*headdesk* I know, I know. It's late. Really late. But I forgot my memory stick and then I had no internet access for a week. On the bright side, though, I got more than one review for the last chapter! Yay!
*ahem* Explanation time. To understand what Telephone Hour is, look it up on YouTube. Why is there a Bye Bye Birdie reference, you ask? Well, a) I'm obsessed with Broadway (seriously, it's not healthy) and b) I was in BBB last year. (See my oneshot 'Doris Finally Snaps.' Seriously, I even wrote a fanfiction.) And apparently I decided to insert part of my life into MU. /shot
This chapter is full of angst and stuff. And the Toa Metru kind of take a bit of a backseat. But it's a Nidhiki chapter! Yay!
Also, what is it with me and Chapter 7 and the theme of betrayal? Seriously, this is the third fic I've written with Chapter 7 having something to do with betrayal. Weird.
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.
*If you think I own Bionicle, you are sadly misguided. I do, however, own the character designs, etc.*

Chapter 7: Betray

"Hey, look at this!"

Whenua and Vakama were on their way to the cafeteria to meet the other Toa Metru and tell them what Vakama had learned. Vakama turned around to see Whenua looking at a paper on a bulletin board. "'Judo classes, every day for five weeks.'"

Vakama grimaced. "That sounds gruelling."

"No, it means you can pick the Monday class, or the Tuesday class, and so on, according to your schedule." He grinned down at the freshman. "This could be part of our training! We should talk to Lhikan about it."

Vakama inspected the flyer. "Nua, it's sixty bucks a person. How many college students have that much to spend?"

Whenua shrugged. "I got in on mostly scholarships, plus I had an RESP, and I work every weekend at my uncle's farm in Po-Metru for some extra cash."

"Well, not everyone's as organized as you," Vakama sighed, starting to walk away. "Come on, we're going to be late."

Whenua shrugged, but took one of the little slips with the contact info on it anyway, just in case.

They needn't have worried. The only ones there were Nokama and Nuju. Nuju was reading and Nokama was stirring her coffee absentmindedly. She brightened up when she saw Vakama and Whenua approaching. "There you guys are!" she said. "I hope you don't mind, but Kiina wanted to meet everyone, so she'll be stopping by later."

Whenua grinned. "Sure. We'll just cut the T-O-A talk around her."

Nuju glanced up from his book. "Was there a specific reason you called us here?" he asked icily. He had another salad, but he was ignoring it in favour of his book and, currently, his fellow Toa.

"Well, I wanted to wait until the others got here…"

"Matau's not coming," Nuju replied. "He has class."

"So does Onewa," Nokama added. "He told me when we met on the elevator this morning."

"Why didn't they tell the ones who called the meeting?" Vakama asked wearily.

"Because they didn't have time to reply to your email?" Whenua suggested.

"So what did you need to talk about?" Nokama asked.

Vakama and Whenua proceeded to explain that Lhikan had given up his Toa powers, minus his Kanohi power, to give the Toa Metru theirs. Nokama looked shocked, and even Nuju managed to dredge up some emotion at the news.

"Why?" Nokama asked, staring at Vakama.

"He said something about 'you have a destiny beyond anything you could ever imagine' or something, but he wouldn't tell me what it was."

"That's because you ran out on me in the middle of my explanation."

Vakama must've jumped about three feet in the air at the sound of Lhikan's voice right behind him. He turned and looked up at the former Fire Toa. "What?"

"I was going to say that I didn't want to tell you because I knew you'd react this way." Vakama blushed; was he really that predictable? "Also, your guys' destiny...it's massive. I don't quite know exactly what it is, but it's life changing. World changing, even. Who am I to stand in the way of destiny?"

"Well then," Nuju said, speaking up for the first time since he'd asked why Vakama had called the meeting, "what's your destiny?"

Lhikan shook his head. "I don't know. I suppose I'll find out when I get there. Maybe it was creating you guys."

"Give a guy powers just so he can go give them to a bunch of other people?" Whenua paraphrased sceptically. "Paging the Department of Redundancy Department."

Lhikan laughed. "Well, when you put it that way, it does sound kind of silly. But who knows? Mata Nui works in weird ways sometimes. You learn to deal." He sat down next to Nokama. "Anything else you wanted to ask me?"

"Oh, I saw this," Whenua said, pushing the contact info for the judo class towards Lhikan. "I thought it might be useful to our training."

Lhikan nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe. But only if people have the money. Dume'll help you out if you need it, though, so it shouldn't be a problem."

Everyone started talking about judo and karate and other martial arts. Vakama kept checking his watch—he had a class soon—and was checking it again when a female voice behind him sang, "Hi, Nokama!"

Nokama waved. "Hi, Kiina!" she sang back.

Vakama turned to see a tall young woman with—were those bright blue pigtails? She was wearing a baggy t-shirt with some band Vakama had never heard of plastered on the front, and skinny jeans tucked into cowboy boots. He assumed this was Kiina, Nokama's roommate.

In response to Nokama's response, Kiina grinned impishly and sang, "What's the story, morning glory?"

"What's the word, hummingbird?" Nokama countered. The boys all looked at each other and shrugged.

Whenua raised an eyebrow. "Telephone Hour?"

Kiina looked at him, surprised. "Yeah, from Bye Bye Birdie. How'd you know?"

"I love old Broadway shows," he explained. "Why are you singing that?"

The bluenette shrugged. "My cousin Gresh and I were in it last year—he played Hugo, I played Mrs. MacAffee—and I fell in love with the show. That's how everyone who was in the show greets each other."

"And she taught it to me," Nokama finished. She grinned at her roommate. "Kiina, this is Whenua, Lhikan, Nuju, and Vakama. Guys, this is Kiina."

Kiina flashed another Kiina Grin © at them. "Hey," she greeted. "Nokama's been talking nonstop about you guys, so I figured I'd better meetcha!" She seemed to inspect Vakama, making him feel slightly uncomfortable, then nodded, as though she found him satisfactory. "So what're you all talkin' about?"

"Martial arts," Lhikan said with a smile.

"Ooh, I love karate," she said with a beam. "I'm a brown belt with two stripes in Shorinji Kempo Karate." She said that proudly, so Vakama assumed that was good.

He checked his watch again, then hastily stood up. "You can have my chair," he told Kiina. "I have a class." Waving, he hurried out of the cafeteria.

On his way to class (Math—ugh), he nearly bumped into Nidhiki. But before he could apologise, the Air Toa had wandered off, a distracted look on his face. He seemed preoccupied.

What's with him? Vakama thought as he watched him go.

Nidhiki sat next to the portable. The ground was hard and uncomfortable, but it was better than standing for the next few hours.

He sighed. Maybe he was too early. But he hadn't been able to get his meeting out of his head all day, and it made him distracted. There was no point going to class today if he was just going to space out anyway. He may as well be at the meeting place, just in case Lariska decided to show up early. Besides, he didn't even know what time sunset was. Nidhiki had never bothered to pay attention to that sort of thing.

The Toa Mangai leaned his head back against the portable wall and stared up at the sky. He could always go flying, but he didn't really feel like it. He could fly all he wanted when the city was his to command. When the city was his...

Lariska twirled a knife in her hand almost absentmindedly, staring intently at the Shadowed One. "You sure about this?" she asked. Normally, questioning the Shadowed One would get a person killed, but Lariska was one of his elites, not to mention personal favourites. He tended to overlook things like that for his favourites. "He is a Toa. He could be betraying us. Plus, we're supposed to hand over control of the city. I know you. You don't like sharing."

The colossus in front of her shrugged with a smile. "If he'd wanted to betray us, he would have already done so. And explain this to him: he will be able to do pretty much whatever he wants...but he will have to do whatever I ask of him. Metru Nui will still belong to me."

Lariska's mouth twitched upwards in a smirk. "Nidhiki won't like that."

"No, I suppose he won't. But if he objects..." The Shadowed One's eyes flashed.

Lariska understood. She didn't necessarily relish the thought of killing someone with so much potential for evil, but she understood: no one must ever know. The veteran Dark Hunter bowed and disappeared.

"Wakey-wakey, Flyboy."

Nidhiki woke up with a jolt and realised that Lariska was standing in front of him, bent at the waist and peering into his face. She smirked and her red eyes glinted. "Howdy."

"What time is it?" he asked groggily. Nidhiki was not a morning person.

"Almost six. Get up." Lariska moved back and made no move to help the Toa up. She watched him with her eyebrows raised, her hip out, and her arms folded. "Message from the Shadowed One. You can have the city, but he has to be able to have a base, and if he asks for something, you have to give it to him. No choice, no questions asked, no delays. Just hand it over. Got it?"

Nidhiki grimaced. He should've known the Hunters would pull something like this. But if he didn't comply, he had the feeling that he might lose more than just the city. Like, say, his life. He sighed. "Got it."

Lariska grinned and gave him a mock bow. "Welcome to the Hunters, Nidhiki Cane."

Nidhiki didn't even bother asking how she knew his last name. "I'm not in the Hunters, though."

"Well, okay, but you're an ally of the Dark Hunters." Nidhiki felt a shiver run through him. It sounded so sinister, so...perfect.

He grinned. "Shall we plan?"

"Oh," she smirked, "we shall."

Dume raised his eyebrows in shock. "You know where the Dark Hunters are based?"

Nidhiki nodded gravely. "It's somewhere we would never expect, on the outskirts of Po-Metru."

"The farmland?" Dume asked. While most of Po-Metru was the business district of Metru Nui, the outskirts were mostly farmland. "You're right, we would never think to look there. How did you find them?"

"My friend lives on a farm out there. I was talking to him, and he said there was some strange activity going on near his farm." Nidhiki told the rehearsed lie with relative ease: how he flew out to investigate, found the Hunter's camp, and decided it would be better to get Lhikan and the Toa Metru before launching an attack. With each word, he felt the ball of guilt and worry clenched in his stomach lessen. Dume seemed to believe him, and the Toa Metru were hanging on his every word.

Lhikan, ever the hero, immediately began to take charge and talk battle strategy. Then came the tricky part—convincing everyone that a powerless Toa should accompany them to a battle. The plan wouldn't work if Lhikan stayed behind to guard Dume—Lariska was supposed to leave after the Toa had been ambushed and kill the Turaga. "It'd be easier to think up tactics and so on if you were actually there," he suggested. Eventually, Dume agreed, and Lhikan and Nidhiki led the Toa Metru towards Po-Metru.

Onewa was fuming so much, there was practically smoke coming out his ears. "Onewa?" Vakama asked. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he grumbled. "But Po-Metru's my homeland. To think some evil bastard set up camp there..." He cracked his knuckles as they stepped onto the subway. "They're gonna regret that."

Nidhiki barely contained the smirk that threatened to flash onto his face and ruin the whole plan. Oh, I seriously doubt that, he thought.

They finally arrived on Po-Metru's outskirts after an hour on the subway and another twenty minutes on a bus. Nidhiki started to lead them to where the 'base' was when about a hundred Dark Hunters appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, to surround the Toa. Lhikan instinctively threw up a shield and the Toa Metru assumed their Toa forms. Nidhiki shrugged and wandered over to Lariska, who was in the front row. "Hey," he grinned. He turned back to see Lhikan glaring at him. If he hadn't known better, he would've sworn that the former Toa had gotten his fire powers back, as he was practically burning up with anger. He happened to glance at the Toa Metru and immediately wished he hadn't. Matau had a look of pure hurt on his face. Nidhiki quickly looked back at Lhikan. "Sorry it had to end this way, brother," he said.

Lhikan shook his head. "Not half as sorry as I am. And never call me brother again." At that, he whistled loudly and shrilly.

From everywhere—windows in houses, hay lofts in barns, treetops, roofs, stacks of hay bales, farm equipment—Toa poured. They surrounded the Dark Hunters, who immediately dropped their weapons. There weren't as many Toa as there were Hunters—in fact the Hunters still outnumbered them two to one—but the Toa had the element of surprise, plus in order to escape, they'd have to fight their way through the Toa. And a good Toa is worth six in battle.

Nidhiki glanced sharply at Lariska, who was scowling. "Not bad," she said to him. "I can't believe we trusted you."

"Oh, your trust in him wasn't misplaced," Lhikan spat. "Ours, on the other hand, was."

The dark-haired man looked up at Lhikan. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Vakama ran into you earlier, said you were acting distracted. I went to find you to talk to you. When I found you, you were asleep next to the portable with the computer labs in it. I was going to go wake you up, but then Lariska beat me to it." He shook his head sadly. "I hid and heard your whole conversation. I warned Dume, and he managed to mobilize Toa from nearby cities to help us. Didn't have time to warn these guys, though," he admitted, indicating the Toa Metru.

"An ambush to ambush the ambush," Lariska commented, almost jauntily. "Well, well, well. Isn't that kind of devious for a Toa? I thought you guys were all about honour and all that crap."

Lhikan glared at Nidhiki again. "Most of us are." He raised his voice. "Since it goes against the Toa code to kill, you will all be allowed to leave the city with your lives and bodies intact on three conditions." He held up a finger. "One, you swear to never return here. A message has already been sent to the Shadowed One, and we have his reply in writing: as long as no blood is spilled today, he will keep his Dark Hunters out of the city. That means you lot." He held up a second finger. "Two, you leave immediately. I want all the Hunters out of Metru Nui and the surrounding area by midnight tonight. That's four hours from now." Taking a deep breath, he held up the third finger. "And three..." He lowered his hand and pointed at Nidhiki. "You take him with you," he spat.

Nidhiki was shocked. "Wh-what? Go with them? Lhikan, are you crazy?"

The look in Lhikan's eyes said "Don't try me." He shook his head. "No. Just go, Nidhiki."

"But we're brothers in arms!"

"No!" Lhikan snapped. "You lost the right to call me 'brother' the moment you even considered joining up with her—" he pointed to Lariska—"and her kind! You're not my brother. As far as I'm concerned, you don't even exist." He lowered his hand to his side, both hands clenched into fists as he stared at the ground, avoiding Nidhiki's eyes. "Now get out. Get out of my face, my city, and my life."

Nidhiki took one more look at his former brother, and at Matau, who was also looking at the ground as though it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. He took a step forward and Lhikan's head flashed up. "Get out!" he roared. "Get out before I kill you!"

The Dark Hunters were all gone within the hour. Lhikan oversaw their departure. Nokama, Onewa, Nuju, and Vakama all volunteered to help, but he made them leave. "I want to be alone," he said, his voice almost dead. Vakama understood. He'd just lost a brother. Nidhiki may not have died—but he was dead to Lhikan.

Whenua was comforting Matau when Vakama found them. Matau looked up at Vakama from his seat on the ground. "He was...he was the only Air Toa I knew," he mumbled. "I wanted to learn so much more from him...and he reminded me of Dad."

Vakama sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders, like Whenua was doing. "I know," he said quietly.

Matau sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "It's not like what Lhikan's feeling, though," he muttered. "I mean, I just met the guy. He was Lhikan's brother. Well, not really, but you know."

They sat like that for a while until Nokama found them. "Dume wants us," she said. The three Toa stood up and followed her to the security office silently.

Lhikan stood at the back of the room. Even though there were seven other people crammed in there, Dume's office felt bare without Nidhiki. Every now and then, one of the others would glance back at him, then quickly look away again. Lhikan sighed. He knew he was supposed to support them—but what happened when the supporter needed support?

Dume finally finished his speech—which could be summed up by "We must redouble our efforts, nothing like this must ever happen again, et cetera"—and shooed the Toa Metru out of his office. Lhikan was about to follow when Dume called, "Lhikan, a word please."

Reluctantly, Lhikan turned and faced his Turaga. "Yes?"

Dume stood up, his old knees creaking, and walked to Lhikan. He regarded him silently for a moment, then reached out and gave his charge a hug.

Lhikan was shocked, to say the least. Dume rarely showed any affection towards anyone from what Lhikan had seen in all the years he'd know the man. Ever since Dume handed him a strangely glowing stone and declared him a hero ten years ago, pretty much the only side of him Lhikan had seen was the professional, almost stoic side. This was probably the first time he'd ever shown any tenderness. It wasn't like Dume was rude or cruel or anything—it was just the way he was.

"It's okay," Dume said quietly. "I miss him too."

Lhikan couldn't speak. He just hugged his mentor of ten long years back and cried for his lost brother.

:(
That is all.
Thanks again for reading! See the pretty review button? Please click it!
~Ed