AN: So last time I left off them with crew about to play more MNOG, but we're gonna ignore that for a bit cuz Paijitsean wrote me the script for Trial by Tahu, so we're gonna have them watch that instead.
"Lets get this train moving." Yang exclaims.
"It would be nice to see the story from a toa." Blake agrees.
Trumpets sang for his return, they raised their spears as the gates opened, a guard wearing a Red Miru shouted, "He returns! The Toa of Fire returns!" a guard with a black torso, red feet, and a red Rau, saluted as He stepped foot into the village. Turaga Vakama stepped out of his hut, a red Pakari'd guard stood beside him, they both stood beside the shrine they called the Suva, and looked to the oncomer. Jala, the valiant Captain of the Guard, walked out into the Ta-Koronan evening to meet with the Turaga as well, some of his guards standing behind him. He crossed his arms and laxed the light of his eyes, the village always made a spectacle of whenever He returned from a long journey, but he would not be so easily swayed by the awe that the Toa of Fire constantly sparked in Ta-Koro, even if his skill and power was something to marvel at, working with him at times was a different matter entirely.
"I imagine this is what its like for a huntsman to arrive to a village in need, or returning from killing a grimm that was previously causing them trouble." Ruby says.
"Most of the time." Blake tells her, leaving out that there were some less than hospitable villages out there.
The fires around them suddenly flickered, then after a sudden shake, they burned with a calm stillness, halting from their usual dance, as if they straightened themselves to honor their wielder. There the Toa of Fire stood, in his red and orange armor, he stood tall and proud, his fire sword hanging sideways from his back, looking on to the Turaga who had guided him, he walked toward the wise one, kneeled, and bowed his head.
"Turaga." he said, in his calm but rough voice, "I have returned," from his back he pulled out a red Pakari, "and tonight, my search has ended." he then walked to the Suva. Six pillars made from rock that was once magma stood around the platform, and on them the writings and images which the Village of Fire engraved on them, the two pillars which made entrance to the inside of the shrine bore the image of a Hau. In the center of the shrine was an obsidian dome, sectioned in places by a red glow, and on it rested all four masks he had found, only two vacant spaces were left on it.
"You have done well, Tahu." The Turaga spoke as Tahu stood on the platform where the Suva was, on a smaller stepping platform that faced the the first of the two empty faces, he placed the Pakari on the first hole in the dome, once it rested in place, the sound of large shifting gears came through from below them, suddenly the Suva rotated.
"Now, all the Kanohi Masks of Power have been found, and now rest in the Suva.." The large dome's rotation was brief, as it stopped at the last vacant hole in the Suva. "all that is left is the one you wear."
"Oh yeah, Tahu's going to get his golden mask like Lewa did." Ruby brings up.
"Yeah. Kinda reminds me like how you can get golden guns in that game, Underwatch." Yang comments.
"Only four more to get their masks then." Weiss says.
Tahu descended down the platform, "Turaga, I am ready." he kneeled before Vakama once more. "Let me claim my Golden Kanohi, so that I may set out to free this land from the Makuta." he said, making a determined fist with his left hand.
"You are certain that you are ready?" the Turaga asked the Toa of Fire.
"Absolutely certain. I have mastered my power, over the fire and the masks. Dare I say, I am more than ready." Tahu responded
"You alone can free us of the Shadow?" Vakama asked again.
"I can, and I shall." The Toa said, with a hint of pride in his voice.
It was then that the Turaga asked the question. "And what of the other Toa?..."
"The... others?..." Tahu asked silently, his eyes narrowed with a red and furious glow, and the fires around them lost their calm and still dance, and they began to blaze and shake ragingly, embers flew around them.
"Oh no." Ruby whimpers. She'd seen that look before. It was much colder than Tahu's silent anger, but Weiss's anger at her leadership was something she remembered ever since that first class of Ports.
The guards behind Jala looked around in worry, and possibly fear of the fire, the Captain of the Guard simply sighed. Then Tahu's temper bursted.
"They had their chance! Let them fight amongst themselves, and I will fight the true enemy!"
"Its like when Yang looses her temper." Ruby comments.
"Whats that supposed to mean!" Yang exclaims.
"I mean, uh, the way you um, do that is similar. I'm not saying you get angry over us or whoever you fight along side." Ruby auickly amends.
The flames around them bursted as well. Some of it spread to places more vulnerable to burning, which earned Tahu the lowered brow of the Turaga, while the fire had no chance of spreading to the rest of the place, it certainly had no need to keep burning in such random places around them. The guards did their best to contain their panic, yet Jala remained unphased.
"He's had to deal with this before." Weiss could tell.
Tahu looked around him, sighed with a growling irritation, and raised his left hand, the fires jumped from where they were, spiraling into a single stream, and disappeared into his palm.
"It'd be pretty damn cool if there was someone with a semblance who could do something like that." Yang comments.
"Unfortunately, its rare anyone will have a semblance thats tied to an element." Weiss says. "Perhaps someone with an extremely high mastery of dust could perform that, though."
"Return to your posts." Jala ordered his guards, who looked at him with confusion, they mumbled "huh?" as he did, they looked at each other for what they should do next. "Make haste." Jala reaffirmed, they simply nodded and saluted, before they walked away from the scene.
Tahu could only look around, his hands in tight fists, letting out a sigh of defeat. Turaga Vakama returned his gaze away from the guards to the Toa of Fire, "Come with me." he said in a calm, yet stern voice.
In the Hut of the Village's Wise One, a small fire burned, as it always has, and above it, the image of a Hau carved out in stone. Around this fire stood Turaga Vakama and Toa Tahu. He kneeled before Vakama again, looking to the ground as he spoke, "Forgive me, Turaga, for my outburst. It was...dishonorable, I have my frustrations, but they aren't excusable. I will try to control myself more in the futu-"
"Did you think I summoned you here simply to scold you?" The Turaga interrupted. The Toa of Fire looked up from the ground, and widened his eyes as he found himself in an awkward surprise. "Well…...yes?" Turaga Vakama hummed, then he asked. "What was your frustration with the others about?" The wise one asked.
Tahu replied, the frustration showing a bit in his voice. " I can't lead them. I try to, but they're insistent on their own ways, so why should I even bother leading them?"
Ruby could understand his frustration, being a leader herself. However, she never let her teammates differences of thoughts interfere with her ability to lead, even if Weiss was a bit difficult to deal with in he beginning, she welcomed their different ways of thinking. Sometimes in battle, they could see things she couldn't. which would help with making a plan.
"He needs to be more understanding and take what the other toa say into consideration." Ruby says.
The Turaga nodded in understanding, and then spoke. "From your outburst, I'd say you certainly need discipline. But perhaps the discipline you need is Understanding."
The Toa of Fire looked at the Turaga with confusion. "Understanding?" he asked. Vakama looked to the fire next to both of them. "Have a seat with me, round the Fire." Vakama requested, and to which Tahu complied. "Since the dawn of time," the Turaga began. "The sacred fire has burned, the very fire that Ta-Koro was born from. This fire was never meant to burn or consume, but to guide, to light the Torch that leads us all out of the darkness. It is our insight, our guide, within it is our history, and our future."
"Alright, what do you want me to do with this fire?" Tahu asked. Vakama responded. "I want you to look into it, and tell me what you see."
Tahu focused his gaze into the fire, as he did, he noticed the center of it growing brighter, and from it, everything around him began to fade into white. He looked around him as he was immersed into a white void, and soon lines began to rise around him, their alignments slanted and changed, and some would join as one. He gazed upon the circuitry that formed around him, then as blinked, the circuits were gone, and the white void that surrounded him, now pure black, all that was in sight to him was a gold glow facing him, and within it, the Golden Kanohi Hau.
It levitated off the ground, as did he, it was leveled with his eyes, he reached out to it, but once he touched it, he was blinded by a gold flash.
He awoke, and found himself in a circuitry void, he was afloat, and in front him was the Golden Kanohi, but it was worn by something, something much larger than him, it was built like a Toa, a very strange Toa. It was built in a very peculiar way, as if pieces that seemed to fit were placed together to form a larger body, some details seemed familiar to him.
"One of the statues in that game trailer." Blake mutters.
"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." Ruby says.
"I wonder how he'll fit into the story, the other one too." Weiss wonders.
He stared into eyes hidden behind the Golden Hau, they were dark, and lifeless. He reached out to the mask, merely placing his hand upon the titan's forehead, it was then that its eyes came to life…
He immediately opened his eyes, he was back within the Turaga's hut, the vision was over. Tahu's eyes were still wide, his breath still trying to catch itself, he had seen so much, and understood so little. 'What exactly did I see?' he wondered. "It is foretold." Tahu looked to Vakama as the Wise One spoke "Three shall become as one, and walk the road of the Warrior." The Fire Toa blinked to gather his thoughts as he still looked at Vakama. "In this way, they shall find the strength to confront the Makuta."
"Wait, I thought it was something only Tahu who could see the vison." Ruby says.
"Guess not." Blake shrugs.
Tahu became irritated by the vague and cryptic talk of the Turaga. "I thought you told me to tell you what I saw." he said, not even trying to hide the aggravation in his voice. Vakama merely responded. "And did you see anything that I did not?" Tahu was surprised by the calm response. "I...well..i-it.." and it left him without words. He raised his hand and left it there as a sweatdrop of confusion appeared next to his head, his raised hand slowly clutched into a fist as the sound of sizzling began to rise, along with what sounded like a kettle pot whistling, his eyes narrowed, and the sweatdrop on the side of his head glowed redder and redder before bursting into flame. The fire between them started to intensify.
"The little detail of the sweat drop was kinda funny." Ruby comments.
"But they don't sweat... do they?" Yang asks no one in particular.
"So, how's the Magma Farm?"
"Eh?! Who farms lava? and for what?" Yang asks. She only receives shrugs from her teammates.
"Good for the most part, haven't gotten much from it this year, but enough to keep things afloat."
"Speaking of, are you going to the Lava Surf this year?"
"Huh, maybe."
The two guards, one wearing a red KauKau and the other a red Pakari, stood outside the Turaga's hut were conversing, nothing more than the usual Ta-Koronan conversation, until the Kau Kau'd guard asked a question, "So do you think it's true what they say about him and the Great Mangai?"
"What do you mean?"
"Toa Tahu and the Great Mangai. Do you think it's true that the Great Mangai erupts when he gets angry?"
The Pakari'd guard chuckled, "Not really, we wouldn't be here right now if that were the case. Say… did it get warmer?"
As soon as that sentence finished, they felt a rise in heat around them, they looked around and saw that the fires around Ta-Koro began to burn more intensely than usual, embers started flying around them, until they erupted into a blast, roaring and shooting into the sky.
"When things like that happen regularly, I can see why rumours like that are started." Weiss comments.
It was then that an explosion was heard from the Turaga's hut, smoke seeped from the entrance and windows, and all except Tahu and Vakama came out coughing a bit.
"I don't need this!" The Toa of Fire yelled aloud.
"I don't need you, nor the Golden Kanohi, and certainly not the other Toa!" He looked at the Turaga with scorching eyes. "If I must, then I'll destroy the Makuta myself!" He walked out of the village and into the night. Vakama sighed as he closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Thats not going to work." Ruby says. "He needs his team."
"I don't get why he wouldn't take the golden kanohi." Yang says. "It'd be good to get every advantage you could get."
"I envy your patience Turaga. " Jala said as he walked up to the wise one. "If I were you, I'd tell him what for and wouldn't let him hear the end of it for a change."
"As would I." Weiss agrees with the Ta-matoran. "His patience is something respected."
Vakama then spoke, "His spirit is like that of an untamed fire, thrashing about furiously, leaving embers in its wake, but give it time and nurture it so, it will soon calm."
"I sure hope so." Ruby says. "I believe he could lead if he just becomes more compromising."
Jala remarked, "Couldn't it calm any sooner? (sigh) he's as ferocious as a Muaka, and as Irking as a Kane-Ra, and he's the one destined to free us from the Makuta?"
"Him and the Others." Vakama quickly said.
"Whom he won't even try to work with! He's supposed to be a Leader. Sure he's got a few skills for it, but not the spirit. No wonder they don't work well with him. He's uncompromising! How will they ever wake up Mata Nui if he can't lead them right?"
"As I said, An untamed flame, in time he will calm." The Turaga said with certainty.
"Turaga, I don't mean to question your wisdom but if I may ask, what makes you place so much confidence in him that he'll change?" Jala asked Vakama.
The Turaga began to speak. "There's valiance in his spirit, a spark. He reminds me of an old friend I once knew who had it as well.." He turned and looked at Jala, "I even see him in you as well, Captain."
"Old friend?" Blake mutters, wondering who Vakama could be referring too.
The Turaga went back inside his hut which had at last cleared of the smoke. Jala simply pondered the Turaga's words. But made a squinting frown in slight and humorous woe at the thought of being similar to Tahu. Yet as his thoughts returned to the cumbersome Fire Toa, he then decided it might be wise to follow him in case he decided to act any more foolishly, but before he went on his way, a question remained, who was this "old friend" of the Turaga?
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AN: So thats the first half. Everyone please thank Paijitsean for writing the script for this (along with the additions) and while I'm at it, I owe him an apology for gutting a large portion of this chapter that was never in the original. It was just a little too long for my tastes as well as being hard to write the reactions for. Anyway, for those who don't know, you should be checking my profile regularly for updates on uploads. (Thats my fanfiction. net profile for thise reading this on AO3). Please leave a review for this chapter!