Late and long update is late and long.
Total page count: 18 and a half.
Total word count: 10, 052.
Holy. Crap. I seriously think this is the longest thing I've ever written.
So yeah, exams start in two days, and after that my Internet access is going to be severly limited, so don't expect a lot. PB86 and I will try to get the next Rahi Warrior up by the end of April, though. *end of shameless plugging*
Edit: I have now added the page breaks. I forgot that you have to do that manually on here. If it ever looks like I need them, please don't hesitate to tell me! Thank you.
Thanks for reading, and please review! Constructive criticism is always highly appreciated.
*I don't own Bionicle, but I do own character designs, OC's, etc. You can use them if you ask first, though.*
Chapter 10: Search
Dume frowned at the book on his desk. It was a thick hardcover tome, with a green cover and silver accents. There was some kind of silver symbol on the front—he didn't know what it was, though. The book had been delivered to his house that morning, but he didn't remember ordering it. He traced the outline of the strange symbol with one finger. What could it mean?
Suddenly a low cackle started emanating from the book. Dume drew back quickly, watching it warily. He'd seen strange things in his time as a Toa and a Turaga, and an evil book was the least strange thing he'd seen. But his only defence against whatever this was was his Kanohi power of inorganic regeneration, not particularly useful in a fight for your life.
Then the book started to change. It was no longer a book at all, but a strange being of pure shadow, with glowing red slits for eyes. It flexed its claws at Dume, who narrowed his eyes.
"So it is you," he said.
The shadow being smiled, showing its pointed teeth. "That's right."
"Why the book?" Dume asked.
"Easier to get to you that way. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist trying to figure out what secrets it held. I used that against you and here we are."
Dume tilted his head. "Are you going to kill me?"
"Oh, no. I have much bigger plans for you, old man."
Dume shook his head. "Old man? No respect."
"That'll be the least of your worries." It rushed towards him, and Dume barely realised what it was going to do when it was suddenly upon him. He screamed, then his body sagged. When he looked up, his eyes flashed red momentarily as he walked out the door.
The teenage boy looked at the young man in front of him. "So there are six of these disks hidden around the city?"
The man nodded. "That's right. The Toa must not get them. So I want you to get them first and bring them to me."
This earned him a sceptical look. "If these disks are as powerful as you say, why should I give them to you, Nidhiki?"
Nidhiki smiled thinly. "Simple. If you give them to me, I won't kill you." The boy's eyes widened. "Oh, and there will be some kind of monetary compensation or something, but the biggest thing is that I won't kill you, and neither will my friend here." He gestured with one of his arms to the man next to him. He was huge and muscular, with white hair and an eye patch covering his right eye. He pounded his fists together and glared at the boy with his one good eye. "This is Krekka," Nidhiki explained. "He does whatever I say. If I say, for example, 'kill the boy,' he'll do it. Understood?"
The boy nodded vigorously, and Nidhiki's smile widened. "Good. Now, you may want to get going—I believe two of the Toa are searching in your Metru at the moment. Why not start with something easy?"
With another frightened nod, the boy took off. Nidhiki stretched all four of his arms and turned to Krekka. "Let's go to Ta-Metru. We have work to do."
"You have the disk, right?"
"Nuju that's the fifth time you've asked me that. Yes, I have the disk, and it's not going anywhere, so quit worrying already!"
Nuju sighed. At least they were on his turf today. The Ko-Metru Kanoka would hopefully be easier to find than the Onu-Metru one. But their riddle, "find where sky and ice are joined," made little to no sense. The only thing Nuju could think of would be either on top of a building or some kind of ski hill—but in a Metru full of 30-storey buildings and ski resorts, that could be anywhere.
It didn't help that he was worried about the disk that they already had. If anyone knew they had it, it could pose a problem with people trying to steal it. He made Whenua check every five minutes to make sure it was still secure. It wasn't like Nuju to be paranoid, but something about the day felt weird and wrong.
"Well, if it isn't Mat's big brother!"
Wincing, Nuju turned towards the voice. There was a boy about three years younger than him standing there, flanked by more boys his age. With a grimace, Nuju recognised him as Ehrye Snow.
"I don't have time for your crap right now, Ehrye," Nuju said, turning away. "Come on, Whenua, let's go."
"Running away, goody-two-shoes?"
Whenua didn't know who this was, but whoever he was, he obviously didn't know Nuju very well if he was calling him a 'goody-two shoes.' "Nuju, who's this idiot?" he asked.
"Ehrye," Nuju said, as if that explained it all. He turned back to Ehrye. "Look, Ehrye, unless you can tell me where I can find a special metal disk with a light blue pattern on it, you are useless to me and this conversation is over." He turned to go, but Ehrye's voice brought him back.
"A metal disk? I might've seen one of those."
Nuju paused, then calmly walked up to Ehrye and grabbed the front of his shirt. "Where did you see it, Ehrye? And don't even think about lying."
One of Ehrye's buddies started to step forward, but Ehrye held up a hand. He'd gotten into enough scrapes with Nuju to know not to mess with him. "Uh, right. It was up at Mount Koriri, at the top of the Suicide."
Releasing Ehrye, Nuju swore. "What?" Whenua asked. "Is that bad?"
"Mount Koriri is Ko-Metru's most exclusive ski club," Nuju explained. "It's for members only, and membership is really expensive." He raised an eyebrow at Ehrye. "How did you get in?"
"My uncle runs it," Ehrye said proudly. "I got in for free the other day. I saw this weird disk thing, and thought it was just some weirdo's trash." He squinted at Nuju. "Is it important?"
"Maybe. Thanks, Ehrye." Nuju turned to go, then turned his head back. "Oh, by the way...didn't Matoro do so well on that last science test?" With that, he left Ehrye to fume, pulling a confused Whenua along behind him.
"Mountain in balance?" Onewa sighed. "Seriously, a mountain in balance? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Vakama rolled his eyes. Onewa had been griping about Po-Metru's riddle for the past hour. "How should I know? This is your Metru, remember?"
"Yeah, but do I know everything there is to know about Po-Metru? Nooooo, I don't."
"Don't you have any ideas?"
"A couple," he admitted, crossing his legs. They were sitting at a bus stop, waiting for the number 39. "There are some huge buildings downtown with big observatory-type things on top."
"Like the CN Tower?"
"Nowhere near as big, but yeah, like that. That could technically count as a mountain in balance, I guess. Either that or the hill at the outskirts, but I don't think it's qualified enough to be a mountain; it's pretty small."
"Well, it's worth a shot. So where are we going first, Fearless Leader?"
Onewa shook his head. "No, no, no. You're Fearless Leader. I'm Dudley Doright."
"You've been spending way too much time with Matau. Stop making obscure Rocky and Bullwinkle references and answer the question."
The bus chose that moment to arrive. "We're going downtown," he told him, flashing his bus pass. Vakama dropped his change in the machine and followed Onewa towards the back of the bus. "We're closer to that anyway, so we may as well look while we're here."
"Onewa? That you?"
Onewa turned at a familiar voice, a grin breaking out over his face. "Hafu! How's it going? I thought you were at the Ga-Metru Art Institute; what're you doing here?"
Hafu was a little shorter than Onewa, with tanned skin and brown hair and eyes. He grinned back at Onewa. "Done class for today, and unlike some, I'm not living in residence. How about you?"
"Uhh...job hunting." Vakama coughed. "Oh, yeah, this is Vakama. We, uh, have the same judo class."
"Nice to meet you," Vakama said politely.
"Er, likewise." A boy sitting next to Hafu pulled the same 'coughing-to-have-attention-drawn-to-me' move that Vakama had just pulled. "Oh, sorry, Ahkmou. This is Ahkmou; we're in the same program and we live real close, so we usually take the bus together."
Ahkmou smiled at them, and when he did, Vakama shivered. Something about his smile seemed wrong, somehow. It was all lips, and there was something in his eyes that unnerved Vakama. An image, like a half-forgotten dream, swam unbidden to the front of his mind. It was that of a short brown robot talking with the same two robots Vakama had seen before—the insectoid one and the big white one. "Be wary, Vakama," the old man's voice said. Vakama's mouth went dry. "Ahkmou is not to be trusted! Keep an eye on him."
"Vakama, you okay?"
Onewa's voice snapped him back to reality. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine."
Onewa rolled his eyes at Hafu, as if to say, "He does that."
"Ah, this is my stop," Ahkmou suddenly said, pulling the stop request cord and standing up. "Nice to meet you two. See you tomorrow, Hafu."
"Bye, Ahkmou!" Hafu called as Ahkmou got off the bus.
Vakama's mind worked quickly. Yesterday he'd ignored the voice in his head, and it had actually been beneficial. But he'd gone with his gut, and right now his gut was agreeing with the voice. There was something about Ahkmou, something wrong, and Vakama couldn't shake the feeling that it had something to do with Kanoka.
"Our stop too," he declared, dragging Onewa off the bus.
"How you liking the 'windy city,' Nokama?"
"What? I can't hear you over the wind!"
Matau pouted. "I can never tell if you're joking or not."
She smiled. "Okay, I'm joking. But isn't Chicago the windy city?"
"No, it's Le-Metru." When Nokama opened her mouth to argue, he interrupted her. "So do you have any ideas?"
Shooting him a glare, she replied, "This is your home Metru, Matau. Shouldn't you be the one coming up with ideas?"
"But...I don't have any, so I was wondering if you did."
"I've rarely left Ga-Metru! Ugh, whatever. Look, the clue is that the disk will be 'all around you' when you find it. Let's just think for a minute. Where could that be?"
"I vote we go to the coffee shop over there and talk about it!"
"Let's not. How about we try the library? There is a library in Le-Metru, right?"
He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've never been if there is one."
"Ugh! Matau!"
Matau pouted. "Look, I'm trying, okay? But I'm really bad with puzzles and riddles and stuff. That's yours and Nuju's stuff. I'm just the plucky comic relief!"
"This isn't a video game or a movie, Matau. This is reality, and if you don't start acting like—"
"Matau!"
The two Toa turned in time for Matau to get bowled over by someone. "What're you doing here?" he panted, sitting on top of Matau, beaming. He was a little shorter than Matau, but you could tell by their faces that they were related. They had the same eyes, though the boy's hair was a lighter shade of brown. And they both had a thing for green t-shirts, apparently, because the boy sitting on top of Matau was wearing a bright green one.
"Lewa, you're heavy!" Matau whined.
"Sorry!" Lewa chirped, bouncing up and offering Matau a hand up, as though he hadn't just tackled him to the cement on a busy street in the middle of the day.
"Lewa, wait up!" Another boy came running over. This one was long and lanky, with dark hair hanging into his face and in a black t-shirt and green wristbands. "Don't just run off like that, man," the newcomer panted. "Your brother'd kill me if anything—"
"Kongu!" Matau said happily.
Kongu looked surprised. "Matau! Dude, what're you doing here?"
Nokama was steadily becoming more and more confused. "Is anyone going to explain what's going on, or am I going to have to—"
"Oh, sorry, Nokama. This is my little brother Lewa—"
"Not so little anymore," Lewa said proudly, standing on tiptoe next to Matau.
"Knock it off, shrimp. Anyway, this is my best friend Kongu."
"Hi," Kongu said, sticking out his hand. As Nokama shook it, he asked, "So are you Matau's girlfriend or something?"
Matau chirped "Yes!" at the same time that Nokama bluntly stated, "No."
Kongu immediately burst out laughing. "Dude, you got shot down!"
Matau looked hurt, but with him it was hard to tell if he was playing it up or not, so Nokama quickly changed the subject. "We're just friends. I'm Nokama. Actually, we're looking for something." She described the disk they were looking for. "Seen it?"
Lewa and Kongu looked at each other. Lewa frowned. "That sounds like..."
"Yeah, Orkham."
Matau tensed. "What?" Nokama asked. "What's Orkham?"
"Not what, who," Matau said. "Orkham is this guy from our school—really doesn't like me for some reason."
"He's been muttering about some weird disk lately," Kongu said. "Said something about it making him important or something. Think that's it?"
"Could be. But Orkham's always been a little cross-wired, if you ask me. He could just be being weird again."
"It's worth looking into," Nokama said, "and it's our only lead. We should go. Nice to meet you guys."
"Hey," Lewa called as they walked away. "Sorry about jumping you earlier."
Matau waved back. "No problem!" he shouted back. "I'm used to it!"
Nokama wondered what kind of relationship the brothers had if getting jumped in the middle of a busy street was normal behaviour, but eventually decided that Matau was just plain weird.
"Okay, Nuju, do you want to explain what that was all about?"
"No."
Whenua frowned. They were on a bus heading for Mount Koriri, and he was still confused about the Ehrye kid they'd run into earlier. "Look, he's obviously someone you know, so..."
Nuju sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It's nothing. Ehrye used to be friends with my brother Matoro, but he started getting jealous of him, and of us, too."
"Us?"
"Me and my other brother, Kopaka. Anyway, he started getting jealous, and that made him bitter, and now he's always picking on my brothers, especially Matoro. Kopaka can hold his own, but Matoro's needed me to step in a couple times, something Ehrye's never going to let go. At least he's learned not to mess with me when I'm in a bad mood."
The dark smirk that crossed Nuju's face when he said that made Whenua swallow. "S-so how long until we get there?" he asked, changing the subject.
"About ten minutes. Is the disk—"
"It's fine, Nuju! Geez! What is with you today?"
Nuju shifted and looked away, refusing to speak. An awkward silence settled over them, even after they'd gotten off the bus and had walked the rest of the way to the ski hill.
Whenua cleared his throat. "So, any plans for how to get in?"
Nuju shook his head. "None. I was trying to think of some on the bus, but sneaking into Mount Koriri is infamously difficult. The last person who tried apparently tried sneaking in from the back, so they've probably amped up the security there."
"And you know this how?"
"It was all written up in the papers at the time. Anyway, remember how you made those fake press badges yesterday?"
Whenua saw what he was getting at and shook his head. "I wouldn't know how to make ski passes. I don't know what they look like for Mount K; I only knew what MNC's press badges look like because one guy on my floor showed me his."
"Well, that's out then."
"Maybe we can bribe the staff."
Nuju rolled his eyes. "With what? I have enough money to get home and maybe grab dinner if we're here late, which is to say, not much."
"I have a tenner," Whenua offered.
"Helpful," Nuju said icily. "Let's just head in and see how much security they've got."
Surprisingly, there wasn't much. They could go anywhere they wanted besides the ski hills without a pass. That made things easier, but they still had to find the Suicide and then get up it. Whenua kept asking what the Suicide was, but Nuju just kept replying, "You'll see when we get there."
"Hey, Nuju, look." Whenua elbowed Nuju, then pointed. "Aren't those Vahki?"
Now that Nuju looked, it was true. There were two Vahki standing near the Ski Patrol hut, looking stoic as always.
"What're they doing here?" Whenua asked.
"Search me. Maybe something happened, or maybe they've been hired out to keep hooligans off the hills. Which, at the moment, means us, so we should probably steer clear of them." An abandoned ski lift caught his eye. "Come on, I have an idea."
"Where are we going?" Whenua asked, following.
Ignoring him, Nuju squinted at the keyhole that would turn the lift on. His eyes flashed as he used his telekinetic Kanohi powers to reach inside and turn it. With a groan, it started up. "Hurry!" he called to Whenua, who was lagging behind a little, as he jumped into the first chair. Whenua wasn't too far behind, and he managed to get on three chairs later.
That was when the Vahki noticed that something was out of place. Jerkily, they walked over to investigate. The first thing they did was try to activate the emergency stop button, but Nuju had left them a surprise.
"Shouldn't they have stopped us by now?" Whenua shouted up.
"That would be kind of difficult, since I disabled the stop and reverse buttons," Nuju called back.
"This is probably a bad time to tell you that I'm acrophobic, then?"
"Deal with it, you big baby."
"Why the hell are we following this guy?" Onewa whispered as they watched Ahkmou go around yet another corner.
Vakama didn't answer. "Because the voice in my head told me to" not only sounded insane, but distracted him with questions that he didn't have time to figure the answers out to. He just sauntered casually around the same building Ahkmou had gone around, like he wasn't stalking a random college student for no reason other than the fact that he was going nuts. With a scowl, Onewa followed.
They'd been following Ahkmou for at least half an hour by this point, and so far he'd succeeded in wasting their time. He wasn't going anywhere, by the looks of things. Onewa, who knew the layout of Po-Metru better than Vakama, had originally assumed he was going to the library, but now he seemed to be heading for the mall. They were on opposite ends of the Metru, and not for the first time he wondered if Ahkmou knew they were there and was just leading them in circles.
It's like...it's like he wants us to follow him and get nothing done, he thought. But that's crazy, right?
Then again, maybe it wasn't. Nuhrii had turned out to know all about Mata Nui and Kanoka and everything, so there was nothing to say that Ahkmou wasn't also a Matoran. And if he was trying to get them away from the disk by walking in circles...
Think, Onewa. If we were heading downtown and now we're going to central Po-Metru, where haven't we been? The outskirts? The borders?
Then it dawned on him. Near the border of Po-Metru and Onu-Metru, there was a statue to the first mayor of Metru Nui, Alexander Payne. Payne had been famous for his larger-than-life hats, and his statue depicted him wearing his biggest and most extravagant one. It was so big it almost dwarfed the rest of the statue.
A mountain in balance, Onewa thought.
"Come on," he said, grabbing Vakama's arm and dragging him away. "I know where the Kanoka is."
Ahkmou frowned. He'd been able to feel the Toa's eyes on him the entire time he'd been leading them on this goose chase, but suddenly he couldn't feel them anymore. Turning, his eyes confirmed it: they were gone. Cursing under his breath, he took off for the closest bus stop. If they weren't following him, it meant they'd figured out he was just leading them around, trying to stall them until he came up with a plan. He hadn't expected them to find him on that bus, or follow him for that matter, so he'd tried to delay them. Evidently, it was time for a new plan.
He didn't know how much of a head start they had on him, but if he didn't stop them, he didn't want to know what Nidhiki would do to him.
Vhisola resisted the urge to press her face against the glass to look at the beautiful dress in the window. It was absolutely gorgeous, but she'd never be able to afford it. She sighed. Contrary to popular opinion, window shopping was no fun; it just made you depressed.
"Excuse me, Miss."
Vhisola nearly jumped out of her skin. Turning, she saw a young man with dark brown hair wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a long black coat. "I'm looking for the nearest grocery store," he said politely. "Could you point me in the right direction?"
Swallowing, she pointed. "It's that way. Down the street, turn left at the lights. You can't miss it."
With a thin smile, he nodded. "I see. Thank you. Krekka, thank the nice young lady, will you?"
Stepping out of the shadows, the hulking man grabbed Vhisola from behind, covering her mouth and pinning her arms behind her. She struggled and tried to scream as they stuffed her into a nearby car.
As the door slammed and the car peeled off, Vhisola struggled to make sense of her surroundings. There were two others in the car: a man wearing a dress shirt, suspenders, and a name tag that said he was "Tehutti: Archivist," and a teenage boy about her age wearing jeans and a t-shirt. "What's going on?" she whispered.
The teenager shook his head. "They think we know where the Kanoka are," he explained, also in a whisper. "They want us to tell them where they are."
"What's a—"
"Quiet!" Krekka's voice rumbled back from the front seat. "Nidhiki don't like noise!"
Nidhiki, who was driving, muttered something that sounded like "Hasn't stopped you."
"I don't believe this."
Matau grinned sheepishly at Nokama. "Sorry."
"How do you get lost in your own home Metru?"
"Okay, in my defence, I only ever go to the arcade and the go-kart track. But I'm pretty sure Orkham has a job at one of the driving schools here; I just can't remember which one."
"We've tried five already. How many are there?"
"I dunno. Like, fifty. Let's try this one next!" He pointed at a building with a sign that said "Collision Prevention Driving School."
"How does he have a job at a driver's ed school if he just got his licence, anyway?" Nokama asked as they walked towards it.
"I think he just does basic secretary type stuff, but rumour has it he got 103% on his G exam. Whoever hired him was all too happy to since he made their school look good."
Matau held the door open for Nokama, then stepped in behind her and went to the counter. "Excuse me, is Orkham Breeze working today?"
They were expecting the secretary to tell them that no one by that name worked there, so they were surprised when she said, "Yeah, he's in the back right now, though. Is it important?"
"Very."
"I'll go get him, then. Make yourselves comfortable."
Matau immediately plopped down in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs and grabbed a magazine. Nokama rolled her eyes with a smile and sat down, keeping an eye on the door. She was always on high alert lately. Something in the city felt wrong, but she couldn't place what. Maybe she should ask Vakama if he'd had any more visions he wasn't telling them about.
That was another thing. Vakama had clammed up about his visions lately. She understood that they made him feel like a freak, and she sympathized, but still, if there was some kind of danger he wasn't telling them about, that could be a problem.
"What the hell do you want?"
A new voice snapped her back to the real world. There was a young man about hers and Matau's age, with short, well-groomed blonde hair and narrowed blue eyes standing in front of the counter, his arms folded. He was wearing a spotless dress shirt and black pants, and if the look he gave Matau was any indication, he was not impressed with their being there.
Matau, for his part, grinned and bounced up off the chair. "Hey, Orkham! How's it going?"
"Fine. What do you want?"
"So much for small talk," Matau muttered. "We need the disk you found."
Orkham bristled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on, Orkham," Matau said, slinging an arm around the boy's shoulders, making him tense even more. Pulling him closer, he whispered, "You know exactly what I'm talking about. That disk is going to save the city, and we need it."
"Don't touch me," Orkham growled, pushing Matau away. "How could a screw-up like you save the city? You barely graduated high school!" Matau grimaced, and Nokama could see that Orkham had struck a low blow.
But he wasn't done yet. "You're an idiot, a weakling, and a freak. If you think I'm going to help you, then you're even stupider than I thought."
There was a pause. Then Matau asked quietly, "Are you done?"
"Trust me, I could go on," Orkham snapped.
"Yeah, well, don't. You've made your point. I get it. You hate me. You always have, and you probably always will. But that doesn't change the fact that I need the disk you've found, and if you don't give it to me, your life's going to be in serious danger."
Orkham's eyes narrowed further. "Is that a threat?"
"No, it's a fact. There are bad guys out there who want the disk, and—"
"Bad guys?" Orkham laughed. "Like who?"
Matau lowered his voice. "The Dark Hunters, for one. They're probably after it."
Orkham seemed to pause at the mention of the Dark Hunters. For some reason, the name brought up a feeling of dread. He thought. And thought. And thought. Finally, he said, "Alright. I'll help you." He turned to the secretary, who was on the phone. "Janice, is it okay if I take my break now?"
Janice waved him out with a nod. Her eyes tracked them as they left. "The Toa just left," she whispered into the phone. "They have Orkham with them—and they're heading for the Great Disk."
"Nuju?"
"What?"
"How much longer?"
"How should I know?"
They'd been sitting on the chairlift for what seemed like days. This was one of the reasons why Whenua hated skiing: you sit on an uncomfortable, bouncing, swinging chair for an hour to go down a snowy hill in two minutes or less. That and he just hated heights and being cold in general.
"Do you even know what hill this goes up to?" Whenua called.
Nuju shrugged. "No, but we can figure that out when we get up there. Ah, it looks like we're almost there." There, up ahead, was the small hut where the lift attendant would be if the lift was supposed to be working. And the small hill to get off the lift onto. And the Vahki.
Nuju's eyes widened. Vahki? How did they get up here so fast?
"Whenua," he shouted over his shoulder, "change in plan. Right before the hill, jump. Got it?"
Whenua's eyes widened and he shook his head frantically. "No way! It's too far down, and we'll either hit a tree or hit the ground! It makes no difference—we're dead either way!"
"Just trust me on this! I know what I'm doing!" Lifting the safety bar on his chair, Nuju added, under his breath, "I think."
He took a breath. If he timed it just right...
Now!
Nuju jumped out of his chair, landing on the hill and rolling to the side. The Vahki were advancing, so he slid down the side away from them and vanished into the trees directly underneath the chairlift.
Whenua, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Now the Vahki were directly on top of the hill, and if he pulled the same move Nuju did, they'd catch him. He'd have to jump.
Or would he? Letting instinct take over, he grabbed the rung under the chair and hung from it, smacking into the side of the hill and sliding down. He scrambled to his feet and took off after Nuju.
Ten seconds later, a hand on his shoulder almost made him scream. "Whenua, it's me!" Nuju hissed.
Relaxing, Whenua glared at his partner. "Next time, warn me."
"Fine. Hit the deck." They dropped to the ground and Nuju created a coating of snow and ice over them, thin enough that they could see out, but thick enough that it was an effective camouflage.
Just in time, too—the Vahki were in the woods, looking for them. There were about five or six of them, all completely identical, from their white hair to the blank expressions on their faces.
Whenua frowned. The Vahki they'd seen at the Archives—Rorzakh—hadn't their hair been black? Other than that, they were identical.
One had a small gold badge pinned to its chest, almost like an old West sheriff's badge. It seemed to be their leader, though that didn't give it any more emotions. "They must have escaped. Spread out and search for them." With barely perceptible nods, the Vahki marched off in six different directions.
The hidden Toa let out breaths they hadn't realised they were holding. Shattering the ice above them with a mental command, Nuju stood up and helped Whenua to his feet. "Let's get out of here. They could come back any minute."
"Right. So where are we, anyway?"
"The top of one of the hills. I think it's closed because there's not enough snow on it right now, hence why the chairlift wasn't operational."
"How do you know that?"
Nuju pointed to the bare patches dotting the hill. "Call it a hunch. If the map I saw earlier was any indication—"
"Wait, when did you have time to check a map?"
"There was one on the way in. Anyway, if I remember correctly, it said the Chute was closed, so this must be that hill. And it said the Chute was right next to the Suicide—so if we can find a way over to the Suicide from here, we should be able to find the Kanoka."
"Great! Which way?"
Nuju pointed. "That way. Come on." He led the way, Whenua gingerly picking his way along behind him.
"So why exactly is this thing called the Suicide?" Whenua asked.
Nuju paused, then actually decided to answer this time. "Rumour has it that someone died on it once, about ten years ago."
Whenua visibly gulped. This was doing nothing for his morale. He hoped the others were doing better, wherever they were.
Vakama stared. "That's got to be the biggest hat I've ever seen."
They were at Alexander Payne's statue. Like Onewa had said on the way over, Payne was actually depicted in the statue in his Napoleon Bonaparte-style hat. The thing was, Payne himself had been very short, and the hat had been way too big for him, even in real life, so it practically dwarfed the rest of the statue. It was a perfect 'mountain in balance,' like the riddle had said.
"Yep, it's a biggun, alright," Onewa agreed. "Now, how do we get up there without getting the police on our asses?"
"I could turn invisible and climb it," Vakama suggested.
Onewa blinked. "That's actually...a really logical suggestion. Who are you?"
"Oh shut up," Vakama mumbled, blushing.
"Nope, you're definitely Vakama. My mistake. That's not a bad idea, actually. I'll stay down here, and if anyone asks, I'll mind control them away! Okay, Fearless Leader, up you go!"
"Stop calling me that," Vakama grumbled, heading behind the statue before turning invisible. He looked up. It had sounded so easy when he'd said it, but now he wasn't so sure. It was a really big statue; one misplaced step and he could quite easily plummet to his death.
Trying not to think about it, he pulled himself onto the base and started to climb.
Onewa, for his part, was wandering around, pretending to be interested in the various engravings on the base of the statue. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar face.
He whipped his head around, but Ahkmou was gone. Frowning, he went back to looking around, this time keeping an eye out specifically for Ahkmou. The next time he saw him, he managed to keep his eyes trained on him. Ahkmou was trying his best to be sneaky, but when he saw Onewa, he panicked and tried to run. Fleeing in a crowded street, though, is tougher than it sounds. The Toa of Stone immediately gave chase—but chasing in a crowded street is even harder than fleeing in one.
Up above, Vakama was inching his way onto Payne's shoulder. Not being able to see your own hands is really difficult when you're trying not to fall to your death. Resisting the urge to look down, he reached up and grabbed the brim of Payne's hat. Now he was hanging by both hands, dangling precariously above the cement. If he let go now, he'd soon become a lot flatter.
His arms were really starting to hurt now, but he managed to scramble onto the side of the hat, where he knelt, panting and shaking the aches out of his arms. Only then did he choose to look down. He frowned. Where was Onewa? He hadn't gotten fed up and ditched Vakama, had he? Then he saw him hurrying through the crowd towards—was that Ahkmou?
Suddenly it all made sense. Ahkmou had been leading them in circles, trying to keep them from the Kanoka, just like Onewa had said. And now that he knew they were close to the disk, he was here, trying to keep them from it. Suddenly Ahkmou stopped running away and started walking jerkily towards Onewa, who was obviously using his mask power to get him to come to Onewa instead of the other way around.
Two police officers caught Vakama's eye. They were moving through the crowd at a steady pace. Even from this high up, Vakama could tell they were identical. What had Whenua and Nuju said about the robot police officers the other day? They were known as Vahki. They were experimental law enforcement robots. Their only emotion was a desire for justice.
And right now, they were headed straight for Onewa.
"This is as far as I go."
Matau looked up at Orkham. "What? But—"
He shook his head. "Even if the city depends on this thing, I can't help you anymore. I have to...I have to get back to work."
Matau and Nokama looked up at the building they were in front of. It was the Le-Metru Museum of Science and Technology, the only museum Matau had ever been to that had actually held his interest. According to Orkham, the disk was in the antigravity room, one of the random floating objects. People weren't allowed in the antigravity chamber, so they had to content themselves with watching things float around. Orkham had been there the week before on a science class trip, and he'd seen it. Something about it had seemed important, and he'd done some research before finding out what it was. Always striving to one-up everyone else (especially Matau), he'd been determined to get his hands on it.
Now, he grudgingly stood next to Matau, half glaring at him. Why did he get to be the hero while Orkham, who worked hard for everything, was stuck working a dead-end job at a driving school? Matau had never worked hard for anything in his life, and once again, here he was, being the hero after doing almost nothing at all.
Matau turned to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder, making him wince and grimace simultaneously. "Thanks, Orkham," he said honestly. "This really means a lot."
Orkham was slightly shocked. Matau was thanking him? For what? All he'd done was show them where to go and what to do...
Oh. He'd basically done the hard part, hadn't he?
At least Matau was giving him credit for it. No one ever gave Orkham credit for anything he'd done. Despite himself, he felt a small smile spreading across his face.
He patted Matau on the shoulder, too. "No problem," he said quietly. Then, shaking the moment off, he turned and walked away, while the other two went into the museum.
Orkham was barely two feet down the street when he was grabbed from behind and jammed into the back of a black car. He didn't even have time to scream before the door closed and the car took off.
"What was all that about?" Nokama asked after they'd paid their five dollars each (cheapest museum ever) and were walking towards where the information desk lady had said the antigravity chamber was.
"Huh?"
"You and Orkham."
Matau shrugged. "He hates me, I don't know him well enough to hate him...that about sums it up."
"No, I mean, back there you seemed to have some kind of...I don't know...moment. You know?"
"Uh...nope, no idea what you're talking about."
Nokama rolled her eyes and chalked it up to either her tendency to over romanticise situations or Matau being a stubborn idiot.
Whenua looked out over the Suicide. It was very apply named: anyone trying to ski down it would probably die. It was an almost vertical slope, like they'd tried to make a ski hill out of a cliff. He made sure to stay as far back from the edge as possible—this was so not helping his acrophobia.
"Come on," Nuju said, looking around. "Ehrye said it was up here somewhere."
"I'll look over here, where it's safe-looking," Whenua said, sticking along the fence at the back. "How about you use those built-in binoculars you were telling me about to see if you can find it?"
"That only works in Toa form, and there are too many people around." Nuju squinted, peering into the tree-bordered field behind the fence. "I think I see it."
"What? Where?"
Nuju pointed. It was stuck in one of the tree branches. "No wonder Ehrye thought it was trash; who sticks something important in a tree?"
Whenua had already hopped the fence and was headed for the tree. "Great. We get disk, we get out of here. This is sounding better and better."
"Whenua, wait! There could be—"
CRACK!
The Toa of Earth froze. "What was that?"
CRACK!
"Whenua, don't move!" Nuju shouted, scrambling over the fence. "I think there's some kind of frozen pond or something under that snow, and your weight—"
CRACK!
With a scream, Whenua plunged into freezing water. He struggled to keep his eyes open and see where the hole was, but he couldn't, it was too cold, and his chest was burning...
A hand tugged on his arm, and he followed it. Within seconds, he was above water, gasping for air and shivering violently. With a grunt, Nuju pulled him out of the water. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned, once Whenua was on solid ground again.
Coughing, Whenua nodded. "Thanks."
Nuju shrugged. Most people would have said, "You'd have done the same," or "Don't worry about it," or, at the very least, "You're welcome." Nuju said, "Stay here; I'll get the disk."
Whenua nodded, sneezing. Nuju clumsily pulled himself up the tree—he hadn't been much of a tree-climber, even as a kid—and managed to knock the disk down. Dropping to the ground, he picked it up, then offered Whenua a hand. "Let's get out of here and somewhere dry."
Nodding, Whenua allowed Nuju to help him up. "No offense, Nuju, but I think I'm going to be avoiding Ko-Metru for the next little while."
"None taken. Let's go."
Vakama's eyes widened. Onewa had no idea the Vahki were there! But Vakama was way up here, and his teammate was way down there. How could he warn him?
In his anxiety, the temperature around him rose a few degrees. Then an idea struck him. Concentrating, he tried increasing the temperature around Onewa. If nothing else, it would make him look around...
Onewa grimaced. Was it him, or was it starting to get uncomfortably warm all of a sudden? He was looking around to see if anyone else noticed when he saw two identical police officers headed straight for him. Everything from their uniforms to the cut of their brown hair was exactly the same. Remembering what Nuju and Whenua had said about Vahki, he immediately released his hold on Ahkmou's mind and pushed his way through the crowd, away from the Vahki.
Wait a second...that temperature shift... He looked up at the statue. I'll ask the firespitter about it later. Right now, I'd better lead them away.
On top of the statue, Vakama relaxed. Turning, he saw that nestled in a crack in the hat was the disk. Several tugs later and it was free. Now to get down.
Climbing down was even harder and scarier than climbing up, Vakama soon discovered, since he had the added hindrance of the Kanoka to worry about. Sticking it in his mouth, he dropped over the edge of the hat and tried to hook his legs around Payne's outstretched arm. One misstep and he would—
Falling, he was falling, oh crap crappity crap crap—
"OOF!"
Onewa grinned down at the Toa in his arms. "Hey, Vakama," he said brightly, setting him back on his feet. "Have a nice trip?"
Vakama's heart was beating wildly. "Tha-thank you," he panted, breathless from his near-death experience. "But how did you know I was falling? I thought I was invisible."
"You stopped being invisible when you used your powers to heat the area around me. I guess you can't use your elemental power and your Kanohi power at the same time. Anyway, we should get out of—"
Onewa suddenly cut himself off. While they were talking, the two Vahki had come up behind them, and one had a hand on Onewa's shoulder. The Stone Toa's face went blank, and Vakama backed away. "O-Onewa?"
"Get the disk from him," the Vahki with its hand on Onewa's shoulder ordered.
"Yes, sir," Onewa said in a monotone, walking towards Vakama.
Vakama's eyes widened. Crap crap crap crap crap—
Onewa pounced and Vakama, without thinking, punched him across the face.
Onewa let out a long string of curse words that would have made a sailor blush, clutching his cheek. "What the hell, Vakama?" he shouted. "My face, man! My precious lady-killer face!"
"Y-you're back to normal," Vakama stuttered, surprised. The Vahki looked surprised, too, or at least as surprised as Vahki could get—which was to say, they each had one eyebrow raised. "We need to go, now." He turned and started to run, trusting that Onewa would keep up.
He didn't disappoint. "What the hell was that for, anyway?" he snapped. "Why'd you punch me?"
"The Vahki...I don't know, they did something to you, and you were trying to take the disk to give to them. I punched you in self defence, and I guess it broke their influence or something."
"Huh. Well, thanks, I guess. We should be getting back, huh?"
"Toa! Wait, please!"
They froze and looked around. They seemed to have lost the Vahki, but the familiar figure of Arisa hobbled towards them.
"You're just everywhere, aren't you?" Onewa muttered.
"Arisa, what's wrong?" Vakama asked. "Why are you limping?" It was true; she was barely putting any weight on her right leg.
"They came," she said, her eyes wide. "They came and took Nuhrii!"
Onewa and Vakama cast sharp looks at each other. "Who?" Vakama demanded. "Who took him?"
She looked seriously at him. "The Hunters. The Dark Hunters kidnapped Nuhrii."
The objects inside the chamber floated around while the people crowded around it, trying to get a better look. Two of the crowding people were Matau and Nokama, desperately searching for the disk that Orkham had said was there. Even after most of the others had moved on to other exhibits, and new people had joined them, they continued to search until Nokama pointed. "There!"
Matau squinted. Sure enough, there it was. The objects were moving slowly, but there were enough of them that just trying to pinpoint one was a task in itself. "Great," he said unenthusiastically. "Now we have to get in there." He looked pointedly at Nokama, who shook her head.
"No, Matau, I'm not pulling the 'crying girl wants her precious artefact that her daddy gave her before he died' act. That's immoral and completely ridiculous."
"Do you have a better plan?"
"Sure. We break in."
Matau gaped at her. Nokama, of all people, was suggesting that they break in and steal something from the only interesting museum in the entire city? Right after she'd called his genius plan immoral and ridiculous?
He grinned. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."
They quickly devised a plan and went in search of some kind of 'behind the scenes' room. A door marked "Staff Only" seemed their best bet, but of course it was locked. Not just any lock, either, but an electronic code lock, meaning it probably went somewhere important. A small amount of water was all it took to short it out.
"Not very good security here, is there?" Nokama commented, opening the door. The twosome found themselves in a room full of blinking lights and flashing buttons. At the back of the room were other doors with blatant signs on them. One read "Electricity Exhibit," while another stated that it went to the "Special Exhibit Room." Another door—the one they were looking for—led to the "Antigravity Chamber."
"You don't happen to know how to turn off the antigravity-ness in this room, do you?" Matau asked.
Nokama looked behind them at the switches and buttons. "I could go around pressing colourful buttons, but it probably wouldn't help. In fact, it would probably just make things worse."
"True that. Okay, you stay guard out here—I'm going in."
Nokama had a sneaking suspicion that Matau was just using this as an opportunity to float around in zero gravity, but didn't say anything as he slipped into the chamber.
Matau immediately felt like he was going to throw up as he tipped upside down. "This...is...awesome!" he shouted, trying to swim through the air. "To infinity...and beyond!"
"Stop goofing around in there," Nokama's voice said from the other side. Thanks to a small one-way mirror in the door, she could see what antics Matau was up to. "Remember why we're here."
"Just one more. TOA...IN...SPAAAAAAAACE! Okay, now I'm done." He looked around. "I don't see the disk."
"It's in there; just keep looking."
"Helpful," Matau muttered. He happened to glance outside and saw that there was a huge crowd gathered to watch the weird guy floating around in the antigravity room. Amongst them were two stern-looking security guards, watching him with narrowed eyes. Gulping, he waved sheepishly. "Uh, h-hey there," he said brightly.
Their eyes narrowed further and they marched off. "Crap! Nokama, there are two security guards headed for you!"
"Then hurry up and get the disk!"
Matau looked around frantically, finally spotting it. "Found it!" He tried to get over to it, but moving around in zero gravity in real life is a lot harder than it is on TV. He flapped his arms and kicked his legs, and finally managed to move a little way. The disk started floating off in another direction, and he growled and tried moving towards it again. He reached out, and his fingers grazed the disk...
"Got it!" he shouted triumphantly. There was silence from the other side of the door. Looking back at the door, Matau called, "Nokama?" He smacked into a wall with a grunt, then turned around and used it to propel himself towards the door. He reached it much quicker than it took to get the disk thanks to his momentum, and he pulled it open and dropped to the floor on the other side.
He grabbed Nokama's hand and pulled her towards the door. "Come on, we've got to get out of here!" Shoving it open, they raced for the exit. They heard shouting, and an alarm started wailing. Matau swore loudly, earning a smack on the head from Nokama.
"Watch your language!" she snapped. "There are bound to be guards at all the exits! We can't just leave through the front door!"
"Sure we can!" Matau said. "We'll just have to fight our way out."
"And risk exposing ourselves and ruining everything?"
"Look, how many ways out do you know?"
Nokama sighed. "You have a point. Out the front it is."
"Aa-choo!"
Nuju glanced back at Whenua. They'd spent the last half hour at a nearby Tim Hortons using the hand dryers to dry off once they'd escaped from Mount Koriri, but Whenua seemed like he'd caught a cold anyway. He wasn't surprised; a dip in freezing water in Ko-Metru in early October does that to a person. At least they were drier and warmer now.
A loud groan from the alleyway they were approaching drew Nuju's attention. He looked back at Whenua and jerked his head towards it. Whenua nodded. More likely than not, it was just two horny teenagers making out, but it didn't hurt to be sure. They were supposed to be heroes, after all.
As it turned out, it was a good thing they checked. Lying on the ground were two teenage boys that Nuju dimly recognised as having been with Ehrye earlier. He rushed over to one while Whenua went to the other one. The one Nuju was with squinted up at him. "What happened?" Nuju asked, checking him over for injuries. The boy was covered in them, mostly bruises and what looked like broken limbs, though there was a cut on his head flowing rather steadily. He grabbed a tissue from his pocket and pressed it over the wound.
Ehrye's friend didn't seem to understand, because he just looked blankly up at him, gasping for breath and occasionally moaning in pain. A shadow fell over them and Nuju looked up to see Whenua. "The other one's dead," he said quietly.
This drew a cry from the boy in front of them. "N-no! That freak killed him!"
"What happened?" Nuju asked again, not liking where this was going.
"This guy...he came out of nowhere...he had four arms, and he grabbed Ehrye and shoved him in a car...we tried to stop him, but this big albino Hulk guy...he..."
The Toa could guess what the 'Hulk guy' had done. "Go call an ambulance," Nuju told Whenua, pulling out another tissue and replacing the now blood-soaked one. "Listen," he told the teen. "We're going after these two freaks who kidnapped Ehrye. Do you have any idea where they've taken him?"
He tried to shake his head, but Nuju held it firmly in place, trying to keep him as still as possible. "N-no, they just drove off...they went that way..." He pointed.
Whenua came back. "Ambulance is on the way. I've texted Vak and Matau to let them know what's happened."
Nuju nodded, handed the boy another tissue (Where's he getting all these tissues? Whenua wondered), and stood up. "We have to go. You can't tell the cops we were here, though." When he started to ask why, Nuju held up a hand. "We can't have people knowing about who we are and what we do." He turned to go. "Let's meet up with the others," he told Whenua, walking out of the alleyway.
The sound of the teenager's voice stopped them. "What are you?"
Whenua grinned over his shoulder. "We're heroes!" Then he sneezed and followed Nuju.
"D-Dark Hunters?" Vakama half-yelped.
"What are Hunters doing in the city?" Onewa asked. "I thought they agreed to leave!"
Arisa shook her head. "They agreed not to attack or invade Metru Nui. The Shadowed One, their leader, seems to have found a loophole."
Vakama bit his lip. "What sort of loophole?"
"If someone within the city requested their services, then they would be able to come in without violating the terms of their agreement with Dume. Dume's hands would be tied."
Onewa swore. "Where'd they take him?"
She shook her head again. "I don't know. He was shoved in a car and taken away before we could do anything."
Vakama heard the faint strains of Simon and Garfunkel's "Patterns" playing and pulled out his cell phone to check his texts. Onewa snorted. "Nice ringtone, dude."
"Shut up." It was from Whenua. As he scanned the message, his eyes widened. "Nuhrii's not the only one who's been kidnapped. Apparently this guy named Ehrye that Nuju knows got kidnapped, too—shortly after telling them where the Kanoka was!"
As Vakama's thumbs expertly replied to the message, basically explaining what had happened on their end, Onewa turned to Arisa. "Something's going on here, and it's bigger than the Morbuzakh. What's happening, Arisa? What is it that people aren't telling us?"
Arisa sighed. "I don't know. I wish I could tell you, but I only know that you're right, this is way bigger than the Morbuzakh. Plants don't hire mercenaries...but I get the feeling that these incidents are all connected."
"Nuju wants us to meet at the residence to regroup," Vakama said. "And apparently they haven't heard anything from Matau or Nokama. I hope they're okay..."
"Nokama," Matau panted, his hands on his knees, "has anyone told you lately how amazing you are?"
She somehow managed to smile innocently, even though she was wheezing for air. "Yes, but tell me anyway."
"You are so. Freaking. Awesome. Seriously, turning on the sprinkler systems? Dude!"
"I didn't turn them on. I just made it look like they'd gone haywire and were spraying so much that it became a bit of a flood. Their carpets will be ruined, but the important thing is..."
"We got away," Matau finished. Holding up the metal disk, he added, "And we got the Kanoka."
"Here's a llama, there's a llama, tablet brick potato llama, llama llama cheesecake llama..."
"What's that?" Nokama asked, not bothering to keep the disdain out of her voice.
"My ringtone," Matau replied proudly, pulling out his cell phone and flipping it open just as it sang, "Llama llama duck!" He scanned the text that had popped up, then swore.
Nokama flicked his forehead. "This is no time for that!"
"Ow! Actually, it's the perfect time for that. There was this guy in Ko-Metru who told Nuju and Whenua where the Ko-Metru disk was, and he's been kidnapped." The sultry strains of the Llama Song assaulted their ears again, and Matau pressed a button. "The plot thickens...you know how yesterday, Vakama and Onewa were telling us about a guy named Nuhrii who helped them?" When Nokama nodded, he continued. "Apparently he's MIA too." The Llama Song started playing a third time.
Nokama scowled. "Let me guess, someone else has been kidnapped," she said, half-joking.
Matau had stopped moving. "Matau?" she asked.
"Shit," he whispered. "No, no, no no no no no!"
"What? What is it; what happened?"
He turned the phone to show her. The message on the screen said this:
'Matau—
We have Orkham. If you want him back alive, bring the other Toa and all six Great Disks to the roof of City Hall in one hour. The others are here too, and they're safe—for now.
N.'
"N?" Nokama asked. "Who's N?"
Matau shook his head. "I don't know. But something weird is going on, and we have to find out what it is."
Several texts and about half an hour later, all six Toa were gathered at the entrance to Metru Nui's City Hall. Each of them was clutching their respective disk, and Vakama led them inside. Ignoring the protesting receptionist, they headed for the elevators and took them to the top floor. They wasted a good fifteen minutes looking for stairs to the roof and hiding from the security guards the receptionist had called, and finally made it onto the roof once Matau discovered a door blatantly labelled "STAIRS TO ROOF."
It was certainly windy on the roof—partly because it was so high up, partly because it was close to Le-Metru, which was famous for its strong winds. They each transformed, ready for anything.
"Ah, Toa, there you are. I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."
They turned to see two figures standing next to five kneeling ones. The kneeling figures were easily recognised as Tehutti, Ehrye, Vhisola, Orkham, and Nuhrii. The standing ones were unfamiliar. One was tall, with white hair and lots of muscles. The other, while tall, wasn't as tall as the other one, and had four arms. Two arms were folded across his chest, the other two propped on his hips. Light glinted in his bi-coloured eyes.
Nuhrii grinned triumphantly up at him. "I told you they would come."
The four-armed man chuckled. "Oh, I knew they'd come. They're Toa." He spat Toa like it was poison. "It's part of their 'duty' to help those who need it." On 'duty,' he made air quotes with the hands that had been propped on his hips. "I should know. I was one once."
Suddenly several things clicked into place for Vakama. Ahkmou had been leading them around on the orders of this duo. The kidnappers were the Earth incarnations of the two robots he'd seen taking Lhikan away in his vision—one hulking and white, the other four-legged and green, like these two here. And the four-armed one...
"You're...you're Nidhiki, aren't you." It was a fact, not a question.
Nidhiki gave a mock bow. "Congratulations, oh great wise one!" he said mockingly. "You've figured it out!"
Matau drew a sharp intake of breath. "N-no...Nidhiki, no! Why?"
"Oh, shut up," Nidhiki snapped. "Why, why, why. That's all anyone's asking me lately! 'Why am I here?' 'Why did you turn from the light?' 'Why won't you just listen to the Shadow Thing?' I'm sick and tired of being asked why!"
"Then don't give us so many reasons to ask it," Whenua said.
Onewa elbowed him. "Hey, big guy? Let's not anger the one with the hostages, yeah?"
Nidhiki nodded. "Listen to Onewa; he knows what he's doing."
Vakama's eyes blazed as he glared at the duo. "What the hell do you want?"
"What our employer wants: the Great Disks. Give them to my friend Krekka there." He nodded at the albino accompanying him.
"No."
Nidhiki's eyes narrowed. "Yes. You will give me the disks, Toa, or you will force me to do something that I won't regret at all."
"Like what?" Nokama challenged.
"Uh, Nokama, really not a good idea," Onewa muttered.
Nidhiki shrugged. "Oh, I don't know...like this." In the blink of an eye, he'd lunged forward and grabbed Tehutti by the throat, holding him over the edge of the roof. "Now," he said patiently as the Toa Metru instinctively stepped forward and Tehutti screamed, "give us the Kanoka, Toa, and no one has to get hurt."