The news spread very quickly over the next couple of days, and Voriki found it to be very troubling. After Uram faced Keela and Kaze in the City of the Mask Makers, more Okotans had been kidnapped. First had been Ruka's brother then Hunarr's wife soon afterwards. Now, it had been Hanu's grandson, Ignar's captain of the guard, and Ferra's pupil-all at the same time.

Voriki, sitting on the tiny tip of the Great Divide and facing the blue ocean beyond it, thought a good villain would have taken their time with their plans. However, Uram was working fast. Faster than Voriki expected. Maybe faster than he could train-

"I'm back!" Rhem announced after warping onto the atop the cliff. He was getting better, but he had an issue of balance, as he flailed his arms around to not fall off. "Whoo! Close one!"

Voriki turned from the Region of Water's vast sea to Rhem. "Did you find the others?"

"Uh, I've found Maram and Zala."

"How are they holding up?" Voriki had an idea to Rhem's answer after the Toa of Time had fallen silent. "... what about Kaze and Keela?"

Rhem said after a second of hesitation, "Kaze with Maram and Zala, and they're all on their way here. For Keela, I thought she was by the Region of Stone, but I couldn't find-"

The faint roar of an approaching airship cut Rhem off. "There's your answer," Voriki said after spotting the airship coming from what he assumed was the Region of Fire. By the time he had stood up, the airship had disappeared behind the Great Divide's mountains. "You said the others are coming, right? Why don't you go and have them meet where I told you?"

Rhem's eyes faltered. "Uh, are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, the last time all six of us-"

"There are more important things to worry about," Voriki cut in, with a tinge of irritation rising in his voice. "Now, get going."

Rhem stopped before he was about to. "But wait, what about you?"

"I'll be there in a bit. I just need to talk to someone," Voriki said. He spared a glance to the Water Protector staring out at the Region of Water from another nearby cliff-one of many on this part of the Great Divide.

While Rhem warped away to meet with the other Toa, Voriki walked along the cliff towards Torren's. Voriki first met him on that same cliff. The vast ocean beyond it had been where Voriki saved Torren's sons mere hours before then. Voriki remembered the expression of relief and anger any father would have had after seeing his sons in peril. As Voriki came up to his side, Torren stared at the ocean with a haunted look and his hands wrapped around a piece of paper.

"Back at the beach," Voriki began, "when I mentioned about you leading your people against these invaders… it was Uram, wasn't it? He led your people."

The Water Protector's answer came in a quiet tone. "The others may have led, but Uram was the mind behind them all. After so many losses, it was all we had…" The paper crumbled in Torren's fist, "... but near the end, something was wrong. I had seen in it how Uram talked to others. How he kept himself to his secret works. I tried telling the others, but I wasn't a Protector then. Maybe, they wouldn't have listened anyway. They just-"

"They just wanted to win," Voriki said, the words like a wailing ghost he couldn't force down his throat.

"Yes. The Elemental Guardians had been Uram's first works. His 'gifts' to protect the tribes, each meant to obey a specific Protector. That was when I noticed the change in his behavior. And I looked into it. I only found out when I had followed him." Torren's voice almost fell into a whisper. "And I had learned where he got his newfound knowledge from: Makuta himself."

Voriki's eyes narrowed after making his educated guess. "And it has been Makuta this whole time, hasn't it? And you've known ever since then?" he said with a tightened grip on his spear.

"I thought… I thought they would never believe me. Fighting against mortal threats is one thing, but Makuta was a story to them." Torren spared his first and only glance at Voriki. "Do you blame me?"

Voriki's grip relaxed around his spear. "No," he admitted almost quietly. "I'd do the same in your place… I don't know if it makes it better or worse, though."

Torren almost laughed and looked back to the ocean. "Yes, I suppose so. I felt the same then too. I had told the others Uram planned on taking over Okoto with the Guardians. It was true. Makuta had promised him that, but I had shown the others Uram's plans and how to stop him." Again, Torren paused for what felt like an eternity. "It happened in the final battle with the invaders. By then, we had already driven them back completely. All of us knew what to do, so we... we took what Uram used to control the Guardians and captured him."

"But you didn't kill him. You couldn't," Voriki finished yet again.

"How could I? He was still my brother, even after he..." Torren fell silent, too pained to reveal that one bit part of information. He admitted the rest, though. "In the end, I left Uram stranded and had the others tell everyone of Uram's true plans. To this day, I don't know if I made the right decision."

Voriki had the feeling Torren didn't just mean his decision to let Uram live. The Toa glanced down to the note in the Protector's hand and saw the writing on it: "Father had chosen wrong."

No matter how hard he wanted to comfort Torren, Voriki couldn't find the words. Part of the Toa understood what the Protector had gone through. Another part hated what had been held back all this time. 'Only because his tale reminds you of what happened,' said a voice deep in Voriki's mind, a voice the Toa of Lightning stuffed under today's problems. No need to dwell on the past.

"We'll have to wait and see, I guess," Voriki said, a bit dejected and regretful at the same time. Then, he left Torren to stare at the ocean of the Water Region.

As he walked to the top of the Great Divide, Voriki almost stopped when he saw how the other Toa were. They looked far worse now than the fight in the Region of Ice. All five stood at the Great Divide's very center where all the six regions could be seen from the distance, each of their backs facing their respective regions.

Kaze stood, his crossed arms tense and shaking with so much agitation that he didn't notice the slightly anxious Rhem. Maram slumped beside the Toa of Air, his once bright armor now a light shade of gray with slight bruises from a cave-in in Korgot's Caverns. On his left, the small Zala looked smaller now as she held in her arms two halves of her scythe that had been split in the same cave-in.

Voriki didn't have many questions. Even if he did, he didn't want to ask them. Coming up to the lot, he instead looked to Keela. "Anything?"

Keela, who had arrived seconds before Voriki, turned her visible and downcasted eye from her satchel. "Norii… Uram took Protector Ignar's daughter," Keela said quietly. "I… I tried looking for her, but…"

Voriki put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know. We all heard," he said as gently as he could. He then told the other Toa, trying to sound confident as much as possible, "You have been through a lot. We've already taken a lot of hits from this Uram. Well, he'll have another thing soon enough-"

"But how?" cut in Rhem. "He's winning so far. How can we do it without a plan?"

"And a plan isn't worth anything without information," a more irritated Kaze agreed with Rhem, two things which Voriki thought weren't possible.

"I'm getting there," Voriki quipped over the distant waters crashing into the rocks. And over their sounds, he had explained to the other Toa of what his Protector had told him.

Despite the team's silence, Voriki noticed their looks when explained about Uram and Makuta. Kaze's firm glare and the sudden breeze told everyone of his anger at both. The latter made the quivering Zala hug her broken weapon closer. At the former, Keela's visible eye and even her telescope widened with understanding. "That's what he meant," she said after Voriki was done. "It makes sense, now. The pieces, us being here, all of it."

"Um, okay, but what does it mean?" asked Rhem, the only one uncertain about any of it.

"It means we have to work together," Vorik said. "For real, this time. If we're going to win at all, we need to stay coordinated. No solo missions, no running off on your own. We work together and get through this together, whether any of you like it or not."

Kaze ignored Voriki's tiny glare on him. "And the Guardians?" he said gruffly. "We can't do anything about them until we find some weakness."

"There is one," Keela spoke up. "I wasn't sure before, but my second encounter with Uram proved it."

Everyone else watched as Keela pulled out six bits of iron from her satchel and placed them on the ground. Her hands crafted one bit, shaping it into a six-inch model of an insect creature with what looked like vines sticking out. Voriki noted now Kaze tensed. Rhem, the complete opposite of Kaze, asked, "What are we looking at exactly?"

"This is a model of the Jungle Guardian," Keela explained after crafting the thing down to the smallest crack. "Now take a look at the center. Right in its chest."

Everyone did, as Keela flipped it over. Zala was the first to notice. "Is that… a mask?"

"It seems so," said Maram, breaking his silent vow for the first time today.

"It wasn't just this one," Keela went on to produce another model, and another, and another. "These are the other guardians. Here are the Water and Stone Guardians Voriki and I encountered on our way to the Region of Ice."

"I remember him!" Rhem cut in, pointing at the Stone Guardian's model. "Maram and I only made dents in that thing! Trust me, heit was a tough rock!"

"Only because you didn't know its weakness," Keela told him, her voice methodical like her telescope which she tapped gently. "I managed to quickly scan it and the Water Guardian. They too have masks on-"

"On its back, and the other on its right foot," Voriki finished, remembering Keela's words from the specific fight. His eyes counted the guardians present: Water, Jungle, Earth, and Stone. "Only the Ice and the Fire Guardians are left. We find their weaknesses, we can take them out."

Zala spoke up, like a little critter against a mighty wind. "But the other shards. Ma… Makuta… he…" she said, only to stop and almost retreat back.

Maram spoke on her behalf, his voice as dim as Fire Region's red light behind him. "What she means, there are still the other shards of Makuta's mask. And it may be difficult facing the Guardians. More than likely, the Earth Guardian had attacked us at Korgot Caverns to take the shard from Zala and I. It shows us this Uram will go to any lengths to secure the rest."

"Yeah," Voriki said, almost quietly. "We'll work something out there-"

Kaze cut him off, glaring. "Not good enough. You want us to work together? Then, you ought to have a real plan."

"And I have one," Voriki snapped back.

As he unveiled his plan, Voriki's sparkling eyes surveyed the other Toa. Maram remained hunched over, Zala almost shook when she was brought up, Kaze kept firm as if to show reluctant acceptance, and Rhem was Rhem. Only Keela looked like she fully understood Voriki's plans. Voriki himself wasn't sure to be pleased or concerned, but he didn't worry about that too long when he saw Zala looking at something. Following her gaze, Voriki noticed two lumps behind the distant rocks on the Great Divide.

"Did any of them notice us?"

Waya, peeping over the rocky formation, answered his brother, "... No, I don't think so."

"'Kay, let's go!" Mizu said, crouching away from the rocks he and Waya had hid behind for several minutes. Waya had called out for him-not too loudly, or else someone might hear them, but Mizu was already heading down the Great Divide for the Earth Region where Maram and Zala had left. "Come on, Waya! Do you want to get caught?"

"Wait-oof!" Waya said, sliding down the rockface onto the ledge where Mizu stood. "... Mizu, just listen for a sec-" Mizu wouldn't have any of it, so Waya went down and down the Great Divide to catch up with this brother, all the while shouting, "Mizu, wait! Can you just slow down?!"

To Waya's dismay, Mizu didn't until several jumps down. By the time the little brother reached his older brother on another ledge, the top of the Great Divide was high above their head. "Alright, we should be good now," said Mizu, patting a hand on Waya's back. "Are you good?"

"Yeah… I think so…" Waya said between pants, "... but Mizu, our dad was nearby and-"

"Don't worry about him. Our best bet is with the Toa. We stick with them, we figure it out, and then…" Mizu said dismissively, but he wasn't after seeing Waya's concerned stare. "Well, what's the problem now?"

The hesitant Waya admitted, "... I don't like this, Mizu. You know what happened the last time we tried sticking with the Toa? We almost got crushed! Mizu, this isn't just another scheme… it's… it's..."

"Insane, of course," Mizu snorted. "Believe me, I know it's dangerous. But the answers are out there! And a couple of rocks can't stop us."

Us? The word made Waya feel more dread than before. "You're really doing this, aren't you?" He went on when Mizu turned around with no answer. "Mizu, didn't you hear what the Toa said? Makuta's involved! Makuta! Don't you remember all the tales?! I don't know if mom would even-"

Mizu whirled around, his eyes like a great storm. "Mom isn't here! And you're the one not getting it!" he argued with a pointed finger. "The man who took her is back, and I'm not going to let him get away with it!"

Waya wished he hadn't brought up mom. She was always a touchy subject for Mizu, who remembered her better than Waya himself. Now, he had no counterargument or anything as Mizu held his shoulders. "This is our chance, Waya," Mizu had said. "A chance to get back at him! A chance to prove ourselves to dad and mom! Don't you want that?"

Staring into his older brother's eyes, the wordless Waya slumped his shoulders. He knew he had to stay with Mizu to make sure nothing terrible happened. "Alright… what do you have planned?" Waya regretted asking after he saw Mizu's grinning eyes.