Chapter 3: Find The Right Direction

Previously…

"No. I am not attracted to her. I don't like her. I really don't!"

Then, out of nowhere: "Who are you talking to?"

—-

Vakama, Cairos, and Keyok were on the outermost borders of Ta-Metru, nearing the Silver Sea.

"Keyok, what's the clue again?" asked Vakama.

Keyok rolled his eyes and recited it:

"Face the stones that hold your reflection

Inside you'll find the right direction."

"I don't like where this is headed." Cairos grimaced as he considered the impending problems. At the same time, the city was counting on him. He had to suck it up and…

"OW!"

"Keyok-ai! Are you ok?" Cairos ran over to Keyok, who was sprawled on the ground. Keyok slowly sat up and rubbed his head.

"He walked into a wall, you impostor." Vakama folded his arms. "What do you expect?"

"Shut up!" Keyok managed to stand. "I don't see why you Toa can't respect my boyfriend… tin staffs, did I just say that out loud?!"

Vakama rolled his light green eyes. "Flaming disasters, the both of you…"

Keyok was getting tired of this. "Do you want me to start calling you Va-Comment?" he snarked.

"Do you want to be a scorched pile of Vahki bones?" Vakama threatened.

"Stop it!" Cairos was starting to lose his patience. He took a deep breath. "It's a mirror maze."

Vakama sounded unimpressed. "Well, I can just fly over it." He put his disk launcher on his back and tried to activate it… but nothing happened. Frustrated, he aimed at a small shard of metal on the ground, trying to melt it. His hands usually gained a sparking scarlet aura when he focused his element of Fire. But he couldn't even make that.

"Looks like we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way." Cairos shook his head as Keyok tried and failed to smash a mirror with his staffs. Trying to lighten the situation, he made a joke. "Taking cues from your older sister?"

"These aren't regular mirrors." Keyok realized. "They're polished stone, like the riddle said."

"Three entrances - one for each of us." Vakama went into the middle entrance. Keyok took a deep breath… then jumped back and almost fell again. He paused, nodded at something only he could see, and whispered "Lead the way." Then Keyok went into the rightmost entrance.

Cairos steeled himself and was about to take the leftmost entrance. Unexpectedly, a phoenix - his symbol - appeared in front of the left entrance. The bird's feathers were iridescent, red and black and bronze. Cairos noticed that the red shimmered with light blue, the black with white, and the bronze with pink.

"You must be here to help me out." The fiery bird nodded, then took off and flew down the pathway. Cairos figured the phoenix knew the correct way, and followed.

—-

The problem with a maze of mirrors was that everything looked the same. Even the ground was reflective.

Keyok had thought this would be easy enough. He was good at the mazes on the brain teaser app on his tablet! But tracing a stylus through a maze and walking in a maze were two different things.

"Great, I'm lost!" Keyok stomped his foot in pure frustration.

"Are you?" asked the small serpentine dragon that had led Keyok into the maze. He - or at least Keyok assumed the dragon was a he - was starting to get annoying.

"No thanks to you!" Keyok pinched the dragon's tail.

"Ow! Not the tail!" The dragon glared at Keyok, clearly offended.

"Wait a minute, is the ground… liquid?" Keyok took a step and saw that the ground was solid. But from the step, his reflection rippled like a pond.

"Something isn't right about this place." Keyok's voice broke.

That was when he heard wailing.

"Cairos!"

Keyok didn't know what he was doing when he charged at the wall… let alone how he ended up on the other side of it!

—-

"I'm not a girl! That's not my name! Leave! Me! Alone!" Cairos was curled up in a ball, and didn't seem to be shouting at anyone in particular.

Keyok managed to look away from Cairos. The mirror revealed what had put Cairos in this state. It was the image of a girl on her first day of LC training. The nametag on her shirt read "Jaunea Takaran."

Keyok punched the offending image. It rippled, but showed no signs of weakening.

"Face the stones that hold your reflection..." Keyok recited the first part of the rhyme. Then it hit him. "Cairos, this isn't your reflection! You have to keep going through the maze, just ignore the images of the past!"

Cairos stood up, his aquamarine eyes pleading. "Keyok, don't go…"

"I'm staying right here, Cairos-ai. Just hold my hand." Keyok felt an iron grip on his hand. Cairos was truly distressed. The two of them had to get out...

—-

Meanwhile, Vakama was running into a problem of his own. He wasn't lost like Keyok or suffering like Cairos. He was hearing a voice in his head - not his own thoughts, either. It sounded like the other five Toa!

"You and your visions, fire-spitter. You've gotten us all in danger!"

"I don't understand why we listen to you. I thought it was written in the stars, but I must have read the chart wrong."

"Leave us alone, Vakama. I'm with Matau and you need to get over it!"

"Don't steal-take my love-dear!"

"The answers to the future may be in the past, but you have no answers anywhere."

"No! Stop!"

Vakama looked at the stones again, He saw an image of himself, face-down on the ground. The other five Toa were walking away and leaving him behind.

"This is wrong!"

Then he heard... laughter?

"Keyok, look!" Cairos pointed to a specific stone mirror and laughed. "That one looks like us getting married!" Keyok couldn't pass up the opportunity to see this image of a shared future.

Keyok looked at the wall and saw what Cairos saw: the two of them, walking down a path in the Tropical Garden of Ga-Metru. They were both wearing formal jumpsuits, in red and bronze. Keyok had pinned back his long side bangs, revealing some of his scars. Cairos had put his curly hair in a simple ponytail, held with a bronze clasp studded with fire-gems.

Unfortunately, Keyok was too focused on the dreamy image. He tripped over something, denting his toe guard in the process. Cairos tried to catch him, but they ended up in a somewhat compromising position.

"OK, that was awkward…" Cairos hoped nobody saw that. "Mind getting off me?"

"Mmm, or we could just stay here…"

"Keyok, not the time!" Cairos pushed Keyok off, and helped him up. "Look, we can have fun later. Right now we're looking for…"

"The gems!" Keyok grabbed a cluster of bronze rocks, polished smooth as a mirror. He stuffed them in the pouch of his tool belt.

They saw the exit to the maze, and Vakama on the other side, holding up his own cluster of gems. Keyok and Cairos ran, hand in hand, to the exit. The maze disappeared like autumn fog, and a Portal took them to Ko-Metru.

"Guess we'll go find Nuju and Laney." said Keyok. Right on cue, a tall white figure emerged over a hill, carrying… someone.

"No. I am not attracted to her. I don't like her. I really don't!"

"Nuju!" Vakama had never been so relieved to see his icy brother. "Wait... who are you talking to?" he asked.

Nuju came closer to the group. He began to sweat, which turned into small pellets of ice.

"How's Laney?" asked Cairos. "Is she all right?"

Nuju blushed again, and held out a hypothermic Laney.

"I swear by the suns, if you pushed her in those canals…" Cairos growled.

Nuju tried to deflect the accusation. "In my defense, she tried to push me in first." Of course, now I'm regretting everything.

He tried to hand off Laney to Vakama. After all, three fire-types could certainly do better at warming her up. But before he could do that, Laney coughed and started shivering. "Where am I?" she croaked.

"Come on, let's get her somewhere warmer!" Vakama took charge. "Nuju, where are those hot springs?"

"This way." Nuju gripped Laney again and moved quickly, with Vakama, Keyok, and Cairos right behind.

Nuju never had a Matoran scare him. But when Peyano, the assistant owner of the hot springs, found out what Nuju had done, that all changed. The glare from her glacier blue eyes could stab icicles through anyone's courage.

"Shane just got here a few minutes ago," explained Peyano. "He said something about gems…"

"I'll explain later." said a familiar voice. It was Shane. "Right now I have to take care of Laney." Nuju passed Laney to Shane.

This hand-off was relieving. At the same time, the Ice Toa couldn't help but feel a certain - Reluctance? Sadness? Jealousy? He was never good at naming emotions. And for some reason, Laney made it all the more difficult…

Before leaving, Shane glowered at Nuju. He had sent a message to the Ice Toa without words. "If you push her in the canals again, you better have the Final Prayers memorized."

"Wait!" called Keyok. Shane turned around, none too pleased.

"What now?"

"Did you find the gems?"

"Not yet. But it probably won't be easy..."