"Turaga Nuju says-"
"Toa Kopaka says your father is a twit."
An indignant trill resounded and the matoran translator cringed. "I'd rather not say what that meant..."
Kopaka was frowning as he stood before Turaga Nuju and Matoro, his arms crossed and general expression as frigid as the element he wielded. Every time Nuju wanted to speak with him, the forty-one year old insisted on using his bird noises to communicate, even when Kopaka was – aside from Matoro – the only one present. For the first several years of being on Mata Nui, Kopaka merely indulged the Turaga's whims, deciding it was either an after-effect of being a Hordika, or a coping mechanism to help him get past his wife's death during the Visorak crisis. But it had been thirteen years now. Thirteen long years of Nuju refusing to use his regular voice around anyone but Matoro. Thirteen years of relying on a translator because Nuju was too stubborn to be normal.
Kopaka decided he'd played the Turaga's game long enough.
"If Nuju doesn't think this is important enough to speak plainly about, I don't need to hear it."
Nuju glared at him, whistling scathingly at the Toa who stood before him.
"He says you're being foolish about this."
"I say he's the foolish one for not thinking I'm worth speaking to directly." Kopaka replied.
More angry bird sounds that went untranslated.
Matoro shifted uncomfortably. "Can we please not get into a fight over this? Something really serious is going on."
The Ice Toa glanced at him. "I'm not the one with a superiority complex. Why don't you tell me what's happening instead, if it's so important?"
The teenager bit his lip, glancing at Nuju – who was now warbling something that was probably rather impolite – before returning his gaze to the Toa in front of him. "He... He saw something in the stars earlier. They told him of a terrible danger that was going to threaten our village."
Matoro hesitated again, once more glancing at his seething father before speaking up. "An avalanche. A really big avalanche."
Kopaka raised an eyebrow. That was the danger? Seriously? Avalanches were child's play to him. "That's the big scare? How is that any worse than what I usually do around here? If the only danger is an avalanche, you wasted time calling me here." He turned to leave Nuju's house, shaking his head and frowning. "You've spent too many nights without sleep, Nuju; you need to take a break from your worrying and start being a normal person like everyone else."
A sudden and incredibly firm hand caught his shoulder, and a voice he hadn't heard for thirteen years spoke, the tone grave and quiet. "This is no mere avalanche, Kopaka. Something far more sinister is at its root, and I fear that whatever it is may be too powerful for you to face alone."
The Toa of Ice paused to consider this warning. He had dealt with a lot of threats on his own before, many of which more than capable of killing him and some even nearly succeeding. But he had never been cautioned about them before, not like this. He turned to face the Turaga again, his own expression grim. "What is this thing you speak of?"
"I do not know." Nuju confessed. "The stars gave me no name or species."
"Did they say anything else that could help? Anything at all?"
The Turaga hesitated before responding. "Two words were given to me, though I do not know their relevance; shadow, and rage."
Kopaka's frown grew. That wasn't a lot to work with, not enough to earn him any solid conclusions at the very least. "Do you have any ideas on what this could even mean?"
"Only one." Nuju replied solemnly. "And I can only pray I'm wrong."
"And?"
"I fear the Makuta has returned."
^v^v^v^v^v^v^
Everything was quiet that night, save for the howling of the wind and the soft crunch of snow beneath Kopaka's feet. The lack of general life wasn't unusual this far up Mt. Ihu; part of why Ko-Koro was built so high up was to help with avoiding most of the predatory rahi. But even as he proceeded up the slopes to locate the start of the predicted avalanche, Kopaka could tell something was wrong. The shadows seemed to grow steadily darker with every step he made, far darker than was normal and especially so for a clear night such as this one was. Even the howl of the wind seemed muted, and that was not something that normally happened. In fact, as far as the Ice Toa could remember, it had never been anything quite like this before.
'Perhaps Nuju's fears were right.' He thought grimly, his crystal blue eyes glowing as he activated his mask power and searched his surroundings for threats. So far, everything seemed to be fine. The fact it seemed that way wasn't comforting.
'The calm before a storm.'
A sudden shifting in the snow up ahead caught his attention, drawing him to focus more on what was possibly there than whether or not Nuju's concerns were well founded. But what he saw was enough to make even Kopaka's blood run cold. There beneath the snow, the Toa of Ice could see a disembodied hand, the fingers moving about in the snow and giving off small bursts of what seemed to be fire, though it was hard to tell for certain. "What in Mata Nui's name...?"
Suddenly, the snow beneath Kopaka's feet shifted, sinking a bit and sliding just enough that the Toa nearly fell over. Now Kopaka realized what the disembodied hand was doing. IT was softening the snow, just enough to make it easy to slide.
It was trying to start an avalanche, and Ko-Koro was right in its path.
"I don't care how creepy that thing is, nothing threatens MY village."
Focusing his power, the Toa of Ice began to harden and separate the snow beneath and around him, willing it to rise and whirl about him like a tornado comprised of powder. As he did this, Kopaka heard a dark and sinister laugh, echoing around him and making it impossible to really tell which direction it was coming from. "So, the reclusive Toa of Ice has decided to come out and play." The voice mocked. "That's just lovely. I see you have your hands full with my avalanche in the making; why don't you set it down so we can chat?"
Kopaka bristled at the sound, his eyes narrowing as he packed the whirling snow into itself and formed several jagged spikes of ice. "Why don't you reveal yourself to me first?" He responded sharply. "And tell me why you were trying to destroy Ko-Koro while you're at it."
The voice chuckled darkly, sounding sadistic and gleeful about the Toa's words. "Destroy Ko-Koro? Hardly. I knew you would come up here the moment trouble started, whether that twittering fool foresaw it or not. I don't care about your precious little village; I wanted YOU. And now..."
The voice laughed again. "Now you can't escape."
Suddenly and without warning, a massive circle of jet black flames sprang up around Kopaka, trapping him in the center with no way of getting out. Even as the ebony fire rose, the Toa of Ice could feel the tremendous heat created by their sudden appearance, almost stricken dizzy by the rapid change of temperature. Drawing his sword and shield, Kopaka quickly looked around, trying to find the source of the fire and wondering just what kind of trap he had walked into. Soon his gaze fell to a tall figure, wreathed in darkness and holding a large glaive at the ready. Glowing red eyes shone from beneath the black shroud like beacons of malice, as though the only reason they shone was in anticipation of causing destruction. An air of incredible power hovered about the stranger, ominous and hateful while also promising doom upon anyone who dared try to fight back.
Kopaka took a couple steps backward, his eyes wide with horror. Only once had he encountered an evil such as this, and it had been enough to shatter any courage he'd had at the time. Memories from twenty long years ago flooded his mind, dragging the murder of his sisters to the forefront of his thought processes. This was the being that had mercilessly slaughtered his family and plunged Kopaka's life into chaos. This was the being that had mocked him and hunted him across Metru Nui, forcing him to run for his life in the earliest morning hours until he could finally find a Toa to help him.
Nuju was right; the Makuta had returned.
"Ah, so you do remember me after all this time." The figure jeered. "You still remember the screaming and massacre as though it had only just happened. So do I. I still revel in the event. Their sheer helplessness as I tore their lives asunder is as much music to me now as it was then. And now here we are, just as we were so many years ago. But now you have nowhere to run. No friends to save you. You are alone, just the way you like to be. And it terrifies you."
Kopaka shuddered as he struggled to maintain his focus. He had to protect himself, and anyone else this horrific being might target! He had to put his fear aside!
'But he killed everyone, and now he's come to finish the job.'
No. He could do this. Kopaka was stronger than he had been before. He was a Toa now, not a matoran.
'He will slaughter you and everyone you care about. It's hopeless.'
The twenty-eight year old could feel his hands trembling, threatening to drop his only means of defense against the monster before him. What if he really couldn't win? What if this being really would kill him while he couldn't escape? Did he even stand a chance against something this powerful?
The figure chuckled as he watched Kopaka struggle, starting to slowly draw nearer to the virtually paralyzed Toa before him. "You are weak, Kopaka." He said, his voice dripping with sadistic pleasure. "You couldn't save your sisters before, and you cannot save yourself now. If you surrender now, I'll make sure you don't suffer long. You'll probably even die faster than your friends will. I've been wanting to hear Gali scream for years; maybe she'll sound even sweeter than your sisters did."
Kopaka had been about to drop his weapons until he heard that. Fiery anger that could likely even make Tahu pale in comparison flared up within him as his grip grew firm and unshaking, his piercing eyes narrowing considerably as he regained a battle-ready posture. Without warning he thrust his sword forward, his barrage of ice spikes hurtling toward the shadowed being at an alarming speed. He didn't even bother to see if his attacks would land first as he charged after the shards, sword raised to continue the onslaught.
The figure merely laughed before vanishing, rising from Kopaka's own shadow and striking from behind with a large knife rather than his glaive. Kopaka let out a yell of pain as the blade sunk into his right shoulder, the sudden impact and change of arrangement happening too quickly for his anger-clouded mind to react and predict the actions before they occurred. Dropping his sword, the Ice Toa turned and swung his shield in the hopes of smashing his assailant with it, a dull thud and a grunt proving that the shield had found its mark. Kopaka picked up his sword again, gritting his teeth at the searing pain that shot up and down his right arm as he turned and braced himself to keep fighting.
His readiness proved to be a lifesaver, allowing the Ice Toa to raise his shield just in time to block the figure's glaive as it crashed down towards his head. However, even with this the impact of the blow was enough to badly jar his arm as well as dent his shield. Gasping at the sheer force and staggering backward, Kopaka could feel his arm throbbing and tingling as it tried to recover from the strike. If he couldn't find a way to end this battle soon, he very well could end up dying, and in his own territory!
Kopaka wasn't offered a chance to think long though, because he swiftly found himself having to drop his sword again in favor of bracing his shield against another strike from the glaive. Pain coursed through him as the weapon struck, his knees buckling and giving out under the strength of his attacker. Falling backwards and lying in a crumpled heap, Kopaka could barely see past the pain induced tears that were trying to well up in his eyes and obscure his vision more than it may already have been. Blindly he drove his hands into the snow beneath him, forcing sporadic and scattered spikes of ice to thrust up around him in a last ditch effort to protect himself.
His attempt failed. Just as the Toa started to try and get up, the glaive's sharp and slightly jagged head moved into his line of sight, hovering mere inches from his neck. The figure leaned over to stare into Kopaka's face, the shadows around his head receding just enough to reveal a smirk. "Nice try, kid, but your little game of hero has come to an end. Such a shame; I thought you had the most promise in your team."
Kopaka shifted slightly, coughing as he tried to come up with a new way to escape, but no ideas worked. Regardless of the attempts he could try, the final blow was never his. This would be the last moments of his life, and they would be spent knowing that his entire team, practically his family, would be hunted down and killed one by one. Letting out a shaky sigh, the twenty-eight year old closed his eyes and waited for it all to end.
The figure chuckled. "What's the matter, boy? No final pleas for mercy or prayers for deliverance? No biting remarks about how I should rot in the Pit for all the pain I've put you through? I'm disappointed."
"I thought you wanted to kill me." Kopaka replied grimly. "So why should I bother with wasted words when I know the outcome will not change? Though tell me something before I die. Just one thing."
"And what could a dead man want to know? It won't matter soon anyway. But fine, I may as well humor you before you go."
Kopaka opened his eyes and glared at his assailant with all the loathing he could draw forth. "Why would the Makuta send a coward like you to kill me?"
The figure seemed taken aback, blinking a couple times before glowering. "You dare call me a coward when I am mere moments from claiming your head?"
"Yes."
"On what grounds do you think that could stand on?" He seethed.
"It's simple." Kopaka replied sharply. "Only a coward hesitates in claiming responsibility for their actions and words. Given that I am still alive, I have every reason to believe you don't have the guts to kill me."
The glaive at his neck trembled slightly, but its owner didn't answer.
"What are you waiting for?" Kopaka pressed. "Are you going to kill me or not? Just standing there is only further proving my point."
Again the glaive shook, and again there was no answer. Turmoil was easy to read in the glowing eyes and faintly exposed face.
"You really don't have the backbone to do it, do you?" The Ice Toa hissed. "You're terrified of me. Terrified of killing me and actually making good on your words."
"Shut up, Toa."
"Why should I? I'm not afraid of you. You can't even kill someone when you say you're going to."
"I said shut up!"
Stabbing pain rippled up Kopaka's leg as he felt the stranger's knife get driven into his thigh, the Toa of Ice barely holding back his own agonized yell. Growling and hissing through his teeth, Kopaka fought through the pain, using it to fuel his angered tones instead as he snapped. "Then kill me already! If you wanted me silent, you would have silenced me yourself! Go on! Kill me and be done with it!"
However, even as Kopaka lay beaten and bleeding in the snow, the figure backed away, withdrawing his glaive and glaring in frustrated anger. "This isn't over, Toa! Mark my words, this is just the beginning, and you will be dead before the end!" As he spoke these final words, the figure stepped through the ring of black fire and vanished. The flames soon faded with him, until all that was left was silence, and the knowledge that - somehow – Kopaka had been able to cheat death. But now he had a new problem.
How was he going to return home?
