Queen's Notes: This chapter was co-written with In The Light
To the fans of Light out there, I still do not know where she is, I love and miss her too but she has only sent me one email about 'taking a break' from the internet, fan fiction and rping. I do not know when or if she is coming back.
The Universals were In The Light's concept and [former] story. The Kora and the Bionicle world that this takes place in are my concepts.
Baring that in mind this is still my story as much as hers and in honestly I got tired of waiting so I'm posting this story up. I hope you enjoy the story as much as we did when we wrote this a few years ago.
There's only nine chapters of this.
A New Take To This
After getting something to eat, the small group of Matoran and one human had soon made their way over to the playing field, where Nati supposed the game of Kohlii, or whatever it was called, was going to start. Macku had been right about it being popular, that was for sure- lots of Matoran had come to watch the game.
Most were blue and green shaded Ga-Matoran, brown and tan of the Po-Matoran and then surprisingly white as well sporting the third team from Ko-Koro. Macku and Hewkii left Nati with the now awake Kren, how he got to his spot was a mystery but Nati's apparent guide and guard was perched up on a shelf and it took two Matoran to boost the human up to join the pilot.
"Here Natifriend, isn't this the best right view off all!" Kren said, sitting around to keep his bad leg from any presser. The male smirked at something he was holding back, and making no show of hiding he knew something.
"... yes," Nati said after glancing out over the field. She was wrestling with her hair tie, trying to smooth out the locks of un-brushed hair back into a simple, durable ponytail. She glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, what is it?"
"What is what?" Kren asked back in an impressive mask of innocents.
"Nuh uh," Nati replied, finally getting a, somewhat, tidy tail of hair done before she sat down beside him. "Don't think about doing that with me, Kren; I have a little brother who tries to pull that off all the time. You're hidin' something."
The Le-Koroian pilot beamed back at her, winking one red and orange eye, "Why tell when you'l see soon enough Ga-gi?" His gaze ticked down and slightly to one side, scooting over that way on the ledge as the not large areana filled out, the players Nati met and didn't all seemed to have vanished.
Nati hummed warily, though willing to go along with Kren's excitement. Over what, she didn't know, but switched her attention onto looking out at everything and everyone down below in the arena. She noticed three 'goals', one for each of the teams it would seem.
The was a deeper sapphire shade of armor drew attention, as the tall slender form that was Toa Gali stepped into the clear space below. Kren hummed in pleaser before seeing the second Toa that was pacing in after, he was larger in form than both Gail and Lewa, and would have been taller than Lewa if he wasn't bent over in a permanent hunch.
The human sitting with the pilot leaned forward a little bit to get a better look at the new Toa. Both him and Gali she had yet to meet face-to-mask, but still... Brown and tan. This new one was of the colors of the Po-Matoran. That meant... "Is that the Toa of Stone, Kren?"
Kren was grinning again, nodding rapidly, "Goodright guess! That's Toa Pohatu!"
"Eh?" The stone giant in question turned, looking back as he picked up his name, but hand to turn, bright eyes scanning and spotting the two that stood out. Kren since he was green and Nati being human, "Oh this must be the off worlder I've been hearing about."
"..." Nati sat back down in her seat, unable to figure out why she suddenly felt shy. Perhaps it was because this dude wasn't a mere Matoran like those she had met—or short for that matter! He was pretty large. "Dude's got good hearing," she said to Kren with a small grin.
"Have to have," Pohatu chuckled, tapping the side of his head before looping an arm around the smiling Gali, "in order to keep up with Lewa or hear out icy brother!"
The guy seemed pretty nice, Nati noted with a smile. Icy brother... now what was the Toa of Ice's name again? Oh well. She'd find out sometime. Still, Pohatu's hearing must have been much better than any human's. There were tons of other voices in the air after all.
"Well, they are Toaheroes," Kren pointed out, "They have to be alert even when their not... if that makes goodsense."
"It does," Nati said with a smile. "Guess if you're that big of a hero you need to have hearing better than a dog's..."
"A what-what?" Kren tilted his head, and then sat up more, "And I am a Matoranhero!"
"It's an... an animal. And I know that! I was talking about the Toa." the human answered. "And yes, you're a good Matoranhero too."
"Praise," Gali said softly to her brother, "Something Air and Fire elementals alike can live off of." she nodded at the preening Le-Matoran, as there was no other word for it. The water elemental chuckled as Pohatu let out an unrestrained laugh.
The Toa of Stone rose, tilting his head to look up at Kren and Nati, had his back not been hunched over Pohatu would be almost looked both in the eyes. "Come down off there little ones, just as good of a view with us, and less chance of falling off. And maybe Ga-Gi here will help with that leg, oh brave Matoranhero!"
Nati glanced at Kren with a smirk at the comment 'oh brave Matoranhero.' "Well, shall we? Mister Hero?
"Yesyesyes." Kren nodded, and by his instant replay this seemed to be a part of his plot from the start. Gladly pushing off the ledge with no hesitation and into the waiting hands of the Toa. He was place in Gali's lap, promptly started to preen again before Pohatu came back for Nati.
"Oh, GEEZ..." Nati said, mostly at the Le-Matoran's plot he'd made from the beginning; amused at Kren pretty much. She shook her head, looked over and pushed herself off the ledge as Kren had done. Hey, he'd done it with a bad leg! It was easy...
Pohatu's hands were harder than a Matoran's, and Lewa's for some reason, but they still have that living warmth, and his claws were thankfully pulled back as far as they could go. The Toa set Nati down on the wide stone shelf that would be a step but for the Toa it was something comfortable to lean against.
"Think out Ko-Tu will show up?" Pohatu asked again peering over the 'rail' to the box below and to one side, "There's Turaga Nuju..."
"The elder might have come with Kora Tala instead." Gali pointed out, "More so if Kopaka is hunting."
The little-next a Toa, yeah she was pretty little- female human, though listening to the conversation, also took the chance to look around at the view once more of the sports field. She didn't spot this other Turaga they had mentioned. Taking a guess, it must have been the ice one if she had anything to go by. But who was Tala again...?
"Someone call me?"
Nati turned her head to see who had spoken. It was another Kora-Kora Tala! Yeah, she remembered now. "Hi," she greeted the elemental with a smile.
The Rue warring Bionicle did a sweeping, over the top bow, grinning, "Hiya," Tala said, her accent different than the others, not quite like something Nati knew but close enough to know at the same time... The truth was that Tala was a language master like Matoro was and was matching her speech pattern closer to Nati's.
Nati's smile grew even more. She could already tell that she was going to like this Kora a lot. And not just because Kora were once human like her, Tala had a friendly air to her, "...nice mask." Nati blurted, inwardly chuckling at her choice of words.
"Kanohi Rue," Tala said, shifting her speech patter again to match Pohatu's, or rather the Po-Koro accent, "Mask of Translation." The white elemental switched back easily, "So! If you're not a Kora, dat' means you're 100% human, an' that makes ya somethin' to worry about."
Kren huffed, about to protest that when the Kora smoothly continued.
"Or rather, how ya' got here."
"Lewa couldn't find a gateway where he found her." Gali explained to the others, looking down at Nati and tilting her head. "At least none that were open once he started searching."
The mentioned 100% human shifted her weight in an uneasy fashion. Apparently their version of a gateway was different from the living mass of a vortex she knew of. She returned the glance up at Toa Gali. "... well maybe I got here some other way."
"Possible but we Kora are supposed to be the gate keepers on this side." Tala said, thinking.
"What if it was another force? Something else, maybe... I dunno, you don't know about?" Nati replied. How would they take it anyway, if they found out about the whole other system of gateways and Universals?
Tala cocked her head to one side, looking intently at Nati as Pohatu shock his head, paused and considered again. He rumbled and growled naturally as he thought, "There's that big ring thing, but not one's been able to use it. And there's been no air ships since the ancient days according to the Turaga. But we're learned anything is possible!" He added clapping a hand lightly on Tala's head, playfully turning her mask and getting an instant teenage like spazznedic and dramatic reaction out of the Kora.
Nati smiled faintly in amusement at that, though she did cock her head. "What big ring thing are you talking about, Toa Pohatu?"
The stone giant considered the direction before he waved a hand in the direction of the massive Kini Nui in the semi distance, "It's in one of the deeper chambers in the Kini. As far as I heard Turaga Nokama, Tala or Matoro haven't had time to stay and translate much on the walls other then it may be used for transport, yet not link to our teleportation system...?" He trailed off a little to look at the Kora.
Tala gave herself a shake once her mask was firmly back into place, "I haven't really looked at it."
"Huh." Nati gave a thoughtful shrug and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her faded jeans, "Might be something to look into, maybe." She offered a small smile at Tala once the Kora had fixed her mask.
"You never know," The Kora allowed shrugging as she stooped to press her mask against Kren's, The Matoran seemed a bit put out at being ignored and now hummed in a cross of a blush and pleasure at the sudden attention.
There was that mask pressing thing again. It was awful cute watching it happen, Nati decided, and couldn't help but giggle at the male Matoran's pleased hum at the attention from Tala. "Yup," she said in answered to the Kora's comment.
"The question now is, what is your destiny here?" Gali asked as she rose, glancing around at the crowd as it looked like some of the Po-Matoran were trying to get girls to play on the field with them now that the field was free. She smiled as she noticed Hewkii and Macku were talking.
Granted, Hafu looked like he was trying to get close to Hahlii but he only got a stick to the top of the head and she walked over to the two Ko-Matoran as Hafu sulked over to his teammate.
"...probably to help out in some way," Nati said quietly, shrugging her shoulders. She kept her gaze on watching the Matoran rather than making eye contact with the Toa. She wasn't sure how anyone here would react on finding out what she knew; what powers she controlled. Her mind was thinking as if this were earth. Surely there Universals wouldn't be accepted. Maybe captured and studied for experiments, but never accepted. Who was to say the same wouldn't happen here?
Best to wait a little longer.
With her not looking however, Nati missed the two exchanging looks and Gali making a hand gester at the Kora. Signaling an order without speaking.
"Well, I donna know about ya' lot!" Tala announced jumping up onto the rail like ledge, "But I am not passing over Mata Nui's luck to the Ko-Koro." She pulled one of her shields out of subspace and pointing the end at Pohatu. "I shall win two rounds against ya'!"
"Hah!" The Toa leapt to his feet, "And shall win back Po-Koro's honor."
Nati turned back, saw their stance and grinned, having a feeling another game was about to start. 'Oh, this'll be interesting.' she said to herself.
"Hehehhehe." Kren snicker, tugging Nati closer to him as the Kora spun on one foot and let lose a pulse of elemental power. The air temp dropped as slope of ice formed, just enough for it to supports her.
Tala dropped her now extended shield onto the ramp and boarded down to the field with a cackle. Pohatu happily just dropping down the levels, though he was careful not to make any harmful tremors.
The human just stood there, her blueish grey eyes wide in awe on seeing Tala demonstrate her elemental power—ice. It was awesome! Almost as if it came out of nowhere... which it kinda did, "Dude... cool!"