we can afford to take. We need to pack light."

Satris nodded, then, and looked to Cratix. "When do we leave?" he asked his fellow Toa, who looked at them all in turn. "Tomorrow," he said. "The sooner we begin, the sooner we'll be done."

Decrurin, who'd been silent up until that point, rose to his feet. "We should discuss who will lead the expedition," he said, fixing a cold stare on Satris. "Seeing as our group no longer has a leader," he added as a subtle jab. Satris accepted it, and nodded in agreement.

"Cratix should lead," he countered, pointing to his old friend. The Toa of Iron opened his mouth and shook his head as if to disagree, but Miyaji had already nodded in agreement. Ereyin, Graven and Malzi all followed suit, as did Decrurin a moment later. Defeated by the vote, Cratix flashed a pleading look towards Satris, and then slowly bowed his head. "Seems that's decided," he conceded after a moment. Then he rose to his feet. "We should gather any equipment and kanohi we need right away. Better to be prepared, right?"

The trek through the Southern Continent was a surprisingly peaceful one. The woods they'd entered early on had little in the way of large Rahi, and nothing had come to attack them. The going was slow, as the four matoran had to regularly find a way around trees and large rocks and dense clusters of flora. Ereyin, more comfortable in such a setting than her companions, made an effort to guide them through the worst of it.

As a result, they had slept a handful of times in the forest throughout the last several days, taking turns at standing guard in case there were large Rahi out there, looking for a meal. Thus far they'd remained unbothered, which was all the better as they didn't actually have any tools or weapons to fight off any Rahi that actually did show up. The closest they had was a large stick that Miyaji had taken to carrying, which helped her push aside branches and jump over rocks and roots on the surface. The Southern continent wasn't very occupied compared to their homes, and so they wondered how long it would take for them to find a village.

The days went by in silence, as none of them wished to discuss what had happened in the Makuta fortress. In a week, their lives had been changed forever; they didn't know what to do. Harran's words echoed in their minds: they had to return to their homes and keep their heads down. It would not be an easy journey, but once they returned to the Northern continent it would likely be only a matter of weeks before they were able to find another ship and resume their business. As the thought dawned on them, they felt anxious. Did they truly want to risk the same events happening again, and their being rediscovered?

Any such thought were pulled aside more than a week into their journey. After days of near-total silence, they heard a roar. Thinking it must have been rahi out in the distance, they continued onwards - at least, until they heard another roar that was much, much closer. With wide-eyed stares, they began to run through the trees, hoping that the rahi would pass by them. Instead, the next roar was even closer, and hearing it caused Satris to look back. In doing so, he missed a root jutting out from the ground and tripped, falling down with a grunt. He struggled to get back to his feet, but by then Ereyin had turned back and grabbed his hand, pulling him onwards.

It was then that Satris caught sight of the creature, and let out a yell as he saw the giant cat running at them through the trees. "Burnak!"

The cry had the effect of making Ereyin run faster to catch up to Cratix and Miya, who'd begun climbing a tree to mixed results. The latter, having better luck at reaching a thick branch a dozen or so feet off of the ground, reached out to help pull Cratix up. Ereyin helped Satris get a foot up before she climbed up herself; in moments she'd reached Miyaji and helped her pull Cratix up to them. They let out cries of worried encouragement as Satris made his way up to them slowly. He'd managed to get one hand on the branch when the burnak reached them, and leapt at the ta-matoran. It almost missed him, but one of its claws snagged his foot; he fell down in a crash of limbs.

Growling, the tiger began to slink towards him, ignoring the shouting coming from Miyaji above to try and scare it away.

"Get back, you stupid Rahi!" she shouted. "I'll beat you!"

Satris crawled back towards the tree as best as he could until his back was set against it. His eyes met those of the Burnak and he knew, then, that this was where he would die. Saliva dripped from its jaws as it came closer. And closer. He could smell its breath and closed his eyes-

There was a yelp, followed by another, and then a series of soft thumps as the Burnak ran away. Satris opened his eyes as another matoran in brown armor appeared from within the trees, looking oddly small and slightly misshapen. "What are all of you doing out here?" he asked as he approached Satris and extended a hand. "Don't you know there are Burnak around here?"

The Ta-matoran took the offered hand that pulled him to his feet, too relieved to say anything. Ereyin slid down the trunk of the tree and walked up to them both. "No," he replied to their sudden savior, who was busy setting a bow onto his back. "We're, well - we're lost."

"Lost, huh?" the Po-matoran said. "Well, if you need, I can help you find your way. Name's Kotoda. I like to wander around here and there. Where are you guys headed?"

Satris, having finally caught his breath, spoke up. "We're going to the Northern shore," he said. "Our boat sunk, and we drifted to the south of the continent." He was surprised by how easily the lie left him.

"Northern shore, huh?" Kotoda asked. "Well, that's a trek, but we should make it in a couple of weeks. We need to steer clear of Mount Valmai, but other than that it should be smooth as a ground stone. Alright," he added, beginning to walk through the trees and motioning for them all to follow. "Come with me. We'll get there."